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.