Arfa Saeed

Here you will find posts on AP English assignments.

[arfasaeed10]

Research and Writing #5

Now, I am done with everything and I am in the process of editing all of the different papers that I wrote. I also did all of my works cited, works consulted and background information. I took pictures of my criticisms and printed them out as well. I thought this research project was actually good in terms of being exposed to the different methods used in a research paper, however I did procrastinate a little bit which made me very stressed out about the whole project. Overall, I enjoyed doing research for Ray Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451.

[arfasaeed10]

Research and Writing #4

I finished my introduction to annotations and I’m almost done with my general introduction. I feel like my general introduction is turning out to be really good. I wrote about the influences that Bradbury got while writing the novel and the ideas that he wanted to portray in the novel in order to prevent what could happen in the future society. I also introduced the criticisms that I wrote abstracts on in my general introduction.

[arfasaeed10]

Research and Writing #3

At this point I am done with my annotations and criticisms. I felt like the annotations were hard because I did not know if my annotations made sense or not. I tried to connect the annotations back to the criticisms and I felt like I made some good reflections in them. I tried to find passages that had some literary techniques that I could talk about in my annotations. I think that my book had some good symbolic meaning to fire and light, so I talked about that in my writing.

[arfasaeed10]

Research and Writing #2

I have completed my abstracts and I think this was relatively easy because I just had to summarize what the critic said. I tried to find criticisms that were different from each other so that I would have more to talk about in my research paper. One of the criticisms was about how The Handmaid’s Tale and Fahrenheit 451 were quite similar so I got a little excited there because we read that book recently. Overall, there were some good points made in the criticisms about the symbolic meaning and the reason to why books got banned in the dystopian society.

[arfasaeed10]

Research and Writing #1

To begin my research, I first went to the Oakland University Library to find information regarding my book, Fahrenheit 451. I had to go to the research desk to ask for help and the lady there kindly told me the whole process into finding good research for my book. I went to the third floor to find the books that would work for my research. I ended up finding books and articles on criticisms that were well equipped with the information that I needed for my research project.

[arfasaeed10]

Fahrenheit 451 Blog Post #5

Montag realizes that his wife rang the alarm and then went away in a taxi. I didn’t think that Mildred would go this far just because of her hate for books and love for burning them. Due to this Montag gets arrested and is forced to burn his own house. However, he uses his flamethrower to burn Beatty, but The Mechanical Hound injects anesthetic into one of his legs. Until now I didn’t realize how evil the hound was. I knew that he always gave Montag trouble and even stalked him at his house, but I didn’t think that he hated him that much.  I only think one person is on Montag’s side and that is Faber, who helps him escape. Another man got killed instead of Montag and the media said that is was him; however a homeless guy named Granger who ends up helping him says that they only did it to save them from humiliation. I first thought that this was their plan so they could trick Montag to come out from hiding. I got the feeling that Bradbury wanted to end the book with a feeling of ambiguity because the men that Montag was with said that they will pass on their knowledge till the day when books aren’t banned anymore. I think what this is trying to say is that the media and other distractions will always be there and we can’t help it.

[arfasaeed10]

Fahrenheit 451 Blog Post #4

When Montag begins to read he figures out that he can’t understand what he is reading. He later calls this professor that he once knew, Faber, to see if he could help him. At first Faber is unsure of whether to trust him or not, but once he sees that Montag has the Bible with him that he is reading, he becomes ready to help him. I think that Montag chose to read the Bible because he wanted to prove that people benefit from reading, especially it’s something to do with religion. He finds out from Faber that the real reason why books are so important is because they contain meaning that we can’t get from television or radio media. I feel like now he’s not going to back down until he tries to change other people’s view on books. When he gets home he sees that Mildred’s friends are over. He tries to read them some poems but Mildred tries to make them believe by lying that firemen are allowed to take one book home a year. I’m a little confused by his wife’s character right now because I’m not sure whether she still wants to burn books or if she agrees with Montag’s view on books and that they should be kept. However, things take a turn when the next fire might be at their house.

[arfasaeed10]

Fahrenheit 451 Blog Post #3

When Montag doesn’t show up at the fire station one day, his boss Beatty shows up at his house. He tells Montag that a fireman will get thoughts like him one day, and his day has come. Beatty goes on to tell Montag about the history of how book burning began. It surprised me when he said that television, film and photography provided a shortcut to present information in a visual way. He mentioned that reading books often were found objectionable and contradictory by some of the minority groups. When once firemen used to extinguish fire, now are being used to only use fire to burn books and represent a scary image in society. I also learned that Clarisse’s family was actually being watched because of the way they weren’t really conforming to the society. I feel like it was their plan to kill her so that people like her couldn’t influence other people about being independent and having a voice, something that everyone else feared. I found out that indeed Montag wants to prove to everyone that reading is a good thing for the society and that books shouldn’t be burned. He has only forty-eighth hours to prove this by reading Gulliver’s Travels with the help of his wife.

