New Schedule

Wed April 30th:
(new schedule)

Film
Omar Gonzalez – Warm Bodies
Andrea Torres – Film 257 days

Solo Presentation
Jhónatan Ellí – Topic TBC
Darío Sánchez - Trova Cubana - Silvio Rodriguez
Mauricio Miñarro - Film

May 7th 

Film
Diego Jimenez – Lord of the Flies
Daniela Martínez – Harry Potter
Fernando Davila – Movie TBC

Solo Presentation
Alejandro Partido – Band: The Beatles.
Valery Valdez – Topic TBC
Daniela Grijalva - Edgar Allan Poe

PUBLIC SPEAKING AND ACADEMIC WRITING INSTRUCTIONS

Public Speaking and

Academic Writing

Final Essays

April 2014

Choose ONE of the questions from the list below for your essay of 1,000-1,200 words, which you must print off and hand to me before Wednesday April 30^th:

1. Compare the techniques and ideas prominent in Surrealist literature and art, referring to 2 or more writers and artists.

2. Compare how an artist and writer on the course use their work to challenge the traditions and institutions associated with art and literature.

3. Compare how an artist and writer on the course engage with social and political issues in their work.

4. Compare how an artist and writer on the course illustrate the importance of looking at life from different perspectives.

5. Compare the visual art and writing of a single figure on the course. (So far, we have only looked at Leonora Carrington, but we will also look at Sylvia Plath, e.e. cummings and possibly William Burroughs – you may write on any of these too)

Surrealist techniques: a) Exquisite corpse b) Accidental poetry c) Collage d) Creative collaboration	Surrealist ideas: a) Desire b) Violence and war c) Dream images d) Freedom / anarchy
Artists & filmmakers on course: a) Leonora Carrington b) Frida Kahlo c) Guillermo del Toro d) Wassily Kandinsky e) Guerrilla Girls f) Jason deCairs Taylor g) Michel Blazy h) Pedro Reyes	Writers on course: a) Leonora Carrington b) John Berger c) Jack London d) David Foster Wallace e) Susan Sontag f) Rebecca Solnit g) George Orwell

Holy Week Assignment

Prepare an outline draft of this essay, and show it to me in class on Monday April 21^st.

Include a), b) and c) below in one document:

a) Choose your title

Choose from the list or create your own – you may only do this if you have discussed the title with me before Holy Week and we have agreed on it.

b) Research your chosen title

Choose the 3 main areas on which your essay is going to concentrate. Once you have made this decision, find sources to improve your understanding and support your argument.

a. Use the internet and biblioteca.mty.itesm.mx. Find three different sources (whether books, newspaper columns or journal articles, or reputable blogs) which look at these areas.

b. Write a five-sentence summary of each source – how does it support or contradict your own ideas on the subject?

c) Produce a plan

This plan will briefly outline the 3 areas of focus and the material you will cover in your essay – this will be a skeleton structure of the essay you will write.

Guidelines for Final Essay

(1,000-1,200 words)

This is a very simple and clear structure that you can use for many different scenarios when you are required to produce a piece of writing reviewing and analysing a subject.

Title (5-10 words)

-   Choose a title that is clear and interesting.

Epigraph (5-30 words)

-   Choose a quote that is eye-catching and interesting. Ideally, it should be funny or otherwise memorable.

Introduction: Set out 3 main sections of essay (220 words)

-   The opening section of the essay must refer to the title, explain why you have chosen to focus on the 3 main sections of your essay (why they are the most important aspects of the subject), and should conclude by referring to the epigraph and explaining what it adds to your argument.

-   Briefly (no more than a sentence) explain to the reader what it is you will cover in each section, why one section leads on to the next, and suggest what you will conclude (this should refer back to the title of your essay).

First section of essay (250 words)

-   In each of the 3 main sections of the essay, you should quote from various sources: interviews with experts, works of literature, and academic studies.

-   In each section, make sure that whatever material you include is advancing your argument.

-   In this first section, you must do a close reading of some literature: include quotes (anything from a few words to 5 sentences) and analyse them.

Second section of essay (250 words)

-   In each of the 3 main sections of the essay, you should quote from various sources: interviews with experts, works of literature, and academic studies.

-   In each section, make sure that whatever material you include is advancing your argument.

-   In this second section, you must do a close reading of some visual art: include the image or images and analyse it or them.

Third section of essay (250 words)

-   In each of the 3 main sections of the essay, you should quote from various sources: interviews with experts, works of literature, and academic studies.

