SPACE!!!

2001: A Space Odyssey; One of a Kind

2001: A Space Odyssey is a scientific film, one of the first of its kind, produced in 1968 by Stanley Kubrick. Its screenplay was written and based on the book “The Sentinel,” by Arthur C. Clarke. The movie is visually and graphically well crafted, and a movie that serious makes you think. The film stars a variety of cast but has four specific main characters. The first two main characters are the astronauts upon the mission Keir Dullea as (Dr. Dave Bowman), and Gary Lockwood as (Dr. Frank Poole). The second two main characters are the fictional computer (HAL 9000), voice by Douglas Rain, and the man, who authorized the mission (Dr. Heywood R. Floyd) played by William Sylvester. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a very confusing and unpractical type of movie. Kubrick designed the film to be one where the messages isn’t obvious and in your face. It’s a scientific film with little or none conversation in parts of the movie. Kubrick’s idea for the film was to show an overview of what mankind has developed to, through the evolution of apes to humans, from the beginning to the future.

The film begins slowly with a group of apes, the dawn of man, sitting around until one day they found the discovery of a black monolith. Every time this thing is discovered in the film, the same spooky and eerie voices of people cooing appear. The apes go wild and find the object fascinating and scary, and are timid to go up and touch it. Soon after an ape is seen playing with a bunch of bones and discovers he can use these objects as a tool and proceeds to use them on other animals. The film then goes on ahead into the future and it shows Dr. Heywood Floyd being shipped to space to decide what to do with this secret epidemic. He then decides to create a mission to the moon to check out the once again, black monolith, that was buried under ground. The astronauts on the mission react the same way the apes did, being timid and fascinated by the object. This showing that Kubrick was connecting that the dawn of man reacts the same as the future men. In conclusion to that, it leads into the bigger part of the movie where the two main astronauts, Dave and Frank, and introducing the computer HAL 9000, on their Jupiter mission. The astronauts sit and a wait for something to happen until one day HAL 9000 thinks Dave isn’t totally into the mission and is having second doubts. Dave and Frank this very odd and they thought about terminating HAL 9000 all together. Soon afterwards Frank goes out and gets lost in space. Dave soon had to go out and save him, but when he did and tried to get back into the space ship HAL wouldn’t let them back in because it knew they were going against its back. Dave let Frank go to get back into the space ship and even Dave finally gets back he finally terminates HAL. After terminating HAL, Dave goes through a weird, psychedelic time continuum adventure where he ends up in a white bedroom. The scene’s after that are quick and confusing to where Dave becomes older and older as he looks at himself in a mirror, and in a bed. The movie ends with a baby evolving, like Kubrick was reminding us about the evolution of mankind.

I found the film to be very long and slow paced, almost tedious to watch at some points. I’m not a huge scientific fan but I did think that the way Kubrick created those special effects and predicted the future and technology so brilliantly that it left a viewer in a state of amazement. The film itself doesn’t attract to most teens or adolescent groups because it doesn’t grab the attention and gives you a lot time to pounder, making the viewers at an unease or comfortable because you can’t really understand what’s going on. The thing that I didn’t like the most was that there was almost no conversation at all, just a lot of breathing and strange music, and I like to hear people talk about what they feel is going on. The only part that I did find interesting and intriguing was at the end was when Dave terminated HAL and he then went through the time continuum and the effects were very interesting, although very trippy also.

Compiling a Portfolio

As you grow up, things get complicated and competitive. Artists, designers, writers, all have to make portfolio to keep together their work that they may need to show off. It's like a scrapbook of their art and talents. When you start to write, it's kind of like keeping a portfolio. You ask yourself why your writing one, who will read your portfolio, what is your genre, what kind of stance is this project, and how will your portfolio will be published? When writing a portfolio you should include things like free-writing, outlines, drafts, writing assignments, source material, tests and quizzes, responses, lecture notes, and reflections on your work. There is also two types of ways of organizing a portfolio; paper and electronically, such as online ones.

Evaluating.

In this text for reading, we are learning about how to evaluate for the movie we will be watching. In the text, it gives an example of a man who evaluated the show Dawson's Creek. Which I found to be very interesting and informing. That was a good example of exactly to evaluate something. The key concepts to first starting your evaluation paper is to a small description of your subject, clarify it, you need to have knowledge of your actual subject, a balanced and fair argument, and well-supported reasons. When choosing something to evaluate, look for something small rather than something broad and vague. Others important things to do would be; exploring what you already know about it, identify the criteria, evaluate the subject, compared it to others, state your judgment as the thesis, anticipate other opinions, and identify and support your reasons. Explore what you know by freewriting stuff, do a lot of research, and compare and contrast related subjects.

