![]() uTorrent allows you to manage your torrents by using scripting, automation, remote control and other features. It can also act as a portable downloader if saved to a USB stick or any other external storage device. ![]() It can search for torrents right from the app and one can prioritize ongoing downloads. UTorrent is a lightweight app and the installer is small size. Here we shall share Top 7 Torrent clients for Windows and Mac. You need to choose a reliable and reputable tool to not only download content from the web but also to protect your operating system from viruses and adware. There is a risk of infecting your computer with malware or to clutter it up with spam significantly increases. Please DIY finding and using a suitable blocking list for your chosen BT protocol application.People who use Torrent Clients for downloading should consider using a VPN as an essential app for safety. Be extra careful out there! And again, an up-to-date blocking list is recommended. You can read about BIglyBT here at MU as well as at the URL provided below by Barry5p. Head over to Wikipedia for excellent introductions to all these topics and applications, with the exception of BiglyBT, which apparently hasn't yet hit Wikipedia's radar. As such, never use WAREZ, or at least first scan such software with a high quality and up-to-date anti-malware app before using it. Also note that BitTorrented WAREZ software is now infamous for being infected with malware. Keep in mind that BT sharing remains under scrutiny by the media industry. The BitTorrent protocol has a steep initial learning curve, but is well worth the effort. As such, it provides considerably more options than Transmission. It is considered the descendent and revival of the Azureus/Vuze project. The BiglyBT Open Source project began in 2017 in response to the Vuze situation. ![]() It is considered the most simple to setup and use reliably. In 2005 the Transmission Open Source project was started and continues on as such today. In 2010, Vuze was purchased by Spigot, became proprietary, was parallel named µTorrent, is now considered ADWARE and should be avoided. Meanwhile, in 2004 the Open Source Azureus project was started and continued on via Vuze. BitTorrent is currently considered ADWARE and should be avoided. The cryptocurrency TRON Foundation bought the BitTorrent company in 2018, at which point creator Bram Cohen left the company. As of version 6, BitTorrent became proprietary software. As a result, BitTorrent was forced to 'play nice' with the media industry or face lawsuits. As of version 5 in 2006, BitTorrent came under the scrutiny of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) due to copyright infringement by BitTorrent users. Azureus and its descendents are based on this code. Versions 1 - 4 of their software were Open Source via various licenses. The BitTorrent company was formed in 2004. It is also the name of the original, very first BT client, created by Bram Cohen in 2001. "BitTorrent" (BT) is the name of a file sharing protocol. If you like bells and whistles, aka Geek Meter in the RED, you want BiglyBT. I personally use the latest version of Transmission along with an up-to-date blocking list. NO, this is not the torrenting client you're looking for.
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![]() *2 item minimum purchase per person is required for all shows. Make sure to select your date, show times and the number of tickets accurately. Eddie’s extensive film resume includes films such as Armageddon (1998), and the worldwide successful comedy franchise Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999)and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005) as well as Date Movie (2006), Scary Movie 3 (2003), My Baby’s Daddy (2004) which he starred, wrote and executive produced for Miramax. Shortly thereafter, his leading-man status lead to one of his most notable roles, Anton Jackson in Undercover Brother (2002). Griffin then starred beside Denzel Washington in John Q (2002), earning him respect as a dramatic actor. In 2001, Eddie was offered a lead role in Double Take alongside friend Orlando Jones. In addition to lending his acting experience to this sitcom, he also wrote and directed four episodes, one of which starred his Godfather and mentor Richard Pryor. The star of movies like Undercover Brother and Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and the hit TV show Malcolm and Eddie, comedian Eddie Griffin gets back into his. Roles in such films as The Last Boy Scout (1991), Coneheads (1993), and Jason’s Lyric (1994) soon led to his own hit comedy series Malcolm and Eddie(1996-2000),for which he was nominated (1996) and won (2000) the NAACP Image Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He also recorded the successful comedy albums Message In The Hat (1993) and The Message (1999) featuring comedic and musical performances by him as well as Master P, Silk the Shocker, and