-   In each section, make sure that whatever material you include is advancing your argument.

-   In this third section, you must draw together the observations you made in your first section on literature and in your second section on art

Conclusion of essay (220 words)

-   In this section you need to wrap up your argument, by drawing together the different strands you have traced so far in the essay, and referring back to the title or epigraph. The essay should end with a memorable line.

A piece of steak by Scarlett Garcia

A piece of steak

Scarlett Garcia

A piece of steak is a very interesting short story written by Jack London.

The purpose of this book was to show us the struggle of a family, and to make us see that life is hard and sometimes you have to make tough and difficult decisions for your family. It makes you appreciate what you have and not take anything for granted.

The author is trying to accomplish by this story that people can see that there is no perfect life, and that not everything goes as you planned, so you have to appreciate what you have and make the best of everything, in a the way that each one of us can. And it wants to make us see that nothing lasts forever.

Tom, was a very talented man, and he was doing good with the money for his family, but as time passed he started to age and he was not as good as he was back then in boxing. He boxed. And he begins to have many different economic problems, and he wasn’t able to maintain the same life that he had earlier. This is something usual in athletes, they just have a season and then younger ones replace them, but the problem was that he didn’t take that in consideration, so he ended broke, and he was struggling to feed his family.

Some of the data and evidences that the author shows us in this story is the way he was in the past, emotionally and economically very well and very happy. And the author shows us how that has changed totally with the problems that he started facing, he wasn’t happy anymore, he had a lot of pressure. This data is organized in a sequential way. It is comparing the past glory days of Tom, with his present that is very hard. At first it starts in the present struggle, then it shows us the past days, and then they go back to the present. It is a way the author is showing us how hard it is for him and for the whole family to adapt to the new hard life that they are getting into.

I think that the author think that in this world there are many people that have good or “glory days” but that doesn’t mean that life is easy, and you have to take in account that everything can be gone with time, so you cant take anything for granted, and you have to prevent this things, and organize yourself, instead of living as if you are the king of the world and nothing can happen to you. By reading this we can see the things from a whole new perspective, and I think that this was one of the purposes of Jack London, when he wrote this story, and I think that everyone should be aware of this, and should understand that you have to se things from different perspectives and appreciate what you have now, because everything can change.

Claudia Sánchez

·         What is the purpose of this book?
In this story the main character show us how lucky we really are just because we have something to eat every day. We sometimes do not realize that there are many persons in the world who suffer and that sometimes our problems are not really that bad.

·         What is the author trying to accomplish?
The author what it is trying to accomplish is to show the reader how quickly everything can change and how we need to be prepare for everything.

·         What issues or problems are raised?
The problem is that Tom is an athlete and most of the times this career is short because it is based only in the physical qualities. Most athletes save money because even thought when they are in their best times and make a lot of money this time is short. In the story we see how Tom becomes older and he is no longer invited to fight as much and he needs to buy food for his family.

·         What data, what experiences, what evidence is given in the story?
The story show us the transition of the boxer been very happy and accomplishing his dream and how his career changes.

·         How is this data or experiences organized?
The story first show us the family struggling and then we go back to the good times of Tom and then the story bring us back to how they are in the present which it worst.

·         How is the author thinking about the world?
The author show us that everything can change and we cannot expect anything.

·         Is his thinking justified as far as we can see from our perspective?
Yes

·         How can we enter his perspective to appreciate what he has to say?
Reading his background will give us a very good idea of why he wrote this way. 

PIECE OF STEAK (Daniela Grijalva)

1. What is the purpose of this book?
   The story of Tom King made me realize the importance of being prepared for worse. In this story the boxer can bearly feed his familiy which made me grateful of everything I own and every new day of life i have. This story made me realize that not one thing that we own is forever so I must enjoy everything day by day and get prepared for the difficult times.
2. What is the author trying to accomplish?
   I believe the author is trying to make the readers conscious of how vulnerable life is and how i can change in the blink of an eye. As  I mentioned before hes trying o make us realize how lucky we are to have the life we have and to be prepared in case this changes. 
3. What issues or problems are raised?
   One of the problems that all athletes face is that when they grow old theirs bodies stop working as good as they did in their youth and their performance is affected. This should be something that every athlete must be aware of at the time they decide to dedicate their lives to sports because they need to be prepared for the time this happens to be able to gain money from another source or at least save during their best time so they can maintain themselves and their families during the hard times. What happened to Tom is that he grew old and stopped being requested for fights to the point where he went broke and wasn´t able to feed his family.
4. What data, what experiences, what evidence is given in the story?
   The author copares the best days of the boxers life with his current life telling us about every feeling he is experimenting so that we can se howhappy he was and how much he struggles now.
5. How is this data or experiences organized?
   Its organized in a way that you compare both lives and to be able to make your expectations or his future life.First they show us the family struggling a little bit but with time it gets worse and during that they tell you about his past life so that you can understand his frustration.
6. How is the author thinking about the world?
   The author thinks about he world as a place where everyone sooner or later struggles in life specially those who weren´t aware of how lucky they were.
7. Is his thinking justified as far as we can see from our perspective?
   Yes
8. How can we enter his perspective to appreciate what he has to say?
   Maybe by reading his biography we can understand his real intention about this story and where he got the inspiration to write it from. 

