Sentence craft HW.

My essay had 2-3 sentence-level errors marked per page. I was able to match all of marked errors to examples on the sentence-level key. Each of my mistakes ware related to different sources of error.

8) Flawed verb tense:

Example 1: We do not even think that some people actually wake up in complete hunger, they do not even know what “Starbucks” is, they have never seen the face of money and took a nice long shower in a clean bathroom. (Page 1)

Correction: Had; taken

Example 2: Kevin Bales on the other hand talk about a more serious issue which is slavery. (Page 2)

Correction: Talks

Reflection: I think I just read through it so fast before I submitted the essay that did not even pay attention to the grammar which is pretty obvious.

3) Word choice error

13) Problem showing possession with an apostrophe.

And Sentence structure as well.

( I am combining 3 sources of errors because they appeal in the same sentences)

Example 1 : I prefer Kevin Bales talk because he brought up a topic that completely stroked me in a sense that I did not know the real meaning of slavery before, I did not think that slavery takes place in the 21^st century. (page 1)

Correction 1: surprised me

Correction 2: Bales’

Correction 3: I prefer Kevin Bales’ talk because his topic of slavery existing in the 21^st century surprised me and gave me a new perspective on the meaning of slavery as well.

Example 2: Kevin Bales on the other hand talk about a more serious issue which is slavery. (Page 2)

Correction: talks about another striking issue

Example 3: Both talks gave me such a huge platform for discussion, I kept talking about this social issues to the people around me because I was just amazed and shocked at the same time.

Correction: these

Reflection: I have a problem structuring sentences due to the fact that in Russian language it’s the other way around.

My strategies for future proofreading:

I will read my essays to myself out loud in order to spot mistakes in the sentence structure and to hear how does it sound in turns of argument; if it makes sense or not.

I will try to be less critical and read my essays more carefully.

Final draft

Olesya Besprozvannykh

Professor Hayers

English 1A04HR

22 May, 2014

       

                                                           

Story of Human Triumph.

            A story which melts people’s heart, a story which makes us shiver from fear how cruel and senseless can be our world, a story which makes us doubt in justice and existence of human rights. As The New York times magazine reviewer Caroline Etkins concludes her review with the words: “Like Little Bee, Sarah is a survivor. But the lessons of the past are not enough to steer either woman to safety. Instead, in a world full of turpitude and injustice, it is their bold, impulsive choices that challenge the inevitability of despair, transforming a political novel into an affecting story of human triumph.” Absolutely involving novel , which was written extremely visualized that made me feel as I was walking on streets of London with Sarah, Lawrence, and Little Bee , or on the beach in Nigeria, or in the detention center with Little Bee and others. It was interesting yet inspiring to read till the end. Even though “Little Bee” was about human rights that focused on a very touching example about hers and Sarah’s life, Etkins outlines a perfect point that the novel itself transforms from political book into amazing piece of writing about human rights, life threatening decisions, rapid thoughts and development of characters. With every page, every chapter we could see new sides of each personage. Chris Cleave confuses us with our relations towards both women and leaves us decide on our own whether we like them or not.  Since both of them faced unbelievable obstacles during their pretty long journey, although both did actions which caused a lot of emotional pain to each other. At the end I realized that their lives are interconnected, but collided,  they were meant to meet and learn from one another.

Little Bee is a book which focuses on human rights in a big picture. Most of the rights refer to refugees and children as well as violence towards innocent citizens in Nigeria. Outrage of the law in terms of conventions created another problem for both Little Bee and Sarah when they had to find solution for every single death threatening problem. Was it ethical and moral? Was it fair that woman had to survive instead of enjoying their lives? We saw an injustice in terms of human rights of refugee and a child in the same face, we saw an unfair treatment and tough life choices of a woman, who did not deserve any punishment for her actions. All of that made me consider who was right and who was wrong, who followed the implicit moral rules and who didn’t, who was showing the most care and who did not.

