Societys Fascination with Reality TV Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Societys Fascination with Reality TV - Essay Example Watching a standard TV program is like escaping into a world of fiction and fantasy, where the shocks and jolts that are associated with real life may sometimes be absent. But reality TV offers the lure of so-called truth. It portrays life as it happens, with all its disappointments, hope, anxieties and unexpected events, as well as its mundane, daily grind. The fascination of reality TV for the viewer is in gaining insight into the fears, dreams and expectations of real people. Reality TV programs focus on ordinary, working and middle-class citizens, so it becomes easier for viewers to identify with the characters. To some extent, the fascination for reality TV may also lie in the fact that participants reveal some of the most intimate aspects of their lives. For example the Celebrity Big Brother TV show in the UK where celebrities are asked to live together without contact with the outside world and satisfy certain conditions (www.tv.com). Such programs offer viewers the opportunit y for a voyeuristic look into other peoples’ lives, while for the ones participating in the programs, the focus is a narcissistic one. With the onset of more and sensational kinds of programs on TV, reality TV which attempts to compete with it, offers an equal amount of shock value but drawn from â€Å"reality†, which packs a bigger thrill for viewers as compared to standard TV programs, where viewers are aware that the events are fictional or doctored up in some way. For example, TV shows like â€Å"The Bold and the Beautiful† and â€Å"Dynasty† are enjoyed by viewers, but they are aware of the fictional content of these programs. Reality TV, however, does not represent â€Å"fluff† in any sense of the word. In some instances, it may offer valuable insight into the fears, perceptions and feelings of actual people and viewers are irresistibly drawn by the lure of participating, even temporarily, in other peoples’ lives.

Create a Multicultural Theme Unit (8) Coursework

Create a Multicultural Theme Unit (8) - Coursework Example Furthermore, this process is implemented within a lower level of elementary grade and preschool level. This thematic unit benefits students to encourage and enhance their appreciation towards individualism and eccentricity among other members in the classroom.The prime purpose of the paper is to provide developmentally methodology towards learning and teaching process by the creation of multicultural theme unit. Moreover, week long detailed information about multicultural theme unit is created. This includes identification of four developmental goals and definition of criteria with teaching strategies. In case of literature-based program, the widely used units for organization of instruction is described to be as thematic units. The fundamental part of thematic units is multicultural literature. The foremost view which defines the concept of multicultural theme unit is differentiating the concept of multiculturalism. The multiculturalism is defined as the combination of cultures and multiple. Therefore, it can be notified that it is vital to include many cultures in the learning process to nullify difference between the dominated and dominant. The lesson plans for multicultural theory should bring diversity on the understanding with the combination of hands-on learning practices. Furthermore, children are confronted with critical thinking skills and fresh ideas. According to Barbara Biles, the early childhood education that has been incorporated in the preschool is described as an effective procedure for the development of racial identity and racial biases. One of the primary activities that I personally think would be included in the preschool activities is Passports. A passport craft activity is beneficial for a week multicultural theme unit. The passport craft is effectively modeled and presented after American passport. Furthermore, it modeled by showing the national bird and blue cover. This activity would be fruitful by

