15) Optional Student Choice: 500 words or 5-minute video. You author content that includes a title, category, and a reflection about your experiences in this class. Consider specific assignments, specific readings/films, specific conversations, and/or specific processes that helped you learn and grow. In this blog post I will be discussing how using blog posts during this class has impacted me. When this class first start and I learned that all of our work was going to be posted on our websites for everyone to see I was a little uncomfortable with the idea. I was intimidated by the thought that anyone in my class would be able to see my writing, mostly because I don't believe I'm the best writer. I was very hesitant while writing my first few blogs and I was very unsure about my outcome. Throughout the semester, I have become more comfortable posting blogs and my drafts for the formal assignments. Writing each post has become easier because I felt better about my results. I like that I can receive feedback from my peers about the ideas that I have shared here. It's also nice to see my classmate's work as well because it interesting to hear others opinions or to see how they interpreted the assignment for the blog post. I have never created a website before so it was very interesting to learn how. I have always been used to writing papers, printing them out and then handing them in for a grade in all of my other english classes so blogging has been a huge change for me. I definitely enjoy blogging more because it allows me to share my thoughts as well as hear feedback and suggestions for my work. Posting each draft of my formal assignments has also been very useful in writing my paper. I like that I'm able to look back at each of my drafts and see how my work has progressed. During this course we have talked a lot about the process of writing. The process is working towards a goal and it is a continuing thing that occurs. Working through a website was very beneficial because it allowed us to use the process of writing and work towards accomplishing a good paper. This class has taught me that the process of writing is very important. It's okay to go back and revise your work as many times as you want or need. Your first draft is not going to be perfect and you should continue to strive to reach the highest level that you can. I have learned a lot about writing in this class and believe that I will continue to improve as a writer.
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14) Optional Student Choice: 500 words or 5-minute video. You author content that includes a title, category, and a reflection about your experiences in this class. Consider specific assignments, specific readings/films, specific conversations, and/or specific processes that helped you learn and grow. For round 3 of our class game show Let's Talk, each group took turns sitting at the front of the class with their backs to the board. The rest of the class had to describe words that appeared on the board and the students at the front had to guess. The words all had to do with our class in some way. As we went through each group, the words got more complicated and harder to describe. Some of the words that were described were process, product and portfolio. Each writing piece we had this semester involved process. Continuing to revise your work is the process of writing, we did this by editing our blog posts or creating new drafts of our formal assignments. The product is what you create when you are finishing writing. Process and product cross over and create the portfolio. The final portfolio in this class is represented by this website that we created using different works of writing. Other words that I remember were text, subtext and context, we discussing all of these in the process of our writing. Text is the "item we will interpret." Subtext is "whats left unsaid and the underlying message." Context is "information that surrounds the text to give perspective." Context is the frame and you can discover the context by discussing who, what, where, when, why and how. This game provided a review for what was covered in the course. I found this game to be helpful and it was great to work as a class to reach a goal of finishing the activities together.
13) Optional Student Choice: 500 words or 5-minute video. You author content that includes a title, category, and a reflection about your experiences in this class. Consider specific assignments, specific readings/films, specific conversations, and/or specific processes that helped you learn and grow. In class we were split up into groups and we were given ten minutes to sort pieces of papers into groups based on categories that we were given. The categories include motives, genres/subgenres, rhetorical purpose and rhetorical mode. The ideas under motives include different things we explored during the process of our class. For example one of the piece of papers said "Examine your life", this was used for the life choice memoir in the first formal assignment. Another example was "experience the ways narrative writing helps me to make sense of the world", we used this when we created fan-fiction because it narrated a story. The next category was genres/subgenres which included reflective writing, blog posts 11 & 12 used reflective writing to talk about our formal assignments. Other genres we discussed in class was drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Another category was rhetorical purpose, an example of this is to entertain. This was done through the fan-fiction story because the story was created just for entertain for the audience. Rhetorical purposes also includes to persuade which we used in our research paper to convince someone to pick a certain side of an argument. The last category was rhetorical modes, argumentation is an example. The research paper was written with a rhetorical mode of argumentation. The first formal assignment was written with the rhetorical mode of narration. I enjoyed playing this game because it was a creative way to review some of the topics we discussed throughout the course.
12) Formal Assignment #2. A Reflection. [Categories: Reflection]: Please complete the following:
The second formal assignment that we wrote in this class was a research paper. The rhetorical mode for this paper is argumentation and the genre is MLA research paper.
