Monthly Archives: November 2022

Free writing on the blog

Problem:   The rising costs of insulin and its relation to financial hardship during the beginning and passage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those without medical insurance and under the duress of financial troubles, undoubtedly having been exasperated by the pandemic, are at risk in the area of health. A solution must be found. As of currently, there are more than 2.3 million adults in California alone who are suffering from diabetes and, as a result, depend on insulin to stay alive.

Potential Solutions:   There are two identifiable problems that have caused the price of insulin to skyrocket in the recent decade, pharmaceutical companies and a lack of legislation to stabilize the price of insulin. Two or rather one solution can be found for these problems.

The Big Unsolvable Problem (“The Big Three”):   Around ninety percent of the global insulin market is occupied by three massive manufacturing companies who have essentially dominated the supply and demand of insulin. Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, and Eli Lilly are these three companies and are the ONLY suppliers of insulin in the United States. These three own patents to analogous insulin, an alternative kind of insulin available for human use. And while there are expiration dates to insulin, the three companies have made slight improvements to their own insulin products that have refreshed the expiring dates, a technique referred to as ever greening. Since it is exorbitantly more expensive to reproduce another form of insulin instead of copying already existing examples, other companies have been discouraged from entering the insulin market.

The Problem of Rising Costs (Improvement Boogaloo):   The “slight” improvements made by the big three to refresh their patents have had the negative effect of increasing the price of insulin, having nearly doubled in the last five years. Without other suppliers to compete against any of the big three, these prices have risen unchecked. With inflation and the pandemic factored in, the situation is wholly undesirable for those whose lives depend on insulin. Add to a growing number of people suffering from diabetes and a penchant for profit, and the prices shoot up to the sky.

A Solution:   Two solutions exist, one possible and one less than likely. The first is that the people strive for state legislature to be put in place; legislature that can restrain the rise in insulin prices. Already this has been done in eight other states and the prices there have been curbed. But such legislature must apply, not only to those who can afford health insurance, but to the less fortunate who are stuck between financial hardship and “doing well”. The latter solution is a change done directly to the patent system that can prevent such things like ever greening from being done, so that more companies are encouraged to compete in the insulin market. Such a solution, however, should be secondary to the first priority of controlling the increase in price. The lives of the people should come first, not the state of their wallets.

Individual Writing on the Blog

Delivery

• Pleasant and even tone when speaking, easy to understand and keep up with.
• Asks an occasional question to catch audience attention.

Content 

• Solid facts and numbers accompany the speech.
• Multiple references to academic institutions that provide the information.
• Short, brief, and concise.

Visual Aids

• Relevant photo of the person (mother) being discussed with a toddler (the speaker) in their hands. Shows how close the relationship is between the two.
• Black background with white text, emphasizes the content.

Activity 1: For a long time, my stepson, Jonathan, was unhappy to have me as part of his family, for he resents that he did not have both biological parents at home. When I tried to get to know him better, he would complain that I invade his privacy. As a newcomer, I understand that our relationship will require effort from both of us. It is not enough that I was friendly. Jonathan also has to want us to be friends, and I was not happy with the two of us being strangers, but I can wait for him to feel more comfortable around me.

Activity 2: Anne Marie collects antique bottles and loves to turn them into works of art. She buys bottles if she liked them, but she prefers to find them in the ground. She finds bottles everywhere, but she picks them selectively. However, she has the best luck at construction sites on old farmland, where she spends most of her time. Often, bottles appear on the surface after a good rain, but they disappear very quickly. She uses special tools for excavating bottles, including a set of brushes. She does not want to break the bottles as she removes them from the ground. After finding a new bottle, Anne Marie will add it to her display case and hang on the wall as an artistic piece (Mangelsdorf, 2013, p. 411).

Rhetoric Reflection: Emma Gonzalez’s Speech on Gun Violence

A strong component of Gonzalez’s speech that made it especially memorable was the usage of reiteration or repetition. When talking about the extent of the lives lost during the shooting, Gonzalez used a similarly patterned sentence structure to both give names to the dead and a short snippet about who they were, humanizing what normally would have been another cold statistic. The repetition of name after name gives depth to the sheer amount of lives claimed by the shooting. In an almost overwhelming flood, the listener is shown just how much has been lost. In addition to this repetition, the moment of silence, almost awkward in its abrupt introduction, is given a heart wrenching meaning by Gonzalez. The listener might not understand it at first, but can find the silence more impactful in the sense of confusion. The students who were claimed by the shooting did not have enough time to fully comprehend what was happening and, just like the moment of silence, realized it too late. Some lost their lives while other lived on, scarred. In a way, the audience has experienced a brief minute of what the survivors went through, although devoid of fear or death.

