Assignment Eight: Thinking About Arguments

            Don't Presume to Know a Pig's Mind is an article that tells us about an advertisement for Chipotle. The animated video for Chipotle was show at the Grammy Award; it starts off with a farmer in a little farm, as science progresses his farm turns into a factory, and animals are being injected hormones, etc. Towards the of the commercial he gets rid of all the factories, and his farm turns back to an original farm without factories. The video ends as an advertisement for Chipotle introducing Burritos, or in other words you can have a happy pig that comes from an original farm as your meal. The argument for the ad Chipotle says that they only use happier pigs, implicitly stating that they come from a place where animals are treated fairly. The essay teases and questions how is it that Chipotle selects happier pigs if there is no way you can tell when a pig is happy. It also tells us, that McDonald's announced that they would provide more space in the animal's crates, meaning that pigs will have more space in their crates rather than having animals all bunched up into a small crate. The essay tells us that in animal crates, it restricts an animals movement, and animals are usually fighting, especially when it comes to eating, so they made crates "less crowed". This essay teases the fact that there is not a certain way that farmers can actually treat an animal better because they are going to kill the animal anyways. Also, it may be expensive and it will not benefit farmers to make changes to how they treat their animals. It tells us that farmers are also business people, so they try to do the best they can to treat their animals the best way they can because others may argue that it is harsh to mistreat animals or their food.

            I chose the article Don't Presume to Know a Pig's Mind because I remember watching Chipotle's advertisement at the movie theater. I thought that the advertisement was very sad as to how innocent animals are treated nowadays in factories. When I first saw the advertisement, I thought it would be an ad for some organization against animal cruelty, and convey a different advertisement at the end. I found the advertisement very contradictory because it starts off with a happy farm family and turns into a factory of pigs being slaughtered and then back to a happy farm. The end is an ad for a burrito from Chipotle. I agree with many of the author's idea of "Don't Presume to Know a Pig's Mind" because there is no way you can actually tell that you are going to have a happier pig as your meal. I found the author's tone to be humorous in a way because he teases and plays around with the advertisement from Chipotle. I also chose to talk about this argument because I dislike that nowadays farmers and the food industry mistreat animals in harsh ways when they are still alive, then kill them, and turn out to be our food. I think that this analysis is going to be a bit difficult simply because I do not know so much about the food industry and how it is that they treat animals. I think that I am going to find it difficult to make an argument solely from this article because I am going to have to analyze it a lot more.

Assignment Seven: Reflecting On Progress

             As I have mentioned before, I disliked the writing process, but as I learn more and more about ways to improve my writing, I feel that little by little I am starting to like the writing process. By taking this course Writing 101-2, I feel that, so far, I have learned the necessary components of an essay, even though we have only discussed two types of essays. I feel that Elise takes great time to explain how she wants the essay to be constructed, formatted, and ways to make our essays better. Also, I feel that I have improved my thinking because most of the assignments that are given to me make me think outside the box and make me look at my essay topics in a different perspective. Peer Review's are very helpful to me because I actually take the time to correct my own essay and improve many of my content. I can see myself making improvements to my vocabulary because I try to use extensive/college level vocabulary in most of my essays and blog posts, and this is going to help me out in this class and my future essays. Last, Blog posts are very helpful, creative, and fun way to do homework; I really enjoy having blogs to do homework, and it is a helpful way to help our peers see our ideas. By blogging I can see my own improvements

Assignment Six: Responding to Peers and Considering Rhetorical Situations

Comparing and Contrasting Analysis Essays and Literacy Narratives 

Both of these types of writings have a different form, genre, tone, purpose, and audience.

Analysis essay's purpose is to create an argument to express a certain idea about an issue, advertisement,  piece of writing or anything. The writer's purpose is to have a well understanding of their argument, then support his/her readers into believing the argument. Audience can be anyone who wants to see different perspectives of a certain issue. The tone is set to a serious type of tone because you want to fully explain your arguments for your analysis essay. Genre can vary depending on what type of ad the author of the essay has chosen. 

A literacy narrative is more of a  story which tells its readers about the authors experience with language, writing, reading or other struggles with any particular language. The purpose is to tell readers a story about an experience with any struggles in their academic life. The audience can be anyone who desires to read the essay, in our case our classmates and our instructor. The tone is set to tell readers a story and to entertain. The genre can vary, it can be set to what ever the author wants to set it as. 

Assignment # 5: Analyzing an Advertisement

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Purpose: The main idea of the advertisement appears to be that men should purchase and use "Axe" products, so that they attract women and not men. The argument this ad makes is simply by using two men with their arms over each other, so that men do not want to attract another men by being sweaty or dirty.  Men should use Axe so that they do not encounter these types of situations.

