Media In The Classroom

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of viewing the videos made by our fellow classmates. Each video we saw had great elements. I liked hoe group 4 turned the assignment into a news casting. This was a good was to state the facts without being boring. I really enjoyed group two’s video. It was the best edited. I loved how there were different types of people interviewed to produced different perspectives. Still, by far, my favorite video was group 3! I love comedy and this video was hilarious! I especially liked how they managed to make the video funny without deferring from the topic. Great job guys!
Videos in the classroom (via the web) are a fairly new thing. I am interested to see if this meme will continue to evolve and spread. Maybe, all of our assignments will be able to be submitted via videos! Can you imagine that?  To me videos in the class room have benefits and disadvantages.  It is an easy way to to convey a topic without writing a long drawn out paper. Yet, there are many things that can go wrong with the technology. If the meme does spread and evolve, I hope they give classes to aid in the production process!
Kashonda Mann
 

Rebecca Watson's Feminism

In class last week, my group read the second article about the feminism meme.  The article was about a woman named Rebecca Watson who was offended when a man asked her out to coffee. The author went on to say “What’s kind of funny about these things is that feminists love to talk about how creeped out they are by men who pay attention to them, and they love to carry on in detail about the particular experiences.”

Webster defines feminism as the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. I feel that the author has a distorted view of feminism due to extremists like Rebecca Watson. Watson, I think, overreacted to a simple request from an acquaintance. However, the author was wrong to assume that all women with feminist ideals are as extreme as Watson. I believe that any person who values equality between men and women hold feminist notions; however on a smaller, less aggressive scale than Watson.


Emily Spinner

Happy Thanksgiving! Some facts...

Some facts you might not have known about Thanksgiving...

• In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to move the official Thanksgiving date to earlier in November in order encourage a longer Christmas shopping season as a Depression recovery strategy.

*His idea was shut down by Congress and the official date was declared

permanently as the fourth Thursday in November via Public Law #379.

• Turkey is naturally low in fat without the skin, containing only 1 gram of fat per ounce of flesh. A 5-ounce serving provides almost half of the recommended daily allowance of folic acid, and is a good source of vitamins B, B1,B6, zinc and potassium.

• Wild turkeys are covered with dark feathers that help them blend in with their woodland homes. The bare skin on the throat and head of a turkey can change color from flat gray to striking shades of red, white, and blue when the bird becomes distressed or excited.

Turkey Terms:

• Caruncle is the brightly colored growths on the throat region. It turns bright red when the turkey is upset or during courtship.


• Gizzard is a part of a bird's stomach that contains tiny stones. It helps them grind up food for digestion.


• Hen is a female turkey


• Poult is a baby turkey; a chick


• Snood is the flap of skin that hangs over the turkey's beak. It turns bright red when the turkey is upset or during courtship.


• Tom is a male turkey; aka a gobbler.


• Wattle is the flap of skin under the turkey's chin. It turns bright red when the turkey is upset or during courtship.

Sources:

http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhistory/a/tgivinghistory.htm

http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/turkey.htm

Tattoo, graffiti and identity

Regarding our third paper on the topic of graffiti, we had a speaker come and talk about his experience with body modifications, tattoos in particular. He presented the class with the reasoning behind his tattoo and how it defines him as a person. In class we talked about identity and how both of these art forms, graffiti and tattoos, are related. I believe that tattoos and graffiti are both expressions of art and define either the person wearing the tattoo or the person tagging the graffiti.

Both art forms help create an identity. For example, a person can be spotted out of a crowd by the tattoo they wear or a well known graffiti artist can be identified by their artwork on a wall. These forms of expressing one's self also have stories behind the artwork. For example my favorite graffiti artist, Banksky, is a political activist and it really shows in his street art. The same can be said about tattoos. I have six tattoos myself and each one has its own story on how it became on my body. All of them help identify who I am.

Megan Girouard

Writing with anxiety

"Writing anxiety" and "writers block" are two informal terms that come to most students mind when thinking of papers. Some people may feel more comfertable about writing on a specific topic, while feeling apprehensive about writing on topics you my not know a lot about. Writing anxiety and writers block are situational. People are not born anxious writers; rather they become anxious or blocked through negative or difficult writing experiences.
        These feelings may arise when you have to adjust to a new form of writing, working with  limited amount of time, you may not enjoy the given topic, your reader may be overly critical or your dealing with personal issues outside of school. In order for students to overcome these feelings while doing a writing assignment they should find and use some useful strategies. Get support, choose a writing buddy, someone you trust and know will encourage you during your assignment. Identify your strengths as a writer rather than focusing on your weakness's. Recognize that writing is an attempt to contribute what you know and how you feel about a topic at a particular point in time. Think of yourself as an apprentice, learning as you write, figure out your own unique writing process and go with it. Celebrate your successes. Whatever obstacles you've faced, celebrate the occassions when you've overcome them. There is always going to be parts in your writing that you may fail, but without failure it would be difficult if not impossible to grow as a writer.


Emily Cooper

Identity

     In class we started discussing identity and discussed how the people can influence others to change their identities. What had brought up this discussion was that in an earlier class, we discussed the Amish and how they should change in order to be more efficient. The class was split pretty evenly about this discussion. Is it right to force someone to change from an identity they have had for so long and have grown accustomed to?

    For me personally, I do not believe so. Unless their identity is causing them harm or others harm, why not let people live? The Amish have survived for many years without electricity and the luxuries we have, and I believe they will continue to do so. The human race lived like they do for many, many years, and we have come this far. I do not see the harm in allow a group of people to stick with tradition of that is what they want. And this can go along with any identity. As long as they are not causing harm to themselves or others, let people live the way they feel like they want to or in a way that will emphasize who they are.

Sarah Geisweit

Paper anxiety: A personal experience

Paper anxiety occurs with most everyone.  Writing a paper can be hard especially when it is on a topic that is foreign or uninteresting.  In some cases, you cannot choose the topic on which you write, this is usually a situation where paper anxiety comes in to play.  When you’re writing a paper and you begin to feel anxious, taking a deep breath and break from the paper is helpful.  Regaining your thought process and reviewing the topic in more detail would also help your thought process.  Keep in mind that it is not beneficial to panic or give up. A positive attitude will positively affect your paper.

                In paper II, the band I decided to write about was ABBA.  Although I knew some of their more famous songs, in general I knew little about the group.  The fact that we had to choose a band from another country alone started minor anxiety; when I had to make an argument on a band I knew little about is when my anxiousness took hold.  As I proceeded to write my paper, I learned more about ABBA and was able to construct a sound argument.  Throughout the process I also took multiple breaks to keep myself from becoming overworked or frustrated.  I believe my actions in writing paper II truly impacted my writing and anxiety.

Hannah Fullerton