Dion's English Journal

1) freedom of speach is the idea that publicaly and through the media , we can say what we want about any race religion or ethnicity as long as there is no physical contact

2)q

Dear Ms Samantha Taylor,

                                           After reading your article about the digital age is making teenagers uniquely shallow and the kids are unable to form meaningful relationships, I have come to a conclusion that I am not entirely sure that the points of people like Franzen and Louis C.K are entirely agreeable with. The authors first argument is something that most people should disagree with. This is because the digital age can also bring joy and create meaningful relationships. There may still be teenagers who are like what they have stated but those teenagers can be like that because of their real social life. Most people who are uniquely shallow seem to have had a bad online social. The points these authors have stated in your article also states that kids are turning into Emoticon-addled zombies. I completely disagree with this because of the fact that firstly; they have selected a very small amount of people to conduct this social experiment on. Secondly; Most of the people who the authors happen to call ‘Emoticon-addled zombies’ are mainly of the ages 10-14. The only reason I have stated this fact is because most children nowadays are handling more technology than they should have. Most girls under the age of 13 have started to open instagram accounts and started to post selfies and their current age. I would agree that Snapchat and Instagram are two key examples of companies that need to set an age limit for sign up but social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are not only used for socialising with one another across the world or down the street, they can be used for learning as well. For example a student may have not been in school for a day and might have missed out on crucial knowledge for an exam. However this can also be a really negative thing in the world.

Today there are people like a man named Trevor Monk who are all paedophiles. Trevor Monk boasted about how he groomed girls under the age of 13 on social media. People like him tend to start talking to young girls around the age of 13 or young boys even, and they pretend to be a young boy or girl. By doing this they start to create a ’emotional bond’ with the teenager they are talking to. Young girls tend to fall victims to child predators because of how easy it is to talk to girls and pretend to be a young teenage boy just by taking a picture of a boy on the internet, and saying that’s them.

My final argument for this topic is another with Franzen’s second main statement the kids are unable to form meaningful relationships. I do disagree with this only because of personal experiences. Teenagers can find it hard to communicate with each other in real-life social events such as party’s of outings. People like me who do sometimes find it difficult to socialize in most occasions with people I do not know usually find it easier socializing with people that we do know. When it comes to teenage boys trying to socialize with girls they have never met it can be easy but again for us ‘Emoticon-addled zombies’ we do tend to struggle. That is why sites like omegle have been created to help people socialize online with strangers. I met a girl on a social media app called instagram and we have been good friends for a while and we have helped each other to socialize more by giving each other honest opinions on each others work. No-one deserves to be called a ‘Emoticon-addled zombie’ because Franzen and Clark are basing your facts off of data based on a large amount of stratified sampling and then call everyone else an ’emoticon-addled zombie’.

b) The poppies have been place in remembrance of the dead as the blood of the dead soldiers mixed with red of the poppy fields in Flanders. In the poem the protagonist places a poppy in the lapel of a fallen brother in arms.

The poem OOTB is based on the events of 9/11. It is written in the perspective of one the 9/11 jumpers. It is written in a first person and second person narrative.

In the poem there is a significant amount of repetition in the poem as well as internal rhyme. The poet uses a technique called present continuous verbs. The technique is a technique where the poet uses words that end in -ing. The poem is directed at the people down below. The main people it is directed is the rescue services and people filming the events of September the 11th. The line ‘Does anyone see a soul worth saving’ is significant in the second stanza because he is making a direct question and is adrresing the people below him and also the rescue services. He tries to get their attention in the first stanza by wavering his white shirt. The shirt is possibly supposed to get the attention of the people down below so that they can notify the rescue services of his location

How have structural choices made by the poet enhance our understanding of the themes explored the poem Hawk Roosting?

The poem is about the first person description of a hawk. This hawk is describing what its like to be it.

The poet Ted Hughes uses many techniques to create this poem. He uses animorphism to give this hawk feelings and thoughts. The poems main theme is based around humans and our conflict. Ted Hughes describes the hawk when he kills. He says ‘I kill when I Please’. You could see this as something that humans do. For example, soldiers in country’s like Afghanistan have killed for fun or another example is Soviet soldiers during the fall of Berlin, they killed anyone who stood in their way for fun.

The poem uses a structure technique called enjambment which is where lines run onto the next line or stanza. Ted Hughes also uses another structural technique called caesura which is a pause in the line. There is a certain rhythm that Ted Hughes uses that adds an effect to how the line is said. He uses a technique called mono syllable. Every word in that line only has one syllable. Each stanza has a certain structure. They all have 4 lines per stanza. This is all done because each stanza is talking about something else. One paragraph is describing how nature is giving him help to hunt and the other one is talking about how he kills where he pleases. He goes from a more calm approach to a more cold-blooded predator. This hawk can be described with words like violent, egotistical, self centred, a megalomaniac, vain, blood-thirsty.

