Theories of Reading Essay Example for Free

Theories of Reading Essay So far, there are three main theories which explain the nature of learning to read. First, the traditional theory, or bottom up processing, which focused on the printed form of a text. (2) the cognitive view, or top-down processing enhanced the role of background knowledge in addition to what appeared on the printed page. Third, the metacognitive view, which is based on the control and manipulation that a reader can have on the act of comprehending a text, and thus, emphasizes the involvement of the reader’s thinking about what he is doing while reading. 1. The traditional bottom-up view The traditional bottom-up approach to reading was influenced by behaviorist psychology of the 1950s, which claimed learning was based upon â€Å"habit formation, brought about by the repeated association of a stimulus with a response† and language learning was characterized as a â€Å"response system that humans acquire through automatic conditioning processes,† where â€Å"some patterns of language are reinforced (rewarded) and others are not,† and â€Å"only those patterns reinforced by the community of language users will persist† (Omaggio 1993, 45-46). Behaviorism became the basis of the audio-lingual method, which sought to form second language â€Å"habits† through drilling, repetition, and error correction. Today, the main method associated with the bottom-up approach to reading is known asphonics, which requires the learner to match letters with sounds in a defined sequence. According to this view, reading is a linear process by which readers decode a text word by word, linking the words into phrases and then sentences (Gray and Rogers, cited in Kucer 1987). According to Samuels and Kamil (1988: 25), the emphasis on behaviorism treated reading as a word-recognition response to the stimuli of the printed words, where â€Å"little attempt was made to explain what went on within the recesses of the mind that allowed the human to make sense of the printed page†. In other words, textual comprehension involves adding the meanings of words to get the meanings of clauses (Anderson 1994). These lower level skills are connected to the visual  stimulus, or print, and are consequently concerned with recognizing and recalling. Like the audio-lingual teaching method, phonics emphasizes on repetition and on drills using the sounds that make up words. Information is received and processed beginning with the smallest sound units, and proceeded to letter blends, words, phrases, and sentences. Thus, novice readers acquire a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills that sequentially build toward comprehension ability. Having mastered these skills, readers are viewed as experts who comprehend what they read. The bottom-up model describes information flow as a series of stages that transforms the input and passes it to the next stage without any feedback or possibility of later stages of the process influencing earlier stages (Stanovich, 1980). In other words, language is viewed as a code and the reader’s main task is to identify graphemes and convert them into phonemes. Consequently, readers are regarded as passive recipients of information in the text. Meaning resides in the text and the reader has to reproduce it. The ESL and EFL textbooks influenced by this perspective include exercises that focus on literal comprehension and give little or no importance to the reader’s knowledge or experience with the subject matter, and the only interaction is with the basic building blocks of sounds and words. Most activities are based on recognition and recall of lexical and grammatical forms with an emphasis on the perceptual and decoding dimension. This model of reading has almost always been under attack as being insufficient and defective for the main reason that it relies on the formal features of the language, mainly words and structure. Although it is possible to accept this rejection for the fact that there is over-reliance on structure in this view, it must be confessed that knowledge of linguistic features is also necessary for comprehension to take place. To counteract over-reliance on form in the traditional view of reading, the cognitive view was introduced 2. The Cognitive View (top-down processing) In the 1960s a paradigm shift occurred in the cognitive sciences. Behaviorism became somewhat discredited as the new cognitive theory represented the mind’s innate capacity for learning, which gave new explanatory power to how humans acquired their first language; this also had a tremendous impact on the field of ESL/EFL as psycholinguists explained â€Å"how such internal representations of the foreign language develop within the learner’s mind† (Omaggio, 1993: 57). Ausubel (cited in Omaggio, 1993: 58), made an important distinction between meaningful learning and rote learning. An example of rote learning is simply memorizing lists of isolated words or rules in a new language, where the information becomes temporary and subject to loss. Meaningful learning, on the other hand, occurs when new information is presented in a relevant context and is related to what the learner already knows, so that it can be easily integrated into one’s existing cognitive structure. A learning that is not meaningful will not become permanent. This emphasis on meaning eventually informed the top-down approach to L2 learning, and in the 1960s and 1970s there was an explosion of teaching methods and activities that strongly considered the experience and knowledge of the learner. These new cognitive and top-down processing approaches revolutionized the conception of the way students learn to read (Smith, 1994). In this view, reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading. In this sense, reading is a dialogue between the reader and the text which involves an active cognitive process in which the reader’s background knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney and Pearson, 1994). Reading is not a passive mechanical activity but purposeful and rational, dependent on the