weekly post

For this week i'm really focusing on completeing my portfolio. It seems like a lot of work when you first read through the required material but it's actually a lot of work that has already been completed. I'm glad that I have been following along and doing the work along the way so I dont have a lot of work to catch up on. Also this week I submitted the rough draft of my persuassive paper. I think I did a nice job overall but I still feel like I can use some extra help from Dr.minslow to make my conclusion a lot stronger than it is now. Doing this project has taught me so much about abused children and has changed my outlook on it greatly. Coming to the end of finishing the project really makes me want to continue helping and try to find as many solutions as I can to help reduce the number of children being abused. Also I want to continue trying to find ways to make the foster care system a better system. I will definitely be writing a letter to a relevant government official to explain how I feel like a lot of foster care systems can be changed for the better and how i think the number of abused children in not only charlotte but all around North Carolina can be reduced.

weekly post

Over good friday I had plenty of time to think about how I wanted to actually start off my persuassive paper. I had a lot of good flowing ideas from my mom. I decided to make my paper about the foster care system and how corrupt it is. Since I have been focusing on child abuse for my major inquiry project, writing about foster care kind of ties into it because many children who are abused end up under the governments care into the foster care system. I feel like many kids who go under this system hate it because it pulls them away from there home into a place they may not like. A lot of the government officials under this  system are very nonchalant about caring for the children who are taken away and I feel as if I could persuade my audience to look at the system as being corrupt as well and take action the way i imply it. Overall I think it will be easy to pull my audience on my side with facts and statistics. Also a story or two of an actual foster child could affect my readers emotions to make them feel pathetic for the child, making them vulnerable to easily be persuaded. I feel like after i get some help on my rough draft with dr. minslow my final paper will be extremely great.

week 4/1

So far everything has been running smoothly with completing my major inquiry project. I think that the pieces of rhetoric that everybody presented were really good, and will definitely persuade all of our audience members to look at the point of view our way. My pieces of rhetoric ended up being a poster, a flyer, a brochure, and dream catcher key chains. I think the way I set everything up will be very persuasive. My main goal was too effect my audience's pathos and I tried to do that by adding a lot of photos of abused children. I also want to effect their logos, and I did this by adding statistics in the brochure. I feel like in the end many people will try to be more aware of child abuse and most importantly the signs children show who are being abused. Also I feel like a lot of my audience members will donate their money to the NPO, DreamCatchers For Abused Children. I'm excited about this part of the project because it actually deals with me being involved; hands on activities. The next class, outlines are due and I hope I get better ideas and advice about how I'm starting off my paper so far.

WEEKLY BLOG 3/28

This week I planned my pieces of rhetoric that will be used to persuade my audience to become more aware of child abuse and to donate their money to the NPO dreamcatchers for abused children. My plans were to just create a poster and flyers but with great ideas from some of my classmates, ive decided to make dream catcher key chains to hand out to people to remind them of the NPO I picked, and possibly persuade them to donate money there. I think that my pieces of rhetoric will be very persuassive and attack people's pathos, making them feel bad for the kids who go through child abuse with pictures posted on the poster and flyers, ultimately breaking them down to the point where they will do whatever they can to help and learn about child abuse . I was thinking about making a bumpersticker as well but I have to do more thinking about that. My main focus is to persuade my audience to be aware of child abuse and to learn the signs of it so they can help kids who don't speak up about it. My 5-6 paper will be on a different subject, explaining how foster care systems are broken and how they can be fixed. I feel like in the end everything will come together smoothly. I'm glad this project is allowing me to actually do something to help this big issue instead of just talk about it.

3/16 Weekly blog

This week I learned about more information concerning rhetoric for my project! I had a lot of help picking good ideas to persuade my audience to be more aware of my NPO and fighting against child abuse. I decided that instead of just making people aware of child abuse and trying to fight against it, I want people to also donate money to the NPO called Dream Catchers for Abused Children that I selected. I made this choice because I feel like its something very important to acknowlege and many people dont really tend to pay a lot of attention to things like this simply because their either not aware of it or because it hasnt happened to them or any one they love or care about. I plan on attacking peoples senstive sides and making them feel really sympathetic to children who die or get injured badly because of child abuse. We already know just seeing pictures of cute newborn babies already effects our emotions so I can only imagine the response I will get from my audience when they see baby's/ children with bruises and broken body parts because of child abuse. I have learned just by looking at pictures from my NPO website that it really makes you want to be more aware and help these poor kids that cant really help theirselves. It has definitely changed my future thinking, because before starting this project I didnt really pay much attention to this big issue and I realize there are many people who are in the same situation. I now want to help kids who have a problem admitting they are being abused at home and help them get the help they need. I plan on making dream catchers the size for key chains to make people aware of the NPO and child abuse and I aslo plan on making flyers and posters to explain more information for kids and adults.

