Bad and Good E-mails

Bad E-mail:

Hey Rago,

So, I know I wasn't in class for like a week and everything, but could you still tell me what happened and if we had anything that we needed to work on?  See you tomorrow!

-Jemma

Good E-mail:

Dear Dr. Rago,

I don't think I'll be able to go to any of the lectures this week.  I just recently found out that my grandmother has died, so I'll be leaving to go to attend the funeral.  Once, I feel that I am more up to handling everything I will return to resume my classes.  So, in the mean time, I would really appreciate if you could inform me about everything that I will be missing while I am away.

Sincerely,
Jemma Jose

A Passage-Based Focus Freewrite on for MLKJ's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

"I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait.  But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television and see the tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking in agonizing pathos: 'Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?' when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading 'white' men and 'colored' when your first name becomes 'nigger' and your middle becomes 'boy' (however old you are) and your last name becomes 'John,' and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title of 'Mrs.' when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and other resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness' - then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.  There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair.  I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience." - Martin Luther King Jr. "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

When first reading this letter this is the passage that affected me the most.  The way M.L. King Junior uses so many devices like parallel structure and imagery really brought the issue at hand.  I could truly picture all the things that he said, and feel the tug at my heartstrings.  Honestly, how could we have let these situations go on for so long?  What kind of world is this when we make young children at just the ages of six and five doubt themselves and question why they are treated so horribly due to the color of their skin?  I don't know how anyone could ever be unaffected after reading this passion-filled passage of "agonizing pathos"?  The issue of segregation is one that must be dealt with at once.  No longer can we just sit by when every day that goes by another person is being hurt whether it be physically(ex: "vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim"), mentally (ex: "living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and other resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness'"), and/or emotionally (ex: "depressing clouds of inferiority").  Enough is enough.  They have waited way too long for things to remain the same.  It is time that a stand is made to fight against such injustice.  This is the reason why we needed the Civil Rights Movement, and why it needed to succeed.  Otherwise, many of the people we see here everyday wouldn't be here doing what they're doing.  After all, how many whites are there?

The Different Sentence Types Found in The Declaration of Independance

The Simple Sentence:

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." - The Declaration of Independence

The Compound Sentence:

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." - The Declaration of Independence 

The Complex Sentence:

"He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within." - The Declaration of Independence 

The Compound-Complex Sentence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." - The Declaration of Independence