prior knowledge and expectations of the reader. It is not merely a matter of decoding print to sound but also a matter of making sense of written language (Smith, 1994: 2). In short, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game, a process in which readers sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, make new hypotheses, and so forth. Schema Theory Another theory closely related to top-down processing called schema theory also had a major impact on reading instruction. It describes in detail how the background knowledge of the learner interacts with the reading task and illustrates how a student’s knowledge and previous experience with the world is crucial to deciphering a text. The ability to use this schemata, or background knowledge, plays a fundamental role in one’s trial to comprehend a text. Schema theory is based on the notion that past experiences lead to the creation of mental frameworks that help a reader make sense of new experiences. Smith (1994: 14) callsschemes the â€Å"extensive representations of more general patterns or regularities that occur in our experience†. For instance one’s generic scheme of an airplane will allow him to make sense of airplane he has not previously flied with. This means that past experiences will be related to new experiences, which may include the knowledge of â€Å"objects, situations, and events as well as knowledge of procedures for retrieving, organizing and interpreting information† (Kucer, 1987: 31). Anderson (1994: 469) presents research showing that recall of information in a text is affected by the reader’s schemata and explains that â€Å"a reader comprehends a message when he is able to bring to mind a schema that gives account of the objects and events described in the message†. Comprehension is the process of â€Å"activating or constructing a schema that provides a coherent explanation of objects and events mentioned in a discourse† (Anderson, 1994: 473). For Anderson and Pearson (1988: 38), comprehension is the interaction between old and new information. They emphasize: â€Å"To say that one has comprehended a text is to say that she has found a mental ‘home’ for the information in the text, or else that she has modified an existing mental home in order to accommodate that new information†. Therefore, a learner’s schemata will restructure itself to accommodate new information as that information is added to the system (Omaggio, 1993) Content and formal schemata Schema theorists differentiate formal schemata (knowledge about the structure of a text) from content schemata (knowledge about the subject matter of a text), and a reader’s prior knowledge of both schemata enables him to predict events and meaning as well as to infer meaning from a wider context. Formal schemata refers to the way that texts differ from one another; for example, a reading text could be a fictional work, a letter to the editor, or a scientific essay, and each genre will have a different structural organization. Knowledge of these genre structures can aid reading comprehension, as it gives readers a basis for predicting what a text will be like (Smith 1994). For example, if a reader knows that the typical format of a research article consists of sections subtitled Introduction, Theoretical Basis, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion, that knowledge will facilitate their interaction with the article and boost  comprehension. On the other hand, if he is not familiar with this formal schema, teaching it to him could lead to improved reading ability with lasting and beneficial effects. Content schemata refers to the message of the text. One’s familiarity with the content will make more productive and efficient. As Anderson (1994: 469) explains, â€Å"a reader comprehends a message when he is able to bring to mind a schema that gives account of the objects and events described in the message†. Activating and building schemata  Since the reader plays a fundamental role in the construction of meaning, his age, gender, experience, and culture are important considerations for teachers who want to select readings that will motivate their students. Anderson (1994) notes that when readers cannot locate a schema that fits a text, they may find it incomprehensible. In some cases readers may not have a schema that is significant to the text, or they may need help to activate the pertinent schema to be able to comprehend the text. In such cases it may not be possible for the reader to understand the text, and the teacher must be ready to engage in â€Å"building new background knowledge as well as activating existing background knowledge† (Carrell, 1988: 248). In parallel with this, Bransford (1994) points out that difficulties in comprehension may be caused by the lack of background knowledge presumed by the text, and he sees the responsibility of instructors as being twofold: to activate preexisting schemata and to help students to integrate isolated â€Å"parcels† of knowledge into a schema or to build a new one. If the texts to be read contain a cultural context that is different from the student’s, the issues of formal and content schemata become even more important. McDonough (1995), explains that, to a higher extent, this is the reason why ESL and EFL students find it difficult to read in a second language with texts that contain cultural assumptions of the target culture. They may lack the culture-specific background knowledge necessary to process the text in a top-down manner. His reports on several studies demonstrate how people outside a given culture may misunderstand events with unfamiliar cultural connotations. (Students from different cultural backgrounds taking standardized tests which assume common schemata for will also face the same problem. ) Applying schema theory to L2 reading Based on the aforementioned ideas, it is obvious that in order to teach reading effectively, the teacher’s role to activate and build schemata is paramount. To achieve it, he should in advance select texts that are relevant to the students’ needs, preferences, individual differences, and