One of the main focuses of the novel was an insight into life of a refugee girl in terms of human rights. As the book does not provide a clear definition, although gives us a very precise picture, we should understand the exact meaning of the word. “Refugee is a person who is outside his or her habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of being prosecuted […] ; and is unable or unwilling to avail him or herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of prosecution.” (article 1A(2), UNHCR) Escaping from terrifying home land, Little Bee gets on the ship to the London, to the “queens land” , therefore she becomes a refugee. She was not protected from deportation, yet she had to go through many adjustments in her character, however she realized that such corrections would be appropriate and beneficial for her stay in the detention center. She had to learn new “Queens English” (Cleave 2) , she had to change her preferences in terms of clothing, rethink her behavior, which lead to the changes in her personality. Such difficulties often times happen with refugees, despite the fact that convention states the opposite. Those detention centers do not care about basic human rights, not even mentioning human rights of refugees. After some time spent in the UK with Sarah, Little Bee was deported back to Nigeria, without any research done about her background, past experience and reason to be executed to her home country. As Little Bee would always say in a book: “The men came” ( Cleave 180) she constantly felt under protected, she felt that some people may come and take her, she was going crazy because she was adjusting to every new room in terms of what can she grab to kill herself , so she would not suffer from their hands ,but commit a suicide on her own. According to the Convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol, “A refugee should not be returned to a country where she or he faces serious threats to his or her life or freedom”. It was against her human rights to be sent back to a life-threatening place. We see brave behavior from Little Bee, although she gave up to fight her rights, she was accepting every action taken against her, due to lack of knowledge about her human rights, she was driven by instincts of survival. Her main aim was to stay alive, therefore she was trying to please every person who she met on her way.

 At the beginning as I was reading the book I asked myself a question: Why Little Bee would leave her country? Living in a civilized world, myself , would not even imagine what can happen in such countries like Nigeria. As it is mentioned in the article The 1951 convention; Relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol, “…individuals may suffer such serious violations of their human rights that they have to leave their homes , their families and their communities to find sanctuary in another country.” So did Little Bee by escaping from an oil war in Nigeria, she was aiming to come to a developed country, she expected a protection from the UK. Instead, she was sent to detention center where she was obeying to authorities which treated her poorly. As Sarah found out that Andrew did a big research about detention centers she focuses on the passage that said, “We find the humiliating procedures excessive. We do not see how anyone could abuse an excess of sanitary towels”. ( Cleave 227) This phrase refers to how detention centers are in the Uk, they find normal to intimidate refugees, they do not care about any human rights especially when it comes to the rights of a child.

Little Bee is not only a refugee, but a child as well, she is 16 years old, which is considered under the legal age in the UK. Instead of being given special attention and care , detention centers saw Little Bee in particular and other kids as criminals, nevertheless refugee children do have rights as well as other children. According to the article 22 in the Convention on the human rights of the child,  “Children have the right to special protection and help if they are refugees (if they have been forced to leave their home and live in another country).” That means law requires special intuitions to have a closer attention to the kids. Detention centers do not provide simple health care and hygiene not only to kids, but to adults, children have to have a humanitarian assistance in order to develop and mature. Children especially those like Little Bee should have an access to education too,  instead they are forced to learn how to survive, but  never taught how to read and write, they do not know basic learning skills.

           

 Little seems to be is the most victim out of all situation described in the book, she was a refugee and a child, she was send to detention center, she had to go through incredible difficulties loosing all members of her family, her human rights were not even taken into consideration. After all what happens is that we forget that Sarah goes through no less hindrance than Little Bee. She comes to Nigeria which is “a hub for criminal activity, including the narcotics trafficking, illicit financial transactions, and street crime.” ( CountryWatch 2) Sarah sacrifices herself, she was absolutely selfless, she becomes a figure who tries to fix every single little detail in Little Bee’s life, although she gave up her finger in order to safe Little Bee’s life. She decides to come back to a country which does not seem to be appealing to anyone, and especially with an oil war still going on. This definitely contradicts her own human rights, even though she was a brave woman , who did not consider political side’s of the problem, she was the one who was following moral principles until the very end. Even so, looking at the history of Nigeria “ typically Nigeria’s human rights record has been extremely poor and recent years have seen little changes”( CountryWatch 6) , Nigeria is the place where people do not think in human rights mindset. Sarah’s rights for freedom and justice were violated not only by the country , but  by Little Bee as well. However , we can come back to the moral point of view and reconsider an issue by saying that Little Bee has gone through some serious mental changes, where her mindset was completely focused only on her life. We are all selfish at some extend, although Sarah was selfless until the very end when the story ends on the beach.