Fiend. Griffin also a new film coming out, one that was delayed by the pandemic. These successful performances led to Eddie Griffin’s appearance on Russell Simmons’ Def Comedy Jam (1992), the Cable Ace Award-nominated HBO special One Night stand (1992), HBO Comedy Half Hour Special (1995), the HBO special Voodoo Child (1997) and onstage at the legendary Apollo Theater. After two months, Griffin was chosen to open for Andrew Dice Clay at Madison Square Garden that kicked off a 22-city tour. In one short month, he was a regular at the renowned Comedy Store, where he was compared with esteemed talents such as Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, and Lenny Bruce. It was then that Griffin purchased a one-way ticket to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a stand-up comedian. He performed off-the-cuff for 45 minutes successfully. But all of that would soon change when one night his cousin dared him to go on stage at the local comedy club Sanford and Sons where he was told to do 3minutes. ![]() His first love was always dance and by the young age of 16, he opened his own dance studio and was choreographing the Kansas City Chiefs half-times shows. A popular comedian turned actor who started his career on-stage as a dare, funnyman Eddie Griffin has built an ever-growing fan base since jumping onto the comedy scene in 1990.Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Eddie was voted class clown three years in a row in high school. ![]() It’s a story that makes the existential horror of the Cthulhu mythos seem tame. In an act that makes Sodom and Gomorrah, or Noah’s flood seem low-key, God has seen fit to doom an entire world’s intelligent life, so that the world He actually cares for can worship Him better. As the film explicitly states, God called this species here, purely so He could invite them to their own extinction. What are the chances? That in the entire cosmos the nearest, best hope for your species’ survival is a world whose biosphere is uniquely hostile to life as you know it?īut it is no coincidence. Worse than that, the native life itself almost entirely consists of this dangerous substance. But when they reach the promised land, they discover almost the entire surface of the planet is covered in a toxic, corrosive liquid. These aliens are clearly not a militaristic civilization by choice-they have no heavy armaments, apparently no armor, so this invasion is driven by necessity. Think about it: your world is dying, and your civilization is forced to find somewhere else to make your home. But looking back at the film today, the best thing about Signs is the sheer underlying horror of its premise about alien invaders who are killed off by water. The approach successfully evokes films like The Birds and Night of the Living Dead-influences the film wears proudly on its sleeves. The isolated farmhouse setting and the gradual bleed-through of the alien invasion storyline via radio and blurry TV footage manage to fuel suspension of disbelief. Making an alien invasion movie based around crop circles, possibly the most debunked paranormal phenomena there is, is actually charming. Night Shyamalan starting to discover the limits of his beloved “ Twilight Zone-twist” storytelling, and the ending is a literal deus ex machina that doesn’t even begin to answer the questions about faith that the story poses.Īnd yet, there’s a lot to love here. It is a painful reminder that somehow Mel Gibson keeps getting work it is a film that shows M. ![]() Signs has not aged well, we will be the first to admit. ![]() ![]() Let’s start with a controversial one right out the gate. With that in mind, here are 10 of our favorite alien invasion movies. It’s a problem that a lot of alien invasion movies ignore, but some come up with some truly original and exciting answers to that question. If you are the pernickety, ruin-everyone-else’s-fun kind of science fiction fan, most alien invasion storylines present a bit of a problem: If you can build spaceships capable of carrying a military force large enough to subdue a planet, and transporting that force the vast interstellar distances between habitable worlds, well, you probably don’t really need to invade anywhere. When it comes to movies though, that’s kind of their thing… So it’s not too much of leap to guess that aliens are going to be invading Earth again. And while we can be reasonably sure that a huge chunk of the plot and premise of Nope won’t be revealed until you are sitting in your cinema seat, we already know it has a sinister cloud and, at some point, a flying saucer. In case you haven’t heard, Jordan Peele has a new movie out this weekend, which is exciting. ![]() Yes, I am playing with you to some extent, but not completely. You detect termites in the walls using a methane sniffer! I am not about to go buy cricket flower but you can and it gets great reviews: Cricket Protein Powderīut, if we are serious about a sustainable planet, why