Reflection!

Throughout this semester I have been introduced to blogs for the first time. It is a unique tool that can be utilized. It is convenient because if there is something you want to add or delete from a blog you are working on or a previous blog you can do so online by editing the blog. Unlike homework that you turn in this can be modified. It is also nice because you can sit at the computer and write your blog instead of having to bring books with you. After so many classes books get extremely heavy, and when I sit down to do homework I could be anywhere using anyones computer.
Yes there were things that I liked about blogging like the convenience,and making it something new to do instead of turning in paper homework. It was also nice to be able to respond to others indirectly. I know I was more able to be a little more honest, for what ever reason that may be. This was a great way to help other students out without the confrontation. You also get constructive criticism by reading what others have written about the blogs you've wrote. Sometimes it can be depressing but for the most part it was helpful in making me a better writer.

I also had a little problem with blogging sometimes. Yes I always do my homework but sometimes it got redundant. The minimum word count bugged me a little. Yes I understand this is a writing class but we also did other writing assignments other than blogs. I also know that with a word requirement it makes sure that people actually participate in the blogging assignments, as well as it establishes ground rules for what is expected out of the blogs. So this tool is a great way for students to do assignments instead of paper homework (since I am doing my long paper on recycling I care about how much I print):)
A blog to me now that I have written about twenty of them is something that can be constructive, friend oriented, as well as a learning tool. It can keep people connected as well as being some where that homework is done. It is nice because everyone is still accountable for the work that is done, when someone does not do their homework it does not go unnoticed.
A way that I found to make reading others blogs more interesting is adding images. When you clicked on someones blog you noticed one thing first... pictures. This is what makes it interesting to look at and read. It is also nice when there are picture to look at in the blogs. My favorite assignment was the one that we analyzed the pictures. It was something different instead of the same old writing assignments.It was also helpful to hear others ideas on the pictures that were chosen. It helped the writer out in deciding whether the picture would be useful in the paper or not.

An Imperial Message

In "An Imperial Message" Kafka talks about how the authority of a person can be unimportant to some people or they may use their authority in a way that benefits them. Some are greedy and only think about themselves, like in "An Imperial Message" when the king’s daughters trick him into thinking that they love him more then his youngest daughter, which is not true. After the king gives all of his assets to his older daughters they use it against him and then the king realizes that the youngest daughter was the most true and really did love and care about him, unlike his other daughters.

This was an extremely hard story to understand what was going on. I read it multiple times but I still don't think I got it 100%. I think the purpose was to tell people that the power one has could destroy them unless they use that power to benefit others instead of themselves. I also think that it might mean that no matter how someone may perceive another individual they still might backstab you or hurt you in some way. People should make sure that they are safe and well off before trying to make others happy, like the king in the story.

This picture is very interesting. It shows that a man can become very pleased about people who recycle. It is a great thing when there are this many items that have been recycled instead of thrown in the garbage. It is showing that people can make a difference by choosing not to throw recyclables in the garbage. This picture should be interpreted as a positive ideal for the future. More people need to be recycling and by showing them how great it can be, will hopefully get more people to participate in recycling! This would be useful in my paper to show that these items will not be thrown away but recycled so that they may become new items. To me recycling is a great thing that will keep the land and bodies of water cleaner as well as saving natural resources!

Discrimination is A Virtue

With the election that is going on now there is discrimination to O'bama and Clinton because they are not white males. Even though America has started to get rid of the white male superiority idea, it is still hard for people to be ok with the idea that either groups be President. Some think that it is time for change but not everyone would agree. In "Discrimination is a Virtue" Miller talks about how discrimination has adapted to be related to racism. This to me is true, I have grown up being told not to discriminate against anyone, yet it is still there. In the classroom and more professional settings you do not hear much talk about different races but once people get in their comfort zone slurrs and racist comments start to flow between friends. America still has not been able to get over the fact that people are different and deserve equality, which includes a black or female president.

prospectus

1. I think that this person should have said things that they wanted to researcch instead of using questions... sure a few questions is appropriate but it seems as if there are questions in each paragraph and it feels like there are too many.
2. How will teacher penalize students that are caught plagiarizing?
3. How will this person figure out what the students are thinking when they choose to plagiariz?

