Grandfathers Journey by Allen Say Essay Example for Free

Grandfathers Journey by Allen Say Essay Question 1. Describe how the story is structured to influence your response to the text. Question 2. Describe one of the storys major settings. How is it constructed and what is its significance to the story and its ideas? North America is the major setting in this book. North America holds a lot of new technology and everything is new and spectacular to him, the trains, the enormous rock sculptures and an endless farming field are examples of this. There is also a bad side to this place; there are huge cities of factories and tall buildings with thick smoke coming out of each building. But above all, best place was California, where there were a strong sunlight, the Sierra Mountains and the seacoast. Along the way he had met and shook hands new people, which had different cultural backgrounds to him. This setting is constructed in a way that the more the grandfather travels the more he liked it and wanted to make the New World his home. This setting shows that the cultural barrier can be broken and people should go out and see the world and meet new people to develop more familiarity of the world they live in. Question 3. How are you positioned to respond to the major character/s of the story? What values are represented through them? Question 4. Describe the extent to which language and graphics are successfully used together to shape your response. Discuss with close reference to at lease two examples. In the Grandfathers Journey, there are a few pages where the graphics and the text connect together to give the reader a better understanding of situation. At the beginning (on page 4) the text was My grandfather was a young man when he left his home in Japan and went to see the world. On this page it shows the grandfather in Japanese clothes and the background had very dull colours because he is still in the Old World. On the next page it shows the transition to the New World. The background colours have changed from dull to bright and he had changed into European clothes. The wave that looks very unsteady shows the New World. All this happens when you want to see the world. On page 17, there is a picture of the grandfathers daughter holding a pram with a European doll sitting in it. The text that goes with the page was As his daughter grew, my grandfather began to think about his own childhood. He thought about his old friends. In the picture the author shows the contrast between the Asian girl and the European girl using different clothing and the cultural difference (seen through the colours of the hairs). When compared, the grandfather began to remember how his old friends in Japan were when they were little. This illustrates think about his own childhood. He thought about his old friends. Question 5. Discuss the attitudes and values of the text and your personal response to these. Question 6. Describe at least one link you can make between this book and another/other texts you have read or viewed. How do the texts compare in terms of the ideas presented and how do you respond to these ideas? One of the pages in this book makes us realise that we often label Japan as the enemy in World War II, whilst they were also the victim and had also suffered a large amount of devastation. In the film Pearl Harbour, one of the scenes was Japan bombing Pearl Harbour. This only shows the negative side of Japan, where they were attackers, but it did not show them as the victims suffering from the disaster. This movie is persuading the audience to blame Japan for the damages of the war, where Japan had to go through the emotional breakdowns and physical injuries. Even though the book tells us not to blame Japan for the damages and the movie shows us that Japan was the enemy in World War II, there is still a link between the two texts and that is after a war majority of the participating countries will have, no matter large or small, havocs. I think, because of this, we should not blame a certain country for the occurrence of the war, and should not blame any country since the countries that participated are both enemies and victims of the war.

The Friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu Essay -- The Epic of Gilgamesh,

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a historic story of the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh. The story depicts the short lived friendship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The story begins as Shamat the harlot seduces Enkidu and convinces him to go to the city of Uruk and meet Gilgamesh. From that moment on, the two were very close. They planned a trip to the forest of cedars to defeat the monster known as Humbaba so that Gilgamesh could show his power to the citizens of Uruk. However, Enkidu tried â€Å"vainly to dissuade† (18) Gilgamesh in going to the forest. Despite Enkidu’s plead, the two continued on their voyage to the forest where Humbaba lives. Once they arrived, they found the monster and killed him. They cut down trees, â€Å"then Enkidu builds a gigantic door†¦as a gift to Enlil.† (44) Upon their arrival to Uruk, Ishtar the goddess of sex, love and warfare wanted to wed Gilgamesh. In spite of this, Gilgamesh did not feel the same and did not wish to marry her. Ishtar was so upset with the decision of Gilgamesh that she sent down the â€Å"Bull of Heaven† (50) to kill him. The bull ultimately met its’ demise when Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed it. Of all of the events that occurred, the gods were not pleased. After the bull was killed and the cedar trees were cut, Enkidu had to be seen by the gods in council. Thus, the decision that Enkidu must die because of these acts was established. (53) The death of his friend is unreal to Gilgamesh. Thorkild Jacobsen points out that â€Å"†¦it touches him in all its stark reality, and Gilgamesh refuses to believe it.† (Thorkild Jacobsen, â€Å"And Death The Journey’s End,† 191) Gilgamesh goes on to seek eternal life. Death had never been a topic he had to deal with. Jacobsen explains, â€Å"death, fear of death, has become an ob... ...ves after him. There is a measure of immortality in achievement, the only immortality man can seek.† (Jacobsen, 196) The whole reason Gilgamesh takes this journey to search for eternal life is due to the death of Enkidu, with whom he was close with. Before all of the events occurred, Gilgamesh had never thought about the topic of death. It’s as if it never crossed his mind; as though he would live forever. He went through phases along his journey. The first was not accepting reality, the second was fighting for eternal life, and the last was accepting reality. Now, his aspirations for immortality are no longer apparent as he enters the last stage. Works Cited Thorkild Jacobsen, "'And Death the Journey's End': The Gilgamesh Epic" â€Å"The Epic of Gilgamesh,† trans. and ed. Benjamin R. Foster, A Norton Critical Edition, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001

