Cassia Busch
Mrs. Parkinson
English III
April 5 2016

     In On Dumpster Diving, Eighner writes of his days of dumpster diving, or scavenging, in this article. Most people think of dumpster diving as disgusting and the scavengers as even more so, however, Eighner writes in a way to remove the stigma of those people who scavenge to stay alive. He does this by explaining the logic of dumpster diving. In his article, he simply "teaches" the readers how to and what it means to scavenge. He makes the audience realize that the scavengers do this to stay alive not because they want to when he writes "At first the new scavenger is filled with disgust and self-loathing. He is ashamed of being seen," (Eighner 718). This helps remove the stigma of people who dumpster dive because we realize that they are just like us but they have an unfortunate situation. He also removes stigma when he goes through his thought process and mental planning of when he finds food for example when he talks about the three things you have to consider "Using the senses and common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the dumpsters of a given area and checking them regularly, and seeking always to answer the question 'Why was this discarded?'" (Eighner 714). Through these processes and by making the audience take a step back and think about the scavenger and what they actually think about when they dive, Eighner helps remove the stigma or disgrace previously given to poor people that dumpster dive to stay alive.

Of Mice and Men Inquiry Activity

Busch, 1

Cassia Busch

Mrs. Parkinson

English III

14 March 2016

Of Mice and Men Inquiry Activity

Looking at the characters of the book, how do things out of our control like race or where we were born affect our lives, and shape us into the people we are?

During The Dust Bowl, African American were treated unfairly. In Of Mice and Men, we see how someone, Crooks, can be negatively shaped from the actions of other people. In chapter four, when Lennie talks to Crooks, Crooks says “S’pose you didn’t have nobody. S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunkhouse and play rummy ‘cause you was black.” (Steinbeck, 72). Crooks has been living on the farm, facing oppression slowly shaped him into a solitary, pessimistic, lonely man. We see this when Crooks tells Lennie “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.” (Steinbeck, 73)

My own grandmother was shaped by how she grew up.  At 13, she moved from Greece to the United States. She lived in a poor house where neither parent spoke English and she learned Greek traditions. As an adult, she enrolled in college, but dropped out when she got married because it was “proper” for her to stay home with the kids. My grandfather was the main provider for the family. My grandmother had grown up with someone taking care of her and the same was true when she got married. She had slowly been shaped into being dependent on others.

Renaissance Writers

Cassia Busch

Mrs. Parkinson

English III

7 March 2016

     From the reading of “Tableau” by Countee Cullen, we find that Cullen and other Renaissance writers have hope for a future America where white and black people get along and work in unison. I believe Cullen uses children as the focus point of his poem because while white adults have grown thinking that African Americans inferior to them, children haven’t learned racism yet and do not see anything wrong with befriending kids of different ethnicities. Cullen writes, “Oblivious to look and word / They pass and see no wonder / That lightning brilliant as a sword / Should blaze the path of thunder” (9-12). This quote is very powerful because they are oblivious to the other people watching their out of the ordinary behavior, and they are just having fun together. It shows that their friendship is as normal and ordinary as thunder and lightning, and they don’t see anything abnormal about it. 

Writing Voice

They exhibit perceptivity

• "It was the middle of the night, she was standing outside, in the pouring rain, under an umbrella, in her pajamas, barefoot, while her house was in flames."

This quote displays, or shall I say exhibits, perceptivity because the author, Mark Bezos, notices something that other volunteer firefighters probably didn't. He noticed the homeowner and he noticed how she was standing outside barefoot in pajamas getting rained on. He shows empathy at this time too, with the characterization of the homeowner, Mark makes the audience feel empathetic toward the lady. He wants us to imagine what it would be like to be in her perspective.


They employ humor

• "The other volunteer who had arrived just before me, let's call him Lex Luther, got to the captain first and was asked to go inside and save the homeowners dog. The dog! I was stunned with jealousy"

Mark Bezos uses humor throughout the speech. One area where it is very clear is when he was talking about the other firefighter and how he got to save the homeowners dog. This lightens the speech because he started talking fairly seriously when he was talking about the house and the owner but then he lightens the speech and makes the audience laugh by joking about the name of the volunteer being Lex Luther, and by saying he was jealous about not being able to save the dog.


They offer surprising information and observations

• "A few weeks later, the department received a letter from the homeowner thanking us for the valiant effort displayed in saving her home. The act of kindness she noted above all others, someone had even gotten her a pair of shoes."