cultures in order to provide meaningful texts so the students understand the message, which entails activating existing schemata and helping build new schemata. Then, after selecting the text, he needs to do the following three stages of activities to activate and build the students’ schemata. (1) Pre-reading activities, in which the teacher have students think, write, and discuss everything they know about the topic, employing techniques such as prediction, semantic mapping, and reconciled reading. The objective is to make sure that students have the relevant schema for understanding the text. (2)During-reading activities, in which the teacher guide and monitor the interaction between the reader and the text. One important skill teachers can impart at this stage is note-taking, which allows students to compile new vocabulary and important information and details, and to summarize information and record their reactions and opinions. (3)Post-reading activities which facilitate the chance to evaluate students’ adequacy of interpretation, while bearing in mind that accuracy is relative and that â€Å"readership† must be respected as long as the writer’s intentions are addressed (Tierney and Pearson, 1994). Post-reading activities focus on a wide range of questions that allow for different interpretations. While schema activation and building can occur in all three stages, the pre-reading stage deserves special attention since it is here, during the students’ initial contact with the text, where their schemata will be activated. Pre-reading activities Pre-reading activities is aimed to activate existing schemata, build new schemata, and provide information to the teacher about what the students know. In their report on the positive effect various pre-reading activities had on reading comprehension, Chen and Graves (1995, 664), define them as â€Å"devices for bridging the gap between the text’s content and the reader’s schemata†. Various activities and materials can help the teacher introduce key vocabulary and reinforce concept association to activate both formal and content schemata. Formal schemata will be activated by employing devices such as advance organizers and overviews to draw attention to the structure of a text. The content schemata will be activated by using various pre-reading activities to help learners brainstorm and predict how the information fits in with their previous knowledge. One of the most important pre-reading activities proposed by schematic theorists isprediction. According to Goodman (1988: 16), prediction is important because â€Å"the brain is always anticipating and predicting as it seeks order and significance in sensory inputs†. Smith (1994, 19–20) defines prediction as â€Å"the prior elimination of unlikely alternatives†. According to him, predictions are questions the readers ask the world and comprehension is receiving the answers. He emphasizes that it is prediction that makes skilled readers effective when reading texts that contain familiar subject matter. â€Å"Prediction brings potential meaning to texts, reducing ambiguity and eliminating in advance irrelevant alternatives. Thus, we are able to generate comprehensible experience from inert pages of print† (Smith 1994, 18). Another pre-reading activity is previewing, where students look at titles, headings, andpictures, and read the first few paragraphs and the last paragraph; these activities can then help students understand what the text is about by activating their formal and content schemata and making them familiar with the topic before they begin reading in earnest. Semantic mapping is another pre-reading activity that Carrell, Pharis, and Liberto (1989: 651) describe as a useful way to pre-teach vocabulary and to â€Å"provide the teacher with an assessment of the students’ prior knowledge or schema availability on the topic†. This activity asks students to brainstorm about the reading topic as the information is displayed on a graphic â€Å"map. † As students make associations, the map becomes a thorough summary of the concepts and vocabulary that they will encounter in the reading. It can also help build schemata and vocabulary that students do not yet possess. Again, it is important to know something about the students so the selected texts contain the type of material that is likely to be familiar and interesting to them. Reutzel (1985) proposes another type of pre-reading activity called reconciled readinglesson, which reverses the sequence presented by many textbooks where the text is followed by questions. Instead, the teacher develops pre-reading questions from the questions that appear at the end of the reading. Smith (1994) criticizes comprehension exercises presented at the end of a reading because they are like memory tests. He argues that using prior knowledge efficiently contributes to fluent readers, and he believes that there is a reciprocal relationship between visual and non-visual (prior knowledge) information; the more the readers have of the latter, the less they need of the former. Although not all the post-reading questions can be easily turned into pre-reading ones, this strategy can be invaluable to activate schemata. 