Daily Log Blog #2

Today in English class we started our new film, Get Out by director Jordan Peel. We started off class today with Mr.Rivers reminding us that November 7th is the last day for Bee Real blogs. After we complete the blogs to make sure that we post it on the blog wall also in class. Next we started to talk about what we are supposed to do everyday we are watching the film. In each day of watching the film we need one to two sentences talking about micro aggression that is present in the film. Before we watched the film Mr.Rivers stopped and asked us what empathy meant. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. We then continued where we left off from the day before when a black man is walking down the street and is then abducted by a man who is in a white car playing rabbit music. The movie goes on and then we meet the main character Chris Washington and also his girlfriend Rose Armitage. During the film we find out that they have been together for 5 months and Chris has not meant the parents yet. His girlfriend proposes the idea that they should go for the weekend so that Chris can meet her parents to which he thinks is a bad idea. When they finally arrive Chris feels how her family is having two black people that work for them. Chris also meets her brother who is not the greatest guy to talk to especially while drunk at dinner. Chris feels the micro aggression towards himself from his girlfriends family and says i told you so to her in the sense that he knew this would happen from the beginning. That is what we learned in English class today.

10\31\17

Today in class we started to watch our newest film, "Get Out" directed by Jordan Peele. A few classes earlier we listened to the short interview about the film, and watched the "Run Rabbit Run" scene and we picked up from there. 

In the first section of the movie we meet our main character, Chris Washington and his girlfriend, Rose Armitage. They are planning a trip to go stay with and meet her parents, and she has not told them anything about Chris, so he is really nervous to meet them. She promises him that he has nothing to worry about, and they are defiantly not racist. Within the first part of the film the family slips multiple microagrressions into their conversations that are basically aimed at Chris, and Chris plays it off like it does not affect him, but it progressively gets worse throughout the rest of the section. Rose starts to realize that her parents are just as bad towards Chris as the cop that "helped" them after Rose hit a deer.
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(If you were not here on Monday either, and have not read the article on microaggressions, it's on classroom! Don't forget to work on your Be Reel blog posts, seeing as you need TWO per marking period! Also, remember to pin up your Objective Quality / Subjective Enjoyment cards in class for the movies you chose for your Be Reel blog posts. This is the Good-Good, Good-Bad, Bad-Bad board up in class by the door.)

Yesterday while I was nervously waiting to being taking my drivers test, the driving instructor looked at me, then back down, scribbling at the paper, back up to me and said "your hair makes you look like an evil witch."
I usually get strange comments like that, or I'll get a dirty look from an older person. I can see where comments like evil witch could be considered "rude." I didn't have anything to say back to her, so I laughed uncomfortably, and I think she realized what she said wasn't entirely a compliment, and apologized and followed with some sort of compliment. I'm not sure if this is considered a microaggression, but if so, then I experience them often. (Nonetheless, I still passed.)

Liam Cooke 10/31/17

Today in Mr. Rivers class, we talked about the upcoming assignments such as microaggression and be real blogs. Make sure the microaggression is posted in google classroom under the Get Out section. Also we started the movie Get Out today, there is an assignment to write one sentence each day analysing what microaggressions there are in the film. Before we watched the film Mr.Rivers said ”before we write about microaggression we must know what empathy is” which is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. The Film started with the main character who is African American walking down a street at night to go to his girlfriend's house. After getting lost he was approached by a white car with black tint windows. He notices this and as the car is at his side the main character turns around and walks the other way. The car then stops. The camera stays on the main character, then the door in the background of the car is shon open. When the main character turns be gets attacked and knocked unconscious and brought into the trunk. After it writes the title and shows the main character in his house getting ready to leave to his girlfriend's house. After they leave and get to the house Chris meats the family and her father says “My man” which he has never said before to any of her boyfriends we find out. Because chris is black he takes this as a microaggressive frase and feels like he's being treated differently because he is black. This sets up the rest of the feeling for the movies, a tense uncertain setting with an underlying feeling of unwelcoming. Also when the couple mentioned them hitting the deer in the car the father said “Well if you ask me that's a step in the right direction, one down hundred thousand to go, there like rates” all while looking at chris. Some people could take this as meaning the deer being black people and that the father is casually being racist, hiding it in the text.

With the danger of people misunderstanding conversations as microaggression you really need to think about what you say and who you say it to. The more delicate conversation to have is with someone that you might not be familiar with. On the other hand you could talk with less boundaries with close friends,

Becca Brancato- 10/31/17

      Hello class, and Happy Halloween! Today, we watched Get Out directed by Jordan Peele. We have been talking about this in class for the past few days. We have gone over the director’s choices that he made to have the audience relate to the film much better, along with the racial aspect of the film. Yesterday, we talked about microaggression and related it to the movie. But now, on to the movie.
      Get Out starts with an African American man walking in a neighborhood, completely lost. He is followed by a car, when someone finally gets out. The driver ends up killing the beginning character. There is no context to this, it just kind of happens. It gives us a little bit of an outlook to the racial aspects of the rest of the movie. For the next few minutes, there is only music playing. The shots flash back and forth between the main characters, Chris and Rose. When dialogue finally comes in, the two characters talk about their trip to meet Rose’s parents, and Chris voices his fears that the parents do not know that he is black. She reassured him that her parents aren’t racist. On the way to their parents house, they hit a deer head on. This begins the creepy tone of the movie, as Chris goes to check on it. The cop that responds to the scene asks for Chris’ ID, but not Rose’s, which comes off as completely racist. When they get to the house, the parents try way too hard to make Chris comfortable. This, in turn, makes him more uncomfortable than he already was. Chris meets the African American woman that helps around the house (Georgina), and the African American gardener. The father refers to them as  “servants.” Chris becomes uncomfortable and begins to feel like he’s in danger.
      Rose's brother shows up, and Chris starts to seem even more uneasy. At the family dinner, there is more conversation and embarrassing stories told. Georgina becomes more creepy, as she has odd mannerisms. She is almost robotic in her words and movements. This comes into play when rose's mother goes to get dinner, and we see Georgia staring blankly as the mother opens the door to the kitchen. After dinner, Rose and Chris talk about how the family is racist without even knowing it, and Chris doesn’t seem to care too much. However, we can tell he does at least a little bit. Because of this, he has a lot of trouble sleeping. He gets up and goes downstairs in the middle of the night, and Georgia walks by. He goes outside to smoke, and someone starts running towards him at full speed. It is the gardener, and he ends up running directly past him with no reason. Georgina then turns on the light and is standing at the window, and looks at herself in the reflection of the window, scaring Chris even more. Chris runs back inside, but the Mother catches him. She gives him a pep talk about smoking, but it quickly turns into talk about his mother’s death. She is trying to hypnotize him (she’s a psychiatrist) and claims this hypnosis will get him to stop smoking. He hears rain, like the day his mother died. He begins to dig deeper into what happened the day of his mom’s death.
      That is all we got into for today. I suggest watching the first 45 minutes or so of the film. But, if you don’t have the time to, at least you have a summary of what happened!