  Maybe it is said that all Human Rights are international, it does not mean that everyone recognize them. Most of the articles stated in the Convention are just written on the paper, they are not followed in real life, so I want to prove them wrong, because according to what wee see happening in Little Bee contradicts with all those articles mentioned above.  Quotes about Nigeria are chosen specifically towards “Little Bee”, but not intentionally to anyhow show a country as whole “criminal hub”, we see from statistics that it is corrupted (CountryWatch 6) , we can not overgeneralize since we are not in the middle of the action, we know only top layer of actual facts and events. What is interesting  that those quotes chosen above and book itself  shows  how people are, how does society work. This helped me to answer the question, why would a 16 year old girl run away from home. Once we cosmopolitan people read such books as Little Bee we realize that world Is the way more complicated when we see it.

 I think that declarations and conventions are indented to please laws and political practices. People in third world countries follow the instincts, by such I mean: once they feel the power, they are unstoppable. I hardly doubt that some even know about their human rights or so, because they have never been told about them, they have never been educated. It is sad that cruelty is such a common feature back there. Unfortunately the only way to get out of it is to take an action and re - teach everyone, but it would take generations, to stop such violence.

Works cited:

Cleave, Chris. Little Bee. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print.

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). “Fact Sheet: Convention on the Rights of the Child.” New York: United Nations. 19 May 2014. Web. 21 May 2014.

United  Nations  High Commissioner for  Refugees. (UNHCR) "The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol." UNHCR News. N.p., Sept. 2011. Web. 21 May 2014.

“Nigeria: History.” CountryWatch. n.d. Web. 5 Mar. 2009.

Buffalo girls

The documentary "Buffalo girls" suggests a human rights concern because of the danger to the girls' rights to health and education. To begin with we see a very typical picture for such countries as Thailand, where kids are trying to make some money to help their families. We see how hard working they are, how fearless they walk on the boxing ring to fight for survival, to make a good show so people would definitely bet on them and pay money. At first it sounds exciting to see the Muay-Thai boxing, however once you hear about 7-9 year old girls fighting , you become scared and desired to stop this terrifying event. As for me, such violent use of a children is terrifying, they are little girls who should take care of the family , but not money wise, they should go to school get at least some education , enjoy their childhood and maybe play other sports , but not boxing. Even though some may argue that boxing is a traditional Thai sport, i want share my point of view. Boxong is a very good sport, there is not even a second of doubt on it, although it is good when people have professional trainers on the ring, professional coaches and doctors too. I am convinced that it is more of a mans sport, although girls cant fight too, but not when they are 7 years old. Their body is not developed enough to fight, we see their tiny arms barely capable of holding big gloves, we hear people talking about bones sticking out after some fights because girls are so young and small that physically can not deal with their opponents. At the same time this huge enourmous grown ups standing outside the boxing ring, shaking their heads ones a girl miss a hit, complaining about their bets, throwing money at each other, smiling and enjoying the show. My question is: do this people have at least a sense of consciousness? Do they realise that instead of giving the same amount of money to girls for boxing, they can give it for their intellectual or other type of work? is it okay for their eyes to see such cruelty happening with fragile ladies who are future mothers? The answer would be definitely not. They have no idea about human rights of the children ,the only care they have is the desire to enjoy girls fights. Even looking at the UNCRC article 19 states that "Children have to be protected from being hurt and mistreated, physically or mentally. Governments should ensure that children are properly cared for and protect them from violence , abuse and neglect by their parents, or anyone else who looks after them [...]". As simple as that, and Thailand singed this convention , although we see exactly the opposite happening! Another article (24)  says that "Children have the right to good quality health care- the best care possible- to safe drinking water, nutritious food, a clean and safe environment , and information to help them stay healthy." What we see in Buffalo girls? They have no doctors around, they are barely fed, they do not see any other options of making money therefore their health is in danger. Pet, who has heart problems, can die at any time on the ring, even when she was cramping no one took care of her, because no one wants to care, money is the only care around the whole situation. Moreover we see another story told by the parents, girls are making money to attend schools and get education. I believe that it is a violation of the UNCRC convention article 28 " All children have the right to a primary education, which SHOULD BE FREE. [...]" Why do girls have to work then ? Another thing i noticed that these 2 families do not live in poverty, they have decent places to live, they have food and clothes , is it necessary to keep their kids from main focus on education? Why girls spend all their free time and most of the day time to practice boxing skills? Why dont parents give a happy  childhood for girls and why dont they show them another side of the coin? Thailand has a very well developed and on going tourist industry, i hardly doubt they to work in the hotels they would get paid any less. I remember when we were in Shri-Lanka on the vacation, i talked to some staff in a 5 tar hotel, people from extreme poverty made it to the 5 star hotels as chefs and waiters, as administrators and yet ahead they are planning to go to Dubai to work. Isnt it a good motivation to move forward and become financially stable as well realize their potential? Why dont Thai people do the same? Because they are looking for shortest and easiest ( which apparently become the most cruel) ways of making money.