If Black isn't A Language...

Language is everywhere, and without it people would be lost, hopeless, and unintelligent. There are many things that language does for us; it helps us understand others and it can tell us peoples moods. People may cuss and sometimes that tells us if they are excited or extreamly upset. We can also tell where people are from by how they sound and the different ways people may pernounce certains letters in words. From different cultures people have grown to understand what language is apropriate around certain people and what is not.
In this story Baldwin talkes about how during slavery the "black language" was born. It was their way of communicating with each other without the guards and white people knowing. Using the "black language" during those times united the other slaves, where it may have confused the white guards because they could not understand them. He also stated that even though there may be many people from France not all of their dilects are the same, they still may have trouble understanding others from different parts of France.
I think that people learn by being around different languages. It helps people to understand others and be more understanding of how they are different.

Annotated Bibliography

Imhoff, Daniel. Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Over packaged World. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2005.

This book talked about Pros and Cons of different containers (Beverage containers, loose-fill packaging, transport pallets, bags, and fresh produce racks). It also talks about many ways that consumers can help reduce the little that is created.

The author is Daniel Imhoff, and he is a researcher, public speaker, and a publisher. He has spent 20 years on environmental issues, and conducts workshops to help educate people.

This book is helpful for my paper because it talks about the benefits and consequences of the different packaging materials and how they affect the earth. It is also useful because it gives case studies, some of which will be helpful in writing my longer paper.

Zinsser and Me

This article talked about how different people have different beliefs on what success is. Some want to be in executive office suites while others wants to serve their country. Neither or these things correlate with each other except for the people feel fulfilled and happy about what they have achieved.

College is a must these days unless you want to be a flopper. Society has beaten the youth over the head that going to college is the only way to get ahead in life. You will not be able to get a descent job or be completly happy unless you have paid for that title in life. Yes I want to go to college to be successful but it comes with extra stress and money that I don't have. I want to feel accomplished and I know I will when I graduate. You are automatically judged when people ask what you are doing after high school, and if it doesn't consist of going to college you are looked down upon and labeled. Graduating is successful to me but not to every one else. My brother did not go to college but he went into the military. He is very happy and successful at what he does. There is not right answer to what success is or should be.

I have failed plenty, and I have found that it is the way that I have learned best. People can tell me not to do something but that doesn't mean I will take their word for it. How will I ever know for sure unless I make the mistake and find out for myself? Making bad decisions is sometimes the best way for a person to grow and to figure out what they need in life. Failure is also different for each person just like success. To me getting a "C" in my class is failure because I have to have a certain GPA to be accepted to the Nursing Program. Getting a "C" may be success to someone else but personally I do not want to be here longer than I have to.

Everyone has different goals, dreams, successes, and failures. To me they should all be respected. No two people are alike in how they think and feel about things. Like Zinnser said, " Nobody has the answer." We make up our own answer as individuals.

CRAAP Evaluations

C: I chose to evaluate the medlineplus.gov website. For the currency section it shows that the website has been updated. On the lower right hand corner at the bottom of the page it shows that it was last updated on March 11,2008. This website gives you many diseases and problems with different areas of the body. I think this would be reliable for me if I wanted to gain information about a certain disease. It also tells you when a certain topics has been reviewed.

R: The intended audience is to anyone who is concerned about a disease or someone who want to gain knowledge about health care. The material is simple but not too simple and there are words in the site that I am not familiar with so I would have to look up some words to gain a full understanding of the explanation.

A: On the home page it states that Medlineplus is the U.S. National Library of Medicine. There is also a message form the Director from the library of medicine. It also states that this information is from health related organizations. At the end of the topics it states where that information came from... for example Neural tube defects section came from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The websites other resources are all .gov meaning that they are government monitored web sites, and the accuracy of the information is important.

A: The information is informative but does not give you everything you need to know about the topic, to gain a full understanding you would need to do more research. It is a good place to start and there are other resources to help you understand the topic. There are no grammatical errors or biased language. The information come from different institutes that specialize in the certain area.

