Argument

For my argument observation I observed my Aunt confront her husband about who gets to carve the turkey. My Uncle, a Vietnam war veteran, was convinced it is the man's job to carve the Thanksgiving turkey. This wasn't an intense argument. It was more like a comical debate. It was funny listening to my Aunt call my Uncle an old, southern sexist. They ignored the fact that it is tradition that he carves it. He's been doing it for twenty five years or so. My Aunt didn't really effectively combat his reasoning. She just argued for the sake of argument. I don't think she actually wanted to carve it, I think she just wanted to argue. In the end, my Uncle was victorious.

Home?

Just about everyone went home for Thanksgiving break, including me. It is nice to visit with relatives and old friends, but after a while, I'm ready to go back to school. While back home for break I've worked everyday (I've got to save money for books next semester!). I do enjoy the opportunity to make some money, but I must say I'm rather fed up with the recent Kroger shoppers. I work in the delicatessen (no, that's not me in the picture) and I get some damn rude customers. Lucky for them, I keep my cool. You might be surprised at how offended customers get if you cut just 0.03 more turkey than they requested. It really is a guessing game when you are slicing the meat. And it's not like I can't take some off. Anyways, I'm changing my definition of home from my parents' home in Westfield to my cozy little dorm in Muncie.

After of week with a brain dead phone, I finally got a new one. I have Verizon and I do love their cell phone coverage. However, I'm not a fan of their contracts. The phones you can buy with them are relatively cheap-with the two year contract. But without the contract, you're looking at spending no less than two hundred. So if your phone breaks within the two years of your contract AND you didn't buy the fifty dollar insurance, you better start saving. It's amazing how dependent this society is on technology that people are willing to spend full paychecks on a phone.

Monkey Chant

I added a video (right) of Glenn Kotche. In the video Kotche is performing his piece called Monkey Chant. He uses some very unique instruments. At the beginning of the video, he opens up a bunch of little containers. In these are live crickets. This is one of the most unique solo percussion pieces I have seen.

The End is Near

I didn't realize we are almost done with the first semester of the year. For most of us this is our first semester as college students. Personally, I loved it. For the most part classes were good, but I'm excited to take more classes that have to do with my major. As much as I love learning about the history of Madagascar's ecosystem, I don't. I'm glad to be getting the required courses out of the way as soon as I can. Next semester I have all writing classes. Should be interesting...But what about YOU?

Counter Argument

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act is aimed at preventing underage smoking. The FDA has created this act to reduce smoking in families in an effort to create a more healthy family lifestyle. The children of today are the future of tomorrow and this act was created to ensure that future that is in store for us is a healthy one.

Blog Assignment!

English 103 Course Goals:
English 103 introduces students to the fundamentals of rhetoric; to the elements, strategies, and conventions common to persuasion; to the use of those elements, strategies, and conventions in the construction of their own persuasive visual and verbal texts. Upon completion of English 103 students will:

1. Understand that persuasion-both visual and verbal-is integral to reading and composing.
-I think the multimodal project we did really helped me and our class understand this. Using visual imagery to help advance my persuasive argument helped me further understand how to successfully represent my stance.
2. Understand how persuasive visual and verbal texts are composed for different audiences and different purposes.
-Realizing our audience is probably the biggest thing I will take from this class. Knowing to whom I am writing is going to be critical, especially when trying to persuade the readers. Audience recognition is being well covered in this class.
3. Develop effetive strategies of invention, drafting, and revision for different rhetorical situations and individual composing styles.
-Drafting and revision has been a big part of class. The intensive reviews really helped with my revisions to my I Believe paper. Personally, I like the peer reviews better because everyone gets more feedback on your paper from your peers.
4. Compose texts in various media using solid logic, claims, evidence, creativity, and audience awareness.
-This is basically the description of the multimodal project. This project did exactly that. We used various media to create a persuasive argument. I liked being able to get creative with the project.
5. Integrate primary and secondary research as appropriate to the rhetorical situation.
-When we took a trip to the library, we learned all about research. I feel like that helped a lot with researching my topics. It even helped me get some good ideas for future papers.
6. Develop strategies for becoming more critical and careful readers of both your own and others' texts.
-I think this ties the critical analysis paper and the intensive reviews together. We basically critically analyze each others' papers during the intensive reviews. This has shown to be a very effective way to peer review.
7. Demonstrate a professional attitude towards writing by focusing on the need for appropriate format, syntax, punctuation, and spelling.
-Although we have talked about format such as MLA and APA, I don't feel we have put much emphasis on the importance of proper grammar and spelling.
8. Take responsibility for your own progress.
-This class is more of workshop than a class. That means a lot of the responsibility to get our work done is on us. As said by Professor McArdle, "This is big boy radio." We should all be old enough to do the necessary work to complete our assignments, and I think we have done a good job of showing that we are capable of just that.
9. Develop the ability to wrk well with others on composing tasks.
-We do have peer reviews for every paper, but only one. Other than that, we don't work with others on a face to face basis. The blogs are provide for some interaction, but not a high level of it.

