Los Angeles Notebook

Joan Didion in her essay, “The Santa Ana” and Linda Thomas in her essay, “Brush Fire” describes the Santa Ana in two opposing stands with similar moves. Didion's purpose in writing her essay for the Santa Ana is to inform her readers. She informs them about the Santa Ana, the effect the winds have on human behavior, and how they have to live with the Santa Ana. Thomas writes her essay to engage readers on the Santa Ana’s effect on brushes. She gives details on how the Santa Ana causes natural brush fires and the beauty it is able to create in the aftermath.

The author’s frightening story, “The Storm” has all the expected things that a good scary story should have. It has a story line that gains suspense throughout the story, there is irony, and there is lots of

Isaac’s Storm, is a tale of self- confidence. This Hurricane in 1900 in Galveston was the worst and deadliest hurricane this country has ever seen. About 6,000 people lost their lives and among those who died was Isaac Cline’s wife. I can tell how guilty he must have felt and how horrific this time was for Cline, especially because he thought a massive storm could never devastate his amazing city. The horrific events of what happened in Galveston is only partially told in this book. Erik Larson’s use of Cline’s own letters and reports show Cline’s own self confidence or pride and falsifies facts that Cline was the hero he believed himself to be after the Storm surfaced. Isaac's Storm clearly shows what can happen when human arrogance takes priority over anything else.

It’s 5:15 AM, and the streets are quiet. By 5:30, the streets are torn apart, and rubble is strewn everywhere. What happened in those fifteen minutes was the San Fransisco earthquake. When you look at “Comprehending the Calamity” by Emma Burke and Laurence Yep’s Dragonwings, you can truly imagine the extent of the damage and fear, even though Burke’s purpose is to inform, while Yep’s is to entertain.

Yes I do find evidence of some of Mark’s students taking responsibility for their choices, decisions and/or actions. For example, some of them finished their High School and got their diploma. They chose to attend the retreat and they participated by reading their writings and behaved very nicely. Also, Kevin was always helping around in the kitchen and being a messenger not getting in trouble. Many of the students who decided to be part of the writing class followed through by always attending and writing the best they could. We can also learned that Wong started working and went to community college once he got out just like he

Both writers approach the topic of the Santa Ana winds very differently, although they both wish to inform different people about the effects of the winds. Each author has a different point of view and purpose than the other. Didion wanted to write

“On November 24 six people were killed in automobile accidents...On November 26 a prominent Pasadena attorney, depressed about money, shot and killed his wife, their two sons and himself.” Didion uses vivid imagery and description to portray saddening deaths around the time of the winds, therefore increasing the fear that both the reader and the outsider feel toward the Santa Ana winds without ever experiencing them. Since Didion uses second hand accounts, the writing is given a distant and almost fearful tone. This is because the writing is no longer personal, therefore it impacts the way that the reader perceives the message that the writing is trying to

Cristy FredaAP Lit7 November 2017Lutie Johnson is the victim to the abuse of a cold, windy November day on 116th street. In The Street, Petry establishes Lutie Johnson’s negative relationship to the urban setting through the use of imagery, personification, and selection of detail.Petry uses imagery that affects all of the reader’s senses throughout the excerpt to establish Lutie Johnson’s negative relationship to the urban setting. The text begins with Petry describing 116th street having a cold wind that “rattled the tops of garbage cans, sucked window shades out through the top of opened windows and set them flapping back against the windows” (ll 2-5). This quote immediately establishes a negative relationship

When I was attending my ninth grade, we had an assembly speaker who told us about how a tornado ripped through his town. The day that his school returned to session, his English teacher choose specific romanticism texts that involved tornadoes and weather. He stood before us as “In my own neighborhood, I had something that those writers described as beautiful and pure. The way they described it, I started to enjoy nature’s purest forms. I became so interested. I think I took the writers too literally by their ‘following nature’ talk that I ended up becoming a storm chaser.”

“The Storm” is not only the title of the short story, but it is also part of the main setting that

D. Legal system 1. Organization of the judiciary system 2. Code, common, socialist, or Islamic-law country? 3. Participation in patents, trademarks, and other conventions E. Social organizations 1. Group behavior 2. Social classes 3. Clubs, other organizations 4. Race, ethnicity, and subcultures F. Business customs and practices Religion and aesthetics A. Religion and other belief systems 1. Orthodox doctrines and structures 2. Relationship with the people 3. Which religions are prominent? 4. Membership of each religion 5. Any powerful or influential cults? B. Aesthetics 1. Visual arts (fine arts, plastics, graphics, public art, colors, etc.) 2. Music 3. Drama, ballet, and other performing arts 4. Folklore and relevant symbols Living conditions A. Diet and nutrition 1. Meat and vegetable consumption rates 2. Typical meals 3. Malnutrition rates 4. Foods available B. Housing 1. Types of housing available 2. Do most people own or rent? 3. Do most people live in one-family dwellings or with other families? C. Clothing 1. National dress 2.

In Adrienne Rich’s “Storm Warnings,” the progressive structure details the storm’s advancement, the imagery illustrates the surrounding environment, and the calm diction presents the speaker’s state of mind, depicting an actual storm as it nears and the metaphorical turmoil the speaker is experiencing. People hear storm warnings, however, as the storm unfolds, one can merely brace themselves since the storm is inevitable and light hope within them.

In “Los Angeles Notebook,” Didion gives the readers a slice of Los Angeles. She talks to the readers by showing them. A sentence from her excerpt in “The Art of Fact” reads, “Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse and, just as reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, Accenture its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are (Art of Fact, pg. 482).” In this part of her excerpt she showed the reader how the wind reflects the nature of Los Angeles life. Throughout the rest of the excerpt she inserts dialogue to allow the readers to get a sense of the culture. Unlike Thompson, Didion remains a fly on the wall. She listens and analyzes the people around

No storm is experienced the same. Seeing a storm on the horizon has the power to stir up gripping memories, introspective thoughts, and convoluted emotions. The poem “Storm Warnings”, by Adrienne Rich, applies a predictable structure paired with flowing syntax, and ambiguous diction- speaking both of weather and emotions- to illustrate that one cannot avoid the tribulations of life, embodied as the approaching storm, but instead prepare for their arrival.