Friday, February 27, 2015

         ATTENTION CLASS OF 2015!
        As you all know, junior year is coming to an end very quickly and although I am sure you're all ready to relax, we still have some very serious business to take care of. But don't fret, myself and your other English 11 teachers are here to help you get through this! These past weeks we have been talking about your very important final project of the year. Remember, doing  exceptionally well is crucial to ending the year with an excellent grade. This project alone could help your grade greatly. It could even boost your grade a whole letter grade.So, if I was you, I would try my best and put all my effort into this project to end the year strong. It's your final chance to show what you got. So, let's get to it.
Yes, your junior class final project consist of many parts, but today in this post we will be focusing on one of the main topics; propaganda. For this portion of your project you will have to come up with a cause you are for or against.You will then need to  come up with two propaganda pieces that will be used to persuade an appropriate audience as to why they should support or be against your cause. One of your propaganda pieces could be anything you would like. For example, a poster, a billboard, a pamphlet, a radio commercial, or even a blog entry like this one. Your other piece must be a video. Have fun with it. Ask your friends to help you act in your video. You could be the main star or just the director. It's your choice, just make sure both are very persuasive about your cause.
Propaganda, Propaganda, Propaganda... OK, some of you may be asking yourself...


“What is propaganda?”
Well here you have it... Propaganda is
  1. Information, ideas, or rumor deliberately                                                                spread widely to help or harm a person,
                                                          group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
                                                                   (According to dictionary.com)
                                                                2.Propaganda is a form of
                                                        communication aimed towards the attitude of                                                             the community toward some cause or position by presenting only one side of an argument.
                                                      (According to Wikipedia)
 
                      So....
“Why is propaganda important?”
Propaganda can be very important because it can either make or break in this case, for example, your cause. Your audience will either be influenced to agree with you or just simply not really care for your opinion, depending whether you did your propaganda pieces correctly and intelligently, by using the correct techniques .


In the real world, propaganda played a very important role before and during World War II. It helped citizens support the war cause to keep their soldiers supplied and fed. It also encouraged many young men to fight for their country. If it wasn't for propaganda the turnout of the war could have been different. Here are some examples of propaganda during World War II.
Examine these examples closely. Determine what message is trying to be passed on to the audience, who the intended audience is, and what kind of techniques you think are being used in these examples.

                                                            


    Image Analysis
In ex. 1 notice how the woman is dressed in the blue, red, and white stripes and stars of the American flag. Also notice how the words used are very bold to catch the audiences attention. It uses an ethos appeal because it appeals to a person's emotion of wanting to be patriotic. At the bottom is uses the signature which is the U.S Food Administration.
In ex. 2 notice how they use a big image to catch the audiences attention. This ad also uses very big bold letters. He is telling the audience directly “I am telling you..” making the audience feel a personal connection. It ends it with the signature which is W.S.S Enlistment.
In ex 3. It has bold letters and it shows Transfer in that it refers to something bad as “THIS” meaning the image shown in the ad which is a negative picture. It makes an emotional appeal in the audience because no one wants the violence to show in the picture to actually happen in real life.


Now that you have seen some examples of propaganda. We will go into depth and I will further explain some of the main techniques which are used in propaganda.

“ What are Propaganda techniques?”
Methods you will use to spread the ideas that will help you get your audience to agree with your point. “Why do we use these techniques?” We use them to influence your audience's reason and emotions to feel a certain way about your cause.
The Techniques
Name Calling: Uses negative words about a person or thing to try to bring the opposing view or person down.
Glittering Generalities: examples are words like: good, honest, fair, best. This words are irrelevant because they cannot be proved for or against.
Transfer: attempts to make an idea or person look good by making a relation to it with a positive symbol.
False Analogy: 2 things that may be compared that are not similar in reality.
Testimonial: Well known, admired people are used to talk about a product, person, or cause to influence the opinion of the public.
Plain Folk: Uses ordinary people so other people could be convinced to follow the same thing.
Card Stacking: Avoids using negative or unfavorable statistics in the ad or commercial  making it only half true.
Bandwagon: “Monkey see, monkey do!” Because everyone else is doing it you should do it too.
Fallacy: Only two choices are given, eliminating the chance to find an agreement, or common ground.
I encourage you to do additional research on the topic of propaganda to make sure you are well educated to complete and present your projects! These are only just a few of the many advertising techniques that are used in propaganda so go out and find new ones. You will have to use at least 8 propaganda techniques. You will have to use and identify 2 techniques that are listed here! If any of you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me in class or email me! englishIB11jo@gmail.com. Remember you can also ask for feedback while you are completing your assignments!
GOODLUCK TO ALL OF YOU!

