Part of our job as human beings involves mimicking. It’s hardwired into our bodies from evolution. This simple trait, or rather ability, allows us as infants to watch our parents and people around us talk and walk. Once we begin to learn how to talk and speak a language, our mouths just spew out all of the words we know; or for some only saying a few different words to mean various things. When we finally have passed our early stages of communication, we’re able to formulate and keep track of thoughts. And although each human is there own person, these thoughts aren’t really our thoughts. Like how we learn to walk and talk, our thoughts come from our family and reflect what they believe because most of us at that age have yet to understand who we are and what we think. According to a test performed by the University of Michigan, family influences the adolescent

My mother Angela Allen grew up in Plainfield IN, a town with very little diversity - religious, racial, political etc. She recalls a time when she was nine years old where her and her family are riding in their car from my mother’s hometown to where her Grandparents live in Clinton, IN. Angela sat in the back of the car next to her sister while their father was driving and their mother sat in the passenger. Angela noticed the daily newspaper that rested between the two front seats, the paper was the Indiana Star, one of the two newspaper businesses in the state. When my mother’s family arrived in Clinton, they first stopped at a family friend’s house. Here Angela played with her sister and her friend Mary Anne in the backyard while adults talked on the patio. Angela overheard the adults discussing political events. Angela was familiar with the topic and excitedly said “I know about that. I saw it in the Indiana Star!” All of the adults looked over at Angela and one of them chuckled and said “Only Republicans read the Indiana Star!” Angela was still very new to the world of politics and from her understanding, everyone in her, family was a Republican. Angela said “My grandfather reads it, he’s a Republican.” and to this the same adult responded “Paul Chilton, a republican?!” the adults then all laughed, including Angela’s parents. Angela was confused and it was here where she first realized that people do not have to have the same political opinions.

When we are young, all of our thoughts and beliefs from our family are our thoughts and beliefs. Until we become teenagers. Not always but usually at the age of 12 or 13, sometimes earlier sometimes later, kids start to create their own opinions. At this point most kids have already made their opinions on simple things like their favorite color and what music they like, but when tweens become teens they begin to form deeper beliefs especially about who they are. Later on in Angela’s life she began to think differently from her parents, especially her father who was a bigoted man and held prejudice against many minority groups. Angela recalls sympathizing with the groups of people her father spoke negatively about and she says that her interactions with her father “relate to what my morals and political opinions are today.”

Technology inside and outside the classroom is changing the way future generations of humans think. Despite what many people think, the use of technology for communication and education has negative effects on the way humans think. If children from a young age are overexposed to technology, they greatly affect the child’s ability to focus in a standard academic society. By looking at the overuse technology in young children, we can see a decrease in critical analysis and comprehension of literature, which most people do not see; this is important because it can be detrimental to the success of future humanity .

I sat in the chair as I chowed down on my dinner in the restaurant. Pineapple fried rice is pretty tasty, but there was something about my meal that was off. I could here the busty clanking of silverware on plates. I looked up and saw a small child at maybe the age of six performing a drum solo with his utensils on his food filled plate. The not-so-radical drum solo was interrupted by the child’s mother who told the child to stop. I was happy to see that child stopped the noise. The child took out a small portable video game device from his pocket and continued to play games on that, I went back to my meal but when I finished I looked up and noticed the child had still not touched his food.

Although there are some positive sides to learning with technology, our familiarity with technology and desire for quicker knowledge is reducing our ability to do critical thinking and analyzing, especially of literature. As we become more technologically literate, we become less literate with literature. The effects of being overly dependent on technology can especially be observed through younger generations who are often referred to as “digital natives.” These digital natives have also been referred to as people of the “app generation” a phrase coined by psychologists Howard Gardner and Katie Davis which describes the generation “which grew up with phones in hand and apps at the ready. It tends toward impatience, expecting the world to respond like an app, quickly and efficiently. The app way of thinking starts with the idea that actions in the world will work like algorithms: Certain actions will lead to predictable results.”  

As the student assistant tech helper at my middle school, I had several duties. One of my main duties was to assist the children in lower school classes with any questions they had with the computers or tablets. During the silent reading portion of the class a young girl came up to me and asked for one of the school tablets. When I asked her why she needed the tablet, she said it was to look up the meaning of a word. Generally kids are not allowed to be on technology during silent reading time, so I suggested that young girl should use a dictionary to look up the meaning of the word. I was then surprised when the young girl claimed that she had know idea how to use a dictionary and that nobody uses them nowadays anyway. It didn’t make sense to me, a fifth grade student not knowing how to use a dictionary.

