The most interesting elements I found from this reading were where the original historical context to a thesis statement is introduced and how it developed into the modern definition we had for it as a “claim” and “position”. I personally found this reading to be really helpful since writing thesis statements had always one of my greatest weaknesses. Most of the definitions and key concepts pointed out the reading I had been more or less aware of. The information from table provided on page 50 regarding the types of projects that need and doesn’t need a thesis I found to be really helpful as well.

I found this reading to be relatively informative. The way this reading pointed out how not only writings, but also movies, books, music, ad rhetorical situation and context can be of different genres. The list of academic genres listed on page 125 I think is very interesting, because I never thought of all those types of writings to be genres. The face or vase picture I found to be very neat too, because if the book hadn’t mentioned the image to be a vase I would have only seen it as faces. The image really helped illustrated the point to the reading made of how genres with the same features can be approached from different perspectives. The Digital Universe website presented by the reading was completely new for me; I would definitely check it out when working my research paper.

The reading this time, I personally find it to be very useful. Actually it seems almost funny how this reading seems to have targeted almost all of my weaknesses in writing paragraphs. I had always had trouble with writing long paragraphs, including unnecessary details, and making wordy sentences. This reading pointed out the importance of paragraph breaks in providing the readers a break in reading and allowing they to stop and think throughout the readings. It pointed out that unnecessary details tend to bore the readers when the details are repetitive or if the readers are already aware of them.

I thought the reading from this time is helpful in the sense that it organizes all the things we know about writing a successful essay together and summarized the key points to them. The first part about developing a genre to the style of writing seems to be newer for me, because I had never really thought of writing my papers in the forms of genre and how even a single genre can be subdivided into different subgenres. The example it gave us was pretty good I think because for instance when comparing a thesis with a hypothesis, though both of them have similar functions, and while knowing their slight differences, by no means had I ever considered it to be a “genre difference”. The back parts to the readings are more familiar regarding the understanding of ethos, logos, pathos, and the process of inventing, drafting, revising, and editing since we’ve discussed about them in class before.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released on 2005, based on the 1964 Roald Dahl children's fantasy novel. The film was directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket, and is the second film adaptation of the book. Through the setting of the film, it appeared to fit perfectly into the fantasy and perhaps comedy genre. All the magical events and fully imaginative characters throughout the film reinforced its fantasy perspective. Dahl’s touch on several humorous scenes, such as the whipping of cows to produce whipped cream and the television teleport with the oversized chocolate in that the chocolate teleported would turn out small, all added in the comedy aspects.

The movie started out with Willy Wonka, the owner of the Chocolate Factory, laying five Golden Tickets on chocolate bars, which are wrapped with other bars and sent out by trucks across the world. With the possession the Golden Tickets, five children could visit the Chocolate Factory, and in addition to that, one of them would receive a mystery price from Wonka at the end of the tour. The Chocolate Factory was closed down with all its workers fired because of the spies who infiltrated the factory years ago. Then, one day it mysteriously re-opened, though no new workers had been hired.

Soon, through the news, Charlie found out about the four children who found the Golden Tickets as he failed to obtain one through the chocolate bar he received from on his birthday and the one he purchased with Grandpa’s hidden gold coins. At last, Charlie found the last Golden Ticket through the chocolate he purchased with the 10 dollars he found on the floor. Although Charlie initially offered to sell the ticket for money in helping out his family’s financial situation, after Grandpa’s comment on "only a dummy would sell the ticket for something as common as money,” Charlie kept the ticket and chose to have Grandpa go on the factory tour with him.

The next day, the group of children with the Golden Ticket arrived at the Chocolate Factory for the tour and was greeted by a creepy-looking puppet show which later on blew up into flames. But that wasn’t the only catastrophe. Throughout the tour, the four other children were eliminated one by one as they incur a variety of “accidents”. Starting with Augustus who drank and fell into the chocolate river then sucked away by the pipe, Violet was then turned into a blueberry as she ignored Wonka’s warning and continued chewing the experimental gum, Veruca was attacked by squirrels as she tried to capture one from the Nut Sorting Room, and finally Mike was shrank into miniature size as he teleported himself over the television. Each time an accident took place, the Oompa-Loompas would perform a song.

After the elimination of Mike, with Charlie as the only child left, he became the winner and was entitled to receive the mystery prize of the inherence to the Chocolate Factory. Yet, as attractive as the offer sounds, Charlie turned it down because he would not leave his family behind. With that, Charlie and Grandpa went back to their house and continued their usual life. One day, as Charlie encountered Wonka again at the shoe-shinning booth, Charlie urged Wonka to face his past and revisit Wonka’s dentist father. With that visit, Wonka was finally able to overcome his childhood struggle, rebuild the relationship between him and his father, and realize the value of family hood. The movie ended with Charlie's house and family relocated to the Chocolate Factory with Wonka, living happily ever after.

