Lucy Liu’s AP Comp Blog

Kurzwiel, in his essay “Reinventing Humanity,” is generally supportive of modern developments in technology. He uses disinterest when he presents the idea of artificial intelligence, going on to explain the effects that the ability to replicate and edit RNA gives us. When he is presenting the idea that naturally weaned humans will be inferior to the perfect beings that technology is able to create, he offers someone else’s quote, a Hans Moravec of Cornell Robotics professor fame. This name-dropping firstly establishes his literacy and perhaps even his presence in the scientific community. It also gives Kurwiel’s viewpoint some credibility. He counterbalances these facts and goes on to talk about some beneficial technological innovations.

In contrast, McKibben writes in a more informal tone, relating to the audience as if he were having a conversation with them. His main rhetorical device is in appealing to the audience’s ethos. The example he gives about programming children is sure to resonate with parents, and even with non-parents. Language that he uses to describe the effects of this technology all have negative connotations in the context: “install into the nucleus”, “genetic tampering”. Although he doesn’t explicitly state that he is on the con side of this argument, the language helps clue people in and also coerces them to think the same.

Modern transportation advanced the world in a way unforeseen by its innovators: it connected the world through delivery of materials and people, and opened gateways to new explorations. One such way that transportation is being used today is in the importation of organisms from one place to another. Recent investigations have shown that regardless of these organisms’ purpose, be it for the improvement of the landscape or by accident, government agencies need to be more careful when it comes to handling shipping permits. Some things they need to consider before transferring nonindigenous species to another country are the wildlife and vegetation of the area, the consequences of the imported organisms, and how both of these things affect other humans.

In the example of the interaction between balsam woolly adelgids and balsam fir trees, the environment of the destination was not taken into account, and with dire consequences. Accidentally imported from the United States to Europe, the adelgids upon arrival went to work, eventually wiping out forest after forest of fir trees. While it is unclear how much of this could’ve been prevented, being accidental and all, it is evident that somewhere along the way, permits and inspections had to be issued on the carrier vessels. The fact that the government didn’t catch it or consider its effect on the surrounding environment shows that tighter quality control could have quelled the effects of the adelgids. It is not only the accidental importations that cause problems, however.

Sometimes intentional transferral of organisms backfire as well. Governments should take care to carefully assess the consequences of the transferral before giving the green light. In the example of Queensland’s sugar cane fields, a flawed experiment ended up nearly destroying an essential industry of the region. No one had anticipated that cane toads, renowned in the Caribbean for their beetle-killing abilities, would outdo their utility; along with bugs, these toads consumed “almost everything in sight.” This setback, which required a multimillion-dollar campaign to revert, could’ve been easily avoided with a few short studies of the toads. The government should take from this to be more cautious and aware about the consequences of importing organisms. In any case, it is one thing to destroy the environment; it is quite another to destroy a life.

These imported things can affect people even more than they affect the surrounding landscapes. The government, in taking in consideration the consequences of importation, should also contemplate the consequences on the people. In many cases around the world, people like Jenny and Delan Perry are losing their source of income because of foreign parasites. The Perry’s papaya business that had taken years to build up was destroyed by an invasion of the papaya ringspot virus. In this case, it would be hard to prove whether the virus was foreign or domestic. But in many other scenarios around the world, such as in the transmission of SARS, invasive microbes are imported through human-operated vectors, such as airplanes and boats. It doesn’t take much for the government to mandate tighter inspection and regulation on these vectors. They should be more willing to do so just for the sake of human lives and well-being.

History has shown us that the ability to transport things from place to place gives us an advantage to escape or fight against invasive organisms (quarantine, inoculation, etc.). When transportation is used in the wrong way, however, disastrous results can ensue. Since modern governments have as much control over importation/exportation as they do, it should be up to them to prevent the spread of invasive plants and animals. By taking the environment, effects of the organisms, and people affected into account, the government would be able to form an efficent plan to address and hopefully solve the issue at hand.

The synthesis essay bears great resemblance to the Document-Based Question (DBQ) of the APUSH test. A prompt is given with various types of relevant documents, and students are expected to use deas presented to form their essay. A synthesis essay asks us to not merely support our arguments with what is given in the documents, but to integrate the ideas to focus the essay. This tests our ability to write persuasively and make use of resources. To be successful, one must carefully assess the value of each document to their argument, and pick and choose those that best fit their essay. Certain things must also be taken into consideration: sources of the documents, audience, and point of view.

 Innovation Brainstorm:

1. Lost parody: how innovation helped get Jack and Kate off the island

-Also could be Cast Away-esque

2. Alias parody: saving the world through Marshall’s gadgets

3. Mastercard Commercial (cutting down cooking time significantly, spending more time with the family)

4. This is you (single, sad, piano line); this is you and innovation (full orchestral music) upgrade!

5. Innovation gives you wings!

Wikipedia is used for a myriad of purposes. It can be a game, a hobby, a lifesaver, and as a research tool is is quite useful. I believe that knowledge compacted like that has potential for being the greatest tool in the world. The only reason it is unpopular in schools today is because of the wiki style, which lets anyone edit the articles. The problem with this logic is that the less people use wikipedia, the less concise it becomes. With more users, more mistakes get caught at a faster rate, and are corrected more quickly. More heads also means more information. To keep up with the standards of old-fashioned paper encyclopedias, many corrections require citation to be kept on the page. Wikipedia is only as bad as people make it seem. Although it is not appropriate for professional research papers, it is adequate for, at the very least, high school use.

I wish that technology was not such a huge part of our lives. I wish that the certain parts of the word had not become so dependent on it. One such example is with cell phones. When a young person is given a cell phone, he or she is expected to be on hand in case of an emergency all the time, or just if the parent wants to check up on them. When people don’t answer their cell phones in certain situations (meetings, classes, concerts, etc.), it causes frustration for those people trying to reach them. Even for something like being contacted after a job interview, all it takes is one phone call for you to lose face and the chance for the job.