When reading literature, one must be able to comprehend and react to it, this is what literacy is all about. If some explanation to the meaning of a word is needed the reader will attempt to find the meaning of the word. Using a search bar on an online search engine gives almost immediate solution to any inquiries and chances to do independent thinking. Of course, if a person, especially a young person, has difficulty understanding or analyzing literature through traditional methods, it may be a result of the overuse of digital learning and literature. According to an article from Brockport College on Effects of Technology on Literacy Skills and Motivation to Read and Write “Results from Grimshaw, Dungworth and McKnight’s (2007) study provided data on the effects that digital texts have on comprehension and motivation compared to traditional texts. According to Grimshaw et al., participants came into the study with a strong background knowledge in technology navigation. According to Grimshaw et al., children who read using digital texts were not able to manually follow along while they were reading.”

Analytical Essay:

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a story about The Manor Farm, a farm where all of the livestock are tortured and their goods are taken by humans. At this farm one animal named Old Major, a boar, suggests to the animals on Manor Farm to take up his philosophy of Animalism (humans are bad, treat all animals as you would yourself, and don’t engage in human activities eg. drinking alcohol, trading etc.). He wanted to stage a revolution against farm owner Mr. Jones to achieve a state of equality amongst all animals. Old Major passes away and the farm is taken over by a power-hungry pig named Napoleon. Napoleon is a formidable dictator who rules the animals of “Animal Farm” by oppressing and controlling them along with his right hand man (pig) Squealer, and a pack of ferocious hounds used to protect Napoleon and strike fear into other animals.

The events in the story are narrated in third person by an unnamed omniscient being. Narration of the third person is very important in general to the reader because it allows us to see all of the crucial moments going on at animal farm.  In first person narration, readers sometimes only see events when the characters (narrators) witness an events. Orwell’s use of narration in the third person from an omniscient being allows us as readers to be put in the place of uninformed (unintelligent or naive) animal and figure out on our own what the Pigs’ motives or ideas are.  As readers of this voice we have to make up our own minds about what is happening, what it means and how we feel about it all.

At the beginning of the story, the narrator presents as any typical unnamed and omniscient being would, by narrating descriptions of the setting and characters as well as the thoughts and feelings of several (sometimes all) different characters. As time goes on, the narrator tends to speak about events in a very naive way, almost as if the narrator has become one of the less intelligent animals in the book who are unaware of their oppression and who disregard Napoleon’s evil doing. Jason Black is a developmental editor for novels and is the author of an online article titled, How Your Novel's Point of View Affects Your Characters. In this article Black says that “[Third person narration] is ideal if your goal is to allow the reader to watch everything unfold even though the characters aren’t aware of all that’s going on.” This is exactly what what Orwell does by writing in third person narrative in Animal Farm.

The narrator starts to fall for Napoleon’s propaganda early in the book. One example of this naive point of view is in Chapter Six; pages 26-27 where the character Clover is skeptical of Napoleon and the other pigs for sleeping in beds when she remembers one of the Seven Commandments stating that “no animal shall sleep in a bed.” “Finding herself unable to read more than individual letters, [Clover] fetched Muriel. ‘Muriel,’ she said, ‘read me the Fourth Commandment. Does it not say something about never sleeping in a bed?’ With some difficulty Muriel spelt it out. ‘It says, ’No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets,’ she announced finally. Curiously enough, Clover had not remembered that the Fourth Commandment mentioned sheets; but as it was there on the wall, it must have done so.” If the reader falls for the ruse of an unbiased third person character, this moment could either have the reader go along with what the narrator is thinking (“if the commandments say it, it must be right”) while a more skeptical reader could have gone back to check the Seven Commandments when they were first made. This decision on whether or not to believe the statement of the narrator affects their trust of both Napoleon, the narrator and even Clover.

The third person narration style is slowly revealed in Chapter Eight, page 41. The reader doesn’t immediately know what caused the sound, the narrator describes a scene occurring one quiet night when a loud crash came from the large barn and was heard by all of the animals. “At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paintbrush, and an overturned pot of white paint. The dogs immediately made a ring round Squealer, and escorted him back to the farmhouse as soon as he was able to walk. None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to understand, but would say nothing.” In this paragraph, Orwell has had the narrator give very important clues to help readers figure out what the loud noise was. The narrator does not ever say specifically what happened that caused the noise.  The reader has to figure out on their own what happened.

