Theories of Reading Essay Example for Free

Theories of Reading Essay So far, there are three main theories which explain the nature of learning to read. First, the traditional theory, or bottom up processing, which focused on the printed form of a text. (2) the cognitive view, or top-down processing enhanced the role of background knowledge in addition to what appeared on the printed page. Third, the metacognitive view, which is based on the control and manipulation that a reader can have on the act of comprehending a text, and thus, emphasizes the involvement of the reader’s thinking about what he is doing while reading. 1. The traditional bottom-up view The traditional bottom-up approach to reading was influenced by behaviorist psychology of the 1950s, which claimed learning was based upon â€Å"habit formation, brought about by the repeated association of a stimulus with a response† and language learning was characterized as a â€Å"response system that humans acquire through automatic conditioning processes,† where â€Å"some patterns of language are reinforced (rewarded) and others are not,† and â€Å"only those patterns reinforced by the community of language users will persist† (Omaggio 1993, 45-46). Behaviorism became the basis of the audio-lingual method, which sought to form second language â€Å"habits† through drilling, repetition, and error correction. Today, the main method associated with the bottom-up approach to reading is known asphonics, which requires the learner to match letters with sounds in a defined sequence. According to this view, reading is a linear process by which readers decode a text word by word, linking the words into phrases and then sentences (Gray and Rogers, cited in Kucer 1987). According to Samuels and Kamil (1988: 25), the emphasis on behaviorism treated reading as a word-recognition response to the stimuli of the printed words, where â€Å"little attempt was made to explain what went on within the recesses of the mind that allowed the human to make sense of the printed page†. In other words, textual comprehension involves adding the meanings of words to get the meanings of clauses (Anderson 1994). These lower level skills are connected to the visual  stimulus, or print, and are consequently concerned with recognizing and recalling. Like the audio-lingual teaching method, phonics emphasizes on repetition and on drills using the sounds that make up words. Information is received and processed beginning with the smallest sound units, and proceeded to letter blends, words, phrases, and sentences. Thus, novice readers acquire a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills that sequentially build toward comprehension ability. Having mastered these skills, readers are viewed as experts who comprehend what they read. The bottom-up model describes information flow as a series of stages that transforms the input and passes it to the next stage without any feedback or possibility of later stages of the process influencing earlier stages (Stanovich, 1980). In other words, language is viewed as a code and the reader’s main task is to identify graphemes and convert them into phonemes. Consequently, readers are regarded as passive recipients of information in the text. Meaning resides in the text and the reader has to reproduce it. The ESL and EFL textbooks influenced by this perspective include exercises that focus on literal comprehension and give little or no importance to the reader’s knowledge or experience with the subject matter, and the only interaction is with the basic building blocks of sounds and words. Most activities are based on recognition and recall of lexical and grammatical forms with an emphasis on the perceptual and decoding dimension. This model of reading has almost always been under attack as being insufficient and defective for the main reason that it relies on the formal features of the language, mainly words and structure. Although it is possible to accept this rejection for the fact that there is over-reliance on structure in this view, it must be confessed that knowledge of linguistic features is also necessary for comprehension to take place. To counteract over-reliance on form in the traditional view of reading, the cognitive view was introduced 2. The Cognitive View (top-down processing) In the 1960s a paradigm shift occurred in the cognitive sciences. Behaviorism became somewhat discredited as the new cognitive theory represented the mind’s innate capacity for learning, which gave new explanatory power to how humans acquired their first language; this also had a tremendous impact on the field of ESL/EFL as psycholinguists explained â€Å"how such internal representations of the foreign language develop within the learner’s mind† (Omaggio, 1993: 57). Ausubel (cited in Omaggio, 1993: 58), made an important distinction between meaningful learning and rote learning. An example of rote learning is simply memorizing lists of isolated words or rules in a new language, where the information becomes temporary and subject to loss. Meaningful learning, on the other hand, occurs when new information is presented in a relevant context and is related to what the learner already knows, so that it can be easily integrated into one’s existing cognitive structure. A learning that is not meaningful will not become permanent. This emphasis on meaning eventually informed the top-down approach to L2 learning, and in the 1960s and 1970s there was an explosion of teaching methods and activities that strongly considered the experience and knowledge of the learner. These new cognitive and top-down processing approaches revolutionized the conception of the way students learn to read (Smith, 1994). In this view, reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading. In this sense, reading is a dialogue between the reader and the text which involves an active cognitive process in which the reader’s background knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney and Pearson, 1994). Reading is not a passive mechanical activity but purposeful and rational, dependent on the prior knowledge and expectations of the reader. It is not merely a matter of decoding print to sound but also a matter of making sense of written language (Smith, 1994: 2). In short, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game, a process in which readers sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, make new hypotheses, and so forth. Schema Theory Another theory closely related to top-down processing called schema theory also had a major impact on reading instruction. It describes in detail how the background knowledge of the learner interacts with the reading task and illustrates how a student’s knowledge and previous experience with the world is crucial to deciphering a text. The ability to use this schemata, or background knowledge, plays a fundamental role in one’s trial to comprehend a text. Schema theory is based on the notion that past experiences lead to the creation of mental frameworks that help a reader make sense of new experiences. Smith (1994: 14) callsschemes the â€Å"extensive representations of more general patterns or regularities that occur in our experience†. For instance one’s generic scheme of an airplane will allow him to make sense of airplane he has not previously flied with. This means that past experiences will be related to new experiences, which may include the knowledge of â€Å"objects, situations, and events as well as knowledge of procedures for retrieving, organizing and interpreting information† (Kucer, 1987: 31). Anderson (1994: 469) presents research showing that recall of information in a text is affected by the reader’s schemata and explains that â€Å"a reader comprehends a message when he is able to bring to mind a schema that gives account of the objects and events described in the message†. Comprehension is the process of â€Å"activating or constructing a schema that provides a coherent explanation of objects and events mentioned in a discourse† (Anderson, 1994: 473). For Anderson and Pearson (1988: 38), comprehension is the interaction between old and new information. They emphasize: â€Å"To say that one has comprehended a text is to say that she has found a mental ‘home’ for the information in the text, or else that she has modified an existing mental home in order to accommodate that new information†. Therefore, a learner’s schemata will restructure itself to accommodate new information as that information is added to the system (Omaggio, 1993) Content and formal schemata Schema theorists differentiate formal schemata (knowledge about the structure of a text) from