While writing this paper, at first I did my research and took a break before I began the paper. I think this was helpful because it gave me time to think about the research and how it could be useful for my paper. I wrote this paper while I was in my room, allowing me to focus on what I was writing. I decided to write about starting free college tuition in the US for undergraduate students because I think the topic is very important and something that the US should consider to start sometime in the future. I believe this was a good choice because I would the topic interesting and I enjoyed doing research on this topic. In the process of writing this paper I started with doing my research and then I started my paper later on. I realized that I needed to do more research to further prove my point. I still believe I can change things and add more to make my argument stronger. 11) Formal Assignment #1. A Reflection [Categories: Reflection]: Please complete the following:
The first formal assignment that I wrote was the fan-fiction. The rhetorical mode for this piece was a narration because it tells the story about "The Misfits" life before the story takes place. The genre of this paper was fan-fiction.
I decided to writing this paper when I was in my room mostly. This was a good approach for me because it allowed me to concentrate and create good ideas/plot for the story. While writing this assignment I took breaks and would come back to it after a while. It was helpful to work this way because it gave me time to step away and come back allowing for to look at my work differently. I chose to write about this topic because while writing my blog post using fan-fiction, I found fan-fiction to be entertaining and enjoyed writing them. Writing a fan-fiction allowed to be creative in my decisions and my approach to the story. I decided to write about "The Misfits" live that occurred before the story takes place because while reading "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" I was curious about how "The Misfit" ended up in the place he was then. While writing the fan-fiction, at first I found it difficult trying to create a storyline but when I came up with my idea the rest of the story just flowed. Looking back on my paper, I saw things that could be changed to make the paper better and decided to write another draft. Now that when I look at it, I still believe that there is things that could be changed to help make the paper stronger. 10) Annotated Bibliography [Categories: Where to Invade Next, Research Paper]: Please complete the following:
Source #1:
Where to Invade Next Gomovies.pet, 2016, gomovies.pet/film/where-to-invade-next-11674/watching.html?ep=752062. In the documentary Where to Invade Next, Micheal Moore travels to other countries around the world to discover their ideas that America could benefit from taking. He learns that in Italy workers have eight weeks paid vacation a year and they believe that the more vacations they take, the less stress they will be resulting in less time spent sick. People in Italy live four years longer than Americans. Micheal Moore next visits a school in France, where children are served a balanced meal in their one hour lunch break. The schools in France spend less money on lunch than in the US yet the lunch are healthier. French pay higher taxes than the US but they receive more from the money that they spent. Moore travels to Finland next, which is the number one educated country in the world. Children receive no homework and have more free time to spend with friends and family or to do sports and activity. Finland schools have shorter school days and school years. They believe arts, music and physical education are very important for children to have during their school day. In Finland, it is illegal for school to charge tuition for students to attend which lead to all schools being equal. In Slovenia, any student can receive higher education because universities are free. When they did start charging for tuition, students protested and the government collapsed. When he traveled to Germany he found out that many times workers were paid for 40 hour weeks when they only worked 36 hour week and workers only had to work one job. If a worker becomes stressed out they can get their doctor to write a prescription for a free three week stay at the spa. Employees have a lot of say in what happens with the company and their ideas are heard. The boss is not allowed to contact employees while they are on vacation or send them an email after work hours. Moore was shocked to find out that in Portugal you can't be arrested for having drugs. Instead they have a universal health care system that provides treatment for people with drug additions. In Norway, prison is seen as a rehabilitation for criminals to help them come back to society. The prisoners are allowed to many activity and even have a vote during their time in prison. They believe in forgiveness for their prisoners and the lowest possible prison sentence is 21 years. Tunisia has free government funded women health clinics and abortions. Women had to fight to receive equal rights. The last country Micheal Moore visited was Iceland which had the first female elected president. Many women are leaders of companies because they believe men like to take risk where as women want whats good for the whole. When the banks crashed the only one that didn't was lead by women. As Moore reflects back on his trip he realizes that all of these ideas originated from American ideas. The Finnish education system came from idea of American education system. The fight for work days and having a vacation started in the US. Women fought for equal rights in America as well. Norway's prison is similar to America's eighth amendment "no cruel or unusual punishment". The death plenty was eliminated in Michigan that now Portugal strongly believe in. The prosecutor in Iceland based a lot of his investigation of the bankers on US history. I believe Where to Invade Next is a great film because it proposes many ideas that the US could adopt. Micheal Moore displays his opinions in an informative way. This film holds a lot of value in the writing process of the research paper because of the many ideas it displayed. Where to Invade Next is a great source because it provided many topics that the research paper could be written about. The topic I chose from the film was the tuition-free college for undergraduate students. In the film, Micheal Moore visits Slovenia, which currently has free tuition for college students. Many students didn't know what a debt was because they don't have one unlike many US citizens. When they did decide to start charging tuition, many people protested and the government collapsed. Source #2: The Great College-Loan Swindle Taibbi, Matt. "THE GREAT COLLEGE-LOAN SWINDLE. (Cover Story)." Rolling Stone, no. 1300, 16 Nov. 2017, pp. 28-31. