Category: Writing

K’NAAN Between the Highs and the Lows, Life Happens (2010) Singer-songwriter K’naan was born Keinan Abdi Warsame in Somalia in 1978 and grew up in Mogadishu. His interest in music and hip hop began early; his aunt, Magool, was one of Somalia’s most famous singers, his grandfather was a poet, and his father, who was working in New York City, sent his son American rap albums, which K’naan learned to copy phonetically, even though he didn’t yet know the language. When civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991, K’naan and his fam- ily fled Mogadishu, living briefly in New York before settling in the Rexdale neighbourhood of Toronto. K’naan was soon writing poetry in English and posting it on Somali websites; he also dropped out of high school and was arrested numerous times. He kept writing, though, and eventually began to travel extensively; in 1999, when invited to address the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, he performed a spoken-word piece criticizing the UN’s response to the crisis in Somalia and was given a standing ovation. This led to his introduction to Youssou N’Dour, a Senegalese musician, who invited K’naan to record with him. K’naan’s first full-length album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, won the 2006 Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year. His next album, Troubadour, released in 2009, garnered three Juno nominations and was shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Music Prize. His song “Wavin’ Flag” was a worldwide hit; it was remixed as the promotional anthem for the FIFA World Cup in 2010 and rerecorded by Canadian artists to raise money for earthquake victims in Haiti, K’naan won the Juno for Artist of the Year in 2010 and continues to record and tour internationally. Preparing to Read In this essay that originally appeared in The Globe and Mail, K’naan explains how he became an artist and where the inspiration for his music comes from. Before reading, think about what you know of K’naan’s music. How would you characterize the genre and the general tone of his songs? Where have you heard his songs? How well known is he as an artist? What has made his music popular?
Narration 103 It was not my dream to be an artist. How could it have been? I thought artist, much like a leader, 2 as something you either were or weren’t. Never something you set out to be. And as a boy in plainly encapsulated the win Mo adishu Somalia, although art to be was an optometrist . world as I knew it, what I really wanted But there weren’t any doctors in my family. My father, they 3 explained, was a civil servant of sorts, who then moved to New York for reasons all the poets in my life would fail to articue late. My mother was, by nature, a poet, but above all the distract tion of talent, she was a mother. Her father was loved by all, a poet whose nickname was Ahyaa Wadani, meaning something like “The Passion of the Country” or, “the Soul of the Country” or, “The jewel …” (Translating the Somali language into English is like squeezing an oversized person into a fitted shirt-always needs some stretching to make it work.) One day when I was about seven, my mother took me along for my grandmother’s appointment with an eye doctor. Her eye- sight, much like the prospects of the country, had been slowly dimming. I remember clearly the glory of his entrance to the waiting 5 room where we sat. A white overcoat, a pen hugged by the car- tilage of his ear, poking through what used to be a proud army of hair, now retreating. Everything about him suggested some incorruptible dignity. I’ve always wondered if he looked as impressive to my mother as he did to me. I wanted to be him. He searched for fugitives with the light thing into grandma’s 6 prisoner eyes for a while, like tolerable interrogation. Then with a great big sigh meant to prove his empathetic efforts, the sound of finality from someone who’d seen it all, he said, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do, it’s just old age.” I remember how overcome I was with disbelief. I thought, 7 if I was he, a doctor entrusted with that overcoat, I would fix grandma’s eyes. Suddenly I went from wanting to be him, to having to be him. Reading Critically Where is Mogadishu, Somalia? What does K’naan mean when he says that the prospects of the country were dimming?
