Ceremony

The word he chose to express "fragile" was filled with the intricacies of a continuing process, and with a strength inherent in spider webs woven across paths through sand hills where early in the morning the sun becomes entangled in each filament of web. It took a long time to explain the fragility and intricacy because no word exists alone, and the reason for choosing each word had to be explained with a story about why it must be said this certain way. That was the responsibility that went with being human, old Ku'oosh said, the story behind each word must be told so there could be no mistake in the meaning of what had been said; and this demanded great patience and love.

Rationale - Pedro

               On this Written Task, I will make an analysis on Anthony Burgess's way of portraying a specific part of society through language. Anthony Burgess's novel "A Clockwork Orange" tells the story of Alex, a violent teen who's only objective per se is having fun through violence and crime. Burgess does not only give us Alex's point of view but also his friend's and even grown up society surrounding the environment of the british society portrayed by the author. Never the less, being Alex's point of view the more extensively explained and detailed, we are ignoring what his "droogs" might be thinking of a specific situation on this great novel.

                Therefore, what this Creative writing is going to be based of, is on describing (or re-describing) some of the events occurred on the first part and on the ending of this novel, never the less from the point of view of one of Alex's "droogs": Pete. Being Pete the culminating part and main trigger of the final solution of the book, maybe creating a more profound and complex persona on Pete could help us to fully understand the ending of this novel. 

                  The main aspects that are going to be taken into account to portray this character's persona are language  (usage of nasdat and first person narrative), chronological relationship with the novel's events and also the real Pete's reactions described by Burgess himself. There are going to be speculations on what may have happened at some point of the novel before Alex's final encounter with Pete.

Rationale - EMILIO

I have decided to write an afterword to the book "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess.
I chose to do this because I think the book really deserves an explanation in some topics and symbolisms that Burgess uses throughout the book and can be easily overlooked and ignored by incautious readers.
The main topic I shall address in this afterword is Free Will. Burgess has strong beliefs about free will and questions its true meaning in almost every chapter, giving Alex (his main character) the power of choosing and acting on his behalf ,on a world extremely controlled by fear and propaganda.
Just as writers like Aldous Huxley or George Orwell, Burgess portrays a basic, existential question about free will: Is doing evil freely better than doing good on a leash? That is the main question I shall tackle in my afterword to the book, opening a debate on wether good and evil are relative or a constant, and the role they each have on free will.

I decided to write a journal because of the skills it requires when writing one. Especially when transmitting the desired message. Basing my work on the Part 1 of the course and focused on examining different forms of communication within media.

According to Psychiatry journals are a useful resource to maintaining mental health. I wanted the readers to feel identified with the protagonist and to fear his fears, to think that they would actually be able to encounter his struggles.

Based on Edgar Alan Poe´s work called “The Tell Tale”. This piece has a first person perspective and narrates how the character killed a man and he started to go mad, having second thoughts about it. How he is describing his battle and the language it uses to describe in detail, making me (the reader) experience his fight as well, this really caught my attention to base my work on.

My work follows a chronological order using the descriptive resources to make the reading more believable, and to make the readers feel as if they where inside the situation I created. I want the readers to struggle as the protagonist does but in their minds. This required the techniques of knowing the language used and giving structured ideas through the right narrative (first person). Without this, the readers would not be able to understand how the protagonist is suffering and dealing with conflicts, then it would just be a normal journal, not a creative one nor a remarkable one.

Rationale - Adelaida

This blog entry is directed to the world’s citizens with the purpose of informing them about peace and how it can be achieved. In order to approach people in the best way and encourage them to take actions that can develop our world, such an important topic is to be treated in the light of how relations can be strengthened. I decided to root my written task in the work by the creator of the Peace One Day movement, Jeremy Gilley, and one of his conferences in the TED Talks. The way language is managed in this forum helps in the development of the topic explaining the way a “peace day” was created. Persuasive language is used to incite and convince spectators that peace is important and worth fighting for because relations need to be improved. Ergo, this work is related to Part 2: use of persuasive language.

A “state of mutual harmony between people or groups” (Dictionary.com) is a condition that has to be achieved with a lot of work. In the contrary of what many people think, it is does not only include the absence of wars or armed conflicts, but it also involves essential values like the tolerance and solidarity in daily relationships. Moreover, peace can only be reached if everyone starts with small actions and taking certain attitudes that can benefit the entire world.

I came up with the idea of writing this work when I was watching TED Talks on YouTube and felt personally interested with peace. I watched Jeremy talking about his work and I felt it was going to be my written task’s focus. This blog entry has the objective of treating this topic and convincing the readers of the disposition that has to be taken if a change is wanted.

