Do we really need 8 hours?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/opinion/sunday/rethinking-sleep.html?pagewanted=2&ref=general&src=me

Summary: This article is titled "Rethinking Sleep" and offers information on the best way to sleep, as conceived now and in the past.

Diction:
Much of the word choice in this article is aimed to alter our way of thinking about sleep. For example, Randall uses the word "tyranny" when describing the eight hour sleep cycle. When most people think of getting eight hours of sleep a night, they don't think of it as having unrestrained power of them, like a dictator would. But by using this word, Randall puts the idea into the readers head that our ideas of a "good night's sleep" is actually controlling our lives, potentially for the worse. When discussing how deep sleep allows us to better perform cognitively, Randall uses low elevation words like "toss" and "jumble,"making the paragraph easier understood by the average person.

Details:
Randall uses most of the details he adds just to support his point that sleeping eight straight hours might not be the best way to sleep. He adds examples from everything from literature and the Canterbury Tales, to sports and athletes. However, using only these examples that showcase the abnormal would make this article difficult to relate to. Randall also uses details that show he knows most people don't have the opportunity to nap on the job, or that mentioning sleepiness usually warrants the scolding "Get more sleep." In order to make his points more convincing, Randall chose to exclude details that emphasize how those who do get eight straight hours of sleep every night feel. Are they well rested? Do they perform better than those who have split sleep cycles? This information would be helpful to decide which way of sleeping truly is better, but it may not have helped Randall prove his point.

Imagery:
Although this piece is just informative and not full of imagery, Randall does use some imagery to help the reader understand what he's saying. To start the piece, he puts the reader in bed, waking up to some piece of technology. Because the vast majority of readers have experienced this, in depth description isn't needed to make the paragraph vivid.

I don't remember this book as well as I thought I did...

2007. In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present activities, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë introduces the characters in the present, but she does not stay there for long. The majority of the book is spent telling a story from the past that eventually helps the reader understand Heathcliff. His relationship with the past leaves him bitter and, arguably, insane.

In the beginning of Wuthering Heights, Mr. Lockwood arrives at the home of Heathcliff and what is left of his family. The reader, and Mr. Lockwood himself, is left wondering why Heathcliff is distant and bitter. Mr. Lockwood acts on his curiosity and asks a house maid, Nelly, to tell him Heathcliff’s story. As she tells the story throughout the novel, the reader concludes that all of Heathcliff’s faults seem to come from one event from his past: Catherine chose Edgar.

Prior to Catherine choosing Edgar and Heathcliff leaving Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff seems to be a mostly normal boy with a crush. However, when Heathcliff overhears Catherine tell Nelly that she couldn’t possibly marry him, he runs away and is a completely different person upon his return. From the moment he returns, Heathcliff tries to get Catherine to chose him, even though she’s already married to Edgar. Heathcliff is no longer just a boy with a crush, he’s a man who will do just about anything to get the revenge he wants.

As part of his revenge, Heathcliff marries Isabella Linton and puts himself in line to inherit her family’s property. This marriage, having nothing to do love, is doomed from the start. Heathcliff treats Isabella so poorly, she flees to London, where she raises their son alone. After she dies and their son, Linton, returns to live with his father, it is clear that Heathcliff has no intentions of treating him the way a father should treat his son. To Heathcliff, Linton is just another reminder that he didn’t get Catherine. Because Linton isn’t Heathcliff and Catherine’s son, he means next to nothing to Heathcliff.

The novel comes full circle when Nelly’s story catches up to the present. Mr. Lockwood and the reader both now understand why Heathcliff is bitter, and why the others in the house are reserved. Heathcliff’s relationship to his past is what sets the plot for the entire novel, providing for different characters to get involved in various ways as he seeks his revenge for the love he lost. 

You mean I have to do more than just show up?

          Okay, I knew I had to do more than just show up to do well in this class. The title is more in reference to my realization that I actually have to think to do well in this class. It's not a math class where there's lots of "plug and chug" situations, or history where it's just fact after fact. I actually have to think about what we're doing and how I can better understand it. Which I think is a great idea and might actually make the class meaningful, not just another AP on my college applications.
          Now for the actual assignment. I've known kids in AP Lit for a few years now, and they always said "I analyze everything now." I never fully believed them. I mean, how could someone watch a movie and only see the underlying meaning of the red shirt the boy is wearing or the sudden rain storm? After reading Foster's book, I completely understand. I can remember reading the chapter "Marked For Greatness" and thinking back to sophomore year in American Lit. One of my favorite books from that year was A Prayer for Owen Meany, who was definitely marked for greatness. Throughout the book, Owen has his own ideas on why he's small, but I kept wondering if it was really necessary. Foster mentioned people like Harry Potter and his scar, and how his scar tells us he's important and will do great things. Making Owen Meany a midget did much the same thing, forcing me to pay attention to everything he did right up to the end of the book.
          The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing was an eye-opener as well. I'd heard some of the tips before, like avoiding passive voice and unnecessary adverbs (something I still need to work on), but I found myself guilty of using the pompous style Harvey describes at the beginning of his book. I have a decent vocabulary and I always wanted to use my most impressive (at least as I saw them) words in my formal writing. After reading Harvey's book, I realized that those who read my college essays, or even my high school essay, don't want to know how many big words I know how to use. Writing an essay so that my real voice comes through is much more important than showing off my vocabulary.
          The forum posts and diagnostic/poetry tests we had to take were frustrating, but helpful. Poetry has never been my strong suit in English classes, so I didn't do well on the poetry test and thinking of something to post about "The Mexicans Begin Jogging" and "The Terrorist He Watches" took what seemed like hours. But after doing them, I found that posting replies and rethinking about the poems was much easier. I know I'm going to have to read a lot more poetry to consider myself good at analyzing it, but doing the assignments and reading other students' work definitely helped me improve over the summer.