Writing to Respond [3]

January 17, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Recently an article was written by Samantha Taylor about teenagers using social media and texting to contact and connect with each other. The article portrays an teenagers using social media as being anti-social. I feel humiliated and very offended and I’m sure other teenagers that viewed your article would feel the same. The article will have an influence on how people look at teenagers.

Yes, there are some negative points about using social media that can be addressed in the article informing teenagers on how to stay safe whilst using it, however, at the same time there are a many positive points about using social media.

To begin with, Jonathan Franzen mentions that teenagers have become a generation that can’t relate face-to-face. With little evidence, Franzen is unable to accurately blame social media for this. As Franzen refers to us as a ‘Generation that can’t relate face-to-face’ he is giving others an impression that he finds teenagers a disgrace as we are changing the generation into an anti-social society. This is unacceptable language to use to describe teenagers. As technology improves giving us easier ways to communicate, we adapt to the technology that we are born into. As technology is forever improving so we will keep adapting to it. This article is quite bias as not every teenagers does and is what is mentioned in it. This gives Franzen no right to talk about the ‘future generation’ as all we are doing is adapting to new technology.

In fact, social media makes it easier for people to socialize with others, (i.e. friends and family) without having to be face to face with them. This is a good thing as they’re able to speak to other people without having to be in same place. Another reason why social media has made a beneficial impact on us, is that we are able to speak to new people that we may have not been able to talk to in person, and if all goes well, manage to meet them whilst following safety terms.

Additionally, the second point that I picked up from the article was when, Samantha mentions an interview on TV with American comedian Louis CK. He mentions that he wouldn’t give his daughters mobile phones for fear they wouldn’t develop empathy. But this is wrong. Very wrong. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Skype allows us to communicate through the internet. Youtube is a social network where people can post and watch videos then gather feedback from people from all around the world. This gives different emotions whether the feedback is good or not.  Skype is a good example of how empathy can be linked with social networks. As you are able to video call, this is equivalent to seeing someone face-to-face.

Facebook also can be used as a “noticeboard”. For school, teachers can create a group in Facebook and add the students into it and post a reminder  message for students in the group. With this, students will be reminded when is their upcoming test and study for it and will not miss on any important things because the teacher can pass the message through Facebook and even if the students were absent, he or she will get to know. A teacher could also share and recommend a hyper-link of a web page with the students that may help them to revise. So this isn’t just beneficial with socializing, it is also beneficial for education.

Furthermore, there are undoubtedly disadvantages too such as;  One of the most important of these is the intrusion into the lives of others. Some teenagers are obsessed with social networks.Teenagers who are obsessed to social networks often go online with their phone almost every hour to have their status updated. Some of them even do that during lesson and will affect their studies. But these problems can easily be resolved with help from their parents. For example, their parents taking control of how long they use their social networks.

There are advantages and disadvantages connected with social networks. With the help of parents guidance, social network will be better and safer for teenagers.

Aatif Muhammad

A student at London Nautical School

 

Writing to Argue – Coursework # 1

January 17, 2015 / / 1 Comment

Think of a beautiful loving child all alone in a dark place, he/she is confused but has it’s mother to protect it from anything, and it doesn’t have a clue that something will kill it, and even if it did it does not have any way to stop this from happening.  Many pregnant females have made the decision to have an abortion. An abortion is to kill your baby before it leaves the womb, in other words; to have an operation to end pregnancy. There are many ways why people make this decision. Abortion is wrong, each time it is done an innocent life is being killed.It is exactly like killing a alive person however the only thing that differs is that the unborn child does not have a say on why they should stay alive, and that is why I am here to speak for them!

Between 1968 and 2003 almost 6 million legal abortions were performed in Britain. This is almost equal to the population of Greater London. Each year about 200,00 abortions take place per annum. (187,000 in England and Wales and 12,000 in Scotland). That amounts to about 550 abortions every day. This is 550 babies being killed per day, and only in the Uk alone. Abortion and murder are both the same thing. If a doctor was too kill a child one minute after it was born it would be murder, however if a doctor killed a child one minute before the child was born it would be the mothers choice as abortion. This should not be acceptable as abortion is taking away the life of an unborn child, which is just as equal as taking a life of a born child.

 

Life starts at conception when the sperm and the egg fuses, therefore abortion is wrong. Everyone would agree that killing mankind is wrong. Murder is unlawful killing of one human being by another. So why isn’t abortion illegal but murder is if they’re the same thing. Murder prevents the victim from living, whether they are born or in the womb. Abortion is murder, once the egg is fertilized it becomes a human being, therefore it is entitled to have all the rights that human beings are entitled to by law. So if abortion is murder then it should be illegal as it is breaking the law. killing a fetus or fertilized egg is equal as killing a baby that has been born.