Group writing on the blog: Semicolon vs Colon:

1. White rhinos are famous for their big horns; they are among the endangered species.
2. The teacher didn’t know if she should laugh or cry, but she knew it was quite hilarious.
3. Three things matter in life: perseverance, commitment, and aptitude for learning.
4. A dog trotted over to the computer in Sara’s office, typed out a perfect letter and printed it!
5. The manager was stunned but she told the dog, “The sign says you have to be good with the computer, just because you’re good at typing doesn’t mean that you are good with it”.
6. A man walked into a pet shop and ordered three things: a centipede, kitten, parrot.
7. Sama was the best person for the job because she had an excellent service record in one key area: community health training.
8. Amy served with 4 stars in the army; therefore, she was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Group Writing on the Blog: Coordination/Subordination

Exercise 1

Combine each sentence pair into a single sentence using either a coordinating conjunction or a conjunctive adverb. Then copy the combined sentence onto your own sheet of paper.

1. Pets are not allowed in Mr. Taylor’s building, however he owns several cats and a parrot.
2. New legislation prevents drivers from sending or reading text messages while driving, however, many people continue to use their phones illegally.
3. The coroner concluded that the young man had taken a lethal concoction of drugs, unfortunately, by the time his relatives found him, nothing could be done.
4. Amphibians are vertebrates that live on land and in the water, and flatworms are invertebrates that live only in water.
5. Ashley carefully fed and watered her tomato plants all summer, therefore the tomatoes grew juicy and ripe.
6. When he lost his car key, Simon attempted to open the door with a wire hanger, a credit card, and a paper clip, Finally, he called the manufacturer for advice.

Exercise 2

Combine each sentence pair into a single sentence using a subordinating conjunction and then copy the combined sentence onto your own sheet of paper.

1. Jake is going to Mexico because there are beautiful beaches in Mexico.
2. A snowstorm disrupted traffic all over the east coast, consequently there will be long delivery delays this week.
3. My neighbor had his television volume turned up too high, so I banged on his door and asked him to keep the noise down.
4. Jessica prepared the potato salad and the sautéed vegetables while Ashley marinated the chicken.
5. After Romeo poisons himself, Juliet awakes to find Romeo dead and stabs herself with a dagger.

Blog Writing: Anti Racist Approaches to Education

On anti-racist approaches to education, like in the TedTalk, education can be affected by factors outside of the academic world. Being food insecure, not knowing where you might spend your next night at, these mentioned issues are just two of a wider problem, and they most certainly can affect someone’s ability to learn. College, like most forms of education, must take into account more than base grades and academic performance. Often it is things other than preforming well in class that influence a student’s development. The ‘spring break’ example mentioned in the TedTalk is an excellent example of this. Students without anywhere else to go during the period of spring break, when the college closes, are faced with problems that they cannot address or find loopholes to. To the school, the common expectation might be that their students are well off and able to take care of their own accommodations. While such expectations might have been crafted of good natured intentions, the potential for harm is nonetheless present. Sometimes one can forget that college, considered to be the penultimate step to education, is as much of a developmental experience as it is an educational one. Racism and poverty go hand in hand when it comes to education, the latter being the scourge of students selected for college ‘diversity quotas’. All potential consequences must be considered, regardless of any prior assumptions about financial or social states.

Writing on the Blog: Freewriting

Food deserts and their impact on the poor are caused by a variety of issues not limited to the actions of corporations or the inaction of the government. Sometimes it isn’t only geographical, but also economical. Often the ‘desert’ in a food desert comes from an economical downturn in certain areas, causing certain corporate groups to pull their stakes out and hence causing a food desert to arise. Economic progress can be harmful as it is beneficial when it is present and unpresent. The uncomfortable fact of this is that people’s lives are reliant on the times and the shifting gears of economic policy by shareholders and policymakers. A food desert can be a downward spiral in of itself. Economic downturn leads to more economic downturn and it becomes a difficult cycle to break out of. There are also racial and ethnic conflicts to think about. Racism remains a prevalent issue in modern day America and has been proven to affect the financial lives of the affected. One could say that instead of the physical segregation of the old America, we have come to a new and more concealed means of dividing people. Healthy food has become somewhat of a commodity, not a basic right. Supermarket chains tout their ‘healthy’ wares and emphasize their value when based on morality, they should have been selling healthier products in place of unhealthy ones. Overall, the problem of the food desert is in more than one place, and to address it, one must eventually cover all points, from the struggles in communities where suitable supermarkets are unavailable to the higher levels of governmental decision-making.

