Nonfiction Upfront Article Response

                 According to the article, “Guess Who’s Looking at Your Facebook Page?” by Alessandra Potenza, the internet really isn’t as harmless as you might have believed it to be. The author talks about how when some people post things it could potentially be seen by other people and could get you in some deep trouble. The author wants us to be aware of what we post and to think ahead before we post something that we might later regret. The author interviewed people such as Emma Sullivan and Jeff Olson to review their stories on times that they regretted to post something on the internet.

                In this article, Alessandra Potenza wants us to know that we should be really careful when we decide to post things online. She gives portrays this by giving examples of when something bad happened to other people after they posted things. For instance, the article interviewed a 20-year old student, Emma Sullivan, when she states, “Your tweets and your Facebook posts and whatever other social media you have is really out there, it’s out there permanently, and it’s out there for everyone to see.” She said this right after she wrote a tweet regarding Governor Sam Brownback almost got her in deep trouble because her principal deemed it offensive. I think that the reason the author wanted us to know this was because something like this could happen to us if we are not careful enough and it might even hurt us in the future. I thought that reading what happen to this student was really scary and the fact that something that seemed so harmless might happen to me makes me want to second guess myself next time I decide to put something on the internet. Another example is when the author interviews a school and she writes, “An applicant was denied admission because of offensive comments he had posted on Facebook about one of his teachers.” This shows how your future can also be affected because of things you might do online. The author used all of these things in her article because she wanted us to see what might happen to our daily lives and even our future.

                The author wrote his article in order to have the chance for us to see the types of outcomes that might occur if we are not careful with what we put on the internet. I believed that this author did have a bias, I thought that she was for being careful. The author focused on only why things like this happen and therefore had a positive bias which I heavily agreed with. She only included interviews that started with what went wrong to how they changed themselves because of what had happened to them.

                After reading this article, I have come to understand that I should always be careful of what I write on the internet. This article has also really deepened my thinking about my future and really made me revise on what I do from now on. I wouldn’t want to not get into a good college for instance all because of one bad post or one bad comment. From now on, this article has made me change myself to become a both better and cautious person at the same time.

Museum of New York

        After I visited the Museum of New York, I learned a lot about the things that goes on around the world. I learned that issues such as feminism, gay rights, and bicyclists are really hard to deal with. Activists are everywhere, they try their best to prove a point in the world no matter what the consequences are. They are willing to break the law to stand up for something that they believed in. Learning these types of things in the museum I found it in myself to be courageous and stand up for things that I too believe in.
       Feminism, women stood up for themselves in order to get the chance to become part of their community and have rights. They were brave and it worked, women weren't undermined anymore and they had the chance to vote. Because of these activists, today women have jobs that would seem for a man but they earned the chance to be someone  special and unique. Even things like gay rights was fought for and succeeded in so many different states. I thought it was very inspiring for a museum to incorporate things that are so important to New York Cities history. Because of those people who stood up for themselves we are who we are today, equal.

Carrie By Stephen King Reading Response

Many kids all over the world are often being bullied both at home and in school, and because of this the outcome can range from suicide to murder. Carrie by Stephen King gave an example of a child who was being hurt, Carrie White. Carrie White is a misfit high school girl, who gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers. Repressed by a domineering, ultra-religious mother and tormented by her peers at school, her efforts to fit in lead to a dramatic confrontation during the senior prom that involved killing all the people who wronged her. Although Carrie looked like she didn’t care about what was going on in her life, she was actually being subjected to social abuses such as bullying, abuse, and religious discrimination which led her to more brutal reactions.

Initially, Carrie is frequently being bullied by her peers in school that would affect her later on. For instance, while Carrie was writing in her notebook during class, she noticed that there was graffiti scratched into her desk that said, “Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, but Carrie White eats shit.” This expresses how even when Carrie was not around, people in her school still made fun of her finding other ways. This also gives some insight on what might happen later on because just as some kids in the real world act out violently, Carrie was doing the same thing. Carrie was being bullied in school quite often. Moreover, when Carrie had just gotten her period and didn’t know what it was, kids in her gym class were making fun of her and she recites, “Then the laughter, disgusted, contemptuous, horrified, seemed to rise and bloom into something jagged and ugly, and the girls were bombarding her with sanitary napkins…” This part makes me think that Carrie was not only being bullied verbally but also physically. When the students were throwing napkins at her no one bothered to stand up for her. That showed how some schools all over the world have society’s that are so bad that people won’t help others. Sometimes on the news I hear about a school whose students were being bullied so much that they finally reacted in either suicide or violence such as shootings.

Subsequently, Carrie was not only being tormented at school but she was being abused at home by her own mother. For example, when Carrie told her mother that she was invited to prom her mother reacted, “She was whirled into the closet headfirst and she struck the far wall and fell on the floor in a semi daze.” This proves that Carrie was being abused physically, Carrie had never gotten self-confidence from her mother all she got was abuse and that made me realize that Carrie may have reacted so violently because of this. She was constantly being abused by her own mother. Correspondingly, when Carrie was talking about the things that her mother was doing she said, “There had been times when Momma had kept her in the close for as long as days at a stretch.” This made me feel sympathy for Carrie because the person whom she thought she could trust would lock her in a closet for hours. This also gives some insight that Carrie had no safe place to go, because she was being abused at home a place that was supposed to give love to her but instead; Carrie had a good reason to act out so brutally to the people who wronged her. There are people in this country who are being abused not only by their parents but also strangers and these people can often relate to Carrie because of the things that were happening.

Finally, Carrie was also being subjected to religious discrimination in her life which affected her in her life. Namely, in the book when an article was writing about Carries family they said, “Due to the White’s near-fanatical fundamentalist religious beliefs, Mrs. White had no friends to see through her period of bereavement.” This explains how because of their deep religious beliefs Carrie’s mother ended up with no friends who would then also show that because of religion Carrie had also been affected by it and also had no friends which would eventually lead to bullying. Today, a lot of people have taken toll on religion and have acted out because of it just as Carrie and her mother did. Also, after Carrie told her mother that she had gotten her first period, her mother freaked out and yelled, “Go to your closet. Pray in secret. Ask forgiveness for your sins!” This shows how Carrie‘s mother’s crazy religious beliefs in the fact that having a period is a sin, made Carrie have no idea what it was and therefore embarrass herself. There are religious families around the world who take things to the extreme and their children would have to suffer for it.

Consequently, Carrie is an example of one of the people who often gets abused not only at school but also at home. There were articles on children who have been bullied so much that they went suicidal to violence. There are stories on how some people are so driven out of their mind about bullying that they will go to the extreme and shooting occurs. Carrie was like that and acted out because of these three things, bullying, abuse, and religious discrimination. She went along and killed all of the people who had wronged her.  She may have seemed like a girl who wanted no harm but then at the end, she was pushed up until the point when she couldn’t take it anymore and decided to become violent.

Julia Nowak 811