Dear next year students of English 110,
This class is designed not to teach you how to write papers but to more clearly express your ideas via engaged analysis. I myself was pretty unhappy when I learned that the topic of my english class was Religion in Secular Media. I went to a Catholic highschool however I am not religious and consequently religion had a bad connotation for me. I sooned learned, however, that this title of religion was merely a topic not a focus. Individual beliefs are not relevant in this class, grades are guaged on how well you defend your opinion. So do not get stressed or discouraged if the topic of your english class next year is one you do not find interesting.
A word of advise I would give is to not procrastinate. Procrastination will cause you to breeze through assignments and not pay attention, resulting in you not to be able to actively participate in class the next day. This mannor of doing work is inefficient and causes you to miss out on practicing beneficial skills such as analysing articles. Another flaw of procrastination is it does not allow you to perform at your best. With our Analytical Research Papers this year I found myself procrastinating on certain stages of the paper. Looking back at the different stages there is a drastic difference in quality between parts when I was in the middle of the night racing to finish and then when I was writing at the library with ample amount of time.
Hopefully this letter gives you peace of mind if you are not particularly excited about your english 110 topic. Also please let the advise of actively doing assignments on time sink in. This is certainly a class that you will get out as much as you put into it.
Sincerely,
Graham
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Blog 4
Over the summer I was involved in an argument with a friend who is in the near future joining the army. After a few too many drinks his internal filter, which decides whether he should speak what is on his mind or not, was turned off. After the topic of the war in Iraq was brought up he quickly and energetically announced, "I cannot wait to get over there and kill every single Muslim person I see in the scope of my gun." (This quote is very censored and involved much more demeaning adjectives for the Iraqi people.) Immediately after this was said a dark cloud of irritated silence emerged. After a few seconds of processing what was just said me and all of my friends began grilling our friend who said the naive statement.
I will guiltily admit, my initial reaction was I want to punch his face in for saying something so naive and for over generalizing. However, after taking a few deep breaths and realizing that he had too many drinks to think clearly, I lead him away from the rest of the group that obviously wanted to punch sense into him rather than talk sense into him.
After leading him to the side of the house we were at I began to interrogate him, rather aggressively about if he truly believed what he had said minutes earlier. He owned every word of it, adding that he wanted to kill every terrorist out there. I spent over an hour talking with him trying to make relevant that not every Islamic person is a terrorist, and even farther, not every terrorist is even Islamic. I tried putting his statement into perspective by offering the scenario that a soldier from another country was given the mission to come to the U.S. and eliminate every red neck (just for an example of a small minority of a larger group of people). I asked him if the soldier would be justified in killing several hundred non-redneck people in order to get maybe one redneck. This example did allow him to see the flaws in his plan for killing every Islamic person he saw in hopes of killing the terrorists.
After this devastatingly long hour of talking we had agreed on the fact that killing everyone in sight was an appalling idea however he still had a tainted image of the Islamic religion itself. He still whole heartedly believed that the Islamic religion promoted terrorism. I did not even attempt to shake him from this belief because it seemed so ingrained into the manner in which he was raised. We left agreeing to disagree on the terms that he would keep his beliefs to himself and be open to change his opinion of the Islamic religion as he saw fit during his time spent in the army.
I will guiltily admit, my initial reaction was I want to punch his face in for saying something so naive and for over generalizing. However, after taking a few deep breaths and realizing that he had too many drinks to think clearly, I lead him away from the rest of the group that obviously wanted to punch sense into him rather than talk sense into him.
After leading him to the side of the house we were at I began to interrogate him, rather aggressively about if he truly believed what he had said minutes earlier. He owned every word of it, adding that he wanted to kill every terrorist out there. I spent over an hour talking with him trying to make relevant that not every Islamic person is a terrorist, and even farther, not every terrorist is even Islamic. I tried putting his statement into perspective by offering the scenario that a soldier from another country was given the mission to come to the U.S. and eliminate every red neck (just for an example of a small minority of a larger group of people). I asked him if the soldier would be justified in killing several hundred non-redneck people in order to get maybe one redneck. This example did allow him to see the flaws in his plan for killing every Islamic person he saw in hopes of killing the terrorists.
