Respond to Peers: Be sure to respond to at least two of your classmates' posts by Sunday at midnight. In your responses, post at least 100 words and evaluate your colleague's paragraph and/or self-evaluation. Do you agree with his/her responses to the questions? What else could he/she do to develop stronger body paragraphs?
• Jeffrey Lucas Jr
100 Word Count Response
Within "The Man of the Crowd" by Edgar Allen Poe, we follow this man who is coward watching then follows an elderly man throughout the city while we tries to determine the elderly man's purpose which is which is really describing the author.
Throughout his life, Edgar Allan Poe had issues with crowds and he further explains how the elderly gentlemen walking through the streets is really a way for the "man" that is crowd watching to reflect about himself (Amaral, 2011). Amaral states, "the narrator's description of his own state of mind..." which help further reflect how Edgar Allan Poe had issues internally with large crowds (2011).
References:
Amaral, G., 2011., Edgar Allan Poe's Fear of Texts: "The Man of the Crowd" as Literary Monster, Vol 35, pp 227-238
o Explain the connection between the topic sentence and your working thesis. Would this connection be clear to someone without your explanation? If so, why? If not, how can you modify your topic sentence and/or thesis statement to make this connection more clear?
The connection is the issue that Edgar Allan Poe had throughout his life around groups of people. I would like to think this connection would be clear but I am bias to my thoughts.
o Explain the choice of reference material. How do the references support the topic sentence? Would this connection be clear to someone without your explanation? If so, why? If not, what information should you add to the paragraph to make this connection more clear?
I choose to pick this article due to while a scholary source it analyzes the poem but also discusses Edgar Allan Poe's life and compares the two. Yes, with the amount of information I would present from this article, I think this would be a clear connection.
o Does the paragraph contain any unnecessary information? Does everything in it work to support the topic sentence? What information could be added or removed? In essence, you are being asked to evaluate the cohesion of your paragraph.
As this is just a draft paragraph for my final paper, it currently has the bare minimum while I would on building it to better work with the rest of the paper. I believe more information describing how the author had his struggles in his life.
o Note any other specific challenges faced or successes experienced when writing this paragraph or completing this discussion post.
I wish I could better know how to read between the lines of stories and understand the message behind the story.
• Ferdinand Cuevas
100 Word Count Response
Jimmy Cross v. Martha v. Reality of War
The topic sentence has changed and been tweaked since the first and second week of class. I'm finding it a bit confusing at times. I started off with "What You Pawn, I Will Redeem" before settling with "The Things They Carried".
Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, Martha, and the reality of war are all at extreme odds with one another in the story "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. Lieutenant Cross is an infantry platoon leader in charge of soldiers during the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Cross carries letters from a woman, that he is infatuated with, in the bottom of his rucksack. "He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire. He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there. More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her" (O'Brien, T. 1990).
Cross fantasizes about Martha, a student at a college in New Jersey. "Slowly a bit distracted, he would get up and move among his men, checking the perimeter, then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin" (O'Brien, T. 1990). Lieutenant Cross must choose between leading his soldiers, or continue to let the visions of Martha distract him from his duties as a platoon leader.
My referenced material is from The Things They Carried (O'brien, T. (1990). The first thing that I am trying to accomplish is the feelings that Cross had for Martha. "He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire.
He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there. More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her" (O'Brien, T. 1990). I wanted to reference anything stating that Cross was distracted by the thoughts of her. "Slowly a bit distracted, he would get up and move among his men, checking the perimeter, then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin" (O'Brien, T. 1990).
I think that the paragraph needs a lot more work to make it more fluid. I think that it provides a good amount of information pertaining to the feelings that Cross has for Martha. I don't believe that the paragraph contains any unnecessary information. I think that it shows the degree with which Cross has been distracted from his duties.
I couldn't really develop anything with the original short story that I read. I read The Things They Carried, and I related to some of the things in the story, having been deployed to two different war zones on four different occasions. I personally carried letters and other items in my helmet. I think that relating to the story has helped me develop my paper, even though it isn't close to being finished yet.
O'Brien, T. (1990). The Things They Carried. Journey into Literature. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education Inc.