Writing Competition

Dear Dr. Seuss

While the world as a whole recognizes the quality of your literary master pieces, I truly believe few even begin to comprehend the metaphorical implication of your many great works. Perhaps the most frequently over looked message is found in “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” This message is unquestionably one of acceptance. Too frequently children are reared without concern for others; too frequently humanity witnesses and eventually suffers from the many essential lessons parents fail to teach their children. It is my sincerest belief that this book for young readers helps compensates for forgotten instruction and benefits young readers. Or in short, teaches them acceptance.

Upon the study of “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish,” one also begins to wonder if all of your books contain an underlying theme. I would certainly think so. For example, “O The Places You Will Go,” teaches self confidence, “The Cat In The Hat,” is an extended metaphor for responsibility, and “I Will Not Eat Green Eggs And Ham,” implies perseverance. However, we must realize that a five year old reader won’t understand the notion of a metaphor or connotation (in most cases), a fact that brings me to my next point.

Books that affect your life should continue maintain and finally reveal additional “secrets” as you age and become more aware of your role in a community. As I have previously stated, this holds true for “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish,” as well. It wasn’t until recently that I myself became aware of the underlying theme. Then again, it wasn’t until recently that I read it to my little brother. As a fifteen year old enrolled in an honors English course literary terms such as connotation and metaphor seem to be everywhere. Why does Ned have a bed he doesn’t like? Is his family too poor to afford a new one of substantial size? However, this leads me to question my analysis of this simplistic children’s book. It certainly isn’t wrong to consider a literary piece designed for young readers as life changing, but is understandably a stretch. Did you intend these themes in your books? Did you intend mom and pop to get a message out of the books they read to their children? “And now my story is all told.”

Sincerely,

Max Holland

Four Writing Assignment: Second Draft & Final Draft

Inspector Willard stroked his not-yet-grown beard ever so deviously. With each passing stroke of the hand he could feel the tough red bristles slide along his weathered hands. Was the end near? Had his secret assassination of New York’s biggest crime lord been discovered? There were simply too many questions and too little time. As the hour hand struck midnight Willard closed his eyes and slept, preparing himself for the coming day’s grueling endeavors.

Willard’s sleep was cut short. Sheets of rain were thrashing upon his den’s Victorian windows, creating a howl better fit for Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Perhaps the weather was a dreaded sign of what was soon to come, a fear, a horror greater than Inspector Willard had ever encountered. The first signal of their coming was a single spot light steadily locked upon the window. This light at first was blinding, and in a strange way welcoming. It played lazily over his shoulders, creating an odd, if not comical silhouetted figure of himself upon his bookcase and ceiling. Inspector Willard new better than to move, at least until the inquisitive light passed on to judge another window of his house.

Once released from his daze, a new site appeared before the rattling window; a blockade of black stretch limos, with a single white one at the head of the herd. Finally, the beast had awakened, roaring out a single, command to his pride.

“Up th-…! Find him and sho-…!” was all Willard could hear over the deafening rain, yet the message was clear.

It was now time for the inspector to move on from his previous plan. The obvious appearance of his next big target meant that he had made a grave miscalculation. The once calm and collected private-eye broke into a fast paced sweat and quickly lost his cool composition. The only thing on his mind was the primal urge of flight; and so he did.

The bullets began to pour in like rain, Swiss cheesing the wall he once stood near. In haste Willard snatched his trap door key, opened the door, and fled to the wine cellar. Here his cold cobble stone walls would provide the protection he so desperately needed. The hidden cellar had fulfilled its purpose, protecting him from the enemy that devastated his dwelling as fast as a Californian wildfire. Pleased with his narrow escape, Willard picked up his finest wine and drank.

“The fools must think I’m dead.”

Fourth Writing Assignment

Inspector Willard stroked his not-yet-grown beard ever so deviously. With each passing stroke of the hand he could feel the tough red bristles slide along his weathered hands. Was this the end for Madame Célestine and her copious collection of rare artifacts and oddities? There were simply too many questions and too little time for Inspector Willard to save his unrequited lover and her dangerous collection. As the hour hand struck midnight Willard closed his eyes and slept, preparing himself for the coming day’s grueling endeavors.

