Thesis Blog

Thesis Blog Post

1. A is the weakest statement because it doesn’t help me understand what the rest of the essay entails and it is too blunt. I know the essay is going to be about The Origin of Species but what about and why are they writing about it is what I want to know.
2. A is the weakest because it’s not really specific and too generic. I’m not getting all the details I need out of that thesis in order to understand why I’m reading it.
3. B is the weakest thesis statement because it’s telling me something I’ve already heard before. The topic is too popular and the thesis is too general.
4. A is the weakest statement because it’s telling me something that is already obvious. I need to know more of why the play is what it is and why I’m reading about it.
5. A is the weakest statement because it goes too person and it’s coming from the authors opinion. It had the building blocks to becoming a good thesis until opinion was put into it.
6. My thesis will look somewhat like, “The time and place where O’Brien was raised clouded and stirred up his views and opinions on the war which to this day still impacts his life.” I’m still working on a better thesis. I think that with thesis’s I have to take more time on them than I do on my actual paper because the thesis is that important. I still have to make it arguable and specific and definitely support what I’m saying and stop going off my opinions.

Mid Session Check In

Mid Session Check In
1. The biggest challenge in this class so far for me is getting use to the idea that it’s an online class and not one where I have to go to a room certain days of the week. I find it harder for me to make my own time to put into this class. I’m better at learning in a classroom and for me to take my favorite subject and do it all online is hard for me and I’m finally getting the hang of online college.
2. The readings in the class at first didn’t excite me because I am a very picky reader but I enjoyed them much more than I thought. It was the analyzing that made me enjoy them more because I knew the purpose. It affected my opinion on things I never cared about before.
3. Literary analysis is different than the writings I have done in the past because it takes me longer to actually comprehend and compare the texts than just persuasive papers and comparing and contrasting. Literary analysis focuses more on the roots of what I’m reading than just comparing it with something else I have read, I actually enjoy literary analysis more than my past college writings.
4. My goals for the last part of this online class is to put more time into the work I do improve some of my writing. I want to get better at making organized pieces of writing and stop with my run on sentences. I also want to come out of this class with a lot more knowledge on literature because this is my last English class I will have to take. I would like to take skills I learned from this class and use them when I’m out of college.

On the Rainy River

I chose to analyze Tim O’Brien’s, On the Rainy River because it was a story the author only revealed in his book. The chapter was about the author Tim O’Brien and his last days in the United States before he had to go to Vietnam. The time takes place when Tim O’Brien was twenty one and in his game with school and making something of himself. He was drafted Vietnam war and stripped from his life that he loved. About to go to Harvard and was president of his fraternity. About to leave his loved ones and his hometown O’Brien was forced to make a life changing decision.
O’Brien had a choice to both leave his family and hometown and go to Canada and be ashamed of himself for the rest of his life or go to Vietnam and make everyone proud of him. He was close to the border between Minnesota and Canada. His days were counting down and in his chapter he reveals his true shame. Desperate to avoid the war he left without knowing what was ahead. “For a while I just drove, not aiming at anything”, (O’Brien 45). Not caring what the future entailed, O’Brien was driving away from the war.
O’Brien ended up at a lodge next to the rainy river which separated his fate. He lived with the owner of the lodge for six days. Those six days were time for him to think and look at all of his opportunities. The owner wasn’t snoopy and knew that he had to give O’Brien his time and space to think. O’Brien’s last day at the lodge, O’Brien and the owner took a boating trip on the rainy river. That was the moment where O’Brien had to choose whether he would stay or go. In the beginning it was simple; he would jump over the boat and make himself a free life in Canada. Being there in the boat only twenty yards away from Canada land O’Brien froze. “I couldn’t decide, I couldn’t act, I couldn’t comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity”, (O’Brien 54).
Like a life and death situation O’Brien saw his future before his eyes. The image to me was like a life and death situation because he was choosing two very difficult life choices. Live the life he wants with no one by his side or go to a far off country and fight for something he didn’t believe to make people proud. The ending wasn’t so fortunate though; most would have jumped the boat and lived a life of choice. Instead O’Brien chose a life without embarrassment and headed back to Minnesota and went to war.
He has always been too ashamed to tell his story because he is still regretful for his decision. He didn’t go with his instinct because he didn’t want to live a life of shame. In the end he came home with a family who was proud of him and the fears of people thinking he was a traitor was a weight lifted off his shoulders but unfortunately the regret still hovered over him because all in all he didn’t make the “right” decision.

http://www.bookrags.com/notes/tttc/QUO.htm