are we so afraid of new ideas that can wean us off our predisposition to eat the way we do now? Think of all the damage locusts do if we don’t harvest them? Plus, you do know that termites are a significant source of methane pollution … much higher than all those belching cows. ![]() Some animals consider ants as their primary food source. Genetics tells us we and primates have common ancestors if you go back far enough and primates do consider ants and termites a delightful snack. No one I know eats ants or termites, but our ancestors probably did. Plus, you simple dry them before consumption to store them and you can keep them for years without refrigeration. And, think of the devastation locusts produce if we don’t keep their populations under control. The ecological impacts are all beneficial. The idea of a cricket appetizer is just not likely to appear on any American restaurant menu. We seem to think we have risen to a higher standard of living because we can eat beef, lamb, lobster, etc. But here in the West, most cringe at the thought. Of course, insects are a key part of the diet in many parts of the world, in some cases even a delicacy. And bees are essential for our plants’ survival due to their role as pollinators. First of all, it is now a well-known fact that honey is an amazingly powerful food. It is interesting to me that we seem poised to consider doing the same these days. I would doubt this is all he ate, but he was known for being different by eating these. The most famous one you probably know was John the Baptist who reportedly ate locusts and wild honey. The Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to voluntary poverty, daily immersion, and asceticism (their priestly class practiced celibacy). The Jewish historian Josephus records that Essenes existed in large numbers but fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the other two major sects at the time. The winners will play either Middlesbrough or Coventry at Wembley, on 27 May, for a place in the Premier League.Wikipedia describes the Essenes as a mystic Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. The first leg of their play-off semi-final against Sunderland takes place on Wearside on Saturday, with the return at Kenilworth Road next Tuesday. He did not play for four months of this season because of a knee injury, but has started the past five games to help Edwards' team stretch their unbeaten run to 14. "We have a huge couple of weeks ahead of us and he will play a big part in that, but I urge every supporter to thank him for what he has done for Luton Town whenever you get the chance."īradley scored Luton's first goal in the second tier following promotion from League One in 2019. "I have so much respect for him as a human being and a player, because he's done such a great job as captain of this club for such a long time," said Edwards. The Hatters finished third in the table and are preparing for the play-offs for the second successive season, having been beaten by Huddersfield a year ago. The club said the decision had been taken following "amicable discussions" with head coach Rob Edwards. ![]() All of this takes time, and you are in a race to stop the aliens from completing the Avatar project. Meanwhile, you have to set the scientists loose on designing better weapons. You have to expose that project and renew humanity’s will to fight. Then you find out they are building some kind of Avatar project that is going to be a disaster for humanity. ![]() On the scientific research side, you have to stay busy doing autopsies on aliens and decrypting their communications. Then you can start getting some real work done. Then you have to spend resources on securing communications with other regions and powering up the areas that you have cleared. On the engineering side, it takes a long time to get the Avenger in good condition because you’ve retaken this mobile base from the aliens and have to clear out the debris. You have to acquire new recruits for science, engineering, and soldiering. These missions are the part that gets really hard late in the game.Īs the commander, you have to build up your base ship, the Avenger, and acquire resources. You play a high level strategy game on a global level, and then it moves into a purely tactical, turn-based battle when you execute the missions. You are now part of a resistance force and must rebuild the XCOM organization. The aliens have conquered Earth, and some humans working for the Advent Coalition are collaborating with the aliens in a quest to wipe out all opposition. In XCOM 2, a sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you are part of a special forces unit dubbed XCOM. “That was one of the things that got a lot of discussion during development. “Yeah, it’s definitely challenging,” he said. Overall, it worked mostly fine on the Lenovo Ideapad Y700 entertainment laptop that I played it on. If I didn’t run into the difficulty wall, I would have rated it much higher myself. That’s about where I would rate it, given my troubles. But it’s noteworthy that players only rated the game at 6.9 out of 10. After all, the critics gave this game an 88 out of 100 on Metacritic, the review aggregator. In XCOM 2, I hit a wall.