Humanities -This week in humanities we had another short story. This one was much harder for me to understand. Below I have my responses to the seminar questions. Barn Burning by William Faulkner (PDF) Cliffs Notes-Faulkner's Short Stories | Barn Burning | Book Summary & Study Guide Sparknotes-Barn Burning: Plot Overview Our Questions: What would be an appropriate balance of loyalty to family and doing what is right for Sarty from “Barn Burning”? -Throughout the story it seems that Colonel Sartoris tries to balance this idea of staying loyal to family. His father strongly believes that family comes above all else, and that you need to stay loyal to your blood. This belief becomes quite literal when Sartoris is beat up, and left with blood on his face. “His mother’s hand touched his shoulder. “Does it hurt?” she said. “Naw,” he said. “Hit don’t hurt. Lemme be.” “Can’t you wipe some of the blood off before hit dries?” “I’ll wash to-night,”he said.” He wears this dried blood on his face with pride, to show that he took a hit for his family. Yet at the end of the story Sartoris goes against family morals. He fights free from his mother's grasp and warns De Spain that his barn is going to be burned. Sartoris goes against his family by doing the right thing. “He cannot articulate why he warns de Spain or ultimately runs away, but his actions suggest that Sartoris’s core consists of goodness and morality rather than the corruption that his father attempts to teach him.” This quote from sparknotes seems to sum it up nicely. I think that Sartoris finally listened to himself instead of his father’s brainwash. How might we connect the generational struggle found in “Everything that Rises Must Converge” and Barn Burning”? -I see similarities between the parents in both of the stories. In “Everything that Rises Must Converge”, we see differences between the mother and her son when it comes to race. The son in this story, Julian, acts like he is so much different than his mother, and that he understands social equality. Yet as the story unravels we see that Julian isn’t much different from his mother, he only speaks of African Americans to annoy her. In “Barn Burning” Sartoris’s father is overbearing and pushes Sartoris to stay loyal to family. In the end of the story we see that Sartoris is nothing like his father, and he strives to do the right thing by telling De Spain his father's plan to burn the barn. The stories are similar in the sense that they have opposite things happen. In “Everything that rises must converge” we see a son who wants to be nothing like his mother, but ends up being just like her. In “Barn Building” we see a son who maybe wants to stay loyal to the family no matter what, yet in turn does the morally right thing by going against his family. In both stories we see a struggle between staying loyal to family and doing the right thing. What does Faulkner mean in these words from his Nobel Prize?“...the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.” -Faulkner explains the struggle of writing meaningful literature. It seems that a lot of the time writers write about what people want to hear vs. writing about things that are real. Writing about the stuff that is difficult for us all to deal with, the stuff that is often sugar coated and tiptoed around. I think what Faulkner is trying to say is if you want to write something meaningful you can’t be afraid to write about those kinds of things. To be a good writer and to produce good literature, you must write what comes from the heart. Science Viral Biology Continued: "Last week you reviewed what basic characteristics of life are with a focus to discuss whether viruses should be considered living, nonliving, or somewhere in between. To continue with our learning about all things viruses we will start by hopefully answering some of your questions regarding mutations. Please read below and work through any instructions/prompts as you read along." -Mary What comes to mind when you hear the word mutation? Please elaborate as much as possible. -I first think of the process of growth and change. How something can change subtly over time. I know that viruses can mutate. That it is common for a virus to mutate into different strands of the same virus. The flu also has different strands . Maybe mutation isn’t always bad, it could help us to better understand how viruses change. Mutation Game: But what happens when there is a mistake? Did you make any mistakes during the game? -This game shows how the different pieces of DNA go together. There are four different nucleotides repeated in different orders. These nucleotides are called Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, and Cytosine. In the game when you make a mistake it replaces it with the correct nucleotide. After one of the rounds it compared DNA to ingredients in cookies. I thought that this was a great analogy to show how changing an ingredient in cookies could either be a good or bad thing. The same goes for DNA these mistakes can result in something good, bad, or neutral. How has your understanding of mutations changed? -I now know that mutations are mistakes in our DNA. These mistakes are happening all the time, and they aren’t good or bad. These mistakes happen when cells are copying their DNA before dividing. Like in the game, sometimes there are errors in this process. A base can be replaced with another, deleted, or added. The cells are able to fix most of these errors, but after each round of division there are a few changes that aren’t repaired. From the video, I learned that Pretend you are going to a 5th grade classroom. How would you explain how viruses infect a host cell? -I would explain a virus as a type of germ. We wash our hands to get rid of germs. Sometimes these germs get inside our body. Our bodies up of 37.2 trillion cells. Cells are found in every living thing. Inside of our cells they have what is called DNA, DNA is what makes things different and changes how they look and function. Some germs have DNA too, like viruses! So, these viruses enter our bodies and find a cell to copy its DNA into. This makes the cell have the same kind of DNA as the virus. When this happens sometimes we can get sick. How would you explain to 5th graders how viruses mutate and if all mutations are bad? -Sometimes when viruses infect a host cell, it changes how the virus looks and acts. This is called a mutation. These mutations are usually not good or bad. Our DNA has mutations all the time. These are what make us different. Changes in your DNA code occur randomly. These changes can either be positive, negative, or be neutral (have no effect). Describe three changes that have happened in the past year with your own life that had a positive, negative, and a neutral effect. Coronavirus- negative Now I can’t go to school and have to stay home all the time. Getting into college- positive I am very excited to be going to college to further my education. Zoom classes- neutral Not the same as being at school, but better than nothing. Math -Math has been my favorite part of school. Although its been super tricky, I feel like I am learning a lot. I'm starting to see the patterns with the derivative’s and using the different formulas. Here's what I've been up to besides school work...
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