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Michael Reid
Kimberly Strickland
English 1010
July 15, 2014
Midterm
In all three pieces that I have turned in the target audience is my professor. The
purpose of “Romance With Words” is to tell the narrative of how I fell in and out of love
with writing. My goal of “Icarian Tragedy” is to take a look and analyze the painting
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Brueghel. In “Chubbies vs. Thinnies” the
purpose was to analyze how effectively Suzanne Britt convinced people through her
writing that fat people are better than thin people.
I have gone through all of the essays and tweaked the grammar and syntax to
make the sentences flow a bit better. My style of writing tends to be short choppy
sentences, but I think if it is done right it can be effective. However, I have to go back
and combine sentences and add details, so that when I do use short sentences they don’t
lose their effect. The one paper that I needed to make the most change after the peer
review was the literacy narrative. My first draft didn’t contain a thesis. I had a great story
but there wasn’t a purpose. Once my peer helped me realize my mistake I was able to add
a thesis and gain a better focus for my paper.
Unfortunately, that was the only peer review that I received. I would have liked to
see what other peers thought of my other papers, so that I could improve them because to
my eyes, after reading them a bunch of times, they seem perfect, although I know they
are far from it.
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I feel that the challenge of writing an essay a week has stretched and exercised my
writing skills that I haven’t used in quite awhile. It’s enjoyable for me to go back to past
essays and analyze myself: what parts were effective, which parts were not? Could I have
used stronger vocabulary? Check for correct grammar.
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Michael Reid
Kimberly Strickland
English 1010
25 June 2014
Romance With Words
I sat on the emerald green carpet with crayons scattered about me. My chin jutted
out, a classic Reid characteristic, as I intensely focused on coloring within the lines. This
week, I was working on the letter K. My older sister had self-declared herself to be my
preschool teacher. She had me studying the alphabet in preparation for kindergarten. I
was practicing recognizing letters and copying them down on paper. I was taught that a
strong literary background was essential for success. A new love of reading and writing
began to blossom at such young age. Little did I know that this romance would not last
forever.
After I started kindergarten, my parents bought me a journal. I became a writing
machine. I wrote about everything I could think of: my family, my pets, my shoes.
Sometimes I wasn’t quite sure my true feelings were coming across on paper in such
simple sentences, so I accompanied my words with illustrations of my family, my pets,
my shoes. I loved writing and drawing in my journal because in my six year old brain I
felt smart and accomplished like a true author.
Not only did I feel that could I write like nobody’s business, but I was an avid
reader as well. In elementary school I remember pouring myself over each week’s new
set of “take-home” books from school. I couldn’t wait to see what books were in my bag.
My parents were very supportive of me learning to read and would spend time with me
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every night reading. I remember a time reading with my dad; he had me read my books
three times. The first run was to read it straight through to become familiar with the book.
The second time was with exaggerated expression as if I were performing it on stage. The
last round of reading the book always threw me off. He’d ask me to read it backward.
“What?!? Dad, you are crazy!” I would exclaim. Yet, when I read it backwards, that’s
when we’d reexamine words I didn’t know or struggled with. This improved my
vocabulary tremendously.
I continued my adventure of learning to read and write. I still read quite a bit
except I started to become pickier about what I wanted to read. I tend to read more
fantasy and science fiction books to escape into the story and forget about daily worries.
However, as school continued I began to hate the selection of books that my teachers
would make us read. Vague, abstract, ancient texts that, although they were written in
English, I still had to decode them because of their vocabulary. The love of writing
started to fade right along with the desire to read. Assignments became more difficult,
and the need to please the teacher, to finish the assignment, became the goal. I was
writing because I was a student, not because I wanted to be the author.
There was a research paper that I was assigned my senior year. I had to compare
two texts with research about the background of why the author wrote the books and the
symbolism of the texts. I spent hours pouring over books in multiple libraries trying to
find resources. I was very organized with my notes and references. I then spent even
more painstaking hours organizing and placing my thoughts on paper. I made sure to mix
up the syntax and add more voice to the paper to make it more interesting to read.
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When the time came I had placed my final product on the teacher’s desk hoping
that all of my hard would be recognized. I did not receive the grade I thought I had
worked for. My teacher said that I hadn’t used quotes that strongly argued my topic or I
should have changed my topic to fit the quotes, and that there was no voice in the paper.
She felt that I was just spewing facts on a page to get the points. I looked up to this
teacher and valued what she thought of me, and now, I felt mistaken of my opinion of my
own writing. How could I be so thick to think I was a good writer? Over time I developed
the attitude that writing in the school setting was simply to jump through hoops.
After high school I got a job as a pharmacy technician. I decided to take a break
from school and just go to work. After a few years of busting my rear end for a small
salary, I decided it was necessary to go back to school for a degree. My goal is to become
an actuary because I enjoy mathematics. In the beginning, I was thinking that this
occupation would help me escape from writing. This line of thinking is erroneous
because being an actuary, although the job is mathematically based, still requires that
many notes, reports and presentations need to be written, and written well.
I see that learning to read and to write are imperative if we are going to function
within our society. I appreciate that my parents and family supported good literacy skills
while I was in the primary grades. The enthusiasm for reading that they shared with me
allows me to appreciate a good novel today. However, the abundance of writing
assignments that had to be perfect for the teacher has left me with a sour attitude toward
writing. Now I’m the author only of texts to friends and family and the odd Facebook
post.
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Michael Reid
Kimberly Strickland
English 1010
30 June 2014
Icarian Tragedy
There is a sad and terrible message hidden in Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
by Pieter Brueghel. It's an oil painting on canvas created in the 1590's. The dimensions of
the artwork are about 29 in. x 44in. It is displayed at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of
Belgium in Brussels. The painting illustrates the last part of the Greek myth from Ovid's
Metamorphoses. Icarus has flown too close to the sun and his wings have already melted.
