Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Blog #9

My topic is the effects of lowering the drinking age to 18. One of the questions I have is, Does lowering the drinking age up the risk of more deaths? Since a lot of 18 year old's are drinking already, would lowering the drinking age just allow even younger teens to have easier access to alcohol?

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Blog #8- "First Writing Since"

Suheir Hammad's poem almost made me cry as I was listening to it, i felt that it could have a strong impact on almost anyone who watches it. While listening to her poem, I analyzed it through Aristotle's rhetorical appeals, logos, ethos, and pathos. You can tell very quickly that Suheir Hammad was able to appeal to her audience on the pathos side easily. There were many different ethnic groups there listening to her poem and as you watch the audience you can tell every one of them is affected by her poem. Her poem gives a vivid image of what happened on September 11, 2011, an example of this was when she says, "...sky where once was steal, smoke where once was flesh." (Hammad 0:34). Just listening to that you get an image in your head of where the towers and people inside them once were and now it is no more. Ethos and Logos are also used in her poem as well. An example of this is when she says, "My hand went to my head and my head to the dead Iraqi children, the dead in Nicaragua and Rwanda who vied with fake sport wrestling for America's attention"(Hammad 1:20). She is clearly knowledgeable about this issue and she is caring about that issue trying to prove to others that we need to stop paying attention to just what's happening in America and pay attention to other countries too.
I found her to be very persuasive and I agreed with her argument. I feel that anyone who listens to this will relate to her in some way, even if in the beginning you're convinced you won't be you will end up relating to some form of her poem, just by the way she speaks she captures the audience attention. I think that her argument was that Bin Laden and all the people involved in blowing up the twin towers do not represent her as a person or even her as an Arab. Those people are their own person and she is also her own person and just because they are the same nationality and their skin color is the same doesn't mean they are relate-able at all. I also think she wants Americans to realize this too, and it makes her angry because she has no involvement and lives in America but they just assume she knows things about it because of her nationality which is very ignorant of Americans in general. I think that Suheir Hammad's poem is very persuasive and she makes many points that everyone can relate to.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Taylor Wisnieski Blog #7

As I began reading the first thing I noticed about an exploratory essay is that you have to create a tension between alternative views. When you start out you might not know where your thinking process will end up but when you start using the statement, "I used to think... , but now I think.." your writing becomes a process  of inquiry and discovery. I agree with this because when you begin to think of things in different ways you may completely change your opinion about an issue once you give it more thought from both sides. They later go on to say, "These same dialect thinking habits can be extended to research writing where the researcher's goals are to find alternative points of view on the research question." (Ramage, Bean, and Johnson 108), this I can agree with because it forces you to look at all points of view, not just your own. I can also relate to this because when I have had to write a paper that gives both points of view on an issue I have ended up changing my own view on it because it makes you look at it in a whole new way. One of the other hot spots that stood out to me was the evaluative annotation in a bibliography. I like how in an evaluative annotation of a bibliography you can critique the work and include comments on it, which normally help the reader. Annotated bibliographies serve many important functions, one of the most important things is it, "...engages researchers in exploratory thinking by requiring that they read sources rhetorically like experts, entering critically into scholarly conversations" (Ramage, Bean, and Johnson 116). They can also be valuable time saving tolls for new researchers in the field. All of this is important because it forces the researcher to think rhetorically about the bibliographies instead of allowing their own view to get in the way.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Blog #6

The first "hot spot" I came across while reading "BROS BEFORE HOS" was that men subscribe to these standards because "..they want to be positively evaluated by other men"(Guy Code 47). This was startling to me because you only think of girls dressing and acting a certain way for other girls not guys subscribing to certain standards for other men. It later goes on to a quote from a man by the name of David Mamet, which happens to also be my second "hot spot". He says, "Women have, in men's minds, such a low place on the social ladder of this country that it's useless to define yourself in terms of a woman."(Mamet 47). This caught my attention right away because he is so demeaning towards women by saying that every man thinks this way and that women aren't worth giving approval, only men matter. I know many men who would ask their wives or girlfriends what they thought of what they were wearing and if the woman didn't approve the man would change because he would then second guess himself about it. After reading further into the paragraph Mamet says, "...women are for possessing, not for emulating"(Mamet 47), I started to get really angry because women are so much more than that and he makes it sound like every man thinks this way which I do not agree with at all.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Blog #5 Taylor Wisnieski

While watching "Doofy Husbands: Target Women" I realized it was very critical of men and their role as husbands. The first "hot spot" I came across was that right off the bat they make men out to be idiots and that, "..you need them around to do three things; barbecue, breed children, and take care of the lawn"(Doofy 2:00). I can't say i agree with this at all, I feel that men are needed for much more than that and the video was very harsh on men. The second "hot spot" i came across was when they started describing men and how good looking and fun they were until they met their wife and got married. If I were to use my parents as an example I'd have to say that they are still fun and like to do things that they did when they were single so I can't say that I'd agree with them when they say men are no longer fun when they get married and have kids.