Justin Rhodes - 10/30

Hello class, today we learned about Cinematic analysis as well as Academic analysis. To cinematically analyze is to analyze how the craft affects the product, while Academically analyzing a piece of literature looks at how the product functions in a select field of study. After doing all of this, we then looked at the opening scene from the movie "Get out" directed by Jordan Peele. After watching the intro, we then discussed some key choices made in the movie, and the product they gave off. For example, when the man begins to talk as we only see the silhouette of his face, it creates suspense, as well as functioning as a critique to the right and wrong places to walk steering away from stereotypes. Then looking into it more, the White Porsche can indicate wealth, as well as potentially indicating race which was likely white. The last piece we analyzed Nondiegetic audio "Run, rabbit, run" which is ironic because the song was kinda upbeat, and the lyrics were telling him to run, foreshadowing the upcoming event when he decides not to run. This song also comes from old times, where racism was more prominent, and this helps us further infer that the man in the car is white. This whole lesson today can be extended further into the real world, both with literature related things, however also pertaining to more practical and common issues and stereotypes in the modern world today. The movie "Get out" allows for both audiences; white and minorities to connect and feel for the characters in the movie. The movie challenges common stereotypes while also showing the struggle for the black population in America, specifically the black male. The minorities can connect to the main character, and the films choices really give the audience, specifically the white audience, things to think about and can influence one to rethink society and morals as a whole. There was no homework tonight, only to read you RPO book by November 1st pages 27-77. Have a good day everyone!

Class notes 10-30-17

Mr. Rivers stands in the middle of the class greeting us a usual “good morning everyone” he says “let's jump right in” Going up to the board and starts his lesson picking up where we left off.  He opens up talking about how a student in his last class had a differing opinion. “It’s ok” he says  having a differing opinion “Disagreement leads to discussion.” Opens up to the new topic today goes up to the board and writes on word MICROAGGRESSION. Some confusion ensues how many G’s how many S’s are in microaggression debate ensues engulfing the classroom we settle on 2 G’s but how many S’s are there no one knows what should we write to halt this debate is there any middle ground. The dust of the conflict settles the word is complete. It was decided that 5 S’s would be sufficient, Crisis averted,  Mr. Rivers starts to read the Atlantic article with great haste. Mr. Rivers connects it with us gleaming university students.

Microaggressions are a big thing in our world today with the rise of PC and social justice warrior culture. It’s a hotly contested issue between those who see them as nothing more than small conversational mishaps that some people hook onto and take offence to and those who believe in social justice who feel that microaggressions are caused by institutionalized and normalized racism and xenophobia. It’s important to look at both side’s arguments and decide who’s idea you align most with not just with microaggressions but with any controversial topic. It’s also important to understand where the other side is coming from and not just label your ideological opponents as bigoted insensitive jerks or as little cry baby millennials. In order for there to be a real discussion about any topic there has to be an understanding of the other side because if you can’t see the other side’s opinion as being at least partially valid then there can be no discussion of a problem and no solution

    

Be Reel: Dunkirk

I recently watched the movie Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan, which is a movie based on events that occurred during WWII. While this movie does fall into the “war” genre of movies this movie is barely a war movie, or at least not a typical war movie. Such a distinction from the norm seems somewhat risky but it gives this movie a unique edge. I subjectively believe the most distinct difference between a typical war movie and Dunkirk is the lack of glory nor triumph. In a typical war movie, such as Glory, you expect the protagonists to either defeat the antagonists or valiantly die trying to do so. In Dunkirk, we witness wounded and demoralized Allied forces trying to evacuate the French beach of Dunkirk to England across the English Channel.  Axis powers continued to surround them on all sides on land and they also possessed submarines, powerful naval ships, and airplanes. All of these Axis military assets began picking off allied ships which were trying to make it back to England. The British Prime Minister refuses to allocate more resources to these troops as he wants to save them in case of an invasion of the British mainland. In the end, the troops are rescued, not by British government just brave citizens who wish to help each other. Because the protagonist does not win nor does he die valiantly makes this movie less like a “war” movie and more like a survival story. Objectively, this was definitely a risk from a director’s point of view however, subjectively, I believe that this payed off at making this movie stand out.

Another choice that the director chose that makes this a unique movie is that it is told from 3 different perspectives: air, land and sea. From an objective standpoint this allowed the audience to get a better overall view of the occurings and they could receive a more full view. (See video)Subjectively, while I still enjoyed this element it made it confusing at some points in the movie because they each perspective used different time scales for example the land perspective was one week out, the sea perspective was one day out and the air perspective was one hour out. At some points in the movie, when switching it becomes confusing as to how all these three perspectives fit together on a timeline. Despite this, the 3 different timelines culminate to make a great finale when they all meet.  

Even though objectively this movie was fantastic, subjectively I can say it was pretty good. Like any movie it has its shortcomings and Dunkirk was no exception some things that I wasn’t very fond of are as follows. In the movie dialogue was sparse, which is not necessarily a bad thing however it made a some moments dry.  In the end of the movie George dies not by enemy forces but merely on accident which I felt was unnecessary and underwhelming.  Also the problem with the French soldier is never developed nor concluded merely mentioned. I felt that this conflict could have been further investigated and was underwhelming. Overall, I would  definitely recommend this movie to anybody who wishes to watch an exciting adventure movie.

