Nonfiction Project (Fear)

Fear is a complex subject. It is different to every person that you will speak to and each of these people will be afraid of something different. The project that Jillianne Hovland and I conducted, had a goal to discover and learn more about the secrets of fear and how fear effects people differently.

Together, we tackled the broad subject by learning about how stories effect different people. We interviewed Bob Gasch, who is a storyteller in our area, to learn about fear and surprise that he uses in his stories.  This is the interview that started our story; it gave us an excellent base to begin further research.

Continuing in the process of creating this project, we looked at different websites that focused solely on fear and how to understand it. What we took out of this is that there are two main types of fear but it all serves the same purpose; the purpose of the feeling of fear and its emotions is to keep us out of danger and harm.

The next step in forming our project was by far the most difficult. It required us to interview many different people on their fears and how they effect them physically, mentally, and emotionally. After each interview, a conclusion was drawn about fear. Every time we had an interview, the conclusion had very similar characteristics about their reactions to fear, but there were very many that had no resemblance of each other whatsoever.

Most people felt a pit or a drop in their stomach when their fear was brought into play. People who's fear was taken by surprise felt the fear a different way than those who put themselves into the situation. The surprised cases became nervous and developed a fear that has lasted for many years. People who were expecting the situation, described their feelings as a "huge adrenaline rush", and even an "adrenaline high". They liked what they were feeling.

I hope that when people listen to the podcast, they take out that fear is different to everybody. You cannot judge somebody because of what they are afraid of because everybody is afraid of something. I would also hope that people would be better informed of what they are feeling and how that it effects their body and their emotions.

During the creation of this project, I have not only learned more than I expected to, but I have discovered more things about different people. I now know why I like to watch a scary movie or go on a roller-coaster that may make me sick. This project forced me to pursue one topic and learn as much as I could about it. I accomplished what I wanted to discover about fear.

 

To Kill a Mockingbird #3

There is nothing that can prepare you for a sudden impact. There is nothing that can prep you for dying, and there is nothing that can prepare you for an answer that determines the rest of your life. In a court case, there are only two people that know the real truth; but that doesn't mean that these two people don't use this power to make the other person guilty. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson is convicted of raping Mayella Ewell. The court case that they endure have lasting impacts on how their life is bound to continue.

"[...] Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we are paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple." Miss Maudie replied in a conversation with Aunt Alexandra.

"Who?" responded Aunt Alexandra.

"The handful of people in this town who say a fair trial is for everyone [...] The handful of people with background, that's who they are."

Page 316 in To Kill a Mockingbird

Tom Robinson was an African American man on trial against a young white lady. Maycomb county is a very racist place; there are very few people that believe in equality. The people that do, knew how biased the trial actually was. On page 295, Atticus says "[...]In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins." This means that no matter how hard Atticus and Tom had tried to win the court case, no matter how little or much evidence was used, Tom Robinson would be guilty of the crime.

Tom Robinson tries to escape where he is sent after the trial. Atticus describes the incident on page 315 by saying "They shot him. He was running during their exercise period. They said he just broke into a blind raving charge at the fence and started climbing over." His family, friends, and all of the people of the community had never expected him to die. You cannot expect death, and because you can not expect it, it makes it very difficult to accept.

There is nothing that can prepare you to lose something that will put you to death. No matter how hard that he had tried to expect the outcome of the case, you still hope for the best. Rejection, is one of the hardest things that us humans can face in our lives. No matter how hard that we try to accept that something is missing from our lives, or that we will be taking our last breaths soon, we can't. We cannot face it.

 

To Kill a Mockingbird #2

The struggle for many people in the Jim Crow era was discrimination. If you were Caucasian, you faced the decision to support the African-American community or to jump on the bandwagon and treat the African-American community as a disease. On the flip-side, if you were African-American or of a different race, you either had to accept being treated like a disease or you could stand up for yourself. This is the story of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Atticus was a thorough man; he knew what he wanted and he didn't let anybody stand in his way. Atticus portrays a belief of equality on pages 182 and 183 by standing up for Calpurnia, his African-American nurse by saying "[...] I don't think that the children have suffered one bit from her having brought them up. If anything, she's been harder on them in some ways than a mother would have been... she's never let them get away with anything, she's never indulged them the way most color nurses do. She tried to bring them up according to her lights, and Cal's lights are pretty good-and another thing, the children love her."