P: The purpose of this website is to inform or perhaps teach. The material is factual and is not made up or used to sway the reader in any way... except maybe to quit smoking because of the effects. I do not feel as if there is bias in any way. Its purpose is to state topics that some people need to gain understanding of or to learn more about being healthy.

Fallacies

The first fallacy I chose was the Personal Attack- circumstantial fallacy. The article I chose was one from "The Lumberjack"and it was titled "Obamas Foreign plan Offers Less Violence." It was about how obama should win the elections because he is the most un-likely canidate to start another war. I believe that it is circumstantial because the author is saying that for there to be no more war Obama is the only option.

The next article I read was titled " Graffiti Artist Model for an Art Movement." This article was about graffiti artists and how some of the "art" can be degrading and ugly. This man Banksy has created beautiful "art" by painting murals that describe culture, such as the New York City Mural, anti-war, and pro-freedom pictures. I think this article would fall under the Appeal to Emotion because his pictures can be touching to people and what he is doing is not wrong but touching.

The last article was titled "Violent Minds Product of Media and Games." This was about how media promotes violence. The 14 year old boy who killed three and wounded 5 in Paducah, Kentucky said he was influenced by Doom, Quake, and Mortal Kombat, which are all human on human killing games. This article also talked about how that younger children are also watching more rated R films and parents are letting the video games and movies babysit their children instead of themselves. I think this is a Cause and Effect fallacy because it is saying that the parents are showing a behavior that it is okay to play and watch these films so the children think it is okay and follow their behaviors.

Middle Schoolers Get the Pill

This article talked about how young girls are becoming more and more sexually active then many generations before them. This could be a problem when the parents are unaware of their childs actions. Having sex so young could also lead to older men taking advantage of the young girls. Girls at this age are not necessarily aware of the dangers of sex and the consequences that may occur, STD's, pregnancy, and being emotionally hurt.



The next ideas was that the ones that are having sex should be safe in doing so. The health center in thier school being able to give teen girls "The Pill" and patches only makes them safer if they know the facts about them. (they have to replace the patch every week or that they have to take the pill regularly for it to be effective). Yes It is important for the girls that are having sex to be safe but why did they go to next step with birth control instead of giving them condoms first?



This article talks about two ideas that are very debatable. One says that encouraging the girls to wait is better while the other talks about keeping the sexually active safe. I agree that 11 is a bit too young to be having sex, I would encourage them to wait and to make sure that they knew all the facts before giving them birth control. I would also make sure that the parents got involved, the child is still under 18 and the parents should know about his/her childs decisions.

RA Re-write

I have improved my writing a since I have been in this class. It has not been the easiest thing I have done but I have put in the time and I hope to continue to improve. I am fixing errors that I would normally skip without the extra time and help for this class. I still have errors that need to be fixed and simple things that I need to pay more attention to, like comma errors and spaces where there should not be, but I am getting the hang of recognizing my most common mistakes.


One area that I need to work on is the Language use and Mechanics section. I used slang in the first paragraph, I said grad instead of graduate. I still have too many errors on pages, some of which are simple and can be fixed for my next paper. I also need to work on my sentence clarity. I need to elaborate more and explain myslef throughly. Sometimes in my paper I describe something with the littlest explantion of what I am talking about. I need to be specific and get my point across in more depth. It will make my papers more specific and add clarity to them. I still have some punctuation errors, mostly with commas. The more I write and read the easier it is becoming for me to notice where and where not to put a comma.

Another area that I need to work on is the Rhetorical triangle and appeals. I do express all three areas but I could have done a better job at really describing what I was talking about. I should have used more example and visual imagery. I touched every aspect of the triangle but some were more difficult to give examples, and some I should have given more to really get my point across.

When I wrote this paper I started with my thesis. That way I had the main three things that I was planning on talking about. When I wrote my paper I knew what I was going to talk about and then after I had the main ideas I could add aditional quotes and ideas to make the paper more interesting to read. After I added the quotes and the ideas to make my paper interesting, I edited my paper for mistakes. Then I gave it to a few friends to look at and edit.