This video is Nolan’s explanation of the three timelines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taP8ZzAKDus

Class notes: 10-30-17

In today's class, 10-30-17, we continued discussing the question “what/how does this text converse with ___?” We filled that blank with a focus on racial studies and how micro aggression can affect it. Micro aggression basically means a small act of malice or flexing of power that can indicate a deeper issue beneath the surface. The class further discussed how people don't always intend what they’re saying to be harmful but intention is less important than impact. In the article we read in our groups today, Microaggressions Matter, we were presented with an example in which the author of the article experienced microaggression. He tells the audience of a time a classmate compared him to a dog, as they shared the same name Simba. This incident itself wasn’t exactly offensive, but if we take a deeper look, we can see the  underlying issue of the remark, because his name was Simba and he has an African background, Americans often associate the name with animals, making the remark seem “debasing and culturally insensitive.” The class was assigned to answer the questions related to the article added to the assignment “#9 Get Out” and submit the response before class tomorrow.

A good example of microaggression involving racial studies that’s seen in another text is in “The Office”. Michael Scott, the main character and the boss of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company often informs others that he is not racist, but in a particular episode called “diversity day”, the employees of the office are called in for a meeting to discuss diversity in the workplace.  Michael Scott feels that the office doesn’t need diversity training because it is already a “color-free zone.” He later sets up a game in the office in which he tells the employees to guess which race they are by asking fellow office workers to give stereotypes associated with that race, based on the cards that are placed on their foreheads. These incidents allow the audience to view the ignorance of Michael Scott when it comes to racial studies.

Be Reel: Swiss Army Man

     "A farting corpse, really?" was probably the initial response of most who had the chance to see Swiss Army Man when it debuted at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), the directors behind the "Turn Down For What" music video, the movie was shot over a period of 22 days and received mixed reviews from both audiences and critics. Upon the movie's initial screening, some of the audience even walked out before the film was halfway over because they already they disliked the film so much.The film tells the story of Hank, a man stranded on an island, who's  given up on life and the hope of being rescued, and his unexpected meeting with a farting corpse. As the plot progresses Manny (the corpse) becomes more animated, eventually being able to hold conversations, and together they try to find their way back to civilization.
     I think this is an objectively good film because of the various elements and choices that went into the production. For instance, the movie does an excellent job of gradually transitioning from the dreary tone and grey color scheme of the opening scene, to the lush world of the forest around them. Although the movie occasionally brings up serious topics, it also has an abundance of humor to balance out the tone. One of the main examples of humor used is fart jokes, via Manny's corpse expelling gas every few minutes. While this humor is commonly frowned upon and seen as 'scrapping the bottom of the barrel', the film takes the moral high ground by instead using it to advance their relationship and incorporating it into a major theme of the story.
     Through the developing friendship between Hank and Manny, the film touches on the influence of companionship and gives insight on the importance of expressing yourself. A major component of this film's success was the strong performances by Paul Dano (Hank) and Daniel Radcliffe (Manny). Despite Radcliffe playing the role of a barely communicative corpse for a majority of the movie, he gave one of his best performances and was able to show a range of emotions without the aid of body language or perfect speech. Dano also had great chemistry with Radcliffe, which the film heavily relied upon, due to them being the only main characters for most of the movie.
    After viewing this film for the first time, I was immediately taken by the fantastic cinematography and likable characters that were relatable and easy to root for. My favorite thing about this film is how wildly creative the concept and soundtrack of the film are and how effectively they weaved their way into the tone and theme of the movie. While a capella is something I'll occasionally listen to, especially if it's a barbershop quartet (which admittedly is pretty cheesy, but gosh dang it so am I), the soundtrack fully utilizes it, which made also made this my favorite movie soundtrack. The faint, accompanying instrumental of a few songs add to the music's quality, I think it's the heavy use of a capella by Dano and Radcliffe that set it apart from almost every other film. This movie wormed its way into my heart because of the amount of care and work that went into such a small production that manages to ooze charm in every scene.
     I'd highly suggest this film to anyone who's willing to immerse themselves in a seemingly outlandish plot and see the deeper meaning behind it.
                                                 
Swiss Army Man Trailer:

10/27/17

Today in class we started with two "I will be able to..." statements. The first one was to evaluate the way audience impact a director's decisions, and the second was to apply an academic lens to my study of film. We continued afterwards to a question Mr. Rivers posed to the class. "How or why does audience matter to Jordan Peele. He then played three minutes of the interview that spoke about “minorities being too aware of race”, “we’re seeing racism where there isn’t racism”, what it feels like to be aware of these subtle interactions, subtle racism. I also wrote down about how it was allowing a non-black audience relate to fears that black people experience and to make sure everyone knows that there is a threat of racial violence just around the corner. The main point thought, was to get the entire audience in touch with the fears inherent of being black in this country as a starting point. After giving us time to think and discuss among our tables, Mr. Rivers opened this to the class. A few of the points made and written on the board were; "Wanted to appeal to a broader audience including all races and making things closer to normality", "He’s targeting both audiences", and that "Trayvon martin was alluded to in the interview. This brings up the racist issue at the time beause of dealing with the deal of an unarmed, young black man."
Mr. Rivers then brought up the idea of cinematically versus academically. This is how cinimatically is analyzing how craft affects the product, whereas academically is analyzing how the product functions in a field of study. He then delves deeper into this question by showing the class the opening scene of Jurassic Park.  First we talked in our groups, and then it branches out to discuss with the class. What was put on the board was a connection of choices to what they do, i.e. Intense music creates suspense and a feeling of dread, or quick cuts creates chaos and disorientation. Then he showed something with an academic lens to it.
Dr. Robin Means Coleman, University of Michigan (from Horror Noire)
"Killing a black man early in the film establishes the superiority and the horribleness of the monster
If the monster even kills of brothers, then the white man who ultimately defeats the monster has to be intellectually superior, racially superior. That’s the hierarchy in horror films"
After reading a full version of this quote, he showed us the opening scene to Get Out. Once again, it started with a table discussion, and then branched out to the entire class. Some of the points that were put on the board were; "He’s the only person in the shoot which creates unease, isolation, and vulnerability. This shows the internal fear of a black man alone" or "The song Run Rabbit Run which creates a contrast of the happy tune mixed with the violent imagery. It shows discrimination and the black versus white mentality".