Ĭertainly, this made me feel inadequate. I loved it in Total War: Attila, which was really difficult. I’m not sure I like this trend all of the time. And I’ve been playing for the better part of a month. I’ve tried to beat some of the harder missions against the alien facilities in the title more than a dozen times. The completionist in me wants to keep going, but I’m giving voice to my shame. Those games can make you feel like you’ve climbed a mountain when you beat them, but they have a pretty big downside. We’re seeing a new obsession with “permadeath” and high difficulty in games such as Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Necropolis. I’m here to testify that it is possible to make a game too difficult. ![]() If a game is too hard, a lot of more casual gamers like me are just going to give up. This raises a question about the wisdom behind the game industry’s spiraling quest to make games more engaging by making them harder to play for a smaller group of hardcore gamers. But I started playing this game on the “normal” setting and had to ratchet it down to “rookie” in order to continue with the game. I’m going to get a lot of flak for this from hardcore gamers who want their games to be difficult. The game is too hard, and I’m in so deep that I can’t make more progress unless I start over. ![]() I have tried to turn back the alien conquest of Earth in a last-ditch guerrilla war by humanity. I have put dozens of hours into playing a single game of XCOM 2, the turn-based tactical strategy game from Take-Two Interactive’s 2K Games label. Connect with top gaming leaders in Los Angeles at GamesBeat Summit 2023 this May 22-23. When the command went forth, the disciples were already prepared and they began bringing offerings of arms-arrows and swords and shields and bows to the Guru. The Master ordered all his men to wear swords, to keep horses, and to make arms : determinig to take his disciples through blood and fire, since they wished it. Har Gobind said to Bhai Budha, “No, give me two swords to wear instead.” He saluted the Saili and put it by. Here out of the roots of life rises a new Bushido, a pure passion for death in love.Īs of old, Bhai Budha, the hoary-headed saint, placed before Har Gobind the Saili or Ribbon of Renunciation that Nanak wore and gave it to Angad, who gave it to Amardas, who gave it to Ramdas, who gave it to Arjun Dev. There was the distinction of military uniform, the wearing of two swords, the riding on a charger, the defiance of mighty powers but how few they were, and was it not all the pathetic preparation of a Sati ? This is the spirit of the Guru’s declaration of war the rest is mere dusty detail. A similar pure resolution came to the whole Sikh people and to their leader, after the cruel death ‘of Guru Arjun Dev. It certainly seems incongruous that her self-adornment at that moment should be one of joy and not of mourning yet those beautiful colours are nothing but the symbol of that flame of devotion which will lead her presently to leap into fire that consumes the body. ![]() It is akin to the heroism of the Satiwoman who dresses herself in the most passionate colours when her husband and lover is dead. ![]() It is commonly forgotten that the Guru’s heroism that appeared in his character, at this juncture, was not a herosim that kills and murders, but the heroism that dies with a glad heart. Ignorance of the preceding events had led many to believe that Guru Har Gobind waged a war of hatred against the Empire, thus compromising his ideals of spiritual Humanity, which were of a life at peace with all creation. The fire that had come leaping from outside into the camp of peace, must be quenched. Guru Har Gobind, driven by the curse and prayer of the people, unsheathed his shining sword, and declared a holy war against the unrighteous Empire of India. For the first time in the centuries’ long enslavement of the Indians by the hordes of barbarous invaders from. So great was now their indignation, that they felt everything they held dear-religion, song, home, love of child and wife-must be sacrificed, and their love for the Guru redeemed. Now that He had been tortured, of what use was life ? Their prospect was annihilation: acceptance of which meant the eventual disappearance from this earth of the type of spiritual humanity created by the Master resistance to which meant sorrow, suffering, hunger, and death for themselves and their children-but, so great was the love of the people for their true king, that all these ills must be endured. While they helplessly witnessed his cruel death, a curse arose from among them, both against the Moghal Empire and against themselves. The devotion they bore to their Master was deep and selfless. ![]() ![]() If you choose to do business with this business, please let the business know that you contacted BBB for a BBB Business Profile.