...I have never considered my self a good writer. The idea of writing a “perfect paper” seemed like an unreachable concept. However, this year, my writing has improved greatly. I am not a five star writer, but i am reaching to better skills now, rather than where i was at the beginning of my freshman year. With the practice and building up my skills, i have improved in certain areas ad a writer. throughout this year, i have improved on the idea of properly analyzing evidence. For the book club unit towards the beginning of the year, I read the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which told the story of Christopher, a boy with autism. The essay focused on the idea of how Christopher had locus of control. The evidence worked for the point I was...
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...History may not be an open book, but an open book can still bring meaning and value. Even outside of entertainment, the raw importance of a book can enlighten those who absorb the information-even in a murder mystery novel about a dead poodle. The book in question has a name: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, written by Mark Haddon. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time explores how the main character, Christopher, reacts and investigates certain events, particularly the death of his neighbor’s poodle and the aftermath of the supposed death of his mother. The struggles Christopher may have to deal with, as well as his importance in the story, become much more magnetizing once we learn Christopher has “behavioural...
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...It can be argued that in the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, though Christopher is born with a disability, it is his family and community that really disadvantage him. Although many people have doubted the accuracy of this statement, a thorough inspection reveals that it is, in fact, correct. This can be shown by examining the way he is treated by the general public, his school community and even his own family. As a result, Christopher is unable to develop his full potential and becoming as useful an asset to the population as he might have been, creating a vicious cycle. One major example of the way the community disadvantages him is by looking at the general public. People, having been brought up in a strict society with certain unofficial rules which must be followed, instinctively create a barrier against anything which they deem that does not belong, such as Christopher, and therefore, they either close themselves off, or even turn against him, as the two drunken men on the train had done by calling him a "train elf" (Haddon, 2003:206). On the other hand, there are also those people who believe they are being sympathetic and doing the right thing by "helping" the autistic population like Christopher through counselling and trying to find a "cure" for their disability when they actually don't want to be "cured", because the autistic way of life is the only way they know, and if they are treated, they won't be them anymore. Even classifying...
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...The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time “They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.” (p 12) Prime numbers are erratic, and sometimes you can find them always end with certain numbers so people may think that they find the pattern of prime numbers. However, there must have some exceptions of prime numbers that do not follow the pattern. Prime numbers are used for the chapter numbers of the book. Prime numbers may be like the story, the storyline and all the clues lead readers to an answer that they all agree, but suddenly everything changes and they lose track of the book and need to rethink what actually happened. “I sometimes pretend at night in the summer when I go and lie on the lawn and look up at the sky and I put my hands round the sides of my face so I can’t see the fence and the chimney and the washing line and I can pretend I’m in the space.” (p 51) Christopher’s imagination world is different from other children’s. Christopher imagines going to space, at the same time, other children imagine playing games and having toys. Christopher has different point of few comparing to others and he has more thoughtful ideas to help him find the murderer of the dog. Also it shows Christopher’s interests in science and math which scientifically means the person has more logical thoughts. Apparently, Christopher is smarter than normal children which helps him to find some little details that only...
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...The mind of an autistic person is fascinating and frightening because usually their actions can’t accurately express what their brain is thinking. It is frustrating to try and determine what a child with autism is trying to say, and often results in them being misunderstood. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, tells the story from the perspective of Christopher Boone, a fifteen year old boy with autism. Chris is brilliant at math and science, but is unable to understand or express emotion. His difficult home life further contributes to his illness; he doesn’t have anyone at home who supports him and tries to help him. His teacher, Siobhan, is his only friend and the only person who tries to help him learn to how to live with autism and how to assimilate himself into everyday society. This novel is very eye opening because it truly takes the reader into the mind of a person with autism. Chris is a gifted math and science student; he can recite every prime number up to 2,057. Formulas and numbers come very easily to him, he doesn’t even have to think about what he’s doing, it comes as second nature. In the novel, Haddon provides diagrams of problems that Chris can solve. These problems are difficult for the reader to interpret, which makes it even more remarkable that Christopher can figure them out in such a concise manner. Chris has a photographic memory, and he explains in the novel that’s why he understands math, because it is simple and there...
