Children in the Darkness (Task 2)

1) The poem was based on the point of view of a by stander who sympathises the children forced into going to war. This is supported by the fact that the poem is not decribing how the children felt but how someone else feels for them, "Or will a war comsume them" which means it is a third person point of view.

2) The poem creates a visual image of children being taught how to fight and take up arms during wars. The contrast between "darkness" and "light", as well as its repetition, emphasizes the hopeless situation the children were in. War is portrayed as a "dark" place, cruel and depriving children from experiencing childhood like a normal child would have, instead other places free of war would be bright and cheery ("Light"), with freedom and the children are living their typical child lives.

3) The poet uses literary devices to emphasise the critical and unfair situation the children were in. He repeats the phrase "Could We", emphasising that the children are being treated unfairly and someone needs to do something to change that but no one could. These pondering on whether the childrean could be saved shows how hopeless the situation was and shows how critical it was. Imagery was also used when they poet wrote "To this door there is no key" a door where the childrean could not go to war would never be opened, the children would never be free.

4) This poem makes us, modern day children residing in Singapore feel relieved in the fact that we do not need to face war. I myself feel that since we have so many advantages over those children at war, we should treasure our time learning and exploring the world and be of someone useful next time to help those children. The poem is not talking about adults going to war but children going to war, childrean that are hardly mature enough to even understand the ways of lives are going to war that says that the adults putting these children to war are irresponsible adults who pass off their responsibility as an infleunce these children see them as.

Children in the Darkness (Task 1)

Task 1
Children in the darkness was written by Henry M Bechtold when he was on a trip at Saigon. He was inspired by a photo of a young boy carrying a rifle and going to war which he saw on the news. The conflict present would be young boys going to war instead of young man going to war. The poet was actually about to write a poem about girls being ill-treated by man until he saw the news and felt that those children deserved their childhood not risking lives but exploring the world that is new to them. In the poem, the poet described how childrean were put into darkness, being robbed of their childhood when they are forced to ne engaged in wars at such a young age. Many childrean lost their lives in wars which they were not supposed to be in. In the recent years, there are over millions of children that has been used in war or dragged into war along with their parents. These children are usually nurses, spies. They are sometimes also in charge of guarding resources, general camps, drumboys and worst of all infantry soldiers who are put in the front line to test out for enemines, losing innocent lives just like that. Childrean although they are not ready for war are treated as lower classes of soldiers or recruits in the war as in the context to the poem, Children in the Darkness. Therefore they are given higher risks of losing lives task as they are of lower value to the army.

Reference to: http://www.scribd.com/doc/31962195/Children-in-the-Darkness

Osama bin Laden's Death

Yes I think that assassinating bin Laden rather than bring him to trial was a justified one. bin Laden's crime does not need questioning, he is already known to have been responsible for over 3,000 people's death when the twin-towers at New York were bombed. Also, Osama was the mastermind for the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in America. Since bin Laden had already killed so many people without feeling remorse and doing it more then once. Thus there is no need to put him in trial, instead do stuff the way bin Laden did, assassinating people.

Social Media

Social Media does not make us less social. For example Facebook, Facebook is a platform where users would be able to chat with friends and interact with friends through some applications or just by commenting on his/her posts. With this, users would be able to know more about their friends’ recent activities or long-term hobbies. Through an online platform, one does not need to meet the other face-to-face to be able to have a conversation, which makes it easier and much more convenient for people to have a chat or a discussion. When meeting face-to-face, one would tend to be shyer than when one chats with another online. Therefore, through the online chatting system, one would nurture stronger relationships because one would be more open to expressing their thoughts. And if they would meet up one day, they would be less shy to talk to each other because they more or less know each other already through chatting online. Another example would be the Windows Live Messenger aka MSN. Through msn, one would also be able to chat but with more advance features. One would be able to chat “face-to-face” even through the internet. With MSN, users can use a feature called video chatting and be able to see through each other’s webcam. Thus making it seem as if face-to-face, except not able to have any contact with each other. In conclusion, social media does not make us less social, instead it makes it more convenient for users to socialise with each other.

Which campaign poster displays more teamwork?

The poster of PAP displays more teamwork. In PAP's poster, all the candidates are equally positioned in the poster, with equal significance. This shows that the PAP candidates represents itself as a whole rather than indidividuals which displays teamwork because they are introducing themselves as a group and not promoting individual's ability. While the NSP's poster shows its "star" Nicole Seah as the more significant candidate. The backgroud of Nicole Seah seems to be brighter than the other candidate which signifies her existence in the party. The NSP is probably using Nicole Seah, which is popular among netizens to encourage people to vote for them.