content schemata (knowledge about the subject matter of a text), and a reader’s prior knowledge of both schemata enables him to predict events and meaning as well as to infer meaning from a wider context. Formal schemata refers to the way that texts differ from one another; for example, a reading text could be a fictional work, a letter to the editor, or a scientific essay, and each genre will have a different structural organization. Knowledge of these genre structures can aid reading comprehension, as it gives readers a basis for predicting what a text will be like (Smith 1994). For example, if a reader knows that the typical format of a research article consists of sections subtitled Introduction, Theoretical Basis, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion, that knowledge will facilitate their interaction with the article and boost  comprehension. On the other hand, if he is not familiar with this formal schema, teaching it to him could lead to improved reading ability with lasting and beneficial effects. Content schemata refers to the message of the text. One’s familiarity with the content will make more productive and efficient. As Anderson (1994: 469) explains, â€Å"a reader comprehends a message when he is able to bring to mind a schema that gives account of the objects and events described in the message†. Activating and building schemata  Since the reader plays a fundamental role in the construction of meaning, his age, gender, experience, and culture are important considerations for teachers who want to select readings that will motivate their students. Anderson (1994) notes that when readers cannot locate a schema that fits a text, they may find it incomprehensible. In some cases readers may not have a schema that is significant to the text, or they may need help to activate the pertinent schema to be able to comprehend the text. In such cases it may not be possible for the reader to understand the text, and the teacher must be ready to engage in â€Å"building new background knowledge as well as activating existing background knowledge† (Carrell, 1988: 248). In parallel with this, Bransford (1994) points out that difficulties in comprehension may be caused by the lack of background knowledge presumed by the text, and he sees the responsibility of instructors as being twofold: to activate preexisting schemata and to help students to integrate isolated â€Å"parcels† of knowledge into a schema or to build a new one. If the texts to be read contain a cultural context that is different from the student’s, the issues of formal and content schemata become even more important. McDonough (1995), explains that, to a higher extent, this is the reason why ESL and EFL students find it difficult to read in a second language with texts that contain cultural assumptions of the target culture. They may lack the culture-specific background knowledge necessary to process the text in a top-down manner. His reports on several studies demonstrate how people outside a given culture may misunderstand events with unfamiliar cultural connotations. (Students from different cultural backgrounds taking standardized tests which assume common schemata for will also face the same problem. ) Applying schema theory to L2 reading Based on the aforementioned ideas, it is obvious that in order to teach reading effectively, the teacher’s role to activate and build schemata is paramount. To achieve it, he should in advance select texts that are relevant to the students’ needs, preferences, individual differences, and cultures in order to provide meaningful texts so the students understand the message, which entails activating existing schemata and helping build new schemata. Then, after selecting the text, he needs to do the following three stages of activities to activate and build the students’ schemata. (1) Pre-reading activities, in which the teacher have students think, write, and discuss everything they know about the topic, employing techniques such as prediction, semantic mapping, and reconciled reading. The objective is to make sure that students have the relevant schema for understanding the text. (2)During-reading activities, in which the teacher guide and monitor the interaction between the reader and the text. One important skill teachers can impart at this stage is note-taking, which allows students to compile new vocabulary and important information and details, and to summarize information and record their reactions and opinions. (3)Post-reading activities which facilitate the chance to evaluate students’ adequacy of interpretation, while bearing in mind that accuracy is relative and that â€Å"readership† must be respected as long as the writer’s intentions are addressed (Tierney and Pearson, 1994). Post-reading activities focus on a wide range of questions that allow for different interpretations. While schema activation and building can occur in all three stages, the pre-reading stage deserves special attention since it is here, during the students’ initial contact with the text, where their schemata will be activated. Pre-reading activities Pre-reading activities is aimed to activate existing schemata, build new schemata, and provide information to the teacher about what the students know. In their report on the positive effect various pre-reading activities had on reading comprehension, Chen and Graves (1995, 664), define them as â€Å"devices for bridging the gap between the text’s content and the reader’s schemata†. Various activities and materials can help the teacher introduce key vocabulary and reinforce concept association to activate both formal and content schemata. Formal schemata will be activated by employing devices such as advance organizers and overviews to draw attention to the structure of a text. The content schemata will be activated by using various pre-reading activities to help learners brainstorm and predict how the information fits in with their previous knowledge. One of the most important pre-reading activities proposed by schematic theorists isprediction. According to Goodman (1988: 16), prediction is important because â€Å"the brain is always anticipating and predicting as it seeks order and significance in sensory inputs†. Smith (1994, 19–20) defines prediction as â€Å"the prior elimination of unlikely alternatives†. According to him, predictions are questions the readers ask the world and comprehension is receiving the answers. He emphasizes that it is prediction that makes skilled readers effective when reading texts that contain familiar subject matter. â€Å"Prediction brings potential meaning to texts, reducing ambiguity and eliminating in advance irrelevant alternatives. Thus, we are able to generate comprehensible experience from inert pages of print† (Smith 1994, 18). Another pre-reading activity is previewing, where students look at titles, headings, andpictures, and read the first few paragraphs and the last paragraph; these activities can then help students understand what the text is about by activating their formal and content schemata and making them familiar with the topic before they begin reading in earnest. Semantic mapping is another pre-reading activity that Carrell, Pharis, and Liberto (1989: 651) describe as a useful way to pre-teach vocabulary and to â€Å"provide the teacher with an assessment of the students’ prior knowledge or schema availability on the topic†. This activity asks students to brainstorm about the reading topic as the information is displayed on a graphic â€Å"map. † As students make associations, the map becomes a thorough summary of the concepts and vocabulary that they will encounter in the reading. It can also help build schemata and vocabulary that students do not yet possess. Again, it is important to know something about the students so the selected texts contain the type of material that is likely to be familiar and interesting to them. Reutzel (1985) proposes another type of pre-reading activity called reconciled readinglesson, which reverses the sequence presented by many textbooks where the text is followed by questions. Instead, the teacher develops pre-reading questions from the questions that appear at the end of the reading. Smith (1994) criticizes comprehension exercises presented at the end of a reading because they are like memory tests. He argues that using prior knowledge efficiently contributes to fluent readers, and he believes that there is a reciprocal relationship between visual and non-visual (prior knowledge) information; the more the readers have of the latter, the less they need of the former. Although not all the post-reading questions can be easily turned into pre-reading ones, this strategy can be invaluable to activate schemata. 