Setting: "Daystar" by Rita Dove

Rita Dove is an American poet from Ohio. he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995. She has received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and a National Humanities Medal.

Daystar

 

She wanted a little room for thinking:

but she saw diapers steaming on the line,

a doll slumped behind the door.

So she lugged a chair behind the garage

to sit out the children's naps.

 

Sometimes there were things to watch-

the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,

a floating maple leaf. Other days

she stared until she was assured

when she closed her eyes

she'd see only her vivid own blood.

 

She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared

pouting from the top of the stairs.

And just what was mother doing

out back with the field mice? Why,

building a palace. Later

that night when Thomas rolled over and

lurched into her, she would open her eyes

and think of the place that was hers

for an hour-where

she was nothing,

pure nothing, in the middle of the day.

 

In Daystar by Rita Dove the speaker is talking about a mother. The situation that the poem develops around is caring for children. Mothering in this poem is conveyed as a full-time job. The speaker places us in the home of a mentally and emotionally exhausted mother who works day in and day out for her children.

                The poem places the reader in a home full of complete disarray—“diapers steaming on the line, a doll slumped behind the door” (2-3). The setting creates an image of a messy house, run over by children. In this tiresome job the mother looks forward to her one hour break mid-day when the children are asleep. She escapes to the backyard, hidden behind the garage with the field mice. This simple place is calm, and despite the almost boring simplicity it is a place of the mother’s away from the children and away from the clutter—it is hers. She cherishes her short, precious moments isolated behind the garage.  

                The poem revolves around a mother’s daily events from cleaning diapers to having intimate relations with her husband. Being a mother is a full time job; the setting of the cluttered house and her single hour of isolation convey that situation of a full time job. Just as a man working in a factory all day and receiving a lunch break, she works in her home all day receiving an hour to herself in which she enjoys in isolations with simple maple leaf floating before her.



Lab Rats

As this year comes to a close, Mr. D-F makes it clear to us that we, his students, have all along been part of his experiment. Over 18 months he has conducted an experiment in educational technology with us as his lab rats. Through, the DC Faith in Action newspaper we have been challenged with what he says, "the line of demarcation between good news and tempting rumor or passing fancy would have to be articulated in explicit faith terms". Beginning with simple stories with a main focus on information from Catholic news services; we continued on to investigations of morality and law. With our investigations of morality and law, we created a detailed analysis of the 2012 elections which earned a place in the magazine of the Journalism Education Association. Most recently this spring, we have began stories on a broader range of topics from technology to the environment. With these stories, we follow what Mr. D-F calls our journalism compass. He states, "we built together a model, an orthogonal plane of news that pivots on an X axis that stretches from inaction to action and a Y axis that rises from dark figures to evidence of things unseen".  This compass helps us to determine the truth in a story. Mr. D-F has had an idea of what journalism should be when mixed with our faith. He tells us his hallmarks some of which include, right thinking leads to right action, be a faithful witness, and we must find our strengths in something bigger than technology. Finally, Mr. D-F brings his end of the year speech to a close, leaving us with, "You are, for better and for worse, an acting person. Act (that is listen, speak and write) in conscience".

School House Rock

Classroom modifications are of great importance in schools. Years ago, people with ADHD and other problems went noticed to a certain extent. Students with disabilities need accommodations to be able to reach their full potential. These accommodations include extra time for tests, double review of exercises, aids, study guides, taped lectures, and the list goes on.
I think the school system focuses too much on standardized testing. Focus needs to be put more on things that get us out of the classroom. Writing notes and taking a test over and over is not what will make us remember things. The school system is cheating kids of reaching their full potential. Your smarts should not be based on one test that's worth 20% of your grade at the end of the year. In the long run what does any of that do for students?

Moral Truth-Drones

Drones could be a great innovation to the journalism field; but it's a tricky, waiting game. Drones are still like a new toy to many, proper precautions and regulations have to be set up before they can fully come into play. If journalists starting with drones aren't careful about current regulations it could end badly for future generations.
 http://www.spj.org/quill_issue.asp?REF=1998#1998
As great as drones could be to journalism, I think it's cautiously crossing over that line of privacy. Drones could be great for environmental stories, and things more of that topic. Drones can be used for more than that though, it's easy for privacy to get invaded with them and people are going to jump back at the idea of that.
Personally, I think drones to cross some boundary lines involving privacy; though with proper regulations they could be a great technological advance.

