Autumn Yang and Dakota Clawson
ENG 242.871AC
Dr. Lucas
29 April 2020

Preface
In “ A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, the ghost story of Ebenezer Scrooge portrays the possibility of redemption, the hurting consequences of isolation and neglect, and the importance of kindness and love. The publication date of this story is December 19, 1843. In the last stave, five, Scrooge then became a changed man. The author described him, “as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.” (Dickens). He realized the importance of life and having compassion for the people in his life. In this project, we are aiming to tell and portray what Ebenezer Scrooge felt during his experience with three of the ghosts.
Gifts of Happiness and Love
I woke up all of a sudden but stayed in bed because it was too dark to see a thing. While waiting for the hour, I questioned how long I slept. As soon as the bell rang I looked at the clock realizing it was twelve. How could I have slept through a whole day and far into another day? I look out the window but there is no one outside who is busy with their day. As I went back to bed I could not stop thinking about how it was twelve. Marley’s ghost really bothered me. Was it a dream or not? I remember him telling me that I will have a visitor at one. I must stay awake till then. I keep counting till the hour comes, becoming more and more anxious. The visitor then came and dragged me close to it’s face frightening me. It seemed as if it was a child but yet like an old man. He tells me he is the ghost of Christmas Past and grants me the ability to fly. As we exit through the window, we transport to the countryside where I was raised. I see all the people from my childhood and familiar places. The ghost takes me to a young boy that is me from the past. As I am reminded of my lonely Christmas, I start to sob. I start to watch each Christmas that I had growing up and then I see my loving sister, Fan. That was when father gave consent to have Ebenezer return. I told the ghost that “she died a woman” (Dickens) right before he reminded me of my nephew, Fred. As we continue to go through my Christmas experience I see myself having a heartfelt conversation with my love, Belle. She told me that I “fear the world too much,” (Dickens) and she broke off our engagement. From this we transport to a time of her having a conversation with her husband. He described me as “quite alone in the world,”. I can’t bear this any longer. I told the ghost to take me back home as of now I cannot bear to see or hear this nonsense. I finally then end up back in my bedroom exhausted from the irresistible drowsiness and fall into a deep sleep.

I wander around hoping to find the second spirit. I see a figure sitting on a throne made of gourmet foods, wearing a green robe. As I approach the spirit he commands for me to touch his robe. As I come into contact with the robe the room vanishes along with the feast. I am then instantly beside the green-robed spirit in the city on Christmas morning. I can smell the hustle of the city, people running through the doors of the local shops. I can hear the greetings of “Merry Christmas!” being passed around! The spirit then took me to the Cratchit’s home. They were preparing a Christmas feast with what little money they had to spare. I continued to ask the spirit if Tiny Tim will survive, the spirit then says, “there will inevitably be an empty chair at next year’s Christmas dinner.” In a matter of no time, the spirit disappears and all I can see is a hooded phantom moving towards me. 

As the phantom approaches me, I kneel before him and ask if he is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The phantom takes me to the London Stock Exchange, where I hear a rich man’s death being discussed. We go by the Cratchit Household where they are coping with the death of Tiny Tim. Suddenly I am led to a grave with my name engraved on the tombstone. I beg the Spirit to undo the events, I promise to honor the meaning of Christmas and to live by the moralizing lessons of Past, Present, and Future. As I mourn the events of the day, the phantom collapses, and I return to my bed. 

In conclusion I have learned my lesson. This trip has made me realize that now “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!” (Dickens). I cry now as though I have never felt such emotions before. I am filled with overflowing joy and happiness. I now greet and cherish the people in my life and will forever be reminded of the importance of love and kindness.

Stories and tales often hold adventures and missions to be told throughout history. In Frankenstein, Robert Walton is known as one of the narrators that writes to his sister, telling his stories of his adventure in discovering a route to transport goods quicker around the world. He also sails by sea to discover the secrets of magnetism. The ancient mariner in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” of The Norton Anthology English Literature stops a  wedding guest to tell his strange story. In the story there are actions of death and also the belief of a good luck charm. Both of these prompts show that stories are important in history and are mysterious but adventurous. 

Robert Walton’s letters to his sister are full of emotion and somewhat sorrowful. In the book he says, “ My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate and my spirits are often depressed” (14). He talks about how sometimes he must sustain his own happiness and feelings to raise others up. Walton also explains how he remembers when he first began sailing and going on adventures. Some of those adventures he “ accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep” (14). He not only tells his sister, Mrs. Saville about how he is or how hard he works but also tells about a lieutenant of his. He describes him with awe claiming that he is, “a man of wonderful courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory” (16). Walton then tells about how his lieutenant wanted to get engaged to this woman but her father refused to let them wed. He offered money but still got rejected and quitted his country without returning until after hearing that his former mistress was married. At the end of one of his letters Robert Walton tells his sister to continue to write to him for he will read them when he is in need of high spirits.