3. The metacognitive view According to Block (1992), there is now no more debate on â€Å"whether reading is a bottom-up, language-based process or a top-down, knowledge-based process. † It is also no more problematic to accept the influence of background knowledge on readers. Research has gone even further to define the control executed by readers on their trial to understand a text. This control is what Block has referred to as meta-cognition. In the context of reading, meta-cognition involves thinking about what one is doing while reading. Strategic readers do not only sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, and make new hypotheses while reading. They also involve many activities along the process of reading, whose stages can be divided into three, i. e.before reading, while reading, and after reading. The activities the readers involve before reading are to identify the purpose of the reading, identify the form or type of the text. In the second stage (while reading), they think about the general character and features of the form or type of the text—such as trying to locate a topic sentence and follow supporting details toward a conclusion, project the author’s purpose for writing the text, choose, scan, or read in detail, make continuous predictions about what will occur next based on information obtained earlier, prior knowledge, and conclusions obtained within the previous stages. Finally, in the last stage, they attempt to form a summary, conclude, or make inference of what was read. Guidelines for Effective Teaching of Reading After discussing the ideas and concepts presented in the three reading theories, we are now on the position of arranging tips and guidelines for implementing a theory of reading which will help to develop our learner’s abilities. These tips are arranged in three sections which are parallel with the three consecutive reading stages: before reading, during reading, and after reading. Pre-Reading Tips Before the actual act of reading a text begins, some points should be regarded in order to make the process of reading more comprehensible. First, teachers need to make sure that the texts to read contain words and grammatical structures familiar to the learners. If the texts contain unfamiliar vocabulary, teachers can introduce key vocabulary in pre-reading activities that focus on language awareness, such as finding synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, or associated words. Second, teachers should make sure that the topics of texts chosen are in accordance with the age range, interests, sex, and background culture of the students for whom they are intended. If they are not, it is necessary to provide the necessary background information to the reader to facilitate comprehension. This activity could be carried out by letting the class members brainstorm ideas about the meaning of a title or an illustration and discuss what they know. The followings are some activities teacher can use during the pre-reading stage. These activities will not take a very long time to carry out. However, they are very effective in overcoming the common urge to start reading a text closely right away from the beginning. 1. Teacher-directed pre-reading, in which some key vocabulary, ideas in the text, and the type of the text are explained. In this approach the teacher directly explains the information the students will need, including key concepts, important vocabulary, and appropriate conceptual framework. The text types are also necessary to introduce because texts may take on different forms and hold certain pieces of information in different places. The students’ familiarity with the types of the text they are reading will develop their understanding of the layout of the material. Such familiarity will, in turn, enable them to focus more deeply on the parts that are more densely compacted with information. Even paying attention to the year of publication of a text, if applicable, may aid the reader in presuppositions about the text as can glancing at the name of the author. 1. Interactive activities, in which the teacher leads a discussion in which he/she draws out the information students already have and interjects additional information deemed necessary  to an understanding of the text to be read. Moreover, the teacher can make explicit links between prior knowledge and important information in the text. 1. Reflective activities, in which students are guided to make themselves aware of the purpose and goal for reading a certain piece of written material. At the beginning stages this can be done by the teacher, but as the reader becomes more mature this strategy can be left to the readers. For instance, the students may be guided to ask themselves,â€Å"Why am I reading this text? What do I want to do or know after finished reading this? Being aware of their purpose and goal to read, later—in during reading activities—they can determine what skill(s) to employ: skimming, scanning, reading for details, or critical reading During-reading tips The activities carried out in during-reading stage consist of taking notes, reacting, predicting, selecting significant information, questioning the writer’s position, evaluating, and placing a text within one’s own experience. These processes may be the most complex to develop in a classroom setting, the reason being that in English reading classes most attention is often paid to dictionaries, the text, and the teacher. The followings are tips that encourage active reading. Practicing them will help the students be active readers. 1. Making predictions: The students should be taught to be on the watch to predict what is going to happen next in the text to be able to integrate and combine what has come with what is to come. 2. Making selections: Readers who are more proficient read selectively, continually making decisions about their reading. 3. Integrating prior knowledge: The schemata that have been activated in the pre-reading section should be called upon to facilitate comprehension. 4. Skipping insignificant parts: A good reader will concentrate on significant pieces of information while skipping insignificant pieces. 5. Re-reading: Students should be encouraged to become sensitive to the effect of reading on their comprehension. 6. Making use of context or guessing: Students should not be encouraged to define and understand every single unknown word in a text. Instead they should learn to make use of context to guess the meaning of unknown words. 7. Breaking words into their component parts: To keep the process of comprehension ongoing, efficient readers analyze unfamiliar words by break them into their affixes or bases. These parts can help them guess the meaning of a word. 8. Reading in chunks: To ensure reading speed, students should get used to reading groups of words together. This act will also enhance comprehension by focusing on groups of meaning-conveying symbols simultaneously. 