G.Knight

I agree with Wilson's analysis of Hamlet because the theme of the play is death. After King Hamlet passes away Hamlet is brought down with disturbing thoughts, and makes every one else unhappy. He feels that his father's death was not significant in other people's lives. Death affects Hamlet, because his father dies, mother's faith dies, Ophelia dies and is confronted by the ghost, who purely represents death. Since the ghost tells Hamlet that Claudius kills him with poison, and the ghost represents death, the that must mean that "death" told him to avenge his father's death. Basically Hamlet's goal of the story which is to kill Claudius, is merely driven by death. In a way the only reason that is keeping Hamlet alive from his disturbing emotions is death. Even if Hamlet doesn't die after killing Claudius, Hamlet will lead himself to his own death because he cannot survive with his weird emotions and thoughts for long.

So if Hamlet dies should that be surprising? After all his goal is driven by death, he is surrounded by death, which means that if Hamlet dies it makes perfect sense because he is a completely different person before his father's death. After his father passes away he is totally different, thus "inhuman". An "inhuman" person must die because it would be dangerous to society to have such a person around. Thus I agree with Wilson's interpretation of Hamlet because Hamlet is surrounded by death, thus it would make sense if he dies because he completes the death cycle that's going on in the play.

Whats Hamlet to me?

Hamlet is a tragic hero, who becomes an avengful person when he comes to know that his father was murdered. By becoming a revengful person he notices that life is not significant, everyone has to die some day, but how the person dies creates suspense.Hamlet is too overwhelmed by his father's death and he makes the people surrounding him very unhappy as well, by acting as a mad person. Hamlet is angry that all the other characters are taking life too easy after his father's death and he wants to bring that grief back to the people who are close to Hamlet, but since his father is dead, Hamlet has to bring back the grief. By his madness he affects Ophellia, Claudius, and Gertrude a lot. Claudius wants him exiled, but Gertrude and Ophellia want to know the cause of Hamlet's madness.

Thus Hamlet to me represents grief because he brings grief to the characters surrounding him, and after his father's death Hamlet's personality is completly opposite than before, just like how life and death are abstract.

"The Return"

"The Return" by Ngugi wa Thiong can be analyzed by archetypal critiscm. Kamau the main character of the story also known as the hero, returns home to find out that what he expects does not happen. Everything has changed in his community within five years in a negative way.
When Kamau returns home he is not greeted with happiness. His family reacts especially when "his father suddenly start and tremble like a leaf. He saw him stare with unbelieving eyes"(48).A traditional hero comes from his quest and expects to find pride and glory within his friends after succesfully completing his mission. But Kamau, the total opposite happens. His relatives think he was dead, and his wife and child taken by Karanja within the past five years where he "spent in detention camps"(44). In fact he expects a " 'hero's welcome'? He thought so. Had he not always been a favourite all along the Ridge? And had he not fought for the land? He wanted to run and shout:"Here I am. I have come back to you." But he desisted. He was a man."(45).
Whence Kamau the hero of the story has accomplished parts of his mission by coming back home but he needs to go further on in order to find happiness and pride for himself, Muthoni, and his son.

Keats

Keats seeks out the company of a common bird because it is nature. He puts it in the form of an ode because he feels as if he owes nature something, perhaps an apology before he passes away.

The content of the two stanzas(2 & 5) supports the claim because it talks about his wish before he dies, and the transition. "beaded bubbles" is an example of alliteration, and bubbles is an example of onomatopaeia. "Sunbirth mirth" is an example of assonance. "Blushful Hippocrene" is an example of allusion and personification.

Analogy

The world is like a smorgasbord. Food can be categorized into many groups in order to make it unique from another style of food. Examples include spices, poultry, salads, burgers etc. Similarly a country can be distinguished from another by population, language, ethnicity etc. Any place on earth is unique from another. A person will have a different "taste" of the country. Some food can be bad for health, and some considered nutritious. Countries/places can be wealthy or poor. Poor countries and bad food are not good for human beings because they will not live a healthy and happy life.

Comparison and Contrast

A computer is like a human being. The body and computer can perform a task when a signal is sent/ received. The human body can also malfunction if there is a tumor or some other illness. Similarly a computer can screw up if it gets a virus. A human being can do anything without being given a command, whereas a computer needs a command in order to perform a task. A human being has emotions and is flexible in physical movement.

Classification and Division

Math can be classified into two groups: finite and infinite math. Finite math course in school is Data Management, and infinite math is Advanced Funtions, and Calculus and Vectors. One cannot say that one carries two and a half textbooks, it's either two or three textbooks. This is finite math. One can say that one's height is 125 cm, 124.999 cm, or 125.111 cm and many more values that estimste to 125 cm. This is infinite math. Finite math is used in practical applications like organizing dataand counting, whereas infite math is used in the area of science and engineering.

Metacognition Reflection #1

If I had to affix an adjective label to myself it would be "listener". I am not a very talkative person in group discussions.

My weakness is being nervous to talk in front of a big group. I could improve it by joining in more Socratic circle discussions which can then boost my confidence and communication skills. My strength is that I am a good listener. I listen to what other people have to say and sometimes comment about their statements in an appropriate manner.

A Fire Truck

1. The purpose of this poem is about a fire truck arriving at the site of the fire and how the narrator of the poem(victim of the fire) copes with the disturbance the fire truck causes in the community to save him.

