Textual analysis for "The Forth of July"

In the essay “The Fourth of July” Audre Lorde shares a story about a young black girl, herself, who struggles to find the answers to why her parents did not explain why things are the way they are or why they do not stand up for themselves. In the story the young girl and her family, which consists of her older sister and her parents, are taking a trip to Washington D.C. They are taking this trip because her sister, Phyllis, did not get a chance to go when her class went in 8th grade because she is black and they would not let her stay in the hotel. Her father told her that they would take a family trip later on so she would not be upset. This trip was not just a normal family vacation it was an eye opening experience for her. Lorde expresses racism and the different issues that pop up through different instances in the story and different experiences she faces. Lorde also expresses the silence theme a lot in her story.
Throughout the story you can see that Lorde uses words like “white” and “bright” which represents white people. Everything around them is white and they are colored. The “silence” issue is also apparent throughout the story. She talks about how the girls’ parents keep things from her and never explain why, like when they had to ride the night train she thought it was just because it was cheaper but the real reason was because it was easier to deal with because of their race. I think they did not tell her things because they wanted her to grow up on her own and learn through experience which she did. Also she says “whatever my mother did not like and could not change, she ignored. Perhaps it would go away, deprived of her attention” (Lorde 567). This is talking about ignoring the situation and the parents just want to blend in with the rest of the crowd. They do not want it to be any different because they are black so they just ignore whenever something goes wrong. This corresponds with different situations where people do not speak up when they should and they just end up blending in with the crowd and sometimes blending in with the wrong crowd. If you do not voice your opinion sometimes people have the wrong impression of you and just figure you are on the opposing side.
In the story she says “The first time I went to Washington D.C., was on the edge of the summer when I was supposed to stop being a child” (Lorde 567). There comes a time when every kid stops being a child and learns what the real world is about. Her graduation from 8th grade was supposed to be her ending point of childhood. That is why her parents took her on this trip so she could see what things are really like out in the world. She didn’t understand why her parents did not stand up for themselves like for instance at the ice cream shop when they were told they could not eat inside they just got up and left and did not fight for it. She did not understand why they just left and did not say anything. I think they were trying to teach her that sometimes you just have to do what everyone wants you to do so you do not cause more trouble for yourself. This is a hard concept for a little girl to understand. She says “I was squinting because I was in that silent agony that characterized all of my childhood summers, from the time school let out in June to the end of July, brought about my dilated and vulnerable eyes exposed to the summer brightness” (Lorde 569). What she is talking about here is the brightness, or the whiteness, of what she saw that summer and her eyes being dilated and her squinting took away the whites of her eyes only showing the dark part. That represents her growing up and becoming more a part of her own culture and not just blending in with the crowd. Now she knows who she is and she is trying to cope with that and adjust.
Audre Lorde does a good job of expressing herself through symbols as in the brightness of the sunlight and everything around them and also through the racism and silence themes. She has a deeper meaning than what is on the surface of her story. You have to really look deep inside the story to get everything out of it that she put in. Although you may have a different perspective on what you think Lorde means by all these different symbols she shares, you can get out of it whatever you want.

Prime Directive

First of all those pictures are very disturbing and I can't believe people would do such a thing. I like how he is against what happened and he lets it be known in this article. I like how he talks about simple things like halloween and the parties but he's really trying to get a deeper point across. This article is all over the place but it has to be to explain what all is happening. He realizes by the end of the night he realizes that some of the things he did were wrong like taking that picture made him look like he supported what happened in Abu Ghraib and from this article you can tell that he didn't support what happened. This article goes very deep and you have to pay attention to everything and look into everything to understand the real meaning behind what he is talking about like the freferences to the war and the traveling from party to party like the soldiers travel from place to place fighting for our country. Also the sepparation of him from his wife like the sepparation of the soldiers from their families.

asssesment paper

For our project we each played an important role we each made copies of our work for each person in it so that we all might be able to gather the information and put it on a paper. We then all met up with each other several times before Thursday and on Thursday. We met once in the tiger den and discussed and gathered all the possible choices for a common theme. We then called and emailed each other many times when we were not meeting in order to discuss the information. Then we met together with all the information we had and opinions we had and met together to form it and build the paper. We then wrote it and proof read it as a group together. Then on Thursday we meet back with each other and typed the paper.

Theme Paper part 3

Vacation is a very important event for family and friends. Spending time with them is one of the best ways to enjoy a vacation It is unbelievable on how many different types of vacations there are such as going to amusement parks, going to the beach, leaving the country, and many others. However it doesn’t matter unless you have your family and friends their.
Ta-Nesha, loves enjoying the company of her family and friends on her family reunion vacation. Her and her family took a trip to Six Flags in St. Louis. While they were there they stayed in cramped hotel rooms, since they had so many of them. To Ta-Nesha and her family it didn’t matter because they enjoyed going swimming and enjoying the amusement park with each other. They got to ride many of the rides with each other such as Mr. Freeze, the boss, and superman. These types of trips are a family “must” routine for Ta-Nesha that is quite enjoyable.
Ducky on the other hand went to Key West with her soccer team and their parents, for a soccer competition. A trip like this for a soccer competition is very common and routine for Ducky and the rest of her family and friends. The parents are all good friends and get together quite often to go to the bars with each other. These trips consist of a lot of girls that attend so the space is pretty cramped in the rooms but they still love it because they get to spend quality time together. On this particular soccer competition it happens to fall around New Years, so for this the fathers decided to get together with each other and lit off fireworks. Which made this trip in it self very memorable with them jumping all over the place to avoid the fireworks. Going snorkeling for the first time ever also made this trip very memorable for Ducky, her family, and her friends even though it didn’t quite go as well as they planned and hopped for it with all the jelly fish and seasickness around. Of course it could have been worse if her family and friends weren’t there to make it better.
Lisa on the other hand loves traveling all around the world with her family and feels it would be nothing without them there. On this particular vacation to France they were definitely what made it great and interesting. Her family and friends do these types of vacations as an annual routine, but going to France was definitely not like the others. Going to the museums and chapels are a major thing for Lisa and her family because they enjoy art quite a bit and enjoy discussing it with each other. They also got to go to the Eiffel Tower. The trip was quite enjoyable and interesting especially when the fight almost broke out between Lisa’s mom and the car rental lady for treating her and her brother bad.
So as you can see family and friends are what makes a trip worth it. Vacation is something that is fun and enjoyable. If you have your family and friends there then that is what makes the trip all worth it. If you can’t have fun with them then who can you? So on your next vacations remember who you are taking and who you will have fun with.

