Delaney, Frank. The Tale of Beatrix Potter. 26 May 2016. Website. 30 November 2019. <https://academichelp.net/samples/academics/essays/expository/the-tale-of-beatrix-potter.html>.
Giaimo, Cara. Beatrix Potter’s Greatest Work Was a Secret, Coded Journal She Kept as a Teen. 16 June 2017. Website. 28 November 2019. <https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/beatrix-potter-secret-journal-code-leslie-linder>.
In this webpage, Cara Giaimo reports on Beatrix Potter’s rarely recognized masterwork of a journal which she kept for over fifteen years. First discovered in 1952, Giaimo explains the 13-year-long process undertaken by dedicated fan Leslie Linder to decode and publish the work. It is this that transformed Potter from “brilliant children’s book author” to “writer for the ages.” Moreover, there are several excerpts of the decrypted journal entries as well as relevant quotes from Beatrix Potter herself in this site, making it a valuable resource.
Hepburn, Evelyn. The Writing Style of Beatrix Potter. n.d. Website. 30 November 2019. <https://www.creativewritingsoftware101.com/articles/writing-style-of-beatrix-potter.php>.
Kosik, Corryn. Beatrix Potter. March 2018. Website. 30 November 2019. <https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/beatrix-potter>.
Lear, Linda. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature. 2007. Website. 30 November 2019. <http://www.bpotter.com/Biography.aspx>.
McDowell, Marta. Beatrix Potter’s Letters to Children: The Path to Her Books. 13 January 2018. Website. 28 November 2019. <https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/letters-to-children-from-beatrix-potter-a-path-to-her-books/>.
Marta McDowell, a teacher of landscape history and horticulture, touches on the duality of Beatrix Potter’s two conflicting interests and gives insight on the event responsible for setting the direction of Potter’s career. McDowell explains how Potter combined her avid love for nature and her passion for art with her adventurous, innovative mindset to revolutionize children’s fiction. This concise resource covers Beatrix Potter’s early life and the catalyst for her career, providing the reader with a deep understanding of the esteemed author’s background.
Popova, Maria. Beatrix Potter, Mycologist: The Beloved Children’s Book Author’s Little-Known Scientific Studies and Illustrations of Mushrooms. n.d. Website. 28 November 2019. <https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/28/beatrix-potter-a-life-in-nature-botany-mycology-fungi/>.
This resource, written by Maria Popova, brings light to Beatrix Potter’s underappreciated contribution to mycology. In her time, Potter fought for women to be recognized for their discoveries and scientific work, studied spores, and made naturalistic watercolour paintings of various fungi. Popova also includes numerous labelled pictures of these illustrations among the text, making it an excellent source to view and reference Potter’s works.
Rackow, Marcia. “Wonder and Matter-of-Fact” Meet—The Imagination of Beatrix Potter. n.d. Website. 28 November 2019. <https://aestheticrealism.net/news-archive/art-and-life/wonder-and-matter-of-fact-meet-the-imagination-of-beatrix-potter/>.
Written by Marcia Rackow, an artist, teacher, and consultant of a non-profit educational foundation, this site relates the synthesis of reality and wonder in Beatrix Potter’s publications to her success as a children’s fiction author. Rackow explains that this success originates from Potter’s talent of showing the world in a new light, rather than creating an entirely new realm. Alongside this, Rackow provides a deep analysis of Potter’s most famous work, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, which is beneficial to anyone interested in the hidden significance in Potter’s books.
Rosa, Gabriella de la. Between naturalism and fantasy: the art of Beatrix Potter. n.d. Website. 28 November 2019. <https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/between-naturalism-and-fantasy-the-art-of-beatrix-potter>.
Published on the website of the National Trust, this credible resource by Gabriella de la Rosa delves deeply into Beatrix Potter’s artwork. Rosa believes that Potter’s observations and close studies of nature set her apart from other illustrators of her time. This balance of fantasy and reality is what makes her stories stand the test of time. Most importantly, this site features numerous of Potter’s illustrations, which are briefly explained through captions, providing details of their sources, medium, and time of creation.
Straw, Deborah. Beatrix Potter, More Than Just Bunnies: The Legacy of Beatrix Potter. 20 February 2018. Website. 31 November 2019. <https://www.literarytraveler.com/articles/beatrix-potter-lake-district/>.
