November 30 – In class writing

Argumentative speech brainstorming ideas:

1.LGBTQ+ education at WWHS, 2. cultural diversity classes at WWHS.

Possible paths for each one:

  1. I could talk about how it was growing up in the WWHS community and how there was no education on LGBTQ+ issues. I can talk about the LGBTQ+ percentage at Whitman and then talk about how this could be easy to include in health and history classes
  2. I could talk about the issues at Whitman with diversity to show the audience why we need diversity classes at the school. I could also talk about the community as a whole and talk about how there is little to no diversity in Bethesda. I would propose plans to fix the issue by talking about classes that could be introduced and how they could change the curriculum to be more inclusive.

 

Example of Argumentative speech:

I chose this speech because Mr. Smith does a very good job with his delivery. When he is speaking it seems very natural and he doesn’t seem uncomfortable or nervous. His voice is clear and he is easy to understand. He also uses a lot of hand gestures which helps the audience feel more engaged in his speech.

November 18 in class

reading response partner: Kate

Today I was paired with Kate and I really liked her response. She took a deeper look into the text and talked about how the author must have been feeling throughout his life. She also talks about how the message is how you shouldn’t feel shame for something you can’t control which I thought was a really good take away from the story. I want to look deeper into the texts that a read so in the future I hope to be able to do the same thing Kate has done with her response.

 

Significant historical event:

Event: Brown v. Board of Education

I decided to choose the Brown v. Board of Education trial as my historical event. I chose this event because I think it really did make an impact on the black community and helped us get to where we are today. If you are not familiar with this case it was the supreme court case that allowed black children and white children to go to school together. Before this black and white children were segregated at school and black children could be denied admittance to a school because of their race. The court ruled that separate but equal was not equal.

I chose this event because it made a big impact on the black community in the United States. I think that especially today with the resurgence of BLM in the public eye it is important to see that we have come a long way since 1954, but we can’t stop now. Children growing up today don’t even really notice race. They just have friends and they are just people, it does not matter the color of their skin. I am very thankful to live in a time when children of different races can go to school together and that is all because of this court case.

November 16 – In class writing

Today I looked at Aaliyah’s post and I really liked it. We used the same example from the textbook but looked at it in two different ways. For me, I looked at the picture and said it was an example of what could happen when you don’t think about who your audience will be and she looked at it and talked about a rhetorical situation. We also looked at different things from the Forbes article. She looked at what the article said about vagueness and I looked at what it said about understanding both sides of the argument you are presenting. I really liked how Aaliyah looked at many different aspects in the Forbes article and compared it to her own work and how this information will help her better her own writing.

November 11- In class writing

Amani was in my group today and we both wrote about similar things for the response today. We both talked about how impactful some types of arguments can be and how the presenters of those arguments were effective. One thing that we did differently was that Amani wrote about examples from the book and I used a real-life example that I thought of and related it back to the textbook examples. I really enjoyed how Amani was able to use the examples from the book because it helped me to better understand them.

October 28 In class writing

Group: Bry and Sabrina

Today I read Bry and Sabrina’s responses to the article. In their responses, they both introduced the story first and then went on to share their own personal experiences. We all shared personal experiences whether they were our own or of people we know. We also all agreed that the struggles of mixed people should be talked about more and better understood.

 

 

Essay two reflection:

After reading the comments from my essay I feel like I have a better understanding of how to improve my writing and make it stronger. One thing I definitely struggle with is making sure I set up my information correctly. For this essay, I needed to provide more information on my source and better explain how it was creditable. I also need to make sure that I practice more with APA formatting and get better at that. Overall I was really happy with the feedback I got and I think it will really help me make my writing better in the future.

October 26 in class writing

Today I looked at Sabrina’s response to the essay. In her response, she talked about how all of Marilyn’s friends were able to communicate with and connect to Grandma Wong even though they all come from different backgrounds. This was different from my response because I mostly talked about how the way Chin wrote the story and less about the content. I really liked her response because it made me look at things I had not seen when I did my response.

 

Freewriting Essay 3:

I think I could do this essay on LGBTQ+ rights or something like that. Or I could do it on diabetes but I already did my other essay on diabetes. I don’t really know what else. I think talking about the LGBTQ+ community would be the best idea because it is a really big issue. I could talk about internalized homophobia or like how there is hate towards the gay community inside of the gay community or toxic masculinity in the gay community. I think maybe a good idea would be to talk about how the word lesbian makes women who like women cringe because of the connotations behind it.

October 21, Group work

Group: Sahara, Henry, Sabrina

  1. Directions:  Read the following scenarios and decide whether it is a case of plagiarism or not. (Y or N) and explain why.