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.libdb.dccc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=125967027&site=ehost-live. The Great College-Loan Swindle tells the story of a 37 year old man who is buried in student loans around $35,000. Once married his wife and his debt together combined to over $50,000. The debt is negatively affecting him so much that he contemplates suicide and believes his kids would be better off without him. He decides to call his wife to say goodbye for the last time but his wife talks him out of it. After receiving calls from debt collectors very often he decides to start paying for rehabilitation to help with payments but none of his money was going towards the debt. There is over 8.5 million Americans that are currently in debt because of student loans. People believe that the only option in order to get a good job is to get a college degree and most can only do that with loans. Money is also at a very easy access for students to get and many don't realizes the debt that they are getting themselves involved with. The Great College-Loan Swindle describes the negative effects that it has on people. It also contains information about debt in the US such as the amount of people that are currently in debt which is 8.5 million people. The average cost of college is $50,000 per year. This story contains relevant information for my research paper because it talks about the negative effects that college has on people. Without this debt that people get from attending college, many people's lives would be less stressful. It could have an affect on suicide rates because there are people who commit suicide to get away from the student debts that they cannot pay. Source #3: Should Community College be Free? Goldrick-Rab, Sara, and Andrew P. Kelly. "Should community college be free? Education next talks with Sara Goldrick-Rab and Andrew P. Kelly." Education Next, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, p. 54+. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, Accessed 21 Nov. 2017. In this academic journal Sara Goldbrick-Rab and Andrew P. Kelly discuss the pros and cons of past president Barack Obama's plan to make community college free. They talk about the importances that a college degree has and how not everyone can afford it. Previously people could work and make a good living just with a high school diploma. More employers are looking for employees that have technical skills which are offered at community colleges. It has been shown that employment is 25% higher for people with an associates degree than someone with just a high school diploma. Once they receive their associates degree 40% continue on to get a bachelor's degree. People with some college credits make more money than someone who never attended college at all. Sara Goldbrick-Rad discusses the importance in making sure that students finish their degree that they have started. They also believe that 2 year associates degrees should be offered at 4 year colleges for people that begin college but are unable to complete 4 years of college. They would like more federal spending to go towards public college rather than private schools. Not only is the cost of tuition high but living costs and books are as well. This source offers many great ideas to make sure that this plan can work. It also talks about the problems that the plan has and suggestion on how to make it better. The idea can be very helpful to help persuade people into trying to make free community college and "no loan" four year colleges happen. This source is useful to use in the process of writing the research paper because it provides many good ideas on the pros and cons of making college tuition free. Many people that hear about starting tuition free colleges don't believe that it would be possible but this provides many options to make it happen. Source #4: Aiming Higher: Make College Tuition Free The author, Jon Wiener, writings about his thoughts on making the United States tuition free. He discusses other countries who have tuition free college and how they are successful. He believes that the way to get tuition free to America is through two things which are protest and politics. Wiener discusses the benefits that the US would have if they decided to do this. Wiener discusses how it would be a new idea to the US because many states were previously free tuition including California. He also talks about how Tennessee recently started free tuition for two years of community college or trade school, which would be a beneficial start to many students college careers. The text contains many great comparisons to other countries success in tuition free colleges. It also great that he provided ideas on how to make this possible. As well as why this would be an important thing for America to obtain. This text will be beneficial in writing my research paper because it provides examples for a lot of the arguments that I plan on using in my paper. I would like to talk about how it is successful in other countries so we should bring it to America and Wiener provides great example of other countries' successes. Source #5: Clinton Lauds Free NY Tuition Plan as Progressive Landmark This article is about New York's recent plan on making college tuition free and how Hillary Clinton believes that their plan could be used as a model for other states in the US. New York's plan is to pay tuition for any student that is from New York and is going to school full-time. Their families also have to be earning $125,000 or less. The cost of room, board, and other expenses is left for the student to pay for. New York's idea for this plan to work is that the students that receive this assisting in paying for college are required to stay in New York for how ever long they receive paid tuition. This will allow New York to have many employees stay in NY and many businesses may come because of that. This text provides great example on how making free college tuition can be possibly in the US. This is only the start and hopefully in will continue to spread across to other states. This article will be useful for my paper because it proves that this idea can happen because it has already started. Source #6: The College Bubble The College Bubble discusses how the author, Megan McArdle's parents spent more money educating her sister and her than they did on their house. She says that college is impossible for anyone to afford even if they continue to work during the summer and part time jobs during the year. McArdle says how taking out loans is many students only option and that it is very much accepted. She even referred to student loans as "good debt". The article is just another example on how debt affects people. Unfortunately, taking out loans is something that many people have to do. I can use this source in my paper to support the idea that debt is negatively affecting people. This source shows the start of student loans and the interest only makes the costs go higher. 9) Writing About Where to Invade Next. An Argument. [Categories: Where to Invade Next, Research Paper, Argument]: Please complete the following:
In this blog post I will provide three topics that I found interesting in Where to Invade Next. The topics are ideas that Micheal Moore believes should be placed in America that he found during his time traveling to other countries. In my last blog post I wrote a summary of what Where to Invade Next was about.