Anybody who believes in equality, believes in social change. The Jim Crow time period, revolved around people who wanted changes in racism and the people who wanted others rights to remain the same. Discrimination had reached a new level. People were not only shunned singularly but they were shunned by associating with the "wrong" people. Scout, who is a school-age child, was discriminated against as well. In a conversation with Atticus on page 139 she says"[...] Most colored folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong." Scout faced many unexpected comments from different parts of the book when news got out that her father was supporting a African-American man in a legal case.

The social pyramid in this time went as so: the lowest level being the people of color, then the lowest Caucasian class, then the middle class, and finally the richest Caucasians made up the first class. Atticus, by supporting the African-American man in the court case, supported social change. This means that his views on the decades leading up to the current, were different than what the average person chose to believe. Your perspective on things develops overtime which greatly affects how you choose to believe or how you act.

This is similar to what is happening currently in our court systems; we are deciding whether we stick with the past or we move on to the future in marriage rights. Of course, this is not as large as the discrimination of different people in the Jim Crow era but there are two definite groups that are trying to make marriage the way that they want it to be. This is an example of social change; the group of people supporting same-sex marriage is trying to be able to own the right to marry and to have their opinions voiced.

To me, To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about voicing your opinion and standing behind what you think is right and in the grand scheme of things, that is what life is about. Life is about defining yourself because you want to be able to choose who you want to be. People want to be thought of beyond their social ranking, their education, or their race. People want to be thought of as themselves. To Kill a Mockingbird in my perspective is the story of Scout following behind in Atticus's footsteps by watching him stand up for what he believes is right and by learning how to choose what she wants in life so that she can achieve it.

To Kill a Mockingbird #1

Each day you are forced to make difficult decisions. You are forced to decide if you are going to stand up, or blend in. As children, you believe very much of what your parents also believe in. When somebody says something that goes against what you were raised to believe, your instincts set in. It is in that moment that you say something that you are going to regret. Maybe you don't regret it, and maybe it is then, that you make somebody think like they never thought before.

Jean is a young girl growing up in the 1930's in a small town in Alabama. She is not your average girl though; she has grown up with more relationships with other guys. Jean is not afraid to have a voice, or use vulgar language at that. She owns a gun, and is not afraid to adventure. But, her words and her thoughts occasionally get her into trouble.

On page 110 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Jean's cousin Francis began an argument on Christmas by saying "If Uncle Atticus lets you run around with stray dogs, that's his own business, like Grandma says, so it ain't your fault. I guess it ain't your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I'm here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family". Of course, like most people, Jean did not respond very ladylike. The first thing that she said was "Francis, what the hell do you mean?"(Page 110)

Later that evening while Jean's uncle Jack was cleaning her injured knuckles, she asked him what a whore-lady was. Jack responded without telling her what it really had meant and by covering it up with a story. These few comments, changed how her uncle Jack perceived children and his thoughts on marriage. Jean overheard a conversation that Uncle Jack was having with her father Atticus. It is then that Jack says that " Your daughter gave me my first lessons this afternoon. She said I didn't understand children much and told me why. She told me how I should've treated her-Oh dear, I'm so sorry I romped on her."(Page 115)

Jack reflected on the things that he had done. He recognized how in over his head he was when it came to dealing with children. It is incredible how the one small argument had affected so many people that Jean had been around. She stood up for what she believed in and made a major impact on many peoples lives because of it. I believe that the moral of this section in the story is that you can choose to stand out and impact other people or you can observe and not leave a footprint or change how other people believe.

Taxes For China (Claim, Evidence, and Warrant)

If the US government raised the taxes on the wealthiest Americans, there would be very little impact to our countries economy and economic growth. Taxes should not be raised because we will simply be bringing the poorest American citizens up to the middle class, and the wealthiest citizens back down. By raising the taxes, we will be limiting the number of people that can afford to by products produced in the United States. This would cause our country to continue in our recession because no jobs would be added.  These products would not be purchased because items that are produced in America more frequently have a much higher starting value than those produced in other parts of the world including China, India, and Japan

Since Walmart began to sell products from over seas, there have been 7 million manufacturing jobs lost in the United States. As Walmart continues its search for low prices, it will continue to put even more people out of jobs. By raising the taxes, we will only be supporting these large companies and the countries that manufacture their products. The manufacturing buildings that sell their products in national/global stores, are located in places in the world where they can get away with having cheap laborers, and have poor working conditions.

