Life As We Knew It By Susan Pfeffer

Discuss how your investigation of the generic conventions of poetry has influenced your understanding of at least one poem that you have studied in this unit.

Let the Circle be Unbroken portrays an african american family’s hardships against powerful white landowners and family tragedies. All in the perception of the strong-willed Cassie Logan. Let the Circle be Unbroken by Mildred D. Taylor is an enjoyable book with engaging characters, unpredictable plots, and an amusing genre.

“Thirteen-year-old boy throws a brick at a city man” read the white, black, and newly printed newspaper. And this boy’s name is Arthur Owens or Artie. This book is called The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall. One positive influence that he taught me was, to be honest, and have courage. Also, he has taught me to always help others.

First, when listening to the radio play the main character was a male, Ronald Adams. On the other hand, in the Twilight Zone the character was a female, Nat Adams. The gender of the characters makes a difference in the story because the sailor decided to go with her in the car because of how pretty she looks. Also, he thought again when he leaving her because she told him she would date him if he stayed. Another contrast was that the hitchhiker had fresh rain drops on his shoulder and was hold a cheap overnight bag. Unlike the radio play, in the Twilight Zone the hitchhiker didn't have either rain on his shoulders or a cheap bag in his hand.

One of the books I have read this summer is Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. This book is about how a girl named Miranda who is the protagonist and who is telling the story, lives a normal teenage life. She attends high school, hangs out with friends, and was on the swim team. Scientists predict that a meteor would hit the moon. They also predicted that the meteor wouldn’t be big and there wouldn’t be too much damage. However, when the meteor hit the moon, it got closer to the earth. This resulted in natural disasters to occur which wiped out a lot of people. Miranda and her family have to struggle to survive, expect the worse to happen, and make hard sacrifices in order to survive.

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer is a dystopian novel about the moon being knocked closer to Earth, causing catastrophes and chaos to occur. The story is written around the life of a girl named Miranda and her family. From the beginning of the story to the end, there is a profound transformation as a result of the calamity. Miranda’s life is drastically changed because of the impact of the tragedy, and her family’s survival becomes the most important issue that she can think about.

(-- removed HTML --) A Dog’s life (-- removed HTML --) was a very interesting book to read, because it was from a dog’s perspective. The book was sad because unfortunately Squirrel had a very rough life. He lost things that were close to him. Ann Martin did a very well job writing the book of just a couple of dog’s living life.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biographical novel delves deep into the personal lives of the Roosevelts. From their meetings with world leaders to problems in their marriage concerning infidelity, nothing is left unsaid. The historical novel starts with Roosevelt sitting in his bedroom, contemplating the end of the phony war that occurred before the official beginning of World War II. The novel continues with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s attempts to aid overseas Allies while trying to prepare his own country for war and Eleanor Roosevelt’s struggle for equal rights. The book finishes with the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death in 1945 and the end of World War II. Analysis of the biography shows a theme of how far the Roosevelts would go to

The TED talk, “Seeds of Our Ancestors, Seeds of Life,” by Winona LaDuke was really sad. Thinking about how many types of foods of gone extinct, and that there are companies that keep trying to patent and genetic engineer our food. Food is more than something we just buy, it keeps us living, yet we don’t seem to put much thought into it anymore. The statement about only about 30 different varieties of food giving us our calories makes sense, but I can see why it’s so sad. It’s depressing that species of food are going extinct, we think about animals going extinct, but we don’t often think about our food. I’m curious about all of the types of food that I will never be able to try because they have gone extinct.

Published in 1997, Marie Howe’s anthology of poems, What the Living Do was written as an elegy to her brother, John, who passed away due to AIDS. Howe’s anthology is written without metaphor to document the loss she felt after her brother’s death. Although What the Living Do is written as an anthology, this collection allows for individual poems to stand alone but also to work together to tell an overarching story. Using the poetic devices of alliteration, enjambment, repetition and couplets, Howe furthers her themes of gender and loss throughout her poems in her anthology.

My first thought when I started reading Imperfect Endings was that it was going to be a depressing story about a selfish woman who planned to end her life, and her loving daughter who was dragged into her mother's complicated life. How wrong I was! It was really about the struggle of a daughter, and the suffering of a mother with their fair share of setbacks. The tension slowly faded when Carter distributed generous intervals of humour in between and at serious points of the memoir. I began to unearth and piece together the messages that were scattered throughout the book. Certain events immediately jumped out at me while others took a bit longer for me to make connection with but I finally got the gist of it. Carter addressed relevant

Anderson’s work Reality Isn’t What it Used to Be described how traditional, modern and postmodern societies have constructed worldview beliefs about reality. It is only in this postmodern era that Anderson believes that people have been aware that all views of social reality to include politics, religion, and global culture are constructed rather than self-evident. In a premodern world people did not question values or beliefs. Everyone conformed to the worldwide view without a second thought, and as the author observed, never even considered the possibility there may be other societies with different worldviews.

Throughout the 1890’s to the 1920’s the Progressive Era was a period of social activism and political reform in the United States. It was also a period of explosive economic growth, fueled by increasing industrial production, a rapid rise in population, and the continued expansion of the consumer market place. The main objective of the progressive movement was illuminating the presence of corruption in government (Foner, 2017). During the 1880’s there were two very influential works published during the earliest moments of the Progressive Era. In the novel “Looking Backward” by Edward Bellamy, the author pinpoints the issues that he himself perceived in the social and economic systems of nineteenth century society. His novel presents an

Hannah Arendt presents in her novel, The Life of the Mind, a theory she refers to as the “two-in-one.” She builds her theory off of a Socratic proposition. Socrates stated that it would be better for a group of men to be out of tune with each other than for him to be out of tune with himself. Here, however, lies a paradox. How can one be out of tune with itself? Arendt states that “you always need at least two tones to produce a harmonious sound” (183). Yet when you appear to others, you are one, otherwise you would be unrecognizable. But Arendt points out that you do not only appear to others, you also exist and appear for yourself. In doing so, you become more than one. As Arendt paradoxically states, “A difference is inserted into my Oneness” (183).

Literature is defined as written works published on a particular subject. Literature can also be viewed as witness, because it can be a source of proof based on the events it was written on. Literature as witness allows readers to get a deeper understanding of the issues that have happened based off of what the books are about. Those who read literary texts such as historical novels, memoirs and novels are witness to historical events. These texts can be viewed as witness because the events mentioned are based off of true life events. Some may argue historical fiction is not real and therefore could not be viewed as a reliable source. Even though historical fiction is made up of fictional characters, the conflicts that are mentioned are based