To Kill A Mockingbird Irony And Sarcasm Essays -

To Kill a Mockingbird: Irony and Sarcasm To Kill a Mockingbird: Irony and Sarcasm Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is a highly regarded work of American fiction. The story of the novel teaches us many lessons that should last any reader for a lifetime. The messages that Harper Lee relays to the reader are exemplified throughout the book using various methods. One of the most important and significant methods was the use of symbols such as the mockingbird image. Another important method was showing the view through a growing child's (Scout Finch) mind, eyes, ears, and mouth. There is another very significant method that was used. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee utilizes the effects of irony, sarcasm, and hypocrisy to criticize a variety of elements in Southern life. Harper Lee employs the effects of irony in To Kill a Mockingbird as a way to criticize the deficiency of public education. "Now tell your father not to teach you any more. It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind." (pG. 22) Instead of praising Scout's ability to read at an advanced level, Miss Caroline discourages it. This ironic example set by Miss Caroline seems to demonstrate the inadequate training that she had received for her occupation. Miss Caroline seems to have been instructed upon a strict standard on how her students are expected to behave, but when she encounters something different, such as Scout's advanced ability to read, she advises Scout to stop being advanced, whereas a modern-day schoolteacher would capitalize on Scout's ability to read and encourage her to read more. "You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade." (pg. 23) The strict, recipe-style, rubric method of teaching that Miss Caroline uses is once again emphasized here. Miss Caroline once again discourages Scout's advanced abilities and regards Scout's ability with contempt. "The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us which were printed 'the,' 'cat,''rat,' 'man,' and 'you.'" (pg. 23) The Dewey Teaching Method was supposed to place an emphasis on "active" learning, yet the irony in Miss Caroline's"use" of it was that her teaching method wasn't "active" at all. It was, in fact, extremely passive. The students in the class didn't do anything. They became extremely bored and learned very little. As I have established, the use of irony clearly reveals the deficiency of the public education system in the 1930's. Teachers did not seem to be trained enough to handle the vast abilities of their students. Instead, they seemed to be trained to handle a narrowly confined amount of expected abilities. If Miss Caroline had recognized that Scout had advanced abilities, she could have allowed Scout to advance to a higher grade and save Scout from going through a school year that teaches her stuff that she has already learned. Public education is not the only element that Harper Lee uses irony to criticize, however. American political attitudes are also criticized using irony. Harper Lee also uses sarcasm to criticize the American political attitudes that were clearly evident in the South. "(When Alabama seceded from the Union on January 11, 1861, Winston County seceded from Alabama, and every child in Maycomb County knew it.)" (pg. 21) By listening to their parents and other adults, the young children of Maycomb have grown to despise Winston County for the same reason the adults despise it because it seceded from Alabama in 1861. It would seem pretty idiotic to most people to despise people based upon what their ancestors had done 70 years ago. "North Alabama was full of Liquor Interests, Big Mules, steel companies, Republicans, professors, and other persons of no background." (pg. 21) Overheard from adults, most likely, Scout's thoughts reflect the beliefs of a majority of the people in Maycomb. The political attitudes in the provincial South are criticized as the people seem to want to stick to their old ideas and beliefs. Evolving new ideas and beliefs are systematically rejected; anybody that adapts the new ideas are regarded as having "no background." "People up there set 'em free, but you don't see 'em settin' at the table with 'em... I think that woman, that Mrs. Roosevelt's lost her mind-just plain lost her mind coming down to Birmingham and tryin' to sit with 'em." (pg. 237) The outright hypocrisy that Mrs. Merriweather states when referring to the North is one of the main elements that Harper Lee employs in criticizing the South's political attitudes. There seems to be nothing that satisfies Mrs. Merriweather, who reflects the stereotypical southern woman-she despises

Design Theories in education

Design Theories in education Introduction Almost every characteristic of people’s daily lives involves problem solving and learning. Whether they are working, playing games, studying or engaging in any activity, people are always continually applying or adding to their ever-expanding pool of knowledge. Learning starts at birth and it ends when one dies.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Design Theories in education specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More It takes place everywhere i.e. in schools, home, at work e.t.c. Learning refers to the act of acquiring knowledge through such aspects as socialization and observation. Morrison, Ross, Kemp (2001), in their studies stated that for learning to be carried out effectively, there must be some key elements which include the learner, the teacher and the information to be learned. There are many different types of design theories that use the tenets of learning theories to build effective instruction. I nstruction design theories usually describe how instructions are organized with an aim of achieving objectives. Design theories are perspective theories in that, they enable a teacher or an expert to select and organize instructional events to enhance the learning process. The basis of design theories is on how people learn (Morrison, Ross, Kemp, 2001, p. 62-83). The following essay is concerned with educational design theories. The essay focuses on how the design theories can help improve the constructed responses in reading on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE). The Wiggins’s theory of backwards design The Backward Curriculum design was developed by Wiggins and McTighe. The Backward Curriculum Design is based on the notion that the design process should first identify the set objectives to be achieved and then work backwards to create instruction. This approach to curriculum design is completely different with the traditional approach which first ident ifies what topic requires to be covered. It departs from the common approach in that, the teacher starts with the end in determining the curriculum instead of starting with a textbook. The Backward design has three main stages. The first stage identifies the desired results. According to this theory, the teacher has the role of identifying the course objectives, as well as the enduring understanding i.e. the learning that should be covered over long-term.Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Question format which focuses on the line of inquiry is used in identifying the desired learning. Benchmarks or state standards are used in determining the desired learning. The second stage is the assessment of the desired results and outcomes. This stage aims at defining the forms of assessment that best demonstrates the students’ understanding and skill. There are three types of ass essments i.e. performance task, criteria referenced assessment and unprompted assessment. The third stage determines the sequence of learning experience that is ideal for the students. The Backward design can help improve the constructed responses in reading on the WKCE because it has the effect of delaying the selection of teaching as well as other instructional strategies until the last stage of the process (Moore, 2005, P.45). Gagne’s nine events of instruction Gagne’s nine events of instruction is a learning theory that was developed by Robert Gagne. Each of Gagne’s nine events is meant to boost the learning process or to ensure that learning takes place effectively. Information processing learning theory is the main basis of these events and is key in the success of every event. According to this theory, the first presentation of the instruction is supposed to motivate the learner. The event thus, has the role of focusing the learners on the goals to be acc omplished. Learning cannot take place effectively without focusing on the tasks. Some of the methods that are used for gaining the attention of the students include presenting discrepant events. It can improve the constructed response in reading in that, the teachers can gain the attention of learners through actions that makes them to focus on the tasks to be learned (Mastrian, McGonigle Mahan,2011,P.97). The second event is informing the learner about the objective to be accomplished. The learner should be provided with the learning outcomes. This plays an important role in enabling the learner to know his or her instructional destination. The learner is able sort out the necessary materials from a list (Briggs, 1991, P.199-206).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Design Theories in education specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning is the third event of Gagne’s learning th eory. According to this theory, learning is intended to build on what is already known. Learners are required to have prerequisite knowledge or skill in order to integrate them with new ones. This in turn helps to improve the constructed response in reading (Briggs, 1991, P.199-206). The fourth event of Gagne’s learning theory is presenting the stimulus material. This event of instruction presents the learners with the necessary information to be learned. The main aim of presenting materials is to ensure that the learners have basic knowledge on the tasks to be learned (Briggs, 1991, P.199-206). The other event of Gagne’s event of instruction is providing learning guidance. The main role of this event is to provide the learners with an opportunity to know what actions bring an ideal performance. Usually, learners are better placed to perform tasks on their own after observing from others. The teachers can provide learning guidance to learners by showing them all the st eps involved in solving a problem (Briggs,1991,P.199-206). Eliciting performance is the sixth of Gagne’s nine events of instruction. The learners are provided with an opportunity to test out their understanding through certain activities or questions. The learner is thus given an opportunity to practice what requires to be learned in this event (Briggs, 1991, P.199-206). Providing feedback is the seventh event of instruction according to Gagne’s nine events. Feedback is usually provided to learners in order to convey information about their accuracy or correctness of their performance (Briggs, 1991, P.199-206). The other instruction event of Gagne’s nine events is assessing performance. Assessing performance provides the learner with an opportunity to demonstrate the learning outcomes without the assistance from teachers (Briggs, 1991, P.199-206). The last event of Gagne’s nine events of instruction is the enhancement of retention and transfer. Knowledge and skills are mainly valuable if the learners can apply them at appropriate times (Briggs, 1991, P.199-206).Advertising Looking for essay on education? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The four elements of teaching for understanding The standards for the four elements of teaching for understanding include the following i.e. generative topics, understanding goals, understanding performances and ongoing assessments (Reigeluth, 1999, P.108). A generative topic is concerned with the topic selection. This element requires that the learners should be presented with topics that are easily understandable and authentic. The main features of this element of teaching for understanding are that the topic should be relevant, connectible, accessible and interesting to both the learners and the teacher (Reigeluth, 1999, P.108). With regards to understanding goals, the element requires that the students should do their best to understand the learning outcome. Goals should not be ambiguous. The teacher should share goals with the learners in order to enable them to fully understand the learning outcomes (Reigeluth, 1999, P.108). Understanding performances provides the learners wit h an opportunity to prove their understanding of the learning objectives. This element of teaching for understanding enables the teacher to actively engage his or her learners (Reigeluth, 1999, P.108). The ongoing assessment is the fourth element for teaching for understanding. The main role of ongoing assessment is to provide the teachers with a forum of assessing the performance of the students and thus make improvements where necessary. Ongoing assessment should be done on regular basis and should be explicit (Reigeluth, 1999, P.108). Conclusion The best process of instruction that will ensure that students complete or even do the constructed response sections of the exam is the Gagne’s nine events of instruction. This method of instruction is ideal because it is goal driven. It is appropriate for the students as it can enable them to form a constructed response. Gagne’s nine events of instruction enhance the learning process in that; it has the ability of identifyi ng the learning outcome. Also, it identifies the events that should take place, organizes them in a sequence manner and ensures that each event includes all the relevant information for the objectives to be attained. Reference List Briggs, L. (1991). Instructional design: principles and applications. New York: EducationalTechnology. Mastrian, K, and McGonigle Mahan, W. (2011). Integrating technology in nursing education: tools for the knowledge era.Sadbury: Jones Bartlett Learning. Moore, K. (2005). Effective instructional strategies: from theory to practice. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Morrison, G, Ross, S. Kemp, J. (2001). Task Analysis in  Designing Effective Instruction. New York: John Wiley Sons, Inc. Reigeluth, C. (1999). Instructional-design theories and models, Volume 2.London: Routledge.