Topic #1: College tuition in America Research question: Should America allow all under graduate citizens to attend college tuition free? Argument: America should provide free education in college for students because everyone should be able to receive an education even if they can't afford it. Topic #2: Schools in America Research question: Should school days and school years be shorter for children in America? Argument: America should shorten school days and school year for children because it will allow children to have more free time and the children won't be overworked. Topic #3: Vacation for employees Research question: Should employees be provided a paid vacation each year? Argument: All employees should not be provided a paid vacation each year because not every employee work the same amount of time a year so they shouldn't get the same benefit that someone that works more. 8) Writing About Where to Invade Next. A Summary. [Category: Where to Invade Next, Research Paper, Summary]: Please complete the following:
In the documentary Where to Invade Next, Micheal Moore travels to other countries around the world to discover their ideas that America could benefit from taking. He learns that in Italy workers have eight weeks paid vacation a year and they believe that the more vacations they take, the less stress they will be resulting in less time spent sick. People in Italy live four years longer than Americans. Micheal Moore next visits a school in France, where children are served a balanced meal in their one hour lunch break. The schools in France spend less money on lunch than in the US yet the lunch are healthier. French pay higher taxes than the US but they receive more from the money that they spent. Moore travels to Finland next, which is the number one educated country in the world. Children receive no homework and have more free time to spend with friends and family or to do sports and activity. Finland schools have shorter school days and school years. They believe arts, music and physical education are very important for children to have during their school day. In Finland, it is illegal for school to charge tuition for students to attend which lead to all schools being equal. In Slovenia, any student can receive higher education because universities are free. When they did start charging for tuition, students protested and the government collapsed. When he traveled to Germany he found out that many times workers were paid for 40 hour weeks when they only worked 36 hour week and workers only had to work one job. If a worker becomes stressed out they can get their doctor to write a prescription for a free three week stay at the spa. Employees have a lot of say in what happens with the company and their ideas are heard. The boss is not allowed to contact employees while they are on vacation or send them an email after work hours. Moore was shocked to find out that in Portugal you can't be arrested for having drugs. Instead they have a universal health care system that provides treatment for people with drug additions. In Norway, prison is seen as a rehabilitation for criminals to help them come back to society. The prisoners are allowed to many activity and even have a vote during their time in prison. They believe in forgiveness for their prisoners and the lowest possible prison sentence is 21 years. Tunisia has free government funded women health clinics and abortions. Women had to fight to receive equal rights. The last country Micheal Moore visited was Iceland which had the first female elected president. Many women are leaders of companies because they believe men like to take risk where as women want whats good for the whole. When the banks crashed the only one that didn't was lead by women. As Moore reflects back on his trip he realizes that all of these ideas originated from American ideas. The Finnish education system came from idea of American education system. The fight for work days and having a vacation started in the US. Women fought for equal rights in America as well. Norway's prison is similar to America's eighth amendment "no cruel or unusual punishment". The death plenty was eliminated in Michigan that now Portugal strongly believe in. The prosecutor in Iceland based a lot of his investigation of the bankers on US history.
