Curricular Response

Artifact

“The soldiers in “Hero of War” come to a clearer realization of the horrors of war than the soldiers in “Disposable Heroes” who carry on blindly. In “Hero of War,” gives a clear representation of the brutality of war. It shows a soldier who gets recruited. He was excited to join and ready to be a hero for his country, though it took a quick turn as soon as he started. He saw the horror from soldiers, as soldiers disrespected one soldier and “pissed in his hands” and then proceeded to join in. He knew the action was wrong but continued to do it. “Hero of War” gave a sense reality of the killing of soldiers and how they were forced into doing orders, they didn’t agree on. As “Hero of War” states “she walked through bullets and haze.” “She” can be represented as a metaphor for country and is shown as the country fighting for its life and home. “I asked her to stop, I begged her to stay, but she pressed on, so I lifted my gun and I fired away.” The soldier is forced into killing all the soldiers in this country and they press him, but he doesn’t want to do it but he wants to follow orders as others did and be “a hero of war.” “Hero of War” glamorizes war in a way because after every horrific act they commit as soldiers, he feels everyone will “be damn proud of me.” The soldier brought home medals and scars after the war but he also brought home his home flag. This flag now “gathers with dust” as the soldier felt he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t go through another war being forced to follow through with disturbing orders, and seeing the brutality of soldiers and what war is really like. On the contrary, “Disposable Heroes” has a more cold, blunt side of war. The soldiers are shown to be used and discarded as the title states. “Disposable Heroes” shows the same perspective for each soldier. “Now an empty shell,” tells how the soldiers are emotionless with no soul just as a bullet shell is empty with no souls or emotions. The soldiers are desensitized as the “barking of a machine gun, does nothing to me now.” They feel nothing, they are in a routine, and know what they have to do. “Bred to kill, not to care,” the soldiers know their only purpose out on the battlefield is to kill and have no fear. Though the soldiers know nothing else than the battlefield. They were born into this and were “molded day by day” into preparing for war. The soldiers went through hell and they saw it as that, “Disposable Heroes” shows how used and discarded the soldiers were, whereas “Hero of War,” showed the glamorization of going into war but more of the emotion shown through the war as compared to the blunt emotionless soldiers in “Disposable Heroes.” The soldiers in “Hero of War” come to a clearer realization of the horrors of war than the soldiers in “Disposable Heroes” who carry on blindly.”

This paragraph reflects my weaknesses by I did too many quotations and it just became a generalization, I explained too much and didn’t contrast the two songs. My organization of this paragraph was strong with the structure. To add, my So what? was also good, I would say my strengths when I am doing a piece of writing is the setup and structure and my main ideas. This paragraph was difficult and it took me awhile but I tried my best and managed to get a B plus on this piece of writing. This wasn’t my best piece of writing but i took note and have improved from this paragraph on my other writing pieces.

Core Competency Self Reflection

Think generally about you and writing: describe what writing is like for you? easy? Hard? Why is it easy or hard? Or what specific parts are easy or hard? Or what kinds of writing is easier or more enjoyable for you than others? Do you write outside of a formal school situation? How ? when? What is that like?

Writing for me is easy when i understand the concept or idea of what i am writing. If i don’t know any of that, its quite hard for me to get a grasp of what to write and how to write it. I would say for me writing literary paragraphs is enjoyable for me because its a simple paragraph with quotations and not a lot of though or writing has to go into it. Essays would be the least enjoyable because it is a lot of writing and organization and there has to be some thought put into it. To add, I do not write outside of school, writing isn’t my favourite, i only do it when i have too. I would say overall, i enjoyed writing in English 12, even though some topics were difficult, but i got through it and did pretty good on my writing assignments.