Reading Critically Packet

There are many ways in which one can deeply improve one's ability to be a master reading critique, and to get there all you must do is follow these upcoming rules. One of the most important things to remember while reading or writing, is to look beneath the writer's words and to see their intentions and understand them. When first perfecting your reading critique, you must first look at the writing piece before reading it, to help you better understand what the essay will be about. You can do this by looking at the title, background information of the author, and the time and place of its creation. Next you must learn how to annotate, or take notes about the writings information; by doing this, it will be easier for you to reconstruct the essay's key points. In turn, this will help you to summarize all the important content within the essay; which will eventually help you understand the author's meaning of the writing. But to better comprehend the meaning, you require the techniques on how to analyze the essay, draw conclusions about it, connect the piece as a whole, and evaluate its work quality. With these special techniques and rules, you can better decipher the author's true meaning and purpose of the essay. If you can complete this series of steps, you will correctly master the reading process.

"Young Life" By Bo Barlett

My three claims for this painting are the following: the man and women are in an intimate relationship, the small stick resembles the boy's oppinion towards th enviroment, and the son is different than his father. We can conclude that their in a relationship because they are in a very strong embrace, the stick represents his view on the enviroment, because he is supporting the stick up, we can assume he supports an enviromentalist view, and because he is seperated from his father and because they have different clothing, we can assume they are different in many ways.

Academic voice: In Bo Barlett's painting " Young Life", we can conclude that the father and son are two extremely different people. You can percieve this true, .by their contrast in clothing, and their physical seperation. The father is portrayed  in very relaxed clothing with an unbutton shirt and backwards hat on, whereas the child is in proper clothing, including a collared shirt with a sweater over top of it. Also in the painting there is a huge seperation between these two people, with the child's back to the man. Because of their different opinions in style and their lack of interest in eachother, we can assume that these two people vary in many ways.

"Shame"

This song is about having regret.

I thought the tone was regretfel or full of remorse. Three words that helped me get this tone was promise, sorry and boatloads. Promise decribes his tone because he is saying how he swears he will change to meet her needs, sorry because he feels bad for the way things ended in their last meeting, and he is ashamed of it so he's saying he is sorry. And finally boatloads because it is more of a drastic word, to describe the shame he feels, and he wants her to know how upset he is about it.

"Batting Cleanup and Striking Out" SOAPSTONE

Subject-The subject of Dave Barry’s “Batting Cleanup and Striking Out” is that men and women are very different on attitudes and opinions. Male and female uniqueness is illustrated with the author’s examples of cleanliness and athletics. He is saying how different we truly are by saying that women look more into detail about things, rather than men. He joked about this by saying women can see dirt molecules, when men can’t see them until their large clumps. This saying shows how women are more concerned with the little things. And with the example of men wanting to watch a big sports game rather than engage in small talk, shows how men would prefer observing something entertaining, rather than indulging in petty talk, like women fancy.

Occasion-“Batting Cleanup and Striking Out” was written in 1988. The late 1980’s is illustrated through the writing piece by the examples of entertainment and technological advancements. The author says that in his free time he likes to play with his etch-a-sketch, which I would consider an older manufactured toy. Also when he says: “I can hear the World Series radio and TV broadcasts in my ears”, you can imply this is a time where people were costumed to radios rather television sets. The probable place of the essay’s creation is in New York. This is the place of creation because before the article given, it states that Dave Barry was a humorist in the New York Times. So we can assume that he lives there, therefore that’s where the book was created.

The time and Place of the essay’s creation influences the essay by the types of words and phrases used. When he says things like: God forbid, social gaffes, and the sound of the radio in my ears, these are all due to the word choice and technology in that time period. Therefore these phrases influence the content within this essay.

Audience-Dave Barry’s specific audience for “Batting Cleanup and Striking Out” is men and women in relationships. The author’s target audience is revealed by the two sexes constant comparison to each other and their opinions on everyday situations. When the author kept comparing men and women’s different attitudes towards certain events and occasions, it felt like he was giving reasons for why they act that way. So through him explaining why the opposite sex acts like that, he wants the sexes to read it to better understand one another.

The author’s general audience for this essay is every single man, woman, and child in the United States. The author’s general audience is expressed by him giving general information about the behaviors of wives, husbands, and parents. By him giving information about how American men and women behave in certain situations, it is beneficial for all citizens of the United States.

Purpose- Dave Barry’s purpose in “Batting Cleanup and Striking Out” is to inform, as well as entertain us on male and female behaviors. His enlightenment and amusement on this topic is revealed when he says the following: “the primary difference between men and women is that women can see extremely small quantities of dirt.” Obviously this isn’t proven, but he is entertaining and amusing us on the idea that women have better attention to detail, through a comical and informing phrase.

Speaker-Dave Barry, whom wrote humorist columns in the New York Times, believes that everyone should learn how to speak and write proper English. This value is illustrated through a job he had for eight year at a consulting firm. He went to business people to get them to stop writing improperly, thereby showing his passion for literature.

Dave Barry, who plays lead guitar in his Band “Rock Bottom Remainders”, shows his opinion on expressing oneself. He does this by writing multiple books and columns in papers, as well as creating music. All of these ways are great for expressing your voice and personality. Through his career choices as a writer and musician, you can see the importance of expression in his life.

Dave Barry’s expression is evident in this essay when he complains about his wife’s facial expressions when he doesn’t meet her standards. By him expressing his angry reaction to this movement, it helped enhance the purpose of informing us on the differences between the sexes, by showing their disagreements on certain issues.