Literacy and Numeracy: Personal Development Plan

Literacy and Numeracy: Personal Development Plan A new prospect by the Australian government will have new teachers who have graduated from university undergo a literacy and numeracy test to show that they are at a competent level to teach students. Students leaving university will be required to place in the top 30% to pass. EDU114 is a current course at the University of the Sunshine Coast which is helping aspiring teachers to get ready for life in the classroom. In this course, one of our tasks is to form a personal develop plan to help us achieve our goals to pass the literacy and numeracy test in 4 years. I have undergone four practice literacy tests and four practice numeracy tests. Below are my results and my personal development plan to help me lift my results to become a successful and competent teacher. Literacy was done first so I will examine my results for these test first. I have averaged out all my results for the four tests to make them easier to analyse then broken the tests down into sections. These sections are: spelling, punctuation, grammar, comprehension and total score. My total score for the four tests averaged out to be 70.5. If we are to assume that anything over 70 would be top 30% then I have just scraped in. The main section holding me back has been comprehension with a low score of 59 while my best scoring section was grammar which was 78. Spelling and punctuation were 67.5 and 76.5 respectively. If I am to improve on these numbers one of my goals is to move my comprehension score from a 59 to a 75 by the end of the second semester. To do this I will be keeping a reading journal by my side when I read books, whether it be recreational or for study. By keeping a reading journal and taking notes, it will force me to absorb what I am reading rather than just taking in words. By handwriting in a journal, it forces me to use the correct spelling without the help of auto correct on the computer which will also improve my spelling. By repeating this same test in 8 months time, it will give me a greater understanding of my improvement in all areas while at the same time being a long enough time for me not to remember the answers. My numeracy test was very poor compared with my literacy test. My total score was only 54.25 with my lowest score coming in at 36.75 for written arithmetic. The other two scores were written data at 52 and mental arithmetic at 68.5. As you can see, none of these scores are anywhere near sufficient to get in to the top 30%. My goal for numeracy is similar to my literacy goal but instead of just focusing on one section like comprehension, my goal is to redo the test at the end of the second semester and have my total score at 75. To do this, I will be getting help from an outside source known as the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy has been recommended to me by other students who needed help in their math classes. It takes you through problems, ideas, solutions, graphs and anything you need help with and explains slowly so you can understand. By using this site each week and methodically going through their format for learning, I will improve my mathematics knowledge and be able to check my mathematics knowledge at the end of the year. The literacy and numeracy tests that the Australian government is implementing are designed to make sure educators are in the top 30% of Australians for literacy and numeracy. These test are a way to make sure that our students are only receiving correct information. After reviewing my tests in literacy and numeracy I can see that I have a bit of a way to go until I am ready to teach. However, with my goals in place I believe that I will be able to reach the top 30% by the end of my university degree. I look forward to the end of the year where I can test myself again and check my progress, after which I can reset my goal posts and aim higher for next time.

George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion Essay examples -- George Shaw Pygmalio

George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion G.B Shaw believed that people should not be limited by their birth, environment or speech. With reference to Act 1 & Act five of Pygmalion, show how Eliza finds her status affected by all of these factors. At the time George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion in 1912, many people were troubled with accents that prevented them from reaching high & in act 1, Eliza's character is an example of this. In act 1, we see how Eliza was very limited by her environment, her job, & her speech by the way that she was treated differently for who she was. The society at the time Pygmalion was written was very set & if you were born into a lower class family, you were not seen as anything better than that. Eliza was a lower class flower girl whose speech was not Standard English & difficult to understand. She came from the slum streets of London & was as clean as she could afford to be but to the upper class people she was 'worthless' & 'dirty'. Higgins was an upper class man who studied phonetics. He was written as someone who believed in the class system & that he should not associate with the likes of 'Eliza' who was 'just a flower girl' & a 'disgrace to the English language'. The play does reflect the society at the time & Shaw incorporated the way people treated other people into the play quite effectively. The Aynsford-Hills were a middle class family but whose status was slowly sliding down. In act 1, 'the daughter' has Higgins's view of lower class people & doesn't treat Eliza nicely just because she is a flower girl. Shaw wanted to include his thoughts on society, language & drama into Pygmalion. He thought society was unfair & that 'no one should be limited by his or h... ...closed on her, & she could never go back to who she was originally no matter how much she wanted to because she is seen as upper class so to be back selling flowers on the street would not be in her character anymore. I think she feels she is better off because she has a lot of knowledge from Higgins, more independence & the upper class status. At the end, just because of the way she spoke & the clothes she wore, she was automatically seen as upper class. She was not born into a wealthy family. She started off as a common flower girl & ended up as an upper class duchess but technically all that happened to her was that she was taught how to be a lady. So this proves that throughout the play Eliza's status was affected by her birth, environment & speech in a way that it completely changed the way she was judged by other people in the space of six months.

‘That doom abided, / but in time it would come’ (Beowulf, lines 83-4)