While watching "Tropes vs. Women", I found the speaker's tone to be quite sarcastic throughout the whole entire video. As she described the Hollywood character type, the "manic pixie dream girl" seemed over exaggerated and she made it out to be that all women characters in movies were like this and that all men characters needed these types of women. I don't agree with this because there are so many different types of women characters in movies and they aren't all this "dumb girl" type that is only there to help the men with their own lives. I completely agree with her though when at the end of the video she said, "we are full and complete human beings with out own troubles, interests, and creative endeavors"(Tropes 5:19). Women are their own people just like men are and we have our own problems to deal with just like they do. I do agree though that women can sometimes help men with their problems a lot easier than any other man could so sometimes we are needed for those things just not all the time.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Tannen and August, Blog #4

Tannen's article is about women being unmarked. One example of this that stood out to me was when Tannen said, "Instead of concentrating on the discussion I found myself looking at the three other women at the table , thinking how each had a different style and how each style was coherent." (Tannen 140). I can relate to what she is saying because there have been times myself where I will even unconsciously judge other women and what they are wearing or what kind of makeup they have on. Where this begins to bother me is when women are judged by their appearance and men really aren't. We have to do our hair and our makeup because if we don't then we are judged as not caring and if we went to interview for a job they would pass us up because it makes you look bad. While men on the other hand can just wash their hair and put on nice clothes and won't be judged any differently. Almost everything Tannen said I agree with but that doesn't mean it's right of people to pass judgement on women more than men. 

When I began reading August's article I realized very quickly that it was anti-male biased. One line that really stuck out to me was when August said, "...who insist that rape is a crime committed only by males in which only females are victims" (August 131). None of my own personal experiences can relate to this but one thing that stuck out to me in society was the woman from Dublin who raped her ten month old son. In this case there was no woman victim there was a male victim which just proves that men can also be victims of rape or assault and that people shouldn't assume that women can be the only ones. One line that I read that I do not agree with is when it says,"When a young man marries, he will be required by law and social custom to support his wife and children" (August 136). This isn't always true because in some cases women are the one in the relationship supporting the family while the men stay home and take care of the children, though this isn't very common it still occurs in some households. In August's reading I agree with some of the things he said but some of them I don't agree with at all and they don't make sense to me. 

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Homework #3 Amy Tan- Taylor Wisnieski

As i began reading Amy Tan's story Mother Tongue i discovered that most of her writing throughout the story is an open prose form of writing. She writes her thesis in the beginning and sticks with it the whole way through her story. One of her statements are, "I spend a great deal of time thinking about the power of language-the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth."(Tan 4). I believe that she follows this through the whole story and an example of that would be when her mother is not understood by people in the hospital. This evokes an emotion from both her mother and the people working in the hospital, the people working in the hospital are annoyed because they can't understand her broken English and her mother is upset because she cannot receive her test results. I believe that the audience in this story can be everyone, any person can relate to this whether it be the woman from China who can barely speak English or an English professor who can speak proper English. Everyone can relate because everyone has either heard people speak the way Amy Tan's mother does and may have reacted the way some of the people in her story did, or they do speak the way her mother does.  I don't believe that Amy Tan is conforming to the genre conventions of an essay because her paragraphs at the beginning and end of the story. In the beginning she begins talking about her mother's broken English and she ends with talking about her mother's broken English.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Homework #3

As i was reading part of chapter 3 in Everything's a Text and one of the paragraphs that really stuck out to me was, Personal Experiences Shape our Literacies. I completely agree with what this paragraph has to say because
it all depends on what experiences you've had that made you the type of literate individual you are today. As I look back on my experiences with writing I know I could have written better papers and tried a little harder to make them sound grammatically correct and interesting but when you're a kid all you want to do is just get through your homework and not worry about the way it's going to sound to others who read it. Now that I'm aware of the mistakes I've made in the past while writing papers I believe I will be able to produce well written papers.

Another paragraph that I came across and caught my eye was when they talk about writing about our own lives. I think this is such a good thing to do because it allows you to build confidence as a writer and for you to explore what you really think and feel about the world around you. I always enjoy writing about myself or things I know of well just like most people would, it always makes writing a lot easier. Sometimes my life experiences are very close to what I am required to write about which also helps me write a better paper if I can relate to the situation.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Homework #2

The excerpt from Malcolm X's speech to Harvard Law School was one of the passages that struck me as very interesting because of the different type of voice and style he uses to his audience. Malcolm X uses what linguists call code switching, this is when a speaker moves effectively between different audiences and adjusts their language and delivery (Melzer 13). This excerpt caught my attention because of the way Malcolm X spoke to his audience and how he quoted Shakespeare which showed he was aware of white European cultural traditions. "As long as you sit around suffering the slings and arrows and are afraid to use some slings and arrows yourself, you'll continue to suffer" (Malcolm X 8). I think this quote is what the whole passage is really about and with which i also agree with, because he explains that if you allow people to put you down and you don't stick up for yourself or live your life for yourself then you're always going to suffer.

Another passage that caught my attention was where they discussed literacy mediums and took a passage from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. "The light sprang up again, an there on the brink of the chasm, at the very Crack of Doom, stood Frodo, black against the glare, and tense, erect, but still as if he had been turned into stone." (Tolkien). Since this is all written and not being shown on the television Tolkien has to rely on vivid and detailed description to get his point across to his audience and create the scene. He does this by describing in great detail Frodo standing as still as stone and how he just appeared out of thin air. This passage was very thought provoking because it really shows you how important language and style are to the composition of this book, without these detailed descriptions you would never be able to imagine what is really happening in the book and that is the key to any book.