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Widely recognized as the mother of modern environmentalism, Rachel Carson devoted her life to sharing her deep interest in the natural world. She appreciated that every “outthrust headland, every curving beach, [and] every grain of sand” holds the story of the earth, and believed it to be her duty to maintain this story and share it with future generations. Undoubtedly, she will be remembered for her numerous contributions, which include her positive and effective approach towards learning, her unprecedented style of writing, and her honourable motives. I am deeply inspired by Carson’s belief in the beauty and integrity of life and her continuous efforts to inspire new generations to protect the living world.
To begin, Rachel Carson’s eminence is outlined by the positive and tangible difference she made in the world. First of all, Carson demonstrated considerable talent and an eager attitude towards learning. In 1935, she took federal civil service examinations in several zoological areas, such as parasitology, wildlife biology, and aquatic biology, scoring higher than any previous female applicant. She also taught at the University of Maryland for five years.
Next, Carson, who had always planned to become a writer, developed a highly individual style that featured a combination of scientific accuracy, thoroughness and an elegant, lyrical prose element. She spent fifteen years in the federal service by working as a scientist and editor for all publications by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, then proceeded to publish articles and books designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world. Most importantly, she continued to use her literary talents to constitute a biography of the ocean and to warn the public about the dangers of misusing pesticides. In her book, Silent Spring, which remains to be one of the most influential books in the modern environmental movement, Carson outlines the issue of pesticides by challenging the practices of agricultural scientists and the government. Her call for change in the way humankind viewed the natural world resulted in the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and induced the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. Undoubtedly, Rachel Carson will be remembered for affecting change. Whether in ten years, fifty years, or a hundred years, her countless contributions to conservation cannot be denied.
Seeing these accomplishments prompted me to learn more about Rachel Carson. Upon reading about her life, hardships, and achievements, I was instantly drawn to her. One of Carson’s characteristics that caught my attention is the way she perceived the world. She came to see it as “beautiful, wild, animal, and vulnerable, each part attached to every other part” (Jill Lepore). This unique view was the accumulated result of a life-long love of nature, the pain she experienced as she cared for her motherless nieces, and her adventurous journeys in the living world. For decades, she had played in the orchards, scrambled down rocks, and waded into tide pools, thinking about how one thing can change another. I am also inspired by Rachel Carson’s choices and accomplishments. Throughout her life, Carson continuously made selfless decisions to ensure the health of the planet. Her hard work and dedication to her cause render her an undoubtedly eminent person. Most importantly, I am drawn to the similarities we share. For instance, Carson always assumed she would become a writer, just as I believed that I would come to express my ideas through my writing ever since I was a young child. Although I am not completely set on pursuing language arts in my career, I am certain that it will be an important element of my future. Moreover, Carson’s mother bequeathed to her a life-long love for nature, similar to how my parents encouraged me to observe the beauty of the world around me. From a young age, they supported me to travel around the world, often venturing to the most remote places to seek a more intimate connection with nature and wildlife. These similarities of passions, interests, and upbringing have enabled me to relate to Rachel Carson on a very personal level.
As I delved deeper, I realized that it was easy for me to connect with the accomplished writer and marine biologist. I discovered many qualities that I felt I shared in common with Carson, and I also found that she had several qualities that I aspire to emulate. Like me, she was determined, persevering, and passionate about her goal. Moreover, not only was she thoughtful and detail-oriented, but she was also bold and pioneering. I hope to learn from these last two traits, as one of my goals in TALONS is to push myself outside of my comfort zone. I want to be able to grow alongside my peers in this program and develop social and leadership skills that will benefit me for the rest of my life. I also want to learn from Rachel Carson’s ability to express herself and speak up for what she believed in, even when she faced numerous challenges and difficulties. To do this, I will continue to research Carson’s process of alerting the government to the dangers of pesticides.