second revised draft

           “Like Little Bee, Sarah is a survivor. But the lessons of the past are not enough to steer either woman to safety. Instead, in a world full of turpitude and injustice, it is their bold, impulsive choices that challenge the inevitability of despair, transforming a political novel into an affecting story of human triumph.” I felt extremely involved into the novel since Cleve wrote it so visualized that made me feel as I was walking on streets of London, or on the beach in Nigeria. I was interested yet inspired to read till the end, despite the fact that “Little Bee” was about human rights with a very   touching example,.  Etkins brings up a perfect point that the novel itself transforms from political novel into amazing piece of writing about human rights, life threatening decisions, rapid thoughts and development in characters. With every page, every chapter we could see new sides of each personage. I was completely confused about my relation to Sarah and Little Bee, because both of them faced unbelievable obstacles during their pretty long journey, although both did actions which caused a lot of emotional pain to each other. At the end I realized that their lives are interconnected, they were meant to meet each other, to learn from one another. We saw an injustice in terms of human rights of refugee and a child in the same face, we saw an unfair treatment and tough life choices of a woman, who did not deserve any “punishment” for her actions. All of that made me consider such issues, it made me think critically who was right and who was wrong, who followed the implicit moral rules and who didn’t, who was showing the most care and who did not, and lastly I was how it all ended.

Little Bee is a book which focuses on human rights in a big picture. Most of the rights refer to refugees and children as well as violence towards innocent citizens in Nigeria. Outrage of the law in terms of conventions created another problem for both Little Bee and Sarah when they had to find solution for every single death threatening problem, was it ethical and moral, was it fair that woman had to survive instead of enjoying their lives?

