Author's Craft (focus on setting)

The wind whipped across the river, sending small ripples across it. I stood on the pavement of the gigantic bridge. Cars were zooming by at great speed on the two-way road in the middle of the humungous red structure. The bridge had two red pillars and long wires connected them together. I stood there in anticipation, waiting to catch a glimpse of the creature.

Newspaper Article: Are Youths Really Happy?

I do not find the article stating that youths are mainly happy accurate. Firstly, the sample size of 1268 is too small. Singapore has a population of approximately 5 million people and 1268 is only a small percentage of the population. Moreover, these 1268 people might not be randomly selected – they might be selected from a group of people who have benefited significantly from the government (for example, youths who have received education bursaries).

Some questions might also be biased. For example, the poster states that 95 per cent of the people interviewed said that they are patriotic to Singapore. However, people would usually be obliged to agree that they are patriotic to Singapore as they would normally answer survey questions in surveys in a politically correct manner.

Another question that is flawed is the number of hours people spend with their parents. The survey reflects that 40 per cent of youths spend at least 10 hours a week with their parents. However, is 10 hours really that much? 10 hours a week average out to 1 hour and 25 min every day. Is this really a lot of time?

This poster might be a source of propaganda for the government. As the elections are coming up, the government might require more support from people as the government feels that youths “are not really educated in politics and do not really understand politics”. Therefore, the government might want to give readers of the newspaper an impression that most youths are happy and satisfied with life in Singapore so that readers of the newspaper (especially the youths) would think that the government has satisfied the needs of most youth. In this way, more youth would vote for the PAP.

comic strip

This story is about a typical Singaporean who is rather greedy in terms of money. He explained a plan to allow himself to earn as much as possible - asking the management of the shopping mall to turn off the air-conditioner so that the shopping mall would be sweltering and all shoppers would patronise his shop - to his two employees. In this case, he calls the proposal of turning off the air-conditioner a "win-win" situation as the management of the shopping mall would save on electricity bills.

We can tell that the story is set in Singapore by the way the boss of the ice-cream shop speaks. He mentions that he wanted to "figure out a way to make his shop earn more money". This shows the "kiasu" attitude and the greed of this shop owner and these traits are also shared by many Singaporeans.

I only revealed that the man was a shop owner at the start of the comic and purposely kept the fact that he was an owner of a ice-cream shop a secret to provide a sense of humour when the reader reads on to the final box. This also leads to one of the limitations in the process of doing this piece of comic - I could not draw anything in the background in the first 3 boxes or I would reveal the setting.

Newspaper article: Youths Are Generally Happy

I do not find the article stating that youths are mainly happy accurate. Firstly, the sample size of 1268 is too small. Singapore has a population of approximately 5 million people and 1268 is only a small percentage of the population. Moreover, these 1268 people might not be randomly selected – they might be selected from a group of people who have benefited significantly from the government (for example, youths who have received education bursaries).

Some questions might also be biased. For example, the poster states that 95 per cent of the people interviewed said that they are patriotic to Singapore. However, people would usually be obliged to agree that they are patriotic to Singapore as they would normally answer survey questions in surveys in a politically correct manner.

Another question that is flawed is the number of hours people spend with their parents. The survey reflects that 40 per cent of youths spend at least 10 hours a week with their parents. However, is 10 hours really that much? 10 hours a week average out to 1 hour and 25 min every day. Is this really a lot of time?

This poster might be a source of propaganda for the government. As the elections are coming up, the government might require more support from people as the government feels that youths “are not really educated in politics and do not really understand politics”. Therefore, the government might want to give readers of the newspaper an impression that most youths are happy and satisfied with life in Singapore so that readers of the newspaper (especially the youths) would think that the government has satisfied the needs of most youth. In this way, more youth would vote for the PAP.

Is it better to have never known something than have to known something and to ultimately lose it later

It may be better to never have gotten something. If someone gets something and ultimately loses it later, he might end up feeling upset and depressed when he no longer to possess that thing. For example, in the story "All Summer in a Day", Margot had remembered seeing the sun in Ohio when she was four. When she went to Venus, she no longer got to see the sun and she ended up being in the state of depression, where she physically turned pale and she refused to talk to anyone. The situation was worsened when her classmates started taunting at her, causing her to be mentally unstable. On the other hand, the other children on Venus did not remember seeing the sun and remembering its warmth and therefore, they were not very affected when it rained continuously and the Sun did not come out.

“Have you been in the company of a group of which you were clearly not a member? What was the circumstance? How did you act? How were you treated?”

I have witnessed someone being left out during a group discussion during a term 2 sabbatical in secondary 1. The sabbatical required students to solve non-routine math questions. The person was not very strong in math but ironically, he still joined this math sabbatical. He probably did not choose this sabbatical as a first choice. Although the person was “included” into the group discussion, his ideas were not taken seriously as the other members felt that he was of no help.
This practice of leaving others out of group discussions is not very healthy. Although the person who is left out can still listen to the discussion, he would usually not learn from the lesson, as he, being already weak in the subject, would not understand the content of the discussion of the other members.

In this case, the person who was left out is not very sociable during normal times, which leads to the other members of the group excluding him from the discussion.

We normally exclude people who we find are do not like or who we are not comfortable working with from our group or team. Even if a person is talented in the topic of discussion, people might exclude him from their group for a few reasons. Some examples are that the person is has a bad record and that the person is usually anti-social. Regarding the former, we usually exclude someone because we do not trust him. The bad past record has already tarnished his reputation and just because the one thing that he had done, we feel that he would remain in his own self and that he would commit the same mistakes that he did in the past. Therefore, we exclude him from the group.

TKAM Assignment