Works Cited

Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein. Introduction and Notes by Karen Kargiener. Barnes and Noble, 

2003.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The Norton Anthology of British Literature: The Romantic 

Period. 10th ed. Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor. W. W. Norton, 2017. pp. 448-464.

In the Norton Anthology English Literature : The Romantic Period, I chose the work of visual arts titled, “Disappointed Love” by Francis Danby. This was Danby’s first work of art that was exhibited and widely recognized by people. The painting depicts a heartbroken and sad woman sitting at the side of a pond will her face sunken into her legs. I contrasted this piece of work to the well known literature, “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. In the introduction for Frankenstein, it tells the story of Mary Shelley and how she wrote the novel. Shelley had seem to have a hard life as how her mother had died giving birth to her, her half-sister had commited suicide, her husband drowning in 1822, and her friend Bryon dying two years later. Going through all those events would have caused her great depression and pain. In the novel it also states how the “monster” saw himself as “godless” and “wretched”. The “monster” was then overfilled by emotions and felt isolated and lonely which led to evilness and wanting revenge on it’s creator. Victor, the creator of the “monster” also went through difficult events such as his brother’s death. Both of these pieces show the agony and hurts of love. When loving someone, one day they will end up leaving you and causing you to become heart broken.

Scrabble- this was a group paper

Carmen Bonilla, Autumn Yang

Writing/Research English 112

Mrs. Lucus

November 11, 2019

The worldly known game Scrabble is considered to be a popular brain game. A person who plays the game uses a lot of mental skills. Many may wonder how to play the game scrabble but it is actually quite simple. The objection of the game is to get the most points by coming up with words. To begin with, being able to play consist of having two to four players. A player has to keep up with the scores and tally up the points. Each team gets a rack and pick out seven letters from a bag that contains 100 letters. Then the players have to decide who goes first and put down a word. There a certain ways on how to put down a word so this game requires a lot of extra thinking. The next team has to build a word from the words on the board based of of the other teams starting word and so on. Scrabble isn’t just for fun, but can also educate you. 

There are many effects of playing the game scrabble. There are even theories that say playing games represents the fulfillment in areas of the psychological and emotional components. The game stimulates the brain to perform in a strategic way. Scrabble gets the player to be patient and think about what move they will do when they are in tough situations. Many students are taught to play scrabble for many reasons that are beneficial. For example, it helps grow their vocabulary, get them to think through complex thought processes, help them make decisions, and solve hard problems. In a research and study, they were split into two groups. One group has been just undergraduates and the other was a group of competitive scrabble players. By observing the

brains and techniques of each group, Psychonomic Society was able to conclude that visual word recognition is gained and improved by experience. Because the game requires so much thinking and involves so many words, the experience of learning new words and using brain muscle helps. It’s important to know this because, for example, playing scrabble in class may seem pointless, but if someone were to actually think about it, playing scrabble is more than just a game. It helps shape word recognition and improve vocabulary. 

A larger project that could be concluded from this bibliography is probably a scrabble contest. Since scrabble involves words and vocabulary, there could also be a project for knowing a certain amount of words. Researching about the brain and about how the game helps shape word recognition is important. The project would definitely be in psychology. Psychology involves the study of thoughts, feelings, and basically the human mind. The effects of scrabble also involves how the brain thinks and memorizes words. Being educated about vocabulary is important because I’m the real life adults with better vocabulary tend to have better occupations. 

In conclusion, scrabble is a very beneficial game to play. The brain, muscles are being used in different ways when someone plays the game. To continue, the game expands the vocabulary of whoever plays it. It also allows the players to think through tough thought processes and be able to make decisions. In addition, it helps stimulate some brain areas that help retain memories and knowledge. The study that is mentioned proved that playing board games such as scrabble helps build better word recognition. Scrabble isn’t just played for fun, but also to improve better mental performance.

Autumn Yang

ENG 112,  (872AC)

Dr. Lucas

October 23, 2019

Mental Health 

In the book Educated by Tara Westover, she deals with a lot of mental and physical abuse. The abuse starts with her father and the way he treats and convinces them that the entire world is after them. As a young child, this can take an effect on you and mess up your trust and emotional connection to people. Usually, a girl would have someone like her mother to go to but Tara didn’t because her mother wouldn’t go against her father or the way he wanted things. Her mother and father had a very traditional marriage. Whatever the father wanted in the house everyone would do it as his word over everyone else’s. 

