Spring District Writing Assessment

Leadership 

 For the Spring District Writing Assessment, I chose to write this piece because it gives me varied types of pieces and because Ender's Shadow is such a good book it would make a good writing piece. In this literary analysis I am focusing on conventions and idea development and content.

Ender’s Shadow has a great theme to it, exploiting it in places in the book you wouldn’t expect. Leadership plays a huge role in every kid’s and adult’s actions in this book. They even had kids commanding a fleet that would decide either the beginning or end of humanity! Ender’s Shadow shows that kids given great responsibility can range from excellent leaders to horrible bullies.

 Ender, the commander who handles responsibility wonderfully, was promoted to the elite commander of the International Fleet. This was most likely because of Ender’s being open to innovative battle techniques, giving power to his subordinates, and believing in changing how “the game” is played. Bean, on the same hand, is a great commander that leads, for most of the book, under Ender. He leads by pure respect that is earned by his high scores on tests and epic battle tactics. He’s the guy who gives Ender most of his fantastic ideas, like using insanely strong cord to change direction instantly in null-G. He's so much smarter than Ender, in fact, that he is made commander of Rabbit Army.

 Now let’s look at the other side of kid commanders. Bonzo Madrid is a cruel, mean, stupid bully who thinks he’s so great because the teachers foolishly chose him as a commander of an army. Because he thinks he’s so awesome, he can’t rely on other kids to take responsibility on the battlefield. Because of that, he almost always loses the battles and most everyone despises him. If Bonzo was put into a role like Bean’s, where he has to be a leader and follower, he would fail. His pride and arrogance would cloud his ability to make tactical decisions on the spot. That is what makes Bean and Ender so much better commanders than Bonzo. Ender is the most worshiped and famed soldier in Battle School, everyone is in awe of Bean, and where is Bonzo? At the bottom of the food chain.

Leadership is applied on the street as well as in Battle School. Before Achilles comes along, Poke is a pretty decent but dumb crew leader. She usually manages well enough to get food to everyone in the crew, finding it thrown out, on the ground, or in the charity kitchen. Then Bean comes up with a great plan. Poke’s crew will pound one of the street bullies with rocks, and then force him to let Poke and her crew into the charity kitchen. People don’t really respect Poke, because she doesn’t really do anything exceptional. That’s where Achilles comes in.

Achilles is like Tom Alacran in The House of the Scorpion -- a lying, cheating, deceptive person on the inside, but on the outside is a cheerful, kind respectful boy. He acts all nice to the crew, especially when they set him up as their “papa” and protector, and what he does to get food affects how they treat him. Because he gets them enough food to grow and be nourished, they accept him as their leader. Because Achilles is so smart and sly, people like him and give Achilles more food and provisions to him than Poke, who is just an average, dumb person trying to gain other’s respect.

The message in this book is awesome, adding to how well it is portrayed throughout the book. Most people can become great leaders, as long as they are willing to change how they act and don’t allow their pride or any of their other flaws to affect the way they act in their role of leadership. Bonzo could have easily changed the way he acted and become well-liked and respected but his arrogance got in the way.

The Mighty B-29 Superfortress

 Author's Note: I chose to write this piece for the DWA because I am very interested in WWII and this topic has great opportunities to write good introductions and literary devices. In this piece I am focusing on the word choice, putting in literary devices, and sentence structure.

The B-29 Superfortress is a four-engine, propeller driven bomber, made by Boeing, who also makes normal aircraft. This mighty bomber could hold up to 20,000 pounds of bombs and had 8 .50 caliber machine guns and 4 .30 caliber -- hence the name Superfortress. This was also the famous plane that dropped the atomic bombs over first Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. B-29 Superfortress was mainly used in World War II and later on in the Korean war. Heritage wise, it was known as the "big brother" of the B-17 and the "little brother" of the B-32, its predecessor and successor, respectively. It has been one of the greatest planes ever made.

 This potent beast required eleven people to command it -- a lot for it's time. There were four gunners for each turret, and a bombardier who looked over and dropped the bombs. There were also the airplane commander, the pilot, the flight engineer ( a rated pilot), a navigator that was basically a human GPS and told the pilot where to fly, and then radar and radio operators. Almost 4,000 of these planes were built, until they were later rendered obsolete by better designed, jet-engined bombers.

 This plane has the hearts of four lions, with turbosupercharged R-3350 engines, each pounding out 2200 horsepower each. Imagine that! Almost 9000 horses pulling this epic maker of destruction! If all of those 9000 horses stood side by side, the area they would cover would almost be four miles wide. The B-29 was as quick as lightning and had a max speed of 357 mph and could fly up to 3,250 miles on a combat mission. Its service ceiling was over 30,000 feet, making it next to impossible to hit with AA guns, and almost no fighter could go that far up. Protecting it were ten .50 caliber machine guns in remote-controlled turrets, and in earlier B-29s, a 20 mm M2 cannon in the B-29's tail position.

 This war machine was exceedingly famous for participating in one mission. This was the plane that dropped the atomic bombs -- called Fat Man and Little Boy, aptly named. The planes were modified to better fit their mission, with more powerful engines and a stiffer structure for better flying. The machines were also used before the attack on the two cities, bombing Japan from other bases in southern China, though only one came back. After its major role in bombing the two cities, it, unlike many other bombers was in service for about 15 years after production stopped, and was used in the Korean War as well.