A Nursing Research Critique Essay

McGrath, M., Lyng, C., & Hourican, S. (2012, September). From the simulation lab to the ward: Preparing 4th year nursing students for the role of staff nurse. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 8(7), e265-e272. The length of the title of the study is important. According to Connell Meehan (1999), the title should be between 10 and 15 words long and should clearly identify for the reader the purpose of the study (Coughlan, M., Cronin, P., Ryan, F. 2007). Parahoo (2006) said that titles that are too long or too short can be confusing or misleading (Coughlan et. al. 2007). The title of the study â€Å"From the simulation lab to the ward: Preparing 4th year nursing students for the role of staff nurse† is consist of 18 words. The title maybe too long and does not clearly reflect or represent the variables used in the study. A research problem is often first presented to the reader in the introduction to the study (Bassett and Bassett, 2003). The problem was not stated clearly in the introduction of the study. However, the authors have referred to it as the purpose of the study. In either case the statement should at least broadly indicate to the reader what is to be studied (Polit and Beck, 2006). The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between management styles and nurses’ retention at private hospitals using the Likert’s Profile of Organizational Characteristics to: (1) measure the nurses’ perception of management styles in their work unit; (2) to allow nurses to briefly describe the management system as they perceived being practiced in the organization; (3) and to give them an opportunity to indicate which management system do they desire in the future, all of which were given to staff nurses in in-patient units in different hospitals. It is significant in the nursing practice and administration since it is focused on the management styles and retention of staff nurses. The researchers presumably stated that Managers who retain staff start by communicating clear expectations to the nurse. It is said that they share their picture of what constitutes success for the nurse with regard to both the expected  deliverables and the perform ance of their job. These managers provide frequent feedback and make the nurse feel valued. When a nurse completes an exchange with a manager who retains staff, he or she feels empowered, enabled, and confident in his or her ability to get the job done. A research hypothesis is the statement created by researchers when they speculate upon the outcome of a research or experiment (Shuttleworth, 2008). It must be a specific, testable prediction about what you expect to happen in your study (Cherry, 2012). However, there was no mention of a hypothesis in the study. Also, its absence was not justified. A literature review is a process of reading, analyzing, evaluating, and summarizing scholarly materials about a specific topic (Sage, 1998). There should be clear links between the aims of the research study and the literature review, the choice of research designs and means used to collect data, the discussion of the issues, and its conclusions and recommendations (Nordquist, 2009). In terms of this, the study has various references that can reinforce their research statement. Before the study was conducted in three private hospitals, permission to conduct the study was obtained from the ethical committee of the Faculty of Nursing, as well as directors of the studied hospitals to collect necessary data. However, it is not indicated in the study if they followed the principle of confidentiality and full disclosure during the data gathering. Complete confidentiality of information provided by the subjects will not be publicly reported or accessible to others (Polit & Beck, 2008). The design used in the study is correlation-descriptive. A correlational study is a method designed to determine if two or more variables are associated with each other. Descriptive method is used to describe the present behavior or characteristics of a particular population. The population and sample were described sufficiently. In addition, Roscoe (1975) suggested some simple â€Å"rules of thumb† for selecting appropriate sample sizes based on an analysis of acceptable confidence levels in behavioral research studies (Alreck & Settle, 2010). The general recommendation is that sample sizes be at least 30 and need not be larger than 500 (at 500, sample error will not exceed 10 percent of the standard deviation about 98 percent of the time). Furthermore, within this range of 30 to 500, it is appropriate to sample 10 percent of a population (Alreck  & Settle, 2010). The population size of the study is 228 which are within the limit of Roscoe’s Rule of Thumb. The instrument utilized was the Profile of Organizational Characteristics (POC), which was in an 8-point likert scale. According to Chomeya (2010), an 8-point Likert Scale is appropriate to research that has several variables because it will make the test as a whole. An 8-point likert scale prevents bias present in a 5-point scale (Chomeya et. al. 2010. The questionnaire was translated into Arabic and was tested for relevance and reliability. Cronbach’s alpha was used and it yielded 0.89, which indicates good reliability. After obtaining consent, the data collection was done which included three phases. During the first phase, the researchers obtained a list of number and names of all nurses. All of those that are obtained are interviewed and oriented with regard to the study and the concern of the instrument to be used. The second phase commenced 9 months after the first phase. Data were collected from director of nursing and head nurses about the numbers and name of nurses who had quit and reasons for leaving their units. The reasons are then classified into obligatory and non-obligatory reasons. Nurses’ retention was calculated in the last phase by subtracting the number of nurses who had quit the hospitals from the total number of nurses available during data collection, divided by the total number of nurses and then multiplied by 100. A rule of thumb is that studies that are descriptive in design only use descriptive statistics (Polit and Beck, 2006). Inferential statistical tests are used to identify if a relationship or difference between variables is statistically significant. Inferential statistics, which are based on the laws of probability, provide a means for drawing conclusions about a population, given data from a sample. In the study, the researchers performed data analysis using SPSS version 11.5 for Windows using descriptive and inferential statistics. The researchers clearly defined what statistical tests were undertaken and why these tests  were used. To enhance readability researchers frequently present their findings and data analysis section in tabulated forms of data by categories. This can help the reviewer determine if the results that are presented clearly answer the research questions. The flow in the discussion of findings is also logical and it is related to the literature review thus placing the study in context. The significance of the findings should be stated but these should be considered within the overall strengths and limitations of the study (Polit and Beck, 2006). The researchers have explored the clinical significance and relevance of the study and the implications of the study are well stated, and the researchers impose recommendations with regard to their conclusion.