However, I wasn’t able to connect with everything Rachel Carson had to face. Whereas her family struggled financially, I was fortunate enough to have grown up with a stable source of income. While she grew up on farmland, I grew up in cities, accustomed to the ease of transport and the numerous educational opportunities that were available to me. Even though she had to live through several losses of family and friends, take care of a sick mother alongside three orphaned children, and battle breast cancer for eighteen years, I am thankful to have lost very few loved ones and have been relatively healthy since my birth. Although these barriers in connection are not overly difficult to overcome, I believe that it is still important to address them in my speech, in which I will explain the eminence of Rachel Carson. Although it is nearly impossible to relate to and imagine certain hardships without experiencing them for myself, these events were significant in Carson’s life. By ignoring them or pretending that I could understand some of the challenges she had to go through, I would be being disrespectful and inconsiderate. As a result, I am considering mentioning these unfortunate events appropriately by ensuring that I am not making assumptions about her emotions during this time.
To overcome challenges and pursue her dreams, Rachel Carson was willing to take risks in her learning and growth. First of all, as she was a woman, Carson was often discredited. Chemical companies would label her as a Communist or a hysterical woman, and a considerable number of her poems were rejected by magazines. When her book “Under the Sea-Wind” became a best-seller, reviewers mocked her by supposing that she must be half-man. Despite these inappropriate comments, Carson continued to express her ideas through her writing. Instead of letting the negativity of others dampen her spirits, she wanted to prove them wrong.
Additionally, Carson suffered from family problems. Strained family finances did not enable her to achieve a doctorate in zoology, and the death of her father and older sister left her as the family’s only wage earner. In response, Carson willingly took up responsibilities. She cared for her older sister’s orphaned children, moved in with her sickly mother, and continued to support her family with her work. Rachel Carson also had to overcome other unexpected challenges. In 1960, the author and marine biologist had a radical mastectomy, one of the many treatments she took in her 18-year-long battle with breast cancer, and the recovery was slow. Before long, Carson had begun to contract other illnesses, one after the other, including the flu, staph infections, rheumatoid arthritis, and eye infections. She was told that she had only “a matter of months,” and was terrified of dying before she could finish her book, Silent Spring. But if I have learned anything about Rachel Carson, it is her constant perseverance in pursuing her objective. She did not stop or condense her writing, as was suggested by many of her friends and editors. Rather, she pushed through and proved everyone who believed in her failure wrong by submitting to The New Yorker a nearly complete draft of the book in January of 1962. Even though the cancer had made her lose nearly all of her hair and her spine was beginning to collapse, she persisted on leading change. She wore wigs and remained seated in interviews, continuing, as always, to fight for the balance of nature.
Rachel Carson, you “have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” It’s time for me to turn the page and begin a new chapter of my life – which starts with meeting you and will continue with an analysis of one of your most influential publications, Silent Spring.
1. How might your digital footprint affect your future opportunities? Give at least two examples.
My digital footprint may affect my future opportunities because it is impossible to completely remove what I might have posted, commented, or liked. Employers and universities may search for me to affirm that I am suitable for the position I am seeking. If they discover that I have made a potentially damaging impact on others online, posted items that are inappropriate and unprofessional, or have created a negative digital footprint overall, they may feel compelled to pass the opportunity to someone else.
Moreover, if too much personal information is linked to my digital footprint, anyone can potentially discover private information about me and threaten or blackmail me with it. Because of this, I may be pushed to say, do, or post something that may harm me, my community, and the people around me. This can permanently damage my future prospects.
Lastly, if I am well-known for my negative digital footprint, I may experience difficulties communicating and connecting with other people online as well as in person. This is because people generally prefer to avoid others who may potentially be involved in illegal, dramatic, and hurtful situations. On the other hand, if I have a positive digital footprint, I will likely have increased opportunities for everything from job and university applications to making new friends. The people in my community will think of me as a dependable, kind, and responsible citizen.
2. Describe at least three strategies that you can use to keep your digital footprint appropriate and safe.
Strategies to keep my digital footprint appropriate and safe include thinking before posting, keeping track of all of my accounts, utilizing the most relevant settings for me, and being conscious and aware of my impact on others. First of all, it is crucial to be mindful that everything I post and share on the internet will represent how others see me online. As a result, every time I feel the urge to send something, I should ensure that it is something worth sharing by asking myself the following questions: is true, hurtful, illegal, necessary, and kind?
Furthermore, I should take care to not overshare and to pay attention to how what I post will affect me and the people around me. Oversharing is currently commonly seen on the internet, especially on social media apps such as Instagram, where many users have a second or “spam” account where they post multiple times a week if not daily. These posts often give insight into one’s day-to-day lives, including what they do outside of school, where they go to eat, and so on. This could potentially give someone I am unfamiliar with a lot of information I wouldn’t want them to know, which is why it is important to be mindful of all of my accounts.