10/27/17

Today in class we started with a reminder that the last chance to do the be reel blogs for this marking period is November 7th.  We also started to discus how the audience of a film affects the directors choices.  We started with the interview of Jordan Peele and disused how his audience affected how he would make his film Get Out.  We talked about how he has 2 different audiences, white people and black people.  Since he wanted to make this movie about racism and the microaggressions black people face he had to take into account that some of his audience doesn't know about them.  If he were to just jump right in the white audience might not get what he is trying to say and might miss the point entirely.  This forced Peele to lead into the microaggressions so that he doesn't lose his white audience.  After we looked at the interview we then reviewed how choices the director made affects the movie.  We reviewed this by looking at the opening scene of Jurassic Park.  How the rustling of the trees, the low lighting key, and the audio all helps to depict ominous happenings and foreshadow the horror to come.  We then looked into that theme from different academic lenses.  One lens was racial studies and it used that to show how in horror films the black man always dies and the white people live.  The scholar who said this had hidden registered in this because it makes it seem that the white people are smarter than black people because the white people always escape from danger while the black people die.  We also looked at it briefly from a biological lens and how the movie showed that we shouldn't mess with cloning and bringing back extinct animals.  This could be brought to other movies like Star Wars where it could be seen through a scocial lens as a lesson that shows how good triumphs evil, or it could be seen through a film making lens to show the advancement of CGI throughout history.  Each academic feild could extract meaning out of the same piece of film just because they look at itfrom a different angle.

Daily Blog Post 10/26/17

Individual Priorities 

       Today in class, Mr. Rivers gave each of us the option of working on one of three assignments.  The option most of the class chose was to work on our Intertextuality Essay because it is due by midnight tonight and many students had questions they wanted to ask or needed extra time to work. Another option we were given was to get started on reading pages 27-77 of Ready Player One and answering the two questions on classroom, which is due on the first of November. The final option was to work on a new assignment that's due tomorrow, which involves us listening to the first fifteen minutes of an interview with the director of the film Get Out, and respond to the question on google classroom of how the director's choices influenced the audience of the film. Get Out was a recent horror film about a man going to meet his girlfriend's parents and how he was worried about how they would react to their daughter being in an interracial relationship, only for the main character later finding out the dark secret behind the odd behavior of his girlfriend's parents. I'm excited to listen to this interview because while the movie's plot didn't sound too interesting to me on paper, I heard reviews and from people I knew who saw it, say it was a pretty good movie that was a lot more intricate than it initially seemed and included lots of symbolism. Another reason why I'm interested to hear about the film and some of the director's choices is because not long after the film came out, I watched a video on how the movie portrayed racial relationships in a really unique way that examined 'negrophilia' (a term describing an intense fascination with African American people and their culture) and the negative implications it can have if taken to the extreme. Since I've never even heard of that term before watching that video, the movie caught my attention because I had never seen this topic portrayed similarly in any other movie or book, and I've been meaning to watch it ever since.
     During class, I spent some time editing my essay because when I wrote most of it I kept running into writer's block and couldn't think of what words I wanted to use or how I wanted to describe something, so I would just put a word similar to what I was trying to say in parentheses and come back to it later. For example, if I was writing a sentence about a character feeling some sort of joy and wanted to use a more expressive term, I would type the word like this: (joy). If I later thought of a word I felt would fit better, I would replace 'joy' with a more appropriate term, such as 'exuberant'. But using this method throughout my essay, I found that it was easier for me to type a bit faster since I didn't have to pause my train of thought to think of the right word to say. After changing a few words in my essay, I asked Mr. Rivers if I would be able to begin writing my blog post for tonight because I really wanted to have as much time as possible to try to finish my essay.
     

10/26/17

Today in class we discussed formatting for our intertextuality essay, like in our works cited page the second line of a citation should be a tab over like this:

Michael Lewis. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. PDF File, W. W. Norton &

Company, 2003.

We also discussed that an in-text citation for a movie would have the director's last name in the parenthesis if the works cited citation looks like this:

Dir. Bennett Miller. Moneyball. DVD, Columbia Pictures, 2011.

An in-text citation would instead have the film's title in italics in the parenthesis if the works cited citation was like this:

Moneyball. Dir. Bennett Miller. DVD, Columbia Pictures, 2011.

Mr. Rivers then talked about a few other assignments due within the week, which is to listen to the first 15 minutes of a Jordan Peele interview and answer a question and to read page 27-77 of Ready Player One and answer 2 questions. Then we worked on our essays for the rest of the period. This can be extended to the world at large because this can help my citations in future essays.

Be Reel: Coraline

Based on the novella written by Neil Gaiman in 2002, the movie adaptation directed by Henry Selick of Coraline (2009) is based around an eleven year old girl named Coraline Jones. Her and her family moved from Michigan to Oregon, to live in the Pink Palace Apartments so her parents could write their gardening blog and focus more on their plants. After being neglected by her parents, as a distraction, she is told to explore the house and count all the windows and doors. While exploring, she finds a tiny door that is boarded up with brand new wallpaper. Curious Coraline asks her mother to help her open it up, and her mother agrees, only if Coraline will stop pestering her. Once she opens it, nothing is behind it.

Although, later that night, she is lured to the tiny door, and this time when she opens it she discovers a portal to a world that is strikingly similar to her own, though everything is less gloomy, and her parents notice her, and want to play games, and make her delicious food that doesn't taste like slop. Coraline soon learns that everything is not as it appears, and too much of a good thing always ends up with a not-so-good result.

The movie has a good pace to it, when compared to the last blog I did about Anastasia. Everything in the movie happens in a timely manner, and not just overnight. Every time Coraline goes through the tiny "portal" the time of day adjusts to the time of day it is in her "real world," which is something I think just adds to the creepy idea of it. The colors in the movie also add to this because its mainly dark and gloomy in the real world, while it is more colorful and bright (even at night) in the other world.

From the first time I watched this movie in theaters, I fell in love with the story-line, and even more so the animation. It's a perfectly creepy movie and easily one of my favorites, which is why I would label this film as Good-Good on the movie chart category. The animation itself is beautiful, and combined with the relatable story line and plot really makes a perfect movie for anyone.
If you have never seen this movie before, click the link below to watch the trailer. (The movie is on Netflix!)
Coraline Movie Trailer

Classwork for October 26th, 2017- Liam Cooke

Today in Class Mr.Rivers Asked the class if we had any last minute questions about the summer reading essay due October 26th at 11:59pm. This question lead to many others that Mr. Rivers answered in the flowing. Even if the statement you are writing about your book or movie is not word for word you still need to add a situation at the end of the sentence that is italicized, and a summary is not necessary to write, do not explain other details that the reader doesn't need to know, pretend like your audience has a background knowledge of the book and film. Any excessive explaining will take away form the feel of your essay. You do not need to cite any page that you are just getting actors names from, your only citations should be your book, and film. When punctuating in a quote, if the punctuation is necessary to add an effect to it put it in such ans ? or ! if it is not necessary don't put it in. After the class was finished with the questions Mr. Rivers went on to what we were to do in class. Today we had three choices for independent work. The first was to work on the essay due October 26th at 11:59pm and add some last touches to it if needed. The second was to listen to the Key and Peele interview of Get Out due tomorrow on the 27th. And last we were to read the book Ready Player One pg. 27-77 and give an analysis of what you read, this is due next week.