Artemisia Gentileschi (woman & art)

This painting by Artemisia Gentileschi is called Judith Slaying Holofernes. She got inspired from the bible and her own experiences. The story she took from the bible is from the Old Testament Book of Judith in the scene where Judith and her maid kill the general while he is sleeping. The faces of both woman show a lot of stress but they also seem to be very secure about their decision. Their faces show a lot of courage. On the other hand we have the man struggling to survive, and even though hes a man and they are woman he’s not able to win the fight. With all the adrenaline and madness they get the women manage to kill the man. 

When Artemisia was young she was raped by the tutor her father had hired to help Artemisia with his paintings while he was busy, his name was Agostino Tassi. I believe that all her art that has to do with woman suffering and fighting has to do with this experience in her life. 

DANIELA GRIJALVA A00920164

A PIECE OF STEAK: Jack London Boxing Story // Jhónatan Ellí Villarreal A00811946

It’s a very interesting story, the purpose of the story maybe it’s to show us how our decisions take us to the ruin if they are bad, Tom king was a successful fighter but in the end he haven’t any money. His family was lack of many, he was having a lot of problems providing to his family. The author show us his live on a way to teach us how difficult it can be for some people, no everybody have all the opportunities that maybe we let pass because we don’t even care about it.

The perspective about the world is that there is young people that doesn’t know what are they doing, they have no experience of the world, and there is the people that have already lived but maybe they live thinking in the past, maybe they could live in a better way or take better decisions.

The story its organized in a way that it starts showing us a good life, and then it starts falling till he have nothing.

Nothing lasts forever.


We need to try to empathize with the lives that other persons could be living, try to understand what they feel, what they are passing through, maybe in that way we could appreciate the perspective of his words.

Self-Portait Caterina van Hemessen (1548)

The self-portrait of Caterina was painted in 1548. She painted it at her early age of 20 years old and she became famous after people knew about it. Some critics think that maybe she was helped by his father because his father was a painter. This painting is famous and really important for female painters history because was the first self-portrait ever seen by a women.

This painting is also really weird because Caterina paints herself at her work station with her different tools for her to paint, and it also shows by her dressing code that she was well educated and came from a wealthy family. 


MAURICIO MIÑARRO RUIZ A01191626

Self-Portait Caterina van Hemessen (1548)

A piece of steak - Regina Llorente

A piece of steak


This short story written by Jack London talks about an ageing prize-fighter who was once a champion against whom many a contestant fell flat. Today he is in the doldrums with little money even to buy food. He has had fewer and fewer chances of fighting and he is too weak to take up any rigorous work even if it comes his way.

More and more young pugilists are rising and they are able to offer resistance to this man advanced in years, though he may not be lacking in experience.


I believe is a moving story. You might say that old people are replaced by younger ones, or that you must get a profession that can feed you even when you get old. Basically the idea is the old people being replaced by the young, who will be replaced at a certain moment as well.

A PIECE OF STEAK

 Jack London Boxing Story: A piece of Steak is a story with many interpretations and lessons for the readers, basically presents how youth and wisdom are related. This is what the author tried to accomplish, by presenting a 2 contrasting box fighters, a old but wise man, and a young, unexperienced guy, describing the fight round by round. The issue presented, is how  getting old gives you a big perspective of what to do, skills and cunning, but the way to acquire this is paying with youth, vitality and physical capacity. 

The main character, Jack King, was fighting, and during the rounds the internal revelations, that he was not young any more, were evident. This was presented on the rounds the fight lasted, what happened on every round make it more evident.

