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Civic Imagination

Miracle

The story of Miracle is a true story about Herb Brooks and the USA Hockey team who were put up against the dominant Soviet Union hockey team during the 1980 Olympics in the middle of the Cold War. This story is inspirational because Herb Brooks is able to unite a group of arrogant college hockey players and transform them into a gold winning hockey team, while simultaneously helping unite the United States amidst the tense times of the Cold War. One scene that is memorable is Herb Brook’s speech prior to the game against the Soviet Union, where he states, “Great moments are born from great opportunities… this is your time, now go out there and take it.” Miracle displays a hockey team that was able to distract their country from world events and allow them to unite together as a nation under one common goal.

I have a personal relationship to this story because I am an avid sports fan and I play a sport at the collegiate level. I remember being mesmerized by Herb Brook’s speech the first time I heard it because it resonates personally with me and resembles some of the struggles and obstacles that appear in the world of sports. Not every game is going to be easy and you will get knocked down at times, similarly to life in the real world. I have shared this story with my teammates before because I think that it is a story that every athlete needs to listen to and apply it to their own lives. It shows that the road ahead of you may not always be easy, but that does not give you a reason to quit, but a reason to work that much harder. It is inspiring to me, not only as an athlete but as a human being, because it proves that people can really make a difference when they come together, believe in a goal, and put the work in to achieve that goal,

I think that this story has the potential to mobilize the American public and cause social change. As of recently, the American public has become very divided and very doubtful of the future of our country, especially with the upcoming presidential election. Because we are looking at our future in such a negative light, I think that this movie could be used to inspire because it is set in a time that was very stressful for the American people, but shows that we united and prevailed. The Cold War was a strenuous time for the American people but we were able to unite and display our patriotism behind our national hockey team. This story shows that our country needs to be united and proud of where we come from, and fight to create the lives that we want. Right now, many people are refusing to vote because they don’t like either presidential candidate; however, they are actually hurting our country by not fulfilling their civic duties as a citizen and carrying out their rights. They have to be willing to work and fight for the change that is desired. It is not going to be easy to reunite our country, similarly to how it was not easy for Herb Brooks to unite his hockey team. However, the rewards are endless once you put aside your differences and work towards the common good.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechmiracle3.html