Audience: The two men in this ad are placing arms over the one another, their sweat stain creates a heart with a message. It reads in cursive words "Men's sweat only attracts other men. Is that all you want?", the audience this advertisement targets is obviously men because the ad advertises men products. 

Genre: Like many other Axe advertisements, similar ads feature reasons why men should buy Axe products, so that they attract women. The ads help convince men that personal hygiene is a way to attract the opposite sex. 

Tone: The heart sweat stain from the two men create is a humorous tone. It tells us that men should be clean, so that they don't attract men rather they should attracting women with a clean smell. Advertisers used this tone to create some sort of irony as I mentioned before so that men attract women, not men. 

Assignment # Four: 

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            My rough draft was a terrible mess; it was literally a shitty first draft. It had many grammatical errors like sentences fragments, tense shifts and misplaced modifiers. My rough draft's major error was the content's organization. It was a total mess because my ideas were scattered all over my paper. I realized that my rough draft, I put all my ideas together without organizing it. I was told by the tutor in the tutoring center that my paper seemed to be cohesive. My rough draft needed more description and relevance. I revised the paper myself a couple times and noticed some of these errors, but then I had classmates peer edit it they noticed the same things. The writing center also helped me peer edit my essay and improve my content's organization.

           Receiving all the help I was able to get I think that my final draft seems better than my rough draft. My final draft seems to be more organized and more descriptive. I believe that the strongest aspect of my essay would be the conclusion because I think that I wrapped up my story well. The weakest would be my introduction because I feel like something is missing to make it sound more interesting. 

What does a good paper need?

Describe 

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An A paper would have very descriptive language use. Which appeal to the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste and touch). It would create a mental picture for their readers by using specific nouns, verbs, modifiers, etc. 

Example: As I stepped into Jake's filthy room, the funky smell of dirty socks climbed up my nose.

The author uses descriptive words like stepped, filthy, thick, funky, dirty, climbed. This makes reading this sentence interesting. 

As opposed to a C paper whereas writers do not use specific details, and the details in their writing seem very vague and boring. Most would be just a series of events.

Example: I went to Jake's room. It was ugly. It smelled like his dirty socks.

The author just tells us what he/she did and what it was like. It seems very boring and vague. 

Organization 

An A paper should have good structure and organization, so that a reader can understand the point you are trying to make. If you're telling a story it is important to tell it in order to avoid confusing your readers. For this, you want to use transition words and organize your story.

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Example: First, I went to Target to buy rain boots, but unfortunately they sold out. Then, I found these very cute shirts that happen to be on sale, and I bought them. Last but not least, I went home because I was very hungry.

This sentence uses the transitions like: First, Then, Last. This makes it easier to read. 

A C paper would be very confusing a difficult to picture what the narrator is trying to say.

Example: I went to the store, and I left because I didn't find the shoes I wanted. Before leaving 

I bought some cute shirts that were on sale. Then I went 

home because I was hungry.

This sentence goes back and forth it makes reading this very confusing. 

Introduction, Body and Conclusion

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An A paper contains the 3 parts of an essay an Introduction, body, and conclusion. The paper does not necessarily have to contain exactly five paragraphs , but it should have theses three parts.

A C paper perhaps does not include one of the three. Either it doesn't start with out an intro, lacks a body, or does not end with a conclusion. 

My Topics for My Literacy Narrative

One topic which I would like to write about is how I have struggled with subjects like writing and reading.  Even though, in high school I was able to get by writing something like what Anne Lamott calls "Shitty first drafts". I feel like my struggles with these subjects have held me back from doing better. For example, like getting into English 101 my first semester or doing better on the ACT writing portion.

• The pros for writing this narrative would be to tell how I struggled and I am getting better at understanding these subjects little by little. I feel like I am not the only person who struggles with theses subjects, and I would be able to relate with others. The cons about this topic is that I believe many people may talk about their struggles with writing and/or reading and I would like to make it something very different from other narratives.

I would also like to write about my high school experience. I think that my high school experiences had huge impact in my life and shaped who I am today. While I was in high school I was involved in many after school activities.

• Some pros for writing this narrative are that I would have so much to talk about. I would describe many activities I participated in. For example, how my friend and I created our school's swim team. I would also talk about how I became the president in our school's National Honors Society. Cons for writing this would be that there are so many things to write about that I don't think I will be able get all the details. 

Last but not least, I would like to write about the time I thought I was going to loose my dad forever. My dad had a heart attack, and it was a very difficult time in my life where I was clueless because I didn't know how to help him. I wish I could've given him my heart so that he would not deal with any illnesses. I think that this topic would give my audience an understanding on the things that has shaped a part of me. 

• The pros about writing this narrative is that it would be very descriptive and it is a very important part of my life that has impacted my life. I think it would tell my audience to value their parents because some of us may have them and do not value the fact that they have their parents, while others do not.