Evaluation First Draft

Evaluation First Draft
12/02/09
Zhang, Xuan
2001: A Space Odyssey is a very classical and great science fiction film and also be considered as the ancestors of science fiction film. But it is also seen as the most difficult film and the most boring film. As to me, I really appreciate his imagination about space, human evolution and technology used in his film, but the long and difficult film really makes hard to focus.
This 1968 film was directed by Stanley Kubrick and written by Arthur C. Clarke. The film today is recognized by many critics and audiences as “one of the greatest films ever made”. This film got four nominations and finally won one for visual effects. This film has three main characters: Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman, Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole, William Sylyester as Dr. Heywood R. Floyd. It was consisted of four plots: the dawn of man; the lunar journey in 2000(untitled); Jupiter mission, 18 months later; Jupiter and beyond the infinite. As to his imagination and design and music in this film, I really appreciate it.
The first plot brought us to the African desert and a tribe of herbivorous apes. They were finding food and did not know how to use tool. They found a black monolith; and one monkey was fascinated by this and finally knew how to use a bone as a tool and weapon. In the second plot, a similar monolith was found in lunar and it sent signals to Jupiter. In the third plot, a spaceship named Discovery One was bound for Jupiter. It contained 2 astronauts, Dr. David Bowmanand Dr. Frank Poole, and 3 other astronauts in hibernation and also a super intelligent computer HAL 9000. Finally, they conflicted with HAL and HAL killed everyone except Dave. He at last disconnected his power and HAL stopped. During the fourth plot, Dave arrived at Jupiter, but he became old and being a fetus again.
This film was released in 1968 but provided us a visual feast and a lot of surprise. This film was long and hard to understand, but it gave us so much space to think. In the film, Kubrick used a very solemn genre to show it and talked a serious topic about the human development and future. He wanted to tell people more, but different people had different views towards it. So this film seems more like a multiple choice to people and is worth seeing again and again. In this film, he also made some imagination, such as the super intelligent computer would overcome and conflict with human beings, human would land on lunar and Jupiter, the shape and functions of spaceship and so on. All of these could be seen as a miracle in science fiction.
Kubrick wanted to show us many things and let people to think more. The mysterious black monolith appeared three times during the film. And every time it appeared, people’s situation would improve. First time it taught herbivorous apes how to use tools, second time it hinted that people should explored outer space, third time it made Dave to become a fetus. Kubrick seemed to want to show that people’s wisdom also needed the help of outside. Also, the super computer, it was clever than human. It brought up a very severe question, what was the degree of human’s dependence on tools and how we controlled to not exceed that degree. If we exceeded, maybe we would be destroyed by the tools.
Though the short dialogue and tough meanings makes me hard to focus, the visual feast and thinking outweighs that. In general, this film is worth seeing and thinking again and again. The director wants to show us more than we get. The serious questions about human development should be considered seriously.
Works Cited:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_(film)
2. http://www.filmsite.org/twot.html

evaluation 3

This chapter introduces me a new thing: portfolio. I am not familiar with that before. This chapter introduces both writing portfolio and literacy portfolio. It gives me a general idea what include in both portfolio and what are they used for. Also, it gives an example about how the portfolio works which makes it much easier for me to understand. I appreciate this chapter that let me know much things I do not know before. I do not know before what portfolio is and how it be used and how important it is, but now I get much useful information.

evaluation2

After reading some articles about evaluation, I understand better now. As all of these are new to me, I do not quite understand at first. But now I learn more, narrative, rhetorical analysis, individual reflection and evaluation. Developing your criteria and purpose is fundamental to evaluation essay. The evaluation essay may vary from person to person because of the criteria. I have already watched the film we need to watch, but I do not understand it well. There are still some things that confuse me. I will look for some background about the film and set up my own criteria as soon as possible.

A new start

The group work has already done, a new assignment is coming. This assignment is new again and different with other we did before. This time is a evaluation essay. We are required to see a film first and then write a evaluation essay based on it. The evaluation is different with analysis, since evaluation needs our own criteria. So we should find some information about the film from the web site first, then look it carefully. Next find something interesting to you and set criteria, and then begin evaluating. This sounds interesting to me and I hope I can enjoy it.

Group work3

Till now we have already done our group work. This is the first group work I attend in America and I really like it. I experience the joy from team work and learn much from it. We, as a group, work together to create the web site and collaborate with each other. We try our best to make it appealing and attractive, and also make it concise enough which will not bother the readers. We also put some pictures and videos on it which will be more interesting for readers to look. Needless to say, I like our group and appreciate our group work.

Group work 2

Our topic is about facebook and we choose to do a web site. As we spill up the categories and each of us do one part, we do not have much callaboration till now. I have not created a website before, so I hope I can do it better. I hope I can make it attractive, and at the same time, contaning much useful information.

Group work

This week we begin our group work. We can choose whether website or video to do something about technology. Our group chooses the topic about facebook. We focus on the privacy issues of facebook and how to use it safely. We prefer to do the website. We spill up the categories and each of us does one part. It sounds very great. But I still have some problems especially the language obstacle thus making me not be so involved. I will try my best to overcome this problem.

The Magic World

We always write to express our feeling, sometimes it can be as formal as an essay, sometimes it can as informal as a text message. But, whatever we do, it can be a good way to show our opinion. However, writing is not perfect, sometimes we need some more powerful way to express our emotion, and then the media is what we need. Media is amazing, it open a magic world for us. Every time we use media, it can bring something new and wonderful experience. If we use it to emphasize our opinion or just impress our audiences, media must be a good helper. No matter print text, spoken text or electronic text, each of them is of great help on attracting your audiences’ attention. What you need to do is to make a good design before using it. Make sure what you want to show and how to show it, and then make it. Media will exhibit you a unexpected excellent result.