Īs a matter of policy, BBB does not endorse any product, service or business.Arjun Dev was cruelly tortured to death, to the sore affliction of the soul of the whole people. BBB Business Profiles are subject to change at any time. When considering complaint information, please take into account the company's size and volume of transactions, and understand that the nature of complaints and a firm's responses to them are often more important than the number of complaints.īBB Business Profiles generally cover a three-year reporting period. However, BBB does not verify the accuracy of information provided by third parties, and does not guarantee the accuracy of any information in Business Profiles. BBB asks third parties who publish complaints, reviews and/or responses on this website to affirm that the information provided is accurate. BBB Business Profiles may not be reproduced for sales or promotional purposes.īBB Business Profiles are provided solely to assist you in exercising your own best judgment. ![]() In most cases, the 0 value on the light meter scale is said to be the correct exposure for the scene. However, the adjustments depend on the Exposure Value shown by your camera’s metering system. With higher f-stop numbers, you can achieve a deep depth of field where the maximum area in the photo is in reasonably sharp focus. ![]() It also creates a blurred background which is also known as “bokeh.” In other words, It’s the area between the nearest and the farthest point in an image that’s acceptably in focus.Ī shallow depth of field is when the aperture is wide open, resulting in a bright photo with the in-focus area being too small. How F-stop Affects Depth of Fieldĭepth of field is the range of distance that is in sharp focus in a photo. ![]() I’ll explain more about it in the upcoming section.Ĭhanging f-stop not only affects the exposure and sharpness but also directly affects the depth of field. ![]() However, lower f numbers tend to soften the details, while higher f-stop results in sharper details in photos.Īperture is one of the three settings (also called Exposure Triangle) that overall control the exposure in digital cameras. On the other hand, decreasing the f-stop would add more light to the image. Letting in less light or increasing the f-stop value reduces your photo’s exposure. The aperture can be thought of as the pupil of the lens, which controls the amount of light that goes through the lens and hits the sensor. In other words, the aperture is the physical opening in the lens barrel, whereas the f-stop is a number to determine its size.Īs we discussed above, when you change the f-stop on your camera, you essentially increase or decrease the size of the aperture in your lens. However, the f-stop is the measure of that opening. The aperture is the hole through which light travels into the camera and reaches the sensor. However, there’s a slight difference in how we use both these terms. Yes, aperture and f-stop refer to the same thing. Related: When to use aperture priority in photography.Let’s take a look at it in the section below. Here’s an easy way to remember it: the higher the f-number, the less light enters the lens, and the lower the f-number, the more light enters the lens.Īnother question that often confuses beginners is whether we refer to the same thing with the terms “aperture” and “f-stop”. If you increase the f-stop, you cut the light entering through the lens by half and double it when you decrease the f-number. The difference between each value denotes one full stop of light. The amount of light that enters the camera affects the exposure and depth of field in the photo.į-stop is represented in a series of numbers which increments in the stops of light, such as f/1.4, f/2, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, and so on. Then, when you fully press the shutter button, light hits the photosensitive material, i.e., a sensor, and your camera captures and processes it into a photograph. In the above step, how much light enters the lens barrel is decided by the f-stop value chosen, as it’s the metric that denotes the diameter of the opening in the lens. To explain it better, I’ll take you through how a camera captures an image.