 

Many individual catholics and christians believe that there is nothing wrong with abortion because it is not mention in the bible as a wrong thing to do, but of course it isn’t because at the time there was no such thing as abortion and neither could it take place. The bible may not mention anything about abortion but it does mention “Thou shalt not kill”, this shows us that killing in any form of way is forbidden and should not be done. It does not have to mention anything about abortion for us to know that it is wrong.

Abortion is wrong, it is murder, there are better alternatives rather than killing your unborn child. If abortion was to become illegal and you are unable to look after your baby or you were raped and you did not want any thing to do with the baby you could go to social workers, foster carers and adoption centres, to find someone who will look after your child safely and well rather than having it killed. You may be thinking that you would not want someone else that you have never met or you don’t know to look after your child. However wouldn’t it be much better to tell them when their older that you were unable to look after them properly so you gave them up for adoption or to care, rather than telling them that you were unable to take care of them so you were thinking about have an abortion to kill them. Think about how would they feel? They would have to live the rest of their life knowing that their parents were thinking about killing them.

How does Shakespeare and Shelley explore power and control through language, structure?

December 18, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Aatif

How does Shakespeare and Shelley explore power and control through language, structure?

This essay contains the involvement of power and control through language used by the characters in the two novels, Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) and The Tempest (William Shakespeare). The word power is a noun used to express the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way. Control is a word used to state the power to influence or direct people’s behaviour or the course of events. Both of the stories deal with these two words, however they both were written in completely different eras.

Frankenstein was written and published in 1818 by Mary Shelley. The Novel is about a young scientist called Victor Frankenstein who plans to create life, as if to mimic God. His experiments are positive and he uses body parts to re-create a human and give it life, this experiment takes places in chapter 5. Frankenstein is unable to give the creature its needs and ends up coming to an unsettled mind. The creature then turns on Frankenstein because of this and ends up killing Frankenstein’s loved ones. Shelley explores power and control through these two characters. Throughout the beginning of the Novel where the making of the creature takes place, Shelley gives a high status to Frankenstein as he wishes to take on God’s role and give life. As God is seen by many people on the earth as the creator and ruler of the universe and a supreme being with power over nature or human being, this could show how much power and control Frankenstein was willing to gain through the story.

Once Frankenstein’s creature came to life, his power and control had improved, giving him a higher status. The longer the creature lived the faster Frankenstein’s power/control decreased. Frankenstein created the monster using different body parts from dead bodies, and a spark of lightning to give it life.

Mary Shelley was influence on the creation of the monster from the Aldini experiment of stimulating muscles with electric currents. Giovanni Aldini was an Italian psychologist and scientist who lived in the 1800’s. He was famous for his experiment on the corpse of George Forster in January 1803. At this time Shelley was only 5, so she was unaware that it took place. It was until she was older when her friends and family told her about the experiment. This influenced her too write the story of Frankenstein and how he came to life.

An example of Power and Control in the novel, Frankenstein, is the relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creation. In Chapter 5, when Frankenstein’s creation comes to life, and approaches him, he runs away from his creation with fear. Leaving the Creation confused. Throughout the story Frankenstein is running away with the creation not too far behind. As the story goes on, the creation gains more power over Frankenstein. Frankenstein goes through a lot of trouble trying to get away from his creation, and he goes through tragic events in his life caused by his creation. For example the death of his younger brother and constant nervous break downs. All of

these negative impacts makes Victor Frankenstein’s power and control over his creation decrease with the creations increasing. This is the reason why he is able to murder Frankenstein’s loved ones, as he hopes Frankenstein will give up running away so the creation can get what he wants; a wife.

The Tempest was a play, written by William Shakespeare and is about a Duke of Milan called Prospero who is deported from his own kingdom by his younger brother, who takes over his throne. He then seeks revenge on his younger brother, as the play goes on other characters are introduced and they each have different roles to do with the re-vengeance. These characters each have a link to power and control.

