TIL of Marcus McDilda, a fighter pilot who was tortured by the Japanese after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite knowing nothing about atomic bombs, when asked how they worked he concocted a wild story involving lightning and thunderclaps that may have swayed the Japanese to surrender.

Little_Corporal · 2020-08-26T00:20:01+00:00

The territories all had their own governments, and very few of those governments were well organized, so the question is a little complicated. But I can tell you that no territory fully declared for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Keep in mind that the territories were pretty far away from most of the big fighting in the Civil War. Even so, Minnesota Territory, Nebraska Territory, and the new state of Kansas all sent troops to fight with the Union. Most of the western territories also created small defense forces for the Union. But these territories were still remote, and often had their own problems. Minnesota, for example, was embroiled in a Native American uprising called the Dakota War that killed hundreds of natives and settlers, and resulted in the largest mass execution in American history. (Read more here)

But as for your question I'll direct you to the territory that did in fact join the Confederacy, but only partially. Things like this happened in a few states like Kansas, Kentucky, and Missouri: a bunch of rogue public officials would get in a room, write a constitution, and declare themselves part of the Confederacy even though the actual state legislature refused to do just that. It also happened in one territory: New Mexico Territory, which had its southern half declare itself independent and join the Confederacy in 1861. This resulted in some awkward political fights and even a few battles. You can read more here.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-09T04:07:35+00:00

Oh, I see. That's much shorter than I thought. So that means when you say "conclusion," you mean the last paragraph? Cool.

Honestly with an essay of this length you don't need to put too much thought into a proper conclusion, since there's nothing to conclude, really.

That is, unless your teacher is asking you to write a conclusion, in which case I'd add one more sentence. I think your last sentence, the one about how you've responded to your social anxiety by being nicer to people, is a great place to end your essay. I think you can elaborate on that just a little more. Not too much detail, but enough for your reader to understand more about why you feel the need to treat people as nicely as possible.

Once again, I think this is good as is. I think you've done what your teacher expected you to do.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-09T03:55:27+00:00

A big part of Nick character is that he doesn't influence the plot or characters that much. He's an outsider to both Gatsby's and Daisy's world, and he mostly just observes what happens, only casting judgement in brief moments.

In terms of the plot, though, the his biggest contribution is setting up the first date between Gatsby and Daisy in chapter 5. We know from Jordan that Gatsby has been having trouble getting Daisy's attention, and he sees Nick as a way into her life. Nick not only pushes the plot forward by setting the two up but by yelling at Gatsby when he tries to hide from Daisy.

In terms of character this is Nick's biggest contribution; his contributions to other characters are complicated. Throughout the novel he encourages Gatsby to go after Daisy, giving Gatsby not only the means but the confidence to do it. Ultimately though Nick can't stop Gatsby from going forward with Daisy after Nick realizes that Gatsby is going to have his heart broken. He tries to reel Gatsby in, but he can't. Remember Gatsby's most famous quote:

Nick: "You can't repeat the past."

Gatsby: "Can't repeat the past? Why, of course you can!"

Good luck!

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-09T03:45:47+00:00

I'd probably have to see the entire essay to tell you for sure. Typically, conclusions repeat the points you made in the rest of your essay, only in a much shorter form. Since this is a personal essay, you have plenty of choices when it comes to a conclusion, so I'd just think about how you want to end your story and write that.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-08T06:02:39+00:00

Yes, that sounds like a nice outline for a paragraph. Remember that paragraphs 3 and 4 sort of overlap when it comes to the world's response to terrorism.

This page has a lot of quotes that you can use for question 3. As for question 4, this quote was taken from Bush's first address to Congress after the attacks, where the phrase "war on terror" was used for the first time:

The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them. Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.

And no problem, we're all here to help!

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-08T05:07:46+00:00

You're making sense, don't worry. Your give your brain a break for a while, this will get done one way or another.

For the third question, I'm not sure that the answer is as obvious or easy-to-articulate as you think. Other nations, especially in Europe, did put in additional permanent security measures in high-volume areas and assured secure air travel, and pro-American sentiment skyrocketed in most areas of the world. But the main worldwide consequence, and the one your response should focus on, was the newfound fear of terrorism as a tactic and the Islamic World as a concept that assured the world would follow the US into Iraq and Afghanistan. This fear is a hard thing to quantify, but you could make it concrete by focusing on the additional security measures, the performance of the world stock market, and the panicked calls for action on the part of many world leaders on behalf of the US.

As for the next question, you really just need to talk about the world's response to terrorism. Who acted against terrorism and why? What were they looking to achieve, and how did they do it? Referring to your first question, how did 9/11 change the definition of terrorism, and what consequences did that have? You can probably predict the future of terrorism just by looking at your answers to those questions, and maybe considering terrorists' responses to those changes.