Because of the modern conveniences of transportation, people are expected more than ever to be punctual. There is so much faith put into technology to get us from point A to B that when a bad day hits (whether it be an accident, traffic, or just a wrong turn), there is no leniency shown by the authority (in my case, teachers)

Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to carry around my music in my pocket, watching TV shows on my computer whenever it is most convenient for me, and have all my school work and notes in one compact machine. But sometimes, I wish that there wasn’t so much reliance on technology, and that instead of spending hours on wikipedia and youtube, we could learn about and experience the world ourselves…the real world, that is.

Machines have made a huge difference in modern culture and society. Some of the things we value most now, such as punctuality, fast-paced living, and instant communication, did not even cross the minds of those who lived centuries ago. The reliance on machines is only good until you lose touch with the world (which in itself is an ironic statement)

Annie Dillard’s “Death of a Moth” is quite different from Virginia Woolf. The overall tone of this piece is more factual and less emotional than Virginia Woolf. Dilliard expresses more detachment to her moths than Woolf does, symbolized by the lines, respectively, ” The moth’s head was fire. She burned for two hours, until I blew her out,” and “One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom…” Dillard uses a more narrative style to write about observations, and later reveal the meaning behind them. Woolf spends the majority of the piece speculating based on what she observes, and not explicating her meaning directly. The metaphors presented in these pieces both relate to the authors themselves: Woolf describes a fight against her inevitable death, and Dillard describes the fight for truth and knowledge. Dillard’s persona expresses more disinterest in the moth, and so it is all the more unexpected that she could apply the moth to her own life.

Dillard, the more contemporary of the two, writes with more succinct sentences, “She kept burning”. Woolf tends to write with more embellished poetic language, “Thus displayed one could not get over the strangeness of it.” Woolf’s syntax is more different from the style of modern language, and in that it takes more effort to follow. The emotion that is found in this style is not something hard to grasp, however.

It was pretty clear to me which essay got the high, middle, and low scores. First of all, they were, respectively, long, middle, and short lengths. While the correlation between length and score seems discriminatory and judgmental, it makes perfect sense. If a person spends the time to fully develop their ideas, they will have a stronger essay. Reading the scoring comments I was most surprised to find out that what they were looking for is that the Flamingo represents something on two levels: material and metaphorical. This seems so obvious to us students, and not at all like something that would be sought on an AP test. I guess that’s a problem many of us have; we expect the audience to fill in the obvious blanks, and leave out a lot of things that would get us the 9. I guess it is not enough to just lead in to the obvious. The obvious points and factual information need to be explained and developed as much as the rest of the essay.

The irony of this piece is in the fact that there is an extended metaphor about the moth. A moth is not usually put in the light of a complex organism, so it is ironic that such a complex metaphor would be dedicated to a “simple” organism, even referring to it as “diminutive” and “insignificant”. Throughout this extended metaphor Woolf also uses synecdoche, metonymy, and syntax to bring out her thesis. There is metonymy in describing the ongoing activities outside Woolf’s window, “the plough was already scoring…”. She is not actually referring to the plough moving itself, but to the workers that are working the plow. The effect of this is firstly more artistic, but also distances the audience and author from the world outside. There is synecdoche in the line “One could only watch the extraordinary efforts made by those tiny legs against an oncoming doom.” The statement is not referred to just the legs doing all the work, but addresses the mentality and stamina of the moth as a while. The emphasis on the word “tiny” works better with just the legs than the whole moth.

There are many other metaphors made about the moth, and through them Woolf’s particular style of syntax is revealed. She uses a more archaic, poetic language: “The birds had taken themselves off to feed in the brooks,” “my eye was caught by him.” In the second example, the use of passive voice emphasizes that the moth was interesting enough to do the work, rather than “I saw him” which would imply that the author did the work of seeing. It follows the pattern of this piece of complicating a rather simple organism. Instead of the more superior organism doing all the work, this insignificant creature is complex enough to catch attention and perform actions to people.

In “Learning to Read,” Frederick Douglass paints himself as a person that has overcome great obstacles. He begins by establishing the fact that he is a black man, a former slave, and is literate. To his audience, antebellum Americans, he is impetuous and rebellious for being an escaped slave. The Southerners in particular would’ve needed a very good essay to be convinced by a man like this. Throughout the piece, he establishes himself more and more as the victim, the oppression from his owners being the perpetrator. He says, “In accomplishing [the ability to read and write], I was compelled to resort to various stratagems.” Emphasizing the words “compelled to resort” really establish him as the wronged here.

Douglass is careful not to offend the white slaveholders, which in that time comprised a hefty section of his audience. He drops spaced-out compliments and praises every now and then, such as ” My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman,” and, “The good Irishman seemed to be deeply affected by the statement.” He also appeals to them by highlighting intelligence in the middle of the piece, lamenting it’s burden on him. Douglass knows full well that knowledge and thinking are not lamentable things, but when he points out its shortcomings in this way, the audience pays more attention to the fact that Douglass should appreciate knowledge, and less attention to questioning Douglass’ own intelligence.

Douglass allows himself to shift his use of syntax as the piece goes on. He starts out in a more formal tone and gradually moves towards a more informal and poetic tone, “I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.” Those sentences wouldn’t have worked in the beginning when the audience was more skeptical about Douglass’ credibility.

Whites, especially the Southern slaveowners, had every reason to carry a negative predisposition towards Douglass. His purpose in this passage is to convince those people that he is not supposed to be a slave. But, then again, there is still the chance that the only people that read this are already supporting slave rights. That’s the risk (or not, depending on the audience) that is taken here.