After this devastatingly long hour of talking we had agreed on the fact that killing everyone in sight was an appalling idea however he still had a tainted image of the Islamic religion itself. He still whole heartedly believed that the Islamic religion promoted terrorism. I did not even attempt to shake him from this belief because it seemed so ingrained into the manner in which he was raised. We left agreeing to disagree on the terms that he would keep his beliefs to himself and be open to change his opinion of the Islamic religion as he saw fit during his time spent in the army.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Blog Prompt 3
In the article "The Materialism of Christmas" Richard Hall uses many methods of persuasion that are common in daily life to defend his argument that we have lost sight of what the true meaning of Christmas is.
His first move is to generalize so as not to personally antagonize anyone individual but however to tell the reader, "You are not alone, there are others in the same situation." This step blunts the initial impact of his argument to prevent the reader from feelings singled out and offended so they continue to read on. It does however insinuate that this problem is rampant and that it needs to be addressed.
Another tactic Hall uses is connotative language. He describes the materialistic behaviors of modern society around christmas with such negativity that we are appalled to be described in such a manor. This in turn gets the reader to question their own lifestyles and ask him or herself, "Are my behaviors during Christmas as vulgar as he says?" This is a key stage in his argument, for here he is eliminating any preconceived notions by forcing the reader to question there own ideals therefore leaving them open to his arguments.
A source of defense Hall references is the Catholic Church. He he states that the commercialism and materialism of Christmas is one of the few things that the entire Church agrees upon. Because the Church is often accused of riding the fence on many opposing viewpoints he is telling us that if even this very diverse, indecisive institutions agrees that this is a problem then it must be prevalent.
Overall Hall uses many argumentative techniques one would use in daily life. Among which are; starting out softly, telling the audience it is not only them but everyone, connotative language to give the reader a tainted image, and using a reliable source to back up ones argument.
http://theconnexion.net/wp/?p=2627
His first move is to generalize so as not to personally antagonize anyone individual but however to tell the reader, "You are not alone, there are others in the same situation." This step blunts the initial impact of his argument to prevent the reader from feelings singled out and offended so they continue to read on. It does however insinuate that this problem is rampant and that it needs to be addressed.
Another tactic Hall uses is connotative language. He describes the materialistic behaviors of modern society around christmas with such negativity that we are appalled to be described in such a manor. This in turn gets the reader to question their own lifestyles and ask him or herself, "Are my behaviors during Christmas as vulgar as he says?" This is a key stage in his argument, for here he is eliminating any preconceived notions by forcing the reader to question there own ideals therefore leaving them open to his arguments.
A source of defense Hall references is the Catholic Church. He he states that the commercialism and materialism of Christmas is one of the few things that the entire Church agrees upon. Because the Church is often accused of riding the fence on many opposing viewpoints he is telling us that if even this very diverse, indecisive institutions agrees that this is a problem then it must be prevalent.
Overall Hall uses many argumentative techniques one would use in daily life. Among which are; starting out softly, telling the audience it is not only them but everyone, connotative language to give the reader a tainted image, and using a reliable source to back up ones argument.
http://theconnexion.net/wp/?p=2627
Friday, October 9, 2009
Room Analysis
Looking at my dorm, Mack Hall, from the outside very well mirrors my dorm from the inside; it appeals to the eyes but not the touch. The look from the outside as well as the inside is very elegant. My room would be a good room to put on the cover of a recruiting email talking about Ohio States because it looks good from a distance. Inside my room there is hard wood flooring, painted base boards, crown molding around the ceiling,beds neatly made, and a space rug in the middle of the room. All of these things appeal to the eyes as well as the three chairs circled around the tv, implying a community where people interact. These things however are first impressions and give way when you realize that the room has an era that it overwhelmingly uninhabited.