Mass Shootings and Related Issues of Race and Gender

â€Å"Sick,† â€Å"twisted,† â€Å"disturbed,† â€Å"psychotic,† â€Å"mentally ill,† â€Å"psychopath,† â€Å"acted alone.† These words  are familiar to anyone who pays attention to news accounts of mass shootings carried out by white males over the last three decades. Trouble is, none of these guys—Eliot Rodger, Adam Lanza, James Holmes, Jared Loughner, Anders Breivik in Norway, among others—really acted alone. While news accounts typically frame mass shootings by white males as the work of  deranged individuals, the actions of these  men and boys are expressive of widely held patriarchal and white supremacist beliefs. They are the manifestation of  a sick society. The  shooters who left digital trails have made it clear that their actions were prompted by their perceived loss of power and status in society. They felt slighted by women who do not obey them and their desires, by people of color and queer folks who have fought for, earned, and defended their civil rights, and by a society that doesn’t afford them the respect and place they believe they deserve by accident of their race and gender. They are the product of a changed and ever-changing social context in which historic forms of power and domination are being slowly but loudly destabilized, and of a society that socializes them to believe that this is wrong, and that they deserve to be in positions of power. Demographic Shifts in the U.S. and Anomie Among White Men​ Writing in 1897, sociologist Émile Durkheim popularized a theoretical concept that can be  usefully applied to understanding how this perceived problem of individuals is actually a social problem. Anomie, Durkheim explained, is a condition that results when the values and expectations of an individual do not match those that predominate in society. When an individual experiences anomie, they feel disconnected from their society; they feel destabilized. Anomie, per Durkheim, is a state of social derangement. Applying the theory of anomie to the phenomenon of white male shooters throws into relief the conditions of social derangement experienced by boys and men who take such action. White males, especially those with economic privilege relative to others, have historically lived at the top of the power hierarchy in the United States. They hold power in terms of their gender, their race, sometimes their class, and often, their sexuality. But, in today’s social context in which patriarchy, heteronormativity, white supremacy, and economic power have been destabilized by various social movements, legislation, and paradigm shifts in popular consciousness, their power over others is waning. With it, so too is their historically unjustly inflated social status. The Violent Death Grip of Patriarchy and White Supremacy This is not to say that patriarchy, heteronormativity, white supremacy, and economic control by white men are things of the past. These forms of domination live today in a wide variety of attitudes, values, beliefs, and practices. The actions of white male shooters make it fatally clear that the ideologies that undergird these forms of oppression are not only alive, but thriving today. They are expressed in their most overt and terrifying forms in the Youtube videos, chat logs, conversations, and manifestos of Anders Breivik, Elliot Rodger, and Jared Loughner, among others. They were expressed with violence and hatred in a rash of hate crimes against women, people of color, LGBT people, and immigrants following the 2016 presidential election. In this social context of anomie, shooting others is a desperate attempt to reclaim norms lost. It is an assertion of power that has been destabilized by the changing nature of society, its norms, and its values. Yet, the actions of white male shooters are couched within the larger social problem of a troubled masculinity that transcends race. Viewed through a wider lens, the connections between shootings perpetrated by white males and other forms of violent masculine expression, like street harassment, gendered and sexualized violence, hate crimes, gang violence, and white separatist and nationalist movements become clear. Society Needs Masculinity Rooted in Respect and Care for Others A social problem like this requires a social solution. Background checks and reforms to gun laws might reduce gun violence, but they will not stop other forms of violence that stem from a social sickness. Alleviating the social sickness of racism, and the gendered and heterosexist norms of patriarchy  is work that must be done collectively by all of us. We, as a society, must reconfigure what masculinity means, and cast off the dangerous values and expectations that we socialize boys to hold and express in their behavior. Curing this social sickness requires a new masculinity detached from notions of superiority, dominance, control, and compliance of others. It requires what the writers at Rad Dad advocate for in their call for a Feminist Fathers’ Day: a masculinity premised on respect and care for others.