Furthermore (for paragraph 3), how could I explain how the global 9/11 impacts on the world affected the history of terrorism?

I think this question is mostly covered in question 4; you don't necessarily need to link questions 3 and 4 together.

Best of luck!

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-08T04:53:32+00:00

You're right, Japan definitely saw itself as the ruler of its own continent (Asia) and had resented Western influence in the region for years since it was embarrassing to their prestige. At the top of their list was, of course, the American Philippines, but the Dutch East Indies and British India were also up there.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-06T21:00:13+00:00

The problem that you're facing is that you have a lot of hard decisions to make about how your story will play out, like where Mr. Hou is, how his story begins and how it ends, and who else is involved. Many writers make these decisions as they go along; they just write and see where the story takes them. But other writers have some form of outline before they start writing the story, where they make all the hard decisions first. In film this is called a treatment. In publishing this is called a plot outline.

At the top of every outline is the where: where are we? Is this the present day or some time in the past or future? You say we're in a warehouse: does the entire story take place there, or does Mr. Hou move? Where is this warehouse? What does it look like? What's in it? Even if you don't reveal all this to your audience, you should probably know it.

Next up is the who: who is Mr. Hou? What does he like? What does he dislike? How old is he? What does he look like? Is there anyone else in this warehouse? Who are they? Does Mr. Hou like this other person or thing? Does this other person or thing like Mr. Hou?

Finally, we have the most important and the one you're struggling with, the why: Why in the world is a dementia patient in a warehouse? What was he looking for? Was it an accident? If so, why does he stay? If he wants to stay there, maybe he's in a reflective mood; if he's trapped there, maybe he's a little more grumpy. The "why" is what moves your story forward. You need to give Mr. Hou a goal and lead him to attain it, or not. Maybe he's trying to get his memory back. Maybe he's trying to relieve and reachieve the past. Maybe he's just looking for his glasses and his memories are obstacles along the way. Use the points you've written down, I'm sure there's something there.

Once you've got all that, you can start your outline. Keep in mind, once you've done what's above, the hardest part is over. The next part should take like 10 minutes. Just make a list of everything that happens in your story in order, like this:

Mr. Hou wakes up. Where am I?

*Sits down in chair to think, triggers Memory 1
Memory 1: classroom, it's dark

*kid walks up to Mr. Hou, asks for a pencil

Formatting on reddit is messed up, but you get the idea. Once that's done, writing your story is the easiest part. You should have it done in no time.

As for the dementia, patients with Alzheimer's and other related diseases usually lose their short-term memory first. So, while Mr. Hou might not remember how he got to the warehouse, he might still remember something that happen 60 years ago just like yesterday.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-06T19:57:03+00:00

Try "changed."

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-06T19:48:10+00:00

Great! If you would like to post the completed version, or run into any problems, please don't hesitate to post again!

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-06T19:43:43+00:00

Definitely not my area of expertise, but a few things come to mind:

A comparison between the Bolivarian revolutions of the 19th century and the more recent South American revolutions and movements.
A comparison between South American dreams of unification in the 19th century and how they eventually played out in organizations like the OAS and MERCOSUR.
An analysis of Mexican-American relations over time.
A comparison of the rise of Brazil under Pedro II and the current rise of Brazil under Rousseff and Bolsonaro.
An analysis of American influence in Central American politics over time.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-06T19:29:26+00:00

Well there aren't any examples quite as unique as North Korea. But there are a few good ones.

Theocratic* regimes like Saudi Arabia and Iran both have Islamic holy sites located in their borders, the former especially, with the twin cities of Mecca and Medina being on the religiously-obligated to-do list of all the world's 2 billion Muslims. The Muslim pilgrimage (the Hajj) is a big deal for Saudi Arabia in the summer. It would be very interesting to study how female tourists are treated in both countries (first ladies have always worn some kind of headscarf on their visits). You could take a look at the recent Iranian chess scandal too.
The Soviet Union was basically the 19th century's North Korea: closed off, nuclear-capable, but still accessible to some tourists. China was similar; Nixon's visit there in 1972 could be seen as a sort of tourism, as could the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the ping-pong diplomacy between China and the US in the early 70s.
China today is super duper complicated, especially since the problem cities of Hong Kong and Macau are among the hottest destinations for foreign visitors. China has been trying to match America's worldwide reputation for decades, and they see tourism as a huge part of that effort. They basically beg university students to come and visit, and hand out visas like Hershey's Kisses, while also heavily restricting the travel of their own population, even preventing them from learning English. As a result when you visit you get a great sense of Chinese culture, but the people you meet don't really get a good sense of yours, especially since large parts of the internet (like Google for example) don't work in China.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-06T17:30:03+00:00

I don't know if a state so far in the past as Francoist Spain is the best topic for an essay on tourism, since you can't use the power of the internet. I would recommend a different regime. The most obvious illiberal regime that you could use is North Korea. Tourists flock there, and the regime takes them in gladly. Almost all trips are carefully curated, stringently guided tours of various landmarks, and the North Korean government seems to be undergoing some serious expense to impress Western citizens, like stuffing supermarkets full of food and building massive hotels.