104 Chapter 2 I realize now that music in my life came in a similar fashion: much more of a need than a want-an antidote to a poison rather than a recreational drug. I was a teenager in Toronto when it first hit me. The intol- erable fear of insanity. You see, as Somalis, the fine art of psy- choanalysis is not something we’ve learned to appreciate. You’re either a crazy person or you’re not. And since I didn’t really know any Canadians, there was no one to explain to me the sud- den flood of anxiety attacks, depression and insomnia. It’s fitting, I thought. I’ve escaped a war with minor inju- 10 ries, adopted a new country where even laziness could be trans- formed into an opportunity for success, and I thought I would get away clean? Of course there had to be some tragic balance to this overbearing fortune. God, I thought, did I really have to choose between peace and sanity. I remember having these thoughts alone in a living room, pacing up and down, opening and closing windows in a frenzy, but one mid-afternoon when I ended up in a bathtub still half dressed, I decided that I should tell someone. Mom said that the answer was in the Koran.My answer 11 to her was, didn’t the Koran say to seek help from profession- als? And so we did. Doctor after doctor, blood test after blood test, and they would all conclude that I was fine, almost blush- ing about how perfectly healthy I was. It went on this way for a while, but the unsummoned tears continued, the voices in my head were getting more opinionated than my own voice. So I ful to live with. made excuses to hide from it. It was all beginning to be too pain- At this point I was already fancying myself as someone with 12 some musical talent. I could often find a little poetry in me if I needed to. Kids in the neighbourhood thought I could rap and if, on a good day, I went to the mall with friends, I would spend all my time inside Radio Shack playing their little keyboards until they kicked me out for not buying. My first songs were written in this condition. One song, called 13 Voices In My Head, I remember writing during a particularly Reading Critically Koran? What causes K’naan to end up “in a bathtub still half dressed”? . What is the Koran? Why does K’naan’s mother say that the answer is in the
Narration 105 forturous anxiety attack. I had gotten the news of a Somali boy who was a friend in Toronto, leaping to his death from the 20-something floor of an old an old high-rise we once lived in. Another song, a kind of a happy one actually, In The Beginning, 14 was written and recorded on my way to check into the emergency mom. A minor stop to a major event, I thought. In reality, all my life was in the minor key, but it was out of defiance that I wrote it all on major. And where am I now? I suppose they’re right to say that I’m 15 flying high. I was recently honoured with two Juno awards for these songs of desperation. And at the moment, I’m writing this on a plane from China 16 where I had just performed at the World Expo. But once again, it seems that the great balancing act is in motion. Somalia is worse now than it was when I left at age 13. And while my career has some mentionable highs, my romantic life is adorned with the quiet lows. So I suppose this all means more songs. I didn’t turn out to be an optometrist. But I do hope that in 17 some way, my music opens an eye or two, to a great continent of both immeasurable beauty and struggle. And to my own life, written as a country disguised as a person. UNDERSTANDING DETAILS 1. What did K’naan want to be? Why? 2. Why did K’naan end up becoming an artist? 3. According to K’naan, in what ways does the perception of mental health issues differ between Canada and Somalia? ANALYZING MEANING 1. What is K’naan’s thesis? Has he successfully supported his thesis through his essay? Explain why or why not. 2. Overall, how satisfied is K’naan with his life? Does he come across as an optimist or as a pessimist? 3. What is the source of K’naan’s musical creativity? Why does he refer to “songs of desperation” (paragraph 15)? Reading Critically . What is the difference between a major and a minor key? What emotions are typically associated with each? . What are Juno awards? For what did K’naan win these awards?
from this essay attached above, I need to answer the following questions
1 Find an example of a coordinating sentence. Give the page number where it is located, and write the sentence. Identify the core parts of the sentence (subject and verb) and the conjunction. Explain what makes it a coordinating sentence, referring specifically to how it is constructed.
2 Repeat the steps in question 8 for a subordinate sentence.

The way we think about biological sex is wrong By Emily Quinn TED Women 2018:  https://www.ted.com/talks/emily_quinn_the_way_we_think_about_biological_sex_is_wrong
After you watch the video, please answer the following questions
in not less than (100) words each:
?      1. Which part of the speech strikes you most?(Please cite 5 lines of the speech in a ” ” form, then explain why that lines strikes you most)
?      2. Why is it striking to you?
?      3. What did you realize from the about biological sex based from the speech?
?      4. Do you agree or disagree with the speaker’s thought? Why?
