Bloggin4ENG121

Bloggin4ENG121 Review

By Cristina Aguirre

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Bloggin4ENG121 is a blog where a group of classmates post assignments for their English 121 class. The first thing that captured my attention when I opened the blog was the images that went with the blog post. The images captured my attention and made me want to read more. The images illustrate clearly what the blog post is talking about; it’s always nice to have an image to go along with the text. The focus of the blog is clear, the writers talk about different ways that they can improve their writing and the different techniques that they all have learned. Each member of the blog demonstrates the techniques they have learned and express their understanding by writing about different topics, whether it is writing about a chapter they read in their class textbook, an image they studied or reviewing other blogs.  Bloggin4ENG121 has a simple layout, it is easy to navigate and explore different parts of the blog. This blog is not so much for entertaining but it does provide you with information about writing. After reading this blog I would definitely follow this blog, I found it interesting, easy to read and loved the images.  

 

 

Reading though the blog AKA121 I was struck by two things the clarity of thought and the starkness of the format. I am not sure if this was done on purpose or not. This does have the effect of focusing your attention right on to the text. Making you move right from one post to the next with nothing to get distracted by. This quality makes the blog very user friendly if a little unappealing to the eye. It might be nice if it was made to look more intentional as so not look as if the writers are not sure what to do with the unused space.

The writers have a good command of the topic at hand which makes me confident in their opinions expressed in the blog. The clean lines and clear block format make the blog clear and concise. When you look at it you know exactly what is going on and what to expect. This coupled with relevant though makes the blog an easy clear read.

The only thing that I disliked about the blog was the use of memes as many of the pictures for the posts. They felt irrelevant to the posts and I was unsure how they wanted me to relate to them. 

After reading the AKA121 one thing that I would bring to my blog is the clean formant I like the clear focus that this gave the reader.

wordexplosions blog review

 On careful review of a list of blogs, I settled down to review wordexplosions blog. My experience is a little stilted as all I have to view the blog is a cellphone, but I must say this. All of the images on the blog loaded for my phone, and all the posts were easily accessible. As such, the bloggi experience from a phone is fairly enjoyable though I may have missed out on certain background and organization facets of the blog.
 As an English blog, most of the posts were what I expected: a group of people learning to write for English and blog together in a professional atmosphere. They review chapters of English books and make group posts together. I enjoy their personal insights about the English subjects.  One of the things about this blog that I particularly liked was one of their more recent posts. They reviewed an essay for English, and carefully set up what they learned from the essay as a group. At the end, each of the members who had created the blog post put a paragraph about their own reflections on it. It gave a very individualistic approach while still being a group effort, and I almost wish my group could do something like that too.
 On their individual chapter reviews, I could tell each person has their own writing voice. That was very nice and good too, though I feel that's probably the case for the blog I run with my group too.
 My only criticism is the images they use are often words, such as in their review of example essay writing where there image is the word example in red. The text as image seems to take away from the focus for me and makes me a bit taken aback. The thing is, their name is word explosion and with words as images their name is quite literal and that amuses me. I have to give them props for that, and as such my feelings on the text as image is mixed because though sometimes it feels like it detracts from the blog it adds to the overall blog title.

Class Blog Review

Class Blog Review
CAAS: Reading a Political Cartoon

After reviewing several blogs I found the most thorough and informative was posted by CAAS: "Reading a Political Cartoon."  The blog clearly informs the reader what the image is trying to convey and what the thesis of the post is which is that America is nothing more than a gun shop.

The information was organized and had enough examples that support the thesis. The description used gave me a clear idea of the meaning behind the image and was relevant with the main point.  The specifics of color, design and artistry was defined by what they represent.

I was able to see the definition of the image through the post's perspective and agree with the thesis.

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Lifosuction Review

The thesis of the essay is, how at times people exaggerate or diminish parts of their resume to enhance their personal image.

There are 12 examples that support the thesis.

Joseph Ellis
The Mayan Peasant Woman
Paula Parks
Sandra Bullock
Vanilla Ice
Jim Morrison
Bill O'Reilly
Mike Barnacle
William H. Harrison
Harold Wilson
Michael Meacher
Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas


Reading Closely and Thinking Critically Pg. 253

1. According to Murphy, lifosuction is a way people tailor their present day image.

2. Murphy means that it is hard to be critical because we all do lifosuction to one degree or another. Murphy feels that lifosuction is fairly inconsequential.  We can tell because he expands on his point in paragraphs nine and ten.

3. For the most part, the examples Murphy's gives seem to be fairly harmless elements, and some of them in spite of being harmless are gross misrepresentations of the truth.

4. Murphy's examples deal with the removal of privileges because their is a societal stygma associated with wealth, like "Born with a silver spoon in their mouth."