Pride, Patriotism, Hope

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Contents of this tag:
4. Maus: A Survivor's Tale
11. The Lion King
14. Sailor Moon Sailor Moon is a young teenage girl that learns that she has magical powers that allows her to fight against the evils of the extraterrestrial world. She finds the Sailor Scouts, Venus, Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. Each of them have powers that relate to the symbolism of their planet and a specific superhero outfit that they wear. Based in Neo-futuristic Tokyo the story was released in the 1990’s as a manga and then a television anime came out. It became very popular among teens especially young Asian-American girls because of where it was based although the characters were many depicted as white skin tone.
15. How the tortoise got cracks in his shell
17. Chef "Chef is a film released in 2014 that was written and directed by Jon Favreau who was inspired by his own career in film and love of the culinary arts to create a movie about a popular chef who needs to find his creative spark and fall in love with cooking once more. The film begins in California where Chef Carl Casper lives and works. After receiving a brutally negative review from a well regarded food critic, Carl reevaluates his job at a fancy restaurant in California. He realized that sticking to a strict menu has taken away a lot of joy from the profession he used to love. After he quits his job, Carl heads to Miami, Florida with his family because his ex-wife, Inez, needs him to watch their son, Percy, while she works.
25. Sanjay's Super Team This is an animated short film from Pixar directed and written by Sanjay Patel who based it off his experiences as a child. The story revolves around a young boy, Sanjay, and his father, an Indian-American migrant. Sanjay is watching his favourite superheroes on TV while his father is praying by the shrine in the same room. His father urges him to join in the ritual but Sanjay refuses so he switches off the TV and takes his toy in order to force him into it.
26. The colonial city
27. My Dad
31. Freedom Writers: Bridging Racial Divides Through Writing Freedom Writers (the movie) is based on a true story of a school in Long Beach, California. The main character, Erin Gruwell, is a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School and placed with the students who are considered at-risk and unteachable. These students were almost entirely comprised of minorities, with the exception of one student. With such a diverse class and a group of students who had no apparent desire to learn, the film explores the real-world challenges that Gruwell faced trying to get her students to come to class wanting to learn, if they would even want to come to their classes at all. The class divides itself based on race, and fights and arguments breakout regularly. The class later finds common ground on their feelings and discussions around The Holocaust. Her students become inspired to break free from the things that originally divided them, most notably with one character speaking out against someone who she was being forced to lie for during a trial. She tasked her students with writing in a diary and then compiled those journals and writings into a collection of them all in “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
32. Roaring Lion
35. Emmeline the Suffragist
37. Rafael DCB
42. Michelle S
48. A Leader
49. Train of Hope
53. Fox's Creek On a hot summer night a community of animals were chased out of their home by a growing wildfire which started to burn down their forest. Mother Deer grabbed her young ones while the other animals rushed to cross the great river. Everyone showed their human instincts, pushing, kicking, and growling desperately on their way to safety. Mother Deer made it to the other side with Fawn but Mother Rabbit forgot one of her many young ones so she asked her for he
56. The Myth of the Mansfield Hanging Tree
57. Simba and the Maasai Warriors
65. The doctors' team of the Aegean sea
66. Nick C
74. We are all Martín Fierro
77. Stephanie Q
85. The Help
90. Ghada G.
93. Nina N.
95. Sandokan: A Post-Colonial Coldwar Hero The plot of the novel revolves around the adventures of Sandokan - a Bornean man who lost his status, home and family to British colonialists. Embittered by his experience, Sandokan sets up camp at the island of Mompracem. From there he leads a gang of pirates under the flag of the Tiger. Together they destabilize the colonialists’ authority through robbery and violence. Steeped in the colonial period in which it was written, Salgari’s novel pitted indigenous populations against the colonial powers in ways that highlighted the evils of imperialism and celebrated resistance. As Maria Bianca Gerlich (1998, 34) observes, “Sandokan, Mompracem, and the flag of the tiger are allegories in the fight for freedom.”
98. Equilibrium Equilibrium is set in 2072 in Libria, a city state established by the survivors of World War III. “Equilibrium” is an action/thriller movie following John Preston (Bale), an enforcement officer in a futuristic world where a regime has decided to eliminate war by suppressing emotions using a certain type of drug. Books, art and music are strictly forbidden and "feeling" is a crime punishable by death.
107. How I "Eat, Pray, and Love"
113. Nour H
121. Dana G.
122. Nora S
125. Out of Balance
128. The Outlet It is the civil war in Venezuela. Xena and her little brother, Gabriel, live in the city where Gabriel practices his art. Xena, wants to see her brothers art and asks him to go to his studio and bring it back. Just as he reaches the car, a bomb hits the car, killing Gabriel. Xena, being extremely close to her brother, blames herself for sending him to get his art. She later finds out that the bomb was planted by the Latin Kings gang. Out of revenge, she then joins the rival gang with her friend, Shepard. In an act of revenge, her gang plants a bomb. She later learns, that the bomb she planted blew up Shepard's parents house. Feeling guilty, and knowing that Gabriel would be disappointed in these actions, she decided to make a change. In honor of Gabriel, she picks up his art, and paints the entire country of Venezuela with beautiful street art. Through this art she finds peace. The art was so beautiful and happy, that it ended the civil war, and transformed into a happy, peaceful place to live.
130. Tiajna A
133. An American Chef in the Aegean: Teaching solidarity through food
136. A Tale of Traveler's Past A 28-30 year-old man boards a train and sits in an empty compartment. He is a weary traveller who has spent countless days trying to find transportation to reach his destination. While en route, he falls asleep and is visited from travelers from past and present journeys of who had boarded this particular train. The first visitor is Alexander Hamilton; a migrant from the Caribbean who traveled to the United States in the 1800's. He recounts his experience of traveling to a new country and achieving his dream of creating something that would outlive him. The second visitors are Art and Vladek Spiegelman; a father and son who share their story of how they migrated to a new country after the Holocaust events of World War II and their struggles of adapting into the culture of a new nation. The last visitor is a woman who comes from the Middle East who arrived in Vienna a year ago. She tells her story about the journey she experienced to reach her new home as well as the issues she's experiences now as an outcast from a land that she's still not fully settled into yet.
138. Em/Power Love As Liz finishes her spiritual trip around the world she heads to Brazil for her final stop. She stops into a local bar where this man Sebastiao spills a glass of wine on her. From there the love story began and the couple traveled around Brazil to take photos of social injustice. One night they were out in the middle of a field where they were taking photos of an approaching comet and Sebastiao noticed something strange in the image. They went to the comet collision and found an luminescent girl standing there. She introduces herself as Em, an inter-terrestrial who warns them about the consequences of gender inequality. She says there is an outer universal counsel that judges planets according to social understandings. Em tells them that she has magic powers to empower women and helps them reach self-discover. Liz and Sebastiao take on the mission to travel around the world with Em to show the strong women all over the world. Together they take photos of social injustices while illustrating stories of women struggling to find themselves within their societies. After taking the photos with Em using her magic power given by the moon they feel they can become their own hero. Em takes the photos back to the counsel to prove that Earth is becoming a more equal society. But Liz and Sebastiao’s work of empowering women and showing social injustices will still continue.
139. Julia B. I am a third year student at the University of Maryland in the U.S. studying Journalism with a minor in French. Writing is a passion of mine, and journalism is one of the many real world applications of writing. I hope to be able to use writing to make an impact on the world through the news and help others get the information that they need in order to be informed citizens. In my free time I like to do triathlons and write poetry.
Contents of this tag:
2. Maus: A Survivor's Tale
4. How the tortoise got cracks in his shell
11. My Dad
12. Sanjay's Super Team This is an animated short film from Pixar directed and written by Sanjay Patel who based it off his experiences as a child. The story revolves around a young boy, Sanjay, and his father, an Indian-American migrant. Sanjay is watching his favourite superheroes on TV while his father is praying by the shrine in the same room. His father urges him to join in the ritual but Sanjay refuses so he switches off the TV and takes his toy in order to force him into it.
13. Freedom Writers: Bridging Racial Divides Through Writing Freedom Writers (the movie) is based on a true story of a school in Long Beach, California. The main character, Erin Gruwell, is a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson Classical High School and placed with the students who are considered at-risk and unteachable. These students were almost entirely comprised of minorities, with the exception of one student. With such a diverse class and a group of students who had no apparent desire to learn, the film explores the real-world challenges that Gruwell faced trying to get her students to come to class wanting to learn, if they would even want to come to their classes at all. The class divides itself based on race, and fights and arguments breakout regularly. The class later finds common ground on their feelings and discussions around The Holocaust. Her students become inspired to break free from the things that originally divided them, most notably with one character speaking out against someone who she was being forced to lie for during a trial. She tasked her students with writing in a diary and then compiled those journals and writings into a collection of them all in “The Freedom Writers Diary.”
16. The Light at the end of a Dark Tunnel
18. Train of Hope
19. Emmeline the Suffragist
22. The Diary of Anne Frank
23. A Leader
30. The Help
33. How I "Eat, Pray, and Love"
34. The doctors' team of the Aegean sea
37. We are all Martín Fierro
Contents of this tag:
Contents of this tag: