Thursday, October 22, 2015

Rubin's Essay

In the Melissa Rubin's Essay she analyzes a 1950's Coca-Cola advertisement and breaks it down to how it targets specific consumers. When she talked about the ad she mentioned that it was targeting the culture and people of the 1950's "Blue collar workers and Patriots," and further explaining "The group, overwhelmingly male and apparently all white includes blue-collar workers in casual clothing, servicemen in uniform, and businessmen in suits in the foreground." When she talks about targeting this group of people in the 1950's she then talks about contribution of the environment around them, in her words, "In this advertisement , the buildings surround the people, symbolizing a sense of community and the way Americans had come together in a successful effort to win the war." With what Rubin's Essay talked about she explained an analytical thinking on both the culture of the targeted ad and the people whom the ad is targeting. Another way to approach an analytical view of the ad is what tone it displays or what medium it uses to display the ad and why. Considering this ad targets people in the 1050's when World War II was still fresh and Working class men were pushing through industrial phases, if I were to suggest a target today for a Coca-Cola ad I would want to target Educational Schools and Universities. Students in College mostly fore they undergo hardships in this day in age by mass amounts of tests and workloads, like the ad suggests by Rubin, "Coca-Cola will make a hardworking [Student] feel refreshed while [they] work and become part of a larger community." Having a nice cold Coca-Cola after a test is a really nice feeling and makes me feel "refreshed."
("Advertisements R Us," Melissa Rubin, Everyone's an Author, Pg. 176-181)

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Class Lab: Analysis

2. Analytical thinking is another way of saying rhetorical thinking. It’s breaking the writing down into parts to better understand the contents of what you read. By breaking down text and phrases we can then figure out where the author stands, author’s point of view, author’s tone and so on. Many stories may hide their meaning but upon deeper analysis we find greater meaning.


4. The “Stay Sweet As You  Are” analysis paper fits the criteria by including the ads that it’s analyzing, breaks down the information in chronological order, and finding the main points of each ad. At the end, all three advertisements are compared and found to have the same main point: “pleasing men is the prerequisite for [a woman’s] happiness.”

5. From what I gathered from the in class group. I gathered that most think that analytical thinking is in a way same as thinking rhetorically. By breaking down and analyzing tones, design, the point of view, etc. you can then figure out what the author is conveying.

Reading Prompt Pg. 175 EAA

   In the beginning of the essay Heather Havrilesky states "Americans are constantly in search of an upgrade." by using and quoting the series Mad Men she describes how the show is in fact a representation of the American Dream and how Americans have become stagnant in their ways. As Heather states in her description of Mad Men she says, "[We as Americans are] always falling short, no matter what out resources, and we pass this discontent to out offspring." She then goes on to say how Mad Men is an exact depiction of a point in time when the American Dream was still fairly new. The title of the essay Mad Men: Stillbirth of the American Dream, and through a series of summarizing and paraphrasing she explains why the American dream is slowly coming to a stagnant point. In the beginning of the essay Heather grabs the readers attention by listing and talking about different examples of America today using both nostalgic and critical means. She says "It's a sickness instilled in us from childhood." "we're instructed to hope for much more." Not being familiar with the show Mad Men, the way Heather described the show makes me curious onto how accurate her theories are and how it relates to America today.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Class Lab

Pg. 138 question
Easy
Novice
Medium
Hard
Difficult
What to wear
How to pass time
when to say no
When to study
What to eat
What shoes to use
Leave for class
When to shop
When to sleep
Financial choice
Choice on drink
What game to play
Drinking pepsi rather than coke
What college to attend
What to write about
Writing utensil to use
When to eat
When to stop for gas
When to stop playing games
How to concentrate

Choices I make are rather simple but can be difficult as well. From Daily activities like what to wear or how to pass time to what to eat and how to spend money affectively. I place what to eat in the difficulty box because I am a person who could be content with most anything as far as food goes my preference is pretty open. And when deciding on what to get I resolve it by going quantity over quality but tends to make me a bit large for a while. My activities aside, have priorities in either hard or difficult because a lot of the time it will be difficult to decide what bill to pay before the other bill or when to study for a test so I will still retain the knowledge gained from studying.
Pg. 141 question
I looked at two different sites that rate and recommend refrigerators and came up with an analytical conclusion.
Site 1
Right of the bat it tells you a little about why fridges are good and what you should find in buying a fridge both efficient and low price. Shows in detail a list of fridges they would recommend and scrolling down the page you will find different kinds of fridges from compact or mini to Big and old fashioned. In my opinion this site is more suited rather than site 2.
Site 2
This site represents fridges in a unique fashion with upon entering the page you find Advertisements for different kitchen ware. By scrolling down a bit you will find list of fridges with a rating from 1- 10 with prices that are a bit high for the average person just browsing for a replacement fridge and hotlinks to the site.
Conclusion

Both site 1 and 2 are unique in their own way I would recommend site 1 due to the nicely place narrative and easy navigation through the page. Also listed beside the fridges is a short summary and review of fridge. While site 2 is a bit overwhelming with all the advertisements placed in front of you along with drop down menus. This site is in my opinion more suited for people building or remodeling their kitchen. If I were to improve this site I would want to Place the advertisements on the side of the page rather than the top of the page. 

Final draft.

Clifford Nordstrom
English 101 5:30
Dr. Sonia Begert
11 October 2015
Narrative Paper
Let me tell you about something that happened when I was in 4th grade. Back then I was always reading books from The Magic Treehouse series and any other fantasy books that really interested me. There was a test called the AR test or The Accelerated Reader test that students could take when they finish reading a book. Books were cataloged into different levels based on grades. The average student would read a book suited to his/her level in the current grade. What made this enjoyable was that students can read books and then test their knowledge on what they read. There were many books I read and was tested on and by taking these tests I have risen up to about grade 6 as far as reading. Though that wasn’t much of an improvement cause there were other people above my grade achieving levels as far as high school. It tended to get me down at times but, I never really let it bother me so I just keep reading and testing.
Lunch time always came and went like clockwork. I usually enter in to the lunch room and hear almost glass shattering echoes from children either screaming or talking over other people talking. Smell of food wafts down the hallways like a wind rushing through the crowds of children making their way to the attractive smells. I usually get the first thing that comes to mind when entering the lunchroom which usually ends up being whatever is being served that day. Though the school lunch doesn’t make out to be the best at food due the plastic feel of cheese that if you ball up in to tight little ball shape would bounce as if it were a bouncy ball and the cardboard pizza that seems to smell just like pizza but is really tough to chew and generally tastes bland and unappetizing. Though the food is not the best, it does always help to wash it down with a nice pint of chocolate milk. Every day at lunch I would strive to eat as fast as possible so I could race over to the library and enjoy a good read. I had a favorite spot in the back corner of the library. I still remember every time I would walk into the library you would be hit from what seemed like a wave of warmth and smell of old books and paper. Like a mother reaching out to her child so did this warmth grasp a hold of me every day during recess time. I would immerse myself deep into the book I was currently reading at the time and just be swept away from reality until the loud bellowing sound of the bell will rip me into reality beckoning me to the classroom.