Tone- Dave Barry exhibits a humorous and serious attitude about male and female differences in “Batting Cleanup and Striking Out”. These attitudes are expressed by his use of comedy to explain serious issues between the sexes. when he says things like, the caring and sensitive guy I am, because of pompeii men do very little housework, and heavyweight racquetball champions from Iowa.., he is using humor and sarcasm to help get his point across. And by him being humorous with these serious topics, he is entertaining and amusing us with male and female differences.

"American Tongue's"

1. Voice in lietarature is the rythym and word choice that an author uses to express his personality.

2.One of my common sayings is "Oh, Okay". This is something that I always throw around hear and there when I'm asked to do soething silly. It is a very sarcastic comment, which is something I would definately say.

3.Everytime my favorite college team, the Virginia Tech Hokies, lose in a sporting event, I always try to talk around the situation because people are always mocking them. I typically avoid this by bringing up a completely different subject.

4.Voice's in essays help persuade people and it also helps entertain and keep the audience focused. Some things to avoid when writing academic essays are the following: run on sentences, boring voice, incorrect punctuation, first person, and slang.

5. Some ways we can develope our own voice is by using wise word choice and tones.

classic vs. metal vs. dubstep

I'm not sure what we had to do for this because I was absent, and it's not on the class website. So i'm going to write which one was more pleasing to me, and which is more pleasing to the world.

-I found that the dubstep version was more enjoyable to listen to because it was more energetic and upbeat, making me actually interested in it. I feel like adding all of the background music made the song more pleasurable to listen to because you were listening to that and the lyrics, rather than just the lyrics.

-I feel like the population as a whole would like the original Beatles song more than the metal and dubstep version because people like the original soft melody more than the energetic dubstep, and obnoxious metal. Also the lyrics were easily understood, making it a song that people can actually sing and hum too. Also people shouldn't mess with originals, especially not the beatles. Because the song was softer and smoother, I feel like the general public would find it more pleasurable then the metal, and dubstep version

classic vs. metal vs. dubstep

Kandinsky vs. Pollack

-I personally liked Kandinsky's better because he used more vibraqnt and exuberent colors that appealed to me, with the random placement of the geometric shapes it made you look at the whole painting. Allowing you to see something new every single time.

-I feel like Pollack's is more pleasing to everyone as a whole because it has more depth, the colors were nicely blended and monochromatic, color was rich rather than fading, and it doesn't make you think it just absorbs you into it's mesmirizing colors.

Sign Language Journal

-The single effect of this short clip was to get people to go out into the world, and have a positive feeling towards life and all the little things in it.

-The man holding the sign had a very dreary job, but he made it positive by saying and doing these things: London is the most exciting place in the world, and my job puts me right in the middle of it, there is so much community and life around me, and his job allowed him to make new friends and meet a special girl.

-If you changed the tone in which the character talked, the effect would've been completely different. He had such a positive and uplifting tone, that if he didn't say things with it, the effect would've been changed.

SOAPSTONE "Shooting an Elephant"

A-George Orwell's specific audience for Shooting an Elephant was most likely people in Europe. The author's target audience is revealed by him saying that there were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans. By him saying this, he is telling the european population of how these burmese feel towards them and their ways.
 The author's general audience for Shooting an Elephant is anyone who has ever come by a form of peer pressure or conformity. The author's general audience is exhibited when he says I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool. By Orwell saying this, he is implying he only did this task to avoid being made fun of, and thereby falling under conformity.

P-George Orwell's purpose in Shooting an Elephant is to inform us about the power of a crowd and the social pressures that come with it. This peer pressure is illustrated when he says the following: The people expected it of me and I had got to do it. Because he felt that the Burmese were forcing the murder upon him, he thought if he didn't go through with the murder they would jeer and mock him for the rest of his life.

S-George Orwell, an English writer, believes that there is much social injustice in our world. This value is illustrated by his ridicule of imperialism because it oppresses the Burmese people. This helps explain the moral of his essay and how the murder of the elephant, and oppression of people was unjust. This helps the essay's purpose to inform us of how social pressures can create injustices in our world.

T-George Orwell shows a strong and sturdy attitude about comformity in Shooting an Elephant. These attitudes are expressed by saying that he  did not in the least want to shoot him, but they were so forceful. By implying that th groups pressure was so strong on his actions, he too is having a sturdy tone with their pressures.

SOAPSTONE of "Shooting an Elephant"

S- The subject of George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant is that one will act differntly to certain pressure's just so one will not be mocked or jeered at. This peer pressure is illustrated by this following sentence: To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. This is at the point, where he believes that the Elephant doesn't need to be killed, but since he created all the hype for the murder by fetching for the rifle, he feels that he must murder it for fear of being made fun of.
O-Shooting an Elephant was written during the 1920's to 1930's. The essay's time of creation is exhibited by the following: wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, , the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos. These are very old imprisonments and punishment ways, which help gave me the idea that this was around the 1920's to 1930's. The probable place of the essay's creation is somewhere in England. In Moulmein, in Lower Burma... This is where he desribes his urroundings, which is located in the country of England.
The time and place of the essay's creation influences the essay in the way of what was happening in poor countries in that time, weapon power, and the people's behavior.The  Burmese were being oppressed by British, and the elephant would have died quicker if their was a more powerful rifle. Also ff a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress, this describes how the people act. Thereforew these behaviors, oppressions, and technology affect the essay due to their time in history.

" Good Old Desk" by Harry Nelson

S-God is always there for him
O-In the 1970's, in America
A-Listeners to religous music
P-to entertain us with song, and possibly inform us about God
S-Harry Nelson
T-comforting

He is literally talking about his old desk and how he depended on it, but he has a deeper meaning in his song towards his religous beliefs of God. He is using his desk to symbolize God and his relationship with him, he gives evidence of this in his title Good Old Desk or GOD, and text in the song like the following: I've never seen it tease, it's always there to please.