Willard’s sleep was cut short. Sheets of rain were thrashing upon his den’s Victorian windows, creating a howl better fit for Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” Perhaps the weather was a dreaded sign of what was soon to come, a fear, a horror greater than Inspector Willard had ever encountered. The first signal of their coming was a single spot light steadily locked upon the window. This light at first was blinding, and in a strange way welcoming. It played lazily over his shoulders, creating an odd, if not comical silhouetted figure of himself upon his bookcase and ceiling. Inspector Willard new better than to move, at least until the inquisitive light passed on to judge another window of his house.

Once released from his daze, a new site appeared before the rattling window; a blockade of black stretch limos, with a single white one at the head of the herd.

Analytical Essay Second Draft

Does modern media and technology have a positive influence in a learning atmosphere or is it detrimental and distracting to the youths of our country? Why should our school systems spend the money and time required to use these new mediums of learning if there is a chance that they are only detrimental? As a nation dropping farther and farther in education standards as well as global competitiveness it is crucial and most necessary to find the answer. Unfortunately, the previous questions have no clear-cut right or wrong, and thus, we must recognize that a balance of new media, and old, is the optimal path for our education providers to take. To recognize what might have a detrimental or positive influence on serious students we can look into three key areas of analysis. First; the use of web based learning applications, second; the distractive elements of portable computing devices, and third; complex presentation methods.

The internet is a marvelous invention that gives all who have access to it an endless supply of applications, information, and communication. Is this a good thing for the average, or even advanced student to embrace in a classroom like setting? Of all the topics about to analyzed, this is the one that needs the most improvement. Simply, there are too many distractive elements of the internet to harbor a serious learning environment. Let’s take the blog this is in as an example. Blogger allows people to post anything they desire on a web page in an easy desisive manner. The advantages of such a site in a classroom are distinct: no paper, easy access by students and teachers, and endless levels of creativity. However, the number of negatives seems to outweighs the positives. Blogger’s element of creativity is highly distracting, it entices the user to spend more time formatting and arranging colors, fonts, add-ons like “youtube” videos, and tidbits of personal information than the actual meat of site, the text. In addition, the simple fact that you have to use the internet to do a homework assignment can easily lead even moderate procrastinators to their doom. Blogger aside, it is also important to recognize the plague of internet inside the classroom. Over the past year, I’ve seen more computer and internet usage in class than in my entire education. Perhaps I’m just old fashion, but the distractions are great and seem to invite and entice a prodigy towards them. While using internet in class one finds themselves on random sites brought about by the lack of interest in a topic, boredom, or the distractive elements of the internet. It is a frustrating to admit that any use of the internet in a classroom should be highly monitored, or restricted to sites that are of low interest or only relavent to the subject at hand. Procrastination is a horrible thing. Procrastination and distraction have also become highly portable and desirable from the learning community as seen in graphing calculators.

The farther up the math food chain you go, the more necessary graphing calculators seem to be. They take impossible calculations and magically spit out answers in the form of numbers and graphs. Is this good to the overall education of students? Are students becoming to dependant on calculators and ultimately, lazy? While it is obvious that the ability of most kids to do basic math has dwindled some amount it is ludicrous to think that calculators are a negative in the classroom. They allow individuals to save time, learn at a faster rate, and reduce the overall stress levels of educators and pupils. The final verdict on calculators is quite a good one. The only set back of such devices, that is very notable, and worth addressing, is the learning gap. Here we will define a learning gap as the difficulty and amount of settings changes one must make to do more advanced mathematics. Fortunately, these issues can be easily overcome with a good calculator and a good teacher. On the other hand, there are devices that seem to elude even the most seasoned teachers and greatly hinder almost every class that uses them, the dreaded projector.