My classroom is located way back behind the actually school in one of six portable classrooms. Seems kind of ominous at times but teachers get kids to make decorative cement stones to put along the walkway toward portables. Often times you can hear the wildlife of the birds chirping off in the distance and frog’s croaking as loud as possible. While making my way toward the classroom I imagined what could happen in class today considering it was going to be time for English portion of the day. Upon walking into the classroom like the library you would always get hit by a wave of warmth and smell only this time it hit me more combined with the chill of the outside winter air and the sheer warmth of the classroom feels like a vortex sucking you in violently and dragging you into its depths. The smell like an overused piece of chalk and the long forgotten cardboard that nobody seems to use any more became my welcoming mat and my greeting was at the center of the classroom was my teacher. Like all teachers she was very warm to welcome in her students as a mother goose would welcome her goslings. With a tall black dress and short black hair, she had a very warm and gentle presence with a smile that will make you melt. While making my way toward my assigned seat it felt like every step had taken its toll and felt like I could fall asleep any moment. While the taste of milk still lingered and my stomach full of sustenance I feel at ease taking my seat. The teacher has always known me to bury my face in a book and has always encouraged me to strive higher in AR, though this time she approached me with another purpose. She asked me how I felt about reading and writing. I explained to her that every time I would pick up a book it would sweep me away to another world but writing has always been less interesting to me. She then smiled and was content, though the thought of her approach was a bit weird and so after the class which seemed to go passed in no time at all I approached her and asked her, “What if I did have an interest in both reading and writing?” She then said, “Write a story, it doesn’t have to be big but it has to be yours. Write a story that you would like to read.” After brewing over the idea of writing a story I had several ideas in mind all hitting me like a traffic jam. Later upon arriving at my designated bus stop I had the perfect idea. The moment the bus stopped at my bus stop I made my way toward the door and the moment I stepped on the coarse gravel road I raced like lightning all the way home which in reality was only two blocks away. I quickly made my way to my room and dropped everything to pull out my notebook from my backpack. My room was your average sized room with one window clouded over with dust and debris, my floor usually cluttered with clothes and super Nintendo games. My bed so messy it looked as though it wasn’t a bed but a nest made just for me a lined with many books as an outline for my nest. I grabbed the closest pencil that was your average wooden number two pencil and opened my notebook to place it on to my nest and went to work.
The topic was about a boy who was a farmer of a village whose dad ran the local saw mill. The boy had many chores to do every day and was not surprised to have his old man come home only to give him more chores. He repeated the process day in and day out. Only to rest on days his old man was either too drunk or too tired when coming home. The boy one day finds an egg while filling a water bucket at the nearby creek. This egg was about the size of his entire torso and contained a mystical dragon inside. I wrote about the many things this boy had to do to keep the dragon egg safe and when the egg finally hatch so did the boy into a man. The dragon befriended the young man and was able to talk and speak telepathically but only to the man because of the bond he and the dragon shared. The young man’s father finally passed leaving only his bad presence and smell. The boy and the dragon went on an adventure and left everything behind.

