Extended Response (Spring Break HW #3)

 The sinking of the Titanic was caused by an optical illusion that hid the iceberg that sunk the ship. In the article "Did the Titanic Sink Because of an Optical Illusion?"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Did-the-Titanic-Sink-Because-of-an-Optical-Illusion.html, it gives scientific evidence that the iceberg that sunk the titanic may have been hidden by an optical illusion.
  

  In the article it states that there was an optical illusion that hid the iceberg from the view of the captain. You see what happened was during the first night the ship went sailing there were "Atmospheric conditions in the area that night that were ripe for super refraction." What this means is that there was an extraordinary bending of light that caused miraging. British Historian Tim Maltin discovered that multiple ships in the area were also experiencing these issues with the environment. Because of this the light hid the iceberg in a fake horizon. 

Now because of this issue it was also the reason that ship didn't get any rescue from any nearby ships. When the Titanic set off the flares the light that hid the iceberg in the fake horizon hid the flares in one too. Because of this happening no ships were even aware of the ship sinking or even being in any trouble. Maltin got this evidence by asking survivors of the tragedy and checking weather logs of the night of the sinking.

  After reading the article "Did the Titanic Sink Because of an Optical Illusion?" I now have new found information on the sinking of the famous ship. I find this to be very interesting because you would think that sip Captains would be trained with the skills to avoid this problem. But since it was 100 years ago I guess Captains were different back then. This puts a lot of untold mysteries and questions that I had about the sinking of the Titanic to rest and the fact that it was also the environment that lead to the sinking of this ship.  

Plagiarizing (Spring Break HW #2)

  1) What the student did wrong was he copied the writing of another person without giving them credit. They could have cited the source to give the author credit.

  2) "There is a peaceful essence flowing from the structures. Perhaps the cool dark colors and the fiery windows spark memories of our own warm childhood years filled with imagination of what exists in the night and dark starry skies. The center point of the town is the tall steeple of the church,reigning largely over the smaller buildings. This steeple casts down a sense of stability onto the town, and also creates a sense of size and seclusion.To the left of the painting there is a massive dark structure that develops an even greater sense of size and isolation." As it is stated in the article A Brief Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings. http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starryindex.html

  3) There are some ways you can avoid plagiarizing is to A) Cite your source      B) Quote it       Or      C) Rewrite it in your own words.

Student Blog Responses (Spring Break HW #1)

Student blogs


  Two students who I thought did a particularly good job on their blogs were Joyce's post on comparing Peeta and Gale in The Hunger Games, and Ruby's on It's Kind of a Funny Story. Both of their posts were particularly well written and made very good points that I could relate to.
  I really liked Joyce's post on the comparison of Peeta and Gale from The Hunger Games because it was very well written and it did have some points that i can agree with. For one I am not on any particular "team" in the concept of liking Gale or Peeta, I do think they do have their own differences where there are beneficial traits and not so beneficial traits. I agree with Joyce's points on Peeta. He is very caring and usually puts others before himself, and I think Joyce did a very good job on implying these traits he has. The bad part about these traits is that in his selfless way of life he could put others lives before his and this could lead to his death. On the other hand I did think her points on Gale were true. I always thought of him as a noble and strong person who wanted to be free from the Capitol, she then included how this urge to be free created an act of recklessness that lead to some deaths.
  Ruby's post on It's Kind of a Funny Story was well thought out and greatly written with excellent grammar and vocabulary. She started out by connecting her life experiences to the characters life and choices. She wrote about how she would like to just drop all of her homework and just not do it, accept the zero and move on. She then goes into how that after reading the book that this is what the main character has done and that he didn't turn out to great. He just kept on letting the work build up to the point where it was unfix able. She learned that she will inevitably have to complete the assignments and will continue to have to do them again and again and again. The reason I liked her post was because this is exactly how I feel when I'm doing my work and it can get stressful and repetitive. I for one would just love to drop everything and just have freedom but I know that since I'm going into high school grades are going to start to be very important and I'm going to have to start to take them very seriously.
  After reading these two posts I will start to incorporate the techniques they used more into my blogs. From Ruby's I learned to start talking more about my life in my future posts and to start giving more of my thoughts. From Joyce's I should split up the paragraphs differently in sort of an essay style and to probably to some more comparing of characters and their choices.