In theory, projectors are wonderful things, they allow teachers to increase the size of learning materials so that they may share them with all who desire, yet they are flawed at the basic level. This flaw is user error. It is clear to almost all students that teachers have no idea what they are doing every time they try to use a projector for more than the simplest of tasks. In addition, frequent use of a projector greatly increases the chance that a teacher will have poor, if not terrible hand writing on the board. These claims are not out of thin air but made only after years of close observation. Plainly stated, projectors are evil and by the end of a student’s educational life, have wasted hundreds of hours of potential learning. This is not the worst. Some teachers even bring down their projector burdens onto the student body. These teachers rely on their tech savy students to do their dirty work for them. These teachers also seem to frequently assign projects that require the use of a projector yet fail to have the ability to present the hours of hard long work a student has completed due to their inability to use a projector properly. A good example of this is the Indian project we had in this very class. When originally assigned, each of the varried groups was given the option to have a project aid in their presentation. Needless to say, nearly every group took advantages of this, or at least hoped to. During the presentation day not one group was able to present at least some aspect of their project due to user error on the projector. Video clips were lost, presentation time was wasted, and hard work provided no benifits. Despite the negative outlook on teachers’ current standings with projectors, the future looks bright. More teachers are learning to properly use a projector to its fullest potential and eliminate the need for good hand writing, and increase the overall quality of their work (as well as the students’).

Technology is a great thing and most certainly aids in the learning experience yet it has a deep, lustrous dark side that so devilishly temps all who dare to step close to its hellish lair. Teachers need to learn to control technology in order to use it and exploit it of its fullest benifits. The future is upon and we must not abuse it.

Analytical Essay First Draft

Does modern media and technology have a positive influence in a learning atmosphere or is it detrimental and distracting to the youths of our country? Why should our school systems spend the money and time required to use these new mediums of learning if they are only detrimental? As a nation dropping farther and farther in education standards as well as global competitiveness it is crucial and most necessary to find the answer. Unfortunately, the previous questions have no clear-cut right or wrong, and thus, we must recognize that a balance of new educational media, and old, is the optimal path for our education providers to take. To recognize what might have a detrimental or positive influence on serious students we can look into three key areas of analysis. First; the use of web based learning applications, second; the distractive elements of portable computing devices, and third; complex presentation methods.

The internet is a marvelous invention that gives all who have access to it an endless supply of applications, information, and communication. Is this a good thing for the average, or even advanced student to embrace in a classroom like setting? Of all the topic about to analyzed, this is the one that needs the most improvement. Simply, there are too many distractive elements of the internet to harbor a serious learning environment. Let’s take the blog this is in as an example. Blogger allows people to post anything they desire on a web page so easy to make “a cave man could do it.” The advantages of such a site in a classroom are distinct, no paper, easy access by students and teachers, and endless levels of creativity. However, the amount of negatives outweighs the positives. Blogger’s element of creativity is highly distracting, it entices the user to spend more time formatting and arranging colors, fonts, add-ons like “youtube” videos, and tidbits of personal information than the actual meat of site, the text. In addition, the simple fact that you have to use the internet to do a homework assignment can easily lead even moderate procrastinators to their doom. Blogger aside, it is also important to recognize the plague of internet inside the classroom. Over the past year, I’ve seen more computer and internet usage in class than in my entire education. Perhaps I’m just old fashion, but the distractions are great and seem to invite and entice a prodigy towards them. While using internet in class one finds themselves on random sites brought about by lack of interest in a topic, boredom, or the distractive elements of the internet. As much as it sucks, any use of the internet in a classroom should be highly monitored, or restricted to sites that are boring or if they are of high interest, on topic. Procrastination is a horrible thing (which is very ironic to say because I’m typing this at 3:30 in the morning). Procrastination and distraction have also become highly portable and desirable from the learning community as seen in graphing calculators.

The farther up the math food chain you go, the more necessary graphing calculators seem to be. They take impossible calculations and magically spit out answers in the form of numbers and graphs but is this good to the overall education of students? Are students becoming to dependant on calculators and ultimately, lazy? While it is obvious that the ability of most kids to do basic math has dwindled some amount it is ludicrous to think that calculators are a negative in the classroom. They allow individuals to save time, learn at a faster rate, and reduce the overall stress levels of educators and pupils. The final verdict on calculators is quite a good one. The only set back of such devices that is very notable and worth addressing is the learning gap, or the difficulty and amount of settings changes one must make to do more advanced mathematics. Fortunately, these issues can be easily overcome with a good calculator and a good teacher. On the other hand, there are devices that seem to elude even the most seasoned teachers and greatly hinder almost every class that uses them, the dreaded projector.