NOTE: NO PLAGI.ARISM. ANSWER SHOULD BE DISCUSSED BRIEFLY AND COHERENTLY. IT SHOULD BE ORIGINAL AND MUST BE WRITTEN IN YO.UR O.WN WO.RDS. THANK YOU!

If you paused during a lesson and asked the question, “What are some of the factors that cause changing water levels in a lake or river?” Which type of understanding are you checking?
Question 2 options:
Analysis
Application
Comprehension
Evaluation
None of the above

MC) Read the following sentence and answer the question: Superheroes can often fly which seems like a fun power but they don’t all fly the same way. Which of the following is a correction for the punctuation in this sentence? (3 points) a Superheroes can often fly which seems like a fun power (but they don’t all fly the same way). b Superheroes can often fly which seems like a fun power; but they don’t all fly the same way. c Superheroes can often fly (which seems like) a fun power, but they don’t all fly the same way. d Superheroes can often fly, which seems like a fun power, but they don’t all fly the same way.

Are We Losing Our Connection to Nature?
James Campbell
From the Los Angeles Times. Op-Ed, July 29, 2016. Reprinted with permission from James Campbell.
The amount of time that Americans spend outdoors has fallen surprisingly since the 1980s. In this opinion piece from the Los Angeles Times, James Campbell draws on factual evidence and his wilderness experience as he looks at this major shift in our relationship to nature. He is the author of Braving It: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey into the Alaskan Wild and The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska’s Wilderness.
1. The childhood I had wandering through the woods and fields near my home unsupervised from morning until dark today seems like a lost world. Many children now spend less than 30 minutes per week playing outside.
2. It’s not just kids and their preoccupation with iPads and video games, or busy streets and “stranger danger” that is fueling the disinclination to get outdoors. It’s a widespread phenomenon. Grown-ups fare little better. Statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency suggest that adults, too, spend 93% of their lives inside buildings or vehicles, living under what nature writer Richard Louv calls “protective house arrest.”
3. Are we as Americans actually losing our connection to the outdoors? Conservation ecologist Patricia Zaradic of the Environmental Leadership Program and conservation biologist Oliver Pergams of the University of Illinois at Chicago have documented a disturbing trend of declining per-capita visits to national parks and forests, drops in hunting and fishing licenses, and other sliding indicators of nature recreation since the late 1980s. They see at work a fundamental cultural shift away from nature.
4. Other researchers and environmental psychologists think these trends are, in some cases, even rising to the level of an unreasonable phobia. A growing number of Americans, they say, are suffering from “biophobia,” a “prejudice against nature,” or what the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders categorizes as “natural environment phobia.”
5. Biophobia research traditionally focused on specific categories of fears—such as darkness, heights or animals, especially snakes and spiders. Recently, however, researchers whose findings were published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology discovered that modern-day fears of the natural world have no such locus. In children especially, anxiety can be evoked by the most unexceptional circumstances: a flock of noisy birds or a strong wind.
6. Ashley Inslee, a biologist at Bosque del Apache Refuge in New Mexico, has observed this firsthand. “We’re seeing more kids sheltered and afraid,” she said in an interview. “Even college kids interested in conservation haven’t been out hunting, fishing, hiking.”
7. Humans are “biologically prepared” through natural selection to be fearful of objects and situations that can threaten our survival. And those certainly do exist in the wild. Two summers ago, when my daughter and I backpacked over Alaska’s Brooks Range and canoed out to the Arctic Ocean, we were scared sometimes. In 20 million acres of wilderness, far from anything resembling help, we encountered grizzlies and one bold polar bear, Class III+ rapids, and the kind of weather that, if one is not prepared, can kill. But those fears had real and concrete causes. This spreading indiscriminateaversion to nature in general is something new….
8. How did we get to the point where reasonable fears—say about a mountain lion seen near a running trail—blow up into generalized phobias about nature? How did parents who freely wandered outside become so anxious about their kids doing the same? Surely, we as parents are complicit in our kids’ giving the wonder of the outdoors the cold shoulder.