3. The metacognitive view According to Block (1992), there is now no more debate on â€Å"whether reading is a bottom-up, language-based process or a top-down, knowledge-based process. † It is also no more problematic to accept the influence of background knowledge on readers. Research has gone even further to define the control executed by readers on their trial to understand a text. This control is what Block has referred to as meta-cognition. In the context of reading, meta-cognition involves thinking about what one is doing while reading. Strategic readers do not only sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, and make new hypotheses while reading. They also involve many activities along the process of reading, whose stages can be divided into three, i. e.before reading, while reading, and after reading. The activities the readers involve before reading are to identify the purpose of the reading, identify the form or type of the text. In the second stage (while reading), they think about the general character and features of the form or type of the text—such as trying to locate a topic sentence and follow supporting details toward a conclusion, project the author’s purpose for writing the text, choose, scan, or read in detail, make continuous predictions about what will occur next based on information obtained earlier, prior knowledge, and conclusions obtained within the previous stages. Finally, in the last stage, they attempt to form a summary, conclude, or make inference of what was read. Guidelines for Effective Teaching of Reading After discussing the ideas and concepts presented in the three reading theories, we are now on the position of arranging tips and guidelines for implementing a theory of reading which will help to develop our learner’s abilities. These tips are arranged in three sections which are parallel with the three consecutive reading stages: before reading, during reading, and after reading. Pre-Reading Tips Before the actual act of reading a text begins, some points should be regarded in order to make the process of reading more comprehensible. First, teachers need to make sure that the texts to read contain words and grammatical structures familiar to the learners. If the texts contain unfamiliar vocabulary, teachers can introduce key vocabulary in pre-reading activities that focus on language awareness, such as finding synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, or associated words. Second, teachers should make sure that the topics of texts chosen are in accordance with the age range, interests, sex, and background culture of the students for whom they are intended. If they are not, it is necessary to provide the necessary background information to the reader to facilitate comprehension. This activity could be carried out by letting the class members brainstorm ideas about the meaning of a title or an illustration and discuss what they know. The followings are some activities teacher can use during the pre-reading stage. These activities will not take a very long time to carry out. However, they are very effective in overcoming the common urge to start reading a text closely right away from the beginning. 1. Teacher-directed pre-reading, in which some key vocabulary, ideas in the text, and the type of the text are explained. In this approach the teacher directly explains the information the students will need, including key concepts, important vocabulary, and appropriate conceptual framework. The text types are also necessary to introduce because texts may take on different forms and hold certain pieces of information in different places. The students’ familiarity with the types of the text they are reading will develop their understanding of the layout of the material. Such familiarity will, in turn, enable them to focus more deeply on the parts that are more densely compacted with information. Even paying attention to the year of publication of a text, if applicable, may aid the reader in presuppositions about the text as can glancing at the name of the author. 1. Interactive activities, in which the teacher leads a discussion in which he/she draws out the information students already have and interjects additional information deemed necessary  to an understanding of the text to be read. Moreover, the teacher can make explicit links between prior knowledge and important information in the text. 1. Reflective activities, in which students are guided to make themselves aware of the purpose and goal for reading a certain piece of written material. At the beginning stages this can be done by the teacher, but as the reader becomes more mature this strategy can be left to the readers. For instance, the students may be guided to ask themselves,â€Å"Why am I reading this text? What do I want to do or know after finished reading this? Being aware of their purpose and goal to read, later—in during reading activities—they can determine what skill(s) to employ: skimming, scanning, reading for details, or critical reading During-reading tips The activities carried out in during-reading stage consist of taking notes, reacting, predicting, selecting significant information, questioning the writer’s position, evaluating, and placing a text within one’s own experience. These processes may be the most complex to develop in a classroom setting, the reason being that in English reading classes most attention is often paid to dictionaries, the text, and the teacher. The followings are tips that encourage active reading. Practicing them will help the students be active readers. 1. Making predictions: The students should be taught to be on the watch to predict what is going to happen next in the text to be able to integrate and combine what has come with what is to come. 2. Making selections: Readers who are more proficient read selectively, continually making decisions about their reading. 3. Integrating prior knowledge: The schemata that have been activated in the pre-reading section should be called upon to facilitate comprehension. 4. Skipping insignificant parts: A good reader will concentrate on significant pieces of information while skipping insignificant pieces. 5. Re-reading: Students should be encouraged to become sensitive to the effect of reading on their comprehension. 6. Making use of context or guessing: Students should not be encouraged to define and understand every single unknown word in a text. Instead they should learn to make use of context to guess the meaning of unknown words. 7. Breaking words into their component parts: To keep the process of comprehension ongoing, efficient readers analyze unfamiliar words by break them into their affixes or bases. These parts can help them guess the meaning of a word. 8. Reading in chunks: To ensure reading speed, students should get used to reading groups of words together. This act will also enhance comprehension by focusing on groups of meaning-conveying symbols simultaneously. 9. Pausing: Good readers will pause at certain places while reading a text to absorb and internalize the material being read and sort out information. 10. Paraphrasing: While reading texts, it may be necessary to paraphrase and interpret texts sub-vocally in order to verify what was comprehended. 11. Monitoring: Good readers monitor their understanding to evaluate whether the text, or the reading of it, is meeting their goals. After-reading tips 12. Post-reading activities basically depend on the purpose of reading and the type of information extracted from the text. Barnett (1988) states that post-reading exercises first check students’ comprehension and then lead students to a deeper analysis of the text. In the real world the purpose of reading is not to memorize an author’s point of view or to summarize text content, but rather to see into another mind, or to engage new information with what one already knows. Group discussion will help students focus on information they did not comprehend, or did comprehend correctly. Accordingly, attention will be focused on processes that lead to comprehension or miscomprehension. 13. Generally speaking, post-reading can take the form of these various activities: (1) discussing the text: written/oral, (2) summarizing: written/oral, (3) making questions: written/oral, (3) answering questions: written/oral, (4) filling in forms and charts (5) writing reading logs (6) completing a text, (7) listening to or reading other related materials, and (7) role-playing. RESEARCHED BY: FARNAIDA L. ABUBACAR, MAT-ENGLISHJULY 01, 2011.