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Perception


Accents and their affection toward perception?
In our society people are judged by the way you speak and sound. An example would be if you have an accent, with the accent people decide that they know about you, like where you come from. How you speak is sometimes more important than the way you look. Almost everyone is stereotyped by the way they speak and sound. There has been research that language says more about a person, it provides information about the person who is speaking. If you are talking to someone by your accent they can tell about your background and ethnicity. You are also categorized in a class by the way you speak. If you have a really heavy accent when you speak English and people can not understand you then people or society might categorize you in the lower class and uneducated. If someone speaks English clearly and easy to understand without an accent you would be categorized as in the high class and educated. Accents also can affect you in trying to get a job because of how society sees that having in accent is not being educated so if you do have an accent you would unlikely get a good paying job to oppose those who speak without an accent or with a little bit of accent that it can hardly be recognized. It also affects the way people treat you. An example how in India in call centres need to be trained to speak English properly so their callers feel good and comfortable communicating with them because if they have an accent the caller might think the person is rude and uneducated. 
Call Centre? 

Call centre is a customer service job, it is located in India and Indians are first trained to speak English the 
proper way and get rid of their bad habits and accents to work here. They must answer phone calls 
and help customers that requires them to speak good English properly and frequently. They go through months of training to learn communication skills in these companies. English in these job is a must, which mean they go through accent neutralization and accent reduction for them in order to sound to their customers local and authentic. It requires language currency to make their clients to connect with them. They are not only being taught English but also to be bilingual and have an American accent or British accent. Why? Well for them to sound educated and in the “high class” to their caller. How you is a huge role in  perception and tells what kind of person you are. Do you have an accent? If you do how do you think people see you?

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

1984 Quiz

In the book 1984, the government is divided into four Ministries which are ironic if you really think about it.The Ministry of Truth where Winston is currently working in, concerns itself with news , entertainment, and education.Winston's job is to rectify the original piece by making them agree with he later ones. The original piece is thrown into the memory hole or it just simply disappears so whatever is told to the people or person receiving it is not the original piece. The Ministry of Peace focuses on war which is ironic because instead of it focusing on something positive it's doing the opposite. The Ministry of Plenty was responsible for economics affairs which is not accurate because instead of being fair with the money and doing something good with it the consumption of goods are running out."The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one."(Winston 8) This Ministry deals with infliction of misery, fear, suffering and torture. At first you might think these Ministries actually mean what they're called but they might focus on something totally different.

Monday, February 17, 2014

1984 Quiz Chapter 1 Book 2

  In chapter 2 of the book 1984, Winston, the main character starts having strong feelings towards the dark haired girl. Although in the beginning Winston used to be afraid of the girl, he even planned to hurt her because he was thinking that she was part of the party or the government. Before Winston ever had feelings for her he used to think of hurting her because she might have been an undercover person spying on him by Big Brother or the government. "He thought of her naked, youthful body, as he had seen it in his dream...A kind of fever seized him at the thought that he might lose her, the white youthful body might slip away from him." (Orwell 92). Surprisingly one night as Winston is walking home the dark haired girl appears in front of him. She then walks towards him and "accidentally." Winston tries to pick her up but as he is picking her up she slips in a note in his hands then she leaves. Winston then quickly walks home and reads it saying "I love you" causing this to be another problem because now he wants to see her. He tries to see her in the cafe but its hard to see one another because of the government. They eventually figure out a way which was a risky move.

1984 Quiz Midia Villalta



                 A lot of people are afraid of their own government because of the power they hold of the nation. For example, in the book 1984 George Orwell writes " BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU." ( Orwell, 5) "Big Brother" has a lot of control of what the people do. They have complete control to the extent which they can see and hear everything. Big Brother has the Thought Police to arrest all those who oppose differently from them. Many of those people get arrested & executed because it is "wrong" even though there is no such thing as something being legal or illegal. Big Brother has to be this perfect symbol. Were everything he says has to be exact & if it isn't then it gets switched to what they say. And if people see that Big Brother is wrong then they will think differently and all will oppose.