English week of 4/6

We are getting closer and closer to our Inquiry Project paper due date. I have been thinking more about my ideas for the paper and am getting ready to start writing the first rough draft which is due wednesday.  I turned in my outline this week and have a pretty good idea of the direction I want to take my paper in. This weekend is Easter weekend so I plan on taking the extra time to get a lot of my paper done.  In class this week we learned about MLA formatting for our paper. We also discussed our final portfolios for the semester.

Week of 3/30

This week in english we made more progress on our MIP. We turned in our pieces of rhetoric and did a presentation to the class. There were some really great ideas and creative pieces from my fellow classmates. In class we talked more about designing a thesis statement and creating our outlines. I started working on my own thesis statement and after tweaking it a bit I have finished that and finished my outline and hope to get started on my paper soon. The semester is really getting busy now in all my classes so Ill be working on improving my time management in the next weeks and keeping up with all my work.

English blog week of 3/23

This week I have worked on and finished my rough drafts for my pieces of rhetoric. One piece was an email to parents that told them about the importance of health and their kids. It is extremely important for parents to be invested in their childs health since all of the childs habits and behaviors will more than likely form from the parents. In my second piece of rhetoric I designed a poster that could be used to encourage kids to choose to be active rather than sitting inside playing video games. The poster uses two pictures of fat kids playing video games, and fit kids playing basketball having fun to show kids its more enjoyable and healthy to get out and play.

This past week in English class we discussed creating our two pieces or rhetoric. We were given many ideas to help us along with our process and given links to different online tools to assist us. For my project I am hoping to reach and inform parents and elementary school students. I think that kids at such a young age can have a hard time making decisions for themselves that are right and need parental guidance and discipline in order to stay healthy. My first idea for rhetoric is an informative text, possibly email, that will help teach parents about health and how they can better nourish their child and help prevent obesity and future unhealthy habits. My second piece will be something that is visually appealing to children. Kids at such a young age are very impressionable and I want to create something that makes it look cool to eat healthy and exercise.

Collage

My collage represents a little of myself and my identity over the past four years. Four years ago I started playing poker for a living. I worked very hard at it and it ended up working out very well for me. A photo of one of my bigger wins is in the center because poker allowed me to live the life that I have over the past years. After success at poker I traveled a lot, I lived in las Vegas, and I spent a lot of time just having fun. I have some photos of my travels, some from Las Vegas and some of me doing things I love all represented in the collage. I think this collage represents that i'm a very laid back, fun person who enjoys traveling, being outside and just living life to the fullest.

      Images and identity are linked in several ways.  Without speaking to someone, or without knowledge about them, images are the only way we could try and figure out someones identity. What people do, who they do things with, and the images they choose to show people can show a lot about their identity and character.  By looking at images of someone, you can tell what they like, the type of people they surround themselves with, their values, and many other things about that person. I think the type of images I associate with are those of people having fun. I was a very straight kid in grade school in terms of being very disciplined and goal oriented. I never even had my first drink til I was 21. I think I started to associate and try to emulate pictures of fun and partying after my poker success because I had never had any time to just let loose and experience some of those things I had missed out on. Now that I have gotten that phase of my life out of the way, I now see myself associating more with images that display success because I am ready to settle down a bit and work hard to achieve my new goals.

America 24/7

In this article, Patrick Cox talks about the collection of photos in "America 24/7". He mentions that the photos are "the true essence of American character and communities". Without seeing the pictures, I would assume the pictures are just of everyday people like he talks about, doing everyday things. The pictures are not biased or trying to persuade you of anything, they really just show what Americans are doing and how they act. After looking at the photos in the album, I have to agree with him. The pictures look like they really are just people doing normal everyday things in non staged situations. It looks like they are just caught in the act of doing whatever they are doing in the pictures and it really shows how diverse and similar Americans are.

NPO

http://linksinc.org/heartlinks/charlotte_chapter.html

Ordinary picture

Picture turned out a little blurry but this is an "ordinary" picture of me watching TV.

Class review for the week

I really enjoyed this weeks english classes. In our first class, we had an in depth discussion where everyone got involved to analyze Michael Moore's documentary about capitalism. I am always very interested in discussing how the world works, politics, economics, etc so this was fun for me. In our friday class, we did another exercise I enjoyed. I had never really practiced analyzing photos rhetorically before or analyzing the many ideas and interpretations a photo can have. In the pictures we analyzed from the book, it was very interesting to think about how all the different people in the picture, and all the different audiences interpret the picture. When you really stop and think about what the picture means to different people, its amazing how the same event can be thought of in so many ways.

Reflection of week and of Capitalism: A love story

This week in English I finished my Research Proposal and turned it in.  I have a much better idea now of my topic and how I am going to go about writing it. In my research proposal I stated my goals for my timeline of the project, and in the next week I will spend time doing research in the Atkins Library and online.  Once I have all the sources I think I will need I will complete my annotated bibliography due on the 22nd.

