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

Older adults and newer music styles

In the world of music and entertaniment, there has been some amazing music videos and musicans. Some older adults cant stand the new style of music, from techno/dubstep to rap/hiphop. Older adults love to listen to some artiest like the Beatles, to the Greatful dead, to Marvin Gaye. Personally i'm a huge fan of all those artiest, but can some older adults listen to artists like Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and even Notorious B.I.G. So what can we do to make older adults appreciate the new style of music?

In my mind we need to influence the older adults by maybe having a little sit down and conversation with them about the new style of music. Maybe they dont like how rappers curse and say expleciate words/meanings, but if you think about it and look at the lyrics its poetry. In a song by Kanye West called "Diamonds are Forever" it speaks a message that say the war in Africa about "blood diamonds" is a crime and should be stopped. Another song that speaks another message about how to live in the streets and the only way of income is by selling crack. This song is the "10 Crack Commandments" by Notorious B.I.G. So my final thought is will Older Adults final listen to "our music?" probably not.

Adam Clements

Imagining alternatives to your argument

In class Monday, group 2 talked about imagining alternatives to your argument from our book. When a writer recognizes weak spots in their paper, they show their readers that they are honest and dealing with them. Sometimes a source takes a different approach than yours. When this happens you want to focus on the different aspects of the problem. You want to emphasis on the part where you and your source disagree. As a writer you don’t want to dismiss evidence because it might be irrelevant or unreliable. A reader might consider it significant so you want to acknowledge it but explain to your reader why you didn’t use it. By doing this you can see alternatives and use them in your paper.

            In my paper 2 I did not think that what kind of keyboard my music group uses was important. Even though I didn’t think it was important, I still put it in to. It gives my readers a better understanding of the group.

Cassandra Gazzo

The importance of evidence to back up your reason

It is not enough to write a paper based on reasons alone to support a claim; there must be evidence to back up your reasons. If a researcher just states reasons throughout his research and does not sight them, a careful reader is not going to just take the researchers word for it. Evidence must be proved and even when is seems unquestionable to the researcher, it should be sighted for the assurance of the reader. In order to write a good research paper, there must be evidence to support your reason, and the evidence must be properly sighted.

An application of this would be the difficulties of losing weight by just using a fad diet, because you actually need to work your body in order to see positive and lasting results. Evidence for the importance of exercise in weight lose could surely be found on any number of health websites.

Leslie Boylan

Distinguishing Evidence from Reason

       In class on Tuesday we read and discussed the topics of Distinguishing Evidence From Reasons, and Distinguishing Evidence from reports of it. Both of these topics will most likely play a crucial role in the writing of our second papers. We will definately need to supply concrete evidence to support our reasons behind our claims for the bands or artists we have chosen to write about. Statements that we will make throughout our papers must report a shared, public fact that readers will agree not to question for the purpose of the argument, and to count as evidence as well. We must consider the idea that readers will question the quality of the facts we present. To be able to silence the skeptics we must be clear as to how we collected our evidence, and by whom it was collected. Ultimately we must be able to assure our readers that they can trust the data we have presented them with. To achieve this we should think critically about whose data we use, and how we use it.

        Even if you have not chosen who you want to write about, you can still consider the approaches you can use. Thinking about what types of data and evidence you would like to use to support your reasons and claims will only help you be better prepared, and able to write more effectively. I feel that the forms of data that are used in our research is extremely important. This not only affects our ability to convince or pursuade our readers, but also our credibility as writers. If we don't provide credible evidence, we will not come off as quality researchers.

 

Matthew Bush

Primary, Seconary and Tertiary Sources

Hey everyone. I chose to blog about the differences between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. For my research outline paper, I am writing about how the Pittsburgh Pirates can rebound from their 19 year losing season streak. I'm thinking about interviewing people throughout campus, asking them questions like "What do you believe the Pirates need to do this offseason in order to turn themselves around?". My primary source of information will be the statistical information about the team throughout the past 10 seasons. Information like batting averages, player stats, trades, potential players coming up from the minors, etc. My secondary source will be various books and magazines about the team. The interviews I will conduct will be used as my tertiary source.


I will interview between 10 and 20 people, I haven't decided on a number yet. I will record these interviews by pen and paper. As for the statistical and factual information I will get them from respectable internet sources and unbiased book sources. I will look at some magazine articles, and books written about the teams downfall and what the author(s) view of the Pirates is.


Chad Baker

On the Most Important Image Ever Taken

When we look up into the sky we only see about three thousand stars, but the video The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken, shows us what is out there far beyond what our eyes can see. This video, which we watch in class last week, explains the trips that the Hubble Spacecraft took. What was so significant about the Hubble was that it was able to capture images of the Ultra Deep Field which contains images of ten thousand different galaxies. Some consider this to be the most important image taken by humanity because it show us just how small we are in a universe that is seventy eight billion light years across. Also, this image is very captivating because it poses the question as to whether or not there are other plants like Earth.


After reviewing this astonishing image the Hubble took of the Ultra Deep Field, many people feel as it is absurd to believe that there is not a planet out there like ours. We are just one plant in a galaxy with life on it, but there are thousands upon thousands of other galaxies out there. Some believe that there are more like us out there, while others feel we are one of a kind, and then there are those who claim they have already seen organism who have mastered intergalactic travel. Everybody is entitled to believe what they wish, and this debate will continue to go on for a long period of time.

Christine M. Aughenbaugh

On KFCruelty!

Franchises such as Kentucky fried chicken sell really cheap food. But what allows the company to sell food cheaper? What kind of quality is it? Well, chickens sold to kentucky fried chicken are all abused. Animal abuse is very common in the food industry. Chickens are fed food and hormones to increase their growth rate. But sadly the outcomes tends to be that because they grow so fast their legs can't hold their own weight so their legs break. Chickens have to endure torture before they are slaughtered, how do feel as a consumer, especially watching the clip in class, eating food that has this background of abuse?

IN class we watched a video clip that showed Kentucky FRied chicken abusing their chickens. How many fast food restaurants actually use this method? What could we do as consumers to stop such behavior? How does animal abuse affect your opinion of eating meat?In the long run how would we suffer if they cut down mass production of produce in order to treat the chickens in a better manner? 

Sabrina Lisuzzo

Research and Formal Style

After reading Ch.1 in class about thesis statements and introductions and then coming up with our own I learned a great bit from professor Ahmed. In Chapter One we properly learned how to write a paper, a formal paper. Most students would disagree with writing a formal paper because they would assume the teacher or profesor is trying to change them or alter their identity, which isn't the case at all. By using formal language you are reaching more people than just the select few you would with your preferred style of writing. In the long run you will benefit professionally. Professor Ahmed is also showing us how to properly write a thesis statement and than answer it, such as what we did in class last friday.

       When we gave our presentations in class friday group 3 read section 1.3, which says: "but it would be a mistake to think that learning to write sound research reports must threaten your true identity". The statement practically sums up everything I've previously stated in the first paragraph. Writing formal won't change your identity if anything it will better it. Also once we learn how to properly apply the answers in our papers to our thesis statements I believe we all will be able to consider ourselves proficient writers.

Jamee Nichole Joppy