Free Write February 28, 2011 One

Q: Do you think it's odd or peculiar that the telephone as cell phone (so named for its design as a purveyor of "phon" - sound) has been adapted to purvey text as image? Why do you imagine this change has occurred?

Because I have grown up in the technological age of texting and cellphones, I am so accustomed to writing and receiving text messages on my cell phone, rather than calling.  When I first got my cellphone in seventh grade I right away was signed up for a texting plan.  Because of this I do not find it odd or peculiar that cell phones have been adapted to purvey text as image.  I am a supporter of texting because it is so much more convenient.  This change has occurred because the point of technology is really to make the user's life easier.  This is why texting was created.  When picking up your phone and calling someone is too time consuming because you just have a quick thing to say, texting is the answer.  

On a side note: Usually we listen to music while we free write in class and I get very distracted and to be honest slightly annoyed.  But today when we listened to Santana while writing this, I found it enjoyable because Santana sings in Spanish.  I wasn't distracted by the English being sung as I usually am.

Free Write February 28, 2011 Two (Winter Syntax by Billy Collins)

A sentence starts out like... a good, long run.  First you start off thinking, "wow I really do not want to run three miles, but I know it is good for me and I'm at the gym so I might as well."  Then after that first lap around the track, you're off.  You let your mind roam and you think about things, while your legs just put themselves one in front of the other.  You do not even think about what you are doing physically.  All of these thoughts that you have are the sentence.  The ideas and themes in your head while you run, are the words you write or type in your sentence.  And then you finish that good, long run by sprinting to the finish, or while writing, by closing up that magnificent sentence.  The finish line is your period at the end of your sentence.  And then as you look back at your run, you congratulation yourself and think "I will run longer next time and continually get better."  This is your revision of your sentence.  Maybe you change a few things in the sentence, but in the long run your sentences will just continue to get better and better.

Free Write February 28, 2011 Three (A Painful Glimpse into my Writing Process; In 60 Seconds by Chel White)

"Mouths reciting 'Old Man and the Sea' by Hemingway"- This image is interesting because writing is always thought of as a non-verbal form of communication.  But sometimes, or all the time it doesn't have to be like that.  I often say out loud what I am reading or writing because hearing my voice can help me to retain what I am reading or trying to say while I am writing.

"Making a Sandwich"- This image of the parts of the sandwich being spiraled down a deep hole was very hypnotic to watch.  But I wasn't sure what this had to do with the "writing process."  Is the sandwich making or eating helping the writer write?  I'm not sure, I felt this image was kind of random.

"Driving Off a Cliff"- This is definitely a strong image about what it feels like to write!  He even says something along the lines of "I drive my car off a cliff to kill myself."  Wow!  So that is what writing feels like to you Chel White?  I can almost relate to this because sometimes certain things that I have to write I absolutely do not want to write at all.  When I go into writing a paper or an essay thinking like this, the process can feel like driving a car off a cliff. But unlike, Chel White I sometimes never find that central idea before I fall down the cliff.  Sometimes I feel like I write a paper that literally sounds like I have fallen off the cliff.  But honestly I'm okay with that.  If I don't like the topic I'm suppose to write about and I can't really "get into it" I probably will write a paper like that this.

My Responses to My Peers Billy Collins Questions

From Daniel's Blog:
Q: Did you purposely choose to make some of your metaphors ridiculous?
My Answer: I think that Billy Collins definitely made some of his metaphors ridiculous.  The point of his poem was to poke fun at the poem he was "mimicking" and so his metaphors had to be over the top.  The ideas and objects that Collins compares in the metaphors in "Litany" are so over-the-top to make his point.  His point being that love poems, especially the one he is re-writing, are usually absurd and ridiculous.  

From Haley's Blog:
Q. Was the purpose of the poem for a laugh, or something deeper?
My Answer: All poems must have a meaning and a purpose for the poet to write them.  I personally feel as though this poem's purpose is solely for a laugh.  The way that Billy Collins reads his poem, "Litany" is completely sarcastic and monotone.  Because of how Collins reads "Litany" I am almost positive he wrote this poem for a laugh.  Also, the poem itself is full of ridiculous metaphors and absurd proclaims of love for the poet's subject.  The way the poem is written also shows that Collins wrote this poem for a laugh.  

From Alison's Blog:
Q: Were you trying to gain a positive or negative response from the audience?
My Answer: This is an interesting question because Collins poem could really get a positive or negative reaction from the reader depending on who the person is that is reading it.  I think that Collins was trying to gain a positive  responsive from his audience by trying to make them laugh about how ridiculous some love poems can be.  His poem filled with metaphors and proclaims of love that seem like they have are written by a lovesick teenager.  The poem itself arises a feeling of humor and playfulness out of whoever is reading it.