9. Pausing: Good readers will pause at certain places while reading a text to absorb and internalize the material being read and sort out information. 10. Paraphrasing: While reading texts, it may be necessary to paraphrase and interpret texts sub-vocally in order to verify what was comprehended. 11. Monitoring: Good readers monitor their understanding to evaluate whether the text, or the reading of it, is meeting their goals. After-reading tips 12. Post-reading activities basically depend on the purpose of reading and the type of information extracted from the text. Barnett (1988) states that post-reading exercises first check students’ comprehension and then lead students to a deeper analysis of the text. In the real world the purpose of reading is not to memorize an author’s point of view or to summarize text content, but rather to see into another mind, or to engage new information with what one already knows. Group discussion will help students focus on information they did not comprehend, or did comprehend correctly. Accordingly, attention will be focused on processes that lead to comprehension or miscomprehension. 13. Generally speaking, post-reading can take the form of these various activities: (1) discussing the text: written/oral, (2) summarizing: written/oral, (3) making questions: written/oral, (3) answering questions: written/oral, (4) filling in forms and charts (5) writing reading logs (6) completing a text, (7) listening to or reading other related materials, and (7) role-playing. RESEARCHED BY: FARNAIDA L. ABUBACAR, MAT-ENGLISHJULY 01, 2011.

About Mike Leigh :: essays papers

About Mike Leigh Like many of the films watched in class there seems to be an ongoing theme in Mike Leigh’s films of the tragedy that is the life of those living in Britain. Fortunately, Leigh chooses to instead use these tragedies to instead promote the optimism or â€Å"high hopes† if you will of the people stuck in such unfortunate circumstances that are displayed onscreen. His films seek to bring light where there is darkness and truth where there are lies. In the film Secrets and Lies, we are introduce into a family that seems to have quite a few problems that are on the surface and far more that are well hidden to the world as well as those they call family. Instead of pulling together and expressing their feelings and problems they instead decide to draw in on themselves and keep the secrets hidden. It seems to me to be a out of sight, out of mind kind of mentality that for some odd reason they believe will help them deal with their problem. At the birthday party when things finally come to a head and Maurice finally says his peace and gets the secrets and the lies that they have all kept for so long out in the open the burden of his message is what is going to happen after this is unleashed upon their family. Maurice faced an unknown future when he decided to face up to his family’s problems. He was the only character in the entire film that actually knew everything that was being kept from the rest of the family. With this knowledge comes a burden of what to do with this knowledge. With the emergence of Hortense and the discovery of her true identity Maurice must come to grips with the truth of his family and must make them understand that they must tell each other the truth behind their demeanor. Maurice’s speech could have had very bad consequences. He could have lost his niece, whom he views as the daughter he and his wife will never have. He also could have lost Cynthia’s trust in making her tell the truth of matters. Lastly, Maurice’s own marriage was on the brink due to his wife’s inability to have children and she was driving him away because of it. One small turn of events could have forever veered this from the brink of tragedy right over the edge and this would have been yet another family lost to the unforgiving world in which they live.

Cultural Awareness Essay

The popular book Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice is a novel that is responsible for the revitalization of the vampire genre in popular fiction. The book itself tells an interesting story about three vampires: Lestat, Louis, and Claudia. The tale is told from the perspective of Louis, a Creole American plantation owner in pre-Civil War America who catches the eye of Lestat, a vampire who is roaming the world alone, in need of a companion. Louis is depressed because of losing his family and therefore is suceptible to Lestat’s eagerness to make him into a vampire, which he does. The plot of the book revolves around these two characters as they live together. Louis hates what he has become and loathes taking life but makes Claudia, a little five year old girl, into a vampire as well. The relationship between Lestat and Louis, and their shared love of Claudia, is depicted throughout the novel as Louis struggles with his immortality, Lestat faces the betrayal of Louis and Claudia, and Claudia matures mentally without every growing physically. Their struggles with each other and against each other becomes the driving force behind the novel. The setting of Interview with the Vampire is primarily Paris and New Orleans before and after the Civil War. The vampires live together in a flat, where much of the action takes place between all of the characters. The reader is led through the torment of the plague in Paris, the customs of the slaves in New Orleans, and the underbelly of these two cities where Lestat, Louis, and Claudia find the people that they feed off of each night for their sustenance and strength. The characters found within this book are Lestat, Louis, Claudia, and Armand. These main characters show themselves throughout the novel to be interesting and complex. The character of Claudia emerges as a young girl whose mother has died of the plague and who Louis feels extremely sickened about when he feeds off of her. Lestat then helps him create a vampire out of her. Armand is the leader of the coven in Paris and becomes a close companion of Louis after Lestat and he go their separate ways. Each character brings a new dimension to the story.