[arfasaeed10]

Fahrenheit 451 Blog Post #2

Montag is now changing day by day. His love for burning books is being changed to his concern for books being a vital part of one’s life. He doesn’t even feel connected to his fireman buddies anymore because he feels like he can’t relate to them. Before, he would think of kerosene as perfume, but now despises it. I also noticed that his relationship with his wife is getting worse as well. She doesn’t even communicate with him because all she does watch her three television sets (she even wants to get a fourth). He wonders what happened to Clarisse because he sees her everyday but on the one day she wasn’t there. He later finds out from his wife that she got killed in a car accident and her family moved away. I wonder if Montag is going to rebel against this society and read a book because during a book burning fire he secretly finds a book and puts it under his shirt. I feel like he is starting to realize that books actually mean something and a society where reading, thinking independently and being connected with nature is banned, should be reestablished and changed. This shows that overtime society begins to not value literature and they turn to more of the worldly pleasures of life. This makes them all alike and takes away their individuality.

[arfasaeed10]

Fahrenheit 451 Blog Post #1

The first line of the book says, “It was a pleasure to burn”. I knew upon reading this that the focus of this book was primarily to set things on fire. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who loves to burn books because in this futuristic government books are banned and television is encouraged. I think that it is ironic because firemen put out fires not start them. However, I think his way of thinking is starting to change after he meets a seventeen year old girl named Clarisse. She seems much older than she really is and she challenges him with questions that he doesn’t really seem to have an answer to. I feel like even though Guy seems like he has conformed to the government view, actually has an inner passion for reading, but he’s just too afraid to speak up about it. It seems to me that Clarisse is trying to find that inner passion from Guy because she feels like he can think independently like her. However, she is sent to a psychiatrist because of the way she thinks and feels for nature and independence. I also noticed that Montag and his wife Mildred aren’t really on good terms. His wife is obsessed with the televisions and radio media, which is why she doesn’t communicate well with her husband. Even though she is much older, he feels that Clarisse is the more mature one.

[arfasaeed10]

Oakland University Libray

[arfasaeed10]

The book that I've chosen to read is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I found it on a website called goodreads.com and it was under the literary merit section. It shows how books are outlawed and burned and I like how it takes place in the future. My sister also recommended this book to me because she read it before and thought it was interesting.

[arfasaeed10]

Remix Me

I am a remix of my sister and my Pakistani culture. Even though my sister and I look nothing alike, we have a lot of things in common. We like the same music, we watch the same television shows and I even end up taking the same classes that she took. We both have the same goals for our future and we share the same weaknesses and strengths too. As goes for my Pakistani culture, there are a lot of things I do that that would make me a Pakistani-American. I wear clothes from there, I speak their language at home and I even attend Pakistani festivals.

[arfasaeed10]

The gramophone was introduced in 1877 and is original.

[marsh-mell-oh]

Rebel Without a Cause reaches out to the younger generation of the time to show the consequences of rash behavior to teens and show what can occur with a lack of parental guidance in a teens life. When we first started watching Rebel without a cause we could really tell the difference between our generation teens and the movie’s generation teens. Despite the differences, we thought that the relationships between the teens and their parents were an accurate portrayal of teens. Many teens think that their parents don’t understand them and the things going on in their lives or don’t listen to them. Rebel Without a Cause portrayed that in Jim and his parents relationship along with Judy and her father. We also thought that the activities that the teens participated in seem more over dramatic now then what they might have been at that time period.

Our group could relate more to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off because the characters were more relate able then in Rebel Without a Cause. The event of skipping school in the movie was a very accurate representation of teens. Most teens would rather be at home, at a park, or at the mall on a nice day then in school. However, even thought the idea of skipping school was accurate we thought that the things Ferris and his friends did were over dramatic. Teens will skip school but they most likely will not end up singing on a float in a parade or pretending to be different people and getting away with it.

In both movies we thought the concept of them were accurate but the things that the kids did were too over dramatic and didn’t seem real.

Anna Nawrocki, Audrey Diaz, Emi Mituta, Melanie Walters, Arfa Saeed, Akshaya Rajkumar, Nikita Chunduru

[arfasaeed10]

I chose my parents to discuss Rebel Without a Cause and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. They both said that Rebel Without a Cause was a little too dramatic to be an accurate portrayal of teenagers and their problems. However, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was more accurate in the behavior of the characters but the some of the events were still not accurate portrayals. My parents also said that the relationship between the teen and their parents in both the movies was pretty accurate. In both, the parents have a hard time understanding their teenage daughter or son.

[arfasaeed10]

Staples and Shelley

“I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster I had created”

-Mary Shelley

This quote is similar to the essay “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples because they both talk about stereotypes that we create. In the essay a women misjudges Staples for someone bad just because he was a tall black man walking on the street. When in reality, he had no intentions of causing her any harm and was actually attending a very prestigious university in Chicago. Shelley also created a character in her story that is considered a monster because of his appearance. We create these stereotypes because of the way we’re raised and because of previous misconceptions that we hear about. This is something that will always happen because we as humans always judge before we think.

[arfasaeed10]

Throughout the years in elementary school I have had many significant memories. However, there was one that I will remember forever. When I was in first grade my teacher said that our class was going to hatch chicks. I got so excited because I had never done anything like this before. First, we got an incubator in which we placed the chicken eggs in. We waited for about three to four weeks before the chicks could hatch. The moment we saw the first egg hatch we got so happy and a little overwhelmed too. Within a couple of days all the eggs hatched and we started to name them. Every day my whole class would sit in a circle and play with the little chicks. We got to hold them and pet them too, however, it would get a little chaotic when all of them were out at the same time running around. On the last day we had them, my teacher took a picture of everyone in the class individually holding a baby chick, it was a bit of a struggle trying to keep the chick from jumping out of my hand while I was taking the picture. Hatching the chicks in first grade is an elementary school memory that I will never forget.