Six Things That Moved Me to "Tears"- Positively and Negatively (Take Two)

"It Gives You Wings" Essay:

Likes:
1. I LOVED that you brought up our nation in the first paragraph instead of bringing up the product right away.
2. "Our nation dances to the beat of a fast drum." -I loved that sentence, set the energetic "dancing" mood of the whole essay
3. loved the point that Red Bull logo/name=power
4. The quotes you took from the Red Bull website were so interesting
5. Including Drank in your essay was such a great idea because it showed how our society does not want this kind of drink they want Red Bull
6. The comparison between the "Door Close" button and Red Bull was a nice touch

Dislikes:
1. The 6th paragraph included too much run-on sentences and comma splices
2. Sometimes having many sources became confusing for the reader
3. Discussing the "subject" of the "object" more would have been more informative
4. Talking about personal experience would add more
5. Some quotes/facts you included seemed a little off topic and "all over the place" for the reader
6. Using more verbs about flying and having wings would create a nice flow and focus within the essay

Six Things That Moved Me to Tears- Positively and Negatively (Take One)

Apple's iPod: I've Got the World on a String (Shaped Earphone Chord):


Loved:
1. Discussing the "hipness" of the iPod- plus I loved the word hipness that the author made up!
2. Bringing up "What iPod are you?
3. iPod's simplicity makes it the best
4. Podcasts- I sometimes forget how helpful they can be
5. I loved the cool, "hipster language" you invented/used
6. Facts at the beginning added a nice touch!

Did Not Love:
1. Grammatical Errors! Made the essay hard to read!
2. Talked too much about the product itself and the "facts" about the product
3. Run-Sentences made it tedious to read at times
4. Some paragraphs were also too long!  They could be split up to be better.
5. Sometimes used too much "technical language" which made it hard to understand
6. Did not seem personal- no personal stories about the author using an iPod

Billy Collin's "Litany"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Iq3PbSWZY

This is the link to watch Bill Collins read his poem!

Questions Involving Billy Collin's "Love" Poem

1. Why did you choose to write your "love" poem in such a sarcastic way?
2. Where did you find your inspiration for some of the metaphors you used?
3. Why did you choose to use all metaphors in your poem?
4. Why did you switch back and forth from talking about your "lover" to yourself?
5. What kind of punctuation did you use in your poem?
6. Was your poem organized in stanzas or in lines?

More Than Just Paper

I love the idea of arguing my essay topic in a different way from just typing my essay on Word.  My essay topic is Four Loko.  In my paper I open with a "scene" that makes the reader imagine that they are at a party and are so incredibly drunk that they have no idea what is going on.  I state that the reader has drank a Four Loko that night.  And so, to "recreate" this "scene" from the beginning of my paper I would plan on creating a skit for the class to help them visual the feeling I am trying to portray in my opening paragraph.  The feeling I am really trying to express in this scene is the emotions of an innocent, drunk person who has drank the first Four Loko of his or her life because their friend gave it to them.  The person is hazy about their night and looking around a party not knowing where their friends are.  I would recreate this in a skit to perform for the class using other people as characters in the story.  After the skit, I would pass around samples of Four Loko so that the class would understand how bad Four Loko really does taste.  This is because parts of my paper discuss why a person would even want to drink this drink because it is so dangerous and tastes so bad.  The answer to that question is because our nation needs instant gratification and this "blackout in a can" can get a person obliterated and energetic all night long.

Give Me the Specifics

Today in class we played "The Shell Game."  While playing I realized that people guessed the correct shell faster and easier when the questions asked were more specific.  This is something that I think can really help in my own writing because sometimes when I use a more "creative" word it becomes too vague then the original word I wanted to use in the first place.  Sometimes the writer just needs to give his or her audience the specifics.

"Flight of the Kuaka" Response (Questions 3 & 4)

Don Staps article, "Flight of the Kuaka," includes information and quotes from two wildlife biologists, Nils Warnock and Bob Gill.  Staps incorporates this information about these men into his writing to make it more real and factual.  In the second paragraph he gives a biographcial background for Warnock by stating that he is "codirector of the Wetlands Ecology Division at California’s PRBO Conservation Science" (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1510).  In fifth paragraph he does the same for Gill by explaining that he is "a wildlife biologist at the Anchorage, Alaska, office of the United States Geological Survey (USGS)" (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1510).  Staps gives these small backgrounds to make sure the reader knows that the two men are learned in their study and can be trusted with what they say.  Just like a college student must always cite their sources, an author, especially an author of scientific material, must always give credit and backgrounds for the people they interview and quote from.  These biographical backgrounds of Warnock and Gill are used in the text to ensure that the reader knows that they are knowledgeable about the flight of the godwit birds.  

