Beginning of Reflection

The H20 project is an example of a piece of work I'm proud of. I think this is because we spent alot of time for this project getting critiques and doing drafts. I really like the photography that i took. I spent alot of time making two trips to the La Jolla Children's Pool and taking pictures. Applying photo shop to my pictures made them eye catching and something to be proud of during our exhibition.

How I accomplished my photography for this projects was by first taking a bunch of pictures then getting them all critiqued. Out of the 100 pictures i took i narrowed them down to 30, then picked 6 from those 30. After i had all my photography picked out for my photo essay i carefully photo shopped them and then i was done. Going through these step helped me accomplish the final product.

" Pup Season
The pup season is a very important season for the harbor seals to use the beach because they need a safe place to give birth. Harbor seals are land mammals and cannot always be in the water. “Hauling out” is the phrase locals’ use for this behavior. A volunteer from the organization, “La Jolla Friends of the Seals” explained how the seals get intimidated and scared easily and even the slightest scare can lead up to a premature birth. This season on November 21, 2008, the first premature pup was born and died not to long after. Pedestrians invading the seals’ territory and causing stress can lead to even more premature births."

This caption is also an example of a piece if work that I'm proud of. The highly polished piece of writing that i did made me feel like i did a really good job. By going through numerous drafts and critiques for this photo essay really payed off feeling good in the end.

How i accomplished this was by putting also of effort into my work but also being engaged and intreseted in it as well. To get to this final piece of writing i not only when through draft after draft but got different peers involved in critiqing my work also. I think this betters your writing becuase you are getting feedback from different perspectives which can only make it better.

Sea Shepherd

The author of Neptune's Navy has a great use of structure and evidence in this article about Paul Watson's wild crusades to save the oceans. He incorporates a majority of back round history, evidence, and a very strong hook that gets you going throughout the whole article.

Having strong back round history is a very strong tactic i can use from reading this story. Its always important to have history to pull from to get a better understanding of what your trying to get across become more understandable. For example he says "In 1946, the world's major whaling nations formed an international whaling commission to manage the world's whaling fisheries". With this said it was easier to understand what started these whaling crusades. This also falls into the evidence category.

Having strong evidence helps support your piece of writing and backs up your facts or opinions. I could maybe incorporate a little more evidence in my arguments and conflicts section just as the author does on page 3 paragraph 2. This makes your writing more well rounded and more clear adding great structure.

By starting off with a strong hook its easy to grab the readers attention. Having a strong introduction is something i like about this article. In my H2O project i have been focusing on my introduction and how to grab the readers attention. Neptune's Navy starts out by telling a story which i think is a very good idea. It gets the reader involved and "hooked" which is a very good literary technique to have.

In all i think this article is a good example for techniques of writing i may be able to incorporate in my own photo essay. Reading his good example gives me an idea of what to do with my own work that can only help me succeed in my writing.

He's Not Black

Marie Arana discusses in her Washington Post article, "Isn't it time for the language to move on?". In language she means why our society is so caught up with calling him black, or her white, just because of the color of peoples skin. I feel like we should "move on" and find a different way to alter our stereotypical language for race and not just label people by the way we see them.

As our first "black" president is elected many people see this as a change or taking a step forward into the future. Arana however, disagrees with the phrase "black" but interpreted it as "We are racially sophisticated enough to elect a non-white president, and we are so racially backward that we insist on calling him black. Progress has outpaced vocabulary." Sure its a change to not elected a "white" president but it is not and hasn't been a change to refer to all people with dark skin black.

I agree with her statement that "the categories must go" and we cant always label and be so stereotypical to what race people are. I know many people who have dark skin and would be labeled as black or African American but are actually half white or come from a European background. Obama for instance is 50% white Kansan and is labeled around the world as the U.S's first black president. I think there are other phrases out there like biracial which is a more appropriate use of terminology for this subject.

In all society needs to realize calling someone "black" or "white" isn't the socially correct way to define a race. The language does need to move on and our society needs to move along with it. Nothing should "still mired in the old south".