9. One of the great American conservationists, Aldo Leopold, knew something about getting his children outside. The Leopolds kept a “shack,” a rebuilt chicken coop, on land along the Wisconsin River. I recently took a guided tour of Leopold’s simple shack and noted that this was a location for family getaways. It’s one of the things that distinguished him from the solitary Henry David Thoreau. Leopold and his wife, Estella, and their five kids fished, hunted, explored, tended a garden, cut firewood, restored native prairie and planted trees—together. Leopold and Estella certainly had never heard of natural environment phobia, but they did notice that when their children returned from their outings, they were physically and emotionally renewed by their contact with the outside world. They were happier.
10. A growing body of evidence corroborates the Leopolds’ observation that daily “green exercise” can produce rapid improvements in mental well-being and self-esteem; boost problem-solving skills, cooperation, focus and self-discipline; and reduce aggression.
11. In our family, my wife and I have witnessed the benefits of nature firsthand. We’ve tried to make the outdoors central to our daughters’ lives. It wasn’t always easy. Often, especially when they were young, they’d grumble about going for a hike. But when we returned home, they had a bounce in their step. The combination of fresh air and the sense of accomplishment had performed its mood-enhancing magic.
12. Perhaps more parents should take a lesson from the Leopolds. Though most of us do not have our own riverfront land, we can find a nearby park or a trail. Getting outside and breaking the stranglehold of electronics—on ourselves as much as our kids—requires a concerted effort. And yet it’s worth it to make room for nature in our lives, especially as parents. By spending time in nature with our children, we teach them that we value two things: being with them and the natural world.
Part 1:                                                          (5 marks)
True or False     (Circle the appropriate answer)
1. The amount of time Americans spend indoors has surprisingly fallen since the 1980s.                                                                                    T/F
2. Are we as Americans actually losing our connection to the indoors?
T/F
3. But those fears had real and concrete causes.                                  T/F
4. But when we returned home, they had a bounce in their step.          T/F
5. And those certainly do exist in the wild.                                             T/F
Part 2:
Multiple choice.                    ��                            (3 marks)
1.
a) Many children now spend more than 30 minutes per week playing outside.
b) Many children now spend less than 30 minutes per week playing inside.
c) Many children now spend less than 30 minutes per week playing outside.
d) A few children now spend less than 30 minutes per week playing outside.
2.
a) They see at work a fundamental cultural shift away from nature.
b) They don’t see at work a fundamental cultural shift away from nature.
c) They see at home a fundamental cultural shift away from nature.
d) They see at work a fundamental natural shift away from nature.
3.
a) We haven’t tried to make the outdoors central to our daughters’ lives.
b) We’ve tried to make the indoors central to our daughters’ lives.
c) We’ve tried to make the outdoors central to our sons’ lives.
d) We’ve tried to make the outdoors central to our daughters’ lives. Correct
Part 3:
Answer the following questions in complete sentences. Use your own words. Use an introductory phrase to begin your answer. Do not copy sentences or phrases directly from the reading.
(5 marks each)
1.  What is “biophobia,” and how is it affecting a growing number of Americans?                                                                 (3-4 sentences)
­­­­­____________________________________________________________
2. Explain how Humans are “biologically prepared” through natural selection to be fearful of objects and situations that can threaten their survival?                                                                              (3-4 sentences)
____________________________________________________________
3. What is the main idea of the reading?                        (3-4 sentences)
____________________________________________________________
Part 4:
A. Please study the following sentences.  Underline the complete subjects with one line.  Underline the complete verb with two lines.                                                                     (2 marks for each sentence)
?      They see at work a fundamental cultural shift away from nature.
?      It’s a widespread phenomenon.
3. It wasn’t always easy.
B. Please write compound sentences by using the following independent clauses and conjunctions. Pay attention to punctuation. You can switch the clauses or conjunctions around where applicable.