Strategic Reading

Be a good writer, you can write along your own thoughts, use the language you want to show, present your purpose and stance, make it attractive to your readers and so on. All of things you should take into account when you are a writer. But being a reader is of much difference, this time you should follow the author’s opinion and think what they want to show to us and consider what I get after reading that. Every day we reader many things, can we just get what the authors want to show? I think today’s topic reading strategically is very helpful. Previewing a text can get you a general idea and you can decide whether you want to continue reading then. After reading I know that think about r initial response, annotate, play the believing and doubting game, think about how the text works, summarize, identify patterns, analyze argument and consider the larger context are very helpful for my strategic reading.

Be Strategic

Writing a good article not only need a attractive topic but also need some strategies to organize the article. Following are some strategies that can be used to develop a superior passage. In your article, you can analyze causes and effects. Analyzing cause may do some help for readers in thinking about why something happened; while analyzing effects can help readers think what may result in from something. There are many ways organizing an analysis of causes and effects. Identify a cause and then talk about its effects, or identify an effect and then interpret its causes, or identify a chain of causes and effects one by one. Classifying and dividing is also a strategy. Classifying gets similar things together; while dividing breaks things into parts. Comparing and contrasting can emphasize the difference.

Be a good analyzer

Be a good analyzer is not an easy and relaxed thing, it is really based on your good understanding on an article and your excellent analyzing towards an article. Good understanding on an article requires your reading and comprehension ability, but there still are some tips. Reading strategically, previewing a text (such as reading the title or headings) are good ways to improve your reading speed and help you get a general idea quickly. Also, you should consider the rhetorical situation, think about your initial response, annotate, play the believing and doubt game, think about how the text works, summarize and so on. Only by doing and consider all the things about, can you be a good analyzer.

Be a good reader

Writing is of great importance, while being a good reader is also very important. Being a good reader, you need to understand and be able to analyze the text. There are many things to be considered when analyzing text. You should make a summary of text first, since the readers do not know the text you analyzing. You need to pay much attention to the context, make a clear judgment on the text and have details to support your conclusions. You should choose a text before analyze, consider the rhetorical situation and also generate ideas and text. Understanding the stance, purpose, audience and media of a text is necessary. After doing the steps before, you need to write a draft out, make some revisions., edit and proofreading.

A good end to your article

We have done much before finishing a good article. We use the proper rhetorical situations, generate ideas and text, draft, describe, narrate and dialogue, assess, get response and revise. They all play very important and irreplaceable place in a good passage. After that you need another step to make it better. That is the editing and proofreading. You should go over the whole passage and make some edition. Check whether your each paragraph concentrates on your own main idea and has topic sentence. Check whether each sentence is completed, various and use the right expression. Check each word presents a correct meaning and great shows your stance, purpose. Then do the last step-proofreading. Check the wrong words spelling and mistakes. Read aloud to help you make a good passage.

Your good passage needs yourself

Before I had learned the rhetorical situations, literacy narratives, generating ideas and text, drafting, describing, narrating and dialogue. Each of them is the important element of a good passage. Today’s topic assessing your own writing and response and revising needs you. Finish writing a passage doesn’t mean it has already been completed and ready to hand in. It needs your own revision and assessment. Go over the passage and then ask yourself what’s your theme and purpose of it, whether your details and examples support it, what about the organization and rhetorical situations and so on. These are very useful steps for a good article. If there are some things you feel not good enough, and then revise it. After revising and assessing it for many times, the passage will become better. You should conquer yourself first, then you can conquer others.

Open a new world for me

I have to say it is very amazing. If the former readings give me the general idea about effective and correct writing or the reading, the readings this time have opened a new world for me. The big problems exists in my passages are the lack of the logical connections between paragraphs, the skilful method for composing the events and the attractive description. But after reading the materials, I learn a lot. I know that adding some details when you describe something will help the audiences imagine and understand as well as make the passage vivid and fascinating. Also, you can use the objectivity and subjectivity, the vantage point to describe something. Narrating, however, gives the idea of how to compose the whole article carefully i.e. put them in sequence and also the details. We can use the dialogue to support our opinions, too.

Think it, try it

After reading many kinds of stories I begin to have an idea about what are literacy narratives. It is not as easy as I think before. The title you give, the stance you have, the rhetorical situations you use, the main idea you show is much different and can give the readers various feelings. Within it are the ideas and text. There are many steps or methods for generating ideas and text, including freewriting, looping, listing, clustering, cubing, questioning, outlining, letter writing and discovery drafting. Before this I don’t know the clear way to write a story. Maybe I do the freewriting or listing before, but it is not systematic. I will follow the way I learn now. Think before writing, try it without hesitating.

Find the right way

It is good for us to find the right way when doing everything. Of course, the writing is not an exception. As it is said in the book” we face some kind of rhetorical situation. We have a purpose, a centain audience, a particular stance, a genre, and a medium to consider-and often as not a design.”( by Richard Bullock Maureen Daly Goggin ,P1) I do not know whether you have a general idea or not about the reading after reading this. But I do have. I know the important elements of the rhetorical situation and begin to think about it instead of reading blindly. I will begin to think what the author’s purpose is, or how the author attracts his/her audiences’ attention such questions before and after reading a passage. The purpose, audience, stance, genre, medium and design is so important not only for reading and understanding other’s passage but also for writing our own passage. Literacy Narrative is a kind of genres. After reading some examples, I find literacy narrative is very attractive and amazing. It has a soul in every literacy narrative. A good story and livily detail is indispensable for a prominent passage. Topic, rhetorical situation, ideas, ways of organizing the passage are also important thing to be thought and chose in one literacy narrative. Finding the right way is a wise option whenver you do anything.