Behavior Incentives and Classroom Rewards

Behavior Incentives and Classroom Rewards Classroom incentives, prizes, and punishments are part of a controversial topic for teachers. Many teachers see extrinsic material rewards as an appropriate and effective way to manage behavior in the elementary classroom. Other teachers dont want to bribe the kids to do work that they should be intrinsically motivated to do on their own. Should You Offer Classroom Incentives Early in the School Year? The idea of classroom rewards is an important concept to consider at the beginning of the school year. If you start off the year showering students with rewards, they are going to expect it and will most likely only work for the rewards. However, if you limit prizes from day one, you may find that you can get away from the material aspect a little bit and save yourself a significant amount of money in the long run.  Here is an example of what worked for me and thoughts about the concept of rewards. Rewards in First Classroom? In setting up my first classroom (third grade), I wanted to avoid rewards. I dreamed of my students working for knowledges sake. However, after trial and error, I found that kids respond to rewards well and sometimes you just have to use what works. The teachers before us most likely showered our current students with rewards, so they probably expect it by now. Also, teachers (and all employees) work for a reward - money. How many of us would work and try hard if we werent getting a salary? Money and rewards, in general, make the world go round, whether its a pretty picture or not. Timing When Incentives are Needed At the beginning of the year, I didnt do anything with rewards or behavior management because my kids started out the year quiet and hard working. But, around Thanksgiving, I was at the end of my rope and started introducing rewards. Teachers might want to try going as long as they can without rewards because the prizes start losing their effectiveness after awhile because the kids expect them or get used to receiving the rewards. It also works to change the rewards as the year progresses, just to add a little excitement and a boost to their effectiveness. Avoiding Material Rewards I dont use any material rewards in my classroom. I dont give out anything that costs money for me to buy. Im not willing to spend a lot of my own time and money to keep a store or prize box stocked for daily rewards. Good Work Tickets In the end, positive reinforcement of good behavior worked best for my students and me. I used Good Work Tickets which are just leftover scraps of construction paper (that would have been thrown away otherwise) cut up into little 1 inch by 1-inch squares. I have the kids cut them up for me after school or whenever they want. They love to do it. I dont even have to do that part. Involving Students in Giving Rewards When kids are working quietly and doing what they are supposed to be doing, I give them a good work ticket. They put their student # on the back and turn it into the raffle box. Also, if a child finished his or her work or has been working well, I let them pass out the good work tickets, which they love doing. This is a great thing to do with problem children; kids who are usually in trouble will love monitoring their classmates behavior. The students are usually more strict than I am with handing them out. Since they are free, it doesnt matter how many you give out.   Awarding Incentives On Fridays, I do a little drawing. The rewards are things like: Sit at the teachers desk for the day15 minutes playing an educational computer gameBe the caller for multiplication bingoMake up a math problem for the other children to solveGo to lunch 5 minutes early with a friendStay out for a longer recess with a friendChoose your seat for the dayRead out loud to the class You can tailor these rewards to what the cool things in your classroom are. I usually pick two  or three winners and then, just for fun, I pick one more, and that person is the Cool Person of the Day. The kids and I just thought that was a funny thing to do and a nice way to wrap up the drawing. Also, I keep a bag of candy in my cupboard for a quick reward (if someone catches a mistake I make, goes above and beyond the call of duty, etc.). Its a pretty cheap thing to have around just in case. Just throw candy to the kid and keep on teaching. Dont Overemphasize Rewards I didnt place a large emphasis on rewards. I tried to make learning fun, and my kids genuinely did get excited about learning new things. I had them begging me to teach them harder math concepts because they knew they could handle it. Ultimately, how you use rewards in your classroom is a personal decision. There are no right or wrong answers. Like everything in teaching, what works for one teacher may not work for another. But, it does help to discuss your ideas with other educators and see what others are doing in their classroom. Good luck!

Experience never be forgeten Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Experience never be forgeten - Essay Example ollection of those events and how we challenged that situation has always been a thrilling experience for me and the story is often repeated by me to my inquisitive friends and relatives. We were a group of five friends and we made elaborate arrangements for the proposed camping adventure. A week before the date of departure for the camp, we busied ourselves in shopping and we collected tents and trappings and other equipment needed for the camping. We collected various items of food. The choices of each of one we were different and thus we had a good collection of food items. We had decided to stay overnight at the camping site which was all the more exciting. We started off early in the morning, and loaded our suitcases on the carrier of the car, and by 7.30 a.m. began heading for the destination. We had rented a car, and I had not thoroughly checked its condition, before agreeing to take it, and that was a serious mistake that I committed, especially when we were going on a long journey. The car began to tell its story and it seemed as if it is not happy with its noisy companions. We had covered a distance of about fifteen miles and at a lonely stretch and I had to bring the car to a screeching halt due to a flat tire and I had a difficult time in controlling it. None of us were experts in fixing the tire, but with great difficulty and hesitation we solved the problem. My only fear was what we should do, if another tire would go flat. After fixing the tire problem, we had tea and snacks in a roadside restaurant and then we moved further. I was driving slowly and after covering about 10 miles, I suddenly realized that I forgot my cellphone at the restaurant, and we had just crossed a bridge and the next exist was after 4 miles. We had to get back and I felt that the bridge was mocking at us, for we were using it for the third time in less than one hour. The GPS was also quite unfriendly and was constantly teasing us with â€Å"Keep Right† and â€Å"Keep Leftà ¢â‚¬ 

The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan Essay

The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan - Essay Example He thus enunciated the doctrine that would go hand in hand with the Marshall Plan that would greatly help Europe get back on its feet. A scenario a decade later in which if the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were not implemented would result in a Europe whose economies would be faltering, each independently finding its way out of the devastation. Politically, the Soviet Union's influence would have grown stronger beyond Poland and East Germany. Political and economic stability would still be a long hurdle. By 1957 without the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Europe would find itself an economically fragmented continent and the European Union, established in 1957 would not exist. Probably there would not also be a European Coal and Steel Community which was established in 1950. This is because the Marshall Plan allowed for the possibility of European states working together to draft a plan that would make economic cooperation possible. Europe's treasuries would not be as quickly replenished because of the absence of immediate US monetary aid and food and survival would still be the top priority, and not economic growth and stability. Europe would not find a way to freely exchange their currencies and dismantle trade barriers among the different states as the establishment of the European Payments Union in 1950 and in effect until 1958. Furthermore, without the Marshall Plan, a decade after the end of the World War, would result in a Europe with its economic foundations not as str ong as they were and industries would not be reborn as they were quickly because of the Marshall Plan. Well known European companies such as "Renault, Pechiney and Dassault in France; Volkswagen and Daimler-Benz in Germany; Fiat in Italy; plus Norse Crown Canning in Norway were started or restarted with American assistance after the war" (Swardson A1). Without the Marshall Plan these companies, indeed a lot of industries would not still be back on their feet or even existing a decade after the war. Germany, Europe's industrial giant would still be probably crippled and its economic strength not utilized. Politically, had not the policy of containment enunciated in the Truman Doctrine, it would have been a great probability that ten years hence after the end of the war, Turkey and Greece would have fallen under sphere of influence of the Soviet Union. Britain which received the biggest share of US aid would not be as strong as it was in being a democratic leader in the continent - and this was shown when it had to stop helping Greece that forced the US to be fill up the vacuum. Further, the fall of Turkey and Greece would have bolstered the communist movements in France and Italy, which though not as vulnerable would have resulted in unstable political regimes, backed by economic instability because rampant social discontent, hunger economic dislocation. In short, Europe ten years hence, would again be vulnerable to totalitarianism. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan paved the way for Europe to work together as one continent so that it could rise from the rubble of World War II. Economically, it drew the European states together to set up mechanisms to foster economic integration, without which there would be the present-day European Union and the