(2 marks for each correct compound sentence)
1. She goes to the tennis club———– she likes to play tennis. (Because/ So)
2. She sent back the meal———- she noticed it was cold. (For/ As)
3. I spent all my savings——– I can’t go to France this winter. (So/ As)
Part 5:
(Paraphrasing Exercise)
Paraphrase the following sentences in your own words. Do not change the meaning of the sentences, but make sure to use different vocabulary.  You may also wish to change the sentence structures used.                                                                                    (5 marks each)
1. The childhood I had wandering through the woods and fields near my home unsupervised from morning until dark today seems like a lost world. Many children now spend less than 30 minutes per week playing outside.
____________________________________________________________
2. A growing body of evidence corroborates the Leopolds’ observation that daily “green exercise” can produce rapid improvements in mental well-being and self-esteem; boost problem-solving skills, cooperation, focus and self-discipline; and reduce aggression.
____________________________________________________________
Part 6:                                                                                       (20 Marks)
Refresh all the notes for Effective Paragraph Writing, and select one of the topics given below. Your response to the chosen topic should be 18-20 sentences.
Topic 1
The author says “green exercise” has many positive effects on our attitudes and behaviour. Why, then, do people resist it?
OR
Topic 2
What is biophobia in the context of this article?
Going outdoors and breaking the “stranglehold of electronics” requires effort. What does the author mean by the stranglehold of electronics?

Issue or Topic: (Note that the issue or topic to be worked on should be a pressing concern in your field of specialization towards a solution that you may offer as a student. Example: Bullying in the Education Field and Managing Health Care Wastes in the Nursing Field.) Research Question based on the Topic: (May consider having only one (1) research question stated in a way that presents two opposing viewpoints.) List of Sources: (Scout possible sources for the data to be used in the essay, may consider exploring Google Scholar for research support. Meanwhile, the following are NOT considered: any religious reference, work of literature, dictionary, personal blogs or diary entries, and Wikipedia.

Beowulf: Reading Assignment 1 Answer the questions that follow in the lesson based on what you have read.
What is the setting of “Beowulf?”
How many years passed between the events of the actual story of “Beowulf” and the time it was probably first written?
In which language was the story first written?
What causes Grendel to attack the Danes?
Describe Grendel’s first attack.
How long did Grendel plague the Danes before Beowulf came?
What evidence do we have of a mixture of pagan and Christian beliefs in the story? Provide an example or two.
How does Beowulf find out about Grendel? Knowing what was important to the Anglo-Saxon people, why do you think Beowulf wanted to fight for Grendel?

Read an excerpt from Porcelain and Pink.  Pay particular attention to the stage directions.
Ina Dan I’m going to in a mays iout Silly game. JULIE: /Wormips No. it isn’t. It’s good for the nerves. I’ll bet you’re forgenen how to play it LOIS (Defiantly) No. I haven’t You- you get the tub all full of soapsuds and then you get up on the edge arul slide down. JULIE: (Shaking her head scorn/why/ Huh! That’s only part of it. You’ve got to win down without touching your hand or feet- LOIS: Amporiently) Oh, Lord! What do I care? I wish we’d either uop coming here in the summer or else get a house with two bath tubs. JULIE: You can buy yourself a little tin one, of use the howe- LOIS: Oh, shut up! JULIE: (irrelevantly) Leave the towel. LOIS: What? JULIE: Leave the towel when you go. LOIS: This towel? JULIE: (Sweetly) Yes, I forgot my towel. LOIS: (Looking around for the first time) Why, you idiot! You haven’t even a kimono. JULIE: (Also looking around) Why, so I haven’t. LOIS: (Suspicion growing on her) How did you get here? JULIE: (Laughing) I guess I-I guess I whisked here. You know-a white form whisking down th Enter
LOIS: (Scandalized) Why you little wretch. Haven’t you any pride or well-respect? MLM: Lots of both. I think that proves It. I looked very well. I really am rather cute in my natural state. LOIS: Well, you- JULIE: (Thinking ofoud) I wish people didn’t wear any clothes. I guess I ought to have been a pagan or a native or something. LOIS: You’re a- JULIE: I dreamt last night that one Sunday in church a small boy brought in a magnet that attracted cloth. He attracted the clothes right off of everybody; put them in an awful state; people were crying and shrieking and carrying on as if they’d just discovered their skins for the first time. Only I didn’t care. So I just laughed. I had to pass the collection plate because nobody else would. LOIS: (Who has turned a deaf ear to this speech) Do you mean to tell me that if I hadn’t come you’d have run back to your room-un-unclothed? JULIE: Au naturel is so much nicer.
