Denby uses everything except for humor that we have talked about in class. His lack of humor is what I personally think is one of the main things that holds his writing style back along with the fact that it makes him much more difficult to pay attention to. I am not completely sure as to why everyone that tries to write a research paper or something of the sort feels the need to make their writing as dry and tiresome as possible and frankly it has been annoying me for some time. The other day when I started to read the packet on logical fallacies it was a million times easier to read because I focused on how ridiculous their examples were and how some of the things in there would never even come close to happening in real life, and that is when I noticed how these examples are really there for two different reasons. The first is the more obvious and that is that the author really couldn’t think of a great example off the top of his head and so he just slapped something together and called it an example. But the second is a much subtler reason and that is that the author needed to put in something that would make his audience, most likely high school students because honestly anyone that cares already knows unless they are in high school and no one else really cares, stop themselves from falling asleep while reading about the information that he is trying to convey. However in high school confidential he just puts information and opinion back to back with no “riley” (National Treasure reference) character so that he could come back through and explain what he meant using a little bit of comic relief to keep everyone awake. I don’t think that he leaves this out on purpose; I think that he just assumed that because he was trying to write a serious paper no one would be forced to read it so everyone that did read it would never lose interest.
Now I could be wrong in saying all of this because I might have missed on some sarcasm that he has implemented in his writing. However when I think of sarcasm in writing it tends to only frustrated me even more because you have to be looking extremely deep into the authors writing to even catch the sarcasm 90% of the time. So in reality if an author is using sarcasm they still aren’t putting in the comic relief for the readers that need it, they are only making themselves feel wittier and are making the people who already would know most of the information that they are writing anyways. This brings me around to another topic; the writers in today’s era really don’t seem to understand what the world is on track towards. While everything is getting faster paced and everyone is able to access things with greater ease today’s writers are making their writing so complicated half of the time that you have to read their essay three or four times to actually understand what it is. I don’t know about you but I personally never have time to read something three or four times. At the maximum I will read something twice if it is information that I truly need bot other than that I really will only read something once. The worst part about all of this is that as time goes on everything just gets worse and worse until finally its almost not worth it to read something because it will end up taking an hour to read one paragraph so that you think you know all of what the author was trying to say and then a few weeks later you feel like an idiot because someone says that he really meant something completely different than what you interoperated his meaning as. This happened to me when I first read Sedaris’s A Plague of Tics and I was extremely depressed by this guy’s life story of how he couldn’t control himself, his mom would just joke about him and make fun of him when his teachers would come by to see her about it, and how enjoyed punching himself or giving himself extreme levels of pain, but the only thing that stopped him from doing these things until he beat himself to death was cigarettes which in all honestly will most likely be the cause of his death, but then the next day I come into APLAC and half the class are laughing hysterically whenever they begin to talk about the story because somehow hidden under all of that was a ton of sarcasm and humor while the other half, like me, where mortified at this poor guys experience and life story. The only thing to say to all of this I guess is “Welcome to APLAC.”
Vocab
“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.” (king)
Unfettered-V- Release from restraint or inhibition
The P.O.W. was unfettered as her was returned to his own country.
FHS APLAC 4 
Some works do need to be read multiple times to get the meaning. It may be frustrating but harder literature is going to take longer to understand. Reading for content and reading for meaning are different. Many people will read a piece of literature three or four times and get something different out of it every time. I see your point when you say that most people won’t read something more than twice for content, but that just shows how impatient and lazy our society has become. Don’t get me wrong, I am generally the same way, but I don’t think that is necessarily a good thing. We need to try to be patient and realize that we aren’t going to understand everything we read the first ,or even the second, time we read something.
The day authors feel the need to mutilate their writings for quickness to appeal to a less-interested audience would be a sad day indeed. Part of what makes language so interesting to me is the ability to tie intricate themes and concatenations together to form a cohesive piece of writing. I would much rather have to read good writing more than once than read bad piece of writing and understand it fully the first time. Besides, I’m sure even our English teachers read the things we study at least a few times over to get all the details out of it.
I also feel that we ought to deeply analyze what we read, to truly understand what’s being said, how it is expressed, etc. Reflecting on the seemingly evident regression towards ignorance in our society, I thought back to an SAT essay prompt I had to write about a while back. Basically, it suggested that some choose to read less because of the abundance of information, especially from the rise of the internet, as it seems like too much to consider to many people.
It’s unfortunate, but it seems that society’s changing, even as we type here. Fewer people I know spend time reading and learning about our world, opting to spend more time having “fun.” I really hope that this is just a ephemeral phase that comes with new technology, because I rather enjoy discussions on a deep level about the literature which we read (the seminar about “Moths” was especially engaging). It’s something I would like to see on a more daily basis outside of class.
I agree with what Jessica said. I think that in order for a piece of writing to be good, it needs to have many different ways that it can be understood. I also think that the only way to get more than one meaning out of a piece of writing, you should read it more than just once or twice.
I agree with Jessica here. I will be honest in saying that there are times when I have read and not realized what I really was reading. I either have thoroughly read and enjoyed it, or I would have to reread a piece to fully appreciate and get the message within the piece.
I agree that the piece High School Confidential was lacking when it came to humor. Comic relief is called relief for a reason. The piece is rather dry.
There are times when humor is necessary but there are also times when it is not. The need and benefit of humor in a work largely depends on the intended audience. An author simply will not make a research paper about the devastating effects of cancer funny; it just doesn’t fit. That being said, a lot of writing does benefit from a bit of humor. I don’t think it’s fair to complain that people out there are writing boring scientific reports, the subject of these are just too serious and dry to be able to justify the use of humor.