Analysis Of Mary Shelley s Frankenstein - 1054 Words

Significantly Absent Within many pieces of gothic literature, women are absent in order to show the control and dominance that men have in society. Frankenstein is particularly notable for its number of absent mothers. This may link to Mary Shelley’s own life, as her birth caused the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft. The main absent mother in the novel, is the motherless monster. Although the monster was not born, he was created by Victor Frankenstein who he sees as a mother figure. Margaret Homans argues that while Frankenstein is creating the monster – while he is pregnant with it, one might say – he is full of excitement and anticipation; but as soon as it is â€Å"born†, he hates and rejects his own creation, his own â€Å"child†.†¦show more content†¦This action is similar to an instinctive child reaching towards a mother figure. However, Victor’s reaction to this could reflect his transgression against the process of sexual reproduction and realisation of his unnatural creation. This is also an anti-maternal action. Shelley describes the monster as having â€Å"yellow skin† and a â€Å"shrivelled complexion† and being uneducated. This is similar to the description of an infant, and may link to the fact that children were significantly absent within Shelley’s own life. Christina Bacchilega’s critical quote that â€Å"the devil is only the institutionalised projection of our fears and desires† supports the idea that the monster itself may represent the fear of the evolution of science within society. During the 19th Century, ‘Galvanism’ was an upcoming scientific advancement that involved using electricity to provoke movements within dead bodies. Mary Shelley may use the monster to create an element of didacticism in order to apprise society of the dangers that science contains. As Mary Shelley’s novel explores the lack of a mother, which is personal to the writer’s own life - this can be similarly expressed within Poe’s, ‘To My Mother’ is said to be based upon the absence of a maternal figure in Edgar Allan Poe’s personal life; as he was left an orphan during his infancy due to the death of Eliza, as he matured he was brought up by his stepmother Francis who also died. Another mother figure to Edgar Allan Poe was his

The Us Military Is The Most Powerful Organized Military

The US military is the most powerful organized military for any country in the world. There are currently 1.4 million active duty military personnel and they are paid for their efforts and duties. These brave men and women are paid because ever since the Vietnam War, the United States of America has had a professional military. This means that the common people are not required to serve. The quote that I am going to reflect on is as follows, â€Å"Since the Vietnam War, the U.S. wages war with a professional military, thus absolving Americans of any need to sacrifice for the common good. This has altered the relationship between the military and society in ways few Americans seem willing to acknowledge. When those who benefit most from†¦show more content†¦The poorest people from small towns you’ve never heard of are the soldiers on the front lines, or the sailors on the massive aircraft carriers that defend the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful peop le. The people who are benefitting greatly should have to lend a helping hand to be able to keep the current situation a reality, thus ensuring they continue to prosper. Yet they are still prospering by reaping the benefits allowed to them due to the sacrifices of the poor that defend their freedom. A great quote was said in class and I feel it fits in well to this topic, â€Å"nobody with a lawn service is writing to a soldier.† This quote was said in my class and it really cut deep to me. I thought about all the people that I know in active duty and none of them are what I would consider rich or well off. They are the people who work very hard and don’t always get quite what they are deserving of. The fact that the quote says â€Å"lawn service† is the part that hit home the most. Lawn services are typically used by the upper middle to upper class families that do not want to mow their own lawn. 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Romanticism and Realism Examples of Mark Twain and Herman...