Reading Response Analysis w/ Yuting Zhong

Some key ideas I found in Yuting Zhong’s reading response included the cause and effect of ignorance and unintentional racial profiling and the solution to preventing it: awareness. Zhong uses the example of the undercover police officer to illustrate her point that racial profiling, the act of attributing a crime by ethnicity or skin color, is caused by a lack of knowledge of others. When there is an absence of information, it becomes alarmingly easy for someone to develop and unintentionally practice micro aggressions. These acts might seem completely usual, making them even more difficult to spot and address. Like Zhong, I too expressed the need for the self-reflection and awareness of our own behavior and actions. Often the first step to resolving any problem is to be aware of it, and such things like unintentional racial profiling are no different.

Writing on the Blog: Identifying Plagiarism 

Group Writing on the Blog: Evaluating an Artifact

This artifact is a cartoon used as a header for an article titled Working for Racial Justice as a White Teacher by Kristina Rizga on a white teacher named Robert Roth who actively attempts to teach history without racism. 

The cartoon shows a white educator who is presumed to be Roth using chalk to teach diverse students about history. The signs pictured say “Education and Justice” are most likely referring to the desegregation movement of schools and then the next sign says “Now” referring to the BLM movement.

This artifact is somewhat effective as it does show that white educators need to be working actively to teach students about history in America from all perspectives, not just the white one. It also shows black students being outlined which shows that this educator is teaching about black history. However, there is a lack of content as there are limited words and therefore make this argument not as strong as it could be.

Watch Reflection

Racism, being a consequence of deeply rooted bigotry, can be countered through education and awareness. Many of the barriers that prevent people from interacting together in a friendly manner often come from a lack of understanding or context. And because people do not interact or mingle, this ‘divide’ can grow larger and further exasperate the problem. Isolation from the outside, as comforting as it may seem, is detrimental and can breed racism, especially when radical ideas circulate in such a confined social space. Taking this lesson away from the video and applying it to the ‘Candy girls to Sista-Cipher’ essay,  it becomes clear how isolation exasperates social divides. Racism creates isolation, the willingness to block oneself away from the hate and negativity, and ends up creating a cycle of sorts. We, as students and future citizens, must work towards education and awareness throughout our lives if we desire a world eventually free of racism and discrimination. As the next generation, we are in a position to either isolate ourselves, or to take action against rooted prejudices.

Group Writing on the blog: Eliminating wordiness w/ Cynthia Aquino

Then revise the following sentences to state their meaning in fewer words. Avoid passive voice, needless repetition, and wordy phrases and clauses.

1. Many local farmers plan to attend next Friday’s meeting.

Local farmers plan to attend next Friday’s meeting.

1. Although Bradley Hall is regularly populated by students, close study of the building as a structure is seldom undertaken by them.

Although Bradley Hall is populated by students, close study of the building is seldom undertaken.

1. He dropped out of school on account of the fact that it was necessary for him to help support his family.

He dropped out of school to help support his family.

1. It is expected that the new schedule will be announced by the bus company within the next few days.

The bus company will announce the new schedule in the next few days.

1. There are many ways in which a student who is interested in meeting foreign students may come to know one.

There are many ways for a student to meet foreign students.

1. It is very unusual to find someone who has never told a deliberate lie on purpose.

It is unusual to find someone who never told a lie on purpose.

1. Trouble is caused when people disobey rules that have been established for the safety of all.

Trouble is caused when people disobey rules.

1. A campus rally was attended by more than a thousand students. Five students were arrested by campus police for disorderly conduct, while several others are charged by campus administrators with organizing a public meeting without being issued a permit to do so.

Out of a thousand students, five were arrested for disorderly conduct while several others were charged with organizing without a permit.

1. The subjects that are considered most important by students are those that have been shown to be useful to them after graduation.

The subjects useful after graduation are considered the most important by students.

1. In the not too distant future, college freshmen must all become aware of the fact that there is a need for them to make contact with an academic adviser concerning the matter of a major.

In the future, college freshmen must all be aware that they need to make contact with an academic adviser concerning a major.

1. In our company there are wide-open opportunities for professional growth with a company that enjoys an enviable record for stability in the dynamic atmosphere of aerospace technology.

In our company of aerospace technology there are several opportunities for professional growth.

1. Some people believe in capital punishment, while other people are against it; there are many opinions on this subject.

Some people believe in capital punishment, while others are against it.