Buoyancy of an Orange: Analysis

Buoyancy of an Orange: Analysis Joseph Wong Brendan Mullins Nathan Shoemaker Mike Dorazio Abdul Aldualeg Guillermo Venancio Buoyancy is the upward force from the water needed to stay afloat. Since pressure increases with depth, there is a higher pressure and the bottom of the volume of fluid than the top. The pressure difference results in a net force that will accelerate an object upward. The magnitude of the force is proportional to the pressure difference and is equal to the weight of the displaced fluid, which is a property explained in Archimedes’ Principle. The first person to realize a concept that related to buoyant forces was Archimedes. Archimedes stated the basic concept of buoyant forces in his famous Archimedes’ Principle, which states that the weight of the fluid that anybody displaces when submerged either partially or fully, is equal to the buoyant force exerted on said body. This buoyant force is what allows any object to float on the surface of any liquid as long as the buoyant force is large enough of counter the weight of the object; otherwise, it will sink. A good example of this principle is a floating aircraft carrier. Although the ship is made out of heavy steel, it is constructed so that there is a large amount of open space in it to stay afloat. In addition, what determines whether the object is heavier than the buoyant force is its density. Density, by definition, is the mass of the object per unit volume that the object takes up and is denoted by the Greek letter Ï  (rho). Since the buoyant force is equal to the weight of the water displaced by the object, if the submerged object is denser than the water, it will sink because it has a greater weight than the water displaced. In this experiment, we test this theory buy using a common orange. One can think of the peel of an orange like a life jacket that might keep you afloat while in the river. The density indicates how close the atoms of the object are packed together. In the case of an orange, the atoms of the peel are not packed near as closely as the actual fruit, causing it to float when the unpeeled orange is placed in the water. This project involves two oranges, weighing approximately 0.49 pounds each. When dropped in water, it can be observed that both oranges float when they are unpeeled. In an orange, the peel is a spongy material and has tiny pockets of air, which makes the density of orange less than the density of the water, in turn, causing it to float. When the second orange is peeled and dropped in water, it sinks to the bottom of the container. This simple experiment is a great way to demonstrate buoyancy and density. The orange is enclosed in a porous rind, which has a spongy look and feel and contains air pockets, which help to provide buoyancy to the floating orange. When the unpeeled orange is put into the water then the air pockets of the rind fill themselves with air, the submerged orange is activated as a life jacket, the orange is saved from drowning into the water, and it floats on the surface. The similar concept is used in the life jackets, which help the humans to stay afloat in the waters. All the people riding on the boats or travelling in the sea are educated and advised to have a Personal Floating Device (PFD) with them so that in case of emergencies they can be save d from any kind of mishap. It is very interesting to note here that most of the deaths that occur on the waters are not far away from the shore but they occur quite near the shore, on the inland waters within a radius of about a 50 m from the shore due to the sheer negligence of the swimmers because of their insistence on not wearing a life jacket. The thing to note here is that the efficiency and the coverage of the state on the waters is so amazing that the state does not allow any passenger on the waters to stay on board without a life jacket. There is an exemption to the passengers if they are staying in the cabin or any other closed place on a boat. The state offers a guidebook for the travelers and the passengers on the waters and it clearly states and advises the presence and wearing life jackets so no loss of any kind or any other harm can take place. So, what is in a life jacket that it has become a serious part of any passenger’s life that commences his trip on the waters? The life jacket provides the extra buoyancy needed for the person to stay afloat and save himself from drowning. The life jacket is filled with air on the inner side, which helps to control the relationship b/w the buoyant force and that of the person floating. It helps to carry the weight of the person floating above the water so that his or her weight does not become a serious concern and drowns the person. Gone are the times when one would have to wear inflated life jackets that were also heavy and bulky and were also a problem for the person to wear and be comfortable with it, with each passing day the scientists are very much concerned about the welfare and well-being of the people so they are developing new up to the mark jackets that are easy to wear, inflate themselves in water, are very comfortable with huge arm outlets to ease the movement in the waters. Nowadays one has to ensure the presence of different personal floating devices for different purposes i.e. for inland water use, for staying on board, for float purposes. The life jacket is not a fit for all object, it is to be chosen for people of different ages and sizes. It provides inflation according to the buoyant force needed for the person to stay afloat. One of the biggest advantages of having a life jacket is that it comes in shiny colors that are visible for the rescue staff and it is easier for them to save the drowning or in danger person. On board staff are advised to have some floating aid for the people drowning in the waters so that they can provide support to them in the hour of need and can save a human life with the instant aid. The state ensures that all the people must have some sort of floating aid and for that, the lifeguards as well as the coast guards are advised to ensure the usage of the life jackets and their presence on the boat. Caring about the life jacket is a very important part. The life jacket that is not in a good shape and is torn or have some cuts on it can be of great danger to the user as it can cause the drowning so the life jacket must be properly checked and it should be ensured that they work properly before someone takes a dive into the waters. The safety of the person depends a lot on the reliability of the device that is being employed to save the person from drowning. The basic thing needed for the proper use of the life jackets and their importance in saving the lives of many is conveying the proper education and information to the people on board and to those venturing the waters for any reason whatsoever. The lifeguards and the coast guards should give proper lessons to all the people around the waters. They should arrange a session for all the people that are new to the waters so that their lives can be saved by just a simple precaution of wearing a life jacket. It is easier to save so many just by educating them because every life matters. It can be summarized as the buoyant force generated in case of an orange residing on the surface of the water is basically given by the rind of the fruit which has air pockets and when the fruit is submerged into the water then air pockets are full and the necessary buoyant force is applicable to the weight of the orange and it stays afloat. Life jackets are a useful part of the people travelling on shore and it has to stay with them in the hour of need so that they can save themselves from any difficulty on staying above water or any other danger of drowning. There should be education concerning the proper use of the personal assistance device which helps is saving lives. In addition, the people associated with the business should be given proper instruction to ensure the use of the device. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/water-sports/life-jacket1.htm http://www.ehow.com/info_12045878_science-projects-kids-floating-oranges.html

