Reading Response: The Maze Runner

The book The Maze Runner is about this boy who wakes up in an elevator with no recollection of his past other than his name, Thomas. He finds himself in a place called the Glade which he soon figures is surrounded by a massive maze filled with these monsters who have obtained the name Grievers. Throughout the frustration of the lack of knowledge of your surroundings, the characters in this book have constantly shown the theme of persistence throughout the book.

The main character of this book, Thomas, obviously expresses this theme in the story. For example, even after he encountered his first griever in his first night in the maze he was still determined to become a runner. He wanted to further explore the maze because of his persistence helping everyone get out of that death trap, and back to wherever they should’ve been.

The supposed leaders of the rest of the characters in the book had a number one priority, and they surely had to have determination to it. Even after two years of searching for an escape, they still haven’t given up. Even with the pressure of a whole group of kids counting on them, they knew giving up wouldn’t do anyone any good. So they took that as their motivation to keep going.

As you can see, The Maze Runner clearly portrays the message of determination and persistence to further continue through the obstacles you’ll face in life. Even if they’re not as drastic as being in the middle of a gigantic maze with no way of getting out, you should always carry the strength of endurance, for that is rare but sacred in all life-choices.

Blog Review: Sophia's NF Critical Analysis

This week I read Sophia’s NF critical analysis on “The Hungry Self,” by Kim Chernin. I thought that it was very well-written and what I liked the most was how she really connected it to herself instead of just explaining the theme. She also explained how it inspired her to do even more research on the topic.

Sophia doesn’t just state positive feedback on the book itself, but I really liked how she went into detail about every good aspect of the book. She also didn’t forget to give the author credit for everything and linked every good thing back to her. For example, she explained the author’s purpose thoroughly and how the author really helps a lot of women with her book. Also, she also explains the importance of the real-life examples and how that complements the book’s overall structure.

Something that really enhances her analysis as a whole, is how she speaks about her personal perspective and opinion at the end of it. She goes into her personal experience while reading the book, and she highlights how she benefited from the text. For example, what she learned and of course what she was inspired to research even further.

All in all, Sophia wrote a very interesting response to this book. And the way she explains the benefits of it inspires me to read it or other books on this topic as well.

The link to this blog post is: http://sophiesblog33.blogspot.com/2015/01/non-fiction-critical-analysis.html

NF Critical Analysis: Rap Music On Trial

In “Rap Music On Trial” by Veronica Majerol, Majerol wants to inform her readers on this debate regarding the legal issues with violent and gory images in rap music and how they have been  used as confessions or criminal evidence in crime investigations. One thing Majerol does is start out the reader with a case of a double homicide that originally had no leads until a cop came across a rap song that described brutal murders in the same setting. Then Majerol explained how “the case is hardly unique” and went deeper into other cases similar to it. Thirdly she discussed how this use of rap ‘confessions’ was technically going against “the First Amendment’s free speech clause…[and had] a chilling effect on free expression.” These examples and pieces of evidence present an opportunity for the reader to form an informed opinion based on two sides of the debate.

Veronica Majerol intends to present an objective and very well informed response to this debate in order to give the reader a chance to form an opinion on the topic on their own. She does this by presenting two different cases where one person is actually innocent but leaves threatening comments on Facebook about “brutally killing” his ex-wife, and another case where someone is found to be a gang member and “convicted...on related weapon charges. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.” This presents two different situations on this topic for the reader. She also brings the Constitution into the situation to express the seriousness of this debate including both ends of it (the cops using rap lyrics as evidence and the people supposedly committing the crime). Another thing the author does is bring attention to important points in the text to enhance the main idea in the article.

Considering Majerol displays an objective overview of this debate I would say that she achieves her supposed goal of presenting an unopinionated portrayal of two sides of a debate so a reader could build their own position by themselves. Therefore, this article has proven itself a good source. It has also helped me shape my thinking into being against charging someone of a crime solely based on the music they write, but with using rap lyrics as a lead if there’s a clear connection or as support for a claim that already has other pieces of evidence.