As with all portfolio assignments an introductory letter explaining your choices must be included as part of the project. A total of 5 pieces of work should be included in the portfolio. The entire class will write two essays as well as a Literature Log. You must include on of those three assignments.

Your other choices include:

1) A movie review.  Watch a movie which portrays a work-related struggle.  Write about some aspect of the struggle.
 
    The movie I watched that portrays a work-related struggle is Norma Rae.  As a textile mill worker she was very displeased from the beginning when her mother kept getting temporarily deaf while working in the highly noisy textile mill.  When the union organizer came to their town, he wanted the workers to start a union in their community of workers.  He knew that there weren't good working conditions and that their wages were low for all the hard work that the have done.  When the union organizer came to Norma Rae's house, he asked questions that Norma Rae's father didn't like, and what the union organizer said caught her attention.  He asked Norma Rae to be his voice for the push of organized labor, and that she was.  She risked a lot for starting a union, even her job, but everyone trusted Norma Rae and her actions.  She even stood up against her boss, the managers, and the police to push for unions.  She and the union organizer went to many houses in her town to make people more aware of the conditions at the textile mill.  Many of the people were skeptical of why they should join a union.  It was mostly because they thought they were going to lose their jobs that they have had for many years.

2) Original Research. Some topics might include:
A history of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.

    The Food and Drug Administration or act was encated in 1906 which touches the lives of every american every day.  It is the FDA's job to see that the food we eat is safe, the cosmetics we use won't hurt us, and the medicines and medical devices we use are safe and effective.  Its approximately 9,000 employees monitor the manufacture, import, transport, storage and sale of about $1 trillion worth of products each year.  Primarily, FDA is a public health agency, charged with protecting American consumers by enforcing the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act enacted in 1938 and many other related public health laws.  It has some 1,100 investigators and inspectors who cover the country's almost 95,000 FDA- regulated businesses seeing that products are made right and labeled truthfully.
    If a company is found violating any of the laws that FDA enforces, FDA can encourage the firm to voluntarily correct the problem or to recall a bad product from the market.  When a company can't or won't correct a public health problem with one of its products voluntarily, FDA can get legal, and go to court to force the company to stop selling a product and to have items already produced destroyed.
    Another major FDA mission is to protect the safety of food.  The agency's investigators routinely examine blood bank operations, from record keeping to testing for contaminants.  Cosmetic safety also comes under FDA's jurisdiction.  The agency can have unsafe cosmetics removed from the market.  The dyes and other additives used in drugs, foods and cosmetics also are subject scrutiny.

3) Create a collage or drawing which illustrates a scene form the novel.

4) Write a dialogue between two characters which doesn't take place in the novel but you wish it did.

Stanislovas- I really do not want to work.  I know nothing about working in America.  What if the people treat me bad, what if they try to hurt me, what am I to do then?

Jurgis- Little Stanislovas, you are not a little baby anymore.  You are growing up to be a man, hopefully just like me, and we need your support around here to work.

Stanislovas- Can I do things around the house?  Can't I watch the other children?

Jurgis- You could Stanislovas, but that doesn't pay any money like a job would.  Do you understand what I'm trying to say to you?

Stanislovas- No, please Jurgis, don't make me go out there and work.  They will kill me!!!

Jurgis- Calm down little Stanislovas, they will not kill you.

Stanislovas- Yes they will, they will!!!

Jurgis- all right, all right.  We will see how it goes without you working.

Stanislovas- Thank you Jurgis, thank you.

    It has been a month since Jurgis has tell Stanislovas that he didn't have to work.  However, it didn't work out for the best.  Without some extra money, some financial changes started to come about.

Jurgis- I don't believe this, we don't have the extra three dollars to give to the Realtor for the house payment this month.  What are we going to do.  If only Stanislovas were willing to work.  Soon we will be out on the streets because of three measly dollars.  I can't believe this is happening, after all we worked for.

Stanislovas- I'm so sorry but I was so sure that the workers wouldn't like me, they would hurt me.

Jurgis- It is no use explaining now, it is too late.  We can not do anything about it but to call the agent and see if he will give us more time to pay this months rent.

    It is March 10 and the agent is demanding that they pay the rent.  Jurgis is pleading with him to give them more time, but he is not going to give them a chance.

Agent-  I'm sorry but we have no choice but to foreclose on your house.  You are not able to make the monthly payments.   It is not just you in particular, we do this with all the owners when they do not pay on time.

Jurgis- Please, give us another chance.  We just need about an extra week, that's all.

Agent-  I'm sorry but I can't.  We will be in the house in five days to inspect the house for another sale.  You have until then to move.  Again I am very sorry.

 5) A letter from one character in the United States assessing the situation and trying to decided if the family would be better off returning to the "old country."

Dear Jurgis,
    You have lived in the United States for a few years and your family has been going through some troubles whether it deals with money, family sicknesses, or whatever, it might be best for you all to return to Lithuania.  In many ways America has nothing to offer foreigners, more or less your family.  You've had nothing but hardship since the day you purchased that house of yours from the agent.  The house was not all that you and your family expected it to be.  The street in front of the house was unpaved and the floor was not even laid down.  Not even your attic was finished and you had no idea !  But you were and are peasant people and you desperately needed a place to live with all of the family members. At first you thought everything was going well, with buying some furniture for the house and little nick nacks to put around the house.  With all of you having jobs in America, you thought that you would be happy and succeed in America- if only you knew.  How were you to know that the great corporation which employed you lied to you- the whole country also.  From top top bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.
    Then there was your father,  old Antanas, who by working in the factory grew a nasty cough until it hardly ever stopped.  By working in a place where his boots, then his feet, were soaked in chemicals, sores began to break out on his feet, and grew worse and worse.  Soon he was unable to work anymore and little rivers of blood came from his mouth as he laid in bed.  What kind of life is that for an old man to live?  He worked so hard in a corporation who didn't care about anything except for how hard he worked and then he dies.  What a terrible loss.
    As a person who has lived in America all her life, please return to Lithuania, it is for the best.  Especially physically.  The morals of America itself is wearing you and your family down.

                                                                                                From,
                                                                                                Shelba Thomas