He is now drowning in the sea below as the other characters in the painting go about their
business.
It’s a beautiful landscape along a shoreline. In the distance on the shore you can
see small buildings that make up a city with tall mountains. In about the center of the
horizon you can barely see a small yellow sun setting. Color is an important design
element in this painting. The colors in the distance are dull and washed out forcing your
eyes to look toward the foreground. Here the colors are more vibrant and detailed. The
water in the sea becomes darker and greener. The curved lines of the shoreline draws
your eye from the center back down through the farmer's field to the corner with the ship
and Icarus' legs. The first image to catch your eye is the farmer ploughing his field in the
front center. His shirt is bright red, and you see that he is quite focused on his work. Over
the shoulder of the farmer there is a shepherd in blue with his dog at his side. His back is
to the sea, and he is looking to the sky possibly looking to Daedalus. There is a majestic
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ship in the bottom right corner making its way across the sea. Further below is an angler
with red hair and a white shirt. His attention is devoted to catching fish. Between the ship
and the angler is a small pair of legs that belong to Icarus as he is drowning. This painting
shows a great example of perspective; the sun is setting far away in the background and
where Icarus is drowning in the foreground symbolizing the distance between where
Icarus fell and his goal of reaching the sun.
As the Greek myth goes, Daedalus made his son and himself wings made of
feathers and bees wax. The father warns his son to follow his course; not too low to avoid
the moisture off the sea, and not too high because the sun will melt the wax. They both
took flight above the farmer, the shepherd, and the angler who were amazed at the sight.
Icarus enjoyed flying and wanted to reach the heavens, so he flew higher leaving his
guide. As he rose, the sun began to melt the wax and the wings fell apart. Icarus
plummeted to the sea below and drowned.
Brueghel depicts the sad and tragic end of Icarus. The farmer, the shepherd, and
the angler are at work and do not pay attention to the drowning man. The legs poking out
of the water are small to depict how insignificant he his to the people on the shoreline.
They must have seen the boy fall or heard a splash, as W.H. Aurden suggests in his poem
“Musee des Beaux Arts”, and, yet, they do nothing. It makes me think about the times
that we see tragedies and we turn our backs like the shepherd or go about our work like
the ploughman. I think of the story about the murder in the apartment complex.
Everybody hears the gunshot, and some people come out their doors to look in the
courtyard, but all they do is look. They don’t want to be involved. Some residents don’t
even come outside. They continue to make dinner, watch TV or clean the house. No one
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interferes or helps the victim. This may be Brueghel’s sad message that we all need to
consider. How does humankind react when we witness something terrible like this? How
should we react?
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Michael Reid
Kimberly Strickland
English 1010
July 9, 2014
Chubbies Vs. Thinnies
In her article, “That Lean and Hungry Look”, Suzanne Britt shares with us her
perspective of how thin people are different from fat people. This article ran in the
October 9, 1978 copy of Newsweek under the “My Turn” column. Britt states, “Thin
people need watching.” and “All of them are dangerous.” (82) Through a humorous,
compare and contrast essay Suzanne Britt successfully persuades the audience that fat
people are superior to thin people.
Our society judges each other by many different stereotypes, and the effect has a
negative impact on our society. We are told how we should look, dress and act. We
criticize and judge others based on size. Because of this negative effect, Suzanne Britt
tries to dispel the typical stereotypes of being fat. Her target audience is fat people
because she wants them to feel better about themselves.
Britt’s compare and contrast of fat vs. thin convinces us that fat people are much
more fun by showing how thin people are dull. “They don’t know how to goof off, at
least in the best, fat sense of the word. They’ve always got to be adoing. Give them a
coffee break, and they’ll jog around the block.” (Britt 82) She gives more examples of
how thin people are always trying to “tackle” new problems such as finding “The key
thing”, their list of logical things, and cutting down time to complete a puzzle. (Britt 8283)
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Britt shows the appeal of Pathos by empathizing with the audience using the
statement, “all of us chubbies” (83). She uses humor to make the audience feel better and
happier about themselves. She even throws away the appeal of Logos to say that “Fat
people realize that life is illogical and unfair.” and the realization helps fat people know
the true quality of life. Thin people are the logical ones who treat fat people like little kids
(Britt 83).
Her word choice to describe thin people illuminates how dull they are. She uses
words such as: bustle briskly, shriveled, surly, mean, “crunchy and dull, like carrots”,
“bony torsos, tight ships, neat corners”, “prognose, probe, and prick”. For describing fat
people she takes words with negative connotations and puts them with positive words.
For example, Britt uses the word “gluttonous”, which is one of the 7 Deadly Sins, but she
uses it with other words such as “goodly and great”, keeping on with the alliteration (84).
Now “gluttonous”, in a way, seems glorified.
When she describes fat people, she takes stereotypical phrases that are negative,
and she turns them around to make them desirable. In the beginning Britt takes the
stereotype of being lazy to say that she’d rather be with “sluggish, inert, easygoing fat
people, the kind who believe that if you clean it up today, it’ll just get dirty again
tomorrow.” (82). She shows that fat people aren’t lazy, they just know that it is more
important to spend time making memories with loved ones rather than bustling about
scrubbing every inch of the house.
Whether fat or skinny the audience that reads “That Lean and Hungry Look” will
be convinced of Suzanne Britt’s opinion that fat people are much better than skinny
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people. Suzanne shows this through her use of humor, compare and contrast, appeal of
Pathos, and her word choice. Britt effectively reverses our way of stereotyping fat people.
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Works Cited
Britt, Suzanne. "That Lean and Hungry Look." Readings for Writers. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin's Custom, 2012. 82-84.