Staps also includes dialogue said by these two men within his article.  He only does this four times, but each time he does it adds variety and liveness to the text.  In the very first paragraph when Warnock is quoted as saying to Staps, "Don’t hold him too tightly," (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1510) about the gotwit bird, it creates a picture and feeling for the reader.  Although, the quote is so small in the grand scheme of the article, it is so important to use quotes like this to make the reader feel as though the story is real and interesting.  

Definitions in "Don't!" (Question #4- Coincides with Alison's Blog Post)

Carolyn was asked to sit down in the chair and pick a treat from a tray of marshmallows, cookies, and pretzel sticks. Carolyn chose the marshmallow. Although she’s now forty-four, Carolyn still has a weakness for those air-puffed balls of corn syrup and gelatine. (Page 47)


In adults, this skill is often referred to as metacognition, or thinking about thinking, and it’s what allows people to outsmart their shortcomings. (Page 54)

Mischel says. “Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.” (Page 55)


Operating on the premise that the ability to delay eating the marshmallow had depended on a child’s ability to banish thoughts of it, they decided on a series of tasks that measure the ability of subjects to control the contents of working memory—the relatively limited amount of information we’re able to consciously consider at any given moment. (Page 56)


According to Jonides, this is how self-control “cashes out” in the real world: as an ability to direct the spotlight of attention so that our decisions aren’t determined by the wrong thoughts. (Page 56)


For the most part, the regions are in the frontal cortex—the overhang of brain behind the eyes—and include the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the anterior prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate, and the right and left inferior frontal gyri. 


Key:
Word to be defined= bold
Definition= italics 

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer#ixzz1DW6gYYhT


There was many definitions (that are cited above) within Jonah Lehrer New York Times article, "Don't!"    These definitions definitely begin with very simple definitions that become more elaborate as the article continued.  For example, the first definition that is in the first paragraph of the article describes what a marshmellow is.  Obviously this is a very simple definition.  As the pieces continues, Lehrer describes what metacognition means.  This definition begins the more researched scientific definitions he includes in the article, like what will power, the working memory, and self-control are.  These are all definitions that Mischel found out in his research and must be explained to the reader.  The last, and most complicated definition is, frontal cortex which is the overhang of brain behind the eyes.  This is the most scientific definition included in the article and it is at the very end of it.  The sequence of these definitions within the text is very important.  Lehrer begins his article with more interesting and "light" ideas and definitions.  The beginning of "Don't!" is a story about Caroline and her brother and in this he includes the marshmellow definition.  Although, as the piece continues the article becomes more complex and scientific and so does Lehrer's definitions.  He does not put the harder definitions and writing at the beginning of the article, so he does not "scare" readers away and keeps them interested.

"Grammatical Errors" Response

"In thinking about a certain idea, many sentences and ideas can be drawn by using detailed words within this idea."

This sentence is very, very confusing.  It has a great message that it is trying to convey, but the author simply got a little "tounge-tied" in their writing.  Although the sentence is grammatically correct, it's content is too confusing.  The writer should think about what they are trying to convey in this sentence and make it more short and precise to make it clearer!

Don't!: The Marshmellow Test Confusing Quote Response

As Mischel said in this article, "We can't control the world, but we can control how we think about it."  We can all agree that the world and its daily occurrences are out of our control.  Shit just happens and all we, as humans, can do is react.  Although, one thing we can control is how we perceive such occurrences.  Knowing how to deal with problems and issues is a vital part of living life.  This idea relates to the four year olds who had to make what they could out of their difficult situation in the marshmellow experiment.  Some decided that the wait would be torture and ate their treat immediately.  Others determined that it was worth the wait to get a second marshmellow.  The experiment is meant to show that kids, like adults, are faced with immediate decisions and can only make of it what they know.  This shows that knowledge is power and learning how to control one's knowledge might be the secret to surviving in this world.  By having self-control one has the knowledge of how to control one's life.  This is probably why the four year olds with self control were successful in academic and employment endeavors because they knew how to "control" difficult situations that were thrown at them!

Four Loko Es No Joko

Four Loko was a wildly popular alcoholic beverage that swept college campuses in 2005 before it was finally banned in 2010.  Four Loko was named for the four main ingredients that are in it: alcohol, caffeine, taurine, and guarana.  All of these ingredients are equivalent to about three beers, a can of Red Bull and a large expresso.  To most this insane concoction sounds excessive and dangerous, but to teenagers and young adults it is the most popular alcoholic beverage of choice.  The existence of this drink proves that our society, especially young adults, cannot be just satisfied with being drunk.  Four Loko is loaded with both caffeine and alcohol which, when mixed together, make the consumer extremely drunk and energetic at the same time.  We cannot solely be satisfied with being drunk, but we need to be energized at the same time.

