class assesment

overall the class was fun and I enjoyed most of the films. the class taught me a lot from not being so biased to knowing how to write better. I really enjoyed the laid back way the class was run and the fact that we were encouraged to argue about topics brought up. although I did not enjoy all the essays, it was a good learning experience.

essay: final

Alan Burkhart

Enc1102

Tues. 6-8:00

Holacaust and It’s Effects

            During World War II, Adolf Hitler thought of himself and his race as superior to others. This mind set caused him to assentially dominate and attempt to wipe the Jewish race off the face of the Earth. In this event over six million Jews were killed via gas chambers, mal nutrition, and even some were killed by soldiers in lines being shot to death. Although he was wrong, Hilter believed all he was doing was for the good of the planet. Even after the near six and a half million deaths, there were numerous survivers that still live today. “It is not so easy to do this interview. Last night I did not have a minute's sleep. When I sleep, I dream, I dream, I dream. We did not know who was going to be left alive. "Don't forget, tell the world" was the last thing our friends said before they were taken to their deaths. You cannot keep it inside.” Joseph Sher, a survivor of a loabor camp in the Holocaust remebers the final words of friends and family just before they were taken away by German soldiers and SS associates. Born in the little Polish town of Krzepice, Joseph was raised by his moher with his two brothers and three sisters. His mother was in today’s terms a stay at home mom, while his father was a well educated tailor. He met his wife through his beautiful sister Freida. While dating his future wife, they heard of safety in Russia. The two got married and headed for the border. Once they reached Russia, they were denied entrance. They returned to their town and tried to live as happily as they could. Joseph was taken to a labor camp for nine months where he was beaten and antaginized brutally in that period of time. In that time, the men ranging from the age of 20-80, were expected to work with minimal food and water, diseased conditions, and freezing tempertures. With no plumbing, they were expected to deficate in a ditch where they might have been shot by German soldiers using their guns as toys to mess with the men working. Joseph had two friends, a doctor and a professor. The two men did all in their power to get joseph out of the camp. After being their for nine months they were able to get him back home. Upon his arrival home, he became ill and was put behind a wall made to hide him unitl he was better. After his illness passed, he was taken with his brother and cousin along with eight others to a factory owned by the chief of the Gestapo. They were there for 10 weeks before the factory was no longer in need of that many people. When they returned, Joseph learned that his mother and sisters were killed because they were of no use. Joseph found his wofe a few days later and moved in with another couple. They were in a small room with a bucket to use the bathroom. One morning before work, they were surrounded by soldiers and taken to Treblinka. They spent the remainder of the war from 1943 to 1945 in a slave labor camp. The couple was lucky in this time of turmoil; Joseph was a tailor for the German officers while his wife carried boxes of ammunition to the trucks. His wife Rachel, had a better fate than most women whose job was to reload shells for the German army. These women turnd yellow from breathing in all the lead; once yellow from disease, they were taken away and never to be seen again. All the people knew where they were taken. The diseased women were taken to the cemetary, shot and burried as they were of no use to the Nazis anymore. Certain Jews were selected to be the policemen ion the ghettos only after they bribed the Nazis with gold and other valuble items. One day as Jospeh was working, he saw almost fifty men brought into a room one by one and struck on the head with a sledge hammer. Their bodies were toted to the cemetary where they were burried along with all the other bodies of Jews in that labor camp. By 1949 they had their first child and came to New Orleans to be with Rachels aunt. They came across by ship as some of the first few survivors. As their children grew, they feared that their past might affect the lives of the kids. Now every time he hears the words “God Bless America”, he thinks back to his past and utters the phrase to himself truly thankful for the oppurtunity to get out of Nazi Germany with his life and family. The holocasut affected millions of people during its time and has still been affecting people today.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources

Sher, Joseph, Mr. Survivor Stories. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013

final journal

the holocaust was a devastating event affecting millions of people. the German army targeted the Jewish race an sought to wipe them from the earth. Hitler was in charge of the Nazi propaganda and responsible for the death of over 6 million men, women, and children. few people survived the horrific event, and even fewer are alive today. in the documentary, a women tells her story about her experience. as a twin she was experimented on along with many other sets of twins. her sister survived through the holocaust, but died of kidney failure years later. through the film, she explains how the events happened, and what she was feeling during these times. in the end she forgives the man responsible for her sisters death, and makes a second trip to the location of where her parents and the rest of her family was brutally murdered. one would think as humans we would have more of a conscience than to let someone walk into another country and execute millions of people as Hitler did. however, it took some time before much was done to stop the genocide from taking place in Germany and Poland. even now, millions of people are affected by the events that took place in the 40's. this event should be a learning point for the rest of the world and should teach us all to not be so passive about things like racism or hatred.

Miss Representation Journal

The documentary we watched as a class really opened my eyes at how this country treats women and how we expect them to be. The way young girls are discouraged by society and encouraged by women who are photoshopped to try to achieve perfection is sick. Women cannot possibly think that they could look beautiful with all the pressure from the media and the magazines with fake women in them. This documentary shows the real life struggles with young girls and the what they really face in their everyday life. From cutting themselves in depression, to starving themselves in desperation of perfection, these girls put themselves through hell and back just so they could look like a person who has been altered by the computer to look a certain way. Our society needs to go back to how they used to be and accept women for how they are not what they look like.

american dream essay

Alan Burkhart

Enc1102

Kelly Warren

Tuesdays 6:00

American Dream

What is the American Dream? Is it when a child grows up in the perfect neighborhood and gets good grades through school only to sit at a desk his whole life and do paperwork? Could the dream be the one boy who loves to use his hands and later on becomes a mechanic even though he failed high school English? The American Dream is whatever any one person makes it for themselves. (Wisegeek) We could call it the dream to become a car repo man, or a mail man. The dream is doing what you love in your everyday life.