Software Reuse Essay Example for Free

Software Reuse Essay Abstract Effective reuse of software products is reportedly increasing productivity, saving time, and reducing cost of software development. Historically, software reuse focused on repackaging and reapplying of code modules, data structures or entire applications in the new software projects (Prieto-Diaz 1994). Recently, however, it has been acknowledgedas beneficial to redeploy software components across the entire development life-cycle, starting with domain modelling and requirements specification, through software design, coding and testing, to maintenance and operation. There were also attempts to reuse aspects of project organisation and methodology, development processes, and communication structures. However, as the concept of reusing software components is very clear at the code level (whether in source or binary form), the very same concept becomes more fuzzy and difficult to grasp when discussed in the context of reusing specifications and designs (whether in textual or diagrammatical form), or quite incomprehensible when applied to software informal requirements, domain knowledge or human skills and expertise (expressed in natural language, knowledge representation formalism, or existing only in humans). This problem of dealing with reusable software artefacts resulting from the earliest stages of software development, in particular requirements specifications, attracted our particular interest in the reusability technology. Our work is motivated primarily by the possibility of improving the process of requirements elicitation by methodical reuse of software specifications and their components with the aid of information extracted from user informal requirements documents. The problems and issues that we aim to investigate in this research are best illustrated by the following statement outlining current needs and the goals for the future research in requirements reuse: †¢ More research is needed on the advantages and the necessary methods for requirements reuse. For example, what are requirements components’, what makes them reusable, how can we store and retrieve them, and how do we write a requirements specification that gives us the highest probability of creating or reusing existing requirements components? (Hsia, Davis et al. 1993). Definitions To address the issues advanced by Hsia, Davis and Kung, and to avoid any confusion farther in this paper, we need to clearly define some major concepts of software reuse, reusability, reusable artefacts, their possible forms, reusability methods, their major motivators and inhibitors, etc. Hence, we adopt our definitions from Prieto-Diaz (Prieto-Diaz 1989) as follows :-†¢ reuse is the use of previously acquired concepts or objects in a new situation, it involves encoding development information at different levels of abstraction, storing this representation for future reference, matching of new and old situations, duplication of already developed objects and actions, and their adaptation to suit new requirements; †¢ reuse is the use of previously acquired concepts or objects in a new situation, it involves encoding development information at different levels of abstraction, storing his representation for future reference, matching of new and old situations, duplication of already developed objects and actions, and their adaptation to suit new requirements; †¢ reusability is a measure of the ease with which one can use those previous concepts or objects in the new situations. Reuse Artefacts The object of reusability, reusable artefact , can be any information which a developer may need in the process of creating software (Freeman 1983), this includes any of the following software components :- †¢ code fragments, which come in a form of source code, PDL, or various charts; †¢ logical program structures , such as modules, interfaces, or data structures; †¢ functional structures , e.g. specifications of functions and their collections; †¢ domain knowledge , i.e. scientific laws, models of knowledge domains; †¢ knowledge of development process , in a form of life-cycle models; †¢ environment-level information, e.g. experiential data or users feedback; †¢ artefact transformation during development process (Basili 1990); etc. A controlled collection of reuse artefacts constitutes a reuse library. Such libraries must contain not only reusable components but are also expected to provide certain types of services to their users (Wegner 1989), e.g. storage, searching, inspecting and retrieval of artefacts from different application domains, and of varying granularity and abstraction, loading, linking and invoking of stored artefacts, specifying artefact relationships, etc. The major problems in the utilisation of such reuse libraries are in determining appropriate artefact classification schemes and in the selection of methods to effectively and efficiently search the library. To bypass the problems with reuse libraries, the use of specialised domain-specific languages was proposed as an alternative. Such languages use strict syntax and semantics defined in terms of an application domain and its reusable artefacts. While enforcing notational conformance with a predetermined syntax and semantics, the domain-specific languages restrict the number of possible classification and search mechanisms used in the process of composing a problem solution, e.g. as in DRACO (Neighbors 1989) or GIST (Feather 1989). Artefact Characteristics Certain classes of software artefacts have been identified as eminently suitable to become part of a reuse library and be, subsequently, utilised as reusable software resources. Such artefacts usually share a number of characteristics, deemed to actively promote reusability (Biggerstaff and Richter 1989; Matsumoto 1989; McClure 1989), those artefact are perceived to be :-†¢ expressive, i.e. they are of general utility and of adequate level of abstraction, so that they could be used in many different contexts, and be applicable to variety of problem areas; †¢ definite, i.e. they are constructed and documented with a clarity of purpose, their capabilities and limitations are easily identifiable, interfaces, required resources, external dependencies and operational environments are specified, and all other requirements are explicit and well defined; †¢ transferable , i.e. it is possible to easily transfer an artefact to a different environment or problem domain, this usually means that it is self-contained, with few dependencies on implementation-related concepts, it is abstract and well parametrised; †¢ additive, i.e. it should be possible to seamlessly compose existing artefacts into new products or other reusable components, without the need for massive software modifications or causing adverse side effects; †¢ formal , reusable artefacts should, at least at some level of abstraction, be described using a formal or semi-formal notation, such an approach provides means to formally verify an artefact correctness, it enables to predict violation of integrity constraints during artefact composition, or to assess the level of completeness for a product constructed of reusable parts; †¢ machine representable, those of the artefacts which can be described in terms of computationally determined attribute values, which can easily be decomposed into machine representable parts, which can be accessed, analysed, manipulated and possibly modified by computer-based processes, have a clear potential for becoming part of a flexible reuse library; those artefacts can be easily searched for, retrieved, interpreted, altered and finally integrated into larger system; †¢ self-contained , reusable artefacts which embody a single idea are easier to understand, they have less dependencies on external factors, whether environmental or implementational, they have interfaces which are simple to use, they are easier to extend, adapt and maintain; †¢ language independent, no implementation language details should be embedded in reusable artefacts, this also means that most useable artefacts are those which are described in terms of a specification or design formalism, or those low level solutions which could be used from variety of programming languages on a given implementation platform, either by appropriate macro processors or link editors; †¢ able to represent data and procedures , i.e. reusable artefacts should be able to encapsulate both their data structures and logic, down to a fine grain of detail, such an approach increases artefact cohesion and reduces the possibility of artefact coupling by common data passed via arguments or global variables; †¢ verifiable , as any other software components, reusable artefacts should be easy to test by their maintainers, and, what is even of a greater importance, by their users who embed reusable components into their own systems, and who must have the capability to monitor the components computational context and their interfaces; †¢ simple , minimum and explicit artefact interfaces will encourage developers to use artefacts, simple and easy to understand artefacts can also be easily modified by developers to suit new applications; and †¢ easily changeable, certain type of problems will require artefacts to be adopted to the new specifications, such changes should be localised to the artefact and require minimum of side effects. Reuse in Software Life-Cycle Computer software can be systematically reused across the entire development life-cycle, i.e. domain analysis, requirements specification, design and implementation, it has its place even in the post-delivery stages of development, e.g. its continuing quality assessment or software maintenance. Implementation. Early experience with software reuse was limited to reuse of program code in source and binary form. A great emphasis was put on development of programming languages which could support various methods of clustering, packaging, modularisation, parametrisation and sharing of data and code via data types and code blocks (ALGOL), named common blocks (FORTRAN), parametric functions and macros (FORTRAN and LISP), copy libraries (COBOL), information hiding (PASCAL), modules (SIMULA and MODULA), generic packages (ADA), objects and classes (SMALLTALK and C++), etc. The idea of code sharing was further supported by various operating system utilities which allowed independent program compilation, creation of relocatable libraries or link editing (Reed 1983). In those early days, no serious effort on a commercial scale was undertaken to reuse the early life-cycle artefacts, i.e. designs, specifications, requirements or enterprise models. This situation was caused by :- †¢ the lack of awareness of potential benefits that could be gained from reusing more abstract software artefacts; †¢ unavailability of commercial methodologies embracing software reuse at their centre-point; †¢ informal nature of early specification and design documents; and †¢ shortage of tools capable to represent specifications and designs in a computer-processable form. At the same time, †¢ the construction of libraries was known to improve software development productivity, and was practiced in nearly every commercial organisation; †¢ program code was written according to a formal grammar and it adhered to established semantic rules; and †¢ the construction of code libraries was supported by editors, compilers, loaders and linkers, which could be freely customised to accommodate various reuse tasks. Design. Today’s development approaches, such as object-oriented methods (Graham 1994) or rapid application development (Martin 1991), vigorously advocate reusing software artefacts at the earliest possible stage of the software life-cycle. Program design methods are now capable of utilising well-defined diagrammatic notations, which allow production of documents which are simpler and more legible than code, which clearly exhibit their conceptual contents, which are well structured and modular, and which allow dealing with problem complexity at various levels of abstraction and granularity. With the advent of CASE tools (McClure 1989) the contemporary design techniques are also supported by specialised software environments capable of capturing design ideas in a form leaning towards further processing by computer-based reuse tools. Today, it is also commonly perceived that reuse of software designs, as opposed to code reuse, is more economic, and cognitively a much more intuiti ve process. Requirements Specification. While application of reuse techniques to software design has visible advantages over code reuse, some researchers (Matsumoto 1989) claim further increases in the scope of software reusability when given opportunity to reuse modules at higher levels of