English Perfect Paper 1

The following text is a propaganda leaflet by British Pacifist Norman Angell as stated on the bottom right-hand side of the text. The text is providing a reason for why Britain should not join the war. Created in 1914, the leaflet takes place in light of World War 1 and is a time of great nationalism by Europeans towards their own countries. Throughout this leaflet, Norman uses Ethos, Pathos, Logos, and font variations in order to gain support for his cause that Britain should not join the war.

The purpose of this leaflet is to convince the audience against joining the war, this can be justified as the author was a pacifist who opposed war. The author uses the fact that Britain would have to ally itself with Russia if it were to join the war as a reason for why the British should not join the war, this can be seen as the main headline of the leaflet "Why Fight for Russia." The intended audience could be the uneducated population, this is because author attempts to explain what Russia is, as seen in the second line "What is Russia." through providing information on Russia and it's political and social statuses, this signifies that the intended audiences are the uneducated as any person who is educated would know about Russia during the time. Also, the intended audience could be the unemployed. this is because at the end of the leaflet the author writes "get your local notables to hold meetings of protest against England." By providing information on how to protest against this cause implies that the intended audience has got a lot of free time on their hands which suggests that the intended audience could be the unemployed.

In summary, the leaflet conveys the ideology that Britain should not go to war as it will be alongside Russia, as seen in the first line "If England goes to war, it will be on the side of Russia." and continues to back up this statement by providing factual information and statistics to sway the audience's ideas in favor of the author's and concludes the leaflet by providing information on how to protest against the war.

The tone conveyed in the leaflet is a critical tone as the author is critical of Great Britain's decision to fight alongside Russia this is reflective in the statement made by Norman "Why fight for Russia." Also, the author continues by providing statistics and numbers such as "We spent 50,000,000 in the Crimea" and "140 million Russians, slaves of a corrupt autocracy" which further enhances the author's critique towards England's decision as it provides statistics against this cause.

The author uses logos to persuade and influence the audience's opinion regarding this matter. This is representative in the following statements made by Norman "Russia is the country to fight which we spent 50,000,000 in the Crimea" The author uses this sentence to show that Russia doesn't care for England as they invaded Crimea knowing that England had invested 50,000,000 pounds in it. Also, the author uses pathos in lines 12-15 "65 million Germans of our own race and blood" and "140 million Russian, slaves of a corrupt autocracy." By including this, the author implements contrasting information between Germany and Russia which creates a sympathetic connection between the audience and the Germans as the British can easily relate to the Germans due to them being "of our own race and blood." Also, the author utilizes the fact that Britain had an elected parliament in 1914 and implements the word "autocracy" to show how British and Russian ideologies contradict and that they should not fight alongside each other.

The author uses a variety of font sizes and underlines to add emphasis to the leaflet's main points which also attracts the audience towards more important aspects of his arguments. For instance, the author enforces his main ideology by including it as a headline and underlining it, as seen at the top of the leaflet "Why fight for Russia?" this allows for added emphasis by making this statement a focal point of the leaflet, also the author uses a vague claim "A war for Russia is a war against humanity." and adds emphasis to it by underlining Civilization and placing it in large fonts, this helps imply to the audience that this claim is an important claim and also acts as a focal point which would allow the author to get his main ideas across as they are focal points. Finally the author puts his call to action : "Britain, Stand Clear!"in a large font which allows the author to get his idea across.

All in all, Norman Angell uses logos, pathos, ethos, and font variations to gain support for his cause that Britain should not go to war.

IB Learner Profile Propaganda Poster

Prompt #1

"Deception is just as telling an outright lie"

An old Arabic quotes states: " If you want to take over a country, take over the people's thoughts." and the best way to do that is through the manipulation of media. The deception and manipulation of people's minds is a dangerous and unethical weapon.

The media and the news coverage that we invite to our living rooms each day are all possessed or in some cases influenced by wealthy and powerful people, let's not forget that these people, just like everyone on Earth, are human and therefore have opinions and desires too. They would do anything to protect their businesses or manipulate stories to gain support from the people whom they sell their products to.

 Lying in order to sway public opinion to favor a certain side through the deception of certain things whether it be for the most important national security reasons is unethical and delinquent. Most of us don't have access to firsthand information like news agencies do therefore portraying one side of the story for the purpose of persuasion or dissuasion is extremely immoral.