The author thinks that the world has experienced and unexperienced people, and how does youth from unexperienced ones is exchanged for wisdom, having physical repercussions. This perspective is justified, in our daily life, on school, work or social environment. To enter the author's perspective we must realize, as young or old people, that our life has a certain orden and evaluated if we follow this paradox.  

Dario Sanchez A01044994

A piece of Steak – Carlos Alvarado Herrera A00814596

The story wants to describe how sometimes we don't know the people's reasons to do something, in this case Tom King fought for his life and his family's and Sandel for fame; and for us to start thinking in how can we act now to get a better future.

The main problem of the story was that Tom King's family has lack of money needed to raised their children and support them all. In addition Tom King was a box fighter when he was younger and he seems to be some kind of nostalgic about that, he said he didn't had a proper training and expressed how painful and dificult it was for him.

The story has a linear sequence where is first described how was Tom King's life and how his past was, how he suffer with every fight he faced and now the present life, how poor they were so he had to earn some cash winning the battle against Sandel.

Surely we can say his thinking is justified because he shows how important is to live everyday like it was the last one and so on this present would soon be our past but with this you can change the future to a better one. 

"A piece of steak" - Valery Valdez

We can say that this story is very interesting in each paragraph written. He shows how life progresses so that it seems that one could not do anything when in fact everything depends on us. The human ever thought of success as the end of the road without taking into account that this goes along with the accomplishments day by day. This little story of Jack London gives us to recognize that as our present becomes our past, it also can mark our future if we let it. He makes us to see that everything has an end and there will be more stressful days than others.

The main problems seen in the story is the lack of money to support the family and the nostalgia of his past wanting to re- live it. It also can be well seen that he have had great and painful experiences whose author describes them meticulously making the reader understand the feeling of the character.

These well-described experiences are organized so that they can be seen and understood in the moment when they are referenced. The way the author see the world and how due the people live, is represented by the way he narrates a simple everyday of  life that most people live without realizing it; And the way he tell it, makes yourself feel familiar with the situation of the boxer Tom Kings .

FULL SCHEDULE OF PRESENTATIONS

Fri March 28th:

Presentation in Pairs

Andrea Torres & Scarlett Garcia ‘Topic TBC’ (Persuasive, Informative)

Daniela Grijalva y Mauricio Miñarro, ‘Comparison of Labour Conditions’ (Analytical)

Film

No se aceptan devoluciones (Darío Sánchez)

Wed April 2^nd:

Solo Presentation

Scarlett Garcia - Gaudi

Regina Llorente – Topic TBC

Fri April 4th:

Presentation in Pairs

Daniela Martínez and Omar González, ‘Modern Art’ (Analytical)

Film

Tlatelolco 1968 (Sergio Perales)

Solo Presentation

Sergio Perales: Division Minuscula

Carlos Alvarado Herrera Film: Captain America

Wed April 9th:

Film

Scarlett Garcia – Hunger Games or NARNIA

Regina Llorente Suarez – Billy Eliot

Jhónatan Ellí Villarreal – forrest gump

Solo Presentation

Claudia Sanchez – Bauhaus

Fernando Davila - Topic TBC

Daniela Martínez – Comparing bands.

Wed April 23^rd:

Film

Diego Jimenez – Lord of the Flies

Daniela Martínez – Harry Potter

Fernando Davila – Movie TBC

Solo Presentation

Alejandro Partido – Band: The Beatles.

Valery Valdez – Topic TBC

Daniela Grijalva - Edgar Allan Poe

Fri April 25th:

Film

Daniela Grijalva – Holes

Solo Presentation

Omar Gonzalez – JK Rowling

Diego Jimenez – Topic TBC

Andrea Torres - Social movement and film “Tlateloco”

Presentation in Pairs

Carlos Alvarado & Darío Sánchez ‘When Med and Tech collide’ (Informative)

Wed April 30^th:

Film

Omar Gonzalez – Warm Bodies

Andrea Torres – Film 257 days

Solo Presentation

Jhónatan Ellí – Topic TBC

Darío Sánchez - Trova Cubana - Silvio Rodriguez

Mauricio Miñarro - Film

A piece of steak - Fernando Davila Carrillo

We can learn many things from this story, the most important thing that called my attention was the situation Tom King was living, he had had everything in life, but all that was gone, everything he had after all was his family and a bunch of debts.
All the fights he had fought damaged Tom King’s body. His best shape was gone through the years. He had no money to feed his family, his situation was miserable, and he knew he had no choice but to win the fight against Sandel. Tom was fighting for living while Sandel only for money and fame.