5.  Menino's comment to the reporter is ironic because digging up dirt is what a reporter does.

Examining Structure and Strategy

1. The thesis of the essay is best expressed on paragraph three.  Many times people exaggerate or diminish parts of their resume to enhance their personal image.

2. The tone of the essay is a little satirical.  It is consistent through the writing.

3. The examples on paragraph three are major indiscretions of the truth, which does contrast with the authors purpose.

4. Paragraphs, three, four, five, six and eight introduce examples with a topic sentence.  The examples are clear and helpful to the reader because it informs the reader of the paragraphs intention and thesis.

5. Murphy organizes his examples in a progressive order because the information matters less and less.

Coincidence Language and Style

1. Lifosuction was made by replacing the Lifo for Lipo in liposuctions.  The term is not clever because it is annoying in providing to vivid of a picture.

2. Meaning of words:
- Tribune: an official in ancient Rome chosen by the plebeians to protect their interests.
- Dint: Impression in a hollow surface.
- Cadre: Members of a small group
- Pugilist: Professional boxer.
- Proletariat: The working man


Austin Hennigan and Stephanie Schraeder

Exemplification Thesis

Stephanie Schraeder - 
Mr. Steve was one of the funnest and nicest teacher's I knew.  He not only helped us loved science, he was also a mentor and a friend.  Mr. Steve was inspiring to all.

Austing Hennigan - 

Chapter Seven Reading Response

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While reading chapter seven in “Patters For A Purpose” on exemplification, I was at first surprised that it even existed. It has never occurred to me that the subject of exemplification could be a whole chapter. I have always thought along the lines how could there be an essay without examples. Is this not what an essay is? Proving one's point through examples. Immediately after having this thought, I realized that by asking the question I had answered it. If the essence of an essay is examples then, there needs to be a chapter on it. Maybe even a few, one for the use of examples for each type of essay. By the time I was done with the chapter I ended up at the other extreme and wanted more on the subject.

However it, seems to be a fairly simple concept that does not require great detail. There is no need for a verbose dissertation on it, you say that something is someway and then give a reason. Such as, carpets are bad because they hold dirt. Sooner or later though you will have go beyond grade school writing. You will need to be able to give a good explanation of your reasoning that has a little more depth to it. This is where the sweat and tears of mastery are, as much as you want to just say “because it is” that's just not enough any more. It is one those irksome things in life that can take a day to learn and a lifetime to master.

Austin

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Reading Response Ch. 7

Reading Chapter 7 gave me a clear understanding of why it is necessary to properly exemplify and essay.  To exemplify is to illustrate a general idea or opinion, supporting the concept through proper data, research and observation or personal experience.  This is key to maintaining the readers interest.

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The detail that supports an example is of importance when involving  a reader. There are certain hypothetical examples so using  proper descriptive illustrations helps the reader differentiate between real or made up facts and identify closer with the essay.

Examples must be supported by proper evidence and detail in order to approach specific readers that relate to the subject.

When using proper exemplification, there are several steps that are taken in order to space different ideas correctly and organize detail accordingly.  If the writer is trying to give his point of view through persuasive writing and is trying to convince the reader, the details would be placed in a progressive order. Trying to illustrate ideas that occurred in the past and are still part of the present would be arranged  in a chronological order, in order to space time properly. Spatial order can be used when trying to describe a place or certain area, like a room or a large swimming pool.

 After analyzing the importance of a illustrated essay, I look back at different books and have found that all the examples used are why I kept reading and encaptivated by the subject.  In other words, they kept me from being bored.

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Exemplification - Chapter 7



More Examples Please

In this chapter we have learned what exemplification is, by using exemplification in your writing you create a new way to explain an idea, convince or amuse your writer about something that you are writing about. Many times when writing we tend to explain things without giving many examples, and the reader doesn’t know the details about what we are writing. With exemplification we can give examples about the topic without going straight to the main point of the writing piece. By giving examples in writing we can get the attention of the reader. Examples in writing can be used in many ways, examples can express feelings about how we feel about something. Many times that is what the reader wants to know, our opinion. It is good to know what exemplification is because next time you are writing you will now know that by using examples you can get the reader’s attention and make the reader be interested in your writing.

-Cristina Aguirre

View from a Window

At first glance, the images main focal point is the view of a Mountain and a cat on the edge of a barred window sill. We are drawn to the white of the mountains and cat that reflect off  the sunset behind a rice field.   After observing the painting, the texture and usage of lines suggest the medium worked on is a wooden block print, a style known as "Ukiyo-e."

