Wednesday, September 3, 2014
PA#3
PA#3: They say . . .
Consider one element of Hohn's talk that you think needs to be developed in more detail. Your topic could be anything he said, but make the focus narrow enough that you can write a single, well developed paragraph.
You don't have to agree with him to provide support for his argument. Just do it whether you agree or disagree. In this assignment we're learning to agree and expand, not to rebut and refute.
Your general organization of the paragraph might be as follows:
1. What Hohn said (his specific sub-argument). (Don't forget to include his full name and the circumstances under which he gave his talk.)
2. An explanation of his point of view, which might take more than one sentence
3. Your point of view on what he said (Try to develop rather than repeat his point of view.)
4. An explanation of your point of view, which might take more than one sentence
5. Some evidence from an outside source that supports your point of view
Post your comment by Tuesday, 9/9 at 5 PM.
NOTE: If for some truly unavoidable reason you cannot attend Hohn's lecture, please see me after class on Friday so that we can figure out a substitute assignment. We will be engaging in that process one-on-one, and every assignment will be different. Please do not try to substitute another assignment without talking it over with me.
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David Herbawi
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with Donovan Hohn’s view that pictures can be misleading, I reject his decision to not use pictures just because they may not tell the full story. In his argument, he used the example of how pictures of bold eagles making a kill do not do the act justice. This may be true, but the same could be said of all the ways one would experience an eagle making its kill with the exception of actually seeing it with the naked eye. Images, pictures, and sounds are all ways in which we can communicate things, and which one to use depends on the circumstances. Most of us would rather listen to someone playing one of Mozart’s symphonies as opposed to reading the sheet music.
Mallory Torr
ReplyDeletePA#3
Donovan Hohn's view on using pictures for his novel is very simple, pictures can be very deceitful. I personally agree with Hohn's statement. Hohn uses the picture of a peaceful looking bird sanctuary by water and pretty yellow flowers. One's first look at the picture can assume that it is a beautiful photograph with magnificent surroundings. Once the picture is explained by Hohn we learn that this photograph is a sancutuary for birds and the tall beautiful yellow flowers are actually killing young birds. The flowers are so tall that they are causing the birds in the nest to overheat and die of dehydration. This is a great example to support Hohns statement because words are more descriptive than pictures are. People look at pictures and form different perpectives whereas a writer has the ability to get their point across very clearly. Overall, Hohns point in pictures is very valid and makes one believe that writing is more powerful than a picture.
Erin Fannin PA#3
ReplyDeleteIn Donovan Hohn’s lecture at the 2014 National Colloquium he stated, in not so few words, that there are many problems plaguing the Earth’s oceans, but we humans tend to over-focus on the increasing buildup of plastics because it gives “ocular proof” of the damage we as a species are causing. I agree with Hohn’s statement. Often we humans tend to divert all of our attention to problems that we can obviously see, and we ignore underlying and unseen problems that are of equal, or greater importance. By focusing only on what we see, we set up a mindset that often deceives us. An action we might think of as fixing or helping a problem may end up doing absolutely nothing in the long run, it may even worsen the situation. Let’s take for instance a man who comes to the hospital with a severe case of jaundice, the yellowing of the skin. A practitioner takes a look at him and decides to only treat the symptom they can see, the man’s skin, and gives him a cream to reduce the yellowness. The practitioner has just made a huge mistake, not only did he just waste valuable time and resources to treat a mere symptom, he failed to take care of a much more serious and unseen medical condition, in this case possible liver disease.
Jon Griggs PA #3
ReplyDeleteDonovan Hohn makes the claim that images are a danger to us all, that they provide more questions than answers, and that we tend to draw false conclusions from these images. He argues that the more images you see, you start to imagine things and situations that weren’t there in the first place. I agree with Hohn’s point because the “short-cut” of the photograph can lead to a big misunderstanding that can result in the loss of relationships, jobs, and even family. For example, if you see a loved one taking a suggestive picture with someone that you hate, this could cause turmoil with the one you love. When in reality, that was not the intent behind the picture at all. Never take a picture by what’s only on the surface.
David Krein PA#3 Donovan Hohn
ReplyDeleteDonovan Hohn was right when he stated that pictures can be misleading at the 2014 national colloquium, however pictures can also help you get your point across and can interest readers far more than words. As a reader staying intrigued in what you are reading is a necessity otherwise you are just going through the motions without understanding what you are reading. Pictures can aid readers in staying interested in what they are reading like what Donovan showed in his presentation of the bird’s habitat. The picture showed a small habitat where the birds like to live and it looked peaceful. Then he went on to explain that the yellow flowers that were covering the fields were in an invasive species that were contributing to the death of the birds. Therefore, use caution when observing pictures because you might not catch exactly what the writer was trying to do and if you misinterpret the pictures it can totally through the reader off.
In Donovan Hohn's lecture, he stated that pictures give a misconception on what is happening. Therefore, he disagrees on using pictures because it does not provide proof of what happened before and after an event took place. Donovan Hohn's argument against it was that people who look at the pictures start to imagine the whole process, which leads to assumptions of events that never happened. Although pictures do not share the whole story, they still give a sense of what was happening at that specific time. Pictures are taken to capture a moment, rather than wait for a whole process to go through. Donovan Hohn is looking at pictures the wrong way, as it gives the viewers a great idea of what is happening, and also allows you to use your imagination to think of what really happened. I interviewed my mother, who is a professional photographer, on Donovan Hohn's thoughts. Carla Ehrhardt, a photographer from Stow, Ohio state, "Pictures are memories or small moments of beautiful art that should be seen or used to remember special things you can't live or see every day." That is why, in my own opinion, that pictures being used everywhere that we travel creates positive feedback, rather than acting as a waste of space.