As you can see, this was one of the most advanced planes for its time, with the first pressurized cabin in a bomber ever, lots of guns, and a huge bomb capacity. Even though it has passed on, its name will live forever in books and minds.

Energy

Author's Note: I chose this as one of my pieces for the Spring District Writing Assessment because it provides opportunities for organization, voice, and convention focus. In this piece I am focusing on what is listed above and having a good conclusion.

In the last four years gasoline prices have more than doubled.1 At that rate, gas prices will be about $7.50 per gallon by 2016. This is because of the dwindling supply of crude oil. In general, it’s obvious that we are running out of easy to acquire types of energy. There have been many alternative solutions to this worldwide problem. For example, major automakers have agreed to have a mean of 54.5 mpg across their lineup of cars with around 45 mpg required for trucks, this being proposed by the U.S. government. Another solution is using wind or solar energy to power our homes, but both of these types of energy have problems. Solar power can be pretty expensive, and a lot of times people don’t have the space to place the panels. Wind power has problems too. Some places aren’t always windy and can also be unsightly. Therefore, we should try harder to waste the fossil fuel energy we already have and use more efficient renewable of energy sources to power our everyday needs.

Some people think that alternate types of energy sources are the silver bullets to our problems, but alternative forms of energy have problems of their own. Solutions to our dwindling non renewable energy stockpiles aren’t just alternate forms. Fortunately, all we have to do to is be more active in conserving the types easy-to-accumulate energy we already have. Ultimately, it’s using less energy at a slower pace instead of using more energy at a faster pace.

For example, hydrogen can’t just be pulled out of the air. It has to be freed from all the other gases in the air, which costs more than it gives back. Solar panels are a pretty good option, but they can get pretty expensive and a lot of areas either don’t have any sun at all or are cloudy a lot of the time. Wind is also a fair option, but customers complain that it takes away from the landscape. Also, it’s not always windy and other power sources have to cover for them when it isn’t windy, negating the advantage of using wind power as a conventional source of energy. Lastly, wind energy cannot be stored.

To understand how energy can be used more efficiently, first you have to understand a little bit about energy conversions. Even everyday products use many energy conversions that we may not know about. Just the most basic light bulb switches from electrical energy to light and heat energy. A light bulb has a byproduct when the electrical energy is converted: heat. We don’t want that, and some companies have started researching things to increase the efficiency of the light bulb and by doing so, create less heat. A bow drill, for example, is ancient tool that has been used for thousands of years and yet still has energy conversions occurring. When you pull the bow up and down against the stick, using kinetic energy it converts the kinetic energy into thermal energy, and thus creates a fire. A more complicated system is a nuclear reactor. First, it uses thermal energy to heat some water. The boiling water then turns into steam and the steam is forced through a turbine to create kinetic energy and when the turbine spins, it creates electrical energy. This is a very efficient way to produce energy.2

 Energy efficiency is improved by making the energy conversions in a system less wasteful. All systems that use energy conversions waste at least a small amount of energy during the conversion. For example, when you turn on a light switch, the system converts the energy from electrical to thermal and light energy. Part of the energy is used to create heat, an unnecessary byproduct of the light conversion. When the electricity passes through the filament of the bulb it encounters the atoms of the filament, vibrating the atoms and heating them up. This unfortunately produces heat, obviously, but also produces light. If we could find a way to convert more of the electrical energy to light energy instead of heat, the system would be more efficient. One solution to this dilemma is light emitting diodes, or LEDs. The main reason why these are so much more efficient than incandescent bulbs is because they don’t emit any heat whatsoever. LEDs don’t have a filament like incandescent bulbs do, so not only can they not burn out, they don’t waste any energy in the process. Almost no energy is wasted in light-producing LEDs, with almost all of it going towards producing light.3

An alternative to using more efficient energy is to simply use less of it. Energy usage can be reduced by opening windows, turning off lights when leaving a room, turning off computers when done using them and spending less time on them, and turning off the oven after finishing with it. Energy can also be conserved by using more efficient appliances and products, using LED light bulbs instead of incandescent or CFL, using a programmable thermostat to adapt to a schedule, and taking short showers. These are just a few ways to conserve and save energy.

 Energy consumption is harmful. It can emit harmful substances, damage the earth and empty wallets. It is in our best interest to reduce the expenditure of energy. This saves people money and also benefits the planet as a whole. People can’t just reduce harmful energy consumption, but also have to find ways to use non-harmful energy sources. Most alternate sources of energy reduce CO2 emissions, are more healthy to our wildlife, are renewable, and are also non-polluting. If we take these measures, we will heading into a bright future.

 1 N/A. “What If Gas Cost $10 a Gallon?.” MSN Money. Microsoft, N/A. Website. 4/24/12
 2 N/A. “Energy Conversions.” University of Waterloo, N/A. Website. 5/2/12
 3 N/A. “Why are LEDs more efficient than other light bulbs?” Energy Efficient Bulbs, N/A. Website. 5/8/12