Facebook Group Project

Yesterday we worked together in group to try and finish the project. We fixed all the details, changed the format, and we also changed what we had written into more of a list instead of a paragraph. Two people in the group when to the writing center and had someone check our paragraphs. We also talked about the pictures more, and then added two videos to show how employers check people's Facebook's. We are close to being done so we are meeting one more time on Monday to finish up everything.

Facebook Privacy

We started a group project in class and as a group we decided to make a website. We began to make it on Weebly and each of us has a part describing something on or about Facebook. I chose the part explaining the privacy policy. I am going to explain how Facebook keeps part of your page as private as you make it, but your exact profile isn't completely private to the world.

Guide Your Reader to the Beiginning and End.

I know what I go to pick up a book, I judge it by it cover. I know that's wrong, but the visual aid is always appealing to a person, no matter what. But sometimes I give it a second chance, and I'll read the beginning. This attracts me also to the book. The ending though, is what will decide whether I enjoyed the book or not. It may make me mad, because it didn't end the way I wanted it to, or maybe make me happy because it was a perfect ending. I find that usually the ending is the best part because it leaves you satisfied. The beginning fits in the big picture of things. It introduces, explains, and informs your audience about the story you are about to tell. The ending though, can then summerize the whole text itself. It can end in many ways such as, referring to the beginning, tieing up loose ends, giving the audience something to think about, or restating the main point. The beginning and end will determine whether or not the audience things this book is readable.
As a reader, and as many others, I want to be guided through a text I am reading. Ways to guide your reader would have to be throught titles, theses statements, topic sentences, and transitions. A title serves a purpose and names a text. Thesis statements identifies the topic of the text and the claim you are trying to make. Topic sentences are similar to thesis statements, in that they are announcing the topic and purpose, but it states the subject and focus on that certain paragraph. And lastly, a transition help the readers move from each thought to thought, sentence, paragraph, etc.

C&E,C&D,C&C.

Today we all use Cause and Effect. We all want to know why something happened and what will happen next. It's like a human instinct. Useful processes for analyzing causes would have to be outlining, listing, and clustering. Always look for which ones are the most relevant to your purpose and also which ones are most likely to convince your audience. Once you have found what your main purpose is, then you need to argue your claim, organize your analysis of the cause and effect, and then most importantly consider the rhetorical situation.
So when it comes to classifying and dividing, they are somewhat similar and yet different. Classifying is when you organize information into various pieces and put them into different groups But dividing is more as taking one topic and diving into different parts. Classifying is grouping similar things and dividing is breaking down something into parts.
Like the book says, "Comparing things look at their similarities; contrasting them focuses on their differences." In writing we'd compare and contrast poems or pretty much all of them, like in a proposal, you need to compare your solution and maybe other ones. In real life, we would compare and contrast such things like the cell phones we may want to buy, or a version of a book to a film. There are two ways of comparing and contrasting. One would be the block method, which is discussing each item separately, informing all about one, and then the other ones. The second method would be the point-by-point method. This method would obviously be to focus on the specific points of comparison. All of these seem pretty easy to me, except to move on to things like using graphs and images to support comparisons, or using figurative language to make comparisons.

Strategies to R-E-A-D

When I read, I only want to read for pleasure. I read what I think is good and what I'm interested in. When I have to read something that I find pointless, boring, and sometimes confusing, I like to just skip words. Just to make the whole process go by faster. The worst of them all though, is reading my own work. I'll read it and think it sounds good but to someone else, it could be completely different. They say when reading something difficult you should match the pace of your reading to the dificulty of the text. The goal of a whole reading is to find out what the story is about and where its headed.

Ed && Proof

Editing and Proofreading, or Ed and Proof, are what I like to call the tie, and end of the writing process. It's tieing the bow of your paper. You check your writing and words and punucations, etc. All that jazz, to make sure its as perfect as it can be. What to your knowledge is "perfect".

You need to also make sure that your attention is getting acrossed and its readable. That your introduction catches the readers attention, if your sentences are complete and your language is vivid and clear. Don't forget to check if your verbs are correct! I agree with the text in the book when it says, "Proofreading is like checking your apperance in a mirror before going into a job interview...". When you proofread you check everything, and reread everything a couple times. Some helpful hints to proofread correctly would be; read your text out loud, ask someone else to read it, work backwards and read the last sentence first, and make sure you read every sentence and not skip ahead.