Phusion Products (the company that sells (Four Loko along with two other similar alcoholic beverages) did not seem to ever need to promote and advertise Four Loko.  Four Lokos (or Four as they are sometimes called) seemed to market themselves by word of mouth from college to college.  The drink is extremely cheap, costing around $4 for the can. It also does not need to be mixed with a "mixer" or poured into a cup because it comes in its own can.  Most importantly, one can of Four Loko can get a person extremely drunk and energetic for the entire night. It is simply an inexpensive and convenient way for college kids to get drunk.  I say it is for college kids because adults would probably never drink Four Lokos because they taste terrible and can get the consumer very, very intoxicated.

I personally have drank a can of Four Loko only once.  This is because I did not enjoy the taste or actual drunk I got from it.  The kind of drunken state the drink puts you in a a hazy, almost dream-like state.  Usually when one gets drunk they have a monumental high and then they crash later.  With Four Loko the consumer never gets a low because of its caffeine content.  This can obviously become dangerous because not only is caffeine and alcohol a scary combination, but also the energy one gets from it discourages them from sleeping off their drunken state.  Four Loko was obviously banned for its health concerns and the company suffered a lot of backlash because of the product.  This is why the website for Four Loko, www.drinkfour.com, has warnings and responsibilities posted all over it.  

Four Loko ultimately perfectly fits in with the common generalization about American consumers that too much is never enough.  Four Loko drinks exist because no longer did we just want to get drunk, we wanted to get drunk and energized at the same time.  And although Four Loko is obviously bad and tastes awful, it was the forth most popular alcoholic beverage at 7-Eleven stores in 2009.  Phusion Products knew that Americans would not care about the bad taste or dangers of the drink because their main target market, teenagers, just wanted an inexpensive way to get "hammered" and hyper at the same time.  And the makers of Four Lokos were right because for the five years the drink existed in the United States it was the most sought-after alcoholic beverage for almost all young adults.

Sources:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2010/11/drinking_one_four_loko_is_like.html

http://www.drinkfour.com/#

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_(energy_drink)

Writing With Crayons (Revised)

The Emily Dickinson writing assignment that was done in crayon felt different to write than a writing assignment done on the computer on Microsoft word or in a notebook with an erasable pencil.  When I am writing I am often afraid to make mistakes and not be able to erase them.  Because of this I always try to write in pencil, not pen, so writing with a crayon was hard for me.  Obviously you cannot erase crayon, and so when I was writing my response to the poem I really had to think about what i wanted to say to avoid having too many "cross-outs."  Also, I did not feel as though I had to leave out any ideas that I wanted to say, but I really had to plan ahead because of the space constraint.  I did not want to have to leave any of my ideas out because I ran out of space.  Writing with a crayon was much more difficult than I expected!

Some adjectives I used to describe the different pages of my classmates colleagues are peaceful, naive, short, precise, impersonal, professional, creative, intelligent, dull, colorful, neat, and childish.  I used these adjectives to mostly describe the different ways all of the projects looked and the content of the writing.  Some were peaceful, childish, and naive like the one that included pictures of colored animals and said in it that everyone should always tell the truth.  These adjectives seemed to fit because it is an unrealistic statement to make that the human race should always tell the truth.  Human nature is to lie to protect oneself and others.  Also, this person probably drew pictures of animals and nature because nature is always straight forward and tells the truth.  Many of the colleagues were very professional, creative, intelligent, colorful and neat.  These projects were all very neatly written and colorful and the responses to the poem all included quotes from the poem and good insight.  People that did their projects like this might have written their responses out before actually writing them on the paper with crayon to ensure that they would be neat and fit the page.  Some colleagues could be described as being short, but precise.  Some people wrote very short responses, but they were mostly all to the point.  People that did this probably did not enjoy writing with the crayon because it was so hard, and so they tried to write less and make their point quickly.

A culture that only uses crayons as writing implements might seem childish or unintelligent to us.  But, if that is all that the this culture knows then it would be very natural to them to use crayons to write and would not seem childish at all to them.  This culture would probably be much more creative and free than us.  When we are children we often color, doodle, or draw with crayons because we can only color, not write words yet.  One cannot color with lead pencils because they do not have an assortment of colors and holding a thin pencil is hard for little fingers.  Once we learn to write our crayons are taken away from us and are replaced with more professional pencils and pens.  If we lived in a culture where crayons were never taken away from us to learn to write we would all be much more creative.  Because of this the culture would probably be most proud of their creativity among their people.  The more free and creative a person was would probably be considered a sign of intellectual prowess.  I believe that writing with only crayons would make a culture more innovative.  

The writing implement that one uses to write with can greatly affect the content of their writing.  Because it was so physically hard to write with the crayon, it was more tempting to write less and be more precise.  Also, the constraints of the paper and how permanent the crayon was made it vital to really think about what one was going to say before writing it down.  Although, writing with a crayon was much more creative which made me think more creatively.  Because of this I think my response was deeper and insightful.  Writing implements can really change the way one thinks and physically writes.