įirst, light passes through the lens barrel and hits the mirror or sensor (depending on the camera DSLR or Mirrorless) to facilitate a preview of the scene in the live-view window or the LCD screen. F-stop can be defined as the mathematical measure of the size of the opening in a lens. ![]() I first started my blog with hosting it through Bluehost for only $2.95/month and once I figured it out, I monetized it with ads and affiliate links until I started adding more income streams to it over time. It is possible to do this for very little upfront cost too. You could do what I did and monetize your cooking hobby with a food blog. When going this route, be sure to hire a proofreader or editor to make sure everything is in order before submitting the finished piece to Amazon Kindle. If you publish on Kindle yourself, you don’t have to worry about paying a publisher or spend too much on marketing. You can self publish the eBook as a eCookbook on Amazon Kindle or even reach out to publishers to help bring your vision for your book to life. Food blogs (reach out to food blogs and ask if they are hiring any recipe writers)Ī great way to create a passive income stream with a bundle of your recipes is to house them in eBook format.Facebook Groups like VA for Hire and Pinterest-Friendly Content for Bloggers.Other sites like Fiverr to find freelance recipe writing gigs: Then you will be able to search gigs to apply for. To get started on a site like Fiverr to start finding gigs you must first create a profile (and this is where your small portfolio will come in handy again). You can use online gig websites like Fiverr to find freelance recipe writing gigs online. Have your rates and conditions ready to go once they express their interest.Work with the potential buyer to schedule a time for the presentation and with your attorney to have all parties sign any necessary paperwork to protect your intellectual property.Do not include your pricing in this email and do not send them your presentation yet. Contact each potential buyer (company) via email in a cover letter style form with some information about yourself, why you are contacting them, and that you are interested in pitching them some recipe ideas.Consult an attorney as you go through this process to ensure your recipe ideas are safe from theft.Prepare a presentation package of your recipe(s) which will be like a small portfolio outlining your past culinary experience, the recipe you are pitching, and a photo or video of the product in its final prepared state.Gather together the recipe(s) you want to sell.Once you have your specialty, follow these steps as you start reaching out to companies: If your specialty is bakery items, considering reaching out to desert food companies, manufacturers, and bakeries. The trick is with pitching to companies is you have to be within their specialty. Use common and easy to find ingredientsĪnother option for a place to make money with your recipe ideas is approaching food companies like Tyson, Kraft, and Banquet.Write a good description that includes everything the buyer wants to know about what they will be getting in their recipe download.Make sure it is something people want to make and it solves a problem.When listing your recipes for sale, keep these items in mind: These are the best places to start listing and selling your recipes online: ![]() You can sell your recipes on a variety of websites and online platforms. Magazines aren’t the only places looking for recipes.
![]() Man-Jongg gained popularity after the release of Shanghai Mahjong on Atari ST and Macintosh systems in 1986. Despite the name similarity, the two games have very little in common and are played differently. Mah-Jongg was inspired by the competitive board game popular in China and other parts of Asia named Mahjong. The first version of Mahjong Solitaire was developed in 1981 by Brodie Lockard for the PLATO system and was named Mah-Jongg. A big stack of tiles can be hard to remove at the end of the game, so getting rid of them at the start is a good idea. This way you increase the number of possible tiles to play in the next move.įocus on first removing tiles from the top-most layer. How do you choose? Remove the pair that will unlock more tiles first. Often, during the game, you will have a situation when you have an option to remove many different pairs. The tiles won’t go anywhere, and by keeping tiles on the board, you guarantee that you will be able to unlock another pair later in the game. If you see only one pair of open tiles, don’t remove them immediately and leave them for later. Order in which you remove tiles can greatly impact whether you will get the locked position. While mahjong is a relatively easy and relaxing game, there are some things you might want to look out for if you want to win more games. Use that knowledge to your advantage to predict what tiles might be hidden under the stack. Each pair appears exactly twice in the game. In our version, all puzzles have 144 tiles and 72 pairs. The number of tiles differs from one version of Mahjong to another and ranges from 136 to 144 tiles. If you end up in that situation, our game allows you to shuffle the board and continue or use the undo button to backtrack your moves one by one. Collect all the stars to become a Mahjong champion! Locked PositionĪlthough all puzzles generated by our game can be solved, you might choose the wrong pair of tiles at some point during the game, leading to a locked position, meaning that there are no more tiles to play. Upon winning the game, you are rewarded a star for solving the puzzle you were playing. ![]() There is no time limit, but if you’d like more challenge, you can enable the timer feature in the settings. You win the game when all tiles are removed. Feel free to use a hint or shuffle button if you can’t find any. ![]() We recommend starting your first game with the classic Turtle layout.