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...The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Setting: “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” takes place in the year 1998 in and around the town of Swindon in England. It’s a typical small-town neighborhood, where everybody knows everybody. The main character lives in a medium size house with a nice garden. His school has a nice environment, and from the description it seems that Christopher likes it – especially his teacher Siobhan whom he talks too very well. Financially, it seems that the family is middleclass, they don’t to have too much or too little money. Their main form of income is Christopher’s father heating maintenance and boiler repair business. Even though Christopher is a difficult child, his parents still show him plenty of love and affection. This love helps him through the whole story – it gives him a kind confidence that he lacks. Plot: The beginning: The novel is about a fifteen year old autistic boy named Christopher, who lives with his dad in a small town in England. One day Christopher finds his neighbor’s dog dead, it has been killed with a fork. After the shock of finding the dog, Christopher decides to uncover the dog’s murderer. While investigating, Christopher gets arrested and taken in to custody by the police because of a misunderstanding. After this episode, he promises the police and his father that he would stop his investigation immediately. Conflict: As a part of a school assignment, Christopher writes his investigation...
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...Conquering or overcoming various challenges, can positively affect one's confidence in oneself to accomplish anything. In the novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, an autistic young boy named Christopher faces many hurdles, but with some perseverance and determination, he is able to get over these hurdles. Christopher is left with a sense of pride and joy after he achieves the goals he set for him-self that at one point may have seemed impossible. The obstacles he faced and conquered, gave him the confidence to take more risks and try new things that for him are very difficult things to do. He is also left with a feeling that he can do anything that he sets his mind to. The barriers that were once standing in Christopher”s way are now gone and this has increased his sense of self confidence. After achieving the goals that he set for...
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...Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time explores different perspectives through language and stylistic features by presenting us with a 15-year-old protagonist dealing with Asperger’s syndrome, Christopher Boone, and his logical profound personality. We learn about the world Christopher knows and understands via the narration style with detailed diagrams and unsentimental writing. Language is explored through the narrators perspective, (Christopher), which allows recognition in the differences between the reader and narrator, and other characters involved in Christopher’s life. Christopher’s perspective is explored within the novel through technique such as the differentiation between the characters, and the use of language...
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...presence of the naturally occurring stimulus. The most common names given to the two following elements are known as the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned responses. Classical conditioning came to life through the hard work and dedication from the well world renowned investigations of Psychologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov Born September 14, 1849 in Russia knew from very early he loved the study of psychology and worked hard on focusing on the Classical Conditioning theory “Operant and classical conditioning are two different ways in which organisms come to reflect the order of the environment around them” ( Charles, 2014). Using an example regarding a Dog in purposes such as to sit or training my partner to clean the house is perfect especially when trying to demonstrate classical conditioning and its theories “Dogs likely were the first animals to be domesticated and as such have shared a common environment with humans for over ten thousand...
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...been discovered in in the Arctic. Californian people are rushing to the Northland, looking to gain some gold. Everyone is looking for strong and big dogs to carry them to the severe cold in the Arctic for their journey. Buck is a strong dog and the main character of “call of the wild” tale. Buck lives in the home of Judge Miller in Santa Clara Valley. Other dogs are present in the tale; however, Buck is the king of his domain. He escorts the Judge's daughters on walks; he hunts with Judge’s sons, carries his grandchildren on his back. Buck weighs around 140 pounds. He is not as large as his father was, but he carries himself like a king. Hunting and walking keep him fit. Buck doesn’t know what danger is waiting him. Manuel, a gardener's helper, who fall in debt, his salary can’t support his big family. One night, when the Judge and his sons are gone Manuel takes Buck on a walk. They arrive to a flag station where a man is waiting for them. Manuel sells Buck to a stranger for some dollars and when the stranger tries to grab the rope around his neck he flies violently at the man and bite the man’s hand; however Buck is thrown into the baggage car of the train. The man tells the conductor that Buck is being taken to San Francisco in order to cure him. Buck was hold into a brass collar and thrown into a cage. During the first night, Buck wonders why he is there. He wishes that the Judge come for him. Buck kidnappers put him in an express train to reach Seattle in two days. They...
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...out to write a new book to please this new desire. He did not know this book was going to turn out to be about a fifteen year-old autistic boy. Haddon, known for his children’s books, was highly recognized for his most recent piece of literature, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and received multiple awards, but was mostly heavily criticized for the piece of literature. These criticisms are still present and haunt the novel. Mark Haddon was born September 26, 1962 in Northampton, England. Marathon canoeing, writing, and abstract painting are his biggest passions. During his early career he used to assist patients with Multiple Sclerosis and Autism, and worked many other part-time jobs, including a theater box office and a mail-order business. Haddon obtained a formal education at Merton College, Oxford, and Edinburgh University. Haddon also worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for many periodicals. One of his most famous cartoon strips is one called “Men a User’s Guide”. He also wrote several children’s television series, like Microsoap, and Starstreet. But, he is most famous for his children’s books, especially his most recent piece The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. His most recent piece has won several awards and is popular amongst all age groups, even though it was intended to be a novel pointed towards adults. Haddon says in an interview with Dave Weich that, “It was definitely for adults, but maybe I should say more specifically: it...
