Start 'Em Off Young

This week we were introduced to a poem called “The History Teacher”, by Billy Collins, that showed a history teacher teaching his students about disastrous events; Instead of telling the kids the truth about what really happened, he completely changed them. Even after expending all his effort trying to maintain his students’ innocence, at recess they still went out and tormented other children on the playground. The teacher had good intentions; I mean everyone wants to keep his/her kids pure and safe right? But, at some point these truths will reveal themselves to these kids and they will be hit hard with the hand of reality. Children should learn about historic events, even the horrible ones. I know somebody will question, “Should we really teach first graders about the slaughter of millions of Jews during the Holocaust?” but it is not necessary to tell them the full extent of what happened, teachers can just merely say that many Jewish people died because a mean Nazi didn’t like them. They will still somewhat comprehend what happened. We need to face our demons in order to learn from them, how could we stay away from our mistakes in the past if we didn’t know they happened? We would end up doing the same thing as our ancestors did. It is better to start learning about these event at a young age.

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     In an ever-changing world, a standard form of punctuation is necessary, because it enables writers to write in a clear and concise method that portrays their ideas in an efficient manner.
   
     Many people suggest that punctuation should be modified to parallel our advancing society. It is understandable that people would desire this change, as we have entered a new era of communicating via text, tweets, and Facebook messages/ statuses, and much more. These do not require apostrophes, commas, or even periods to deliver the intended message. However, punctuation is "vital for clear, effective, and consistent communication" (Source A). For instance, in the source containing the cartoons, two identical sentences have completely different meanings due to minute changes in punctuation. Whichever message the author wanted to convey is entirely dictated by the punctuation he/she chose to utilize. To continue, a lack of a standard form of punctuation would be inefficient, as it would hinder the reader; readers will have to exert extra effort in tryings to decipher the author's intended meaning from the continuos string of words they are reading. To save readers from this inconvenience, Dolnick states that "semicolons, along with exclamation points and dashes, and whole sackfuls of commas, are...vital tools in keeping...the "stream of thought" from appearing to the reader as a wild torrent"(source E).  Punctuation is a major concept of literature , and without a definitive set of rules of how to use it , clarity will be lost.

"Neither can live while the other survives"

This week we read a piece titled, "There is No Unmarked Woman" by Deborah Tannen. In her piece, Tannen uses personal anecdotes, such as the one in the business meeting, where she explains how she immediately begins to judge the other women around her based on how they dressed, how they did their make up, and how they styled their hair. She then contrasted her view on the women with how she viewed the men in the room; Tannen did not have much to judge when she looked at the men, because, besides the color variation, they basically all wore the same suit and tie and dress shoes. To further her claim that no woman is unmarked, Tannen continues to provide sturdy examples of markings such as titles (Miss, Ms., Mrs. Dr., etc...) or word endings (actor, actress, etc...). While reading this piece, I could clearly see how clothing marked woman, as there are so many different styles and ways to pair clothing together, but I never thought of how our titles could mark us. Tannen's piece really opened up my eyes to the many ways women are marked, and it made me sad that women are still treated and thought of in this manner. As much as I try to, I have yet to think of a solution for this problem. Our society has become so focused on self-expression, which is good, but that is a major cause of our markings. The way we choose to express ourselves will determine the way others judge us. It would be very difficult to solve the problem of being marked, without taking away self-expression.

Can of Pop

As we proceed in reading The Scarlet Letter, I am starting to see a moral lesson beginning to form. Humans are not meant to keep things to themselves, we are meant to express ourselves and share our emotions with others. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester expresses her sins and fully embraces them by wearing the scarlet A. In doing so, she has rid herself of the heavy burden of guilt.  On the other hand, Reverend Dimmesdale kept to himself and never opened up or communicated to anyone. In turn, his guilt started to eat him away from the inside. He became ill and started to wither away; as for Hester, she was healthy and had a radiant glow about her.  It is not healthy for humans to keep their emotions bottled up; we are born with mouths for a reason, to communicate (and to eat). This can be compared to a can of pop. Once it is disturbed, the disturbance will cause the pressure to build inside the can. The can can only stand so much pressure, and once the amount of pressure inside exceeds a certain point, the can has no other options than to burst. If Dimmesdale does not confess his sin, he will explode from the pressure of his sin and guilt building up inside him.