īegin by looking for two open tiles that can be removed. Our game offers you more than a hundred original layouts to solve. The shape of the puzzle significantly impacts the game’s difficulty, and some puzzles will be easier to solve than others. When the game starts, tiles get arranged into a pyramid-like shape with multiple layers stacked on one another, usually forming some figure. Tile can slide out to the left or right.įind examples in our detailed guide on how to play Mahjong Solitaire.
![]() The only real outliers, I’ve found, are the students who didn’t take the assignment as seriously as their classmates and managed to isolate the words that somehow depicted the father and daughter in an intimate relationship, which isn’t what the author intended, I assume… Their responses tend to be relatively similar to each other’s, which is a good thing, because it conveys that they’re approaching the text similarly and walking away with relatively similar insights. They usually re-read it a couple of times to get a better grasp of what the complex relationship is between father and daughter, then they comb through the text, blacking out everything except those important details & words that contribute to the author’s characterization of the two.Īnd their final products are actually quite good! They’re usually able to come up with something that sounds poetic and, more importantly, identifies the weighty, significant text within the passage. Then I give them time to go through the text with a partner. In other words, it should make sense when read from beginning to end! When you are done, your poem should, theoretically, convey the complex relationship between father and daughter. Go through the passage and black out everything EXCEPT the important pieces of text that you feel encapsulate the complex relationship between father and daughter, as expressed in the title you created.*Don’t be vague! Make sure you clearly express the complexity of their relationship! The title should express the same information that you’d convey in your thesis statement. Come up with a title for your Blackout Poem that accurately describes what the complex relationship between father and daughter is like.So I tell my students that they’re responsible for two tasks: Yes, it is still somewhat of a creative assignment, but it’s focused creativity, something grounded in honing a specific skill. Again, traditionally speaking, a Blackout poem is an opportunity to take random words from a text and make something poetic out of it, and many students are familiar with the concept, so I go over my expectations for their Blackout Poem. We go over what a Blackout Poem looks like and what its function is. When they’ve determined what the author’s purpose is, then we read with the intention of looking for any text that contributes to the holistic purpose, in this case, the depiction of the “complex relationship” between the two characters.Īt this point, I introduce them to the assignment. I’ve used The Mayor Casterbridge prompt from 2016 for this assignment, though it can modified to use with any passage (or poem). The first thing we do is look at the prompt and determine what the larger purpose is, at least according to the prompt. I took the traditional Blackout Poetry assignment, which is, for the most part, a creative-type activity, and modified it to be of use in strengthening their analysis and breaking them from the bad habits of scavenging for literary devices. ![]() So I came up with an activity that helps some of my struggling writers focus solely on the text and deprive them of the opportunity to categorize it under the many terms that we covered early in the year. They seem to think, as much as I try to break them from this belief, that close reading is an act of scavenging for literary terms, and that by merely identifying a metaphor or a simile or personification will magically grant them access the elusive “author’s purpose.” Over the course of the year, many of my students become particularly adept at identifying weighty text within a passage or poem however, many of them become fixated upon the idea that it needs to be formally classified under one of the aforementioned devices, and if they’re not able to classify it under a larger term, many simply discard it or neglect to discuss its significance. One of the consistent issues that I have to combat throughout the year is that my students – in their close reading and analysis – keep tripping themselves up because they can’t “find any literary devices” in the passage or poem. |