However, oversharing is not only routinely seen on so-called “spam” accounts. Social media users also often overshare on their stories, a feature in most modern social media apps such as Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, and Instagram, where users can post content such as images and videos in a slideshow format. Although stories are generally available for only 24 hours after the time of posting, they, like everything else on the internet, are never truly gone. Because of this, I should be cognizant of the people following me, particularly due to the presence of location sharing in apps like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram.
In Facebook, location features such as Nearby Friends and Find Wi-Fi are available to enhance the user experience. In March of 2018, an article was published which stated that third-parties were buying user data, such as a user’s friends and contacts and even their place of residence, from Facebook. According to the New York Times, the data “contained enough information that the company could match users to other records and build psychographic profiles.” Even more frightening, if that were possible, is the prospect that Facebook’s messenger app tracks the location of every single text. With certain extensions or apps, you can view the location of any user you are in a chat with. This includes group chats, meaning that you can see data of people you are not even friends with.
Meanwhile, on Snapchat, services like Snap Map, which enables you to share your location with your friends, Geofilters, which tailor the filters available to you depending on your location, and the ability to share or request the locations of your friends through Chat are very popular. Although these features appear to be quite harmless, the Snap Map service on Snapchat is able to disclose the activities you are doing. This is because Snapchat not only tracks your location, but also the time of day, your altitude, the presence of headphones plugged in your phone, and your speed of travel. If Ghost Mode is not turned on, then Snapchat, like Facebook, can use your information and even sell data to outside parties.
Lastly, Instagram tracks specific data about users based on where they post images, even if they don’t use the Geotag feature, which shows your followers where a certain image was taken. As a result, anyone can view the place an image was posted on a map, even if the user’s profile is set to private. Since most users tend to post images while at home or at work, this feature can potentially provide a variety of dangerous information. Like with Facebook, there are also a multitude of apps and extensions which gather this information to create a detailed map showing the locations of a user from the time they first created their Instagram account. In order to prevent these social media apps from tracking my location, I will need to be informed of the different privacy settings available to me in each app. As a global citizen who utilizes the internet, it is my responsibility to be mindful of the impact and consequences my actions have on others, especially on my friends, peers, and others following me on social media.
3. If you could go back in time, is there anything you would do differently online? Think of what type of advice you would pass on to your younger self or other students. How could you go about explaining it to them?
If I could go back in time, there wouldn’t be anything that I would do differently online, because I have never spent extended periods of time on social media. I have always been much more interested in connecting with people in-person, and the people I did communicate with online were people I knew and felt comfortable with. I have never posted anything on social media with my face in it, and I have never shared any private information with people I am not familiar with. I believe that I currently have and maintain a positive digital footprint which reflects who I am.
However, if I could give any advice to other students, it would be about how what you share can influence yourself, the people around you, and your community. I would spread awareness to cyberbullying, as well as how to protect yourself when you are using the internet. I will accentuate the importance of taking care of your digital footprint and review the key points at the end of my presentation. I will also make sure to provide relevant analogies to ensure that the content I am sharing is clearly understood, as well as making time to answer any questions students may have.
Although the internet and social media are useful tools, it is crucial to be mindful that tools can become weapons if not utilized correctly. By spreading awareness to the potential dangers and downsides to social media, I can do my part in ensuring that the internet can become a better, safer, and healthier community.
3) Tool Bar – In your toolbar you can “Add Media” and “Add Documents” into your posts, this is the best way to create visual representations. You can also change fonts, hyperlink, etc.
4) Publish – Here is where you control what items are public and private. You can also control when they are published to your website.
5) Categories – Here is where you choose where you want your post to go. This is your digital binder with all of your subjects. Make sure to categorize each post with the relevant subject. E.g.Categories -> English
6) Tags – Here is where you tag posts with one or two of the most readily applicable Core Competencies. These tags can help you find things quicker on your blog and help you stay organised. E.g.Tag -> creativethinking
7) Publish – When you are done, simply “Publish” it. If it has been edited, press “Republish” to update with the latest version of the content.