Critics claim for the movie as an “eye candy” of the sweetest sort that attempts to hide its shortcomings with fancy effects. They were disappointed at Burton’s adaption on surrealism into the movie’s setting, eliminating the movie’s intended world of pure imagination, and result of an abundance of irrationality. With acknowledgement of Dahl’s disguised subversion and mocking reflection on modern parenting made his novel all the more potent and surprising, when comparing the two versions of the movie produced, the critics found Burton’s inclusion of the delightful misanthrope to have better captured the original theme of the book than Mel Stuart’s 1971 version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Yet, they were disappointed at the happy ending created by Burton, as it forced this sarcasm apart. As their final suggestion, they declared Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as worth seeing for only once in credit to its phenomenal special effects.

I personally found the movie to be very entertaining and greatly admired the amazing special effects and fabulous acting of Jonny Depp. Having read the book or the original story during middle school, I had my mind set up with an expectation of the movie before I walked into the theater. Through the movie previews and advertisements, I was expecting the movie to be aimed for children. It was really shocking to me when Willy Wonka first appeared with his frightening custom and when the puppets blew up and half melt from the heat. I was also shaken by the terrifying songs put together by the Oompa-Loompas after each accident. Despite these surprises, I still consider this movie to be very compelling and worthwhile, just that perhaps its advertisements were aimed toward a wrong group of audience.

14i Create a Working Annotated Bibliography
After reading this section I think it did help me to get a better idea of how a proper annotated bibliography should be done. But I do think that the example provided by the book of the annotated bibliography written on Simpson’s essay of the serial killers seems too detail and informative. Personally, I would rather have a briefer annotation on the bibliography itself and put the details into bullet points on a separate notes sheet. Because I thought a annotated bibliography should just be providing an overview so as to help us recall what the source was about, and if we need the details for the actual paper we should just refer back to the source itself or the notes taken while analyzing the source…

14j Establish Your Authority on the Subject
I found this reading helpful to the extent that it can help me double check if I am ready to write my paper or not or if I should go out and research more about it. But I don’t think it was very useful in the sense that it didn’t tell me how I can establish my authority on the paper itself, how I can establish my ethos on the actual paper, what I should do to have the readers see my credibility and become more interested in the subject in question.

I feel like this time’s reading mostly reinforces the ideas from the last reading of to read critically and to interact with the text. I found it kind of interesting how it pointed out that we need to read the texts as an argument whether if the paper is an argumentative essay, written for entertainment, or to inform. It then further emphasized on the importance for the readers to identify the author’s intensions and match them with us reader’s expectations. In closing, I do think this reading is useful, but perhaps just not as useful as the last piece since it mostly only briefly went over the critical reading skills introduced from last time.

Most of the information presented from this time’s reading s again, more or less known to us from prior education. I had been taught over and over before to engage with reading through annotation and note taking, skimming and rereading, and summarizing, though I had also been told that highlighting isn’t as effective, but I guess perhaps compare to nothing it is still some level of engagement. The reading introduced couple of new strategies to help me stay engaged with the reading including forming expectations and evaluating underlying assumptions. The most fascinating element found from the reading was how it distinguished facts from opinions and beliefs. It also taught us how to evaluate each piece of information to find out if they are really facts or just opinions and beliefs. The writer’s intensions also need to be factored into consideration as we are reading, leading to the end of the assignment’s with the familiar terms of ethos, logos, and pathos.

I thought the reading was pretty useful and straight to the point, especially true now that we have a research paper coming up. It brought out many key strategies that would help us with our researches. Although some of these strategies such as defining terms, searching through key words, locating sources through the encyclopedia and other sources’ works cited list, and taking notes in process of brainstorming information I sort of knew already prior to the reading, it was still nice to have them refreshed again. I found it also interesting that the reading pointed out Wikipedia as a possible opening source when through prior schooling I’ve been taught to not use. But I guess it made sense to have Wikipedia as a “stepping stone” when launching the search at first while not using it as an end point for research. The most helpful knowledge I got from this reading is perhaps the sources and sites it introduced such as the Google bibliography search engine that I never knew existed before.

I found this reading to be very interesting. Perhaps it was because of its presentation in the form of a first-person narrative perspective. Clarissa began the story with her family’s background and the characteristics to each of the family members. It was evident that there is a gender difference between the status hierarchy of male and female in the family. It was said that her brothers were provided with chances for better education and prevented from doing what her father refer to as “sissy” works such as house chores and baby-sitting. But even so, Clarissa’s family, along with other blacks in the community, appeared to have suffered tremendously from racial segregation and bias. Clarissa pointed out that although both of her parents had received high school education but were still not permitted into some of the occupations with much lower requirements for the whites. Her parents do hold high pride in their ability though, with her father feeling undermined when seeing his fellow black coworkers being bossed around by whites. Her mother had taken great pride in her children, participated actively in NAACP meetings, and constantly hoping the best for Clarissa’s future.

I found Clarissa’s analysis on the picture of the article to be very profound. I feel that she really did a fantastic job in putting meaning to all the details including the lighting, proportion, size, location, and relevance of the images. I was also really amazed by how the reporter can alter the interview and the facts by such great extent. It was really great that Clarissa decided to become a photographer too by the end due to the inspiration from the interview.