In theory, projectors are wonderful things, they allow teachers to increase the size of learning materials so that they may share them with all who desire, yet they are flawed at the basic level. This flaw is user error. It is clear to almost all students that teachers have no idea what the heck they are doing every time they try to use a projector for more than the simplest of tasks. In addition, frequent use of a projector greatly increases the chance that a teacher will have poor, if not terrible hand writing on the board. These claims are not out of thin air but made only after years of close observation. Plainly stated, projectors are evil and by the end of a student’s educational life, have wasted hundreds of hours of potential learning. This is not the worst. Some teachers even bring down their projector burdens onto the student body. These teachers rely on their tech savy students to do their dirty work for them. These teachers also seem to frequently assign projects that require the use of a projector yet fail to have the ability to present the hours of hard long work a student has completed due to their inability to use a projector properly. Despite the negative outlook on teachers’ current standings with projectors, the future looks bright. More teachers are learning to properly use a projector to its fullest potential and eliminate the need for good hand writing, and increase the overall quality of their work (as well as the students’)

Technology is a great thing and most certainly aids in the learning experience yet it has a deep, lustrous dark side that so devilishly temps all who dare to step close to its hellish lair. Teachers need to learn to control technology in order to use it, much like a young padwon who earns their first lightsaber. The future is upon and we must not abuse it

Emotional Paper Final Draft

Hatred is an odd emotion. Many years after it rears its ugly head it can still remain in the mind, a dull sensation that brings back memories tucked away deep, deep inside us. For some it is easy to maintain this hate but for others it slowly slips away. Who is better off? Those who forget and forgive their torturer or those that remain weary and cautious, preventing future ordeals? I personally am the former. A person who has to make an effort to maintain their anger towards others even those that I swear never to forgive. However, there is one that still haunts me today.

It was the summer of ’05 when I met the spawn of the devil. His name is Winston. At first Winston seemed like a fair enough guy, a little strange but oh my, I was certainly mistaken. By his evil doings my stay at nerd camp, a place I thought could never go wrong, was ruined.

The progression of dismay was not slow and by the second day I knew where this was going. Winston freely expressed his extreme right wing views, sexist opinions, and religious intolerance. And when I say freely I mean he actually searched out things he could make fun of or taunt people about. Let me give a few examples. Winston strongly and openly believed that all women only belonged in the kitchen, hated people of all nationalities except his, and worst of all (at least to me), constantly commented on how great of a man he believed Hitler was. Was he trying to be funny? Did he think he entertained people with his cruel words of hatred? At least he hated and was evil to everyone and didn’t just pick on one person or group. In that sense I can say he treated everyone equally.

Winston was intent on hurting those around him, both physically and mentally. He frequently smashed chips into the carpet and blamed them on others. Routinely he would find someone else’s book and smother it with peanut butter. At one point in time he shot me in the eye with a rubber band because I tried to get back my shoes...which he stole from me. Worst, worst of all was what he did when we tried to make amends to our counselor.

Around the second week into camp my group decided to give our counselor a gift as an apology from the group for our “bad behavior” (it really was a ‘I feel so sorry for you for having to deal with Winston on a frequent basis gift’). Everyone contributed except Winston. We decided a cool watch would be good since he wore a spider man one from McDonalds. Winston managed to ruin this for everyone. When we gave our counselor the gift Winston decided to take all the credit even though he didn’t contribute a single cent to the gift even though he explicitly agreed not to contribute. If that wasn’t enough, we later found out that he stole an item valued over one-hundred dollars from the store we got the watch from. Of course he never got punished, or at least on his own. Our counselor thought it would help the group if he punished everyone at once.

My counselor’s philosophy, or at least the camps, was flawed and pointless. By punishing everyone for one group member’s misdoings my counselor believed that we would encourage each other to act more civil in order to prevent damage to ourselves. It was an archaic system similar to the one Chinese emperors of the 15 and 16 hundreds used on their armies. If a general returned home without his soldiers he would be killed and if soldiers returned home without their general they would be killed. In a military setting this worked well but in a camp setting, where people pay hundreds of dollars to have an enjoyable time, only to be punished for some someone’s stupid ass behavior was unjust and insulting.

