User:LajEvelyn/sandbox

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Chapters 1-6.
In "Fledgling" chapters 1-6, it introduces the character who just woke up abandoned in what appears to be a wood like area alone. At first I didn't know the gender of the character but then they revealed she was a female. She woke up starving and in pain. She had realized that she was naked and her body was covered with several bruises and she had very little to no vision, she thought she could've been blind. As she painfully struggled to wander, her hunger became stronger and she ended up killing an animal she smelled. When she woke up she had no knowledge of anything at all. She didn't know who she was, her age, where she lived, if she had family, what many things were, etc but as she began to wander she began to recall little things. She found an area that she realized was burned down, here she found clothes to wear but didn't find any people. She eventually came in contact with a human being name Wright who helped her, gave her a name and let her stay in his place. She bit him a little after meeting him and surprisingly he enjoyed it and let her do it several more times. They began to care for one another, she found 5 more people that was his neighbors and bit them for blood to, to get rid of her hunger. She wasn't human like but more of a vampire and she didn't know how or why. The remaining of the chapters she spends time trying to figure out herself more and find out if there's more people like her and where they are.

Chapters 7-15.
In this chapters a lot of things took place. Renee finds out that the person that's been creeping around the burned ruin is her dad, Iosif. She also finds out that her real name is Shori and she was very much affiliated with the area because it was where her mother and the rest of her family lived. She still hadn't remembered her past so Iosif tried to refresh her memory by telling her more about herself. She and Wright visited Iosif community where there was other Inas and their human symbionts. Wright wasn't to comfortable but he still supported her. After visiting her fathers place, learning a lot of the Ina culture and meeting her "brothers" her father thinks it would be a good idea for her to leave Wrights house and stay in his place. She didnt want to because she basically started a new life but she gave in anyways. While waiting at Wrights house to be escorted back to Iosif community, she becomes inpatient and tries to make her way there herself, when she finally got there her dads place looked the same as her moms, destroyed.

Chapters 16-21
In these chapters, Shori and the others started off trying to stay safe from the people that had destroyed her mothers and fathers property, killing them and all the people that lived on it. She killed a few intruders and captured one of them who was human, Victor. Her and the symbionts shot down and killed many of them except him, she used him for answers. They wanted to know why the people were killing her family and coming after her. She later found out it was because she wasn't full Ina but half human. The people who had sent him was t

Chapter 22 ( Epilogue]
In this chapter, the Council Proceeding took place. It was pretty short but Milo Silk opened up the council and basically state the significance of the Ina. He spoke about their uniqueness in a way that would kind of single out Shori. After opening up, Shori spoke by introducing herself and letting every one at the Council know exactly who she was and what shes been through from the very first moment she woke up in the cave. After she spoke Milo belittled her by not only calling her a child but insinuating that she may be in no state to speak for herself because she may still be suffering from some trauma due to her injuries. They began to go back and forth debating her well beings that they end up going on a break to calm down. When they get back Shori does what Brook, Wright, and Joel told her to do and used all the truth she knew instead of letting her temper get the best of her.

My Impression of Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler, born on June 22, 1947 was a African American science fiction writer who grew up in Pasadena, California. Octavia was the first black women to make her name for herself in the science fiction field of writing and one of the few black authors. Although she became very successful with her writing career, she faced a slightly struggling childhood which helped her with her writing. As a child Butler was very isolated and shy. She attended John Muir High School and believed that she was "ugly, socially hopeless, clumsy, and stupid" compared to other children. Many people had different perceptions of her, some thought she was "backwards" and some thought she was "so nice and quiet." Her dream was to become a writer but it wasn't easy for her. Being that she was black. She was doubted and told it wouldn't be possible. Her mother helped her a great deal because being that her mother was denied things such as, books being a black women she still was passionately in books and education and made sure she brought home whatever books she found for her in the trash. Octavia used the struggling of being a typical black women in the early 50-60's to write about science fiction and to illustrate the sacrifices of black Americans made to give their descendants a better life. She wrote novels and short stories. Her writings won her several awards, such as the Hugo and Nebula Awards and MacArthur to name a few. LajEvelyn (talk) 18:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Research Assignment #4
Questions

1) According to Evans, some of the important characteristics of Butler's female protagonist are difference, adaptability, change, and survival. Also the use of strategic amnesia and conception of power and difference in capacity to exercise social and personal responsibility.

2) Butler's notion of Human Contradiction is based on the hierarchy system putting to use of human intelligence. Because of the system and its ranking it forces people who are victims of the biology and the biological memory of instinct of hierarchy.

3)I think Butler portrayed the differences as a mean to positive when creating the character Shori and making her half human, half Ina. Although she was radically different from the others of her kind she still was more positive and kind then they were. She had better advantages of surviving because of her hybridity.

4) Ina represents the powerful and wealthy in our society because now a days in our society if you have money you have power. The Ina has the power of symbionts the same way many corporations have power over their employees.

5) As per Butler's Parable of the Talents, Partnership is a means to control hierarchical behavior because a hierarchy is know to have a social order where the one above is usually better than the ones below them. With there being a partnership it limits the chain of command and oppression being done to the lower class members. As Stated, with partnership their is a learning, teaching, giving, taking thing happening between classes offering the greatest possible benefits, doing the least amount of harm.

6) Shori is an outsider like Butler because the color of her skin. Shori being a black girl would compare to Butlers being a black women as well. They both have experiences where they're haunted by their culture, Shori having memory loss but knowing that her family was killed off because of family background and Butler growing up in a segregation environment. Shori had to go along with her life seeing her status in the Ina world from a different perspective the same way Butler did with her genre of writing.