It is indeed immediately evident to the reader (or listener) of Beowulf, that the poem is heavily laden with themes of fate and destiny. I would even go as far as saying that it is partly the weight that these themes lend that gives Beowulf its rich and beautiful quality. These themes are present throughout the text, for instance the creation of Heorot comes with the prophecy of its doom, with â€Å"its gables wide and high and awaiting / a barbarous burning† (lines 82-3). We are also given the cause for such a fate, namely blood feud between in-laws. The inevitable doom associated with blood feuds, and its associated fratricide, is also present at the end of the text with the wild prediction of the war and destruction of the Geat nation at the Shylfing's hands. It is also interesting to note here that the poem is book ended by funerals, death being the inevitable conclusion of fate, and also with prophecy, particularly effective for a contemporary audience knowledgeable of the outcomes of such prognostications. However, it is in the episode of Beowulf's fight against the dragon that we see the most signposted manifestation of fate: He was sad at heart, Unsettled yet ready, sensing his death. His fate hovered near, unknowable but certain (2419-2421) From the offset, we are told that Beowulf will die in this final battle, with the effect of altering our perception of the final fight; we see it as tragic and heroic, this warrior king fighting despite sensing his fate near at hand. This gives the weight to the dragon fight, gives it its grim, poetic beauty. Here fate is expressed as a sense of foreboding, external to any value judgement. This would have a concept familiar to the Germanic tradition of wyrd, or doom. However, if this is to be considered as evidence of the Anglo-Saxon concept of doom, then in the poem we are also able to see the Christian equivalent, which can perhaps be better referred to as divine providence. In this interpretation of destiny, there is an integral component of judgement, whereby destiny is set out by God. This approach to destiny can be seen at numerous points, for example â€Å"a comfort sent / by God to that nation† (13-4). Here we can clearly see the influence of Christian beliefs in the narrative voice of the poet. The evidence of divine intervention can be found elsewhere in Beowulf, for example in his fight against Grendel's mother: It was easy for the Lord, the Ruler of Heaven, to redress the balance once Beowulf got back on his feet. (1554-6) This has the effect of showing that all outcomes are ultimately attributable to God, here reinforcing the positive characterisation of Beowulf by essentially saying that God is in support of him. The poet was here faced with a challenge when intertwining the themes of Christian providence and pagan wyrd, namely how do you tell an essentially pagan story of a warrior hero while staying true to a contrasting theological belief? In reply, we can identify several features of the Beowulf poem that allow a satisfactory reconciliation of these apparently antithetical themes. The first is an identification of Beowulf and the other Germanic pagan heroes with God through their opposition to evil. An exemplification of this is that Grendel is intimately associated with sin and hell, for example in the description of him as â€Å"a fiend out of hell† (100) and the passage: he had dwelt for a time in misery among the banished monsters, Cain's clan, whom the Creator had outlawed and condemned as outcasts. (104-7) Therefore, if Beowulf represents the purging factor that destroys the evil of Grendel and his mother, then by implication he is identified as an agent of God, an important point as it demonstrates that he is under the influence of providence whilst still subject to his doom. In a number of ways the heroic characters are distanced from the paganism that they historically must hold, in particular they adhere to characteristically Christian formulas of worship. An example of this is â€Å"They thanked God / for that easy crossing on a calm sea† (227-8), which is instantly recognisable as an un-pagan thanksgiving to the providence of a single God. Indeed, throughout Beowulf there are signs that these pagans worshiped a monotheistic precursor to Christianity, rather than the polytheistic idol worship that would be extremely difficult to excuse from a Christian viewpoint. Thomas D. Hill points out that this would allow an approach similar to later humanists, such as Dante who placed such figures as Aristotle, Cato and Rifeo (all pagan) variously in hell, limbo or heaven. This in turn has the effect of allowing the providence theme to sit alongside that of doom because the distancing of the heroic characters from paganism conversely allows their more believable association with God's fate. To further this effect, there is a selective assimilation of Christian sources into the poem. This is exampled by the numerous references to the Old Testament, in particular to the race of Giants – e.g. â€Å"and the giants too who strove with God† (113) – and to the original sin and banishment of Cain for the murder of Abel (105-114). This enables a listener from a Germanic culture to more readily accept the Christian overtones, as the Old Testament is notably closer to their own in its values than the New Testament, as well as the characters to be portrayed as what Hill refers to as â€Å"Noachites†, a people possessing the intrinsic monotheism of Noah but before the â€Å"revealed knowledge of God †¦granted to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a tradition culminated by the revelation of Law to Moses†. Thus, although at one point the poem does iterate that they were damned as pagans because â€Å"The Almighty Judge / of good deeds and bad, the Lord God, /†¦ was unknown to them† (180-3) (which is possibly explained as an interpolation), it enables the poet to suggest that these pagan heroes could, in fact, be fated for salvation by God and in death go to heaven, such as Hrethel who â€Å"chose God's light† (2469). Thus, we can see how the poet of Beowulf reconciles these two divergent themes of fate and destiny, on one hand doom and on the other providence. In this respect the poem therefore also represents a much larger scale co-assimilation and synthesis of the Germanic and Christian traditions. The resulting fine balance struck by the poet between them is highly interesting from a literary viewpoint and also gives the poem an intense and rich atmosphere. Conclusion: Thus we can see how the poet reconciles these two different strands of fate, on one hand doom and on the other providence. In this respect the poem therefore also represents the co-assimilation of the Germanic and Christian traditions.