English Essay Rough Draft Romanticism and realism are two very different styles of writings. They both came about in the 19th century. Writing through romanticism is a way to express your emotions in a deeper way, but writing through realism is a way to express your true feelings about how the world is. In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick he uses romanticism to express his point. In The War Prayer by Mark Twain, the speaker talks about the real aspects of war. Romanticism first came about in the 18th century and it was mostly used for art and literature. The actual word â€Å"romanticism† was created in Britain in the 1840s. People like Victor Hugo, William Wordsworth, and Percy Bysshe Shelley had big impacts on this style of art. Romanticism is†¦show more content†¦He had always wanted to be a steamboat pilot and his dream came true when he was 23 when he got his pilot license. However, his dream ended when the civil war began because there was less opportunity to go out at sea. In 1861, that same year, Twain decided to move west. He went to California and Nevada. In 1862 he got a job as a reporter for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and it was during this job that he got his pen name Mark Twain. He earned this name for being a really good storyteller, in fact he was said to be the best one. He got married to Olivia Langdon at age 35. Mark began to be depressed when he was sinking financially. Also later in his life, his wife and kids got sick; each had different sicknesses. Their son Langdon died from diphtheria and their daughter Susy died of spinal meningitis at age 24. His other daughter Jean died as well at age 29 because of a heart attack, she had also had epilepsy, which was part of the reason of her death. His wife had also died of an illness in 1904. Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910. Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, which was based off of Melville’s voyages. 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Universal Values and Virtues in Management-Samples for Students

Questions: 1.Identify and briefly describe two major ethical issues from the article titled Enron Ethics 2.How might we enact and develop virtuous traits? How does this theory compare to consequentialist and non-consequentialist theories? 3.Do you think that Kelloggs CSR statement is sincere, or is the company merely trying to convince stakeholders that it is a socially responsible company? 4.What other perspectives on fair trade could be considered? Do corporations have a responsibility to the global community? Answers: 1.The first key ethical issue that have been identified from the case study of Enron has been that they have asked their employees to invest hugely in their organization although the executives and the management were conscious that the firm was not doing well at all behind the curtains. The organizations has to give up an earnings of over $390 million with their trading from their corporations like in this case Chewco investments and right after two months when the CEO Jeffery Skilling resigned from his post. The stock prices of Enron has fallen and reaffirmed the earnings and the revenues of the organization. This situation ultimately compelled Enron to freeze their shares in order to safeguard their organization. This is a key ethical concern as the managers and the administrators had knowledge about the downfall of the organization and influenced their employees to undertake investment in the organization, thereby destroying their future and their lives financially and in a way e nticing their staffs and their employees to fall with the managers due to the ineffective decisions undertaken by them. The second ethical issue that has been identified has been the unethical culture and environment within the business of Enron. The company Enron had a deficiency of ethical cultures of business, which was started by the management of the organization (Baer 2015). The company would recognise and reward those employees who were ready to accept the greedy and belligerent culture that Enron had in mind and therefore would appoint and hire those employees who gets increasingly motivated with money. The culture of the organization has been one of the major factors that led to the decline of Enron as there has been a rise in the illegal and unethical activities were carried within the business organization. The issue and the concern with the unethical attitude of the managers was that their encouragement towards unethical actions motivated the employees to become unethical themselves as they discovered that they would only be rewarded if their actions were unethical in nature. 2.As cited by Toner (2015), virtues are similar to behavioural habits and is a thing that is done on a continuous basis. Thus, the development of a trait that is virtuous in nature is obtained with the help of the habits and surroundings for the entire life. The thought of being virtuous means to share the good nature and the principles of nature of virtue starts as a child and what is experienced and seen around in the nature of virtuous appearances. On the other hand, Aristotle has described that the ultimate aim and goal for every human beings is to be happy. There have been several other philosophers who have explained that the mode of being happy and satisfied is by being virtuous. A human being can be virtuous by making use of their moral and intellectual traits that can be influential for becoming virtuous. It has even been mentioned that being virtuous does not mean being honest all the time or being angry at a significant level but maintaining a balance between being honest and angry. Individuals needs to show their honesty and anger according to the situation they face (Demuijnck 2015). It has been observed that one can be virtuous by avoiding any extremities in emotions and actions. This theory has been in line with the consequentialist and non-consequentialist theories as it is seen that consequentialist theory judges the value of right and wrong by looking at the result that action would have. On the other hand, non-consequentialist theory looks in to the right or wrong based on the internal traits of the action (Alfano 2016). Therefore, this theory would be compared with the consequentialist theory as virtue of ethics would depend on the end result of the action and the emotions that have taken place. 