Identity Collage for ENGL 1102

How does the collage represent my identity?
The collage I made represents my identity in a number of ways. The pictures I picked to be apart of this, all have something to do with whats in my life and what I like. Starting off with the green crayon, my favorite color is green. Its randomly been my favorite color since I was a little kid and so I've just stuck with it. Anyone who knows me well knows to buy me gifts with anything green in it i.e money :). Next is the picture of the biology book. Biology is my major and my favorite subject in school. I have always loved studying life and humans. Considering this is something I plan on making my everyday life career one day, biology does represent my identity. Another really important picture on my collage is the picture of the family. My family is really important to me and has the most important impact on my life. They are my everything so they are people in my life that represent my identity. The Holy Bible picture is very important because, I am a chrisitan and the bible is what guides christians. That picture reperents that I believe in God. Another important picture would be that 2010 Hyundia Sonata. I got that car 2 christmases ago and I absolutely love it, just like the picture of the motorolla droid x, those are my "babies" and I feel like they are things that I could live without but would absolutely hate it so they represent my identity. The picture of me and my boyfriend represent my identity because were like two peas in a pod. Whenever you see me you see him and vice versa. He's very important in my life and my love :). The next picture is a picture of me and some of my bestfriends (including my sister in the green jacket). They represent my identity a lot because they have been in my life for what seems like foreverrrrrr. We all have a big impact on each others lives and  love each other dearly. I could go on and on about all the pictures on my collage but to sum it all up, all of the pictures that make up my collage represent my identity because they all make up my life and they things in my life that I love.

What are the links between images and identity in our society? (What types of images do I identify with?)

I believe I identify with images that deal with glittery, girly things such as red tall heels, make-up, flashy earrings, and bright colors. I think I’m more of a city girl so I like big lights, dressed up clothes, tall buildings, and nice cars. I think the links between images and identity in our society deal with what a person wants to be perceived as.  Being accepted in the society is big for people so I think my identity sets me in a category to be accepted as “girly” and “successful”. The links tie up to what people want to be seen as and viewed as a person.

2/24/12 blog

For the proposition America 24/7 captures the essence of American character and communities, then I believe there will be pictures posted of theAmerican Flag. This is a big essence of American character and communities so I wouldnt be surprised to see one in the exhibit. Also I expect to see pictures of mountains and beaches, highways, and country dirt roads because, they are all associated with america. A picture of the many people and races in America captures the essence of American character so I believe that should be up there as well. Other pictures that I think capture the essence are the bald eagle, the Ford car, presidents, a democrat and republican sign, homeless people, and maybe a picture of the wildlife that live in America.
 After viewing the photos, I think the claim does find support from the selections of photos I encountered for the most part. There was a photo of the American flag, a bald eagle, beaches and mountains, dirt roads, some wild life and many many more photos of pictures that capture the essence of American character and communities. Going through all the pages of photos every photo looked like reality and something you would associate with America.

ordinary pic...always studying :(

2/18 weekly blog

This week i'm trying to focus on finding a really good NPO that helps children from child abuse. I've looked up a few on google but i havent decided which one will be best for my project yet. If anybody knows any great NPO's that I could use, I would appreciate that very much. Also this week, doing the rhetorical anaylsis and stategies on the movie we watchd in class was very helpful. It helped me understand how to rhetorically think even farther than before.

Movie reflection

The movie we have been watching in class this week has been very interesting. Michael Moore shows his audience (viewers) that capitalism in America is destroying everybody. People are being kicked out of their homes because of foreclosures, and men and women are being laid off from their jobs. Bankruptcy is happening to many companies and there are even companies who make their workers sign policies called dead peasant policies, only to make people more financially unstable. Michael Moore explains how we need to remake America, and thinks that we should have followed FDR’s second bill of rights plan to have a better economy.  Based off the movie America is said to be a plutonomy now. I feel like the economy in America is very bad. Somebody needs to stand up and speak up about things that many people don’t know what going on behind “closed doors”, and I feel like Michael Moore does a good job doing that. I agree that America probably should have followed through FDR’s plans and it would have made America significantly better. Capitalism is not the way to go, and that’s clear just by looking at how America is now.  It’s not right that people are being forced out of work and then forced out their homes because companies can’t pay them the amount of money there supposed to earn. Change needs to come fast.