To connect this lesson to other situations the outlining meaning to this is that when writing an essay it is important to use all the essential steps for being inside your format, In this situation we use the MLA format and it is important to fallow all the steps to make your work easy to understand.

Be Reel: Kung Fu Yoga

It felt like watching a sequel to a series I never knew of.
For a comedy action movie, it did a decent job, but there were some parts that were clearly overdone. For special effects, I took notice that this wasn’t an american produced film, but they were exceptionally bad. There was a specific scene in which three of the characters are fighting off hyenas (all of them are CGI) and the amount of unnecessary flips and use of parkour made it more ridiculous than intense. There was also a scene with a clearly fictional Lion in a car chase scene, but this scene was better executed, whereas the hyena scene was drawn out. In the car chase scene, there was a good amount of humor mixed into the action so it wasn't too intense, and the shot changes between the intense sport car chase and Jackie Chan driving while being scared of a Lion helped emphasize the humor. There's also a decent use of humor with Dialogue where a character is saying "Don't Panic" as he's clearly shaking while driving the car. From an objective view, the animation was decent and didn't effect the move too much. From a subjective view, the animation was one of the few things that stuck to me after finishing the movie.
Moving to the plot and characters, this is where things get a little contradictory. Not only was I thoroughly confused through this film, but mildly entertained as well. All characters are fairly two dimensional and don't have a consistent personality. One character is all about honoring someone, steals something, and then feels guilt and tries to steal it back. Not only was the sudden plot conflict strange and out of place, but from a subjective view it felt forced and only used to make the movie longer. It felt similar to reading a story someone wrote, but wrote the scene that started the conflict last. I thought that this would be the most obscure this movie would get, but boy was I wrong. Not only do the main group have a few questionably morale scenes, but the main antagonist of this movie has a complete 180 in motivation. Not only was the ending anticlimactic, but completely ridiculous and no characters really dealt with consequences. Even with all these negative points, I did find this a fairly enjoyable movie to watch. To bring this back to my first sentence, this felt like a sequel of a movie I've never seen, all character relationships we were supposed to feel were barely there. This is the kind of movie that I would watch if I had nothing to watch and was browsing through Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U2frOcCYes

10/25/17- Samantha Russo

Today in class Mr. Rivers started off class, by going over any questions that we had concerning the intertextuality essay that is due Thursday night at 11:59 pm. Mr. Rivers also reminded us that our writing should be in the proper MLA format and the information page should be deleted before the essay is handed in. He told us that he added the citation slide onto the google classroom and recommended that we check all of our citations before handing in the essay. He also mentioned that if we hadn't already, to signup on the turnitin.com site to set it up for when we have to hand in the essay (because it has to be handed in on turnitin and classroom by 11:59). Then we went over how to quote a quote within an essay. What you do is write your words then add the first set of quotes (“), then add a singular quote (‘) to the quoted quote. After all of that we went into our notes for the day. Learning about revision tips, clarity v. specificity, because that is what shows evidence of close reading. With specificity the details that matter are the Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?, questions (really focusing on the why and how). And with clarity you are removing clutter,  having maximum content with minimal words. After we went over this Mr. Rivers showed us a clip of The Office and our table groups had to decipher is Michael was specific and clear. This is also where we will pick up class tomorrow. Learning about proper MLA formatting is important not only for high school, but it extends beyond that. In the business world, and the requirement will be a MLA format paper, and getting comfortable with it is important.

Daily blog post 10/25/17

Today's class was one that involved a lot of discussion as a whole rather than in groups. We started off with questions based around our summer reading essay. It began with how to quote quotation; simply put, you just use commas in place of the the text's quotes within the actual quotes Example: "he said 'yes'".  Afterwards we discussed how to truncate or shorten your quotes. Throughout the essay there should be no block quotes. Rather off just use an ellipsis (...) to help provide evidence for your claim. Later Mr. Rivers stressed the importance of revision in just about all of our assignments, saying that through without revision your essay is just not as good. This idea has lot of real world applications as well, like when applying for a job. You can either use your resume from a year ago, or you can revise it to improve it and make yourself sound more appealing for the job. The class also discussed three main points towards revision: specificity, clarity, and analysis. We then watched a scene from The Office where Michael describes to his employees what had happened to Meredith (another employee, which Michael had recently hit with his car). When attempting to tell his employees Michael avoided the truth by not telling who had hit Meredith. Michael was not specified or clear when discussing the scenario, he didn't even say that he was the one driving rather just that he was in the car. One of the question Mr. Rivers had asked for the scene was whether or not Michael was lying. Our group decided since he wasn’t stating the whole truth it might as well have been a full lie. shortly after discussing the bell had rang and that was the end of that class.

Daily Blog Post: 10/24/17

10/24/17

Today in class Mr.Rivers greeted us with his usual good afternoon. Then we dove right into our lesson. We first defined the word "function" which means the way something is supposed to work.  We continued our conversation about allusions and how they have a specific function in developing the narrative further. We discussed how specifying characterization helps to promote a good healthy publication. We used examples from 2001, Wall-E, and Hello, Dolly! By using these three examples we were able to cross examine each film and pick out certain elements and relate them to each other and use them to reward/define audience and specify characterization. Certain quotes that we used from the song "Sunday Clothes" from Hello, Dolly! were, "Out there, there is a world beyond Yonkers," (Hello, Dolly!) which could be similar to the plot of Wall-E because on board of the Axiom the humans barely knew that there was an Earth until they finally went back to it. Another line that we examined was, "Full of shine and full of sparkle, close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby," (Hello, Dolly!) this quote is full of irony because Earth is a garbage dump and this quote is talking about shining and sparkle. We also connected specific phrases from the song to things in Wall-E, such as "Girls in white," (Hello, Dolly!) this we all agreed would be Eve and the next phrase that we analyzed was, "...this hick town," (Hello, Dolly!) we figured that this would be Earth because in Wall-E Earth is covered in garbage and extremely filthy. Also if you remember the opening scene in Wall-E the song from Hello, Dolly! was the first thing that we heard.