__N___ 1. Kyoko needs to write a report on American politics.  She looks up Barack Obama in Wikipedia and discovers he is the 44th president of the United States.  She includes this information in her report but doesn’t mention Wikipedia.

___Y__2. Tam is writing a paper on a novel for his English class.  Since the whole class is reading the same book, he doesn’t need to use a citation.

Tam still needs to cite the book because he still needs to explain where he got his information from for his paper.

___N__3. Sugi wrote a paper for his European history class last semester and got an A on the paper. This semester, his Political Science class is addressing some of the same issues that are in his History paper.  He checks with his professor first who agrees with Sugi, so he uses the material from his History paper.

__Y___4. Ramiro, Stephan, April, and Chris are working on a group project.  Chris submits his work and the others suspect that some of it came from the Internet, but it sounds good, so they submit it.

This is plagiarism because he doesn’t show his group the sources he uses.

___Y__5. Maria finds a lot of good information for her paper on the Internet.  She carefully changes the wording and prepares a good paraphrase.  She doesn’t copy anything verbatim.

Paraphrasing without citing is still plagiarism.

  1. Directions:  Decide whether the information described in each scenario will require citation of the source (Y or N) and explain why.

__Y___1. You clearly identify the source at the beginning of a paragraph that summarizes the author’s ideas about teenage drinking.  Since readers will naturally assume all of the ideas in the paragraph are from the source, no additional citation is necessary.

You would still need to cite the source in the rest of your paper.

__N___2. In your paper on the history of aviation you state the date of the Wright brothers’ first successful flight at Kitty Hawk.

__Y___3. In a paper on the civil rights movement you find some general, well-known background information in an encyclopedia.  It is obviously common knowledge, so you copy the information and include it in your paper.

You still need to cite things from an encyclopedia.

__Y___4. You ask your mother about the steps she went through in obtaining a bank load for a new car. You include this information in your paper.

You would need to cite where you got the information from.

__Y___5. You skim a 325-page book entitled Using the Internet. A major theme throughout the book is that the Internet is an important technological achievement.  You include this in your paper.

You need to cite where you got the idea from.

__Y___6. You find an article that takes the same position you have taken on the subject of gun control. To save time you summarize in your paper a portion of the argument from the article, since the author’s ideas are identical to your own.

Paraphrasing without citing is still plagiarism.

(Excerpts above are from the following text:  Clines, R.H & Cobb, E. R. (2012) Research Writing Simplified, 7th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.)

October 19 – In class writing

Today I worked with Emily and Valyntina. We had similar ideas in our responses to Chapter 14 on visual rhetoric. We talked about examples in the text and explained how they were good examples of visual arguments. Emily and I also both talked about emotional appeal in our responses saying that visuals are better when trying to use pathos rather than just using writing. One thing I really liked from Emily’s writing was that she explained each aspect of a creditable argument and explained it in detail going along with the example she provided. I really like this and hope to incorporate it into my own writing.

October 14 In class writing

I chose to look at Billie Eilish’s Instagram profile. After looking through her profile I saw a lot of videos and pictures that I believe to be true to her personality. Although I don’t know her personally the way that she portrays herself online and in front of the public seems very real. She seems to have a down to earth personality that people may feel they can relate to. As a musician, she is very popular with 67.2M followers on Instagram but still, some of her content seems very personal. The music that she releases is also about personal topics so it makes sense that her social media might also reflect that. In a recent Instagram post she did on the election she expressed how she didn’t want to be involved but that it was obviously very important involved in this possibly life-changing election. Just looking at the way that she talks in this video shows that she is very comfortable with her fans and I believe that makes people trust her more as a person. I have liked Billie Eilish for a long time and the way that she presents herself to the public has been consistent from day one and I think that is what makes her creditable. Even though she has gained a lot of popularity since she was first discovered in 2016, she has seemed to remain humble. She acts like her fans are her friends and there is a lot of evidence of this.

 

September 30. Essay two freewriting

Essay two freewriting

I want to look at the topic of insulin costs in the USA. In my essay, I could use logos and pathos. I think these really help when giving a speaker creditability and making sure the audience trusts the speaker. I also think that using pathos is a very easy way to connect to the audience because emotion is something everyone experiences and empathy goes along with that. I think that when news sources use a lot of pathos in their stories however, it makes people wonder if the source is trustworthy. I think the best thing to do is to have things in moderation. If you have too much logo’s you could bore your audience and if you have too much pathos they may question your ethos. but if you have an equal amount of both it can help make your ethos better and your audience will trust you more. I also think that knowing your audience can be very impactful on the effectiveness of your argument.

Essay two outline

  1. How insulin costs in the United States impacts me
  2. Introduce source being analyzed
    1. Talk about pros and cons of the source
  3. Use some facts to reinforce my own ideas