Social Awareness Response

You never want to do something so bad that you go from representing your country in front of the world to being hated for a disgraceful reason. In the article “ Role reversal” by Patricia Smith, Oscar Pistorius is in that exact situation. Pistorius is known for his performance in the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. He ran track despite having two prosthetic legs to replace the ones that were cut. After the games, he and his country celebrated his performance with plenty of partying and other activities. However, several days later, Pistorius had murdered his girlfriend. Of course he has to go through a court system, like all murder cases, and this time, he happened to have a black judge. This was a really rare occurrence for a black women to be judging  a white man. Around the 1900’s this would be unthinkable, but now it has become a reality. The author wants its readers to know that time has changed so we need to move on with the racial stereotypes and that the judge handled those stereotypes well. Also the author shows that you can go from the top to the bottom in a matter of days so you always have to watch what you do.

The author really does a good job with constructing her writing so that she can prove a point while getting good facts across. For example in the text, the author states, “ Despite the glare of live television and social media, legal experts say Judge Masipa guided the proceedings skillfully and gracefully.” This demonstrated to me and other readers that the author and many other people respected how courageous this judge is. This greater improves my respect for this judge because of the amount of pressure she had to deal with. I’m sure that the author wanted her readers to think the exact thing that i’m thinking. 

There is a reason that everyone always is saying watch what you are doing. This is a perfect example. Oscar Pistorius is the biggest thing in South Africa but one argument ends it all While explaining what happened with him and his girlfriend, the author is teaching a lesson to all of her readers that what he did is a horrible action to preform. The line, “ Pistorius could serve no jail or as much as 15 years behind bars for culpable homicide.” I think that Patricia Smith included that line to scare her readers to prove that you definitely wouldn’t want to murder someone. The author also emphasizes that Pistorius was a highly celebrated star and that one mistake has ruined his career and stripped him of his respect.

Overall, I believe that this is a really powerful article. It demonstrates a huge change in a world that has always been stereotypical. It teaches me that anything can happen so I should watch what I do and fight for anything that people don’t think I can succeed at and work toward that. I know now that I can stand up for people and fight for a change. This article widens my appreciation for Judge Masipa and what she does for a living. So in conclusion, the author did a really great job constructing this piece to get the information in but also at the same time stating her opinion.

Museum Response

During the trip to the NYC museum, I learned many things about the history of activists in NYC. There were some people who really stood out to me during the tour. Two of those groups of people were the bicyclists and the women who were pushing for their rights.

The bicyclists were pretty much the coolest activists. They understood that to get peoples attention, they needed to include humor into their protest. They definitely  got that job done. Some of them dressed like clowns, going up to people and informing them that they are in fact breaking the law. After a while, their message started to get through to people and they eventually got their way.

The woman on the other hand, took a different approach in getting their point across. They did something that could have gotten them in a whole lot of trouble. Being a woman in that time wasn’t the best thing. They had very limited rights which included them not being able to vote. That caused most of them to grow frustrated and start to protest. Back then, even going outside as a woman was risky. This action got them enough attention which allowed them to get their right to vote.

Lord of the Flies

Reading Response

Jeremiah Jeffries

Whenever someone takes a flight on a plane, they always wish that they do not crash. Ralph and the other boys just clearly weren’t lucky. In the book Lord of the Flies  by William Golding, A group of boys didn’t get the slightest bit of luck on their plane ride. They crash landed in a deserted island and they have to learn how to survive by themselves in the wilderness. They were surviving for a short time and they were looking acceptable however, a boy named Jack had a lot of disputes with Ralph and split apart there whole group. Through out the story Ralph was either liked or hated. When they started out on the island in the beginning he was well liked, however in the end, his group turned on him and they shunned him.

The death of all of the boys would have been guaranteed if it hadn’t been for the strength of Ralph. As soon as they touched ground on the island, Ralph immediately stepped up and led them through adversity. He set fires, made shelters and killed animals for food. He is a very intelligent character that was very compassionate to his peers. For example, on page 35 it says. “Ralph flushed, looking sideways at Piggy’s open admiration, and then to the other way at Jack who was smirking and showing that he too knew how to clap.” This paragraph suggests that Ralph brought joy to them. In addition, he brought them hope. It shows that they really believed in him and trusted him to get out of the island.

The action of Jack leaving Ralph’s command could have gotten all of the boys killed. After a while, the boys lost faith in Ralph. He clearly wasn’t getting them off the the island and they were running out of options. In fact, they didn’t even just leave him, they tried to kill him. They turned into complete savages. An example of this is on page 188 and it says, “Jack made a rush and stabbed at Ralph’s chest with a spear. Ralph sensed  the attack and made a rush and stabbed at Ralph’s chest with a spear. Ralph sensed  the position of the weapon from the glimpse he caught of Jack’s arm and put the thrust aside with his own butt.” This shows that they obviously aren’t friends anymore. Jack was so full of hatred that he attacked him. I believe that Jack only did that because he just really wanted to escape this vacant island. Ralph was really his only choice in doing this so when Ralph failed, Jack had blame Ralph. This passage also showed how the relationships between Ralph and the rest of the group was pretty much fake. It was fake because they were only working together to get off the island.

In conclusion, Ralph had a huge struggle in this book. First, he couldn’t quite lead the group off the island but then making it worse, Jack kept in trying to kill him because of his inability to get them off the island. To summarize that, he went from being cherished to being abhorred by the group. In the real world, I believe that this is a very interesting book. It can be both helpful and a bad influence for children. It can be good cause it teaches children to never give up but at the same time it can also teach children to blame others and lose hope easily.