In the 17th century year 1609 white Europeans sailed towards America, with 500 colonists on board and a major shipwreck took place changing the course of their sailing. The change of direction took them to one of the Islands in the Bermuda’s. This Island was known as the Devil’s Island. This was mentioned by Ariel in the script, when telling Prospero what she has done to the ship. There was such thing as the old world and the new world in the 17th century. The old world was seen as a civilization that had gone through the industrial revolution, which had a lot of discoveries, with countries in Europe that were claimed to be civilized. The new world was a metaphor given to the America, in terms of the new world they had not gone through a stage of development such as the industrial revolution. This was due to the fact that America were full of natives, were they were seen as uncivilized by the Europeans. This takes it into conclusion that the old world desired to colonize the old world as they had a lot of riches, but also to enable them to go through the stage of development. Shakespeare used the old world and the new world and presented them with Prospero and Caliban. Shakespeare presented the old world through Prospero as he was a white European from Milan, Italy in Europe. Caliban was a seen as the new world as he was a uncivilized native unlike Prospero.

As the story is introduced, it begins with Prospero and his daughter, Miranda. Another point that demonstrates the power and control in The Tempest is, Act 1 Scene 1 when we are introduced to the play-script. A ‘violent’ storm takes place, with a ship that is out of control. The storm is controlled by Prospero which affects the ship. He does this aiming to scare the crew on the ship, to show off his powers so they feel insecure and threatened when entering the island. He threatens them with the storm to send a warning to the crew on the ship that they can’t take over his island.

One of the characters that are mainly involved with power and control is Caliban. In the story he has a ranking at bottom of the hierarchy. As Prospero’s slave, Caliban is seen as derogatory, as his attitude towards Prospero is full of hate, an example of this is from Act scene 2 “Shake it off. Come on; we’ll visit Caliban, my slave, who never Yields us kind answers.”  This quotation was mention by Prospero, directed to Miranda. He is saying that Caliban replies to him yelling with rude responses. Even though Caliban is Prospero’s slave, we can see that Caliban does not have a civilized manner towards is owners, however he still obeys Propspero. The reason to this maybe because he is scared of Prospero because of his power. Prospero is the owner of the island that Caliban lives on, which gives him a high statues in the hierarchy.

Ariel is more willing to obey Prospero because of the leverage he has over him. Prospero released Ariel from an enchanted tree where he was being kept prisoner by the witch who previously ruled the island, Caliban’s mother. Because of this, Ariel effectively owes him a great debt which Prospero uses as an advantage make him follow his orders.  Prospero also teases Ariel with a promise of releasing him eventually if he obeys everything he commands. This makes him more likely to try and please Prospero. On the other hand, Prospero tells him that he will lock him back in the tree if he disobeys, something which Ariel is very afraid of. So to Ariel, his only hope of freedom is to keep Prospero happy. This means that the relationship between Prospero and Ariel is completely one sided in Prospero’s favour.

Prospero treats Ariel in a civilized manner, rather than Caliban. This is because, Prospero freed Ariel from Sycorax, Calibans mother. So Ariel obeys Prospero to repay him, whereas Prospero did not do any favours for Caliban, instead he killed his mother and enslaved him.

As the play comes to an end, the main character that changes his attitude towards others and himself is involved Caliban. At the end of the story, Caliban reflects on his behaviour. Throughout the play Caliban’s plan was too murder Prospero, making him free from slavery. As he was unable to do this alone because of Prospero’s power and control he tried to gain help from Stephano and Trinculo, persuading them by telling them that they would own the whole island if they managed to murder Prospero. Prospero finds out about Caliban’s plan through Ariel and out fronts him. This is when Caliban feels sympathetic and embarrassed by himself and pleads Prospero for forgiveness because he realizes that Prospero’s power and control is a high status. Prospero forgives him and Caliban continues to be his slave, however he Prospero also has a better attitude towards Caliban as he realizes that Caliban is more civilized then he thought.

IGCSE Coursework – Writing to Argue (2)

November 21, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Many pregnant females have made the decision to have an abortion. An abortion is to kill your baby before it leaves the womb, in other words; to have an operation to end pregnancy. There are many ways why people make this decision. Abortion is wrong, each time it is done an innocent life is being killed.It is exactly like killing a alive person however the only thing that differs is that the unborn child does not have a say on why they should stay alive, and that is why I am here to speak for them!

Think of a beautiful loving child all alone in a dark place, he/she is confused but has it’s mother to protect it from anything, and it does have a clue that something will kill it, and even if it did it does not have any way to stop this from happening.

Many people disagree with abortion, whether their christians, muslim or catholic, the majority of religions disagree with it. Some people believe that abortion is murder and that, once the egg is fertilized it becomes a human being, therefore it is entitled to have all the rights that human beings are entitled to by law. So if abortion is murder then it should be illegal as it is breaking the law. Others may see it as killing a fetus or fertilized egg and may believe that this is just like killing a baby thats been born.

