Blog 12

The topic my students were given to discuss, civil disobedience in comparison to breaking the law, pulled out strengths in the students’ writing because they seemed to be passionate about the subject. [APPOSITIVE SET OFF MY COMMAS]. Each paper is strong in its own way. This is interesting because the students appear to come from different backgrounds. Student 1 is clearly an English as a Second Language (ESL) student [APPOSITIVE SET OFF BY PARENTHESES]. While he has a strong and interesting argument, he makes mistakes most native speakers would not. Student 2 grew up in a different atmosphere – her argument and syntax, strong and interesting, indicates that she grew up in a middle-class community, and interacted with many adults throughout her childhood [ADJECTIVES OUT-OF-ORDER]. Student 3 grew up somewhere in the middle of Students 1 and 2; he grew up a native English speaker, but in an environment with not a lot of adult speakers and writers for him to feed off of. He is a strong writer, but has some issues with verb tenses that Student 2 does not.

Paper 1: “Civil Disobedience VS. Breaking The Law”

Student 1 grew up in a household where English is not the first language; this is especially clear in some of his word choices. For example, he refers to Beth as pleading “innocence” rather than “innocent” [PRESENT PARTICIPIAL PHRASE NOT CONNECTED TO THE MAIN VERB] [USE OF ‘THAN’]. Most native speakers would know the phrase – “pleading innocent” – from simply hearing it throughout their life [APPOSITIVE SET OFF BY DASHES]. It is a common phrase in English, but not necessarily in other languages. Another common English phrase Student 1 attempts to use is “on the other hand”. He changed the word “on” to “in”. The way he changed the common English phrase is another indication that he did not grow up in an English speaking family. He had probably heard the phrase before from native English speakers, and misheard it. Young speakers have a tendency to muddle their words when speaking, so it is no surprise that Student 1 confused the phrase in his writing [PAST PARTICIPIAL PHRASE NOT CONNECTED TO THE MAIN VERB]. Other words Student 1 mixes up are: “indeed”, “been”, and “thought” [APPOSITIVE SET OFF BY A COLON]. In the context, the words he was looking for were “in need”, “being”, and “think”. Native English speakers would not make these confusions because they can be fixed by a familiarity with the spoken language. When students grow up hearing the language spoken all around them, there are certain rules they understand but can’t articulate because they can just hear what the sentence is supposed to be. How would our writing change if we weren’t hearing the language spoken all around us every day? [RHETORICAL QUESTION].

…

Student 1’s use of varying sentence structure indicates that he is becoming more comfortable with the English language – enough to explore [DASH TO EPHASIZE THE LAST ELEMENT OF THE SENTNECE]. He also experiments with punctuation. English punctuation is very different from other languages, so the fact that he is willing to do show also indicates his growing relationship with English. Toward the end of the paper, he uses a semi-colon and appears to be using it correctly. He says, “Chris knew what he was doing; he knew that he was risking a ticket because…” He understands that when using a semi-colon, the writer should be relating the first part of the sentence to the second part. He uses the second part of the semi-colon to expand on the first. Then, he makes sure that both sides of the semi-colon are complete sentences – it cannot be determined for sure that the second part is a complete sentence because it is cut off, but it appears as though it is going to be a complete sentence [USE OF ‘THEN’].

Blog 11

Both Mary Shelley and Charles Dickens use delusion to add complexity to their characters in Frankenstein and Hard Times. Victor Frankenstein and Thomas Gradgrind start out as rational characters, but eventually turn to madness and irrationality as the novels develop. Both Victor and Gradgrind structure their lives around Utilitarianism ideas which in turn lead them to act irrationally and even go mad.

            Gradgrind’s irrationality spawned from the way he structured his school curriculum around the Utilitarian ideas of the 19^th century; Utilitarianism is essentially the idea that people should structure their lives and society to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people [COMPOUND SENTENCE – TWO SENTENCES OF MIRRORING LENGTH CONNECTED BY A SEMICOLON]. However, this is a problem because the individuals who are not part of the greatest number of people are forgotten and not taken care of. Utilitarianism is fundamentally arguing that there is no point to try and satisfy everyone because it is impossible, so instead they should try to satisfy as many as they can [DIRECT OBJECT (IT)]. As both Gradgrind and Victor later exemplify, people instead need to believe that everyone can be made happy, and then strive to do so in as many ways as possible rather than initially setting their standards low. However, to the people of Coketown, Utilitarianism ideas would be the perfect way to structure a society. Coketown’s school system is completely factually based, and Gradgrind, the school principal, sees no value in concepts such as: grief; affection; anger; desire; or empathy [SEMICOLON USED AS A SUPER COMMA]. He is very logical, so a society based off numbers makes perfect sense to him. However, because Gradgrind structured his life around Utilitarianism ideas, his children made irrational decisions based off that upbringing, such as robbing a bank and marrying an unstable, greedy man.