As you spend time in the room one begins to realize that hardwood floor was not built for comfort. If someone was wishing to lay down on the floor while they play cards or something else they would leave with a cramped back and sore backside.
Those baseboards and crown molding are nice to look at but when it comes to cleaning day they are a pain to get behind the cracks that have developed from years of stress from the buildings structure weighing down on them.
The beds that were so neatly made look good if your walking by; But if you are stopping in for a while they do not look good to lay on for fear of wrinkling the covers.
The space rug that is so nicely swept adds color to the bland floor; However when you are about to bite into those freshly baked cookies mailed from home you feel bad about getting crumbs on the fresh looking rug.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
blog 1
When I reminisce high school English class being well prepared and confident is not the fervent feeling that fills my stomach. In my English classes being nervous for writing assignments and late, frustrating nights completing these vague assignments was the norm. It seemed every teacher had their own rubric for writing papers and it was always their way or the highway. I enjoy mathematics because of the firm structure math has that makes every class easy to adapt to, solving for x is the same whether it’s algebra or calculus. English on the other hand is all relative and there is no common technique to follow to write a blog, formal paper, or even an informal email.
To add to this ambiguity in high school teachers would never inform you of what they were looking for so it took the majority of the semester to figure out how to receive a good grade just to switch classes and start from scratch without a smidgen of knowledge of what the teacher was looking for again. My sophomore year for instance my American Literature teacher required us to follow the “funnel” method for the introduction where the first sentence was very broad and eventually got narrower until the last sentence was your thesis, setting up the rest of the paper. If we did not follow this method we were guaranteed a C best case scenario. My following semester in American Short Stories class I wrote the first paper following the funnel method as it had been pounded into my brain the previous class just to receive a C with the comment, “Great paper but I am not a fan of the funnel method.”
Another pain about English is due to the fact that I am not clairvoyant and cannot read my teachers minds I am forced to spend countless hours trying to arrange meetings with them to talk about the current paper were writing and then rewriting the entire paper just to still feel clueless on what the teacher is really looking for in this assignment. In high school these futile, stressful hours of work to accommodate my teacher’s unspoken guidelines eventually went unnoticed according to my grade so I employed a different method; I befriended my teachers, bonding over common interests such as sports teams or hobbies so that rather than grading the words on my papers they would grade the name at the top of my paper.
Although my method of befriending my teachers did satisfy the grades on my report card it was inefficient at preparing me for college writing and writing when I enter the “real world”. Therefore I have dug a hole for myself which I will have to climb out of if I want to pass this class or any other writing assignments in my college career or write a good application for a job after college.
To add to this ambiguity in high school teachers would never inform you of what they were looking for so it took the majority of the semester to figure out how to receive a good grade just to switch classes and start from scratch without a smidgen of knowledge of what the teacher was looking for again. My sophomore year for instance my American Literature teacher required us to follow the “funnel” method for the introduction where the first sentence was very broad and eventually got narrower until the last sentence was your thesis, setting up the rest of the paper. If we did not follow this method we were guaranteed a C best case scenario. My following semester in American Short Stories class I wrote the first paper following the funnel method as it had been pounded into my brain the previous class just to receive a C with the comment, “Great paper but I am not a fan of the funnel method.”
Another pain about English is due to the fact that I am not clairvoyant and cannot read my teachers minds I am forced to spend countless hours trying to arrange meetings with them to talk about the current paper were writing and then rewriting the entire paper just to still feel clueless on what the teacher is really looking for in this assignment. In high school these futile, stressful hours of work to accommodate my teacher’s unspoken guidelines eventually went unnoticed according to my grade so I employed a different method; I befriended my teachers, bonding over common interests such as sports teams or hobbies so that rather than grading the words on my papers they would grade the name at the top of my paper.
Although my method of befriending my teachers did satisfy the grades on my report card it was inefficient at preparing me for college writing and writing when I enter the “real world”. Therefore I have dug a hole for myself which I will have to climb out of if I want to pass this class or any other writing assignments in my college career or write a good application for a job after college.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)