Week fifteen post

This class was the first online class I have taken. The technology piece was a lot different than what I was use to. Online learning was very different from learning in person. It had its challenges and its benefits. When it comes to an English class, I found learning online to be much better. In person learning for me was much more tolling than online. From this class I have learned more about taking online classes and how they can benefit the way I learn. I learned some new ways to go about finding sources and different resources to use in order to do my best in the class.

About Revisions

In the beginning of this semester I didn't do a revision and my grade suffered for it. On the second essay I decided to have a friend and a learning coach revise my essay which helped a lot. This time around I sent in an essay to the professor and to the friend and learning coach in hopes that I will be able to boost my grade once more. After some trial and error with revisions I have decided I should keep doing them. I came to this conclusion because when I write I only see what I meant to say and how it sounded in my mind. However, when someone else reads this they might not know how I am thinking. When I have other people look at my essays they point out things I could make stronger and parts I should change in order to get my message across more clearly.

                                                   John Wilson Bengough, died 1923

White Noise Thesis paragraph

Don DeLillo’s book White Noise is a satire of a plethora of themes and motifs. From American family life to academia he pokes fun at various aspects of life and death. Religion is a significant target of his satirical opinions. Through out the novel he creates outrageous scenes that reflect on ridiculous human behaviors regarding religion and spirituality. Whether it’s having a spiritual experience through visiting a barn or finding peace at the simplicity of an ATM machine DeLillo is constantly poking at certain human beliefs. One possible reason for his writing on this topic is the massive change in human behavior that occurred due to the technological explosion in the 1980s when he wrote White Noise.

Tom LeClair summary

Closing the Loop: Tom LeClair

     Tom LeClair's Closing the Loop provides a great summary of Don DeLillo's work White Noise. In the beginning LeClair explains his very fitting title, "closing the loop." He talks about DeLillo's traveling and how it lends to the creative aspects of the novel. LeClair also gives background on DeLillo and how he started writing White Noise after his return in 1982. He talks about how "White Noise is about "closing the loop"-- personal and mass dying, the "circle slowly closing" (241) of fear producing its object..." (387-388). Later in Leclairs work, he goes into summarizing White Noise and how it ties into the American culture of its time. 

     I liked reading this article because it grabbed my attention from the beginning. It also does a great job of offering some other insights to the novel that I would have otherwise simply looked over. 

DeLillo, Don. White Noise. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.

White Noise Comes and Goes

For this post I decided to just do a general overview on what I have thought of Don DeLillo's novel in it's good and bad parts.
First things first, I would like to say that I have genuinely enjoyed reading this book. The plot is great and the character development has been amazing. I do enjoy how the whole story is broken into three portions. In most of part one, the narrator is setting up the characters in describing what they do. We find out about Jack's unusual profession and obsession with an evil man whom created a distinguished event in history, and his wife and kids. Then it goes to part two where we find out about a toxin released into the air. In part three there is a lot of struggle between Jack and his wife Babette with bad news coming from both ends.
What I did not really enjoy about this story was how the narrator got off track a lot. I feel like the occasional rants and conversations which had little to do with what was actually going on made the story very confusing. I can see why they are put where they are, but I also believe some of these conversations could have been left out to make it a little easier on the reader.

First half of the semester

The biggest challenge for me in the first half of this semester was getting use to using a blog and doing my classes online, seeing as this is the first online class I have taken and the first blog I have ever used. I would consider the fact that I have not given up yet this semester has my biggest success. Usually with new things, if I find them difficult, I just give up. The readings in this class so far have gotten me to think. Especially the Jonathan Swift essay, mainly because I really enjoy satire. Literary analysis has been another struggle for me in this class. In all my previous classes I have mainly just had to write argumentative essays. I find that I much prefer argumentative essays over literary analysis. My goal for the second half of the semester is to complete all the assignments and to do better than I did in the first half.

Swift Essay Tenative Thesis Paragraph

Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is a political satire written in response to the disturbing state of affairs in Ireland during the Irish-English war. In the text Swift uses the appeals of ethos, logos, and pathos to effectively portray his point that the actions of the English in the aftermath of the war were morally wrong. Along with these more concrete persuasions, Swift uses an abundance of mockery, a grotesque solution, and a diatribe on the English to degrade their country. Swift successfully communicates to his audience his utter disgust at their behavior and fulfills his purpose of acknowledging the demonic nature of their wrongdoing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War