            A society based off Utilitarianism essentially strips all the value from the individual and leads people, such as Tom and Louisa Gradgrind, to act selfishly because they are trained to believe that they do not need to worry about individuals around them, only the greatest number of people. Because Gradgrind taught these values in his school and in his home, his children grew up with the same beliefs [SENTENCE BEGINNING WITH ‘BECAUSE’]. Tom Gradgrind grew up to be narcissistic and egotistical. He showed this when he asked Louisa, his sister, to marry Bounderby as a favor to him even though he knew she did not love Bounderby at all. Louisa, on the other hand, is actually rather selfless because she agreed to marry Bounderby for her brother [USE OF A SUBJECT COMPLIMENT]. However, this is because she was naturally born selfless, and as a result of her father’s upbringing, she led a confused life where she was always fighting her emotions and selfless nature because it was what she had always been taught [‘HOWEVER’ USED IN A SENTENCE]. Despite her selfless nature, she blindly followed what her brother asked of her because it was a logical idea, and eventually lived a childless and depressed life during her marriage and thereafter [OBJECT OF THE PREPOSITION USED IN A COMPOUND SENTENCE].

Utilitarianism, the idea of creating happiness for the greatest number of people possible, seems like the ideal way to structure government because the largest amount of people possible are made happy; however, numbers aren’t everything [COMPOUND SENTENCE - ONE LONG SENTENCE CONNECTED TO A SHORT SENTENCE BY A SEMICOLON]. Life is more complicated than Utilitarianism’s cut and dry way approach to happiness. Sissy Jupe was right when she said it in fact matters a great deal if there are a few deaths per one thousand men; for the families of those few men, the deaths are devastating. Everyone should be happy, instead of just the greatest number [COMPLEX SENTENCE WITH 10 WORDS OR FEWER]. There is more power in the individual than Utilitarianism allows; each individual has the ability to have a profound impact on someone or something. Then he individual all the power in the world [FRAGMENT USED AS A RHETORICAL DEVICE].

Blog 11

Both Mary Shelley and Charles Dickens use delusion to add complexity to their characters in Frankenstein and Hard Times. Victor Frankenstein and Thomas Gradgrind start out as rational characters, but eventually turn to madness and irrationality as the novels develop. Both Victor and Gradgrind structure their lives around Utilitarianism ideas which in turn lead them to act irrationally and even go mad.

            Gradgrind’s irrationality spawned from the way he structured his school curriculum around the Utilitarian ideas of the 19^th century; Utilitarianism is essentially the idea that people should structure their lives and society to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people [COMPOUND SENTENCE – TWO SENTENCES OF MIRRORING LENGTH CONNECTED BY A SEMICOLON]. However, this is a problem because the individuals who are not part of the greatest number of people are forgotten and not taken care of. Utilitarianism is fundamentally arguing that there is no point to try and satisfy everyone because it is impossible, so instead they should try to satisfy as many as they can [DIRECT OBJECT (IT)]. As both Gradgrind and Victor later exemplify, people instead need to believe that everyone can be made happy, and then strive to do so in as many ways as possible rather than initially setting their standards low. However, to the people of Coketown, Utilitarianism ideas would be the perfect way to structure a society. Coketown’s school system is completely factually based, and Gradgrind, the school principal, sees no value in concepts such as: grief; affection; anger; desire; or empathy [SEMICOLON USED AS A SUPER COMMA]. He is very logical, so a society based off numbers makes perfect sense to him. However, because Gradgrind structured his life around Utilitarianism ideas, his children made irrational decisions based off that upbringing, such as robbing a bank and marrying an unstable, greedy man.

            A society based off Utilitarianism essentially strips all the value from the individual and leads people, such as Tom and Louisa Gradgrind, to act selfishly because they are trained to believe that they do not need to worry about individuals around them, only the greatest number of people. Because Gradgrind taught these values in his school and in his home, his children grew up with the same beliefs [SENTENCE BEGINNING WITH ‘BECAUSE’]. Tom Gradgrind grew up to be narcissistic and egotistical. He showed this when he asked Louisa, his sister, to marry Bounderby as a favor to him even though he knew she did not love Bounderby at all. Louisa, on the other hand, is actually rather selfless because she agreed to marry Bounderby for her brother [USE OF A SUBJECT COMPLIMENT]. However, this is because she was naturally born selfless, and as a result of her father’s upbringing, she led a confused life where she was always fighting her emotions and selfless nature because it was what she had always been taught [‘HOWEVER’ USED IN A SENTENCE]. Despite her selfless nature, she blindly followed what her brother asked of her because it was a logical idea, and eventually lived a childless and depressed life during her marriage and thereafter [OBJECT OF THE PREPOSITION USED IN A COMPOUND SENTENCE].

Utilitarianism, the idea of creating happiness for the greatest number of people possible, seems like the ideal way to structure government because the largest amount of people possible are made happy; however, numbers aren’t everything [COMPOUND SENTENCE - ONE LONG SENTENCE CONNECTED TO A SHORT SENTENCE BY A SEMICOLON]. Life is more complicated than Utilitarianism’s cut and dry way approach to happiness. Sissy Jupe was right when she said it in fact matters a great deal if there are a few deaths per one thousand men; for the families of those few men, the deaths are devastating. Everyone should be happy, instead of just the greatest number [COMPLEX SENTENCE WITH 10 WORDS OR FEWER]. There is more power in the individual than Utilitarianism allows; each individual has the ability to have a profound impact on someone or something. Then he individual all the power in the world [FRAGMENT USED AS A RHETORICAL DEVICE].