We live in a world today where we strive to achieve equity and justice; however with the constant exploitation and deception of stories through news coverage by governments and organisations to gain public support, we are always going to have different groundless opinions based on these beliefs and desires of these organisations in which we will constantly fight battles against one another due to certain ideologies implanted into our minds that negatively alter our view of certain societies and cultures.

The worst out of all, is deception of media to gain support for an invasion of another country. Millions of lives are at stake and just the single thought that the majority of the world would not know the real "truth" due to such manipulation is disheartening, and to add insult to injury with the growing number of news agencies and organisations and different opinions they bring along with it, finding the truth to a certain event is now close to impossible

Media Bias and Ideology Blog Post

Biased Article: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/what-do-palestinians-want_1058143.html
(Website funded and backed by FOX news.)

Re-written:

The so called "Palestinian terror attacks" on Israel are not as chaotic as they seem considering the fact that Israeli Forces have killed 9 times more CIVILIANS in the past decade than Palestinians have towards Israelis. Fox News needs to re-think their definition of "terror". It is also hard to believe that Palestinians are the terrorists when in-reality Israel where the ones to invade Palestinian land in the first place.

Palestine has been under constant siege from Israel since 1948, Palestinians are finding it very hard to re-grow their economy with the everlasting blockade and restrictions on imports and exports making Palestine the 126th out of the 180 ranked economies by Nominal GDP. It is estimated that sometime during the next 5 years Palestine's economy will take a giant collapse leading to an appalling famine which will inevitably lead to the demise of hundreds if not thousands of Palestinians living in Gaza.

Let's not forget the phosphorus infused bombs dropped over Palestine in the summer of 2009, this wasn't the first time Israel were accused of using prohibited weapons towards civilian-crowded areas in Gaza it was believed that they used the same weapon during their failed skirmish to take over Lebanon in 2006, and it was later confirmed to be true by a team of Italian scientists who took soil samples in Lebanon. These bombs killed about 900 Palestinians and injured 4,000 Palestinians, A UN report estimated that about half of the these numbers were civilians and half of those civilians were women and children.

According to United Nations estimates about 1,000,000 Palestinians live without electricity and about 750,000 are without clean water, this number was further enhanced because the white phosphoric bombs damaged major sources of water in Palestine as this toxic material was able to seep underground and mix with primary water reserves under-ground.

All in all, people who listen to FOX news need to stop and re-think their definition of terrorism when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the numbers and facts speak for themselves, and not the unsupported claims made by FOX news on the matter.

Sample IOC The Tempest Act 5 Scene 1

Link: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0Fqiuxx9qMq

Lang and Lit IOC Sample #2

Link: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1iOcxdtl36ii78243

Boys and Girls IOC

Audio: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0TC7fzwNVJi

Hard copy (to follow along in-case my voice is not clear at times):

The following passage is an extract from the short story Boys and Girls by Alice Munro which was published in 1968. Generally, Munro’s work is mostly Women’s Literature with the narrator/protagonist being a female who talks about Gender roles in society, more specifically women’s roles. Alice Munro enforces this topic with the implementation of themes such as coming of age theme and the struggles that women face due to how society perceives women’s roles and the consequences of not going through with these assigned roles. Boys and Girls is no exception, the narrator/protagonist in this story is a pre-pubescent girl who faced problems coming to term with the role in life that she was expected to lead, The narrator wanted to work outside with her father in the barn which she deemed more important, than conducting women’s chores and acting like a servant to the males in the house (Laird and Her Father).

The following passage takes place close to the beginning of the short story after Munro provides the readers with information regarding her parents and how they viewed and despised her masculine-like actions.

In summary, the passage conveys the protagonists animosity towards doing feminine jobs around the house especially in the kitchen while, portraying her fondness and appreciation of doing jobs that she deemed important such as helping out her father’s in the barn. The exert also portrays the narrator’s mother’s eagerness for Laird to grow up and help his father do the work the narrator does, so that she would help her mother do jobs and occupy roles deemed appropriate for a lady.