ReplyDelete“In growing more precise, humanity’s knowledge has also grown more specialized, and more fantastic, not less,” Donovan Hohn stated in his article ‘Moby-Duck or, the Synthetic Wilderness of Childhood.” I couldn’t help chuckling at this thought that the mind has to correlate with time. But yet again, we have seen paramount changes and proliferations through the time of passing generations. As Mr. Hohn described, these “beasts frolicking at the edges of ancient charts” could (and would) be astonished, or rather consternated by the simplest of modern day tools such of a radio – if radio signals existed. I agree with Mr. Hohn only to a certain extent. It is true that time has played a major role in the existence of human kind, but time itself is not what developed the world but rather the people, hence the quote “time waits for no one” because time only coexists as a dimension. The fact that Mr. Hohn uses the word specialized is agreeable because according to statistics on the simplest website such as Wikipedia can show us how much information has been gathered through the passing of time – and these information are then used by people who apply them to gain new occupations that never existed before (e.g. neuroscientist, astronaut, etc.). But the term ‘precise’ is not reliable – the human mind has only expanded, but it has never became more precise, because to be precise means to have only one aim and one goal in mind – that already contradicts with the fact that the human mind can expand with no limits. And even with the expanding mind and the prevailing depth of knowledge our past generations have given us, it then depends now on the individual to take hold of what he or she can chew on, because not everyone will cross that finish line. Take a look at Zimbabwe, a third-world country with a whopping unemployment rate of 70% - when you ask people and they say, “Oh but it’s in Africa”, or, “Obviously,” you know that humanity did now really grow any more precise after all.
ReplyDeleteIn Donovan Hohn’s recent speech, at the Sagan National Colloquium, he spoke about his book, Moby Duck, and briefly mentioned the rise in deaths of the albatross bird. Hohn focused on the plastic that caused the deaths of more than a few of these birds but stated that in fact the number one cause of death among the albatrosses was dehydration. Although his overall focus was the issue of excessive plastics in our seas, a more pressing matter might be the cross contamination, so to speak, of environments, in which different species of organisms are being brought to and thus endangering unsuspecting native species; such as the golden crownbeard plant to the albatross. The golden crownbeard endangers the well being of the albatrosses eggs by stealing vital moisture and basically acting as an unneeded incubator that succeeds in dehydrating the eggs. Hohn even pointed out the almost sadistic notion of providing the albatross a sanctuary in which the golden crownbeard infests the ground where these birds lay their eggs. This pressing matter should be tackled as strongly as issues on recycling and global warming because at the end of the day entire species can be wiped out of existence if we only fix one and not the other.
ReplyDeleteGopika Nair
ReplyDeleteDuring his talk at the Sagan National Colloquium, Donovan Hohn claimed that pictures can be illusory, and I have mixed feelings about his viewpoint. On the one hand, I agree that photographic evidence can be deceptive, and often cannot fairly capture the essence of a situation. An example of this would be the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq was reported to have possessed after a photograph emerged. However, it was later found that the uranium that ISIS had seized wasn't weaponized. On the other hand, I still believe that pictures are very powerful tools, and have even changed the course of history over the years. For instance, the picture of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, which was taken during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972, proved to be the turning point of the entire war. The image showed a young Kim Phuc running naked on a road after being burned, making humanity think about the dangers of war and nuclear weapons. A truthful picture can be a forceful tool of positive change by helping people become more aware, and therein lies the undeniable power of images.
I agree with Donovan Hohn’s view that there is no way to stop plastic from getting into the ocean. Hohn’s made a valid statement by saying “We can clean the beaches and start recycling, but the damage that’s done is done. The plastic from storms, drains, and sewers will still get into the ocean.” What he is saying is that you can’t fix the damage that’s done, but we can prevent more from happening. Over all I agree with his statement because he makes a lot of valid points and backs up his statement.
ReplyDeleteKJ Vermilion
ReplyDeleteHohn made a point to not show pictures during his presentation for the reason that they can be very misleading and in actuality the image is just a small portion of everything involved. This point can be developed to show that, like a picture, it itself has a deeper meaning. Hohn didn’t want to limit the interpretation of his masterclass by forbaying pictures from his verbal descriptions. What he actually was doing was forcing the students to think a different way. Hohn works in words, so he wanted a theme of words. He looked at ocular representations as a crutch to meaning. He was, in that deeper meaning, saying that words are much more thorough than pictures. The weight of Hohn’s words were much heavier as a result of his image based skepticism.
In the Hoho's lecture, there is one thing make me think is the environment of the ocean.He told about the plastic problem. In his view, people can clean the beaches and start recycling, but the damage that 's done is done. The plastic from storms, drains and sewers will still get into the ocean. Frankly speaking, the damage of plastic is irrecoverable. He think even though people try their best to collect the plastic and make up the mistake they did before, it happened, which cannot change. In my case, I completely agree with his point. Because the only way to solve the problem is preventing and avoiding rather than doing everything to make up after it happened, especially the environment problem. Because there is only one Earth for human. As a case in point, I am a Chinese, therefore I know that Chinese needs a lot of plantation to solve the food problem in old time. As a result, people felled trees and develop land as much as they can. It may happens in 20 years, for now, a time when people notice the problem of environment, what they going to do or what they have to do is planting the trees back as much as they can. However, people planting for several decades, even approaches hundred years, the effect is not obvious. Therefore, I believe that the point that Hoho made in the lecture is right, and people cannot avoid the damage of the ocean which they did already.
ReplyDelete