Dreading Drafting

It's finally time to start drafting, the longest and hardest part of the whole process. Well at least for me. You need to begin by setting a deadline for your paper. I procrastinate, so a deadline is very, very important for a paper. "You need reasearch done by _____; rough draft by _____; revisions by ____; final draft completely done by ____." Don't start all this in the last 24 hours. When you begin to write, be comfortable and use techniques that you have been taught before. Like free writing, just writing in spurts, or break it into sections. You'll have plenty of surprises when you start writing, so don't worry. Nothing is set in stone and you can avoid and get around writers block. When you begin to write, write for yourself. Don't think about what others will say, but after revising it, then consider how other will read it. Ask yourself these questions: What works?, What still needs work?, and Where do you need to say more (or less)?. Always think about the rhetorical situation, such as the purpose for your writing and to whom your writing for. When you write always examine the text and what needs more work and what doesn't. Others opinions really matter in your writing. They can always give you more hints and advice. They can tell you if you need more details in your beginning, or if your thesis wasn't clear enough. And once again, revise, revise, and revise! It's like the basic rule of writing. They say revising, rereading, and rewriting are the three important factors in the end of the writing process. Just reread your paper until you think it sounds just right.

Being Narrative

When you begin to write a paper we all usually struggle and don't really know where to start. In the chapters about drafting and informing the audience which you desire to inform, or tell your narrative story, they tell you techniques in which you can use to map out and schedule a good time to stay focused and on track. First off, you should never procrastinate and wait to the last minute to do your paper, things could happen and then technically your lost. You should find a place that's comfortable to you and somewhat inspiring for you and your writing. You want a place that doesn't distract you or keep you off track. When starting to write, use techniques like free writing and breaking things down into smaller segments, and you have to remember that your first draft is just ideas and the beginning, nothing has to be perfect or set in stone. Try to any type of writers block by asking yourself questions, take a break, use the techniques for beginning writing or do research. Especially in a Narrative story, detail and description are very important. You want the reader to feel and hear what your explaining, as if your actually showing them. Another important aspect is dialogue, a "colorful and interesting," aspect to your story. When using dialogue, you intrigue the readers by letting someone else into the story and let them share their opinion and point of view your trying to get across. In the end, when writing a narrative story it needs to have a full beginning to end with a point and moral to your story. It needs to have order, transitions, incredible detail, and a good situation. That all combined will give a terrific narrative story that everyone will want to read.

Learning my ABC's.

When your learning to read and write, things become difficult and you have many obstacle's to overcome. Such as grammar and punctuation, style of writing, genre, outlines, words and sentences, pronunciation, and so on. I find it my greatest struggle when writing a paper to generate ideas and finding subject of my paper itself. It's a challenge to come up with ideas and the context to your paper without wanting to ramble on about nonsense. In this chapter these helpful hints could be very useful when trying to start a paper, like for instance, free writing and clustering are two good techniques. Free writing would get you started with ideas because you can't stop and clustering would enable you to have many details about your story from branching off one thing to another. Reading and writing can be very difficult. Especially when your not grown accustom to it. For instance in the readings, each individual had to learn read and write to be able to grow and survive in the United States. It's an essential and necessary need to be able to do these things, especially here. We find education very important and respectable. Such as in the reading about the girl who was learning English after growing up and being taught Spanish. She wanted to learn how to speak and write in English in order to fit in and become successful someday. I think reading and writing could seem to be so simple and plain to people, almost bland. But to most others, it can be a challenge in and of itself. I too need help when I read and write, I need help generating ideas for a paper and understanding texts, just like anybody else who is even just learning their ABC's.

Writing For The Crowd

They say that all writing has a purpose, a purpose that we use to express ourselves in all certain kinds of ways. Such as rhetorical situations and all different kinds of genres. I say they're right about it, I write for an audience, or for myself. I write for fun and I write for school. All and all writing has the same structure and techniques. They say, "The genre thus determines how we read and how we interpret what we read." I think genre is one big factor in the way we choose to write our stories. It effects the stance of our story, that audience and what they may like, the kind of media we may choose to use, or even the purpose of writing the whole thing. I would choose to write a song if I knew my audience would enjoy it. I would then share a Narrative story with them in the song. I would share vivid details about something I'd want them to hear, maybe even persuade them. My narrative song/story would be something important to me that I would want to share with my audience. I would want them to be interested in my story as much as I am.