One of the main focuses of the novel was an insight into life of a refugee girl in terms of human rights. As the book does not provide a clear definition, although gives us a very precise picture, we should understand the exact meaning of the word. “Refugee is a person who is outside his or her habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of being prosecuted […] ; and is unable or unwilling to avail him or herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of prosecution.”  ( article 1A(2), UNHCR) Escaping from terrifying home land, Little Bee gets on the ship to the London , to the “queens land” , therefore she becomes a refugee. She was not protected from deportation, yet she had to go through many adjustments in her character, however she realized that such corrections would be appropriate and beneficial for her stay in the detention center. She had to learn new “queens language”, she had to change her preferences in terms of clothing, rethink her behavior, which lead to the changes in her personality. Such difficulties often times happen with refugees, despite the fact that convention states the opposite. Those detention centers do not care about basic human rights, not even mentioning human rights of refugees. After some time spent in the UK with Sarah, Little Bee was deported back to Nigeria, without any research done about her background, past experience and reason to execute her home country. According to the Convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol, “A refugee should not be returned to a country where she or he faces serious threats to his or her life or freedom”. It was against her human rights to be sent back to a life-threatening place. We see brave behavior from Little Bee, although she gave up to fight her rights, she was accepting every action taken against her, due to lack of knowledge about her human rights, she was driven by instincts of survival. Her main aim was to stay alive, therefore she was trying to please every person who she met on her way.

 At the beginning as I was reading the book I asked myself a question: Why Little Bee would leave her country? Living in a civilized world, myself would not even imagine what can happen in such countries like Nigeria. As it is mentioned in the article “The 1951 convention. Relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol” , “…individuals may suffer such serious violations of their human rights that they have to leave their homes , their families and their communities to find sanctuary in another country.” So did Little Bee by escaping from an oil war in Nigeria, she was aiming to come to a developed country, she expected a protection from the UK. Instead, she was sent to detention center where she was obeying to authorities which treated her poorly. As Sarah found out that Andrew did a big research about detention centers she focuses on the passage that said, “We find the humiliating procedures excessive. We do not see how anyone could abuse an excess of sanitary towels”. This phrase refers to how detention centers are in the Uk, they find normal to intimidate refugees, they do not care about any human rights especially when it comes to the rights of a child.

Little Bee is not only a refugee, but a child as well, she is 16 years old, which is considered under the legal age in the UK. Instead of being given special attention and care , detention centers saw Little Bee in particular and other kids as criminals, nevertheless refugee children do have rights as well as other children. According to the article 22 in the Convention on the human rights of the child,  “Children have the right to special protection and help if they are refugees (if they have been forced to leave their home and live in another country).” That means law requires special instutions to have a closer attention to the kids. Detention centers do not p5rovide simple health care and hygiene not only to kids, but to adults, children have to have a humanitarian assistance in order to develop and mature. Children especially those like Little Bee should have an access to education too, they are forced to learn how to survive, although they are never taught how to read and write, they do not know basic learning skills.

                  (Counterargument about sarah) “ Nigeria is a hub for criminal activity, including the narcotics trafficking, illicit financial transactions, and street crime.”

Most of the articles stated in the Convention are just written on the paper, they are not followed in real life, so I want to prove them wrong, because according to what wee see happening in Little Bee contradicts with all those articles mentioned above. Quotes about Nigeria are chosen specifically towards Little Bee, but not intentionally to anyhow show a country as whole criminal hub. Those quotes are important because they give us clear picture of a background from the events, they give us an insight into oil war. What is interesting is that those quotes show not only the actual events but how people are, how does society work which helped me to answer the question, why would a 16 year old girl run away from home. But once we are cosmopolitanized people read about it and read such books as Little Bee we realize that world Is the way more complicated when we see it. Those quotes helped me think from the political standpoint  how corrupted the government is , and a lives  of one or few little girls are not significant at all, it wont make any difference in terms of government’s development , it makes me feel sad , that cruelty is such a common feature back there. And the only way to get out of it is to take an action and re - teach everyone, but it would take generations, to stop such a violence.

First draft of essay 2.