7) I think that Ina-human "mutualisticsymbiosis isn't a relationship equal but more of a beneficial help on both sides, Ina and human. Its an effective. social urge because they both can provide something to each other that they don't have. They dont harm one another and its almost like the Ina is the one teaching them.

8) Shori's brown skin point to Ina vulnerability and inferiority to human beings because her hybridity is what stands out.They're intimidated by her melanin skin because it draws attention to their equation of their biological position of being the inferior. Human race meant nothing to the Ina and neither did the Human racism until they knew about the existence of Shori who was genetically altered.

9)Its important that the powerful submit themselves to the code of ethics because it can cause a biological motivation that strengthens the way of survival.

10) Butler's use of " strategic amnesia" allowed the character Shori to get through her traumatizing experiences because of her memory loss. Being that she had memory loss the remembrance of everything that happened to her and her family didn't affect her as much as it would have if she remembered. Her amnesia allowed her to cope better and move forward with her life. Although she knows what shes been through because she was told she has to go on with her life because she don't recall it happening.

Fledgling review
Ron Charles review on Octavia Butler's points out the differences between the " normal" vampire stories oppose to the Ina relationships with their " victims". He emphasizes on the hybrid creation Shori represents in a society where her strengths are a threat to previous generations. Racism and sexual relationships are also topics of great controversy. He also acknowledges that relationships between regular vampires and the vampires in Fledgling are very distinct. The relationships are mutually beneficial.

03/6, Entry #1
Today in class I learned a lot about Wikipedia. I used it before for researching but I learned more about what its about and how it works. It was a great learning experience creating my own Wikipedia page and learning how to edit my Citations and write my own entries. After what I learned today, I am interested and intrigued in learning more and applying it to my future work in the class. --LajEvelyn (talk) 21:17, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

03/13, Entry #2
In this class, we worked together as groups to incorporate all that we've read from the assignments we were given in class on March 6th for homework. We were all given different articles for homework and were given a legit biography of Octavia Butler's from Wikipedia in class. This article had very little informative information on Octavia's life and we had to add more. All of our articles were different so it helped us gather a lot of different facts on her life. In the Wiki article there were so many elements of her life that were neglected and ignored. Such as mentioning her life in her twenties,"the lack of encouragement she received wanting to pursue a writing career being a black women, the fact she lived in segregation not just a “ racially mixed neighborhood, and the reason for her insecurities." Working as a group and creating ways to strengthen her Wiki article was useful because we learned how to add to the Octavia Butler's actual biography on her Wikipedia page with our signatures below. LajEvelyn (talk) 23:55, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

03/20, Entry #3
In class today, it wasn't much different from last weeks class. Today we were given articles on Octavia Butler and had to work together again. As a class we read samples of other people leads on Octavia and compared them. After discussing that we went into our groups using all articles we were giving to find things we can add to her Careers/Themes of social criticism section on her Wikipedia page. We seen that her " Themes of social criticism only focused on one theme, afrofuturism when her writing was way more than that so we added more. Also, I didn't know understand how to talk to others using the talk page but I got help in class and was able to do it. LajEvelyn (talk) 23:55, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

03/27, Entry #4
Class today was pretty interesting. First, as a class we read then discussed how we can combine data from more than one source into one paragraph or summary. Then we were put into groups and were giving different themes on Octavia Butler's writing to choose from and they each had quotes to correspond with what it was saying. Our job, which is still unfinished right now was to do just that. Use the quotes we were giving to stretch it out in our own words, paraphrasing. I like this assignment because not only is it a little different from what we've been doing it's teaching us how to bring a lot of information together from different places.

04/17, Entry #5
Today in class we started where we left off and divided the work we worked on last class. We read and added more to our sections. I've learned more about her background and how it is affiliated in the way she writes. She incorporates how she lived and the circumstances she faces to the characters in her story Fledgling.

05/8, Entry #8
In Class today, we were told to work with a group or partner to work on the start of Research assignment #5. My partner and I had to read an article on " Evans, Shari. From “Hierarchical Behavior” to Strategic Amnesia: Structures of Memory and Forgetting in Octavia Butler’s Fledgling". We had to find the main ideas, themes, and answer the questions we were given. It wasn't a hard task and I learn something new about Octavia Butler's way of writing and the way she incorporated the use of " Strategic amnesia" to control the biological urge that creates dominance hierarchies. I think that was really a smart way to go about the trauma that the character Shori experienced. After answering the questions together we had to present our answers in front of the class. After that w were split into different groups to work on assignment #6. We had to read another article and summarize it by deciding whether or not the author of that article liked or disliked Butler's Fledgling.

05/15, Entry #9
In class today, we had the guest speak Dr.Joy Sanchez speak and discuss with us our thoughts and knowledge about the book Fledgling. We then were put into groups to work on the topic sentence we were going to use for the discussion we had. The topic sentence helped us when breaking off into the groups of our choices. My team and I were responsible for the Characters, Agency, and Hybridity section of the Fledgling article. It was helpful because we divided out jobs for writing each section and it worked smoothly because we all incorporated our ideas/thoughts.

05/29, Entry #11
In class today we work in groups to edit the work that we've had done on the Characters of Fledgling. We took a break and continued working on the section hybridity and Agency. We worked in groups the entire class to make sure our work was edited correctly for entering it to Wikipedia. I learned that you can always edit something to make it better, whether its just editing a few things or rewording the whole thing in a better way.

06/05, Entry #12
Today in class we did final touches to the sections we were assigned to. Also we did a further reading assignment, responded to comments personally and gave out Wiki-love. After we did the further reading assignments we all voted as a class on which quotes we feel should be posted onto the sections, Fledgling.

Citation Practice
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Birth of a Writer