To connect the lesson to another subject I could us Pixar movies. I know that we did this example in class but I personally thought that this was an excellent example because in many Disney movies you see little hints as to what is going to come next such as in Monsters Inc. you see a little Nemo stuffed fish and Toy Story dolls.

Daily Blog Post 10/24/17: Through the glasses of Andreas Oleinyk

Hello Everyone,
Today in English we opened with our usual "Wish your group a good good mourning" and picked up with our analysis of allusions. We started by analyzing the song "Sunday Clothes" that was popular throughout the film Wall-e. Within the song we looked for the following functions; Define the audience, Reward the audience, and specifying characterization. We then moved on to finding examples and expanding upon of rewarding the audience, defining the audience and specifying characterization in Ready Player One. We then wrapped up the class with diving deeper into identifying dominant and subsidiary audiences in Ready Player One.

Outside of the classroom  I chose to relate one of my favorite super hero movies to the lesson; Deadpool. Deadpool itself is an Easter egg gold mine filed with explicit humor, hilariously questionable morals and pulse pounding action. One way Deadpool relates to today's lesson is by defining the audience there is literary one scene where Deadpool breaks the fourth wall and directly address the audience. Another example used throughout the film is the use of Easter eggs as a reward to the audience. One scene in particular shows Deadpool from the astronomically awful X-men Origins Wolverine movie following the quote "Lets go back to where it all went wrong".  Also another scene during the ending where Deadpool copies the ending scene from Ferris Bueller's  Day Off.

Be Reel- HalloweenTown

Disney’s 1998 HalloweenTown was amazing. HalloweenTown is a children’s film about  Halloween fanatic Marnie Piper (Kimberly J. Brown) finding out she’s actually a witch.She travels to the very magical and dated HalloweenTown to help her witch grandmother (Debbie Reynolds) fight an evil force that is infecting the residents of the town.

The characters in this story sound boring but are surprisingly delightful. Marnie is a 13 year old who loves Halloween, and her family. She has two younger siblings Dylan (a cookie cutter nerd), and Sophie (just a generic little kid). The family only has one parent who has an interesting backstory of her own. Gweyn, the mother is also a witch but hides her powers and the powers of her children from them in attempt to keep them normal. She has proper reasons behind her motivation to do this, the children were born in the mortal world, their father was a mortal, she’s simply looking out for the wellbeing of her children so the viewer can’t really get angry with her. The grandmother character is a lot of fun, she’s basically the best stereotypical embodiment of a grandma you can image. She gives the kids presents, she’s very protective over them, she teaches them things and is just well casted. Even the villain character at the end is likable before and after his backstory is revealed. The viewer almost wants to sympathize and side with him rather than the protagonists, considering what the mother character did to him.

The movie is soaked in Halloween imagery, every extra has some weird Party City makeup on or they’re wearing so wacky costume. Everyone involved in this project was all in and it shows. While most children’s movies tend to hold back on producing a memorable, quality product because it’s “just for kids” HalloweenTown does not at all which is why is so loved by those who saw it as children. The only negative things I can say about the movie would be the music, they only have one song that plays during the movie. The song is very goofy and fun which doesn’t fit every scene. Specifically a scene where the grandmother is explaining to Sophie that HalloweenTown was created so supernatural creatures would stop being tormented by humans. All at while a silly upbeat song is playing in the background. The song also gets annoying really fast. The film isn’t aging well when it comes to visual effects, and makeup but that’s beyond the movie’s control. Overall HalloweenTown is a great movie and a festive way to get excited for Halloween.    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv9uUdtRUnM here's the song

10/23/17 blog

Allusions

Today we started class by going over plagiarism and the turn it in log in and practice. The class code and password can be found on the classroom page under the intertextuality essay assignment. We also submitted a practice assignment to make sure we know how it works for our essay due Thursday. Next we went over allusions and their purpose as a rhetorical device in writing. The first thing we clarified was the difference between an allusion and an illusion. An illusion is like an optical illusion and an allusion is a literary device using either historical or literary references to outside things. Historical allusions mean an allusion to something that has happened in real life in history (so literally, everything ever). A literary allusion is an allusion to another text, like another movie, book or other work of art. The functions we talked about in class of an allusion were to reward the audience, define the audience, or to specify characterization. Allusions can be used to reward the audience by adding humor, for example. They can also award the audience by paying homage to whatever they are alluding to. To show this, the class watched an episode of Step Brothers as well as Wall-E. Allusions also help to define the audience based off of who will understand the allusion. This brings up implicit and explicit allusions. An explicit allusion names the thing that is being referenced whereas an implicit allusion only makes suggestions to what it is alluding to. Implicit allusions will only be understood by a target audience, for example a reference to the eighties that isn't explicitly said would only be understood by people who lived in the eighties.
Talking about allusions today made me think of the TV show Family Guy. In the show, allusions are used as the basis for comedy. Most of what happens in the show is a literary or historical allusion. For example, there is a whole episode that alludes to the movie Star Wars, where Chris plays the role of Luke and Peter is Hans Solo. I think this is a good example of how allusion can be used to reward the audience by creating humor. Many of the jokes made are allusions to current events that may be controversial.

Be Reel: American Sniper

American Sniper is one of the most memorable films I have ever watched. Personally I don't enjoy watching war movies mostly because of the emotions that it brings about. This is especially a very emotional film, it deals with serious medical conditions such as PTSD which is one of the main components of the movie and you see it effect a family and a war hero. Chris Kyle is one of the most honorable men that has entered the U.S. military and he will always be remembered by the things that he has done for our amazing country. I was truly moved when I was watching this film not only because of the war portion but also because of the family element of it also. It really shows the reality of war. One moment it shows a scene in the Middle East and then it kicks back to a scene with his wife and kids which is kind of how the book works also. The graphics and the lighting key that are used in the film are spectacular, especially one scene in particular when the U.S. troops are in the midst of a sandstorm, you really feel disoriented just like the troops must've felt because you really can't see anything but sand. Also the acting is amazing in this movie, Bradley Cooper did an exceptional job as playing Chris Kyle. With this movie you see first hand what war can do to a persons mind and how it effects their family. This movie will forever be one of the most inspirational, emotional, and remembered films that I have ever experienced.  