The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell :: Essays Papers

The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell Character Analysis Sir Gawain is one of the more famous Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legends. Various authors have written about Gawain including the anonymous author of "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell." The reader gets to know Gawain’s character through its development throughout the story. Gawain shows his virtue and courteous manner through his words and also through his actions. His physical appearance and dress are never mentioned so there are no clues to his personality in this regard. Gawain’s steadfast manner in the face of adversity is further testament to his worthiness as a knight. The first glimpse we have of Gawain in the story is shortly after King Arthur returns from his hunt. Gawain is the only person to whom Arthur confides his misadventure with Sir Gromer Somer Jour. Arthur’s apparent trust of Gawain to carry his burden proves that he trusts Gawain’s counsel and that Gawain will be discreet about the king’s troubles. Gawain enforces this belief when he says, "I am not that man that wold you dishonor / Nother by evin ne by moron"(329). In contrast to Arthur who breaks his oath to Sir Gromer that "I shold nevere telle it to no wighte"(331) by hoisting his problems on another, Gawain’s character exhibits a more honorable disposition by immediately offering his assistance. The juxtaposition of these two contrasting characters, namely Arthur and Gawain, serves to display each of their attributes in a clearer, more defined light. Even though Arthur does not necessarily act in a cowardly manner, neither does he measure up to Gawainâ €™s virtuous nature. After Arthur’s encounter with Dame Ragnell later in the story, he returns to his home even more discouraged than when he set out. Gawain, upon meeting with the dejected king, swears that "I had lever myself be dead, so not I thee"(335) when he hears Arthur’s foreboding prophesy that he will surely die. Gawain backs up his loyalty not only with mere words but with his actions as well. When faced with the prospect of taking a hideous wife to save his lord’s life, Gawain does not hesitate but says that he will "†¦wed her and wed her again, / Thoughe she were a fend, / Though she were as foulle as Belsabub, / Her shall I wed, by the rood, / Or ellses were not I your frende"(335).

On the Way - Fiction :: Papers

On the Way - Fiction It was a cold windy night in the mid December of 1941. The snow was falling slowly down the footpath while George was walking home. He was wearing a his big brown coat and a brown hat. George lived in a small wooden house which be built by himself in the forest. George lived alone by himself since his parents left him. He was living away from the world and he didn't know what was happening around him, and he had no idea about the fascism which was in the grip of the world. He was a grown man and he could care for himself, but the loneliness was his problem. His only friends, Mr and Mrs Muller were living a few miles away from him. One day when George was in the forest hunting for food, he heard a women's scream and horses coming to him. George jumped into the bush next to him and waited. He pointed his gun to the direction where the noise was coming from. They were getting closer. Suddenly a Jewish women passed by being chased by two military men in horses. The woman was frightened to death for her life. One of the men in horses pointed his shotgun at her and shot her in the leg. "Should I leave her die here?", said the horseman. "No, she might come back to the city again. Lets finish her here and now!", answered the other horseman and pointed his gun into her head. George was frightened and terrified, he couldn't watch a woman being murdered in front of him. He fired to one of the evil person that was aiming to the poor woman and killed him. The other horseman ran, he was afraid for loosing his life. The girl was dressed like a tramp, with long brown dirty trousers, a sweater with ripped sleeves and old dirty shoes. George went out of the bush and asked the woman: "Who are you, why are they running after you?" The woman answered, "My name is Isabel.

The Black Cat: A Comparison Between The Movie And The Book :: essays research papers

The Black Cat: A Comparison Between The Movie and The Book   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are major differences between the film we saw in class and The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe. The film had added effects to get the viewer's attention. The film also let out important parts that were in the short story. The short story gave the reader a better background for character analysis. Although the story was much more enticing because the reader knew the main character better.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the short story the man(abusive husband) is described as a loving and caring husband, who is very fond of animals. He describes to the reader how his obsession with alcohol is like a disease. He gets more irritable everyday because his cravings for alcohol become greater and greater. He was often physically abusive to his wife. One night the man came home very drunk and violent so Pluto(the black cat) scratched him out of fear. then the man lost his temper and cut out the cat's eye with his penknife. One morning the man hanged the cat from a tree limb with a noose around its neck. That night his house burnt to the ground. In the morning he found a petrified white cat with a rope around its neck in the charred remains. A few days later the man saw a black cat with a white chest and he liked it so much he let the cat follow him home. The cat made itself at home but the man avoided it because of a sense of shame for his former deed. The next day the man noticed that the cat was missing an eye just as Pluto. His wife pointed out that the white spot on its chest resembled the Gallows! The cat made the man trip in his basement one day. So he picked up an ax to kill the cat, and his wife stepped in the way and he put the ax through her brains. The man decided to hide the body and the cat behind a bricked up wall in the basement. The police came and looked at everything. Just before they left, they heard a noise from the basement wall. So they tore the bricks down. Thus they discovered the body and the black cat.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The film hints that the man was once a loving and caring husband. The wife told her husband he was not the same man she married. The film shows how the alcohol made the man abuse his wife for more drinking money. There is no The Black Cat: A Comparison Between The Movie And The Book :: essays research papers The Black Cat: A Comparison Between The Movie and The Book   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are major differences between the film we saw in class and The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe. The film had added effects to get the viewer's attention. The film also let out important parts that were in the short story. The short story gave the reader a better background for character analysis. Although the story was much more enticing because the reader knew the main character better.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the short story the man(abusive husband) is described as a loving and caring husband, who is very fond of animals. He describes to the reader how his obsession with alcohol is like a disease. He gets more irritable everyday because his cravings for alcohol become greater and greater. He was often physically abusive to his wife. One night the man came home very drunk and violent so Pluto(the black cat) scratched him out of fear. then the man lost his temper and cut out the cat's eye with his penknife. One morning the man hanged the cat from a tree limb with a noose around its neck. That night his house burnt to the ground. In the morning he found a petrified white cat with a rope around its neck in the charred remains. A few days later the man saw a black cat with a white chest and he liked it so much he let the cat follow him home. The cat made itself at home but the man avoided it because of a sense of shame for his former deed. The next day the man noticed that the cat was missing an eye just as Pluto. His wife pointed out that the white spot on its chest resembled the Gallows! The cat made the man trip in his basement one day. So he picked up an ax to kill the cat, and his wife stepped in the way and he put the ax through her brains. The man decided to hide the body and the cat behind a bricked up wall in the basement. The police came and looked at everything. Just before they left, they heard a noise from the basement wall. So they tore the bricks down. Thus they discovered the body and the black cat.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The film hints that the man was once a loving and caring husband. The wife told her husband he was not the same man she married. The film shows how the alcohol made the man abuse his wife for more drinking money. There is no