The story begins with Tom King’s situation in society, which was very low. The story gives some parts of Tom’s best days, when he had money and he could have a piece of steak anytime he wanted. However, what we can learn from this story is that nothing lasts forever. Youth is the most valuable thing life can give us.
I think this sentence is the one that best describes this story: “He (Sandels) lacked the wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was to buy it with Youth; and when wisdom was his, Youth would have been spent in buying it.”

Omar Gonzalez A01196042

A Piece of Steak

What is the purpose of this book?

A Piece of Steak by Jack London tells the story of Tom Kings, a box fighter who struggles to get income for his family. I feel that the purpose of this book is to put our lifestyle into perspective with that of a professional athlete and to get the reader more emphatic about the struggles Tom goes through. Ultimately I believe that this was a way in which the author showed that we should never take anything for granted.

In this story, the author is trying to portray the hard life of a box fighter. He develops the story around the fact that Tom used to be one of the best in the business but then due to aging and new up-and-comers he's having a hard time getting enough income to provide for his family and how he may not have as much matches left as he thinks.

Some issues raised are not only his aging and losing dominance in the ring but also how Tom had come from battling the old aging guys to him becoming one of those old aging guys, in the story they called him “the grizzled old chopping-block that guarded the highway to fame and fortune”

They sure give out a lot of experiences from Tom's past, the portray him as a hero that can't go on forever, he used to be the World Heavyweight champion and now he's the unsung hero. Some evidences of this is how they show how Tom has changed his perspective about everything and he cares more about it now that he is old in comparison from when he was young. They've organized this in such a manner that really makes you feel bad that Tom can't go on for much longer and that he probably won't be able to fight too many more matches.

The author thinks about the world in a way that needs years of experience to look at it from that point of view. He goes on about how experience is payed with youth and when you finally have experience you have no youth left. I do think this thinking is justified because no one can be born good, everyone needs experience to get better. And you have to get older while you get this experience, its the way life is supposed to be.

We can be empathic about what he says by trying to think what it must feel like to be a boxer in your last years and how he portrays Tom to be a intelligent man who wants to fight more matches.

Sergio Perales A00812401

"A piece of steak"

•      What is the purpose of this book?

By analyzing the historical context and the situation in which the main character "Tom King" finds himself in. We see that the main character is a boxer that is barely able to feed his family due to the fact that boxing is not a stable form of incoming converting itself into an economic problem that puts him and his family in debt. The purpose of the book is for the reader (us) to analyze different ways of work and for us to realize that back in the old days work was physical and when a person's health and physical status deteriorates so does his possibilities of getting a job. 

•      What is the author trying to accomplish?

For us the readers to understand and appreciate the sacrifices and hard conditions of work before the era of work in offices ever appeared. Today we live in a society in which very little percentage of work is physical and most of it is done by our advanced technology and most of our work involves computers and tasks that don't necessarily deteriorate your health. 

•      What issues or problems are raised?

The problems of a deteriorating health and strength can result in a loss of a job and the failure to provide for your family due to someones weakness. So why is this a problem? it is because our working capabilities in retrospect to physical labor demands from our bodies a great number a strength and stamina and for that you need good food as said in the book. Once you begin to weaken, it results into an economic downfall and slowly a person begins to realize that without his physical capabilities he is nothing and useless. 

•      What? data, what experiences, what evidence is given in the story?

• "He felt weak and sore, and the pain of his smashed knuckles warned him that, even if he could find a job at navvy work, it would be a week before he could grip a pick handle or a shovel. "
• sign of physical weakness

• "Ay, I gotter do 'im," he repeated. "That's all there is to it. I jus' gotter do 'im."
• representing the fact that boxing is a win or lose situation and agresiveness is needed to bring home food foe the family

•      How is this data or experiences organised?

It is organised in a way that starts out somewhat good in which economic problems slowly start to drip in and end up having severe consequences on Tom King's Health and directly affecting his family due to the fact that he is unable to compete and win money as he used to. 

•      How is the author thinking about the world?

The Author thinks about the world as a cruel environment in which you have to fight each other to guarantee the survival of your kin, much like in the animal kingdom, In boxing, your physical strength, stamina, and Technic determines the possibility whether you bring food to the table for the family or not

•      Is his thinking justified as far as we can see from our perspective

His thinking is justified because that is how the world runs today, humans compete each other to get into the market the best of the best products in order to bring back money to their respective families and guarantee its survival