last in-class writing!

What have you learned? What have you enjoyed? Not enjoyed? What will you take with you to other classes?

My primary goals with this class was to get more efficient with my writing. I used to start writing assignments, get distracted, lose motivation, got bored, and feel repetitive, then give it a last-ditch effort to make a page requirement. This class has allowed me to remember what it was like for writing to feel natural because we can write about things that are relevant and things we are passionate about. I will definitely take the new strategies for "Shitty First Drafts" and pre-writing with me  since I had been just outlining and winging it before this. I enjoyed work-shopping and getting an idea about what everyone else is doing. Sometimes I write papers and feel like I completely miss the point and it's drowning in my point of view, but this was productive. This is one of the only settings where I have felt my writing was "at home" since my major requires almost exclusively scientific research and APA ramblings. I'll save the essays I wrote in here as personal creations, and part of the spatial analysis for paper 1 was sent out to my family after I had sent it to my boyfriend for him to proofread - that paper ended up being about the place where he became the fiancé!

pansy first drafts

Oh, how I wish I could adopt the reckless, carefree prose style of Anne Lamott. I am someone who labors over the first page and needs a remarkable amount of motivation to start because I know how long it takes me. I am guilty of treating a first draft like a second or third. I can do the hasty, unfiltered writing in brainstorming and prewriting exercises, but I would be mortified to put such thoughts in a document I would turn in for any kind of grade or recognition. I'm afraid in editing I'll run over it and leave that poor lonely thought alone in its unrefined glory and never come back to it again. Most of what I consider to be revision includes rephrasing repetitive sentences and messing with the flow of the story. I get frustrated when revisions I receive in work shopping processes are minimal, I want to have a lot to look over and think about - seeing things from only my own perspective is boring to read and write about. I like having things to argue and defend on paper.

author's note, draft 1

This is a start, but I need one more body paragraph where I want to touch on the nuclear-level effects of Affluenza like bankruptcy at rates above that over college graduation as well as increasing levels of family fracturing and divorce due to extensive financial reasons. There should be a brief conclusion at the end with long-term effects on us as a population and why non-asset-holding college kids should care. Suggestions about prevention and cure of affluenza will get thrown into the end as well including social and financial changes that need to be made. Works cited will be completed at the end, but I listed my main information sources for reference, they will get worked in for internal citations in-text. I would like to get feedback on what conclusions I might be jumping to without proper backing as well as where I can expand and add more detail!

to tame a wild tongue

What definitions does Anzaldúa dispute in her piece? What definitions does she introduce that are new to you? Respond to her arguments – what resonated for you, and what didn’t work?

Anzaldúa is arguing the disastrous nature of the linguistic terrorism her culture experiences by English speakers and Spanish speakers alike. I hadn't really considered any one dialect of Spanish (I have lived in Texas my whole life, so perhaps it's the only one I have been exposed to) to be inferior to the others. The only thing I can even think of comparing it to is the funny looks Texas give to the occasional aboot that sneak out a Canadian/Northerner's mouth, but I had never thought of one being superior to the other. I can see where she's coming from with this argument, but I'm not sure that war and the loss of a dialect in formal speech can necessarily be equated like she tries to. A dialect is certainly a form of expression, and it's sad that schools try to take it away, but I didn't really get that out of her argument. The way she presented the oppression in English classes almost made me take the side of the school. I don't speak Spanish in any capacity, and in the first half of the essay there's a lot of Spanish colloquialisms and phrases that I couldn't understand without Google. I was pretty frustrated with trying to get her gist when I couldn't understand everything she said, and if I was trying to teach an English class I was hired to instruct, I would be equally perturbed. 

pearls before breakfast

I think one of the main things the author argues in Pearls is that of Music. Not just music, but good music. Bell is an incredible artist, even a work of art, but a work of art in the wring place without a frame is just art - not a masterpiece. This essay takes on a Kant-like epistemological point of view: is good music inherently good, or does it need to be perceived as good by the listener to be good? Bell talked about the validation he got for performing for thousands of dollars per minute in front of hundreds of paying ticket-holders. When he was taken out of that glorious setting and transplanted into a cold and dark subway station with sad clothes and an empty case, all the controlled variables for the concert hall are gone (no captive audience, no attention, no name recognition, no acoustics, nothing.) He's playing the same pieces with the same grandeur as he would play in Carnegie Hall, but without a frame, the artwork hangs alone. People rush by without any idea what kind of talent they're passing up. Bell was hoping that even against the odds of people rushing by to get to government jobs or get home, beauty would transcend needs.

in-class writing 11/3

This class discussion helped me re-frame the argument I was trying to make. I don't think my topic is as huge of a cultural phenomenon as we were talking about today, but the papers and the way they re-framed the conversation about wither topic were helpful in structuring mine better. The reading we did for today wasn't totally helopful intil we put it into flowchart form - could make for some very well-put-together paragraphs here pretty soon. This also gives me some more ideas on topics in general since some of the samples in the file reminded me of the film paper where I tackled stereotypes and pre-conceived notions about groups. Definitely should be better. I got a political cartoon related to running/redefining the running shoe like my argument, so maybe that can tie in as well.

an introduction to the toulmin model

a more college-kid friendly interpretation:

Argument is kinda tough to teach cause all the books on it suck and if all you do is tell kids what NOT to to - that's what going to happen. They're not going to do it. We gotta be positive here. There's not a lot of really well-structured arguments in day-to-day talk, so we gotta go old-school here to this model that looks like a teeter-totter. Here's where Toulmin hits the streets. He says making arguments with real life examples is tough, but here's the basics:

The Data: The starting point and the reason you got on the teeter-totter.
The Warrant: The down low, what we should already know, and what the argument hinges on. Get it?!
The Claim: the point you're trying to make by the time you've gone through the whole teeter-totter.

Ok but here's the catch - arguments aren't always rainbows and butterflies here. There's going to be times when you need a little street cred to get the argument to stand on its own. Here's your backup singers:

The Qualifier: likes to hang out with the claim, keeps the argument realistic, "Keeps it real."
The Reservation: sometimes the warrant isn't always right (even Dog the Bounty Hunter could tel you that), so the reservation sets some ground rules (the first rule of fight club...)
The Backing: justifies what we're assuming with the warrant is legit, gives it a reason to be.

Pretty hardcore.