"Engaging the Text" #3

According to Terkel, the American Dream is "governed not by education, opportunity and hardwork, but by power and fear."(pg. 356) I have never heard this side of the American Dream, but based on the author's experiences, I would say that he is right. The American Dream wasn't, at the time that this was written, what we all think of it as being. Terkel says that the only reason that he was living the American Dream was because the companies he worked for wanted to have him on display. They wanted to show that they were diverse, but they wanted him to "get to know their business," or as he puts it "fall in line." I would like to think that today, this practice of diversifying companies just to look good is not nearly as common as it was back then. This whole book is showing a side to America that I never took the time to consider before.

Engaging the Text (#2)

I do not think that the essay is making the case that the wealthy are exploiting the poor. I think Mantsios is just trying to show expose the myths and class problems in America. The author has a lot of factual evidence to back up his claim. The data that is used as evidence can't really be interepreted any way except to support the author's argument. The evidence that the author uses is overwhelming. There were so many statistics in the essay, I can't remember most of them. By the time I finished reading this I couldn't remember a lot of the data, I mainly remember the data stating that sexism and racism affect class. For some reason this piece of information stuck with me. The author really opened my eyes to all the myths of America, and how we all think that middle class is the dominant class. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to talk about class, and I never really thought about why until after I read this. I have always believed that the middle class was the largest, and that you can always work your way up from whatever class you are in. Yes, it is difficult and rare to do this, but it's possible. It's more possible in this country than in any other country in the world.

Evaluation of the argument presented in "A Letter to Jim"

The argument presented in this essay is a good argument. It's definitely debatable, and the author explains and gives evidence to back up her argument. This is a better argument than the one presented in "A Case For Torture," because she explains why she believes what she does, and she does explain the other side of the argument as well. I think she did a really good job explaining her side, because after reading this essay, I wish that I didn't love meat so much, because I feel bad eating it now. I think that this argument is appealing to a carnivorous audience. The author's logic is explaining why eating meat is so bad , and her credibility is that she is a vegetarian. This argument is not new, vegetarians versus meat eaters has been going on for a long time, and I think the author did a good job of presenting her side of the argument, and showing the other side at the same time, which is difficult.

My real-life Pseudo Argument

Recently, I came home from a friend's house at around 11:45 p.m. When I went upstairs to tell my parents that I was back, my dad was up and was sitting in his room reading in a book. As soon as he saw me he started not yelling, but speaking in an unnecessarily loud voice. "Kendal Christine it's 11:50 and your curfew is 11:30!" I answered him by saying in a much calmer manner, "umm we never discussed any curfew, ever, so how was I supposed to know that I needed to be home by 11:30?" Not lowering his voice at all, he said "Well now you know." Thinking that the situation was extremely unfair, and that the curfew was too early, I reminded him that my brother didn't have a curfew, to which he reponded that it was different with me because I'm a girl.

This whole argument upset me greatly. Not only did I have to be home, what I considered early, but my dad was treating me differently and unfairly because I'm a girl. There was no way that I could change my dad's mind, because he is extremely stubborn, and would not even consider my side.

Ethos, Pathos, and Ethics

Chapter 4 "Pathos"

The third type of argument, is Pathos. It is the type of argument that appeals to the senses and emotions of the audience. The book says on page 75, that the "pathos appeals more specifically to an audience's imaginative sympathies-their capacity to feel and see what the writer feels and sees." The pathos arguments affect the readers emotionally, which makes them care more, and want to argue more. When you can affect people emotionally, it makes them become the most passionate. I think it's the most effective type of argument because it will get the most and the greatest reactions. The emotional part of the argument makes it personal and a lot of people care a lot more when it affects them personally. I know that this type of argument is the one that gets me into the most heated arguments, and the other kinds don't affect me as much.

THE AP EXAM!

After reading the lovely 43 pages about the AP English Exam I feel overwhelmed. Even though I am nervous about the entire exam, I am the most nervous about the essays. I take a really long time to write essays, and having time limits is going to make me nervous and stressed. The synthesis essay scares me the most, creating an argument from the sample sources. It takes me a long time to plan what I want to say. I think I need to work on time management during essays. I also think that tying in all of the sections of information that they give your for the essay could be difficult. I think the essay part will also be the hardest part for me. For some reason, in really big tests like ISTEP, I have a really hard time writing essays. It's not just the time that gets to me, but the stuff they choose for us to write about it just so awful, that it makes it even more difficult. I'm not really comfortable with any of the things on the exam, since there are only two. But I think I'm more comfortable with the multiple choice questions that the essays. Even if they ask things like what does the author mean when she says shizoid in line 12?

"A Case For Torture"

I really enjoyed all of the conversations that we had about this piece. And I think it's difficult to choose a side, because I understand the reasons for both. But, I have to agree with the author. In rare cases torture is ok. In cases where one life is sacrificed for hundreds or thousands. I really like the point that the author makes about the terrorists having already volunteered to give their lives, whereas the hundreds of people that they put in danger did not. I thought it was clever of the author to make a point about Hitler, that everyone hates, and how we could have killed him and saved millions, but we didn't becasue it was morally wrong. I think this point would affect a lot of people. One person's life was saved, and millions were killed. I think that we should always do what is right for the majority.

A really freaky part to this article was that the author made the point back in 1982, that there would come a time very soon when terrorists would attack and we would have to make a choice about terror. And not too long after, 9/11 happened.

The ad on pg. 1 vs. the ad on pg. 24

To be honest, when I looked at the cartoon on page 1 for the first time i really didn't understand what point it was trying to get across. It made me feel really stupid, because I felt it could be interpreted in many different ways. But after some thinking and a little discussion with my peers I was able to understand it. Both of these pictures are making statements about genetically enhanced foods. They are both trying to make the argument that Genetically Engineered foods are bad. On page 1, the cartoon is saying that genetically engineered food is so bad that people would not even feed it to starving people. And in the ad on page 24, it is showing under nutrition facts, that we don't need to know what we're putting in our bodies, which scares people and makes them think that there is something in there that could hurt them. In both cases, the pictures are pretty powerful, they affected me and I had no idea that this argument about genetically enhanced foods was even going on. These pictures go back to the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. The pictures are both examples of implicit arguments that were talked about back in chapter 1.

Explicit vs. Implicit Arguments

Before reading the section on arguments in the book Writing Arguments, I had no idea that there were different kinds of arguments. I thought all arguments were the same, and I had never heard of explicit or implicit before. An explicit argument is one that is directly states the argument and supports the argument in various ways. It's the argument that is more obvious, that you don't have to look for, it's stated in the writing. Implicit arguements are arguments that are more subtle. In Writing Arguments it even says that implicit arguments don't look like arguments. In the book they give the example of the poem Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen. The poem does not say war is bad, but explains how it's bad so that the reader realizes on his/her own that it is horrible. Both types of arguments make the audiences believe and see their point of view. After reading this section, I will think more about the types of arguments being made in things that I read or see.