“Like Little Bee, Sarah is a survivor. But the lessons of the past are not enough to steer either woman to safety. Instead, in a world full of turpitude and injustice, it is their bold, impulsive choices that challenge the inevitability of despair, transforming a political novel into an affecting story of human triumph.” Etkins brings up a perfect point that the novel itself transforms from political novel into amazing piece of writing about human rights, life threatening decisions, rapid thoughts and development in characters. With every page, every chapter we could see new sides of each personage. I was completely confused about my relation to Sarah and Little Bee, because both of them faced unbelievable obstacles during their pretty long journey, although both did actions which caused a lot of emotional pain to each other. We saw an injustice in terms of human rights of refugee and a child in the same face, we saw an unfair treatment and tough life choices of a woman, who did not deserve any “punishment” for her actions. At the end I realized that their lives are interconnected, they were meant to meet each other, to learn from one another. I felt extremely involved into the novel since Cleve wrote it so visualized that made me feel as I was walking on streets of London, or on the beach in Nigeria. I imagined every scene which was described incredibly well in the novel. Despite the fact that “Little Bee” was about human rights with a very touching example, I was interested yet inspired to read till the end.  Novel made me think about the issues, it made me think critically who was right and who was wrong, who followed the implicit moral rules and who didn’t, who was showing the most care and who did not, and lastly how it all ended.

                  (Thesis)

Little Bee is a book which focuses on human rights, human right in a big picture. So to begin with, we need to understand who is Chris Cleave talking about in terms of refugee. Who is regufee? What is the definition of this word? “Refugee is a person who is outside his or her habitual residence..”

At the beginning as I was reading the book I asked myself a question: Why Little Bee would leave her country? Leaving in a civilized world, myself would not even imagine what can happen in such countries like Nigeria. As it is mentioned in the article “the 1951 convention. Relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol” “…individuals may suffer such serious violations of their human rights that they have to leave their homes , their families and their communities to find sanctuary in another country.” So did Little Bee by escaping from an oil war in Nigeria, she was aiming to come to a developed country, she expected a protection from the UK. Instead, she was sent to detention center where she was obeying to authorities which treated her poorly. As Sarah found out that Andrew did a big research about detention centers she focuses on the passage that said, “We find the humiliating procedures excessive. We do not see how anyone could abuse an excess of sanitary towels”. This phrase refers to how detention centers are in the Uk, they find normal to intimidate refugees, they do not care about any human rights especially when it comes to the rights of a child.

Most of the articles stated in the Convention are just written on the paper, they are not followed in real life, so I want to prove them wrong, because according to what wee see happening in Little Bee contradicts with all those articles mentioned above. Quotes about Nigeria are chosen specifically towards Little Bee, but not intentionally to anyhow show a country as whole criminal hub. Those quotes are important because they give us clear picture of a background from the events, they give us an insight into oil war. What is interesting is that those quotes show not only the actual events but how people are, how does society work which helped me to answer the question, why would a 16 year old girl run away from home. But once we are cosmopolitanized people read about it and read such books as Little Bee we realize that world Is the way more complicated when we see it. Those quotes helped me think from the political standpoint  how corrupted the government is , and a lives  of one or few little girls are not significant at all, it wont make any difference in terms of government’s development , it makes me feel sad , that cruelty is such a common feature back there. And the only way to get out of it is to take an action and re teach everyone, but it would take generations, to stop such a violence for sure.

"The price of my soul " by Bernadette Devlin.

Word count: 220 

1.  Bernadette Devlin's book "The Price Of My Soul" is a  Non-fiction book, which tells a real story about Bernadette's childhood, how she faced discrimination and oppression being a Catholic in North Ireland in late 1960's. She became interested in Civil Rights and then the story tells us what happens when she was chosen as an MP. 

2.  Inequality, discrimination, poverty. 

3. 244 pages. I could not read the book, because i need to purchase it, but going through comments i got an idea about book. 

4. I haven't read it. 

5. Looks like it is a very catching story, especially which is real, so it should be easy to read and follow author's idea. 

6. Yes. i can get it in amazon in 4 days, and the price is less than 10 dollars. 

7. Written in english. 

Nomination: I think many of us would be interested in reading a real life story about a young lady who faced such difficulties as discrimination because she simply was young, but she had to feed her brothers somehow. I believe that this is a great story to read about, because we do not normally face this in our lives. I am actually excited to find out, what happen to Bernadette, how did she solve all the problems and difficulties in her life.