Australia slashes wheat forecast Essay

In Australia, the commodity markets for wheat hit a formidable loss, as an ongoing drought reduced the predicted crop forecast by a crushing 30%. Australia being the second largest wheat exporter in the world, only behind the United States of America, plays an important role in the distribution of food. Although, in recent years the quantity demanded has risen due to the change in eating habits in China, the growing interest in the use of durum wheat as a bio-fuel, and rising demand for wheat in developing countries. These factors have all contributed to the shortage of wheat, and rising prices of wheat products. For example, pasta in Italy has risen from à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.26 per kg to à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.45 per kg, and supermarkets may further increase this price by 20% by the end of the year (2007). This rise in price of pasta has created major problems, and protests in Italy, as pasta is Italy’s national dish. Italian’s average consumption of pasta is 28kg a year, making it their staple food. Overall, international wheat prices have risen by a startling 350% in the past five years, and global reserves are at their lowest since the early 1980’s causing geopolitical stress in terms of shortage of food. Since the price of wheat, which is a commodity, (Homogenous goods that are raw materials in critical industries)1 has risen dramatically over the past 5 years, governments across the world should (in a graphical sense) try to shift the demand curve left. The demand (the quantity of goods and services that consumers are willing and able to buy at all prices, for a given time period, ceteris paribus)2 for wheat has been going up, but due to the supply shock (in unplanned change in supply usually occurring because of changes in weather conditions or an external change outside the control of the company or economy)3 – the drought in Australia – the supply (the quantity of goods and services that producers are willing and able to produce for a given time period, ceteris paribus)4 of wheat has decreased dramatically, which has caused a shortage (A deficiency in amount; an insufficiency)5 of it on the global market. Shifting the demand curve left can be done though manipulating the non-price determinants of demand for wheat. Some realistic options of doing this are: the Italian government can reduce taxes to give people a higher income (buy less pasta), the Chinese government can increase income taxes to lower people’s income (buy less meat), negative advertising of wheat and lowering the price of substitutes for wheat (buckwheat, rice, soy products, or other grains). In Italy, since pasta is an inferior good (Items for which an increase in income results in a fall in the amount bought e.g. bread, linoleum and coal)6, in theory people should buy less of it if their incomes rise. In China, since eating habits are changing to eating more meat, farmers are feeding their livestock more wheat for them to grow. By decreasing the Chinese people’s income, they will automatically buy less meat (normal good – Goods to which the general law of demand tends to apply)7. Also, negative advertising of wheat will dissuade people from buying wheat, and will thus push people to buy a wheat substitute, which will be even more of an incentive if the prices of the substitutes are lower than wheat. Also, the demand for wheat used as a bio-fuel can be solved by using other substitutes, such as experimenting with different bio-fuels, like corn. Therefore, the price of wheat can and should be lowered through decreasing the demand for the commodity, as the marginal social benefit of feeding people, has more weight compared to the marginal social costs of the governmental costs of increasing incomes, and lowering prices of substitutes. Shifting the supply curve to the right through the use of a buffer stock scheme (A buffer stock scheme is a form of intervention to try to stabilize the price of a commodity. Stocks of the commodity are kept and sold when the price is high to try to reduce it. When the price is low further stocks of the commodity are bought)8 will be too difficult, or impossible as the reserves of wheat are very low. In short, there would be no other alternatives to fully rectify the shortage, other than rationing, which would still keep some people hungry as there is a shortage. 1 Notes: Commodity Markets – 29th September, 2008 2 Notes: The Law of Demand – September 17th, 2008 3 http://www.bized.co.uk/cgi-bin/glossarydb/browse.pl?glostopic=0&glosid=1213 4 Notes: The law of Supply – September 24th, 2008 5 http://www.answers.com/topic/shortage 6 http://www.bized.co.uk/cgi-bin/glossarydb/browse.pl?glostopic=0&glosid=623 7 http://www.bized.co.uk/cgi-bin/glossarydb/browse.pl?glostopic=0&glosid=680 8 http://www.bized.co.uk/cgi-bin/glossarydb/browse.pl?glostopic=0&glosid=1121