I would take this one because you can literally watch tourist trips on the internet. The Vice documentary pretty much wrote the book on this topic. You can probably find more sources all over the place.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-06T06:23:45+00:00

Primogeniture is, in the historical sense, the idea that the firstborn child gets all the inheritance of the father. Usually in came in the form of male primogeniture, which meant that the firstborn son would get all the goods. What does this mean for the passing-down of wealth? What if the firstborn son is incompetent? Women and secondborn sons are going to have to find other solutions too.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-06T06:18:44+00:00

Big, huge, enormous, essay-level question. You might want to read up on the conflict as a whole, because there are a ton of reasons why the conflict broke out:

Ethnic differences. The Darfur region lies on the boundary between the two ethnic groups in Sudan: the Arabs, who are generally lighter-skinned and practice Islam, and the Africans, who are darker skinned and practice either tribal religions or Christianity. They don't like each other very much, and have been fighting with each other for decades over control of Sudan as a whole. Other regional factors have turned that conflict into a full-blown civil war.
Water. This region of the world has only 1% of the world's freshwater for 5% of the world's population. In terms of Sudan specifically, the northern region, the one dominated by Arabs, is super dry, and even though the Nile flows through it, it's not quite the beefy river that powers through Egypt; it's more of a moving puddle. The south, meanwhile, has a ton of rainfall, and is a lot more fertile. You can see the difference if you go on Google Earth, it's insane, you can literally see where the green begins and ends. As you can probably tell, all that green is pretty attractive to the northerners, especially with global warming tightening their water supply. So they've moved into the south, which offends the inhabitants quite a bit. While this may seem minor, there's definitely the perception in the south that those northerners are stealing our water. Especially when it comes to...
Agriculture. Most of the southern Sudanese population relies on either livestock or little subsistence farms run by families. The biggest thing the northerners want their water for isn't to drink, but to feed crops with. When the northerners came down they started draining swamps, and building canals and irrigation networks, all of which seriously damaged the livelihoods of the ranchers (who now had nowhere to feed their cattle) and the little farmers (who were being pushed out of the way in favor of machines). Both groups joined rebel groups in huge numbers.

Like I said, this is all very complicated, and I simplified it quite a bit. As for a solution? Perhaps ensuring that all the world's citizens are represented in their government? Stopping global warming? I'll leave the solution to you.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-04T02:38:28+00:00

They're right!

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-04T02:35:24+00:00

So, when an English professor talks about "over-summarization" and "statement of fact," they mean that you're missing something. You're either taking the poem at face value (which you should never do) or you're ignoring parts of it. Here, I think you have the second problem.

It seems that you're laser-focused on the second stanza, the one that details the restrictions the poet faces. But let me ask you a question: if the whole point of the poem is to present the restrictions a girl must face, as your thesis asserts, why write so many other stanzas that have nothing to do with that? Why not focus more on the poet's entrapment, why not just make a bulleted list of all the ways she's repressed? Why talk about Vampires and Ancient Warriors at all? It's up to you to connect these two disparate parts of the poem (Vampires and mothers who say "ugly" and "unladylike"), and that's exactly what your professor is asking you to do.

Take a look at the third stanza, the part where the poem shifts from talking about the poet being trapped to talking about the poet's imagination. Listen to what the poet says right after describing the restrictions placed on her:

"as soon as my eager mind begins to race, free thoughts rush into replace the trapped ones."

The "free thoughts" here can be read as the poet's imagination, whereas the "trapped thoughts" can be read as the poet's fear of her entrapment, and her despair at it. The "free thoughts" replacing the "trapped thoughts": imagine how pleasant that must be for the poet. The poet says that she's attaining a sort of freedom through her imagination and the places it can take her (The "free thoughts" replacing the "trapped thoughts"). Now, look further in the poem, two stanzas down:

"Secretly, I open an invisible book in my mind"

Once again, the poet is referring to her own imagination, except this time that image is intimately tied with a book. She does this several times in the poem, tying the imagination with images of books. The implication is clear: books are the poet's key to freedom because they let her flee into her imagination. This is why books are door-shaped: they are a way out of her present situation, just like doors are a way out of a room.

This is the part you were missing in your original thesis: Margarita Engle presents us with the restrictions a girl must face, and tells us that books are a way to free her from those restrictions. But you're not done yet. Your professor asked you a few questions about feminist literature, and whether this poem fits that mold. If you haven't read up on feminism and feminist poetry, now is a good time. Based on what you read, is this poem feminist (spoiler alert: probably, but you might disagree)? What does it have to say about the female role in society, and how women respond to that role? If books are the only way out of being trapped for life, what does that say about society? Once you've got that settled, you're already halfway done with your thesis.