In class this week we watched the movie Capitalism: A love story.  This was the second time I have watched it as it caught my attention scrolling through netflix a few weeks earlier.  Overall I'm not a fan of Michael Moore.  I think at times he seems anti-American in his films and views and he also is somewhat of a hypocrite, using issues that probably don't affect him that much or that he doesn't put much time into outside of the movie for profit. I agree it is good that he is brining some of these issues to light to be talked about but think he could go about it in a different way or help more than he probably does.  In this movie I think the main point he is trying to prove is that capitalism is a system that isn't working.  He is trying to argue that it is failing because of the greed of the wealthy and powerful in the hierarchy of the United States.  He makes a strong argument, appealing at some point in the movie to all three of the main types of rhetoric, pathos, ethos, and logos.  He also uses many of the other types of rhetorical arguments and examples such as analogies, story telling, compare/contrast, and many others. I think I have to agree with some of the message of his movie.  Capitalism is a great system but when those at the top become greedy and try and grab all the power and wealth they can it really does start to hurt the system and those who rely on it just to survive. I believe that capitalism is great and is what should drive the American economy, but I believe it should be regulated to help protect the everyday people who are lower on the economic totem pole. 

English - Week of 1/30 - 2/5

   This week in english we started off both classes with a review of information learned in the past weeks. In the first class we reviewed what we learned about researching in the library, and in the second class we reviewed the rhetorical situation and thesis statements. The new material we learned about this week was more information on how to find and evaluate sources and we talked more about our research proposals and how to write them. I was able to brainstorm more about my topic this week and have narrowed it down to obesity in elementary schools. I think this will be a fun topic to write about since I struggled with it myself in elementary school and I have a lot of ideas of what I can write about. On my topic, I could write about the problem and about some possible solutions. Some of the possible solutions I have in mind are adding more sports programs and p.e. to the schools, improving school lunches, educating parents on the importance of their role in their childs health, creating a rewards/incentives program for good health, after school programs, and many more ideas.

This week in English

   This week we learned about and discussed the rhetorical situation further. We started looking at the rhetorical appeals that advertisers use to sell products and services to their customers. Some of the advertisement strategies we looked at were narration, cause and effect, analogies, definition, process, and others. We also studied the main three types of rhetorical appeals. Logos is when an author or speaker uses rational arguments that appeal to reason or logic, pathos appeals to the audiences emotion, and ethos is an appeal to authority or character. The best arguments and advertisements try to include all three so that it really appeals to the audience in every way.

   This week I also started thinking about possible Major Inquiry Project topics.  A topic that interests me a lot and I can somewhat relate to is the topic of childhood obesity.  When I was in elementary school I was one of the heavier kids in my class.  I hated how it made me feel and how others treated me for it and luckily I found sports and worked it all off.  Some kids however aren't in situations that are conducive to weight loss and today's society contributes heavily to that, no pun intended.  If I write my MIP on this topic I would like to talk about how parents aren't taking enough responsibility for the health of their children and why they need to step up, why sports and physical education at schools is so important, the types of food served in school and why that needs to change, and many other things. I think I could really get into writing a paper about obesity because I have studied sports medicine a fair amount and have been in that situation of being a bigger kid.

Summary of class

  Being my first semester back to school in almost 5 years, I have taken advantage of every minute back in school and been a sponge to learning so far. In our first few english classes we learned about some of the common grammar mistakes, the rhetorical situation, how to read, write and understand rhetoric, and learned about writing thesis statements. Rhetoric is the persuasive arguments that a writer or speaker uses in their work. Its harder to realize when you haven't thought about it in so long, but almost all writing, speech, and visual things are rhetoric that try to get someones argument or point of view across. I have now noticed on a daily basis the real meaning or rhetoric of everything I read and see and it makes everything much more interesting. The next big thing we learned in class was how to write a thesis statement. A thesis statement is a statement made by the author that is a summary of what they are going to write about. It is a specific statement offering their interpretation of a subject and can be argued from various viewpoints. I now know the framework to creating a well written thesis statement and can form them in my future work.

Rhetorical analysis of Cartoon

   In this cartoon, the problem of our countries extreme national debt is being addressed.  It is a picture of the national debt represented by a big, fat man, and President Obama feeding the debt lots of money by way of spending.  The donkeys in the cartoon, the democrats, are talking up Obamas way of dealing with the debt and are happy with him.  The elephant, republican, is standing there looking in discontent and using sarcasm.  This cartoon is referencing the difference in opinion between right wing and left wing politicians on wether to make cuts in spending or continue spending like they have been.  The author is more than likely right wing biased, making the statement that the democrats want to keep on spending even more money despite the problem of the national debt.  He is trying to make the democrats look foolish by having them say they can cut the debt in half while increasing spending.  With our national debt at incredibly high levels and its continual rise, this is a huge issue for both sides and one that will be tough to tackle. 

Describing myself as a writer/reader.

   I have to admit, I probably don't read or write as often as I should.  For the past four years I have been playing poker professionally and thats not exactly a profession that requires a lot of either. The majority of my writing is in the form of texts messages and emails, mainly to family, friends, and businesses. When writing to friends and family my writing is very informal, often times not worrying too much about writing properly throughout the message. If I'm writing to a business or something similar, I will write an informal message in a letter format.
   As for reading, I'm not someone who frequently picks up a book for pleasure but I have started doing it a little more often. When I read its mainly to read a message someone else has sent me via email or text, or it is for learning purposes.  Outside of messages from others, most of my reading comes from reading the news or from doing my own research online about different topics of interest to me. I'm really glad I'm back in school now because it is forcing me to do much more reading and writing and I'm really enjoying the increase in both.