Japanese Bob Tail, Mt. Fuji

The image seems to represent an important icon in Japanese culture, Mt. Fuji.  It is captivated through the view from a room looking out over the rice patty's during a Torinomachi Festival. Grey color shadows the fields and do not seem to represent much importance, compared to the red behind the mountain.  The yellow roof tops also emphasizes the importance of community and its people.  The colors help  draw its reader to direct their attention to the main focal icon.

With further observation, brown wooden bars around a window show us this is a room in a house. Viewing smaller detail, we see a wash basin and hair pins on the ground.  The walls are decorated with what looks like upside down birds giving us the idea the room belongs to a woman.

A cat is laying on the window sill looking at the view as well.  It gives the sensation of a quiet  and typical evening. The painting clearly represents what it is trying to show us, a very symbolic view of the iconic mountains and the influence upon the surrounding culture.

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The Group

Coincidence or Fact

The belief in cause and effect is well held by the general public. We all get the experience of stubbing our toe and then having it hurt after.  This is a very basic form of cause and effect. Something happened and there was a result. When taken to the logical extreme people will often think that this means all effects have a cause, though just because something happened does not mean that what preceded it was the cause.  This is called Post hoc ergo propter hoc, is a logical fallacy that is the equivalent of stubbing your toe then experiencing a headache. Then blaming your headache on stubbed your toe.

The best way to avoid this is to make sure that your conclusion is based on real evidence. Make sure that event two was caused by event one. This effort to prove causation not correlation will help keep you from falling in this logical hole and being misled. When you stubbed your toe then experience a headache there is a correlation between the two, but what it you also hit your head at the same time? This would be causation.

 The Group

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Revision: A Reading Response

Bart Simpson

As a person who writes stories, often times for nanowrimo, I write rough draft open rough draft for my fictional works. I'm never satisfied until at least three drafts later and I keep re-writing things from there. In Chapter 3 of Barbara Fine Clouse's work, aptly titled "Writing and Rewriting" I found myself smiling wryly because of how often I have used some of the tips she has suggested college students try for their essays.

One of my favorite things that she has suggested is for the very beginning of writing a rough draft. It's when you write and let your conscious flow about whatever subject you happen to be writing for. It allows for an easy way to get your ideas on the page and often stops writer's block in it's tracks. All the mess you fill the page with can be edited later of course, and that way works very well! You simply sit down with your stream of consciousness rough draft and re-read it. Though I admit it is often hard not to make faces at the bad writing it's full of, but that rough writing is just for you. You can get it to a place you feel more confident with very easily!

Then, from there, it's often times not quite good enough. I like to repeat the process above again by myself. If it's not for something that I'm handing in for my college class, I will let my new and edited rough draft, or rough draft number two, sit around for a week or two before going to re-read it again. It often produces the same cringe of course! For essays, what Clouse has suggested at this step is to let your teacher or two other people read your essay. I like saving this step for after I've gone over my fictional things twice, and because of this I don't often get to have the peer review for my essays. I think I might want to try skipping re-reading my essays myself a second timebecause I know for a fact that people who are not me often see the mistakes I've made better than I do.

From there, it's either more tweaking to produce a final copy or more tweaking to produce another rough draft and go over it again and again! The good thing is that Clouse offers tips to those who don't quite know how to do it.

-Jasmine Peake

Chapter 1: Reading Critically Reading Response

"Question Everything"

As a reader, I often make less than critical decisions regarding the text of what I read. It's not that I accept what I'm reading as fact, it's more that I read it and move on with my life and leave what I have read behind me. In reading Patterns for A Purpose by Barbara Fine Clouse, I have found that this is an exceptionally bad way to go about things, especially as a college student. How can I make essays on what I read if I don't question it? How can I choose a position to defend if I allow myself to be nonplussed by the reading material? How will I learn anything if I do not allow the myself to question the world?

The answer to all these questions is that I simply can't. Lucky for me, Clouse offers solutions and easy ways to begin to question both images and texts. One of the things she suggests you do is determine the purpose of the image, which from there allows you to judge whether the image is effective or not. Take for example the image I used with this post- originally, I saw this picture of a pretty flowered tree rising from a book. It was aesthetically pleasing to me but when a tree rises from a book there are two options that readily spring to mind in my opinion. The first is that nature will one day over take all that man has made, and the second is that it symbolizes what was lost to create the book. Both of those meanings have nothing to do with reading critically and would not fit the tone of my text. 

Another of her solutions is offering your questions to ask yourself, and inviting you to mark up books wherever you go! As someone who does not like pencils or touching paper very much this insightful comment does indeed make me a bit uncomfortable. I also like books looking spotless. She counters this by explaining that if you write as you read, your mind will connect the information deeper. According to Clouse, it will help you distinguish fact from opinion and "Stop you from going to sleep as you read." I can honestly see where that would come in handy. There have been a lot of nights where I fell asleep with a book only to wake up still clutching it in my hands the next morning, but not remembering at all the story I read before lapsing into slumber land.