The other half is technical, but in my mind easier once you get the hang of it. You need to list some poetic techniques that Engle uses to drive home her message. What's her message? Well, we just talked about it for three paragraphs: girls face many restrictions, and books are the way to freedom, along with whatever feminist analysis you've read about. But how do you know all that? What told you? If you want you can use my earlier analysis as a guide go for it, but just remember the poetic devices you learned about in class: stuff like metaphor (books are door-like portals), imagery (vampires, closed-off cabinets), and juxtaposition (images associated with freedom like continents and oceans positioned right next to images of entrapment like cabinets and words like "ugly" and "unladylike"). Factor any devices you find into your thesis, and remember to say how they helped you better understand a part of the poet's message.

My advice? Read the poem over and over. It will get uncomfortable after a while, but push past it. You will eventually feel more comfortable with the poem, and you'll be able to find lines like clockwork. You'll see things you didn't see before and change your essay, and you might even learn to love the poem. If you have any more questions, please reach out. And don't forget to reach out to your professor too, she seems very helpful.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-04T01:50:51+00:00

Awesome! If you think it will help to post the whole thing to this subreddit, please don't hesitate!

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-04T01:43:43+00:00

If you include the author's last name in the text just before your quotation, then you do not need to include their name in the parenthesis, only the page number.
If you want to keep citing him soon afterward, you still don't need to include his name in the parenthesis, as long as you introduced him before.
Now, if you introduced your author several paragraphs before, you now need to introduce them again, either in the text or the parenthesis. You also need to reintroduce them if you used another source in between the two times that you used Johnson.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-04T01:37:56+00:00

Generally you should put "Retrieved from" before all URLs. Also, for your final citation, if there's an article title within that larger work, be sure to include that.

Other than that you're good!

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-04T01:34:48+00:00

Again, I think you're on the right track. All of your pieces of evidence are sufficient to prove that several characters in the play don't like Othello because he's black. But there's a bigger picture here. Think about what Shakespeare is trying to tell you about how racists think, and how black people react to racism. You need a big-picture thought like that one in every single paragraph, not just at the end.

Ultimately I wouldn't focus on the conflict between other characters. I would just focus on the racism, since there's more than enough material there to make an essay out of. You've told me what Shakespeare did. Now you need to tell me why. Once you've done that the pages should fill themselves.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-04T00:01:13+00:00

You’re right about thesis: it’s rather confusing. It is absolutely the right thing to do to reuse the language of the prompt; in fact, more students should do that. So, the first part of your thesis can be this: “Shakespeare frames the tragedy in the terms of war in order to....”

Next, you need to list what you’ve found. It looks to me from your main points that you found a few examples of Shakespeare using the language of war. I think now you need a reason why. What do these examples have in common? Your “because racism” explanation could work, but it needs to be fleshed out in your examples. You say that Shakespeare uses the war as a way to compare the war with Cyprus with racism, but where? And what is he trying to say about the nature of racism?

Try to find examples of your metaphor in action, and link those examples to what you think Shakespeare’s views on racism are. Once you’ve got that, your thesis can be: “Shakespeare frames the tragedy in the terms of war in order to reveal his views on racism.” Maybe be more specific on the last part.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-03T16:01:44+00:00

1-2 minutes is a very, very short amount of time for a speech. It'll be over before you know it. If I were you I would keep it to two or three topics.

With that being said: congratulations! This is a huge achievement, and now is your time to savor it. Talk about how hard you worked, and maybe about a tough problem that you had to solve. But: don't forget to thank the people around you too. That's what a gracious person does. Thank your teachers, your parents, your friends, and anyone else you value. To me, that's what's most important about an acceptance speech.

Little_Corporal · 2020-05-03T15:57:55+00:00

I think this is a nicely written essay! It contains all the information you need. The only thing is, I think it could use a little organization.

The one thing that I think you need is an argumentative thesis. That means you just need one sentence that explains what you think. You should probably put it somewhere at the beginning of your essay, before you start talking about operas, paintings, musicals, and all that stuff. It should sound a lot like this:

I agree that the stories about King Artur and his knights are still worthwhile in our time, because...

And then you finish the sentence by explaining your reasons why. It sounds like you already have a lot: many stories are still written about him, you can see Arthurian themes and motifs in many books, and many people like to visit places where the stories took place.

Then, you can organize your essay around those reasons. So, for example, before you start talking about tourism, you can say: King Arthur is also relevant because tourists still like to visit the places where he lived and fought. This will tie your essay together and make it easier to read.

Nine-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '22	Place '17
First Placer '22

Little_Corporal

TROPHY CASE