Chicano Studies Paper

The United States, a place associated with hope, equal opportunity and freedom also faces many underlying issues. The idea of this â€Å"perfect† country has been corrupted with problems such as immigration, growing class division and most prominently the 2007 recession. These burdens have prevented people from living the â€Å"American Dream†, a concept that our country has over glorified. The root of these ongoing problems has not been properly addressed, preventing our nation from making any progress.Looking closely at the continuous problems that the Unites States has and still faces, it is viable to say that these issues revolve around capitalism. The novel, The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar illustrates how immigrants like Araceli are victimized due to unresolved issues with money and the recession. When Araceli is prosecuted for abusing and kidnapping the Torres-Thompson children, the case eventually transitions into an issue with immigration. As the case ga ins media attention people like Ian Goller and Janet Bryson express resentment toward Araceli.Within Araceli, Goller and Bryson saw a representation of immigrants, who in their mind were to blame for the issues that had erupted in â€Å"their† country, such as the everlasting recession. Janet Bryson exemplifies this anger and bitterness when she boldly states: â€Å"To those who want to point out how much these illegal immigrants [†¦] contribute to their society [.. ] Look at our full prisons, our higher insurance rates, our lowering education standards†(325). Bryson and Goller’s actions symbolize the result of capitalism, the true villain within the novel.Capitalism has never been fully recognized as the true cause for many of the problems the U. S has faced causing immigrants like Araceli to be used as scapegoats for issues they had little influence in causing. As a result, capitalism can be seen as the barbarian in the novel, which in turn leads to barba ric actions on behalf of people like Goller and Bryson, against immigrants like Araceli who are innocently trying to secure a better life for themselves in the United States.I personally found it appalling that even after Araceli was found innocent for harming and kidnapping of the Thompson kids, Goller had the audacity to try and prosecute and deport Araceli: â€Å"Your honor before you adjourn, [.. ] there is also the matter of the defendant’s immigration status† (408). These never ending accusations that immigrants have to carry, prevent them from reaching that better life that they work so hard to one day achieve in the Unites States. In the end Araceli is unjustly forced to escape and essentially start a new life from scratch due to the negative associations that an immigrant label carriers.In the film A Better Life, capitalism is also a hidden factor to many of the conflicts that are portrayed throughout the film. The film depicts Carlos, a hardworking immigrant worker striving to do all he possibly can to create a better life for him and his son. This proves to be easier said than done as Carlos’ continuous efforts backfire and he ends up getting deported. The driving force behind his inability to reach the better life he so desperately desires is capitalism.Passion and motivation can be seen within Carlos’ optimism and spirit when he says: â€Å"This country is a land of dreams, it can be a hard place, a cruel place, but it’s where I work and I dream for a better place for my son†. Unfortunately his drive is not enough to move up economically which is the key to sustaining a better living. Even when hope is created through the purchase of a truck, his gateway to living the American dream is quickly shattered when his truck is stolen by Santiago, another immigrant worker.The injustice that he had faced when getting his truck stolen led me to resent Santiago, but I later realized that he was going through his own hardships in trying to live out his own American Dream. The darkness of capitalism had led him to a desperate barbaric action, emphasizing the want for a better life as a universal battle. Capitalism further acts as a catalyst in the film as seen through Carlos unstable living in a run down neighborhood, preventing his son Luis from getting getting the proper education he deserves and needs to accomplish a better future.The probability of his son ending up in the same oppressive situation as him becomes very probable, causing doubts of the possibility of ever reaching success. This never ending cycle of constant input with no output leads to the devastating realization that this idea of a better life may be unattainable. This understanding is described by Celo who chose to face the reality of his limited opportunities by joining a gang: â€Å"They either lock us out or lock us up†. This makes me stop and realize that there is a reason behind all of the â€Å"bad† deci sions that people make, sometimes it’s becomes their only option.At the end of the film, a better life is not achieved by Carlos, instead he is seen in the desert trying to cross the border, back to the same place that he had started, making one wonder if a better life is even reachable. The 2007 recession, a result of capitalism has also had a personal impact on my family’s lives. Before the recession, my family lived a pretty stable life in a beautiful home that my parents had worked so hard to provide for us. When the recession struck its effects took a toll on my family for several years to come. Around 2009 my mom was laid off from her teaching position, leaving her jobless for over a year.During this time all of the financial responsibilities for the house were left to my dad who did not gain much income as a truck driver. Without any financial help from my mom, money became a huge issue for my family. Letting go of certain luxuries, such as going out to eat freq uently and shopping for new gadgets whenever we pleased became difficult. As payments for the house became more complicated to pay, my parents also started drifting apart. Eventually my dad was unable to make the payments for the house causing us to lose our home as well as deal with the eventual separation of my parents.All of these events led back to the recession which has definitely taken us off the path from living the better life that my parents worked so hard to achieve. Looking back at the successes that my parents have achieved only to be beaten down by the devious recession, I strive to rebuild that â€Å"better life† that we once had, full of unity, happiness, and achievement. Due to these burdens, several years later my family is still dealing with the consequences of an issue that has yet to be dealt with efficiently by the United States.Reaching a better life has become more difficult due to the Unites States’ inability to address a problem that has been plaguing our nation over and over again. This capitalist issue has shattered many hopes and dreams that many hoped to achieve. Life should not be based on lost aspirations but on