tbe

A butterfly lands in Central Park. It stretches in the warm sunshine and contentedly flaps its wings. This motion creates a tiny current of air, sufficient enough to divert the course of an airborne spore. The spore lands beside a pathway and germinates.

One year later the spore has grown into a flowering vine. It spreads out across an adjacent path. A jogger fails to notice it, trips, and fractures her shin. As luck would have it, she works for the Mayor's office, where she has some influence. A program of defoliation is begun to eradicate all traces of the vine from Central Park.

Another year passes, and although the vine has been eradicated, the process has killed off a species of beetle that at one time thrived in the park. The beetle was the sole source of nutrition for the black-backed woodpecker. The woodpeckers, therefore, are forced to find other sources of food. They make a nuisance of themselves by raiding trashcans, harassing hot dog sellers and creating havoc in the city. However, they cannot adapt and soon begin to die off.


Now, the black-backed woodpecker is remarkable in that it usually expires mid-air. New York suddenly finds itself plagued by falling birds as the dead woodpeckers plummet from the sky. One falling bird strikes a pedestrian who dies on the way to the emergency room. As it turns out, this was the only man alive who knew the formula for Mountain Dew, every teen's favorite soft drink. Teens everywhere fail to get the caffeine boost they are so accustomed to and grades across the country plummet along with the woodpeckers. America goes stupid, all over the flutter of an insect's wings.

This is the Butterfly Effect. Although seemingly far-fetched, TBE is the basis for an important science known as Chaos Theory. But is the world this fragile? Just some food for thought. Even when it comes to Mountain Dew: This too shall pass.  Today we explored Ray Bradbury's Butterfly Effect Effect story, "A Sound of Thunder."  When the story was written there was as yet little written or research about Chaos Theory or bte, but Bradbury's imagination as a sci fi writer was astute and, like Jules Verne, HG Wells and Isaac Asimov, Bradbury used his knowledge of science to predict the future.

Many of you have asked how to set up your citations (how you identify your quotes and where they come from) using MLA.  We haven't really talked about MLA yet, but here's a great tool from the internet that will set up your citations page for you.  (Again, we haven't discussed this yet, but if you are ahead of the game, this will be useful.)  You can certainly be proud of yourself if you can look in the MLA Handbook and figure out how to make your own citations (resources) page, but my philosophy is, if there is a tool to make it easier, I'm going to use it.  If you go to this website, just follow the on-screen directions and let the internet do the work for you.

Blow People Away

The big stumbling block for most students in 10th grade English is the Research Paper.  Throughout the year we do many narrative and expository writing assignments, but the Research Paper, because of its length is what we dread the most.  On the other hand, if we organize ourselves, put the research that we do into order, know where to look and how to supplement our references, the paper should be quite straight-forward and simple to accomplish, although understandably time consuming.  Here are the topics.

Civil Rights: Analyze the evolution of civil rights under the Constitution throughout the 19th Century, including but not limited to The Dred Scott decision, and Civil War Amendments to the Constitution. After analyzing, choose the one which you feel has had the most impact on civil rights in America.

Atomic Bomb: Was the use of atomic bombs on Japan necessary to bring an end to World War II? The impact of the bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people, and many are still feeling the effects today. People nowadays still wonder why the bombs were dropped. If these bombs weren’t dropped on the Japanese, would the war have ended and how?

The play Our Town displayed a traditional family living in New Hampshire during the beginning of the 20th century. According to many so-called experts, the traditional American family is falling apart. However, it may be that the family is not disintegrating, but rather is evolving to meet the great social and economic changes of the last several decades. Argue either that the “family” is or is not disintegrating, but rather is changing to a new and even better form than the traditional family model or that in fact the “experts” are right and the American family is falling apart.

Bill of Rights: The Bill of Rights consists of the first ten articles of Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America. They specifically guarantee each citizen individual liberties. Why is the American Bill of Rights good/bad as compared to those of other countries?

Relying on your experiences in high school and by conducting other research, construct an argument proving that our System of Education is or is not fundamentally sound. During the course of your paper, also compare and contrast America’s system of education with that of other countries.

First Amendment: The first amendment provides every American with the freedom of speech. This freedom of speech has been broadened by the courts to include verbal, non-verbal, visual and symbolic expression. With the advancements in instant communication that includes cell phones, texting, the internet, etc., should the first amendment be rewritten or limited? Is this instant communication a threat to our safety, security, and eventually our freedom?

In Our Town we experienced life in a simpler time-when the roles of men and women in America were defined and less confusing. Explore the issue of America’s Gender Expectations today. Do these expectations make life more difficult or less complicated on men and women?   If you organize yourself, do a little each day and follow the handouts, you WILL pass this project with ease.

 Existentialism on Prom Night

when the sun came up

we were sleeping in

sunk inside our blankets

sprawled across the bed

and we were dreaming

there are moments when i know it

and the world revolves around us

and we're keeping it

keeping it all going

this delicate balance

vulnerable

all knowing

(sing like you think no one's listening)

you would kill for this

just a little bit

so, sing me something soft

sad and delicate

or loud and out of key

sing me anything

we're glad for what we've got

done with what we've lost

our whole lives laid out right in front of us

(sing like you think no one's listening)

etc.

In a very limited nutshell, Existentialism is the study of human existence, that our actions have consequences and certain things are not predestined to happen; that we really do have control over our own lives. This appears to tie in with the line in the song that stands out most, "Sing like you think no one's listening." In essence, lead singer John Nolan is saying that in high school (i.e. prom night) we care far too much about the reactions of others to our actions and that true happiness lies not in what a group thinks, but in the moment. It's sort of a carpe diem type of thing (Look it up).

Extra credit in your journals for a well-thought through analysis of the song.