On the other hand some people believe that there is nothing wrong with abortion because it is not mention in the bible as a wrong thing, but of course it isn’t because at the time there was no such thing as abortion. Also the bible may not mention anything about abortion but it does mention “Thou shalt not kill”, this shows us that killing in any form of way is forbidden and should not be done. It does not have to mention anything about abortion for us to know that it is wrong.

Right now you may be thinking about what should women should do if they can’t have an abortion if it became illegal but they are unable to look after the baby or they were raped and they do not want any thing to do with it. But this is why we have social workers, foster carers and adoption centres, to find someone who will look after your child safely and well. You may be thinking that you would not want someone else that you have never met or you don’t know to look after your child. However wouldn’t it be much better to tell them when their older that you were unable to look after them properly so you gave them for adoption or to care, rather than telling them that you were unable to take care of them so you were thinking about have an abortion to get rid of them. Think about how would they feel? They would have to live with the rest of their life knowing that you was thinking about killing them and there would of been nothing they could do about it.

Abortion is wrong, it is murder, there are better alternatives rather than killing your unborn child.

IGCSE Coursework – Writing to Describe (1)

November 21, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Drivers were aborting their cars and running for their lives, trying to get off the motorway on foot. Turning frantically, cars were trying to prevent themselves from being crushed to death. They were trying to avoid the large tank driving on the wrong side of the road, approaching opposite traffic. It was unstoppable. No one had any idea what to do. What could they do?

At the wheel of the tank, there was Corporal Smith, an ex-Sniper recently diagnosed with post traumatic distress disorder. Raging, he gathered speed, screaming out different names from his past experience in the war. He was trained to fight in war, however this training wasn’t used for war, but his own country, on the civilians.

The civilians were confused. A tank is a military transport, and the military’s job is to protect the people from any life threatening danger. But this tank was attacking innocent people. Why?

The damage and gave Corporal Smith a shiver of thrill as he grinned at his destruction. Some people just managed to escape death as the massive tank was accelerating speed, crushing any abandoned cars in it’s way. Some of the unfortunate ones who were unable to flee from the danger were terminated. People who were at a safe distance from the tank were horrified from the deaths and injuries caused by the Smith. He chuckled with spite as he created more damage on the motorway.

Trailing behind was a disaster. It was almost as if he had left a roadway to hell. The grey toxic smoke from the fires smudged the blue skyline as if i it was a ruined painting. The tracks of the tank left a long deep scar across the demolished road. Aborted cars congested the motorway as if it was a full car park, leaving a pathway that had been made by the tank.

Sobbing, weeping and crying, left in tears as they watched their loved ones killed. Smith dominated the motorway, there was nothing that could match him with that tank. Jeeps and Vans were no use, trucks may have slowed him down but he didn’t stop, once he got through it he quickly gained speed again.

The motorway started becoming empty. Drivers were warned about the attack going on ahead and instantly made U-turns on the opposite side of the motorway, to avoid coming face to face with the tank, knowing they had no chance of surviving. This was not good for Cpl Smith as people were escaping the road, preventing him from doing any damage. He started to operate the main gun, aiming at the cars and people who were trying to scatter away to safety.

Still driving down the wrong side of the road with an aim at the people and cars, the tank fired multiple shots. This caused large explosions and more louder screaming. Smoke covered the area from the fire. People screaming for help and others scrambling away and others running to the tragic scene, trying to save innocent and loved ones who may have had a chance of surviving. Smith aggressively frowned as if it to show that this was only the start…

This still did not satisfy the tank driver as he continued to speed down the motorway. All three emergency services, The Police, Ambulance and Fire Brigade entered the scene including the S.W.A.T Team. The Ambulance service went straight to aid the injured, whilst the police and swat cars/van were trailing behind the tank trying to stop it. Helicopters from the emergency services and news reporters surrounded the chaos at a safe distance.

The tank approached a tunnel, with the emergency services still trailing behind. More emergency services were on the other side of the tunnel with a barricade waiting for the tank, trying to stop it. They were aiming to trap the tank in the tunnel, as if it was a mouse. The tank entered the tunnel, accelerating speed, leaving the emergency services trailing behind it at far distance.

Smith reached the middle of the tunnel with a sharp halt, with knowledge that the other side was barricaded. The Emergency services caught up with the tank and stopped surrounded it. The S.W.A.T  team hoped out their vans, with all body armour and weapons as they walked up to the tank slowly with all guns aimed. Two of them climbed onto the tank opening the entrance. It was empty. The mental and dangerous fugitive, Corporal Smith had gotten away…