anticipation for a successful future. Through the text, the novel and my personal experience our nation’s issue with capitalism can be seen as an unchanging factor in our society in both the past and present.Due to our nation’s failure in providing a solution for the problems that capitalism has ensued, its negative effects have come up time and time again. During the 1930’s the Unites States faced an economic depression resulting in a very high unemployment rate. In order to deflect the nation away from the issues the nation was facing, immigrants were targeted for the country’s falling out. The justification for these unjust actions is portrayed in the reader stating that â€Å"The deportation of more Mexicans meant more jobs for real Americans† (147).These unreasonable initiatives that the nation took in order to draw attention away from United State’s real issues, appear to be very similar to the actions taken by the nation in today’s recession. It is due to these continued patterns that reaching for a more stable, successful life has become difficult not only for immigrants but for everyone in the United States trying to make something of themselves. As Sunny Patterson states in her poem, â€Å"Money and power and greed, the game. They suck and devour the souls of the slain†.Patterson highlights how our societies corrupted desire for money and control has selfishly left the rest of the population thirsting for the day they will be able to rebuild the path toward their desired life. It is for these reasons that I believe that our nation is still in the â€Å"dessert† as Patterson suggests, facing the same unresolved problems that have progressively lead to high unemployment, rising tuition for educations, higher costs of living and so on. A positive initiative needs to be taken in order to prevent our nations from getting even worse than it already is.Martin Luther King proposes a solution to this problem when he states: â€Å"We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing oriented society to a person oriented society† (A Time to Break Silence). He suggests that a shift needs to be made from individualistic selfish needs to a population coming together and conquering the nation’s issues in unison. This idea is also suggested by Patterson after addressing all of the abominations that the Unites States has yet to address when she states: â€Å"But come, come children, rally around and maybe together we can make a sound that will shake the trees or rattle the ground†.This simple change of coming together to change a cause is an effortless act that can bring just the right push to in bringing a positive change to our nation. This small yet useful act can be used as a way to express common concerns within a population to bring about the urgently needed change that we need in our nation. It is only through this radical change as King speaks out about that our nation will finally get out of the all too familiar desert that we have revisited over and over again.

International Law Essay

An international legal order is not just a matter of prudence; it is a requirement that derives from a rather essential moral obligation, the (limited) obligation to help ensure that all persons have admittance to institutions that protect their most essential human rights (DJ Harris, 1991). Though, offered international legal order gives a prominent role to states need not consequence in overly conservative conclusions[1]. International law whose major elements must be justice rather than politics based in two senses: (1) justice, understood mainly as respect for basic human rights, serves as the basic vantage point from which to assess the existing international legal system and to originate proposals for improving it; and (2) a recognition of the moral compulsion to help ensure that all persons have access to institutions of justice understood as institutions that care for their basic human rights—supplies the chief moral cause for trying to develop an international legal system directed by the ideal of justice. International law can be stated in the form of four basic theses. (1) Justice has to to be a primary goal of the international legal system, where the major content of justice is supplied by an outset of basic human rights. (2) Legality, both for states (understood as long-term institutional structures) and governments (understood as collections of agents inhabiting key institutional roles) requires a convincing effort to please at least a minimal threshold standard of protection of basic human rights by means that value those same rights. (3) Rights of autonomy are constrained by the claims of legitimacy, and therefore eventually by justice. The right to pull out, understood as the unilateral right or nonconsensual entitlement to seek autonomous statehood by groups currently within the jurisdiction of a state, is a corrective right only, a right that a group comes to have by virtue of importunate and serious violations of the human rights of its members, or of rights given on them by intrastate autonomy agreements, or by virtue of infringement of the rights of legitimate states (as when one state unfairly annexes another). Hence there is no right to separate from a legitimate state with a legitimate government, unless secession is by mutual agreement or constitutional provision. (4) Groups can have legitimate interests in diverse forms of self-determination short of secession without having a right to pull out, and the international legal order ought to give active support for democracy (Katzenstein, Peter, 1996). Recognizing that we ought to use our domestic political resources to hold a system of international law intended to ensure that all persons’ rights are respected is quite companionable with a clear recognition that government has no independent moral status and no independent legitimate interests, but is to be considered strictly as a fiduciary, and that the state is formed for individuals rather than vice versa (Martin Dixon & Robert McCorquodale, 2003). However, the trick is to understand how popular sovereignty in a system of states can be made well-suited with state policy in support of a more just international legal order. The means to seeing how this compatibility can be attained is to realize that popular sovereignty does not mean unlimited sovereignty[2]. Instead, popular sovereignty means simply that the people of a state are the definitive source of political authority within the state and that government is primarily to function as their agent. The degree of the peoples’ sovereignty—including the limits placed on it by international law and the moral limits on how it might be exercised that are imposed by the natural duty of justice—are another matter. According to moderate cosmopolitanism, we do have moral compulsions beyond our own borders, but these are seen as being well-suited with giving special priority to the requirements and interests of our fellow citizens. The view is cosmopolitan as it distinguishes genuine moral obligations to those outside our own polity, and that for this reason the special precedence given to our own polity cannot be absolute. It is reasonable because it rejects the extreme cosmopolitan position that all of our particular obligations, together with our obligations to our fellow citizens, are severely derivative upon our obligations to humanity at large. The shift from the optional association view to recognition of the justice understood as a restrained cosmopolitanism does not end debates concerning whether and how to use our state’s resources to sustain efforts to achieve moral progress in and through international law; it only makes it probable to engage in them. For one thing, there is the exceptionally difficult issue of how much priority we might give to our own interests and how great the costs are that we should bear in helping to protect the rights of those who are not our fellow citizens (Martin Dixon, 1993). One of the most reflective changes that have occurred in the international legal system since the 1960s is that partaking in the processes that specify the content