abstraction, i.e. software specifications and requirements. Others support this claim, voicing the need to reuse large-scale artefacts going beyond design components and including entire design frameworks and domain resources (Li 1993). Bubenko et. al. (Bubenko, Rolland et al. 1994) further propose to combine design and reuse libraries to accommodate development processes capable of reusing conceptual schemas to support the process of requirements engineering. Such an approach provides users with the library of reusable components that could match their requirements, improves the quality of requirements specifications by making available well-defined conceptual components as early as requirements specification, and improves the productivity of the requirements engineering process by shortening the requirements formalisation effort (Castano and De Antonellis 1994). In the REBOOT system, Morel and Faget (Morel and Faget 1993) aim at extending this approach to the entire software life-cycle. Such advances in requirements and specification reuse were in part facilitated by :- †¢ Development of the new types of programming languages, such as PROLOG or EIFFEL, which combine elements of program specification and design (via logic and class specification) at the level of code, such an approach promotes interpretation and reuse of abstract program descriptions throughout the life-cycle; †¢ dissemination of prototyping tools and visual programming environments capable of graphic representation of user requirements and the subsequent generation of code or code skeletons (Vonk 1989; Ambler and Burnett 1990), facilitating effective composition of programs of domain-specific, visual, reuse components; †¢ introduction of formal requirements and specification languages, such as RML (Greenspan, Mylopoulos et al. 1994), Z (Spivey 1989), VDM (Woodman and Heal 1993) or LARCH (Guttag and Horning 1993), permitting representation, structuring, verification, and reuse of specification components; †¢ object-oriented technologies integrating various diagrammatic techniques into a single methodology, e.g. Information Engineering (Martin 1993), or unifying elements of conceptual modelling, program specification and design into one consistent notation, e.g. Object-Oriented Conceptual Modelling (Dillon and Tan 1993), such object-oriented development methods allow creation of abstract conceptual schemata which can be readily adapted by instantiation and inheritance to new problem solutions; †¢ development of full-text databases utilising efficient information retrieval methods (Salton 1989), being introduced as a repository for storing, classification and subsequent retrieval of design and specification texts (Frakes and Nejmeh 1988; Maarek, Berry et al. 1991; Fugini and Faustle 1993); and finally †¢ application of knowledge-based techniques and intelligent software development assistants in requirements acquisition and specification (Lowry and Duran 1989); Domain Analysis. The final frontier for software reuse in the development life-cycle is a thorough analysis of a given problem domain. This approach is grounded on the belief that in a real-life situation reusability is not a universal property of program code or processed information but it rather depends on a context of the problem and its solution, which themselves are relatively cohesive and stable (Arango and Prieto-Diaz 1991). The main aim of domain analysis is the construction of a domain model of which components could be reused in solving variety of problems. Such a model will customarily include definition of concepts used in the specification of problems and software systems, definition of typical design decisions, alternatives, trade-offs and justifications, and software implementation plans. Such a model may take variety of different forms, to include (cf. Figure 1) :- †¢ definitional model, which provides knowledge taxonomies and actonomies describing domain concepts, their structure, semantics, and relationships between them; †¢ knowledge representation model, giving domain semantics and explanation facilities; †¢ domain-specific languages , which when expressed as formal grammars and supported by parsers may provide direct translation of specifications into executable code; †¢ instructional models , indicating the methods of constructing working systems in a given domain, such methods may be described by standards, guidelines, templates, or interface definitions; †¢ functional models, describing how systems work, using representations such as data flow diagrams or program description languages; †¢ structural models, provide means to define architecture of domain systems; etc. In the process of constructing a domain model, the common knowledge from related systems is generalised, objects and operations common to all systems in a given domain are identified, and a model is defined to describe their inter-relationships. The main problem with this process is that knowledge sources for domain modelling (as found in technical literature, existing implementations, customer surveys, expert advice or current and future requirements) are frequently verbose and informal. Thus, special techniques and tools are needed to deal with it, e.g. knowledge acquisition tools, entity-relationship modelling tools, object-oriented methods, semantic clustering tools, CASE and parsing tools (Agresti and McGarry 1988). Reuse Process. In this work, we will view the process of software reuse as comprising three stages of artefact processing (cf. Figure 2), i.e. their analysis, organisation and synthesis. †¢ Artefact analysis starts with identification of artefacts in existing software products (Ning, Engberts et al. 1994) or in a currently analysed domain (Arango and Prieto-Diaz 1991), this is followed by their understanding and representation in a suitable formalism to reflect their function and semantics, with possible generalisation to widen the scope of their future applications. †¢ Artefact organisation includes classification and storage of artefacts in an appropriate software repository, the subsequent repository search and artefacts retrieval whenever they are needed in the reuse process. †¢ Artefact synthesis consists of artefact selection from a number of retrieved candidate artefacts, their adaptation to suit the new application, and their integration into a completely new software product. The tasks undertaken in the three stages of artefact processing are also frequently discussed from the perspective of development-for-reuse and development-by-reuse (Bubenko, Rolland et al. 1994). †¢ Development-for-reuse is emphasising the construction of the reuse library, involving the identification, understanding , generalisation , and the subsequent classification and storage of artefacts for later reuse. †¢ Development-by-reuse is concerned with the effective utilisation of the reuse library to support new software development, it involves searching, retrieval , selection , adaptation, and integration of artefacts into the software system under construction. As reuse is quite independent of any particular development process model, it, thus, could be embedded into a variety of methodologies, to include waterfall model (Hall and Boldyreff 1991), rapid prototyping (Martin 1991), object-oriented design (Meyer 1987),etc. While the inclusion of reuse into a development cycle is of a significant benefit to the entire process, at the same time it may complicate the development process (e.g. see Figure 3). Also, reuse tasks may significantly overlap with those performed in other development phases, e.g. software integration or maintenance. The separation of concerns lead some researchers (Hall and Boldyreff 1991) into pointing out that reuse must occur across different projects or problem areas, as opposed to those tasks which aim at the change, improvement or refinement of software undertaken within a single project which should not be regarded as reuse, e.g. †¢ software porting , which only aims at adopting existing software product to different hardware or operating system environments; †¢ software maintenance , which strives to correct software erroneous behaviour or to alter the existing program to suit changing requirements; and †¢ software reconfiguration, which provides a method of customising software to be used with different hardware components or making only a subset of its facilities available to the user. Assessing the Reuse Process and its Goals The value of software reuse cannot be gauged in simple, unambiguous, congruous and canonical fashion. One of the reasons for this difficulty lies in the fact that there is a variety of reusable artefact types and the methods and techniques for their creation, manipulation and maintenance. Another reason can be set in inadequacy of measuring tools to assess the reuse benefit or its hindrance, as it can be measured using variety of incompatible metrics, some of which are based on economic, some on technical, then again others on social or cognitive principles. Finally, it is the numerous software stakeholders who are not likely to agree on the common goals of the reuse process itself, as they will all have distinct and opposing development goals. The contention on thee success or failure of reuse approaches is best reflected in the myths, biases and preconceptions of software developers and management, this section will, thus, summarise such opinions as they are reported in the software engineering literature. Reuse benefits. Adopting reuse-based software development process attracts a number of well recognised economic and psychological benefits to both the end-users and developers (Tracz 1988b; Hemmann 1992). These include the following. †¢ Savings in costs and time. As a developer uses already pre-defined components, hence, the activities associated with components specification, design and implementation are now replaced with finding components, their adaptation to suit new requirements, and their integration. Experience shows (also from other fields, like electronic engineering) that the latter set of activities takes less times and therefore costs less. It should be noted, though, that development of components for reuse will certainly attract additional effort, time and cost. This costs, however, can be offset by savings in a number of different software projects. †¢ Increase in productivity. A set of reusable artefacts can frequently be viewed as a high-level language of concepts drawn from a given problem domain. Hence, a developer is given an opportunity to work with more abstract notions related directly to the problem at hand and to ignore low-level, implementation details. It has been shown that working at a higher level of abstraction leads to an increase in development productivity. †¢ Increase in reliability. Reuse library can be viewed as a software product itself, therefore, its development follows a normal cycle of requirements specification, design, implementation, testing, documentation and maintenance. By the very assumption, the user base and a life-span of reuse artefacts is much greater than that of any individual product, thus, the reliability of such artefact is also increased. This also leads to an improved reliability of systems built of reusable components rather than of those built entirely from scratch. †¢ Increase in ease of maintenance. Systems constructed of reusable parts are usually simpler, smaller, and more abstract. Their design is closer to the problem domain and their reliability is greater. This of course has an very positive impact on the quality of such systems maintenance. †¢ Improvement in documentation and testing. Reusable components are normally accompanied by high quality documentation and by previously developed tests plans and cases. Whenever a new system is created by simple selection and altering of such components, then, their documentation and tests will have to be much easier to develop as well. †¢ High speed and low cost replacement of aging systems. As the reuse-based systems share a very large collection of program logic via the reuse library, thus, they are significantly less complex and much smaller in size than those developed from scratch. Such systems will therefore need less effort during porting or adaptation to new hardware and software environments. It should also be noted that it would normally be the reusable components of the system that is technology intensive, and thus, very expensive to develop, e.g. graphical user interfaces, databases, communications, device control, etc. Sharing that cost across several systems would certainly reduce it when a global replacement of computing resources is called for. Reuse drawbacks. At the same time, in practice, radical gains in productivity and quality cannot