In this poem the poet makes the Hawk itself a metaphor for god or a god complex. He makes the Hawk sound like it is above all and everyone. He also makes it sound like the Hawk is the highest point in society. This hawk is supposed to represent a hierarchy or a self body government. This Hawk can fly to whatever heights and to wherever it wants to because it is more powerful than all.

The two poems I will be comparing are ‘at the border’ and ‘Belfast confetti’. At the border is based on a poets description of her refugee journey from Iraq to Kurdistan whereas Belfast Confetti is based on terrorist attacks in Belfast during the Irish civil war. At the Border is about a past conflict. Hardi describes that she had a thick iron chain between her feet indicating she was some form of prisoner. In comparison to Belfast Confetti, Hardi’s at the border is more based around a physical conflict whereas Carson’s Belfast Confetti is based on a mental and physical conflict.

When Hardi says ‘The land under our feet continued divided by a think chain’, it could be implying that she is a physical prisoner. In comparison to Belfast confetti, Carson says ‘I was trying to complete a sentence in my head, but it kept stuttering’. This shows that Carson is a prisoner to his mind. The similarities between these poems is the background history. The Irish civil war is to do with two parts of society fighting for their faiths, the Northern Irish fighting to stay Protestant and the Irish fighting to make Ireland Roman Catholic, while at the border is about Sunni Muslims fighting the Shi’ite Muslims. Both of these poems are based around nations divided for what each faction believe in.

The poems are both written in a first person narrative. Hardi describing her journey back to her country and Carson describing his journey of escape from war. In both poems, the poets could both be considered refugees or asylum seekers. Both poems have examples of emphasis. Hardi uses it in her poem right at the beginning for the purpose of setting the scene. She says ‘It is your last check-in point in this country!’. Comparing it to Carson’s use of emphasis there is a huge difference. The difference is that the emphasis used is put into words rather than punctuation. Carson writes ‘it was raining exclamation marks’. He uses the word exclamation marks to describe something sudden that has happened at that point in time.

Belfast Confetti is a very significant title compared to At the border. The reason I say this is because it is a very ironic title. For the time of which this poem was written it would be considered juxtaposed. Belfast at the time was a place of war and confetti is a thing that would be related to happiness and joy whereas at the time Belfast would be linked to war, crime and death. Confetti could be a metaphor for shrapnel. The reason I would link it to shrapnel is because of the following reason. Shrapnel and confetti only have one thing in common, that is that they are both small and go everywhere. The contrast between these two poems is that, At the border’s title is much less of a metaphor wheras Belfast confettis is a juxtaposed title with confetti being a metaphor for shrapnel. At the border is a much more litteral title.

1) We know that the first stanza sets the scene for Vaudevue’s death because the writes ‘left by the ebbing tide of battle’. This means that she was left behind by the battle. This is very likely meaning that she was left for dead by the aftermath of war.

2) This poem uses features which gives the idea that it takes place in the future. An example of this is ‘left behind by the ebbing tide of war’. This means vaudevue was left behind by the war or battle. Then it says ‘on the field of Austrelitz’. Austrelitz was a battle in he Napoleaonic wars. This poem describes the aftermath story for a specific character, in this case Vaudevue the girl soldier.

3) The poet repeats the word alone. This is significant to creating sadness because you would usually link the word alone to someone who is depressed or sad. Stevie Smith uses rhyming in the first stanza. He uses alone and stone. This could be a use to make an effect. The effect is that the poet links the word stone to alone. Vaudevue is on a stone all alone. Stevie Smith uses words like swiftly severing to describe the movement of the water in the lake

This poem is about a person, who is in their home and that person is describing what she sees out side in the dark. The poet uses the first word that comes to the poets mind to describe what the poet sees outside. Imtiaz Dharker uses words like terrorist, freedom fighter, hostile militant and guerilla warrior. This poem was written post 9/11. The poet uses the words wavering flag. Flag is a word used to show a persons identity, territory and nationality. If someone were to wave a flag like the Kosovan flag, it could show that, that person supports a team or group. However the mood of the poem changes when Dharker changes the word to a boy. She becomes less afraid and decides to let him in to this building she is in, pressumably her home. The way the poem uses emotion is through her feelings as she describes what she sees outside. When she thinks she sees a terrorist, she is scared. When she thinks she sees a freedom fighter, she feels less afraid than before. When she thinks she sees a hostile militant, she goes back to having a sense of fear. Finnaly when she sees a gurriella soldier, her fear is the same. However the atmosphere all changes when she sees a boy. It changes in the way that she is not afraid anymore of whats out there. She describes the boy to be like her own son or someone elses son. She calls him a martyr as well. Because she is not afraid of this boy she decides to let him in.