I wrote this story and what seemed to take only moments really took 5 hours. I even skipped dinner and snack time. It wasn’t until my father came in and said good night to me that I realized what time it was. That following morning I presented the story to my English teacher whom upon reading it started to tear up. I was worried that there may have been something she did not like and I was worried I did something wrong. Hesitant a spoke but then she interrupted me saying, “I’m Alright” taking a moment to finish the story. She then said to me, “I hope you keep hold of these stories and one day become a great writer.” From the wonderful words my teacher told me I was prepared to be an inspired individual. 

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Narrative Story

Narrative Paper
Let me tell you about something that happened when I was in 4th grade. Back then I was always reading books from The Magic Treehouse series and any other fantasy books that really interested me. There were test called the AR test or The Accelerated Reader test that students can take when they finish reading a book. Books were cataloged into different levels based on grades. The average student would read a book suited to his/her level in the current grade. What made this enjoyable was that students can read books and then test their knowledge on what they read. There were many books I have read and were tested on and by taking these tests I have risen up to about grade 6 as far as reading. Though that wasn’t much of an improvement cause there were other people above my grade achieving levels as far as high school. Tends to get me down at times but never really let it bother me so I just keep reading and testing.
    Lunch time always came and went like clockwork. I usually enter in to the lunch room and hear almost glass shattering echoes from children either screaming or talking over other people talking. Smell of food wafts down the hallways like a wind rushing through the crowds of children making their way to the attractive smells. I usually get the first thing that comes to mind when entering the lunchroom which usually ends up being whatever is being served that day. Though the school lunch doesn’t make out to be the best at food due the plastic feel of cheese that if you ball up in to tight little ball shape would bounce as if it were a bouncy ball and the cardboard pizza that seems to smell just like pizza but is really tough to chew and generally tastes bland and unappetizing. Though the food is not the best school has to offer it does always help to wash it down with a nice pint of chocolate milk. Every day at Lunch I would strive to eat as fast as possible so I may race over to the Library and enjoy a good read. I had a favorite spot in the back corner of the library. I still remember every time I would walk in to the library you would be hit from what seemed like a wave of warmth and smell of old books and paper. Like a Mother reaching out to her child so did this warmth grasp a hold of me every day during recess time. I would immerse myself deep into the book I am currently reading at the time and just be swept away from reality until the loud bellowing sound of the bell will rip me into reality beckoning me to the classroom.
   My classroom is located way back behind the actually school in one of six portable classrooms. Seems kind of ominous at times but teachers get kids to make decorative cement stones to put along the walkway toward portables. Often times you can hear the wildlife of the birds chirping off in the distance and frog’s croaking as loud as possible. While making my way toward the classroom I imagined what could happen in class today considering it was going to be time for English portion of the day. Upon walking into the classroom like the library you would always get hit by a wave of warmth and smell only this time it hit me more combined with the chill of the outside winter air and the sheer warmth of the classroom feels like a vortex sucking you in violently and dragging you into its depths. The smell like an overused piece of chalk and the long forgotten cardboard that nobody seems to use any more became my welcoming mat and my greeting was at the center of the classroom was my teacher. Like all teachers she was very warm to welcome in her students as a mother goose would welcome her goslings. With a tall black dress and short black hair, she had a very warm and gentle presence with a smile that will make you melt. While making my way toward my assigned seat feels like every step had taken its toll and feels like I can fall asleep. While the taste of milk still lingered and my stomach full of sustenance I feel at ease taking my seat. The teacher has always known me to bury my face in a book and has always encouraged me to strive higher in AR, though this time she approached me with another purpose. She asked me how I felt about reading and writing. I explained to her that every time I would pick up a book it would sweep me away to another world but writing has always been a less interesting to me. She then smiled and was content, though the thought of her approach was a bit weird and so after the class which seemed to go passed in no time at all I approached her and asked her, “What if I did have an interest in both reading and writing?” She then said, “Write a story, it doesn’t have to be big but it has to be yours. Write a story that you would like to read.” After brewing over the idea of writing a story I had several idea’s in mind all hitting me like a traffic jam. Later upon arriving at my designated bus stop I had the perfect idea. The moment the bus stopped at my bus stop I made my way toward the door and the moment I stepped on the coarse gravel road I raced like lightening all the way home which in reality was only two blocks away. I quickly made my way to my room and dropped everything to pull out my notebook from my backpack. My room was your average sized room with one window clouded over with dust and debris, my floor usually cluttered with clothes and super Nintendo games. My bed so messy it looked as though it wasn’t a bed but a nest made just for me a lined with many books as an outline for my nest. I grabbed the closest pencil that was your average wooden number two pencil and opened my notebook to place it on to my nest and went to work.
   The topic was about a boy who was a farmer of a village whose dad ran the local saw mill. The boy had many chores to do every day and was not surprised to have his old man come home only to give him more chores. He repeated the process day in and day out. Only to rest on days his old man was either too drunk or too tired when coming home. The boy one day finds an egg while filling a water buck at the nearby creek. This egg was about the size of his entire tarsal and contained a mystical dragon inside. I wrote about the many things this boy had to do to keep the dragon egg safe and when the egg finally hatch so did the boy into a man. The dragon befriended the young man and was able to talk and speak telepathically but only to the man because of the bond he and the dragon shared. The young man’s father finally passed leaving only his bad presence and smell. The boy and the dragon went on an adventure and left everything behind.

   I wrote this story and what seemed to take only moments really took 5 hours. I even skipped dinner and snack time. It wasn’t until my father came in and said good night to me that I realized what time it was. That following morning I presented the story to my English teacher whom upon reading it started to tear up. I was worried that there may have been something she did not like and I was worried I did something wrong. Hesitant a spoke but then she interrupted me saying, “I’m Alright” taking a moment to finish the story. She then said to me, “I hope you keep hold of these stories and one day become a great writer.”

Thursday, October 8, 2015

My Narrative Points

Event- To tell a story of my childhood story and to highlight the purpose of what sparked the passion.

Setting- The setting in short will be the classroom in which I first thought of the story.

Detail- I remember the instance in which the idea took place down to the very after taste of the food I had for lunch that day.

Point of View- The point of view would be in the view of my Past tense form and in first person.

Point- By explanation and thorough description, I will make sure to stay on the topic and story being told.