IRB INTRO

This marking period I will be reading Winston Churchill by John Keegan.  I chose to do a historical biography this marking period, which contrasts with what I have read the past two marking periods.  This biography is written by Keegan, a contemporary military historian and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  I chose this book through a recommendation from my dad, who read and loved it.  I'm hoping to learn a lot about this prominent American figure this marking period and I'm excited to be trying something new!

TOW #16- IRB

One of the most impactful parts of "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand was the chapter called "The Boiling City".  In this chapter the author's use of detailed description brings the book to life.  I think one of the most important parts of this story is attempting to understand and feel the characters' emotions as the war consumes them.  And sometimes, it is important to recognize that we cannot understand what it is like to be them in that situation.  The author does a skillful job of describing parts of Louie's experiences so that the reader can get a glimpse into his life.  In the beginning of the chapter, Hillenbrand describes the city and the people in it.  She writes, "No one in Naoetsu was sleeping.  B-29's crossed over every night, and the air-raid sirens wailed for hours on end, competing with the roar of the planes, " (300).  Her use of personification between the sounds in this description gives the readers a piece of how Louie must have felt.  Her use of the word wailed gives the readers a grasp on the blaring noises in this city during the war.  Just something as simple as her word choice impacts the readers' perception of the text much differently.  Another deeply descriptive section in this chapter is towards the end.  Hillenbrand explains the crewmen's bomber plane flight over Hiroshima.  She describes, "...the sky over the city ripped open in a firestorm of color and sound and felling wind.  A white light, ten times the intensity of the sun, enveloped the plane as the flash and sound and jolt of it skidded out in all directions... A fantastically huge, roiling cloud, glowing bluish gray, swaggered over the city.  It was more than three miles tall."  (306)  Hillenbrand's account of this event that most readers have heard of or studied in history class is much different than most people have ever known about the bombing of Hiroshima.  It takes a much closer scope to the event, and makes it seem more personal, more impactful.  Again, her use of personification adds to her description.  Also, her transition between long descriptive sentences to short ones gives a blunt feeling to the chapter's end.  After more description she writes, "Below it, Hiroshima was boiling. " (306)  This final sentence leaves an impact with readers far beyond what any history book would tell them.  The imagery used in this chapter is amazingly descriptive and gives readers a chance to view certain historical events from a different angle entirely.  Hillenbrand's use of descriptive language in this chapter stood out to me as one of the most effective skills that she uses throughout the entire book.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it is very easily one of my favorite books I have read.

TOW #15- Visual Text

Tom Toles, the editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post recently published this cartoon with the caption, "Inexplicable Metro robbery in minute-by-minute detail".  He made this cartoon with the intended audience to be train commuters.  It shows a man reporting his money stolen during his experience on the metro when in fact, he was not actually robbed.  Tom Toles uses hyperbole of an average person's metro experience and humor in order to show the lack of quality of the metro services.  He believes that the prices that are paid for the metro are too high for the efficiency of the system.  Toles uses hyperbole in his cartoon in order to exaggerate the bad quality of the metro system.  The man's second quote is lengthy and describes a terrible situation that I'm sure the average metro user does not experience.  The exaggeration helps Toles's argument by showing his audience how awful the system is and hoping that they can relate to the mishaps that occur with the metro system.  Although the quote is not really valid, it is very effective.  It helps the audience feel a connection by sharing a common annoyance of the trains.  Toles appeals to pathos by attempting to make the audience feel angry about their subpar train experiences that they paid full price for.  Toles also uses humor in order to compare the train experiences with a robbery.  When the man in the cartoon says he was robbed, he is not being literal.  He feels that he had been cheated for his money because of his poor train service.  This is an effective strategy for Toles because if people start associating the poor quality of the trains system with being robbed, that will only increase the anger of the audience.  Once they compare their experience with the metro to being robbed, it puts the idea into perspective.  His audience may think, "If I am not getting 100% satisfactory service, I shouldn't have to pay full price!"  Thoughts like these will help Toles build an audience of angry train commuters that feel that change must be made.  Toles used these devices to successfully convince his audience that the metro system is 'robbing' them of their money because of its poor efficiency and quality.

TOW #14- Why Teachers Are Aggrieved

An article written by Mark Mix, the president of the National Right to Work Committee, was published in the Washington Times this past week.  On Monday, the Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association case will be heard by the Supreme Court.  The case involves policies that force teachers to pay mandatory dues to a union that they do not support.  Mix's article proves the unconstitutionality of these policies across the country through the use of rhetorical questions and references to quotes of the opposing side.  To prove that the policies are not just, Mix uses rhetorical questions at the beginning of his article.  He asks the readers, "If you belonged to a club that benefited other members at your expense, would you consider leaving?  Would you resent it if the club collected dues from all members but only provided benefits to a select few?" (par. 1) In order to get his readers to understand the unconstitutionality of the policies that require teachers to pay dues to unions they don't belong to, Mix first has to get the audience, which is any working American who pays mandatory dues, to understand why the policy is unjust.  When he asks these questions, the reader can clearly understand that the mandatory dues that don't benefit the people paying them does not make any sense.  In order to further prove the unconstitutionality of the argument that the policy should stay in place, Mix references an attorney general supporting the California Teachers Association, Kamala Harris.  He proves that many teachers are not benefited from paying these mandatory dues when he tells his audience that Harris, "actually admitted that union bargaining disadvantages many teachers in a brief filed in support of the California Teachers Association."(par. 4)  Once he proves that even the opposition was in agreement that the unions don't give advantages to all of the teachers, he slices through the CTA's argument.  The strength of Mix's argument comes mostly from his appeal to logos because his article is used to invalidate the California Teachers Association's case.  While proving his point, he gets his audience to think about the unfair dues that they possibly have to pay to their unions, in hopes of helping working Americans make a change in their own states.  This article gives encouragement to those who work and are victims of the mandatory dues that do not benefit every employee fairly.  Mark Mix's article successfully accomplishes this through rhetorical questions and evidence from the opposition in the case, and on Monday we will find out whether or not this argument will be supported in court.