I think it is best for me to adapt the ideas of Clouse at least for college. Maybe it will help me study better, and get better grades.

-Jasmine Peake

Humans Of New York (Are You Human?)

Brandon

The art of blogging is still evolving. As this medium taken the world by storm there is a time for when you have to go from just watching something evolve to thinking critically about how it informs our world. One blog that is worth looking at is humans of New York.

As our group tool on this challenge of blog review we found many interesting quartiles of this blog. Human of New York is the inspiration of Brandon Stanton when one day he decided to create a compilation of pictures of New Yorkers.

It emotionally connects people through images and short snippets of interviews. This type of emotional connection is uncommon today because of the fast paced world that we live in today.  This world has made people afraid of expressing what they feel, and fear judgment. This human connection that he creates in this blog is a way to relate other people’s experiences to our own.

This human connection is greatly lacking in the modern world and is a nice way for people to reflect on their own life. It does not mater were you come from as humans we all experience suffering and joy in the same way it is this that creates a connection between people and a reader with this blog.

The Group

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How words help you take over the world

I remember reading an article a few years back that said there are about one million words in the English language. This was compared with some other major languages that had between one quarter to one half a million words in them. The article then presented the idea that this vast array of words available to the English language is what has helped it become one of the top spoken languages in the world. The basic theory presented was that the more words available to users, then the greater level of description available. This then led people to gravitate to English because of its greater level of nuance.

Image by Bhakti at OMWOODS

The chapter on Descriptions in “Patterns for a Purpose” may have less lofty goals than Geolinguistics world dominance. None the less it is what makes the difference in the way people communicate. Description is what gives language its substance. In English a sentence is all noun → verb. With a few prepositions and conjunctions hanging around to make life a little easier. You have no real need for any other part of speech. Things like adverbs, interjections or adjectives are not needed to convey an idea. We could get a long just fine with out them, but then life would get quite boring. One person could never run “faster” than another. Every one would just run.

To just run is not human. We are not creatures of absolutes, we feel. This is one of the qualities that many people think separates humans from other life forms. I for one do not believe that humans could live with out expressing them selfs in a highly descriptive way. If you don't believe this, next time your at a friends house, that has one of those fridge magnet word sets. Don't make a nice sentence with it. Take all the words and categorize them in to there parts of speech and see how many come up as a descriptive word.

Ultimately I think that we can all agree that a little thing called the British Empire. May have played a greater role in the spread of English, then all the forms of fast. Still it is an interesting thought, what if the utility of a language based on the level of detail available to its speakers plays a role in how that language is spread. I am not sure it is true or even if it is, how much of a factor it would be. But if there is any truth to this idea, than this chapters on descriptions. Is not just a good lesson but one with global affects.

Austin

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Reading Response Ch.5

Reading Response Ch.5 

"Driving down thick and congested traffic the heat of the golden sun could not take my mind away of the ice cold soda waiting for me at home.  I could already feel the popping sound of the glass bottle while a smoke of gas gently leaves the air.  As it goes down my throat, the ice cool bubbles tickle my stomach while sending a satisfied belch as a thank you."    

Being able to describe an experience through words, gives the reader an in depth connection, creating sensory impressions of what the author is feeling or trying to portray. Opening the senses through proper use of  descriptive words can deliver a more mental picture, it can be used to entertain, express feelings and relate experiences.  Descriptive writing can also be used as a form to inform and persuade, depending on the kind of delivery the author wants to send his readers.  Creating a connection with the author is being able to interpret what they are trying to say. 

With descriptive writing there are certain patterns to keep in mind.  Much like the patterns in an essay itself, there is a certain structure of what a properly formed descriptive sentence contains.  This chapter helped me understand the main idea behind being able to write a descriptive essay.  Choosing a topic to describe is the main focus.  The next step is being able to indicate the main impression or detailed description, it should also have a dominant impression which are the details that express the impression.  A descriptive essay can also contain different pattern combinations.  Process analysis is a pattern that through narration describes how an author is feeling towards the subject.  Cause and effect analysis  is when the author is trying to show how the they feel through description.   

http://helpfulpapers.com

This chapter reviewed the proper way to express feelings through different descriptive patters.  Creating senses for the reader through proper description and support of evidence.  Being able to immerse the readers feelings, is being able to connect through all the senses. I was able to get a better understanding of how invoke a reader through detail and description. 

Image:  http://helpfulpapers.com/blog/2013/04/30/a-descriptive-essay-example-learn-to-draw-with-words/