Number of words: 298

Sources of information:

Dictionary.com. "Peace." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/peace>.

Jeremy Gilley: One Day of Peace. Dir. TED Talks. Perf. Jeremy Gilley. YouTube. TED Talks, 10 Aug. 2011. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04SEzifEsGg&list=PLnvD3IDksTQnGD3DXIwh5V-TqGZIDckV2>.

Rationale WT1 Adriana

If I'm not mistaken, my intetion with the WT1 was to link it with Part 1: Language in Cultural Context, particullarly: Analyze how audience & purpose affect the structure and content of texts.

 

 

WT1: RATIONALE

I’m writing a journal entry. I chose to tell the story of a ghost and a girl in the format of a journal because this way the story is told by the main character, therefore giving it a more personal and much more detailed perspective. When reading it, people can feel empathy with what the ghost and girl are feeling, which makes it more believable.

This story is based on the short story “The Canterville Ghost” by Oscar Wilde. When reading it I felt identified with the thematic of the story, under the purpose of it being about a family’s house were a ghost lived. The story presents ghosts as having the “victimizer” and “victims” perspectives, and such situation inspired me to write a journal presenting a similar theme.

My creative writing is a journal because it is narrated in first person and separated in different dates, with the purpose of the main characters sharing their personal story and thoughts.

This journal takes place in Mexico City, in a middle class family’s house. It should be taken into account that in the Mexican culture, people truly believe in ghosts and spirits.

My text analyzes the ways in which language affirms identity, because the type of language and descriptions of events perfectly describe Mexican people and their culture.

Number of words: 217.

Ideas for the written task one.  Still in development.
José Daniel Gómez C
26/1/16

Rational: Creative writing

Jose Daniel Gomez Calderon

Firstly, I decided to write a monologue, since this was not the first time I wrote in this format. Moreover, this text is directly influenced by one of my favorite Greek mythologies; Theseus and the Minotaur. Personally I consider myself to be an expert on this topic, which I have known all my life. During the course, we have been analyzing, creating and reading various fictional texts. This is why I feel it is appropriate to write my creative piece on this ancient text. I am concentrating on a specific character of the myth, Asterius (The Minotaur).  With this said, I can apply my knowledge on character evaluation learned in class to figure out who was the Minotaur. Something that the original text really does not embrace or go into depth correctly.

I decided to write a monologue because I felt it was a better option for the Minotaur to express his thoughts freely, giving him a personality and a sense of humanity. (why does it conncet with the part one).

Therefore, we must remember that the principal characteristic of the monologue is that it has to be spoken out loud something that makes the story much more impacting. In addition, it is an internal monologue because Asterius is externalizing his thoughts turning him into a “three dimensional” character instead of a “two dimensional” one. It is written in first person because the Minotaur is all alone in his maze. 

This is an attachment for the original myth written by Plutarch, a Greek historian.  My version takes place hours before Theseus arrives to the labyrinth to confront Asterius. The Minotaur is going to describe the reader how he is feeling and giving them a little background information on his terrible life.

 Charlie Hebdo: 

This term we had the chance to start to cover a whole new area. This referred to media and how ideological matters could affect it. We experienced how to analyze relevant news with the purpose of distinguishing if there are factors that can impact on media. As well, we discussed the reasons behind fanatics to act as they do, and question what is it in human nature itself, that makes us follow our beliefs to the extent sacrificing life.

I can remember clearly that in this activity, I had to examine the Charlie Hebdo tragedy.  Where reporters of this very newspaper were killed by Muslim fanatics.

Throughout the activity, we had to encounter with many TOK problems. Such as: Who determines the true meaning of “fanatic” in this situation if it is such a subjective word; or, why do human beings feel the need to protect dogmas if they have been a constant “threat” to peace ever since our society started. In this case, in specific, I recall having to make a presentation of our analysis. When mine finished, there was a discussion on, whether or not, ideologies represent a huge change on media. I personally answered that they did.

After evaluating this situation in particular, I found out, that since ideologies are not bias, it is fair to say that indeed they have a very significant alteration on mass media; of course, the result can vary all around the globe depending on the event.

This whole activity turned out to be a great way of both analyzing social political based text and, connecting my English study’s with other subjects (TOK).

At the end, I learned quite a lot about how Literature in the form of media can have a massive role in epistemological matters. That can then be seen as the organization of the psychology behind the perception of the surroundings.

Media is a great resource to acquire knowledge however, it has to be used carefully to avoid negative influence on the human mind!