The paper...

As of now, I have decided to write my paper about how I think that schools should start teaching foreign languages starting in preschool, or grade school. Our country is one of the few that starts foreign language so late, and does not require all citizens to learn at least two while they are in school. This just shows how far behind we are. We won't be the only superpower in the world much longer, and it will be more and more necessary for all of us to be able to speak a language besides english. In our country, we have a lot of hispanic immigrants, and it is becoming more and more important for us to be able to speak spanish. I think that it should be requred for all schools to start teaching at least spanish in preschool or grade school. As you get older, I still think it should be required for you to take spanish, but you also have the option of choosing to take another language. It is so much harder to learn a completely new language once you are in high school. If we start teaching the language more gradually, we will learn the language younger and it will be easier.

My topic for my proposal paper...

My ideas for my paper right are as follows. I kind of stole this one from this Jordan, but the effects of the pressure to be "perfect" in our society's standards are making plastic surgery more prevalent and common. And then I can explore the positives and negatives of plastic surgery, and I feel pretty pationate about it. Another option would be exploring the issue about the idea that girls have to be a size 0 or 2. Really people are bigger than this. And it bothers me that people think they have to be that size because models and manicans are so tiny. I'm not a size 2 and I'm ok with it, but I know so many other teenage girls that are always wanting to lose wait and always want to be smaller.

A Proposal for Universal Health Insurance in the U.S.

This proposal argument was quite effective. The author did all of the things that are required to write a proposal argument. Bonicillo starts out with a story which appeals to the emotions of the reader, and then goes on to give many reasons why Universal Health Insurance is so important. He gives statistics about poverty stricken people that don't have insurance versus people with decent jobs and healthcare that support his argument well. He even has a nice little pie graph that shows statistics about Americans under 65 in 2001. He then goes on to propose what he thinks that we should do. For example, he says that the first thing that we need to do is to break the linkage between employment and health insurance. He even addresses the fact that Universal Health Insurance would be quite difficult to accomplish, and his last paragraph explicitly states this. I think this is all effective because when I finished reading this he had me convinced that we need Universal Health Insurance. He accomplished persuading his audience to want to act.

Ellis and overcoming racism

C.P. Ellis' story definitely offfers a credible way of overcoming misunderstanding and hatred between races. He completely changed his beliefs, and in a good way. It's credible because it's true. Ellis found his own unique way of overcoming his hatred of African Americans. On a larger scale, this would probably not work as well. It was a personal choice of Ellis to change his opinion and it was because he made friends with the people that he would have originally hated, and he realized that they were just like him. He was just blaming all his hate on a group of people without really getting to know any of them. Not everyone is willing to make the personal decision that Ellis made. There are some people who have hate so deeply instilled in them, that it is very hard for them to completely change their way of thinking the way that Ellis did. This is one personal story, and everyone is different.

"Mainstream"

Yoshino says that the myth of "mainstream" is referring to the population this is straight and white. Mainstream is what is most widely accepted. It is what is considered "normal." The problem is, it is hard to define normal. Who is the definition of normal? Everyone has something about them that makes them unusual and unique. Whether it's the color or style of their hair, or the way that they dress, or how many piercings they have.

In our society, having certain haircuts and piercings and style of dress can limit your professional options. To get a good job, you have to dress professionally, not have cornrows, and not have eyebrow, lip of tongue piercings. You have to be mainstream. They are asking you to be like everyone else. They are in a sense, asking you to take away part of your individuality. There is also the example that derek brought up in class about him having a mohawk and his work told him that he had to cut it or he would be fired. His mohawk wasn't bright green and it was scraggly and greasy. It was fairly subtle and they still did not allow him to have it. They wanted him to blend in with everyone else.

Linda's mixed feelings...

After finally escaping to the North and being reunited with both of her children at different times, Linda is still not completely free. After Dr. Flint dies, his daughter writes to Linda and tells her that she is still her property. Then the Fugitive Slave Act is passed which says that every runaway slave that is found must be returned to their owner even if the state has a law that says slavery is illegal. This worries Linda even more, and then Emily Flint and her husband come to New York to capture Linda, who is forced to go into hiding yet again. Mrs. Bruce (her employer) offers to buy Linda, but Linda doesn't want this because she can't stand the idea of being bought and sold again. Mrs. Bruce buys her anyway, which at the time frustrates Linda which causes her to realize just how much she hates slavery. By the end of the book, Linda is grateful to Mrs. Bruce for buying her.

A passage from Incidents in the life of a slave girl...

It was too hard for me to pick just one passage in which Jacobs uses honesty and her experience to establish her credibility, so I decided to choose all of chapter 15 (pgs68-73.) This chapter is a disturbing one, in which Dr. Flint, still upset with Linda for having children with another white man, tortures Linda by saying horrible things about selling her children for good prices and reminding her that she is her property and always will be. When Linda's son tried to protect her, Dr. Flint threw him across the room and wouldn't let her go to him. I think this chapter really shows the cruelty of slavery.

Jacobs is showing credibility here by telling something that actually happened to her. She shows the horrible and abusive side of slavery, she went through all of it and knows what it is like. She knows that it needs to end. And real-life experiences are always powerful. She is telling this story to try and get people to understand how bad slavery is and to instill the desire to put an end to it.