Be Reel : Spider-Man Homecoming

Spider-Man is a loved superhero by all ; he is funny, relatable, fights crime, and overall a pretty cool guy. But while most people claim him to be the best superhero, not many claim Spider-man Homecoming to be the best representation of his character. About a week ago my dad and I sat down and started watching Tom Holland's Spider-man and while I was fully engrossed within the film, my dad's attention was on his phone. Annoyed at my father for not watching the movie, I created an argument. While I believed Tom Holland's Spider-man to be the best, he felt that Tobey Maguire will forever hold the title. Feeling as though he was Captain America and I were Iron Man, we began a not so civil war.

 

    Peter Parker is a TEENAGE boy who, well, is a nerd by all means. He is supposed to that dorky kid that everybody makes fun of, and Homecoming fully represents that. First of all, Peter is actually played by a boy who looks his age, and not a 30 year old man. Not only is he supposed to be a teen, but he is meant to be portrayed as awkward and relatable. In Homecoming we watch him struggle with both superhero and everyday problems. He stutters around his crush, has one friend, spends his free time building a Lego death star, and goes through emotional trauma/bullying. All of which, Tobey Maguire's Spider-man never went through. Not only is the new Spider-man movie relatable and subjectively enjoyable, but it´s objective quality is amazing as well. With all the lighting keys, shot angles, framing, and non diegetic elements being used within the film, suspense is fully built. Without trying to give spoilers, there is one scene within the film that uses all of these Mise-en-Scene elements. With dark lighting, suspenseful music, and a zoomed in framing of Peter´s face crying, you begin to worry and cry with Peter himself (yes, I cried).

               Although I believe that Spider-Man homecoming is the best Spider-Man movie, I can see the points that my dad made. This isn´t a superhero movie meant for the ¨older¨ generations. Most of the points within the film are more new ¨trends¨ that are being used today within the younger population. Seeing the text bubbles of Peter´s phone, YouTube videos of Spider-Man flying around, hidden memes and jokes placed within the film make the movie geared towards minors. One of the reasons why I love this movie is that it is so relatable to the average teenager. One of the first scenes within the movie is a video-tape recording of Peter excitedly explaining his adventures with the Avengers. This is one of the things I liked about this movie, it makes Peter Parker such an approachable and comedic character.  Because let's be honest, if you got bit by a radioactive spider, gained superpowers, and battled among the Avengers, you would totally record it.

     Spider-Man Homecoming is a great movie, both subjectively and objectively. I recommend this movie to everyone, even if they are not a superhero fan. I really enjoyed watching this movie, for it introduced me to the Marvel Universe. And don't get me wrong, Tobey Maguire will always be the OG, but is he the best Spider-man? The answer is no. But I will agreed that he is better than Andrew Garfield's Spider-man.

Be Real Blog

I watched Wonder Women two weekends ago.  Usually I hate anything marvel, but my aunt told me when she watched it that she liked it and she isn't into marvel movies either.  I watched the movie and ended up liking it a lot.  The movie starts off with the main character Diana as a young girl and her mom showing her things that she in curious about.  As the movie goes on we watch Diana grow older and progress into a woman.  Throughout the movie you get to feel like you know the character Diana.  Diana's mother is hiding something from her that she will never tell her, because if she does it will put her into more danger than she already was.  Diana thinks she has to defeat Aries, but as the movie goes on you will find more out about who she has to fight.  The lighting throughout the movie plays a role in if the day is going to be a good one or bad.  If the day is dark then the day won't be so good and when the day was bright the day was good.  The setting is in United Kingdom (London) and the Themyscira (Paradise Island) during World War One.  Music also plays a role in the movie.  It comes into play on how the scene is going to play out.  When the depressing music came on you knew something was going to happen that you were not going to like.  When the music got intense it usually meant there was a fight going to happen.  If you are not into marvel I still suggest you watch  it.  The saying you can't judge a book off its cover even plays into movies.  I will say if you do not like romance, fighting, or death then I wouldn't suggest the movie for you, because fighting is the biggest action that happens.  A lot of characters that I ended up liking ended up dying which was very depressing.         

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-tHfROu0Y

Class Blog Number Two 10/20

In class today we continued our discussion off the proper way to use MLA format specifically in the block quotes and how to write a proper introduction to our essays which is due on this upcoming Thursday as a reminder. The interesting thing about block quotes is the fact that they are rather frowned upon by MLA . So the best resource I would say to find out how to use block quotes is the MLA Purdue owl. However Mr Rivers says that the best way to avoid block quotes is to synthesize your quote to avoid block quotes. Another thing that was important is movie block quotes and book block quotes are not the same again I would recommend going to the Purdue owl if you have any questions or just go to Mr.Rivers. Introductions are important but when Mr.Rivers was teaching this he said rather than write your introduction first save it for the last part of your essay and instead write your body paragraphs first. Which I found quite an interesting way of looking at writing. Also avoid transitions words such as first second or lastly. Now when the Mr.Rivers began to discuss conclusions he reiterated the previous statement of no  transition words like in conclusion and Mr.Rivers also said to write this second after all your body paragraphs. I and several other classmates asked some questions that were very important such as numbers and how many should be spelled or not ? The answer was one through nine should be spelled the others just normal numbers. Lastly the fact of work cited and how that should be formatted again I recommend using Purdue owl as help. The way you should format your work cited is on one page all your references should be in alphabetical order and properly cited. The last thing we did in class was started on Ready Player One. The homework for this weekend is read the next chapter in Ready Player One and work on our essay

Be Real Blog

Be Real Blog:

I watch Hart of Dixie since the beginning of the school year.  The first episode had me hooked right away.  I ended up watching the entire series of it.  There were 4 seasons and about 12 episodes in each season and I finished it all in about little over a month, because I was so into it.  The episode would always leave you wanting to watch more.  To give some background about the series it is about a girl that is a nurse in New York and her life ends up making some big changes.  I will leave it at that to hopefully make you want to know what those changes are and watch the series.  There is a lot of drama that goes on throughout the series.  The episodes made me feel like I could have been there with them.  It shows the audience the country way of doing things.  The setting in the film is country and rustic is some of the episodes.  Other episodes show more of an upper class look which you would see more from the wealthier people in the show.  Wealth also plays a role throughout, because you get to see the difference in the characters actions.  Throughout the series you get to know the character and you can end up relating to some of them without even thinking about it.  For example,  I would somewhat relate me and the main character Zoe, because she is a doctor and I want to become a nurse.  Lighting is a big factor in the series.  When the day is rainy and dark the mood of the whole episode is gloomy and depressing, but when it is bright and sunny the mood is excited and joyful.  I would not recommend this show if you do not like drama, the country, romance, or anything to do with doctors offices.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3VMQuzUZ4k