7) Writing About Our Course Stories [Categories: Life Choice, Course Reading, Re-Genre]: Please complete the following:
Blog Post Introduction:
I will be using the genre of "intertextual fiction" to combine three of our course stories that we have read earlier in the semester. The stories I have decided to use are Bullet in the Brain, The Lottery and A Good Man is Hard to Find. Re-Genre Analysis: Anders couldn’t get to the bank until before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper. He was never in the best of tempers anyway, Anders-a book critic known for the weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed. One of the women was holding a spot in line for one of her neighbors. The woman was a grandmother, Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. She was wearing white cotton gloves and had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. She turned around and said “You made it after all. Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie.” A younger woman appeared from around the corner, Tessie Hutchinson, and joined the older woman in line. “Wouldn’t have me leave my dishes in the sink, now, would you?”. The two women began talking about the latest neighborhood gossip which only angered Anders more. With the line still doubled around the rope, one of the tellers stuck a “POSITION CLOSED” sign in her window. Everyone in the line became very frustrated especially Tessie because she knew she had so much cleaning to do back at the house. “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed. “That’s perfectly all right,” the older woman said trying to calm Tessie down. “We will get to the front of the line at some point today” she said with a frustrated attitude. “Damned unfair,” Anders said from behind them in line, “Tragic, really.” he stated sarcastically. “I didn’t say it was tragic,” Tessie said, “You know what, just say out of it, it’s none of your business anyways!” “A good man is hard to find now a days, I swear!” the older woman said while glaring at the man behind them making these comments. He began laughing and couldn’t believe these women were getting so upset over nothing. “You think I’m comical? You think I’m some kind of clown?” the older woman said. He covered his mouth with both hands and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” then snorted helplessly through his fingers. “Okay listen, everyone, are you all really going to let this man talk like this to us two women?” Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her. But, no one even paid attention to her they all just wanted to stay out it. The older woman, who was a very religious woman, just wanted to tell him that he must pray. Jesus would help him, she thought to herself while Tessie and the man continued to argue. She finally built up the courage to say something and all she could get out was “I think we ought to start over” and the room went silent. Writing About A Good Man is Hard To Find [Categories: Life Choice, Course Reading, Re-Genre]: Please complete the following:
Blog Post Introduction: A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor tells the story of a family's road trip to Florida. On the way they get into an accident and driving by at the time was three men in a truck. One of the men just happened to be "The Misfit", a man who just escaped from jail. Throughout the road trip the grandma talked about The Misfit and she was worried for the family's safety. The men say they will help fix the car but end up shooting everyone in the family. Re-Genre Analysis: Found Poem #1 Throughout the story the theme of religion is displayed when the grandma is constantly talking about Jesus and praying. I created a found poem of free-form excerpting and remixing, using the part of the story when the misfit came to the scene of their car accident. The grandma was trying to convince the misfit that it was a good idea to pray. Pray, Jesus I was a gospel singer for a while That’s when you should have started to pray God never made a finer woman than my mother my daddy’s heart was pure gold Well then, why don’t you pray? Jesus would help you If you would pray Jesus. Jesus Pray! Jesus was the only one that ever raised the dead She wanted to tell him that he must pray Jesus shown everything off balance Do you ever pray? Pray, pray...pray, pray Found Poem #2 Another major theme in the story was control, the grandma tried to take control of every situation that the family encountered during the drive. One of the situations was going to see the old house that the grandma remembered from when she was young. She tried to convince Bailey to turn around and go see the house but when he said no she continued talking about it and the children got excited and wanted to go too. Controlling Seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind Recalled an old plantation House had six white columns Oaks leading up to it Knew Bailey would not be willing The more she talked about it Secret panel in this house Not telling the truth “Let’s go see it! We’ll find it!” Hey Pop, can’t we turn off there Children began to yell and scream Kicked the back of the front seat Hung over her mother’s shoulder Will you all shut up? If you don’t shut up, we won’t go anywhere turned around and were headed toward the dirt road Found poem #3 The last major theme I will use to create a found poem is Goodness. Goodness is based in the story when the grandma is trying to see goodness in the Misfit even though he is a known bad man. Throughout the story her family is being killed by these men but she continues to say how good of a man that he is. A Good Man Because you’re a good man A good man is hard to find “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” “I know you’re a good man. I know you must come from nice people!” Get him and that little boy to step over yonder with you Would you mind stepping back in them woods there with them? Mamma, wait on me “Come back this instant!” But they all disappeared into the woods I just know you’re a good man Nome, I ain’t a good man That’s perfectly all right Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a comfortable life not have to think about some- body chasing you all the time Pistol shot from the woods Then silence Bailey Boy! I never was a bad boy that I remembered of Somewheres along the line I done something wrong..sent to the penitentiary Maybe they put you in by mistake “Would you and that little girl like to step off yonder and join your husband Piercing scream from the woods, followed closely by a pistol report You’ve got good blood! I know you wouldn’t shoot a lady! “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” Shot her three times through the chest |
Kayleigh DooGanI will use this blog to talk about course topics. Archives
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