If our government follows through with their current plans to raise the taxes, our country will simply be lengthening the duration of our recession. It is a necessity to create more jobs in America. Raising our taxes is only going to create these jobs in other globally noted regions. It is important that we begin making our own American-made products which will create more jobs in our manufacturing sector. This will then help our overall economy because our government will not carry the burden of supporting the lower class. As this happens, our economy will see major economic growth. At one point, we will cease to experience major, never-ending recessions.

The American Dream is not currently achieved in society as it has in previous decades. People who came to the "New World", came for prosperity, independence, and a new beginning. They came to do better than their parents had. Our job force has slowly transferred from a time of manufacturing industries to the current reliance on government and service jobs. If you work in the manufacturing industries, as did our parents and grand parents, you will have a consistent salary. As our global populations increase, more products are needed. Many of the countries that we trade with, take advantage of the amount that we consume. The United States needs to capitalize on the fact that we consume more than any other country in the world. One way that we could create jobs for the people to follow in our footsteps, is by expanding our manufacturing sector to the level that they were in previous decades. By raising our taxes, we will only be increasing the number of people not accomplishing the American Dream.

Taxes for China (Satire)

The United States of America becomes further in debt every year. Because of the current economy, more and more people become homeless or turn to welfare for financial support. As our society becomes poorer and poorer, it is very important that we change the way that our country is being run. One way that we could do this, is by making an equal American. To do this, it would be essential to raise the taxes on the richest people in America.

Americans need the money to support other economies around the world by buying their cheap knockoff products, refined foods, and the drug trade.  Wal-Mart opened its doors as an all American brand; now, you could walk in and barely find anything, including produce, that was grown or made in the United States. Drug trade happens everywhere in the world and it puts food on the table for many families. In the United States, we spend billions upon billions of dollars trying to stop drug traffic and trade by creating laws. There is little to no effect of these laws based upon the fact that there has been very little change in the street prices of different drugs.

Because the United States is in major debt, by eliminating the large problems of educating, and protecting people from the problems of the world, our government would save billions of dollars. Our world wide economy would thrive because cheap labor will be necessary in new parts of the world that are yet to industrialize. As an effect of the industrialization of the world, we would also create more skilled jobs for scientific discoveries and inventions. This would start a brand new process that the world has yet to discover.

1. The more wealthy would be taxed more


2. Redistribution of wealth


3. The previously less wealthy have more money to spend


4. Drug trade, knockoff products, and refined products have and increase in sales


5. More jobs to produce the products/further industrialization


6. More scientists for more research, discoveries, and inventions

The suffering of Americas poorest, is not near of what the poorest children of China face every day of their lives. It is important that we buy the things that they are making inside of the factories. By supporting the larger companies over small businesses in the United States, we would be buying Chinese products that would help these children and their families. Another huge example of why we need to pay more taxes to the poor, is because having 5 bathrooms in your house, takes a big toll on the water systems of our country. By making the richer poorer, we would help our water systems and our electrical systems in our nation.

As you can see, it is necessary for a change in the way that the United States runs its taxing. By bringing the richer down and the poorer up, we would have more money to spend on global economies rather than the money spent in the heart of our country. The United States as a whole could produce more by itself, and it would lower the percentage of Americans out of work. Nation wide companies would have a greater income with the rising amount of money that the previously less wealthy could afford to spend. The United States of America is in great need of a change. Raising taxes on the wealthiest, is a great way to solve it.

 

Non-Fiction Project With Jilli Hovland

Why do you go to a scary movie? How can the fear that you feel, haunt you until you go to it and hear the whole story? Fear is an emotion that many storytellers bring in to make their stories more interesting. Why storytellers do this, and how they make people come back to this fear, is what Jilli and I will be uncovering in this project.

People go these movies for a statement. They come out of the movie almost peeing their pants but because they went, they feel a sense of accomplishment. Is this the reason why people watch or listen to these things? Do other peoples experiences of fear make yours seem smaller?

What's the science behind it? The brain works in weird ways. Many people get an adrenaline rush when they watch or listen to scary things, could this be the reasoning behind why storytellers and writers share their stories this way?

While researching this project, we'll look at the psychology of fear and how the brain reacts to these triggers along with interviewing many storytellers, and learning about other peoples experiences with fear. We will show our work in this project by making a podcast of our discoveries including the personal experiences of other people.

So what really does make people come back for more? Do people prolong this fear or do they search for it? What makes people like fear? Everybody has their own personal experiences with this odd emotion. Maybe their is no distinct, straight-forward answer, but we will find the answers to many things that make up this subject.