of human rights has been deeply broadened, as membership of the UN became open to all countries, including former colonies. In contrast, all through most of the history of the international legal system, membership was restricted to a handful of Western states. Perhaps even more significant, the significant growth of transnational, nongovernmental organizations increasingly allows for meaningful participation in the development of specifying norms that is not completely controlled by states[3]. There are two motives to welcome these developments. First, broader participation can be apparent to reduce the risk of parochial biases in moral reasoning concerning which rights are truly human rights and how their content is to be tacit The specification of human rights norms that would consequence from a process of operationalization in which the simply participants were Westerners or representatives of Western states might be quite diverse from one in which a broader sampling of humanity participated. Second, quite excepting the fact that broader participation is, other things being equal, more probable to capture effectively the content of norms that are supposed to apply to all human beings, not just to Western Europeans, subjectively restricted participation impugns the legality of the process of operationalization and thereby threatens to weaken the effectiveness of appeals to human rights in the international legal order as a whole. The first benefit of extensive participation is epistemic, the idea being that a system that features broad participation is more expected to result in an accurate requirement of the content of human rights norms; the subsequent concerns procedural justice and its contribution to professed legitimacy, not the quality of the outcome of the process. By attributing the right to be renowned as a legitimate state to a new political entity, the international legal order signals that it is all set to take its place in the system of states, fulfilling the functions that only states have and enjoying the rights, liberties, privileges, and immunities atypical to states. By uncoupling the legitimate interests that diverse groups can have in self-determination from the independent right to secede, and by extrication self-determination from nationality, the international legal order can and must encourage creative departures from the centralized-state; â€Å"unbundled† autonomy paradigm that fuels secession yet virtually never solves the problems that give rise to it. Limitation of the unilateral right to secede to a corrective right would liberate states to consider intrastate autonomy arrangements without getting on a slippery slope toward their own dissolution[4]. Discontent minorities would be expectant to opt for intrastate sovereignty as an alternative to secession by reassuring them of international monitoring of and support for conformity with autonomy agreements in high-risk cases. Dangerously broad references in international legal documents to an international legal right to autonomy should be replaced by clear statements of the independent right to secede as a remedial right only and by language that uncouples the right to pull out from legitimate interests in autonomy and uncouples self-determination and nationality. International law must support the legitimate interests of national minorities by intensification human rights against discrimination and by encouraging states to search forms of intrastate autonomy, rather than by recognizing a â€Å"right of autonomy of peoples† that legitimizes secession by such groups (Samuel Barkin and Bruce Cronin, 1994). International recognition of a unilateral right to intrastate independence in certain special, rather narrow circumstances. First while international law recognizes a group’s right to secede, it must also distinguish the right of the group to opt for intrastate autonomy if it so chooses. Second, while a group (whether it is a nation or not) qualifies on corrective grounds for a unilateral right to disaffiliate but opts instead for intrastate autonomy, the international legal order must recognize its legal right to independence and play a positive role in negotiations to originate an appropriate intrastate autonomy arrangement and must apply appropriate measures to monitor conformity with it. Third, international law must recognize and support intrastate autonomy for indigenous groups when they are desired to rectify serious injustices suffered by such groups. Fourth and finally, where establishment of an intrastate autonomy establishment for a minority is the only way to avert it from suffering large-scale violations of basic human rights, an intrastate autonomy regime can be imposed upon a state through a proper international legal process (Ruggie, John Gerard, 1993). The international legal community must construct a more ethically defensible and practicable international legal practice regarding involvement for the sake of protecting basic human rights, one that does not need Security Council authorization in every instance (under the current arrangement in which each undying member of the Council has a veto). A new practice of intervention, so far as it pertains to secessionist conflicts, should be shaped by and consistent with the remedial right only approach to an international legal right to unilateral secession. Subject to apt constraints that apply to justified humanitarian interventions usually (proportional force, protection of noncombatants, etc.), states must be allowed under international law to mediate to support groups that are known in international law as having the unilateral right to secede, if other means of restoring the group’s grievances have failed or offer little viewpoint of success in a timely manner[5]. Generally speaking, international law must prohibit states from intervening militarily to support secession by groups that are not renowned under international law as having the independent right to secede and should support legitimate states in their efforts to resist illegal secessions. Exceptions to this overview could include cases where the state has endured in using unlawful means of war to restrain an illegal secession (for example, indiscriminate and/or inconsistent military force or efforts to suppress the secession that amount to genocide). References: DJ Harris, Cases and Materials on International Law Fourth Edition, (London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1991). J. Samuel Barkin and Bruce Cronin, â€Å"The State and the Nation: Norms and the Rules of Sovereignty in International Relations†, International Organization 48, 1 (1994): 107-8. Katzenstein, Peter J., ed. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Policies. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Martin Dixon & Robert McCorquodale, Cases and Materials on International Law (4th ed., Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press/Blackstone Press, 2003). Martin Dixon , Textbook on International Law, 2nd ed. ( London: Blackstone Press, 1993). Ruggie, John Gerard. â€Å"Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations.† International Organization 47, no. 1 (1993): 139–174. Foot Notes Slaughter, Anne-Marie, ‘International Law and International Relations Theory: A Dual Agenda’, American Journal of International Law 87 (1993). Teson, Fernando, A Philosophy of International Law (Westview, Boulder, CO, 1998). Rubin, Alfred, Ethics and Authority in International Law (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997). Scheffler, Samuel, ‘Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism’, Utilitas 11 (1999). Kingsbury, Benedict, ‘Sovereignty and Inequality’, European Journal of International Law 9 (1998). [1]   Slaughter, Anne-Marie, ‘International Law and International Relations Theory: A Dual Agenda’, 205-39 [2] Kingsbury, Benedict, ‘Sovereignty and Inequality’, 599-625. [3] Scheffler, Samuel, ‘Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism’, 255-76. [4] Teson, Fernando, A Philosophy of International Law, 78-79. [5] Rubin, Alfred, Ethics and Authority in International Law, 122.