In this passage Munro uses indirect 1^st person narration. Munro does not give the narrator a name, this effect enables the audience to relate the protagonist to whomever they desired. In regards to tone, The narrator demonstrates hate and discomfort towards doing feminine jobs around the house while portraying her mother to be the antagonist or her enemy as stated in line 30, the narrator shows bilateral emotions towards her mother, Firstly, she loves her mother because her mother cares for her and stays up all night creating the dress the protagonist desires as we can see in lines 28 through to 29; however she also views her as her enemy because the narrator feels that her own destiny is pre-determined due to her mother wanting her to remain at home and conduct feminine jobs as shown in line 22 where her mother says: “And then I can use her more in the house.”  Also, the narrator shows some-sort of indirect clash between her and her mother when the narrator attempts to flee the kitchen swiftly after finishing a chore in order to avoid receiving a 2^nd chore by her mother. This event portrays the protagonists respect for her mother as she could simply reject her mother’s proposal to do a second chore; however she feels ashamed of doing so therefore she tries to flee, this is slightly ambiguous as it could also enhance and signify the immense pressure women used to face in society when it comes to doing women’s chores and the consequences of rejecting these chores as a female. Also, the narrator portrays Laird (her male brother) to be free to do whatever he enjoys most as shown in line 20 where she describes him to be swinging himself sick on the swing, and going around in circles.” This effects allows the audience to witness the extreme inequalities of gender roles in society where young males were free to do whatever they pleased while young women were perplexed and forced to do women’s chores even though they hated it as the protagonist did in this passage.

The passage is an exposition as it consists of explanations and inner thoughts by the protagonist with few dialogues describing her mother’s desire for the protagonist to do lady-like jobs and how her mother despises the protagonist due to her admiration of doing masculine jobs.

The essence of this passage as well as the central concept is the oppression of women in Southern Ontario and the Male’s authority out-weighing the female’s authority.

In line 1 of the passage, we are directly introduced to the kitchen. The kitchen acts as a symbol for the protagonist’s prison where the narrator abhors everything about the kitchen from the “depressing work” to the “hot and dark environment during the summer”. The protagonist describes the kitchen to have endless, depressing, and useless work just like a typical prison where the work forced upon the convicts is of no usefulness to the actual convicts while it is of use to the person in charge of running the prison where he/she would have his errands done for them. The narrator also describes her eagerness to leave the kitchen/prison as soon as she’s done with her chores in line 5.

In line 15, Munro implements a simile relating the narrator’s dad to a salesman which shows her dad’s approval of the narrator doing masculine jobs, and the protagonists appreciation of her dad approval towards this specific event. However the narrator portrays contrast between her mom and her dad. Her dad being her ally while her mom being her enemy, this can be justified by her appreciation of her dads actions in line 15 and what the narrator said about her mother in line 30 where she briefly stated that she felt her mom was her enemy although she can be nicer than her dad at times.

In line 17, the narrator’s mother declares that when Laird grows up he would be of greater help to his dad, Munro implements this line to portray how the ideology that Men will grow up to do men’s chores has infected her mother although Laird clearly is not showing any signs of usefulness around the house and that the protagonist is doing most of the chores while Laird never stays with the protagonist to complete any job they previously started.

In Line 24, the mother says: “It’s not like I had a girl in the family at all.” This shows how women will be looked down upon and not be established as females if that certain person does not act womanly, although the protagonist is a female by birth, her own mother justifies her daughter by her actions rather than by her actual birth gender which in this case is female.

Finally in line 40, the protagonist expresses her mother’s lack of understanding of what is going on around the house as well her depreciation towards her daughter’s ability to conduct all these difficult masculine jobs. This in fact shows that at the time, no matter how capable a person is of doing opposite gender related roles they will still be despised and looked down upon by society as a whole.

All in all, Munro’s implementation of a symbolic feature in the protagonist’s life, the portrayal of discomfort and hate by the protagonist towards doing what the protagonist deems to be useless jobs, the narrator’s mothers closed-mindedness, the ideologies regarding gender inequalities enforced upon people in her society as well as her mother, and finally the protagonists desire for change in her current lifestyle to escape her pre-determined fate all assist in suggesting and enhancing the fact that women had little to no authority in doing anything outside the household at the time and the oppression of women in southern Ontario as a complication in Canada.