What stage direction best shows Lois’s frustration with Julie?
A.  (scandalized)
B.  (thinking aloud)
C.  (impatiently)
D.  (sarcastically)

Read the short story. Then respond to the essay question that follows. “Androclus and the Lion” by James Baldwin In Rome there was once a poor slave whose name was Androclus. His master was a cruel man, and so unkind to him that at last Androclus ran away. He hid himself in a wild wood for many days; but there was no food to be found, and he grew so weak and sick that he thought he should die. So, one day he crept into a cave and lay down, and soon he was fast asleep. After a while a great noise woke him up. A lion had come into the cave and was roaring loudly. Androclus was very much afraid, for he felt sure that the beast would kill him. Soon, however, he saw that the lion was not angry, but that he limped as though his foot hurt him. Then Androclus grew so bold that he took hold of the lion’s lame paw to see what was the matter. The lion stood quite still and rubbed his head against the man’s shoulder. He seemed to say,- “I know that you will help me.” Androclus lifted the paw from the ground, and saw that it was a long, sharp thorn which hurt the lion so much. He took the end of the thom in his fingers; then he gave a strong, quick pull, and out it came. The lion was full of joy. He jumped about like a dog and licked the hands and feet of his new friend. Androclus was not at all afraid after this; and when night came, he and the lion lay down and slept side by side. For a long time, the lion brought food to Androclus every day; and the two became such good friends, that Androclus found his new life a very happy one. One day some soldiers who were passing through the wood found Androclus in the cave. They knew who he was, and so took him back to Rome. It was the law at that time that every slave who ran away from his master should be made to fight a hungry lion. So, a fierce lion was shut up for a while without food, and a time was set for the fight. When the day came, thousands of people crowded to see the sport. They went to such places at that time very much as people now-a-days go to see a circus show or a game of baseball. The door opened, and poor Androclus was brought in. He was almost dead with fear, for the roars of the lion could already be heard. He looked up and saw that there was no pity in the thousands of faces around him. Then the hungry lion rushed in. With a single bound he reached the poor slave. Androclus gave a great cry, not of fear, but of gladness. It was his old friend, the lion of the cave. The people, who had expected to see the man killed by the lion, were filled with wonder. They saw Androclus put his arms around the lion’s neck; they saw the lion lie down at his feet and lick them lovingly; they saw the great beast rub his head against the slave’s face as though he wanted to be petted. They could not understand what it all meant. After a while they asked Androclus to tell them about it. So, he stood up before them, and, with his arm around the lion’s neck, told how he and the beast had lived together in the cave. “I am a man, ” he said, “but no man has ever befriended me. This poor lion alone has been kind to me; and we love each other as brothers.” The people were not so bad that they could be cruel to the poor slave now. “Live and be free!” they cried. “Live and be free!” Others cried, “Let the lion go free too! Give both of them their liberty!” And so Androclus was set free, and the lion was given to him for his own. And they lived together in Rome for many years. In a well-written paragraph of 5-7 sentences, achieve the following: . Identify the universal theme of “Androclus and the Lion.” Describe how the theme is universal. Explain how the author developed and delivered the theme to the reader.

In examining all of your active viewing notes, consider what the film suggests about emotional, personal, intellectual, or societal constraints—restrictions or hardships—faced. Consider specific scenes that raise, explore, or challenge the idea of these various conflicts in the story line of the individual characters. To clarify your understanding of various themes conveyed by the film, write a descriptive sentence that explains your understanding of the messages or lessons expressed by the film, especially those regarding the various forms of restriction, constraints, or hardships the characters experience on an intellectual, personal, emotional, or societal level.