This is an example of a small, precise, unexpected detail. We would think that the owner would write about the "real firefighters" putting out the fire, or she would thank the other volunteer for saving her dog, but no. She thanks Bezos for going and getting her a pair of shoes. This makes the text very authentic and real. The sentence structure that Bezos uses here builds suspense because he starts by saying "the act of kindness noted above all others" he then tells us what the act of kindness is. This builds the importance and makes us realize how grateful she was. We also realize that Mark is no longer jealous, he realizes how  important and kind his duty was and how  it wasn't a "job" of the firefighters but they did it anyway to help make her feel a little better.

Vignette

One area within chapters 15-16 where we see a vignette by Holden is on pages 120-121. Here, Holden is reflecting back on when he and the rest of his class went to the museum and what the
different displays were within the museum. A powerful moment in the vignette was when, toward the end, Holden says "The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was... The only thing that would be different would be you." (Salinger, 121) In this moment, Holden is reflecting on how he likes that the displays never change, you can go in there time after time and the display will always be the same. I assume that he doesn't like change because change in his life so far has always seemed bad. His constant changing of schools and Allie's death both help prove this.

Catcher in the Rye 9-10

Blog Option Two

We all know who Holden is. He's some punk kid who doesn't care about his grades or his future or anybody around him, or at least that's what he's telling us about himself. However, through his words and stories we get glimpses of a different Holden, one who is sensitive, curious, and emotional.

Several places throughout Catcher in the Rye, we have seen Holden's real personality instead of the personality he's built up as a guard. One place we can see the true Holden is in chapter 7 when Holden says "I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead." (Salinger, 48). This is one of the places where Salinger makes us feel sorry for Holden and we start to get a better idea of how lonely and depressed Holden really is.

 In chapter 10 we start to feel even worse for Holden though. At this point he has left Pencey and he is at a night club trying to be social and friendly. He met these three women at this club and he started to dance with one of them but she wouldn't pay attention to him. "'You know when a girl's really a terrific dancer? ' 'Wadga say?' she said. She wasn't listening to me, even. Her mind was wandering all over the place."(Salinger, 71). Holden was already lonely and now he can't even get this girls attention. Here we start to be able to tell what he is feeling, not because he tells us what he's feeling but because he starts to insult them and as we have already found out, he covers his insecurity and emotions with a wall of insults. This shows how complex Holden is, sometimes he really makes it hard to feel bad for him because he is so rude but this is because he doesn't want pity from others. He just wants to live in his own sorrowful little world.

Holden also is a romantic, not in the way we usually think of the word with flowers and wine, but he follows one of the main concepts of Romantic ideals, and that ideal is the preservation and beauty of nature. "I didn't throw it at anything, though. I started to throw it. At a car that was parked across the street. But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and white." (Salinger, 36). Here Holden made a snowball and started to throw it, however, he appreciated the beauty of the snow on the cars and he didn't want to disrupt the nature.

Mysterious Ending

Hey guys! So I finished Looking for Alaska a few days ago, and I have to say that my favorite part of the whole book was the end. I can't tell you what happened because that would give away the biggest spoiler! But I can tell you that I liked it because it included problem solving. Pudge and the Colonel work together to piece out clues and find out the reason of a death at the school. They know almost nothing other than the person got really angry, was very drunk, and left campus early in the morning.

I would recommend this book to people who like the author John Green. I haven’t read any of his other books but my sister has told me about the Fault in Our Stars and the plot seems very similar. Although guys may like the book, it seemed to me like a book girls would prefer. It’s not a hard book to read but it does have a lot of cuss words in it. Actually not a lot of words, it’s primarily one word but repeated A LOT! So I wouldn’t recommend this for children under the teens.

After we’ve gone to the end lets go back to the beginning.

Why did I choose this book? I picked this book because I don’t like really creepy, dark books and even though you can’t judge a book by its cover you can judge it by its title and all the other titles sounded horrible. Like seriously Midwinter Blood? Maggot Moon? The Kingdom of Little Wounds? You have to admit that those titles make the books sound creepy, disgusting, and dark. Exactly the kind of books I don’t like. So the titles turned me off of at least half of the books.

 I also only recognized the author of one of the books in the list, this one. John Green was the only author I recognized and I had heard that his books were really good so I decided to give him a try. I did like the book and so now I’ll have to read some of his other ones.