Lesson 11

I finished putting my personal essay together and it's now four pages, which is somewhat bad because the actual essay itself is supposed to be between one and three pages.

I then turned my attention to the reading assignments for the week.
Superman and Me. - by Sherman Alexie
The mention of a Spokane Indian reservation caught my attention immediately, as my mother was born in and grew up in Spokane. I have also visited Spokane many times during my life and I enjoy it immensely. It is also amazing that the young one in the story found simple pleasure in reading despite the hard circumstances handed to him in childhood. I find it intriguing that the boy took the word paragraph and used it to describe the differences between his family and others, as different families and paragraphs each contain diversity, but also have differences within them that make them unique. Each paragraph, like each family, has individuality in it and yet, they both have common factors: a paragraph is part of an overall statement of information and a family unit, though comprised of unique individuals, is comprised of people that are part of an overall society. I'm not sure I wholly agree with the statement, "a smart Indian is a dangerous Indian", however, as anyone who is overly smart about something could be potentially dangerous, not just Indians. The statement also makes it seem as if anyone who has any intelligence at all could have the potential to cause harm. Dangerous does not automatically mean harmful; it could mean serving as a threat to negative societal traits such as conformity and indifference. Intelligence can save society from things that the people within are trying to use in order to make it pleasurable for themselves. Conformity and indifference are not pleasurable, however; they strip away individuality and passion that make intelligence what it is. Intelligence fueled by passion can keep a person alive simply because they choose to use such things to save themselves rather than bow to conformity and have their free spirit drained away.

I also read an essay called 'The Monsters in My Head' by Frank Langella.

Once I posted on the Discussion Board, I turned my attention to the Grammar Lesson for the week, which was on 'Confused Words.' I read a handout and watched a video before doing the quiz, which I took once and got 100% on.

I then watched Paragraph and Essay Development videos on Narrative and Writing, Description and Detail, and Tone and Voice.