This week in class we discussed the importance of tone in a text.  Tone is an author's feelings toward his or her material and audience.  Tone is found in all pieces, including poems, novels, and movies, and greatly affects a literary work's meaning.  For example, William Wordsworth's poem, "The World is too Much with Us," contains a tone that is both scornful, as he castigates society for being so preoccupied with material wealth that we overlook what truly matters, such as the beauty of nature, and sarcastic, as he goes on to explain that he'd "rather be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn."  By this he means that he would much prefer to be raised in a time characterized by old-fashioned values because then he would at least have the chance to appreciate nature. On Friday, we discovered the true impact that tone has on a literary piece when we acted out the well-known story, Little Red Riding Hood.  Each person was given an adjective to use to act out their part.  This activity showed how a different tone can completely change the meaning of a story.  Tone is extremely significant to our writing, so it is crucial that we continue to develop our voice as we write our college application essays.

~Kellie

This week in class, everyone had to write a read and write a reading response to the poem “To Be of Use”, by Marge Piercy. The poem delves into the value and pertinence of work in people’s lives, and comments on how people strive and earnestly desire for “work that is real”, something that helps give meaning and purpose to what people do. Piercy writes on the exemplary qualities of hardworking people who work with determination, purpose, and focus to do everything asked for them and how valuable they are to her sight. Furthermore, Piercy comments on work itself at the end of the poem, rounding off her literary composition by emphasizing the desirable, necessary aspect of finding meaningful work and how people cry for things to do that turn out to be real and that contain substance. I found Piercy’s comments to be interesting and accurate; as a student and from personal experience, you can always see your peers wondering why they have to do “busy work” from certain teachers without it really teaching them anything valuable. Also, though no student really touches upon it, the work one does, the attitude by which one does it, and the effort one shows towards it defines who they are. Work isn’t merely reflective of one’s persona; it in itself is a part of someone. People as humans are so constantly deluged with work from teachers, bosses, parents, etc. that the work that we carry out comes to define and build up the worker’s persona himself, while concomitantly reflecting to others in society how one carries about his business. Work is thus an important component of life; not only because some type of task needs to be carried out, but because every single person in the world secretly wants purposeful work that can help define themselves, that can introspectively help to reveal their own persona, attitude, and perseverance with anything in life. Work thus functions to define people, and is a revealing entity that satiates people. Hopefully this profound depiction of the value of worth can be infused into the attitudes and mindsets of all seniors at Osos, that everyone will be able to shake off the seemingly inevitable disease by remembering, appreciating, and embracing the true value of work.

-Conrad