2/10 weekly blog

This week for english class I focused on completing the research proposal paper that was due Wednesday. It helped me realize a lot about my project that I didnt know I needed to do in order to complete the entire project. The hardest part was thinking about how I was going to get all my sources and how relivant would the sources I'm going to use be. I don't just want to rely on information from the internet so I had to figure out what other sources would help me understand more about child abuse in Charlotte. The easiest part of the assignment was writing out my "game plan" on how i'm goin to complete the entire project. I feel like this project will go by smoothly if I just complete tasks ahead of time to make sure everything is correctly done and turned in on time. I found some great websites that explained some stories of kids and adults who have been affected by child abuse so I think i'm headed in the right direction so far.

WEEKLY BLOG 2/2

This week I learned about some good ways to locate research sources, that will be helpful when I start looking up information for my inquiry project. Wikipedia isn't that reliable of a source because, anybody can put right or wrong information up there, but it can be used to look up some information. GoogleScholar and GoggleBooks are two good sources to use. This week I also learned how to evaluate websites. When evaluating websites, I should keep these questions in mind: Who is the author? Is it institutionally affliated? What authority does it have? Who is the audience? What is the purpose? What is the rhetorical stance? Does it deal with both sides of an issue or only one? Does it offer links to other sites? How timely is the page? Does it sight original sources of information? Is it easy to navigate? I think with the information I learned this week, my inquiry project will have very good sources and i'll know which ones I should stay away from.

1/27 Weekly blog

This week has been very interesting in terms of finding a good topic to start the major inquiry project on. The first time we went through the topics we could pick for the project, I immediately knew I was going to start it on animal abuse, but later on in the week I changed my mind and decided to do something more serious to me, which is child abuse. This week I got on google and looked up information about child abuse and the information I found was very sad. There is a broad form of child abuse, it can go from sexual child abuse, mental child abuse, and physical child abuse. I read many stories from people who have experienced all three forms. I know this topic is good for me to start this project on because, it keeps me interested and engages me to want to read more about it and actually try to find solutions to help. I plan on staying focused and completeing assignment ahead of time to complete this project. I think it should be pretty easy since we're taking it in small steps. I'm looking forward to the final outcome of this project :)

WHAT IVE LEARNED THIS WEEK

This week og English 1002 I have learned a lot of new things. The first new thing I learned about was what rhetoric meant and how to understand text rhetorically. Rhetoric is just a term that can be simply defined as persuasion. I learned that approaching text rhetorically means to ask questions about how the text conveys a persuassive message or argument, how the text addresses a specific audience, and how the writer operates within a specific context or rhetorical situation. The rhetorical triangle was a good way of simplifying how you can understand rhetoric. The triangle is bascially a relationship between the writer, text, and audience. I found this triangle to be very benefical when learning about rhetoric. I have never used this style of analyzing in any class, so this is very new to me. So far I enjoy it a lot and it's very easy to understand. Im ready to tackle poseters, magazines, signs, cartoons, commericals, etc. thinking rhetorically now.

The Key issue of this cartoon is demonstrating the values of the Democrats and the vaules of the Republicans. In the cartoon the donkey is being potrayed as a strong, serious, more dominant representer of what a democrat stands for. On the other hand the elephant is drawn with a face thats looks "dumb", and not taken as serious. He potrays that Republicans only care about abortion. The audience of this cartoon is in favor of democrat politicans. It goes against republicans, and puts them down against the democrats. The cartoon rely's on both visual and text. This influences the cartoon's overall persuassiveness because the text and image relay the entire message on how the democrats stand for better things than republicans. The tone of this is serious. The symbolism used is the donkey and elephant talking, representing their political party.

As a reader, I believe I am really good at it. Not only at reading the words, but also at comprehending what's being read. I usually read assigned reading from teacher's. Every once in a while i'll pick up a book or magazine that cathches my eye and read it also. I read during the week, normally when all my classes are over with for that day. During that time is when I focus on what im reading best. I read at a pretty fast pace, but if I miss something or get lost, I always back track to the point that confused me, and re-read it at a slower pace until I understand what i just read. I honestly only read when I have too, except for the few occassions when I spot a book or magazine that looks interesting. I believe I'm good at it, but it is'nt my forte, and it's not something I like to do during my free time.
As a writer, I feel as if i'm good at that too, but there is always room for improvement. When writing I usually write paper assigned by teachers. I'm not a big fan on writing poems or in a diary, so most of my writings are done because of paper assignments. I normally write properly and formal when writing papers, and try to use new words to increase my diction. I usually write because, as stated before, it's something I have to do. It's needed in this society and to pass classes.