Course Content & Format
The content and format of English 103 are designed to enable students to achieve the course goals; specifically, students in English 103 will:

1. Discuss, analyze, and respond to a variety of visual and verbal texts to identify rhetorical elements, strategies, and conventions.
-We have viewed several examples of our projects. We have done several critical analysis' of these examples. They help us see these rhetorical elements that we should be incorporating into our papers.
2. Discuss, analyze, and respond to the persuasive logics by which various visual and verbal texts achieve, or fail to achieve, their purposes.
-When I read this, I think of when we analyzed that artists' sand drawings. That helped greatly with the multimodal project.
3. Collaborate in developing ideas, analyzing visual and verbal texts, and providing peer feedback.
-Our class works very well together when collaborating together to generate ideas. One class, we took about fifteen minutes coming up with different kinds of public writing. We came up with ideas and solutions.
4. Compose persuasive texts through multiple drafts, revising based on peer feedback, self-reflection, instructor's written comments, and teacher-student conferences.
-We have many ways to get feedback on our paper. We have had a teacher conference, peer editing, intensive reviews, Professor McArdle's comments, and the writing center.
5. Reflect (orally and textually) on the rhetorical choices and decisions they are required to make as authors to shape a text for a specific audience and purpose.
-Our class has touched many times on the important decisions we will have to make regarding our audience. In a way, our entire class is based around the audience and the decisions we make regarding it.
6. Reflect (orally and textually) on the rhetorical choices and decisions they are required to make in order to construct meaning out of anther's text.
-I also feel we are covering this topic very well in class. We use our classmates' papers as examples. We also pull examples form short stories and the internet.
7. Complete a variety of writing assignments for multiple purposes, audiences, and contexts, using various media, and including primary and secondary research.
-We have had a good variety of writing assignments. For the most part, they all vary in purpose. Recently, we have used research to support our stance.

University Core Curriculum Goals
The central purpose of University Core Curriculum is to enable men and women to live rich and satisfying lives and to undertake the borad responsibilities of citizenship in a free society. Although the University Core Curriculum seeks to discover and nurture individual talents, its primary emphasis is preparation for roles people share as human beings and as members of family and communtiy groups. Thus, students will be able to:

1. Engage in lifelong education by learning to acquire knowledge and to use it for intelligent ends.
-I think this is one of the few classes I have where I actually am learning this.
2. Communicate at a level acceptable for college students.
-I think we are learning to write in a way to better convey our message the way we want it to be interpreted by others.
3. Clarify their personal values and be sensitive to those held by others.
-Our class is very respectful of others' opinions and viewpoints. I don't feel pressured or anything at all.
4. Recognize and seek solutions for the common problems of living by drawing on a knowledge of historical and contemporary events and elements of the cultural heritage surrounding those events.
-The public writing paper we are working on right now is addressing this goal. I think by the end of this class we will all be able to seek solutions for the common problems using the tools we acquired in this class.
5. Work with others to solve life's common problems.
-I don't know what this is supposed to mean. Some of life's common problems are the hardest to solve. I think the only way to solve them is to gain life experience.
6. Assess their unique interests, talents, and goals and choose specialized learning experiences that will foster their fulfillment.
-I think this is what college is all about. I especially think the I Believe paper had a lot to do with this.

Next Year's House

Four friends of mine and I have recently put a down payment on a house for next year. The house has a six bedrooms, two kitchens and two bathrooms. It also has a walk out deck on the second floor. The basement is small, but it'll do. The best part is, it's a fairly cheap one. $325 a month (including utilities) is not bad at all. Especially when it includes a weekly maid service!