For my next paper I am going to do my best by trying to have no errors in my paper. I do not want to be marked down for simple things that I can prevent. I really want to improve more areas in my writing and do well in this class.

Allegory & Banking Concept of Education

Learning should be a mutual thing contains a student and a teacher at all times. When there is only one teacher in the school settings it can be boring and dull. For example teacher should also have an open mind and be able to learn from the students as well as being the main teacher, as stated by Freire in The Banking Concepts of Education. To be able to learn means that people should have open eyes, which means that you can learn more by being open to the concept. When people have closed eyes, or closed mind, they tend to learn less than they could have, which was stated by Plato in The Allegory of the Cave.



The "Banking" method states that learning should be a shared thing and that just because someone has a higher status than another does not mean that they are no longer capable of learning from younger individuals. Freire suggests transformation by letting the students think for themselves instead of being forced to memorize everything they are taught. This way students will be able to think for themselves without feeling like they are being disrespectful to the instructor.


There were a lot of ideas that needed some thinking to be able to interpret them. When in the classroom it is important to be able to learn the inforamation but be able to process it and add other ideas to it as well. Sometimes what the professor is teaching lacks creativity and interest, so being able to use the information in your own creative way may help some poeple to remember the material make the information fun for them.

Synthesis

The effects of a large company in a small town going out of business can be devastating, as it was demonstrated in Roger and Me. While there are the so called good guys and bad guys they are usually recognizable by society. While some that remain unaffected by being unemployed it shows because they seems to have little sympathy for those that are suffering. While some have reached rock bottom, selling rabbits or living on the streets, while others are willing to spend the night in jail for fun. Some people were forced to leave the town that they lived in to go to different cities and find new work opportunities. Whether it’s being layed-off from GM or a Brokerage the effects are similar in the ways that people’s lives changed.

Crain Communication talked about how many workers lost their job while others either kept the jobs they had, went back to school to study another subject, or simply became unemployed. A culinary school came to the brokerage that had layed of many employees and talked to them about going back to school to study something that would take them farther in life. Some thought it was ridiculous while others thought about the idea. While both situations were similar they had their differences. Each situation handled it differently.

Even though these two stories took place in different places and times they share that when big companies lay off a lot of people it can be depressing. It has a negative effect on the people of that town, and the people have to try and pull them selves out of the hole.

Unemployment

I chose an article that talked about Crain communication that had to do thousands of lay-offs. Many mortgage brokers were layed of and forced to try and find a new job. Some of the men that were being forced to leave were competing against younger less qualified individuals for the same job. Some men tries to learn new languages to seem more qualified for the few jobs that remained. The Institute of Culinary sent letters to the Crain communication to try and get the people that had been layed off the change their areas of interest all together and go back to school. Although some did not agree that going back to school was the right option some chose that path.

Roger and Me was about how GM layed off 30,000 Flint residents. Many of the residents were forced out of their homes and put on the streets with their small children. They went bankrupt and didn’t have any other choice than to find ways to make extra money. Some decided to sell rabbits as meat and pets, some kept their jobs because they were the ones who were suppose to be kicking families on the streets. Some residents lived in their cars and some moved out of state to find new job opportunities. The residents that stayed in Flint tried their best to make Flint a trendy tourist attraction but after spending millions of dollars the town went bankrupt once again.

These two pieces were similar because they both had a negative effect on the people that once worked there. Both companies didn’t seem to care much about the people that had become poor and homeless. Both pieces showed that some people were not able to find new jobs. There were always the ones that stayed back trying to improve what was left over. In the end people took whatever jobs they could find, even if it was for lower pay than before.

"New lives for laid-off bankers; Workers reinvent themselves in hard market; back to school?(Wall Street Report)." Crain's New York Business 24.5 (Feb 4, 2008): 15. General OneFile. Gale. Northern Arizona University-AULC. 10 Feb. 2008 .

Roger and Me

After GM closed and layed off thousands of Flint Residents the poeple of Flint built a multi-million dollar mall with an indoor ferris wheel, as well as a Luxury Hyatt hotel that was suppose to attrack more tourists. The people of this town really tried to make it better, by trying to bring in more money.