2. The poem is considered good poetry because it has a good purpose, and uses a variety of rhetorical devices, which makes poetry good. "Beautiful, heavy, unweary, loud obvious, thing!/ I stand here purged of nuance, my mind a blank." are one of the points that support the thesis because it talks about how the speaker deals with the presence of the fire truck in a good and bad manner. The noise that the fire truck makes disturbs the narrator, but the fact that he is being saved makes him say "beautiful" at the beginning of the paragraph.
Rhetorical devices are used throughout the whole poem. "Right down the shocked street with a siren blast/", shocked street is personification because "street" is being given a verb that applies to living things "shocked". "shocked street" is also an example of alliteration because the two words start with the same letter.

You call this literature?

You call this literature? Part 3
By Ashley Laframboise

Looking through the "Literature" section and expecting to find articles on Woolf and Morrison, Pound and Hazlitt, but all I see are Dan Brown novels all over the place and realized that this is in fact what we have come to. This is not to criticise Brown, although his plot is not even his own, and his writing is generally quite uninspired.
Yes, popular literature has hit an all-time low to the point that fine literature is being overlooked by so many of us, to the point that Chapters has candles, calendars, journals, pens at the front of the store now, and we have to go to the back to see what it says it's supposedly really selling. Moreover, on the tables nearest the entrance are shiny, colourful, hard-covered bestsellers things written by Dan Brown and anything with Oprah's Book Club's seal of approval sticker. In fact, it took William Faulkner almost an entire century to finally be recognized as a valuable writer by most of us when Oprah recommended a three-volume set of his "best" work, and probably even gave copies away to the audience. We read what Oprah tells us we should read, find it at the front of Chapters, and, for the select few of us who actually want to read more of an author's work, are hardly able to find anything else he wrote in the store. It seems we all want what someone thinks is "best," without having to do any research, without having to dig through piles of books, to find the overarching narrative of an author's career. Rather, we gather bits and pieces, as if all works were separate, only caring to read the author that the New York Times deems "Brilliant" and "Dazzlingly unique" as if they weren't all the same or something.
Listen when I say a very bad word: Canada. Did you cringe? Stop reading, maybe? Some of us haven't even heard of Canadian writers, or at the very least, Canadian writers who don't base their stories in the mid-western U.S. in order to sell more copies many of us have never read anything by Atwood or Munro, who are,hardly even being considered in Chapters' "Best Selling Novels," while others like Henighan are being almost completely ignored. It seems we'd all rather read up on astrology and Devils wearing Prada, while picking up mini Positive Thinking cards while we're at it. I figure that if there's really something positive going on, we wouldn't feel the need to try to "think positively,". It seems everyone wants to "escape." Everyone wants to read for "enjoyment,".It seems we don't want to look around us and don't want to read about things that matter.

Good and bad writing

The first example is considered a bad piece of writing because it has two claims. What is the author trying to say? In the first two lines of thew paragraph he talks about individualism, but the rest of the paragraph talks about ethical relativsm. What is the relationship bwetween ethical relativism and being individual? If there is a relationship the author should provide an example and explain the connection between ethical relativism and being individual. " Are our thoughts brainwashed through the media with it's hellish ideas or our closet friends that are trying to direct us in the right direction?". I did not understand what the author was trying to tell in the sentence.
The second example is bad because it only has one sentence that has no claim. Instead it is like a statement that has no direction. The sentence also has too many complicated words to express the idea " We need to improve our service levels towards the upcoming business system transition"
The third example is bad because it has two totally different claims. "If the theories of science were the laws of origin how is it said that people have such strong emotions from a science experiment?" and "This proves that religion does not fill the gap of a parent which has been lost.
The fourth example is good because it has only one claim. "In June immense schools of small, silvery fish called capelin enter the hundreds of bays that dot the eastern coast of Newfoundland to perform a fascinating ceremony." It then proves the claim by supporting it with relevant facts that are related to the topic. "The males and females separately approach the gravel beaches and are borne ashore in waves so laden with their bodies as to be virtual walls of fish. There, on the gravel, the females lay their eggs and the males fertilize them; then most of the fish die."
The fifth example is good because it has only one claim "“Colors,” said Leigh Hunt, a 19th-century poet, "are the smiles of Nature." ".It then goes onto proving the thesis " To a great extent the answer lies in the three classes of cone-shaped, color-sensing cells in the retina of the eye. Each class responds differently to light reflected from a colored object, depending on whether the cells have within them red, green, or blue pigments."
"If by "machine" one means a physical system capable of performing certain functions (and what else can one mean?), then humans are machines of a special biological kind, and humans can think, and so of course machines can think." is the thesis of the last example. Before stating the thesis the author raises interesting questions to the audience "Can a machine think? Can a machine have conscious thoughts in exactly the same sense that you and I have?".

First five methods of development

"THE SPIDER AND THE WASP" by Alexander Petrunkevitch is an example of good writing and a good example of it's particular method of development, process.
One of the reasons that this essay is considered to be an example of good writing is because it has one strong claim rather than too many claims or no claims. "The case that I propose to describe here is that of the tarantula spiders and their arch-enemy, the digger wasps of the genus Pepsis. It is a classic example of what looks like intelligence pitted against instinct-a strange situation in which the victim, though fully able to defend itself, submits unwittingly to its destruction"(210) is the claim of the essay. It then supports the claim by writing about tarantulas and Pepsis, how they reproduce,their special properties, and survival on a daily basis. This piece does not have any truisms(obvious statements) which is another factor that affects good writing.
Process is a method of development that requires writing in chronological order. When Petrunkevitch describes the process of the wasp paralyzing the spider, he does it in order of first to last step. It starts from paragraph eleven to thirteen. These three paragraphs explain in great detail on how the wasp tackles and paralyzes the tarantula in chronological order.