be achieved due to some preconceptions held by developers and their management (Tracz 1988b; Hemmann 1992). The claims commonly put forward by programmers include :- †¢ reusing code, as compared with development of entirely new systems, is boring; †¢ locally developed code is better than that developed elsewhere (NIH factor); †¢ it is easier to rewrite complex programs from scratch rather than to maintain it; †¢ there are no tools to assist programmers in finding reusable artefacts; †¢ in majority of cases, developed programs are too specialised for reuse; †¢ adopted software development methodology does not support software reuse; †¢ reuse is often ad-hoc and is unplanned; †¢ there is no formal training in reusing code and designs effectively; †¢ useful reusable artefacts are not supported on the preferred development platform; †¢ the reuse process is too slow; †¢ interfaces of reusable artefacts are too awkward to use; †¢ code with reusable components is often too big or too inefficient; †¢ programs built of reusable components are not readily transportable; †¢ reusable components do not conform to adopted standards; †¢ reuse techniques do not scale up to large software projects; †¢ there are no incentives to reuse software. Meanwhile, management also raises objections based on the following arguments :- †¢ it takes too much effort and time to introduce reuse in workplace; †¢ perceived productivity gains will result in cuts to the project man-power; †¢ customers may expect reusable artefacts to be delivered with their product; †¢ it may be difficult to prevent plagiarism of reusable artefacts; †¢ reuse of code may lead to legal responsibility in case of software failure; †¢ the cost of maintaining reusable libraries is prohibitive; †¢ management is not trained in software development methods with reuse; †¢ there is no coordination between software project partners to introduce reuse. Such problems of perception often result from irrational, nevertheless, deeply rooted myths about reusability and the reuse process. A selection of such myths (cf. Table 1) were reported and subsequently demistified by Tracz (1988a). Reuse motivators. While the common prejudice, miconceptions and outright myths among developers and management prevent companies to effectively introduce reuse into their mainstream development, Frakes and Fox (1995) show in their survey that only few factors listed above have any real impact on the success or failure of software reuse, i.e. †¢ the type of application domain althought the reasons for this phenomenon are not known, it seems that certain types of industries show significantly higher levels of reuse (e.g. telecommunication companies) in certain areas of the life-cycle than others (e.g. aerospace industries); †¢ perceived economic feasibility in those organisations where management convinced its software developers that reuse is desirable and economically viable had a much higher success in the introduction of reuse into those organisations; †¢ high quality and functional relevance of reuse assets increases the likelihood of the assets to be reused; †¢ common software process although developers themselves do not regard a common software process as promoting reuse, there is a strong correlation between the gains in the process maturity and the gains in the level of software reuse; and finally, †¢ reuse education education about reuse, both in school and at work, improves reuse and is a necessary part of a reuse program, however, since the issues of software reuse are rarely discussed in the academic curriculum, it is necessary for management to bear the responsibility to provide reuse-specific training to its employees. The same study also showed that other factors, widely perceived as reuse motivators or inhibitors, have only a minimal effect on the reuse process, e.g. †¢ use of specific programming languages and paradigms it is often perceived that structured, modular, object-oriented, or high-level languages improve the prospects of successful software reuse, the collected statistics, however, show no such correlation; †¢ utilisation of software support environments and CASE although development tools are frequently marketted as greatly enhancing software reusability, some studies show that the current employed CASE tools are not particularly effective in promoting reuse of life-cycle objects across projects in an organisation; †¢ employment of staff experienced in software engineering it seems to be evident that experienced software development practitioners are potentially better reusers than those who have no formal training in software engineering, however contrary to this belief, it can be shown that experience and knowledge of software development principles is not a substitute for training in methods and techniques specific to reuse activities; †¢ provision of recognition rewards as an incentive to promote reuse practices in the organisation it is likely that only monetary rewards are a more effective motivator for implementing reuse practices; †¢ existence of perceived legal impediments to the utilisation of reusable software as majority of reuse efforts concentrates on the in-house development of reusable artefacts, thus, the legal issues are of less concern; †¢ existence of reuse repositories many organisations consider such repositories as central to their reuse efforts, practice, however, shows that those organisations which do not use sophisticated computer-aided tools assisting the classification and retrieval of software artefacts achieve similar levels of reuse as those who are active proponents and users of such automated repositories; †¢ the size of an organisation conducting a software development project the project or development team size is often used as an argument against the introduction of a formal reuse process, small companies believe the narrow scope of their application domain will limit the potential benefit of reuse, while the big companies fear the necessary investment of resources and money to properly implement systematic reuse, the apprehension in both of these cases in unwarranted and the likelyhood of a success or failure of reuse efforts is independent of the company or project size; †¢ considerations of software and process quality majority of surveyed developers had generally positive experience in reusing various software assets developed outside their home companies, overall, the quality concerns had little impact on the level of software reuse, the situation would probably be very different if the quality of reused assets were to deteriorate; †¢ reuse measurements in majority of companies measurement of reuse levels, software quality, and software productivity are not done, however, those organisation which measure software reusability are not getting any significant higher reuse levels than those which fail to monitor their successes or failures in reusing software artefacts, thus in practice, measuring software reuse has very little effect on the whole of the reuse process. Finally, Krueger (1989) provides four tenets of the successful software reuse, the tenets based on the technical and cognitive factors which he believes will ultimately translate into variety of development goals to achieve an effective policy on software reusability, i.e. †¢ reuse must reduce the cognitive effort of software development; †¢ constructing systems of reusable components must be easier than to building them from scratch; †¢ finding reusable artefacts must be more efficient than building them; †¢ understanding artefacts is fundamental to their effective selection. Summary This paper defined the concepts of software reuse, reusability, reuse artefact and reuse library. It listed those attributes of software artefacts which increase a chance of them being reused, e.g. they have to be expressive, definite, transferable, additive, formal, machine representable, self-contained, language independent, able to represent data and procedures, verifiable, simple, and easily changeable. Then the paper gave an overview of major reuse efforts in the life-cycle, starting with coding and design, and then going through specification and requirements capture, and finally covering domain analysis and modelling. Two forms of reuse-based development were discussed, i.e. development-for-reuse, aiming at the construction of reuse library, and consisting of artefact identification, generalisation, classification and storage; and the second, development-by-reuse, aiming at the construction of a new software product with the use of reuse library, and including the tasks of searching for reusable artefacts, their understanding, adaptation to new requirements, and their integration into a new system. The stages of artefacts processing include their analysis, organisation and synthesis. Finally the paper analyses the benefits and the perceived disadvantages of software reusability, focusing in particular on the myths and misconceptions held by developers and their managers. Four preconditions for reusability success were given as reduction in cognitive complexity, ease of implementation, ability to understanding of artefact structure and function, and finally, economy of reuse. Bibliography Agresti, W. W. and F. E. McGarry (1988). The Minnowbrook Workshop on Software Reuse: A summary report. Software Reuse: Emerging Technology. W. Tracz. Washington, D.C., Computer Society Press: 33-40. Ambler, A. L. and M. M. Burnett (1990). Influence of visual technology on the evolution of language environments. Visual Programming Environments: Paradigms and Systems. P. G. Ephraim. Los Alamitos, California, IEEE Computer Society Press : 19-32. Arango, G. and R. Prieto-Diaz (1991). Part1: Introduction and Overview, Domain Analysis and Research Directions. Domain Analysis and Software Systems Modeling. P.-D. Ruben and A. Guillermo. Los Alamitos, California, IEEE Computer Society Press: 9-32. Basili, V. R. (1990). Viewing maintenance as reuse-oriented software development. IEEE Software : 19-25. Biggerstaff, T. J. and C. Richter (1989). Reusability framework, assessment, and directions. Software Reusability: Concepts and Models. J. B. Ted and J. P. Alan. New York, New York, ACM Addison Wesley Publishing Company. 1: 1-18. Bubenko, J., C. Rolland, et al. (1994). Facilitating Fuzzy to Formal requirements modelling. The First International Conference on Requirements Engineering, Colorado Springs, Colorado, IEEE Computer Society Press. Castano, S. and V. De Antonellis (1994). â€Å"The F3 Reuse Environment for Requirements Engineering.† ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes 19(3): 62-65. Dillon, T. S. and P. L. Tan (1993). Object-Oriented Conceptual Modeling. Sydney, Prentice-Hall. Feather, M. S. (1989). Reuse in the context of a transformation-based methodology. Software Reusability: Concepts and Models. J. B. Ted and J. P. Alan. New York, New York, ACM Addison Wesley Publishing Company. 1: 337-359. Frakes, W. B. and C. J. Fox (1995). Sixteen questions about software reuse. Communications of the ACM. 38: 75-87,112. Frakes, W. B. and B. A. Nejmeh (1988). An information system for software reuse. Tutorial on Software Reuse: Emerging Technology. W. Tracz. Washington, D.C., IEEE Computer Society Press : 142-151. Freeman, P. (1983). Reusable software engineering: concepts and research directions. Tutorial on Software Design Techniques. F. Peter and I. W. Anthony. Los Angeles, California, IEEE Computer Society Press: 63-76. Fugini, M. G. and S. Faustle (1993). Retrieval of reusable components in a development information system. Advances in Software Reuse: Selected Papers from the Second International Workshop on Software Reusability, Lucca, Italy, IEEE Computer Society Press. Graham, I. (1994). Object Oriented Methods. Wokingham, England, Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. Greenspan, S., J. Mylopoulos, et al. (1994). On formal requirements modeling languages: RML revisited. 16th International Conference on Software Engineering, Sorrento, Italy, IEEE Computer Society Press. Guttag, J. V. and J. J. Horning (1993). Larch: Languages and Tools for Formal Specifications. New York, Springer-Verlag. Hall, P. and C. Boldyreff (1991). Software reuse. Software Engineers Reference Book. A. M. John. Oxford, U.K., Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd : 41/1-12. Hemmann, T. (1992). Reuse in Software and Knowledge Engineering, , , German National Research Center for Computer Science (GDM), Artificial Intelligence Research Division. Hsia, P., A. Davis, et al. (1993). Status Report: Requirements Engineering. IEEE Software : 75-79. Krueger, C. W. (1989). Models of Reuse in Software Engineering, CMU-CS-89-188, , School of Computer Science , Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

Essay on The Handmaids Tale as a Warning to Society -- Handmaids Tal

The Handmaid's Tale as a Warning to Society Margaret Atwood's renowned science fiction novel, The Handmaid's Tale, was written in 1986 during the rise of the opposition to the feminist movement. Atwood, a Native American, was a vigorous supporter of this movement. The battle that existed between both sides of the women's rights issue inspired her to write this work. Because it was not clear just what the end result of the feminist movement would be, the author begins at the outset to prod her reader to consider where the story will end. Her purpose in writing this serious satire is to warn women of what the female gender stands to lose if the feminist movement were to fail. Atwood envisions a society of extreme changes in governmental, social, and mental oppression to make her point. Early on it is evident that the authority of this society has been changed from a theocracy to a totalitarian government. The first sentence reveals that the current living quarters of the main character, Offred, are located in "what had once been the gymnasium" (3). The narrator recounts the past fifty years in this place from felt skirts of the fifties to the green spiked hair of the nineties. Then she turns to describe its transformation into what resembles an army barrack but is actually functioning as a kind of prisoner of war camp. In these few short sentences, Atwood has described the conditions of a place called Gilead, which is located in what used to be called the United States. In chapter four the author reveals that the current government is waging a war against the church. This is evidence that this society has shifted away from recognizing God as its supreme authority. The narrator then mentions that church song... ... the past, Offred continues to hope that her husband, Luke, is still alive. She reveals this as she observes the bodies hanging at the wall and comments that she feels relief because, "Luke wasn't a doctor. Isn't" (44). Not only does she defy the system be refusing to accept this society as the end of all things, but she also persists in hoping that she will someday awaken from this nightmare and things will be the way they used to be. The ending of the novel is intentionally lacking direction because the author wants the reader to ponder its ending. Were it not for the fact that we, the readers, know that Offred lives to tell her story, we would be left like the people of Gilead, without hope. However, Margaret Atwood's point is that just as naturally as a caterpillar weaves its cocoon to grow wings and fly free, so to must the wings of women be.

Twelth Night by Shakespeare

* Characters; I have a recommended choice from either, 1. Olivia, The countess of the countess's household. 2. Viola, A visitor of the Island Illyria, which will later be called Cesario. 3. Malvolio, The countess's steward. I am going to choose Viola. Because I believe that there is more information to write up on this character because of two sides's to write about one person. (So therefore, more to write about and less research!) How would you present your character in a film/theatre production? I would present my Twelfth Night play as a film, due to sound, lighting, and computer effects, and also because you can change the scenery in a matter of second's in a film where as you can only use 1 set in a theatre. Example; In act1 scene2 where the play mentions that the â€Å"Captain† and â€Å"Viola† are on the sea coast of Illyria with pieces of shipwreck all over the beach. After having a good old chat about where they are, it cuts short to act1 scene3 in Orsinos palace. In a theatre that would be hard to do (maybe impossible!) But in a film it would be easy. The only reason that I would go for a theatre approach is if I wanted it to be traditional. (Which I don't!) I would also base the costumes in Elizabethan times, because then the dialect would go with the clothing. My play would be based on a Mediterranean Island that all the people that live on the island talk a hint of Italian, but not the clown (feste) and visitors. Viola is on a ship with her brother (Sebastian) and crew on their way to a unknown destination, until, a large storm hits the vessel causing all members on board to abandon ship. Most of the crew survive but are unknown in the play; the Captain and Viola escape on the same life raft and get washed up on the shores of Illyria. This island is where the whole of the play takes place and where the countess and duke both live. The play begins; The play starts off at Orsio's palace (act1 scene1), with Orsino saying â€Å"if music be the food of love play on† (words follow) and goes to act 1 scene 2, which shows viola and the captain in a life boat all tired and disorientated, Viola â€Å"what country is this dear sir?† Captain â€Å"this place be Illyria, me lady† Viola â€Å"and what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. Perchance he is not drowned; what think you sir? Captain â€Å"It is perchance that you were saved, me lady† Viola â€Å"O my poor brother, he did not live to see the light of day†¦ And so perchance he maybe.† And so on so forth, they keep talking about how she has to become male to be a servant of the duke, so, the captain and her promise to not tell anyone that she's not a man. But the bit that I find funny is that she pretends to be a male by saying that she was castrated as a young lad and that her/his voice hadn't broke. (That was hard to explain!) Act 2 scene 1 Act 2 scene 1 tells you that Sebastian (viola's brother) is alive and well! But not only that but he's on the coast of Illyria as well. Act 2 scene 3 Act 2 scene 3 introduces you to feste the fool! (Clown) I find feste the most interesting character because not only is he more clever than most people on the island Example; Act1 scene5 line 53 Olivia â€Å"well, sir, for want to other idol ness, I'll bide your proof† Feste â€Å"Good Madonna, why morn'st thou?† Olivia â€Å"good fool, for my brothers death† Feste â€Å"I think his soul is in hell, Madonna† Olivia â€Å"I know his soul is in heaven, fool† Feste â€Å"the more fool you Madonna, to mourn your brothers soul being in heaven. Take away the fool gentlemen.† but he uses technical words to humiliate other people. Feste belongs to the duke to humiliate people and to please him e.g. jokes, dance, and sing songs. Example; O mistress mine, where are you coming? O stays and hears, for your true loves coming, That can sing for both high and low. Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting Every wise man son doth know.