    

Daily Blog (10/20/17)

Today we started off first period with a good morning from Mr. Rivers, and then proceeded to talk more about citations and titling an essay in a way to catch the reader’s eye. On top of that we discussed formatting an essay the correct way, and even touched upon what NOT to include in an essay, such as elementary school terms like "in conclusion" or "since the beginning of time." From the discussion of creating our own title we learned to make that the last step in our essay writing, to allow for us to use the content of the essay to inspire the title. Another important not that Mr. Rivers displayed was how writing can change, it depends on audience to inspire what you are writing about and how you write it. Moving on from the grammatical realm of things, we shifted into the introductory chapter of Ready Player One, and discussed the tone of it along with its intended audience. As a class we talked about how mysterious the billionaire character, "Halliday" and how his plan to hide the Easter egg in his video game was so difficult. The prize of whoever would find this Easter egg would be a winner of his fortune. Knowing that the winner of this impossible contest was an 18 year old from a trailer park in the middle of no where (the narrator), shows how the novel is going to be told from a young perspective, appealing to younger audiences. The unique intro to this story sets the stage making the reader want to know what will happen next, as we learned to try and incorporate in any of our introductory paragraphs for ourselves. Aside from the interesting story line, the tone of the introductory paragraph was very candid, and abrupt in terms of the narrator explaining things. This tone makes the novel a more relatable text to read and would appeal more to younger teenagers or even college kids who are interested in either video games, or enjoys relating to the narrator with simplistic voice. By the end of class after discussing both the importance of a good introductory paragraph and how it relates to this introductory chapter of Ready Player One, it was a great example for us students to see how important the introduction is to set the stage for the rest of the text.

Blog Post #1

In Mr.Rivers class today he started off by reminding us that our intertextuality essay is due in six days. We started the class off by talking about the title for our essays. The title should be based on what your essay is talking about. Also in class we talked about how to cite dialogue. Citing dialogue should be either in truncate or block style quote. The word Truncate means to shorten. The reason why you should use truncate is because you have more control of the context. In class Mr.Rivers specifically pointed out what should not be in our intertextuality papers. This included, since the beginning of time, In conclusion, most people, rhetorical questions and air quotes.  In class we discussed how we could use other words other than transitions such as who, what, When, Where, Why and How.

In Class we also discussed the proper MLA heading and how it should be placed on the top of paper. A proper MLA heading should consist of last name and page number in the top right hand corner of each page. Next on the first page the order of which the heading should go is student name then should go Mr.River then the date in the order of number, month and year. The paper should be 12 size font and times new roman. The essay should be double spaced and the title should be centered and in bold. The Work cited page should be in alphabetical order. After we spoke about how the ssay should be formatted we talked about the introductory paragraph. The Introductory paragraph should have a opening line that academically and specifically that introduces the premise of the paper. The introduction should include necessary nouns, what does the audience of this paper need to know? Lastly at the end of thee paragraph a thesis statement should be added.

Before we transitioned into groups we lastly talked about the concluding paragraph of the essay and what it should consist of. The connclusion should have a statement of conclusion that looks back and explains what this paper has shown. The introduction should also reinforce relationships among separate points. Finally the conclusion should justify the experience by connecting back to the purpose of the essay and what the research analysis does. Finally towards the end of class we talked with our groups about the introduction paragraph or chapter 0000. That is what we learned in English class today.

English Notes October 18th 2017

Today in class we learned about the connotation of how and when to use the words (Good and Well) and also how to use (You -> Who).

Difference between Good and Well

• Good
• Something adj.
• Nouns

• Well
• Some action adverb
• Verb
• Adjectives

When using the words You, the writer can come off as very vague. If a writer wants to become more specific with who the audience is they can do so by replacing the “you” in the sentence with more specific words to be more precise.

Example sentences: “You can't always get what you want”

A person can't always get what they want.

Students can't always get As.

Students cannot always get what they want in school.

Students can't always get the amount of sleep they want

No one can always get what they desire.

Llewelyn Moss can not always get what he wants.

After the lesson we worked on the paragraphs on theme that are due on thursday the 19th of october. We also received our first book that will be reading in class Ready Player One. If you need a book ask Mr. Rivers

Class October 19 - MLA and APA formatting

Other than greeting class with a good morning like always, Mr. Rivers reminded us that our essays about intertextuality are due right around the corner, so be sure to get started soon if you have any questions! Also for homework tonight we have to read the introduction to Ready Player One. Besides the reminder, we got right into the lesson about MLA formatting in our essays. The difference between MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Physiological Association) format are just different preference formatting depending on what we are working on. Most of our work will be in MLA format. The steps for MLA are as follows,

1. Author.
2. Title of Source.
3. Title of container, - where did you access it? Ex. database, netflix.
4. Other contributions,
5. Version,
6. Number,
7. Publisher,
8. Pub Date,
9. Location.

MLA should include a works cited page, with a centered title, in 12pt Times New Roman font. There are two different ways that you can write out your works cited;

1. Film title. Dir. First Name Last Name. Container, Distributer, Year of Release.

2. Dir. First Name (Last Name). Film title. Container, Distributor, Year of Release.

If your story has more than one director than you can cite either as Dirs. Coen and Coen or (Coen and Coen).

Evidence should either be quoted, or paraphrased. Words are quoted, and paraphrasing is used when interpreting words or text. You should cite your best and most useful evidence, not your analysis. Quotes are most effective when they are integrated into the text, as if "you can't even hear the quotes". For quotes with more than one line, you must indent them, and you don't have to use quotation marks (because of the indent). The citation should be after the sentence. The quote should be introduced with a : and when finished, the sentence structure should go back to normal indicating the end. If the quote is a conversation, the names of the people should be capitalized and it should be single spaced instead of double.

With I learned today, I can gather the information about MLA format and use it in the future for my everyday life, especially in my career. I want to go into broadcast journalism and if I end up in the writing and script writing portion of the field, MLA formatting will be very useful to remember.