3.The Corporate Social Responsibility practice of Kelloggs has been able to mislead the consumers and the public with respect to their product as it has been found that their product has been harmful and therefore is not sincere. Kellogg has disclosed that they have been selling their nutritional products and have even maintained a normal and healthy regime. On the other hand, their product has been found to be comprised of saturated fats that may be harmful for human beings. It can be stated that their products has not been encouraging a quality and healthy life, which has been contrary to the CSR disclosure provided by the company. In this respect, it can be described that Kellogg had been making use of practices in their business that have been unethical in nature. Kellogg should not have promoted their product to be healthy and promotes a healthier lifestyle in their CSR reports. The firm had simply tried to impress and convince their stakeholders that Kellogg is a community resp onsible organization and has been hiding the reality in order to increase their profit (Kleinberg, Nahari and Verschuere, 2016). This could leads to a fraudulent claim if the organization is making false statements without being sincere towards the society. By making use of the evaluation of the Kantian theory for the assessment of the Kelloggs CSR statement, there have been various issues. Kantian theory deals with the moral moral beliefs that concentrates on the factor and the motive behind any act. There are four elements in the Kantian theory that are mainly taken into consideration and they include the universal acceptability, categorical imperative, proper will and the fundamentals of respecting individuals. With respect to this scenario, it is seen that Kellogg does not have a proper will. The main purpose of Kellogg has been to increase their level of profit, which had even been earlier. The next factor has been the introduction of the categorical imperative and it has been observed that this element does not even validate the acts that have been performed by Kellogg. It is known that categorical imperative has been expressed as the actions undertaken by a party like a law that is universal in nature. The decisions and the performance undertaken by the firm requires to be implemented everywhere all over the globe. Thus, it would not be authentic if the organizations worldwide undertake such fraudulent claims with respect to their product superiority in their CSR reports as this would create a crisis of trust and lead to a conflict among the organization and the public (Harjoto 2017). Thus, it can be said that the actions that have been undertaken by Kellogg cannot be granted in accorda nce to the Kantian theory of categorical imperative. In accordance towards respecting the individuals, it has been observed that Kellogg has falsely acclaimed that their products are healthy and thereby have kept their customers within a false image so has not respected the customers and the human beings. 4.Fair trade has been developed in order to eliminate the gulf between the rich and the poor. Fair trade has been established in order to provide assistance to the people of the developing countries and thereby increasing the level of balance in the worldwide economy (Geldres-Weiss et al. 2016). However, there are various other perspectives that can be considered as well. Fair trade has overlooked the problem of child labour, which has been a global issue. Child labour has led to adverse working environment and has an impact on the future of the children who are working in the dangerous and laborious working environment. Fair trade should even look to construct community building that would be influential for the developing newer talents and knowledge to the backward people so that they can become optimistic and perform their tasks in an effective manner. The companies and the organizations that are operating in the global economy has a responsibility towards the global community (Do herty, Davies and Tranchell 2013). It is the duty of the organizations to develop a plan and strategies that would benefit the community and would even aid the developing countries as well. The strategies to increase the level of export and and lower the level of import from the developing countries would be beneficial for the enhancement of their economy. Reference List Alfano, M., 2016. Michael W. Austin, ed. Virtues in Action: New Essays in Applied Virtue Ethics. Baer, R., 2015. Ethics, values, virtues, and character strengths in mindfulness-based interventions: a psychological science perspective.Mindfulness,6(4), pp.956-969. Demuijnck, G., 2015. Universal values and virtues in management versus cross-cultural moral relativism: An educational strategy to clear the ground for business ethics.Journal of Business Ethics,128(4), pp.817-835. Doherty, B., Davies, I.A. and Tranchell, S., 2013. Where now for fair trade?.Business History,55(2), pp.161-189. Geldres-Weiss, V.V., Soto, M.A., Ramos, H.R. and Uribe, C.T., 2016. Social Capital and International Business Networks: The Case of a Fair Trade Organization.J Account Mark,5(168), p.2. Harjoto, M., 2017. Corporate social responsibility and corporate fraud.Social Responsibility Journal, (just-accepted), Kleinberg, B., Nahari, G. and Verschuere, B., 2016. Using the verifiability of details as a test of deception: A conceptual framework for the automation of the verifiability approach. InProceedings of NAACL-HLT(pp. 18-25). Toner, J.H., 2015.Morals under the gun: The cardinal virtues, military ethics, and American society. University Press of Kentucky.