Media

Media can make or break a story. You could have an all around great story but the interview you have backing it up could go against everything you say. You could have a great picture but the words might ruin it.. Media is a tricky thing; sometimes you have to fit it into your story other times you have to make your story fit it.
Media can sometimes persuade a reader. For example, you're reading a story about a small town in Africa; there's a picture of a starved, dehydrated young woman and her dying child or there's a picture of a family smiling. Think about it which picture would have an effect on you and grab your attention?
Always remember the phrase, "a picture is worth more than a thousand words". Without the proper story to back it up, a picture can mislead an audience.

Advocacy Journalism-Central Park 5

Central Park Five Exercise

11.       Please compare and contrast the following assessments of the social meaning of the wrongful convictions and the subsequent partial exoneration of the five young men.

The Nation : Patricia Williams http://www.thenation.com/article/173910/lessons-central-park-five#

N.Y. Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/services/central-park-five

Columbia Journalism Review:  Lynnell  Hancock   http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wolfpack.pdf

The New York Times: Jim Dwyer http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/nyregion/central-park-five-petition-oversimplifies-blame-in-a-collective-failure.html?_r=1&

Washington Post: George Will http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-central-park-five-tells-of-a-gross-miscarriage-of-justice/2013/04/12/982d024c-a2d3-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html

22.      Use the model that we have developed to analyze the role of the media in the frenzy that led to this miscarriage of justice. Please list examples if the following

a)      Shared revelation

b)      Individual enlightenment

c)       Individual and collective deception and illusion

d)      Propagandistic manipulation

33.      With regard to advocacy journalism, why must the impulse toward action be tempered? When and how are facts distorted in the pursuit of cognitive “closure”? In the absence of malice, what else explains the veiling of truth and the pervasiveness of “dark figures” in the newspaper account of the jogger case? Would precision journalism have succumbed to the same temptations that entranced narrative journalism in the Central Park Five case?

44.     Contrast this case with the episode at the heart of Bob Dylan’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”? Should we view this media carnival of terrors through the lens of class rather than race?

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/feb/25/bobdylan

Listen to the song and then blog your answer titled “ The Fractured Media Lens of Class”

1. Of these five different sources I find N.Y. Daily News to be most resourceful. By creating a timeline and short facts with pictures it's appealing and easy to understand; linking to full articles for people who want to get deeper into the story. Opinions differ with who is writing. With the Central Park Five case an article written by a black person would differ from a story written by a white person, because of the race case.
2. In advocacy journalism there is a more biased opinion  So with many different journalists all writing stories what is there to believe? What is true? Often this can lead to the miscarriage of justice because the articles won't be understood correctly. The wording in an article can simply weigh a person's beliefs to what the writer wants them to believe. It's all about the words you use in journalism, everything comes back to rhetoric truth.
3. Facts are distorted when we pick sides, get information from unworthy sources, and don't dig out the full story. In the jogger case, an article written with the statement "dark figures" people are to believe these people who attacked, these "dark figures" are not white people and must be black. Who would you be more likely to blame with a rape and assault a group of white teens or a group of black teens?
4. Race plays a part in everything, something we can't break away from.

Anti-Realism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzqnIJ6qcFw
An anti-realist is a person who denies a reality separate from our mind or our thoughts on this reality.
Your own story
I believe that your own story is news. The view I have is everything is news, but the more significant news is what grabs people's attention. Instead of simply telling your own story, it would be better to relate your story with another; make it all connect. I think if you say "I had a potato for dinner" and posted it to your blog or twitter that is news; yet it's not what people are looking for. On the other hand, if you post a 400 word blog about a shooting in your neighborhood and how that relates with gun violence that's more significant news that people would care about. What really makes something news though?
Alex's Journalism Blog
http://alexfunhouse.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-hyperreal-looking-beyond-platos.html
Both journalism and a blog. Using his own opinion but relating it to a huge philosophical idea.

http://mexodus.borderzine.com/
This is a perfect example of something that's not anti-realist. Borders are real, they separate us. An imaginary line across the nation can truly make a difference in how things are reported. Different things happen in different places, because of the borders.