The racism towards Islam in the media in the media post 9/11 needs to stop now!

There have been too many cases of hate towards Islam which have been sparked by the media, most of these have been caused by group like British first, B.N.P and E.D.L. The actions from a minority of extremists has caused western countries to view Islam on whole as a bad religion. The portrayals of Islam in the media has led to bullying of children in schools, workplace harassment and law enforcement harassment.

Recently, there has been an increase in bullying and harassment, whether it be virtual or in real life which have been caused by the media demonizing Islam. The portrayl of the Syrian conflict and the growth and development of ISIS has been portrayed in the media in a very bias way which has augmented A report from CAIR shows that since post 9/11, there has been 1552 cases of anti-Muslim crimes in 2004 alone, 80% of which were committed in only 10 states in America. The IRS and FBI raided a normal Muslim family’s home and the agents questioned the family’s faith. The agents then questioned them on things related to Hamas, Hezbollah and suicide bombings. At the end of the ‘interview’ they were asked if America were to go to war with Iran, whose side would they be on. This is a clear sign of harassment by law enforcement to a working class family. As well as harassment, there have been really offensive acts against Muslim student students on college campuses. In 2003 at the University of California Los Angeles Medical Centre, prayer mats were discovered soaked in pig’s blood, as pig being Haram and this act is considered to be highly offensive and would be seen as an insulting discriminant action of the highest category. Haram in Islam means forbidden or proscribed by the Islamic law and in the Qur’an. Some people may not like the concept of Haram as the concepts of it have many things that some people may not like such as consuming alcohol, so instead of the demonizing of Islam from the media, it should educate those about the concepts of Haram and why Islam has these concepts. Some less educated people today show their disliking towards the religion because of the fact that something’s like smoking, which is one of the biggest addictions today, is Haram so they instantly dislike the religion. If the media started to educate people about Islam, we would have less bullying, harassment and also hate.

The media have shown a significant difference in how they show acts of terrorism from a specific religion. The attacks in Norway which occurred in 2011 were classified as a car bomb attack, mass shooting and an act of terrorism. The perpetrator said he did it in the name of Christianity, yet the media did not describe it as an act or terrorism. However when someone who is Muslim and does something in the name of Allah and Islam they are immediately branded as a terrorist. When a Muslim extremist planted a bomb behind a carton of milk in Varanasi, India, it killed 2 and injured 37 and those injury’s were listed as non-fatal. In the Norwegian terrorist attacks, 77 were killed and 319 were listed as non-fatal injury’s, 33 more were fatal injuries. This is all a clear sign that the media has demonized Islam as a bad religion and also are showing that when a Christian commits an act of terrorism they are not branded as a terrorist. This influences the views and the minds of news viewers and the minds of young people leading them to a mind corrupted by the media.

In Britain there are Islamaphobic group’s. The main ones include the EDL, BNP and Britain’s first. The EDL are, in my opinion, racists, hooligans and have no control over their actions. On September the third, 2011, 60 demonstrators were arrested for clashing with police. These hooligans are also made up of soldiers that have been relieved of their duty. These soldiers have been found to create some form of home-made explosive device. These devices contain a form of shrapnel to create a larger area of effect, they use small pieces such as nails, ball bearings and other small metallic objects. I think there should also be a higher charge and penalty for people who attack sacred religions. An example of this is when 2 members of the EDL torched down a mosque in Gloucester. One of them received a 4.5 year sentence and the other one received a 3.5 year sentence. Can you imagine streets without racism and also a media without the demonizing of Islam? Because I can. If people rise up to the media we can change the way some people view Islam. I think that there should be less reports on Islam in the media. Headlines like this ‘British Muslims condemn terror laws for creating ‘witch-hunt’ against Islam’ leads to headlines like this,’EDL Attack Police in Rotherham During Demonstration’. The media has a responsibility to be un-bias in case they influence the minds of the people who have less knowledge than others about the religion.

In conclusion, with the help of research and credible sources, I have found that the media has demonized Islam more than any other religion. While researching the terrorist attacks in Norway I found that acts of terrorism from Christianity are not considered acts of terrorism by the media. The media are influencing the minds of young people. On march the 10th 2015, a Liverpool fan tweeted that he would not take his children to home games because of two Muslims praying at half time. These things are against the law as they violate the UK’s hate speech law. If a regular civilian can receive up to 7 years imprisonment, then why does the media not face any charges for hate articles towards Islam? Tell me, should this be allowed? This is what the media does to people, it manipulates the minds of people making you think what they want you to think?