My Vacation to Key West, Florida

I’ve played soccer ever since I was 4 years old. Since the age of 10 I have played on a traveling club team. When we were younger we wouldn’t travel so far away for tournaments. We would stay within about 2 or 3 hours away from home at the most. As we grew older we started to travel more and more and go to tournaments further away. The last four years of my club career we went to a tournament down in Miami, Florida called the Orange Classic. Since the tournament started two days after Christmas and ended a couple days before New Years we decided it would be fun for all of us to go down to Key West for New Years after the tournament was over. That was the best idea anyone could have had. Not only did us kids have a blast but I think our parents had more fun than we did. Almost everyone on my team had been together since we were 12 years old so we all were best friends and our parents had become really close as well.
The first year we went down to Key West we didn’t know what to expect. There were about thirty of us and we rented out these little condos by the water way. We were so cramped in all of our houses which made it even more fun. I had to sleep on the couch in the living room of one little condo and one of my friends had to sleep on the mattress on the floor next to me. That didn’t matter to us though. We were so happy just to be down there with everyone. It was December but unlike in Tennessee it was warm. It was mostly temperatures in the range of the high 70’s to low 80’s. We were all so happy to lay out and get tan over Christmas break while all of our friends back at home were pale and freezing.
Our parents were by far the best entertainment we had down there. First of all our parents aren’t the normal parents. They can get pretty out of control and there were many times where us kids had to take care of our parents. We would all go down to Key West and walk around while our parents would go “bar hopping”. We would all meet up at the end of the night to go home and our parents would barely be able to walk down the road so we would have to drive them home. They were quite the entertainment.
For the actual New Years Eve we would just stay within our condos and shoot off fireworks. At the place we were staying there was a dock out in the water about 15 yards and some of the dads thought it would be a good idea to go out there and shoot fireworks off of it. Well it didn’t turn out to be as good of an idea as they thought it would be. Since the dock was about as big as the beds of two small pick-up trucks put together, there was not enough room for about 10 dads and all the boxes of fireworks that they bought. Waded through the water out to the dock and started shooting the fireworks off. They were so close to the sparks that they had to jump off the dock so they wouldn’t get burned. That was the most entertaining fireworks show I’ve ever seen.
One thing we did on this trip that I had never done before was go snorkeling out in the ocean. We were so excited about getting to do this but it ended up not being as fun as we thought it would be. All but two of us got so sea sick we were throwing up off the boat. It was the worst snorkeling experience I’ve ever had. There were little jellyfish all in the water so every time you would move you would get stung. It was horrible. All of us wanted to go home but they wouldn’t let us because there were divers with us and of course they weren’t getting sick so we had to wait for them to be finished before we could leave. I did learn that I definitely need to take sea sickness medicine before I go out on an adventure like that again.
Basically this trip was one big party especially for the parents but it was a blast for the kids too. It was filled with a ton of memorable moments that I’ll keep with me for the rest of my life.

Free Write: Vacations, Laurel, Lisa, Tanesha

California- friend, hollywood, sixflags, universal
Key West - soccer team, new years
Canada - friend, spring break, snowboardin
North Carolina - Beach, family vacation
Disney World - soccer friends
Kiawa Island - Friends when I was young, memories
Texas - soccer
Washington DC - Torn ACL, soccer, horrible trip
Arkansas - Torn ACL, bus ride
Gettysburg - 8th grade trip
Oklahoma - soccer regionals, raining, muddy

My article was called "What Else is New?" by Steven Shapin. In this article he talks about technology changes throughout time and how different inventions have taken the place of different things over time. It also talks about what could have been if something else was not invented. For instance if different medications were not invented to replace other medicines then would the other medicines still be in effect. Shapin talks about technology in World War II and how it contributed to the outcome. He talks about new technology coming out but people not knowing how to use it. Some technology is becoming too high-tech for even the people that invent it. Shapin's tone is relaxed throughout the article but at the same time he is focusing on the main points and trying to get his point across. The structure is pretty straight forward and focuses around one thing mainly, technology. He uses different refrences in time like the war and things happening in todays society. His word choice is good because he does not lose the reader in huge words the whole time. He does a good job of explaining himself throughout the article. He expresses himself very well and does a very good job of getting his point across. He likes to use quotes from other in the past about what they thought about the technology and where it is going in our society. This article is probably not good for younger crowd if you aren't into reading about this kind of stuff for fun. Although if you like reading about these things then it is not too hard of reading for say high school students at the youngest. I enjoyed reading this article because it kept me interested the whole time. It was very informative I agreed with what it was saying.