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...P.D. Eastman’s book, “Go Dog Go” is a book with fun illustrations with an easy to follow story that was my favorite book as a child. The illustrations are very detailed which keeps a child’s interest throughout the entire book. The easy to follow story is simple to memorize which helps the child to remember the book and feel like they are actually participating in the reading of the story. As a child, my mom would always allow me to pick a book to read before bedtime. I remember picking this book several nights a week for her to read to me. If you ask her she will tell you that it was almost every night of the week. I think the first thing that I loved about this book was that it had so many different looking dogs in it. I loved, and still do love, animals and I found it exciting and fun to read about the adventures that these dogs were going on. On almost every page there would be a different dog on a new adventure. I know that after my mom had read this book over and over to me I had it memorized. This was exciting to me as a young child. I used to think that I was actually reading the book right along with her when in all actuality, I had memorized the words in the book. The story was very east to catch on to and I used to recite the words over and over. I can remember asking if we could read it twice each night just so I could show off my good “reading” skills. My mom would usually smile and then let me show off those great “reading” skills of mine. As...
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...ENGL 220 Regret The night has shut in, the man gets back from work with a lot of boxes, it seems really heavy, but we don’t know what he has brought back, he is depressed, suffering and too stressed out to talk with his wife about his job, yes, he got fired. It was a really long night because he couldn’t sleep and he couldn’t talk with his wife friendly because they have been fighting for past weeks. The next day he decided to go away and do something that can make him happy, he took his big dog and all the money he had saved in the past from bank and stock market. Then he set off to go to Las Vegas for gambling. He did fill up the gas; pack some clothes and enough food to his adventure. He is really exciting to go there, because he wants to be happy, and get away from his wife and terrible situation. Seems he got a lot of fun in Vegas, because he always win, and also meet so many friends there, one of his friend give him advice, but one bad decision made him loss all the money, at that time he regret and think about his friend had told him and also his dog and wife. He stress out again, because he is not only unemployment, and also no money, he check out the hotel and took the dog with him head back to home, he can not wait to home tell his wife he is wrong, and planning his future job with her. Whereupon, he starts the car with his dog back to home, he was driving and driving, the gas run out really fast, finally stopped on the half way. He has no idea where he at, he is hungry...
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...treasure the good times because you can never get those times back. I am personally talking about pets, but it could be for anyone. I was just thinking about my dog that I have lost; it hurt so bad I felt like I would never recover. You may feel empty and so depleted of emotion but then something comes into your life that makes you light up. It happened to me and I hope it happens for everyone else who has faced a loss of some kind. About six years ago I had a beautiful dog named Bear; he was very furry and had the cutest squirrel like tail. I loved him tremendously; he was my playmate, and my best friend. Unfortunately Bear was an older dog and passed away over night which still shocked my whole family because he played like a puppy the night before I went to sleep. I was so devastated and could not stop crying, I told my mom through streaming tears that I never want another dog again. I was so distraught that I actually thought I would never again be able to love another dog. After a few months of grieving the loss of my wonderful dog Bear, I asked my mom if we could get another. I was shocked I felt this way but was pretty sure I needed to have another dog in my life and thankfully she agreed. I wanted to get a dog from a shelter, to save them from being euthanized and everyone in my family agreed. My mom and dad asked me and my sister if we were sure this is what we wanted and we said yes and that weekend we went to a shelter. We seen all kinds of dogs, all too cute...
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...refuse to give up. I am doing everything in my power to work towards completing my college degree. One solution I came up with to help my son is to get a dog. The Basenji is considered to be one of man’s oldest dog breeds. There happens to be something else very special about them. Basenjis are very smart and if there is a way to escape, they will find it and go exploring all on their own. The Basenji has been compared to an Autistic Child or adult by their manners because they also have the curiosity of a cat and someone with Autism. The best part is they do not smell at all; they are considered to be hypoallergenic because they do not smell unless you consider smelling like a Frito a smell. Yes, I said a Frito because they do smell like one. The Basenji does not bark, so they are considered to be a bark-less dog and the only bark-less dog breeds in the world. With a history going back to 3500 BC, if you have looked at the hieroglyphics of the pyramids, you will see them in those pictures. There are many books and even a movie made in 1950s Goodbye My Lady about a Basenji. The movie tells and shows a lot about how smart and cunning they are along with being very emotional, which happened to be a very good thing for my son and me. Alec started to walk right around his second birthday, which was around 2008. At that time, we had a beagle and her name was Princess and one of...
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