One thing the father passionately advocated is that the government was after him and his family. Since he believed this, his kids could not go to the doctors’ office or be allowed to go to school like normal kids. In reality this is illegal, but since the children had been born outside of a hospital, there were no real records of them existing. Since these were the rules, Tara didn’t get to take a step in a classroom until she was seventeen years old. School is something that many people take for granted and yet she couldn’t get a formal education until she was seventeen. The fact that she started learning so late but yet still became very successful and very inspiring shows that she worked very hard to get out of the situation she was in. 

Tara’s dad was very manipulative, after making his wife take the midwife job of delivering babies, she hated it and said she couldn’t continue doing it. Because of this he then told her,  “This is a calling from the Lord, and sometimes the Lord ask for hard things.” (15). He uses God to justify his wife doing a job she hates, and that is illegal. It shows his manipulative side a lot in the book but it is never pointed out. In the memoir, Tara’s father also shows sides of not supporting her and also supporting her. When she first wanted to be in plays he didn’t agree until after he heard her sing. After hearing her, he began to sing the theme song of the play himself. This shows that maybe her father is unintentionally manipulative. 

Another instance of Tara being abused by her family is when everybody turns a blind eye to her brother, Shawn abusing her. Her family would do nothing about it, but they intervened when Tara spoke up about it. They didn’t handle it like a normal family though. They blamed Tara and made her look like the bad guy from speaking out about it and that is what tore Tara and her family apart.

One thing to take away from this book is that you can do anything you put your mind to. Tara could’ve just went along with everything and sit back and do what everybody else wanted her to do, but if she would have done that she would’ve never got an education and never got away from her family. People would’ve never heard her story and she wouldn’t have got to inspire as many people as she did. Since she stood up for herself and made better of her life, she now has a best-selling book.

Autumn Yang

ENG 112, section 872 AC

Mrs. Lucas

September 18, 2019

In my previous years of school I have written many types of papers and essays. Some types of research that I have conducted in the past involved compiling and writing, bibliographies, reflections and biographies. Some informal research I conducted were looking at general knowledgeable websites and such. From reading chapters 24-26 of The Norton Field Guide to Writing, I have learned that in each major a person goes into, it changes his or her perspective of the world. In chapter 24 it talks about Academic Fields and General Education  (Bullock et al. 291). It also mentions how each field has its own ways to study. Chapter 25 then talks about ways to engage with texts in a variety of fields (Bullock et al. 294). Still in this chapter though, it mentions how each subject or major uses different language terms. This really showed me that I need to discipline myself and study vocabulary in order to thoroughly understand what I am reading about. Chapter 26 is to help determine expectations of writing from various academic fields (Bullock et al. 307). Asking questions about your paper when writing is good because those types of literature skills and techniques are used in every other class when reading sources. This has shown me that my disciplinary interests should be in focusing on literature in order to keep up with things in other classes that involve writing or reading. 

Growing up I have always been interested in anything music related. I would love listening to pop music and also opera. When I was young I wanted to become an opera singer but never really pursued it. Since middle school I have been more exposed to different genres that I didn’t know of. For example, R&B is one of my favorite types of music genres. I tend to listen more to groovy and slow music. Though often I sometimes am in the mood for something more upbeat and fast.

Listening to music gives me so many types of different emotions. When I am feeling down and depressed I like to listen to sad songs so that I can cry it out. I also like to listen to happy songs to make me happy sometimes. Ever since I was around 12 I realized my love for singing and music. I practice singing everyday and have loved the feeling I get everytime I sing. Music really can touch one’s heart.

—SONGS—

Eilish, Billie. “Listen before i Go.” Spotify, 29 Mar. 2019, https://open.spotify.com/track/0tMSssfxAL2oV8Vri0mFHE.

I AM THEY. “Scars.” Spotify, 2 Mar. 2018, https://open.spotify.com/track/72B1Omo2kmEst4YKO8vOB6.

Hillsong Worship. “New Wine – Live.” Spotify, 6 Apr. 2018, https://open.spotify.com/track/1MX4dx6yNvAH2GjIVsUF4h.

Daughter. “Medicine.” Spotify, 1 Jan. 2012, https://open.spotify.com/track/4TxJQDtvYHJcOBH6ONi6q2.

Sloan , Sasha. “Older.” Spotify, 29 Nov. 2018, https://open.spotify.com/track/3kywzyEr7V106Un5cDyh12.