Shreya's English Blog

A picture can tell a thousand words. What even a thousand words can't tell, pictures can tell. Pictures help us to better visualize the scenarios that are being described by words and sometimes, pictures can even be understood without words. Pictures have the power to bring the story to life and enhance the overall experience described in the story. Motion pictures, or more commonly known as movies, are often more powerful than the books that tell the same story. In movies, the audiences can actually view the scenarios the characters are going though. This may help them feel more connected to the character and empathize with them more: "A huge range of human experiences can be portrayed in comics through either words or pictures" (McCloud 809). One picture can tell many words in a more concise manner. When reading a book with no pictures, we always make our own pictures in our heads to better understand the story. We then associate these pictures with certain characte...

In society, there are so many rules that we are expected to abide by. However, some rules aren't fair and would be benefited by reform or revision. But, how is the government or rule-making body supposed to know which rules are considered unfair by citizens? If we are expected to follow these rules and punished if we don't, people would never resist the rule in fear of facing punishment. In the passage, "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau, he emphasizes the point that citizens should speak up and express their opinions about unjust situations in society. He says that people who blindly follow the rules without any further consideration are not men but are "small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power" (Thoreau 384).  Part of being a man is using our own conscience to evaluate the situations around us rather than just blindly accepting them. Without our conscience, we are merely machines who mechanically follow...

In this passage, David Foster Wallace expresses his view on what the meaning of life really is, He starts out with some humor to show a concrete example: he explains that there are two fish in a bowl and one fish asked the other fish what water is, This is ironic because the fish has been swimming in water for his entire life, yet he is still confused about what water actually is. Here, this example serves as a metaphor for how we see life. Despite the fact that we have been living life for a long time, few of us actually know what the meaning of life is. Instead of directly explaining what the meaning of life is, he alludes to a more familiar example in which most people can relate to. Wallace emphasizes the fact that people are usually locked into a mindset that just has everything on repeat. People just blindly repeat their schedule without further thought for anything or anyone. They are mostly worried about how to make it through their day with all of the problems they are f...

Often times, we are shielded from the truth in an attempt to protect us. But does shielding children from the dangers and low points in life and history actually benefit children? It actually harms children and encourages them to be ignorant to the wrongs that have been done. Students should be exposed to and know the real truths of life. Then, they would be aware of the consequences wrong  actions have; they would be better suited to avoid wrong actions and learn to avoid certain mistakes.  History is an important subject that we can learn from and if it is hidden, people won't know what mistakes to not repeat. Learning from past mistakes is important because it ensures that these mistakes will not repeat themselves in the future, and won't lead to the same dangerous consequences. The history teacher tell his students, "the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters...the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Ja...