For an immigrant, the dream would most likely be to become a US citizen and to have a job that could support his family better than he could in his home country. Some people in other countries send their children at young ages of 12-17 to come to America and make a better life for them in hope of one day becoming a citizen and meeting their children somewhere to live happily. The path of an immigrant coming to US is a difficult path to navigate with the problems in customs and with the Border Patrol. Many immigrants get caught, however many make across and begin their version of the American Dream. The passion they show and the drive they put forward to get here is what really deepens our thoughts on what the American Dream is. (Moyers)

US citizens make the dream out to be becoming a success in a corporate company and driving their BMW or Mercedes by the time they’re 35 years old. However, some Americans make the dream out to be driving an old beat up pick-up and coming home to a hot meal in their small house. These people are the American that makes the corporate dream possible for the other people in this country. The mechanics that jam their hands in every crack and crevice of the corporate man’s foreign car seem to make a sacrifice everyday with their lower pay and their dirty clothes with their less than average vehicles, but if you talk to any of these men and women, 90% will tell you that they love what they do. Time and time again, people make the mistake of thinking that they have to live in the big house with the nice foreign car and poster wife that they don’t really love. This is all making the American Dream seem materialistic. (Khurram) The American Dream is what you want it to be and what you want to do with your life.

 No matter what you do, what you enjoy, or where you’re from, the American Dream is what you make it. Don’t let people tell you what you have to do with your life, do what interests you. The American dream is whatever you make of it and however you do it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

Khurram, Shanzeh. "Is the American Dream Becoming Too Materialistic?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Feb. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2013

Moyers, Bill. "Deepening the American Dream." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 05 Mar. 2013

"What Is the "American Dream"?" WiseGEEK. N.p., 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2013

 

 

journal 4

The American dream is different to all. For instance, to a US citizen the dream might be to get straight a's in school and be a success. To a newe immigrant, the dream might be to gain citizenship and bring the rest of the family over to this country for a better life. Americans dont always realize that just by being a citizen by birth, we are already living the American dream. No other country has it as good as we do. Even our poor people have more money and belongings than those of other places iun the world. Mouricio said in his presentation that his brother, cousin and himself were sent to the states for a better life. They did not realize it at the time but that's why they were swemt here. And he said that after all these years he knows for sure this is where he belongs. The American dream can be anything any one wants it to be.

Alan Burkhart

Enc1102 Tuesday 6-8

Digital Media

We live in a world run by computers that fit in our pockets. When this generation’s parents were in high school, the only computers they had were small square screens without the variety of colors or graphic quality we have today. The first computers were so big they took up the space of a whole room; now we have faster, better, more complexly built, and cheaper computers in our pockets. Some say that technology with children is bad, however the world they will grow up in is run by the very technology those people are trying to take out of their hands.

Men and women from older generations can have a sense of responsibility to bring their kids up as close to the way they were brought up as possible. They teach their children that cell phones are for adults and that video games are bad. What some don’t realize is that the same things they are withholding from their kids are what they will depend on by the time they reach their teens. It is important to introduce technology to the young in manageable increments to insure they know how to use it properly by the time they need it. Too much technology at a young age will corrupt the children of America. CNN says that by the time kids are five years old they already have an online history and interact with computer of some sort daily.

In the world we live in it is so easy to take technology for granite and forget how far we have come in the years past with the progression of cellular phones and laptops. The coming generations should be educated on the history of computers and how they

went from taking up a large room, to being small enough to hold in your hands. Digital media today is so easy to operate and to get your hands on; all you have to do is go to the local cell carrier, spend a few hundred dollars, and sign your name on the line that says you will pay for monthly access to the internet via the smart phone you just purchased.

 From a parental view, technology does tend to get in the way of school with the social aspect of the internet; however, technology is used throughout schools instead of books and physical paper material. With schools using laptops and tablets as learning tools, they are teaching the proper etiquette to use when in class and the same behavior they will need to use when they are older and working in jobs run by the technology they learned to use in school. Digital media is a crucial part of the upcoming generation’s lives. They will use it every day from the time they are a teenager to the day they die. Although it is distracting, the web is a valuable resource in class for the students.

Through the years we have advanced significantly in technology with computers going from giant metal objects that made loud frightening noises, to a small quite device that fits in the palm of your hand. Kids now need to be taught the right way to use these things and taught how not to abuse the personal computers they possess. Along with the advance of graphic display, they have come so far in the way they are used and put together. We can now use computers to do almost anything including do our homework or play internet games that simulate and alternate life. To say we haven’t advanced is crazy, also to say that the advances we have made are all corrupting and harmful to the upcoming youth is a ridiculous and uneducated statement.

 

 

 

Clinton, Chelsea, The Opinions Expressed in This Commentary Are Solely Those of Chelsea Clinton, and James Steyer. "Is the Internet Hurting Children?" CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 19 Feb. 2013

Woods, Rachael. "Pros & Cons of Electronics in Schools." EHow. Demand Media, 29 Sept. 2010. Web. 19 Feb. 2013