Orwell also uses the third person to paint a picture of the farm’s condition as well as it’s residents. In Chapter Nine; pages 43-44 he writes;  “Besides, in those days they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out.”  This particular statement sounds like it could have been said by either a pig or a non-pig animal, which either way brings the reliability of this statement into question. Since the narrator and Squealer both agree that “in those days they had been slaves and now they were free” anyone who trusts the narrator may also start to believe the things Squealer preaches.

If Orwell were to choose another form like first person narration from the view of a character like Boxer, the strong but foolish stallion, the story would not include the events not witnessed by Boxer. Due to Boxer’s thick-headedness, the narration of the book, if it were told from Boxer’s perspective, would include bias on what the animals think about Napoleon and crucial moments would not have been explained in full detail. In Black’s article he refers to the to third person narration as if it is “jumping into and out of different character’s heads, giving the reader a much more difficult job in forming any close emotional ties with the characters.” In this case, having Boxer narrate the story in first person has the potential of the reader connecting with Boxer. A reader seeing Boxer as the trustworthy protagonist would believe what he says about Animal Farm and would have a very skewed idea of the plot.

York Notes, an online study guide program for English literature, says the third person narration in Animal Farm provides “the animals’ interpretation of events” and the narrator is  “detached.” The York Notes also point out, “Orwell is careful to use phrases that leave us in no doubt about what is happening. . . the animals might not be aware of what is going on but it is obvious to [the reader].” It is this usage of bread crumb trails that allows the reader to figure out on their own what they personally feel about the story, the animals actions, Napoleon and what everything means.

I sleep 20 hours a day on weekdays. On weekends, I sleep anywhere from 10 to 18 hours a day. But I always can tell what you're doing. Do you always feel like somebody's watching you? Because I am, I’m watching you Ethan, (Heavy breathing, sounds like XHXHHHX) and listening, listening to what you’re doing But are you listening to me? Ha! course not- (rythmic) you just let my beat go on and on without any thought, ya don’t even know, how high the volume is on your stereo. You let it all go (pause)... to hell... yo... I know I’m not the only one. Just a few days ago I heard you complaining about the cell phone. You and that cell phone have done everything together and after 2 years you’re just gonna replace it for the next upgrade! I heard you saying… I heard you saying that (breaths deeply XXHHHXH) your planned on breaking the phone so that your mom would get you the gen 8. I (starts crying) I-I don’t even k-know (breaths deeply XHXHXHXHHH) what’s so great li-iike. It’s like (XHXHXHHX) what’s so great about having a thinner screen… You used to say live and let live. Ya know ya did,  ya know ya did,  ya know ya did. (Sniffle). 

Ok, um now back to the subject at hand. My speaker: why it’s broken, what you can do to fix it and what you can do to make sure this does not happen again. The reason why speaker my speaker is bust, is because of that dubstep. Please stop listening to the dubstep, it makes me vibrate so much I think I’ll explode. Please turn down the volume and listen to quieter music so I don’t explode, or worse. Now, in order to fix me you need to take out the broken driver and then place a new one in. It’ll only cost $20… maybe. You could always buy one of the internet from the computer. Hey, there’s another example of something good gone to waste. Remember your old computer? You used to spend hours on that thing, but then one day you put it in box, tossed it out and got that fancy computer. Anyway, buying an entire new stereo would be around… uh, eight thousand dollars! So just buy a driver for me that’s all you need oh and stop mistreating me and your other- Hey uh Ethan, what are you doing with that remote? Ethan (stern) listen to me don’t turn me on. Ethan, (worried) Ethan wait! Ethan- (screaming) CALL 911 NOW BWAWAH REEEEEEEEEAHHHHHH dududu REEEEEEAAHHH dududu WOOOOOooooowXXXHXHHHHXHHXHXHHXHXH. (pause) XHXHHXHTHIS GIRL IS ON FFFIYYYYAAAAAAHHHXXHXXHXHHXHXHX.

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This is my Media Fluency slide. This slide displays my greatest passion, music. I like most music genres but I really like rock and classic rock, my favorite band is The Beatles.

   First I looked for an image of The Beatles that was not to crammed. I decided not to place my text inside of the only empty space because personally, I think more empty space on a slide looks nice. For the text, I wanted to make sure that it had a good color contrast and stood out against the black and white so I used a bright color but not too bright. I determined the size and placement of the text based off of the image, I wanted the text to be seen but I did not want to block any important parts of the image. Sense I wanted to have same empty space, I used the rule of thirds to find out where the best location for the text could be.