Enough was enough; something had to be done to Winston. He never suffered from his punishments because of the enjoyment he received when everyone else was punished as well. He never changed his ways or made amends. He was never nice. It was tearing our group apart and division began forming between those who wanted to take action against him and those who didn’t. I was the only one who seemed to take matters into my own hands, it seemed like no one was capable or willing to make Winston regret his sins. I decided I would be the down fall of Winston, the savior of the camp, the knight in shining armor about to defeat the evil dragon about to eat the damsel in distress…or something like that. At first I started picking on Winston like he did to us. This of course only had negative reprocusions. Winston started crying to the counselors that everyone hated him (which was o so true) and they fell right in his trap. Next I moved on to a more political form of uprising. I began to write down all the reasons why I hate Winston and then thought of ways to present them to our counselor. The list didn’t get very far and ultamitaly resulted in sleepless hate filled nights where I just punched the wall and “talked” with my roommate about how much we hated him. Finally I saw my chance, an unplanned opening to release the retribution of a thousand burring arrows of anguish upon the putrid scum named Winston. After lunch one evening Winston was being particularly cruel to me. He threw punch after punch at my dignity and self esteem. Winston thought he had won the battle but alas he had made a grave miscalculation. I was bigger than he was. I readied my fists like a samurai unsheathing his katana. I roared my belligerent battle cry! *ROOAARRRRRR* Winston was no match, the fight would have been over quickly had it not been for my counselor, who sprung into action faster than batman. Tonight there would be no fight, or tomorrow, or even the next day. The battle had been won now that Winston realized the magnitude of the situation.

Winston didn’t come back to camp the next year, or the year after that. Some say he was black listed, some say he was too afraid his reputation would follow him. Nobody knows but we were all glad that we never had to see him again. And that’s my story about Winston.

Emotional Paper First Draft

Hatred is an odd emotion. Many years after it rears its ugly head it can still remain in the mind, a dull sensation that brings back memories tucked away deep, deep inside us. For some it is easy to maintain this hate but for others it slowly slips away. Who is better off? Those who forget and forgive their torturer or those that remain weary and cautious, preventing future ordeals? I personally am the former. A person who has to make an effort to maintain their anger towards others even those that I swear never to forgive. However, there is one that still haunts me today.

It was the summer of ’05 when I met the spawn of the devil. His name is Winston. At first Winston seemed like a fair enough guy, a little strange but oh my, I was certainly mistaken. By his evil doings my stay at nerd camp, a place I thought could never go wrong, was ruined.

The progression of dismay was not slow and by the second day I knew where this was going. Winston freely expressed his extreme right wing views, sexist opinions, and religious intolerance. And when I say freely I mean he actually searched out things he could make fun of or taunt people about. Let me give a few examples. Winston strongly and openly believed that all women only belonged in the kitchen, taunted people for being uncircumcised, and worst of all, constantly commented on how great of a man he believed Hitler was. Was he trying to be funny? Did he think he entertained people with his cruel words of hatred?

Winston was intent on hurting those around him, both physically and mentally. He frequently smashed chips into the carpet and blamed them on others. Routinely he would find someone else’s book and smother it with peanut butter. At one point in time he shot me in the eye with a rubber band because I tried to get back my shoes...which he stole from me. Worst, worst of all was what he did when we tried to make amends to our counselor.

Around the second week into camp my group decided to give our counselor a gift as an apology from the group. Everyone contributed except Winston. We decided a cool watch would be good since he wore a spider man one from McDonalds. Winston managed to ruin this for everyone. When we gave our counselor the gift Winston decided to take all the credit even though he didn’t contribute a single cent to the gift and he explicitly agreed not to contribute. If that wasn’t enough, we later found out that he stole an item valued over one-hundred dollars from the store we got the watch from. Of course he never got punished, or at least on his own. Our counselor thought it would help the group if he punished everyone at once. He thought we would encourage each other to act more civil even though it was Winston who was the source of every single problem that occurred.

In the end I couldn’t take it. One day while walking to rec. (or something like that) Winston thought it would be fun to issue a boat load of insults and taunts to me. I issued a punch to him- happiest moment of my life. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for Winston because he was a little shrimp) my counselor pinned us against the wall in order to quell the fight.

Winston didn’t come back to camp the next year, or the year after that. Some say he was black listed, some say he was too afraid his reputation from last year would follow him. Nobody knows but we were all glad that we never had to see him again. And that’s my story about Winston.