Haveman, Robert, and Timothy Smeeding. “The Role of Higher Education in Social Mobility.” The Future of Children, vol. 16, no. 2, 2006, pp. 125–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3844794.

Havermen and Smeeding found out that the only way to have an education is to be very financially well off. In most cases, the cost of college isn’t an easy budget to go through. With this view, we see that education after high school benefits wealthier families than lower-income families.

Hess, Frederick M., and Michael Q. McShane. “Common Core in the Real World.” The Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 95, no. 3, 2013, pp. 61–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23611816.

Frederick and McShane talk about how the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) made schools harder than the normal standards. Some disagree on this fact about how it affects students falling behind and teachers speeding up their lectures to these kids, and fail. This CCSS plan can backtrack if one lesson is missing or even rushed.

Polleck, Jody N., and Jill V. Jeffery. “Common Core Standards and Their Impact on Standardized Test Design: A New York Case Study.” The High School Journal, vol. 101, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–26. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/90024223.

Jody and Jeffery see a pattern through the course of the Common Core program. We, the students, don’t get the chance to learn anything much unless it’s part of the test. Teachers try to focus on what’s important through the test and not what a student should know before graduating and heading for college. “Let us learn from the mistakes of the past, not continue to replicate them.” (pg 20)

SCLAFANI, SUSAN. “No Child Left Behind.” Issues in Science and Technology, vol. 19, no. 2, 2002, pp. 43–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43312298.

Suaun talks about how this program focuses on students who are falling behind in their education and, by helping them improve, provides steps to help them succeed. Check how they are in class, see their own standards, parents picking the school for their child, and see what fits best for a student to be in the classroom environment. In order to see how they are in class, they must provide the student with tests to see their level of education and knowledge.

When doing the research, when trying to go to one search, Google Scholar didn’t make me like any of the articles or feel comfortable using them. One search had a lot of information I could use, but it wasn’t to my liking, while Google Scholar made me iffy on what I could use or not, or even be able to back up my research paper. I have been using JSTOR ever since I was introduced to the website. Makes me feel more comfortable and know that it’s an article that isn’t from a weird website like Google Scholar offers.

As I read this book more, I began to compare Snowman (Jimmy) with Lizzie. Before, I didn’t think of such a thing since it felt like forever ago we read Oryx and Crake. However, once reading more on her jokes and even how she would also state many, many facts that she learned from the library, it slowly reminded me of Snowman now. “Scientists say that the theory of everything is a technical expression, not a metaphysical one.” (Offill, 169) Will even said, “How do you know all this?” (Offill, 170), and Lizzie’s response was simple, “I’m a fucking Librarian” (Offill, 170). Reminded me of how Jimmy would say related facts or random facts to himself, but in this case, Lizzie does know where she gets her information, and for Snowman, he had forgotten because later on, going to work with Crake, and then the start of the apocalypse, and taking care of the crackers. They both also have the same type of humor. Lizzie made me chuckle time to time with her comments, just like Snowman. They are both so related, and yet both of their stories are very different from each other. Both worlds are different in what’s going on. In Oryx and Crake, the focus is on the development of science in relation to living creatures and new humans, while in Weather, we get to see a bit on the topic of people saying that climate change is happening right now, but most people ignore that. In my opinion, it focuses more on the politics of the president, which is so important and one of the things that will affect our future, like climate change. Now, in the story “Weather,” we don’t see who is trying to be president, but we see how it affects Lizzie’s day in a conversation, which I found very interesting. They briefly talked about the election and after Ben, then said, “Should we get a gun?” (Offill,113). Lizzie then mentions that “It was the same after 9/11. There was that hum in the air” (Offill,113). I found it really interesting because I don’t think I have read anything of politics and talk about it. For Oryx and Crake, we only know how everything is socially and how the financial class is (from my memory). That said, I believe that Lizzie and Snowman would be great friends, maybe, since Snowman and Lizzie deal with a lot of different things in their world, and how they are trying to deal with them.

How does Atwood’s depiction of the post-apocalyptic world in Oryx and Crake illustrate the consequences of class and intelligence-based divisions?

(I want to focus on how the comparison of Crake and Jimmy’s intelligence and their class economy affects them with their education, how they live, and the outcome of the apocalypse.

When reading Weather, I was a bit shocked by the way it’s formatted in its writing. It was like small summaries of what’s going on in Lizzie’s mind, or even events she has in the story. In a way, it reminds me of a writing tactic I learned called “braiding”. Where you have one element of the story, and another, and another, and slowly it tides into one big story and an outcome of these elements combined. For this story, the braided one is his brother is trying to be sober from drugs and alcohol. The next braid is her career; Lizzie is also struggling in her career on how she is a librarian. The other braid is her having an opportunity to work on a podcast as well. I have a feeling that by the end of the story, it will be a whole storm (Get it?). That’s why maybe they named the book “Weather”.
When hearing the title of the story, the only thing that came to mind was that maybe it’s called Weather because maybe that it’s about the emotion that comes out of this. Having a lot of emotions from a lot of stuff happening. I wasn’t sure what it was going to talk about or if it would even talk about the actual weather. However, once I read the first part of the story and I was right. This will be talking about events and emotions in someone’s life, which would be Lizzie.
Since we are usually reading about climate change, I’m unsure how it will sit in and show us through the book later on. My theory, as of right now, is that an actual storm is coming into town. I’m not one hundred percent on if my theory is correct or not, but it would be cool though.
Now with Lizzie’s story and the layout, I have a feeling all these small summaries of events in her life soon will turn into a regular story, or at least get to know the format much better. It did throw me off a bit, and hard to keep up; however, I will get used to it through the story. It does feel off reading the story knowing we are in the city again, since in the other books we were in jungles and then to a future and an apocalypse. I am very excited to see where this book will lead us by the end.

Reading this book was truly beautiful to me. Just how he wrote the words is, and how words show affection, whether platonic or even romantic. One of the quotes I really like was one of the notes that Kanai wrote to Piya before he went back home, and when the storm hit. It wasn’t the exclamation of the song but the end of the poem that Rilke said

“Look, we don’t love like flowers with only one season behind us; when we love, a sap older than memory rises in our arms. O girl, it’s like this: inside us we haven’t loved just some one in the future, but a fermenting tribe; not just one child, but fathers, cradled inside us like ruins of mountains, the dry riverbed of former mothers, yes, and all that soundless landscape under its clouded or clear destiny—girl, all this came before you.”
― Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (Pg 298)

Reading that really got me. The reason is the wording. “Look, we don’t love like flowers with only one season behind us; when we love, a sap older than memory rises in our arms” . When someone loves you, it’s not just a fleeting crush; it will last forever and grow within us, creating memories of you.

“we haven’t loved just some one in the future, but a fermenting tribe; not just one child, but fathers, cradled inside us like ruins of mountains, the dry riverbed of former mothers, yes, and all that soundless landscape under its clouded or clear destiny”. It’s not just them who love you, but everyone does too, your family, your ancestors, and even nature itself. It is what makes us, us.

“girl, all this came before you”. He has loved her since the beginning, before he met her, and he didn’t feel that he had that type of feeling until he met her.

It is so romantic and passionate on a deeper level. Piya knew what Kanai was trying to sway from writing this quote from Rilke in the letter. He truly loves her…