"Lobsters" Discussion

         During our class discussion on the poem "Lobsters" by Howard Nemerov some said somehting about human being like lobsters instead of lobsters being like humans. The first time I read this poem I just interpreted it literally untill the last two lines. After reading it a second time I realized that it was about relating humans and lobsters. I thought Howard Nemerov was trying to relate lobsters' fate to humans untill somebody said it was the other way around. After hearing this you can take a whole different perspective on the poem.
       My new perspective on the poem is a much darker one. It makes you think about death and how pointless our lives are. It makes you ponder your place on Earth. In this poem the lobsters couldn't control their fate, they just got chosen to be eaten for dinner. This makes you think that your lucky to be living. Some random explosion could kill you at any moment. For the lobsters it was just the point of a finger to get them killed.

5 Part Paragraph

          I was pretty much clueless when we started theses 5 part paragraphs on how much work they are. I thought well whoop-dee-doo it's a paragraph how hard can it be... it turns out they're pretty hard. The main skill everyone needs to write a fabulous 5 part paragraph is to pick really good concrete details. If you pick okay ones, your whole paper is going to be a disaster and you'll end up proving something you didn't intend for. The next most important element of your paragraph should be your thesis or topic sentence. This draws your reader in and explains what the whole paragraph will be about in one sentence. It's pretty tricky to come up with a good one. Most people put a lot of thought into their thesis, so the whole paper turned out pretty well. Another thing that is really important is embedding your quotes. If you don't do this your paper will seem choppy and hard to follow. Not many  people embedded there quotes very well. I think for me personally this was the hardest thing to do... I still don't think I succeeded.
          There are many things I need to improve on in my 5 part paragraphs. The main thing would definetly be my concrete details. I think I had at least one quote that didn't fit, so that whole section kind of failed. Next time I will defintely pick qoutes that support my point a lot better. As a critique myself I also feel that I could have embedded my qoutes better and had much better transitions. I think most people who read their paragraphs had decent transistions, but they all needed a little tweeking. In the future I think I will be much more prepared for the 5 part paragraph format. I have a long way to go though.