One things that stood out to me was that when they opened the new jail. The people that still had money left paid one hundred dollars to stay the night in a jail cell, get their finger prints, and their mug shot taken, all that were "souvenirs" to take home. This was an example of logos because they were helping the community by contributing to the poor city of Flint. They were willing to spend the night in a cold, hard cell for the price of one hundred dollars.

One woman killed and sold rabbits to stay alive and make what money she could for being unemployed. She managed to slide by while other were being evicted and thrown on the streets to fend for themselves. People were just doing their job while others were being fired. In certain situations you have to do what is best for you and your family, whether that is killing and selling rabbits or spending the night in jail for fun.

Passing Before Lifes Very Eyes

Wolfgang uses pathos in many ways first off he has pictures of this man lying in a hospital hooked up to IV's and monitoring machines. There are differnt pills on the table with water and get well cards and gifts. You also see this mans face as he grows in greater pain throughout a few pictures. This obviously shows emotion for the old man as he is lying in the hospital waiting for the pain to subside and for death to come.

I think the next few pages show him dreaming because he is flying and seeing himself as a young boy. The boy and the old man are talking and to me it seems as if the boy is tring to make the old man more comfortable. The boy says that "a few moments ago our heart stopped, the first "stop" on our road to death." This sounds like he is preparing himself for death. He also states that the rumors about death being painful are not always true. The young boy tells him about how the brain releases different hormones and how sometimes that people see family members or people they cared a lot about before they die. This is all another way to show pathos, by making the man prepared for what is about to come.

Towards the end there are pictures of them flying through the stars and through flowers. There is also a pictures of them flying on a magic carpet, as well as in suits tap dancing on a stage with top hats and canes. These could be things that he has once wanted to do or things that are more comforting. Then there are pictures of him walking a dog and boxing as he asks the young boy " so what do we do know, just sit around and wait for everything to go black?" This is saying that you can not just sit around and wait to have to make everything worth while and life will happen as it needs to.

The Southland

"The Southland" was all about the south and how it is much more impressive than the north. The south has the battlefields and how when he is there he feels as if all that life had been wasted. The south never fully recovered from the defeat against the north. It is saying that if you are from the north there is no way that anyone would be able to survive long with all the manners, customs, and landscape that are all different from the north. Miller shows ethos by giving examples that he has personally experienced. He shows pathos by saying that when he stood on the battlefields that he only saw waste of many lives, and how, "The south is still an open, gaping wound." He demonstrates logos by stating that the all the inventions, explorations, and discoveries is a great contribution to human society.

Blog Analysis

The blog I chose to analyze was titled K Poppin. She uses a differnt color for each blog she posts. You can tell that this person is female because of the colors that she chose for her background. She also has a picture of herself, that lets everyone know who she is. She doesn't have any additional items such as pictures or videos. She has a very simple page and it is easy to find things. Her page tells me that she is an easy going person who doesn't have to make a scene to get noticed. :)

Mother Tounge #2

In Amy Tans Mother Tounge she described how there are many types of english including simple english, broken english, and watered down english. As a writer it is important to write for what audience will most likley be reading your work. The triangles purpose is to ask and answer good questions, for example, Who is the audience?, What is the purpose?, and Who is the author? Tan explained that when she talked with her mother she said that she used watered down english so that it was easier for her mother to understand. Tan also used perfect english when she spoke to teachers and when she wrote her book The Joy Luck Club. I think that realizing who your audience is and adjusting your writing is what makes the difference between good and great authors. This also helped me realize that I need to adjust my writing to fit the audience that will be reading my work.

What is a Blog? #1

To me a blog is a way to share something with others. I can be personal or it can be general.You could talk about things going on in your life or problems that are going on in the world. Blogs can be funny, serious, sad, or they can have pictures and movies. Blogs are a way to communicate with a large amount of people without having to send a mass e-mail. They are more convienient than sending a letter... but who send through the mail anymore? If you need help with something you could post a blog about what is going on and get more than one or two helpful answers. Blogs are simply an easier way of communication!

Test Post

I love Snow!