English Language and English Proficiency Levels

Carrie Wertepny Domain 1: Culture (Cross-Cultural Communications) Standard 1: Culture as a Factor in ELLs’ Learning Why are having Domain's and Standards important to teachers? Domains and Standards play a huge part in giving teachers indicators on their children's performances. We as teachers need certain domains and standards on identifying and monitoring the children's performances throughout the classroom. Having standards allows us as teachers to indicate their levels of ability and performances to be met. Their are three levels of standards that can be measured on the children's ability how well they perform.The three types of standards that teachers use are Approaches Standards, Meet Standards and Exceeds Standards. (  2003. by teachers of English speakers of other languages, Inc, TESOL  ) In Culture (Cross-Cultural Communications) the first domain of five. This  is an important factor in ELLs to learn and understand the language knowledge from the diverse backgro unds. The most recent survey says in (2005-2006) the population of ELL's is up approximately  10 percent of the total public school enrolled and increasing every year. (Why TESOL? pg 5-6) Why TESOL?States, â€Å"Providing for the English Language learners is one of the school districts greatest challenges. † Their are many indicators we can use to help us engage in our children's diversity. Some ideas I found interesting to help would be, displaying artifacts from different cultures. Celebrating ethnic holidays throughout the year would be a great way to inform others and help the children feel comfortable. I believe that getting to know your students background and engaging in their life stories will help us succeed and be effective in their learning for ELL's and  their diverse background.Performance Indicators 1. 1. a. Understand and apply knowledge about cultural values and beliefs in the context of teaching and learning of ELLs, from diverse backgrounds and at varyin g English proficiency levels. 1. 1. b. Understand and apply knowledge of concepts of cultural competence, particularly knowledge about how cultural identities affect learning and academic progress for students from diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. 1. 1. c. Use a range of resources in learning about the cultural experiences of ELLs and their families to guide curriculum development and instruction. . 1. d. Understand and apply knowledge about the effects of racism, stereotyping, and discrimination in teaching and learning of ELLs from diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. 1. 1. e. Understand and apply knowledge about home/school connections to build partnerships with ELLs’ families (e. g. , Parent Leadership Councils (PLC)). 1. 1. f. Understand and apply knowledge about concepts related to the interrelationship between language and culture for students from diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels.Cour se| Indicator(s)| How I learned about this Standard| Evidence that I learned about this standard| TSL 4080| 1. 1| Why Tesol? Chapters 1-4| Victor video, You tube| TSL 4081| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Domain 3: Methods of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Standard 1: ESL/ESOL Research and History Teachers will demonstrate knowledge of history, public policy, research and current practices in the field of ESL/ESOL teaching and apply this knowledge to improve teaching and learning for ELLs. See attached paper) Performance Indicators 3. 1. a. Demonstrate knowledge of L2 teaching methods in their historical context. 3. 1. b. Demonstrate awareness of current research relevant to best practices in second language and literacy instruction. 3. 1. c. Demonstrate knowledge of the evolution of laws and policy in the ESL profession, including program models for ELL instruction. Course| Indicator(s)| How I learned about this Standard| Evidence that I learned about this sta ndard| TSL 4080| 3. 1| Why Tesol? School research paper and Reserch| TSL 4081| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hyperlinks to (attached documents must be saved in the Portfolio folder) Attachment(s): School research paper URL(s): Summary: See attached paper, for Domains 1,3,5 Domain 5: Assessment (ESOL Testing and Evaluation) Standard 1: Assessment Issues for ELLS Teachers will understand and apply knowledge of assessment issues as they affect the learning of ELLs from diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels.Examples include cultural and linguistic bias; testing in two languages; sociopolitical and psychological factors; special education testing and assessing giftedness; the importance of standards; the difference between formative and summative assessment; and the difference between language proficiency and other types of assessment (e. g. , standardized achievement tests). Teachers will also understand issues around accountability. This includes the implication s of standardized assessment as opposed to performance-based assessments, and issues of accommodations in formal testing situations.As teachers it is very important to understand and beware of the different testing and assessing the students. Testing and assessment are two very different things. Mitchell (1992) states that a test is a â€Å"single-occasion, one-dimensional, and timed exercise, usually in multiple choice or short-answer form. † (Why Tesol, pp 201)   Tests are given in the same time frame and the conditions never change. They call these standardized tests. Not all standardized tests work for everyone, especially English Language Learners (Ell)s . An assessment on a student is a done on a wider range of a scale.We as teachers need to get a more oral assessment on the knowledge, background, history, language where the (ELL)s came from. Upon entering a new school for the first time, us as teachers need to know everything about our student’s background and language. We ask every parent or guardian to fill out an Home Language Survey (HLS) which in tails about 3-5 questions about their language used at home. This (HLS) will give us an indication how much school the student has had and a background about their family as well as their native language.It is up to administrators to make sure the students are placed correctly and teachers to watch and document their language growth throughout the year. As for the testing and assessing, formal and informal are a type of assessment that is brought in to teach ESL students. It is important to test them on their linguistic skills, which include, phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary. These are just language assessments instruments that are used to determine the results on what is being taught by teachers. Formal measures are based on standardized test.They are very structured, timed and trained to be given and administered by very strict rules. It is sometimes very hard for and (ELL)s to take a formal test due to their reading,writing capabilities. As for informal measures, they are a little more hands on learning. As teachers we can do activities and determine students strengths orally and visually. Their is no set time and can be given in various languages not just English. It is very important the student is assessed correctly for the correct placement in his/her program.It is also very important to understand the federal laws that coincide with the equal educational opportunities for all students regardless of national origin, ethnicity,or languages. (Why TESOL? , 2010)   The consent decree was a law that was passed that consists of six different principals to be met in each section. Each (ELL)s student has to be assessed in six steps which include: identification, appropriate and categorical programming (LEP), personnel, monitoring and outcome measures. (Why TESOl? pp 210) After the (ELL)s are measured they now are placed in a certain level.Levels such as (A1- E) each of these levels indicate what (ESOL) service or basic program they will be placed into. Making sure the proper assessments are given before, during and after school is very crucial to ones learning. The very initial start of school is the most important evaluation and steps that need to be taken to follow the correct standards and laws for the English Language Learner. Performance Indicators 5. 1. a. Demonstrate an understanding of the purposes of assessment as they relate to ELLs of diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. 5. 1. b.Identify a variety of assessment procedures appropriate for ELLs of diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. 5. 1. c. Demonstrate an understanding of appropriate and valid language and literacy assessments for ELLs of diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. 5. 1. d. Demonstrate understanding of the advantages and limitations of assessments, including the array of accommodation s allowed for ELLs of diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. 5. 1. e. Distinguish among ELLs’ language differences, giftedness, and special education needs.Course| Indicator(s)| How I learned about this Standard| Evidence that I learned about this standard| TSL 4080| 5. 1| Why Tesol? Chapters 22-26| Power point/ You tube| TSL 4081| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Standard 2: Language Proficiency Assessment: Teachers will appropriately uses and interpret a variety of language proficiency assessment instruments to meet district, state, and federal guidelines, and to inform their instruction. Teachers will understand their uses for identification, placement, and demonstration of language growth of ELLs from diverse ackgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. Teachers will articulate the appropriateness of ELL assessments to stakeholders. Factors influencing the assessment of English Language Learners are very important to understand. Language fact ors and guidelines consist of: * Different linguistic backgrounds- * Varying levels of proficiency in English * Varying levels of proficiency in native language Educational Background Factors: * Varying degrees of formal schooling in native Language Cultural factors can also be a great source that adds complexity of appropriate assessing and (ELL)s student.T To plan the assessment, polls are taken by the general student population, which includes English Language Learners. Test taking is a way to getting a clear and valid interpretation of the students ability. Testing is done for all major purposes. They can be used to evaluate readiness for advancement, or for remediation. It is very important according to the laws that modifications must be made for ESOL students, based on the level and language skills of comprehension. It is very crucial that teachers don’t wait until the â€Å"know enough† to instruct the, in school content. Educational Testing Service, 2009, ETS, the ETS logo) It so happens that in many states, ESOL students who have been in the ESOL program for less than two years might be exempted from taking other testing. It is very important that the ESOL committee and school districts of that state evaluate all testing for ELL learners. (Why TESOL? p. 223-225) Domain 5: Assessment (ESOL Testing and Evaluation) Standard 2: Language Proficiency Assessment Teachers will appropriately use and interpret a variety of language proficiency assessment instruments to meet district, state, and federal guidelines, and to inform their instruction.Teachers will understand their uses for identification, placement, and demonstration of language growth of ELLs from diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. Teachers will articulate the appropriateness of ELL assessments to stakeholders. Performance Indicators 5. 2. a. Understand and implement district, state, and federal requirements for identification, reclassification, and exit o f ELLs from language support programs, including requirements of the LULAC Consent Decree. 5. 2. b. Identify and use a variety of assessment procedures for ELLs of diverse backgrounds and varying English proficiency levels. . 2. c. Use multiple sources of information to assess ELLs’ language and literacy skills and communicative competence. Course| Indicator(s)| How I learned about this Standard| Evidence that I learned about this standard| TSL 4080| 5. 2a5. 3b| Why TEOL? Chap 25| Online E-Learning Journel| TSL 4081| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Standard 3: Classroom-Based Assessment for ELLS Teachers will identify, develop, and use a variety of standards- and performance-based, formative and summative assessment tools and techniques to inform instruction and assess student learning.Teachers will understand their uses for identification, placement, and demonstration of language growth of ELLs from diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. Teachers will a rticulate the appropriateness of ELL assessments to stakeholders Colorin Colorado (2007) states â€Å"Informal assessments (also called authentic or alternative) allow teachers to track the ongoing progress of their students regularly and often. While standardized tests measure students at a particular point in the year, ongoing assessments provide continual snapshots of where students are throughout the school year.By using informal assessments, teachers can target students' specific problem areas, adapt instruction, and intervene earlier rather than later. † Adapted from: Eastern Stream Center on Resources and Training (ESCORT). (2003). Help! They don't speak English. Starter Kit for Primary Teachers. Oneonta, NY: State University College. It is important to identify and develop certain assessments in a classroom. We as teachers can use performance based assessments by evaluating the language proficiency and schooling through oral reports, speeches, demonstrations, written work and personal portfolios.Here some examples of assessment activities that are geared up for ELL students, for their English speaking proficiency. * Reading buddies * Story telling * Role playing * Visual prompts with writing * Oral note taking * Telling a story with picture books * Playing fun games * Brainstorming with buddies These are some of hundreds of ideas for teachers to develop assessments with different techniques and tools. Teachers can track their growth an ability for placement for the student. Domain 5: Assessment (ESOL Testing and Evaluation)Standard 3: Classroom-Based Assessment for ELLs Teachers will identify, develop, and use a variety of standards- and performance-based, formative and summative assessment tools and techniques to inform instruction and assess student learning. Teachers will understand their uses for identification, placement, and demonstration of language growth of ELLs from diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. Teacher s will articulate the appropriateness of ELL assessments to stakeholders.Performance Indicators 5. 3. a. Use performance-based assessment tools and tasks that measure ELLs’ progress in English language and literacy development. 5. 3. b. Understand and use criterion-referenced assessments appropriately with ELLs from diverse backgrounds and at varying English proficiency levels. 5. 3. c. Use various tools and techniques to assess content-area learning (e. g. , math, science, social studies) for ELLs at varying levels of English language and literacy development. 5. 3. d.Prepare ELLs to use self- and peer-assessment techniques, when appropriate. 5. 3. e. Assist ELLs in developing necessary test-taking skills. 5. 3. f. Assess ELLs’ language and literacy development in classroom settings using a variety of authentic assessments, e. g. , portfolios, checklists, and rubrics. Course| Indicator(s)| How I learned about this Standard| Evidence that I learned about this standard| TSL 4080| 5. 3a,5. 3c5. 3d| Why TESOL? | http://www. colorincolorado. org/educators/assessment/informal/| TSL 4081| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading

The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading The Difference Between Copyediting and Proofreading By Mark Nichol Many people confuse these two distinct editorial skills, but it’s important to recognize how they differ, and why. The most obvious distinction is the form the medium takes. Copyediting, once performed by making marks and writing revisions on a typewritten manuscript, is now generally carried out by entering changes in a word-processing program like Microsoft Word. Proofreading, by contrast, is done on a facsimile of the finished product a proof, hence the name. Proofreading is usually still completed on hard copy with a pen or pencil, but it’s sometimes accomplished by electronically marking up a PDF (a file created with Adobe’s Portable Document Format; that’s where the initials come from). But that’s just the beginning. The copy editor’s task is to finesse a writer’s prose so that it observes all the conventions of good writing. A writer may be skilled at explaining a procedure or verbally depicting a scene, but the copy editor is the one who makes sure the manuscript’s syntax is smooth, that the writing adheres to the conventions of grammar, and that wording is proper and precise and punctuation is appropriate and correctly placed. The copy editor may also do or suggest some reorganizing, recommend changes to chapter titles and subheadings, and call out lapses in logic or sequential slip-ups. This attention is especially important when the content editor the person who helps the writer shape their prose has minimal time (or skill) or is absent altogether. All the while, if the project is a book manuscript, an extensive report, or something else of significant length, the copy editor compiles a style sheet, a statement of overall editorial policy (serial comma, or no? numbers spelled out, or in numeral form?) and a record of idiosyncratic word usage. (Just how do you spell fuggedaboudit? According to the style sheet, just like that every time.) Many style sheets also list all proper nouns to make sure names are always spelled and capitalized consistently, though search functions and spell-checking programs have rendered that usage somewhat superfluous. The proofreader, by contrast, is assigned to check a reproduction of what the finished product will look like. And the task is not revision, but correction making sure that no typographical errors remain from the manuscript or were introduced in the production stage. New text, such as captions, for example, is often entered separately and may not have been edited. Alternatively, an element anything from a letter to a paragraph or more may have been inadvertently omitted or repeated, or misplaced. Because most text is copied and pasted directly from an electronic document, this mishap is unlikely but not unknown. Then there are esthetic issues: too many end-of-line hyphens in a row, or a word broken in half at the end of a column or page, or a widow (a very short final line of a paragraph at the top of a column). The proofreader is also the main beneficiary of the style sheet’s compilation. Hey, it’s fuggedaboutit on page 37, and fuggedaboudit on page 59. Which one’s correct? The second spelling, according to the style sheet. Proofreaders are also expected to check page numbers or recurring copy at the top or bottom of a page that identifies a section in a periodical or a chapter or book title. They make sure the font and type size and weight for one text element matches another element of that class. They double-check that photo captions match the content of the photographs or that when text refers to a table, a chart, or a figure, the graphic element consists of what the text says it does and they proof that element, too. Proofreaders may also catch grammatical errors or inconsistency of style, and they are often given some leeway to change or at least call out egregious errors, but they’re generally constrained by not being permitted to revise the text in any way that adds or subtracts the number of lines on a page, because doing so may adversely affect the graphic design. In summary, copyediting is a more qualitative skill and proofreading is more quantitative, though there’s quite a bit of overlap, and someone who does well at one often succeeds at the other as well. Proofreading usually pays less and is a pathway to copyediting, but many editors (myself included) do both. To save time or money or both, many print and online publishers alike have curtailed or abandoned either stage (or, worse, both stages) of the editing process and it’s almost invariably obvious. But there are still enough people out there who value rigorous attention to detail in written expression that the copyediting and proofreading professions aren’t going anywhere, and adept practitioners will remain in demand. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Freelance Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:70 Idioms with Heart5 Brainstorming Strategies for Writers20 Clipped Forms and Their Place (If Any) in Formal Writing

Approaches And Methods Of Training Management Essay

Approaches And Methods Of Training Management Essay Training is a systematic process to develop knowledge, skill and attitude from learning experience to achieve maximum performance in an activity (Buckley and Caple 2007). Learning and education both are different but important for organisations. Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge, skills and attitudes by experience, reflection, study and instruction. While education is a series of activities which enables to develop knowledge, skills, values and understanding that allow a broad range of problem solving and analysis (Buckley and Caple, 2007). Training plays an effective role in different kinds of learning and development. The rapid change in global environment pressurized all organisations to enhance their focus on customers. That time of producing, conceiving and marketing products dropped as organisations adopted new ways to compete in the market (Capelli et al, 1997 cited in Rod and Collin, 2000). The successful organisations should have highly skilled and committed em ployees who can survive in this era of competition. Workers learn to enhance their performance and want to be more competent in their roles. Work place learning is very important after education to develop a long career (Legge, 2005). Organisations can get competitive advantage upon rivals through hiring skilled staff and through better training programs. According to Brookes (1995) organisations have to support training department and the least step is to appoint a dedicated staff in personnel for this task. It is important to make a training policy for the company and allocate specific budget for training. This all points to the fact that training and development is a prime business activity which has serious objectives and requires serious management (Nilson, 2003). There are a number of benefits for individuals as a consequence of training procedures; relative to the present positions, individuals may see job satisfaction increase as a result of undergoing training (Clements and Jones, 2002). Intrinsic satisfaction may result from being able to perform a task to a higher standard, where as extrinsic satisfaction may come as a result of increased job skills, which may lead to greater earnings, career prospects and promotion possibilities (Buckley and Caple, 2007). An obvious benefit to individuals is the change from their regular work pattern, which can have recreational benefits as well, for example, less boredom and greater variety during work (Buckley and Caple, 2007). Some of the benefits of training, from an organisation’s perspective included higher employee performance, productivity and possibly acting as a source of competitive advantage. There a number of other potential benefits to organisations of successful training procedures; decrease in wastage and increased productivity; lower labour turnover, saving costs (Rae, 2000); higher customer satisfaction, possibly leading to greater sales; shorter learning cycles for employees, reducing expe nditure (Washington, 1995); lower absenteeism and fewer accidents (Buckley and Caple, 2007). The innovations in technology brought speedy change in business environment. Training plays a critical role for individuals at work to manage careers development and organisational change. Training and learning is a pivotal business function that maximise profit and the company’s long term health (Nilson, 2003, P.2). The implementation of training plan depends on a lot of factors including the proper identification of training need and individual’s recognition for training need (Reid et al, 2004). Proper learning and best utilization of resources equally effect on effective outcomes (Bramley, 1986).

COFFEE TRENDS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

COFFEE TRENDS - Essay Example Due to the high caffeine content and other chemical substances in coffee, it is believed that coffee is addictive, and in addition, health activists claim that to some extent it contributes to weight gain. Nevertheless, since its introduction, coffee has played an imperative role in human lives in various ways such as cultural, social, political, globalization, economical, and medicinal aspects. Coffee is popular in all occasions and is a customary gesture in many societies. For example, it is presented and consumed in many societies whereby it plays various roles with regard to a particular culture. For instance it acts as ethnic or religious representative of many groups, matrimonial or funeral essential commodity, irreplaceable element for individuals and professionals at all times. In addition, coffee is a symbol of hospitability, whereby social hospitable norms of many ethnic and religious groups require them to offer at least â€Å"a cup of coffee to their guests† as their standard etiquette (Topik 86). This is commonly seen in various religious societies, in which guests are often presented with a cup of coffee. For example, Muslims either in Ramadan or in their traditional weddings, keep coffee as a mandatory item for their guests. Similarly, Catholic, Jews and orthodox also keep this social beverage at important events such as funerals, marriage ceremonies, political and social meetings, and most importantly at professional work places (Croegaert 468). Throughout history, coffee houses have been social places for political and revolutionary movements across many nations. Companies such as Starbucks, Nestle, Proctor and gamble among others are popular for promoting a coffee culture where people can go relax in their coffee outlets and lounges, and consequently catch up or discuss political and social issues. Starbucks even went as far as providing Wi-Fi in their coffee lounges in Australia so that customers can