Sunday, October 31, 2010

Weak and Strong Thesis


Frankie Pena
Identify the weak thesis statement:

I’m going to write about Darwin’s concerns with evolution in The Origin of the Species.
• (A) is the weak thesis statement because it just says what the essay is going about and you are not post to describe the essay.

-Or-

Darwin’s concern with survival of the fittest in The Origin of the Species leads him to neglect a potentially conflicting aspect of his theory of evolution-survival as a matter of interdependence.

An important part of one’s college education is learning to better understand others’ points of view.

-Or-

Although an important part of one’s college education is learning to better understand others’ points of view a persistent danger is that the students will simply be required to substitute the teacher’s answers for the ones they grew up uncritically believing.
• (A) is weak because it shouldn’t be your personnel opinion in the thesis statement. Once you add your personnel opinion then it just becomes a argument.

By inventing terms, such as “loose fit” and “relaxed fit”, the jean industry has attempted to normalize, even glorify, its product for an older and fatter generation.

-or-

The jeans industry targets its advertisements to appeal to young adults.
• (B) This has no point of objective and how would they direct the advertisements to just the young adults. This is going to require a substantial amount of proof.

Othello is a play about love and jealousy.
• (A) is weak because is just has a opinion once again with just an opinion there is no thesis. This doesn’t have nothing we can branch off and make strong points with.
-or-

Although Othello appears to attack jealousy, it also supports the skepticism of the jealous characters over the naïvete of the lovers.

The songs of the punk rock group Minor Threat relate to the Feelings of individuals who dare to be different. Their songs are just composed of pure emotion. Pure emotion is very important in music, because it serves as a vehicle to convey the important message of individuality. Minor Threat’s songs are meaningful to me because I can identify with them.
• (A) is weak because the writer is just putting down his opinion and it is all over. Without a subject that we can find evidence for there is no thesis.
-or-
The punk rock group Minor Threat uses emotional lyrics to appeal to their target audience, which considers itself individualistic and therefore the lyrics must convey a message of individuality.


Here is my thesis:
Tim O’Brien was born in Austin, Minnesota, October 1, 1946. Although as a child spent most of his time in Worthington, Minnesota a really small country town. Soon a graduate with a BA in political science at Macalester College. The same year he was drafted into the Vietnam War. After spending 1969-1970 in Vietnam, O’Brien returned and began a course at Harvard University. This course was specializing in government and politics. Although landed a internship in Washington post and later on became a full-time journalist. Well after writing many post O’Brien struck success in writing stories and that is when O’Brien showed just how impacting his stories could be on the world.

It occurs to be strong to me because it has a simple point and the evidence to proof is in his writings. That is why I wrote the thesis statement, it has a strong

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Source evaluation


Frost, Adam. "Literature Online biography." O'Brien, Tim, 1946-. Chadwyck-Healey, 2002. Web. 24 Oct 2010.
The biography has a lot of information about Tim O’Brien’s life. O’Brien was born in Minnesota October first. The author earned a full ride to college and soon after he received a draft letter. This letter completely changed his plans. This was nowhere near what Tim O’Brien wanted he was a boy who disliked boy scouts and camping. After the war the put his life on hold the author went to school and became a journalist and soon a book writer. Tim O’Brien had a distinctive way of writing books. Majority of his books include the experiences he went through in the war. The biography will play a big part in my essay about the great Tim O’Brien.

Tim O'Brien. "Ambush. " Read 20 Jan. 2006: Children's Module, ProQuest. Web. 24 Oct. 2010
I think this source is of value to my essay because it has one of Tim O’Brien’s short stories in it. This will give me a source that I can take facts from and make a point. This will give my essay the extra credit so that it will be more than just talking about the books that he wrote. This short story will be a prime example of something Time O’Brien has published. This source will be of great use and that is why I chose it. Hopefully this will add a little excitement to the essay. If later on I see no use for it I can always search the great site of proquest.

http://proquest.umi.com.proxy.yc.edu/pqdweb?SQ=Tim+O%27Brien&DBId=G6&date=ALL&onDate=&beforeDate=&afterDate=&fromDate=&toDate=&pubtitle=&author=&FT=0&AT=any&revType=review&revPos=all&STYPE=all&sortby=REVERSE_CHRON&RQT=305&querySyntax=PQ&searchInterface=1&moreOptState=OPEN&TS=1287949714&h_pubtitle=&h_pmid=&clientId=1407&JSEnabled=1

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Mid-Session Check In

Frankie Pena
English 102
Mrs. Cline
Mid-session check in blog
10/17/10
This semester has been interesting considering that this is my first time taking English online. It has been a little more challenging not being able to just ask the teacher what I am doing wrong and getting a response right away. My biggest improvement is turning in all my assignments on time.
The meetings have been slightly exciting to read. Although I have felt the same way as the author when he was saying that he didn’t want to go to war because he had better things to do than fight the wrong war. Then when it comes to writing literary analysis compared to the previous writings in 102; there have been some difficulties for me because it’s a new way of writing. In my personal opinion, I dislike literary analysis writing because I like descriptive writing. Descriptive writing allows me to paint my own canvas and not follow someone else’s work just to talk about it. Literary analysis writing has a bit more to it than I thought so it isn’t my favorite but I doubt it will be long before I fall in love with it. Every style of writing has its perks and, well, some have their not so great moments.
There are a few goals that I have set for the rest of the semester and they are first to raise my grade to an A-plus. Second, meet at least twice a month with the teacher to discuss what I can work on to better my writing not only as a student but as a writer. I hope to improve all of my writings from here on out.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Summary V. Analysis Blog Post


Frankie Pena

Eng 102

10/3/10

Summary V. Analysis Blog Post

“Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” the characters ‘Rat, kiley” “Mitchell, Sanders” “Eddie, Diamond” “Mark Fossie” “Marry, Anne, Bell”. These characters were caught up in a compound that was situated at the top of a flat hillside in the outskirts of Tra Bong. These soldiers are fighting a never ending war. But throughout this war they have time to sit around and reminisce about girls and good times. While sitting around “Eddie said, was pool some bucks and bring in a few mamma-sans from Saigon, spice things up, and after a moment one of the men laughed and said, “Our own little EM club,” and somebody else said “Hey yeah we pay are fuckin dues, don’t we?”(pg 93,O’Brien).

Now these guys where just messing around to kill time and well they were playing around “Mark Fossie” went off to write a letter and six weeks later his bubbly eyed girlfriend shows up in a helicopter. With eyes of surprise everyone stand around and out of nowhere someone says what everyone else was thinking “mother fucker”. After a few weeks in the compound this girl was helping in surgery and taking apart guns. Before Mark knew it she was going out with the greenies in the jungle doing searches at night. Well it wasn’t to much longer before she got to into it, mark could not see the old “Marry Anne Bell” that is her name. This girl was out of his hands and just before he had a chance to really talk to Mary, she went out one night and never came back. The gist of the story is she came in innocent but once she got a little dirty she was never the same.

When reading I didn’t understand why Mark would bring his loved one to such a dirty place. The compound is not really the place for a cute innocent loved one anyways. When he went to the compound he was a tall blond athlete and all that had changed he now carried anger and wasn’t so nice. Well once he brought this girl over and saw she was starting to change he should have sent her back home whether or not if she liked it. Because it wasn’t her place to be at unless assigned. Then once she started going out at night with the greenies he should have known it was only going to get worse. Once she disappeared I knew it was over and he lost his loved one. Sometimes people just cant handle what they see and they just lose it like Mary did. Lets this be an example to us all.
here is a link to some good stuff: http://www.illyria.com/tob/tobbio.html