Final Project (Eunice Ban)

My paper is on stereotypes against Asian Americans and how it affects them in their work life, school life, and overall well being. Being an Asian or a part of a minority group, I thought that it would be interesting to do some research or find statistics on how much stereotyping actually affects Asians. I found that Asians are a “model” minority group which is a demographic group whose members are perceived to achieve a higher degree of socioeconomic success than the population average. So it’s a good thing to be perceived that way but I found that it brings a lot of pressure for Asians to always do well academically. Since there is a lot of pressure, Asians have a bigger vulnerability to depressive symptoms.

While writing this paper, I could really relate to all the research information I found because as an Asian, I grew up being a victim of stereotypes just like everyone else who probably have been victims themselves. However, I also grew up in a pretty diverse area so everyone was very sensitive to racism and stereotyping which made everyone stay quiet if they had nothing nice to say about another person. What was really interesting though was that I didn’t realize how bad stereotyping was. This is probably because I never experienced being stereotyped in a serious way. Most of the time it would be a joke and, of course, knowing that it was a joke I would just laugh it off. It was also hard to write about stereotypes in general because I honestly think that some stereotypes hold some truths to it so just because I don’t like the stereotype doesn’t mean that it’s not true, but I guess it could be offending. But overall, writing this paper was a good experience to get a chance to talk about stereotypes against my race instead of talking about stereotypes in general.

stereotype meme

Day 26: Style Imitation (Eunice Ban)

Cheating doesn’t seem like such a bad idea, until you get caught. I’m sure everyone has gone through the pressure of having studied all night for a test, having the test placed in front of you, palms sweaty, thoughts all over the place, and still not understand any word of it. Then you start looking around, everyone has their eyes on their paper, and in the corner of your eye you catch a glimpse of the classmate next to you, who seems to know what she’s doing. I couldn’t help it. It was torture, trying to remember what I studied, in the silent classroom where you could hear a pin drop. My eyes automatically started to wander, to the front of the classroom, to where the teacher was sitting, to the teacher herself, to a classmate writing vigorously, and onto the classmates paper. When she wrote down an answer, so did I. When she erased an answer, so did I. I was using my eyes to follow in her footsteps, without her being aware, but I, foolishly, forgot that the teacher had eyes too.

Dr Seuss Style Imitation:

From “I Love My Job!”

“I love my office and its location, I hate to have to go on vacation. I love my furniture, drab and grey, and piles of paper that grow each day!”

I want to go home and sleep all day, I would hate to ever go out of my way. I love my bed, big and wide, and all the stuffed animals that I collected with pride.”

Day 19: Research Process (Eunice Ban)

“Finding Evidence” by Andrea A. Lunsford talks about how being persuasive requires evidence to support the argument. The author also gives examples of where to find credible sources. She explains that most academic evidence comes from libraries, databases, and online and the more evidence you can obtain, the stronger the paper. She also gives tip on how to find credible sources online. Instead of just taking information from any website, she explains how these websites should be found through advanced search techniques, library databases targeted to the subject, and to ask librarians and instructors for help. In order to gather information on your own, she tells us to perform experiments, makes observations, conduct interviews, use questionnaires to conduct surveys, and draw upon personal experience. This is helpful for me because I always find it hard to find credible sources, especially for a topic that doesnt, have much research done on them.

In “Under My Thumb” by Chelsea Booth, I absolutely love how she started with a conversation she had with a boy. This already showed the reader what the paper was going to be about. It was very engaging and very relatable as a woman. She talks about how women are not acknowledged as much as men are. She uses the example of education to support her argument. She explains how in the music curriculum at school, they barely talk about women musicians and only talk about men musicians. This is very interesting because although in school, men are always the ones being talked about, I never really thought about it until I read this paper. I realized how unfair it was and still is for women.

Day 17: Researching Stereotypes and “Fake News” (Eunice Ban)

Writing Prompts:

In “Researching and Making Claims” Graves talks about how every paper is a research paper. He explains how researching provides credibility and with credibility, the writer can reach the targeted audience better and make them believe whatever is on the paper. The most interesting sentence in the passage is “Learning more about a topic expands your capacity for emotion.” This is the most interesting sentence because if we don’t understand a topic or know about it, we can’t sympathize or understand the passion someone has for it. One example would be immigrants. If a person isn’t an immigrant, they would never experience how scary it is to live in an area that doesn’t speak your native tongue. However, if that person does research on immigration and interviews real immigrants, then they would have a sense of what immigrants are feeling and the struggles they face.

In “The Research Process” the authors discuss the process of researching something and how it isn’t conducted only when writing papers but in our daily lives as well. One sentence that particularly caught my eye is “But research, in the broadest sense of the word, refers to a process of wanting to know more” I never thought of it this way and I find it very interesting because now that I think about it, its so true. When we ask a friend about their day we ask questions like “What did you do today?” or “Why was that the best part of your day?” and this is all a process of researching how their day was. The authors try to tell the readers not to think of research as finding facts to prove an argument but more of an exploration of the topic.

Assignment 3:

I don’t have any questions for the last research paper.

Three groups I would be interested in writing about are Christians, illegal immigrants, and single parents. The reason why I want to talk about Christians is that nowadays, there are many misunderstandings about Christians and as a Christian myself, I want to be able to relieve these misunderstandings through the use of scriptures in the bible. I would also like to talk about immigrants because this is a huge issue in America right now with deporting illegal immigrants. Furthermore, the topic of single parents would also be interesting to write about because many people have stereotypes against single parents and I don’t know a lot about this topic myself so while writing this paper maybe I can find out more about it.

Day 15: Revision

In “Revising Attitudes” Brock Dethier writes “…For most of us, revision is the only road to success.” This potentially means that with revision, a text will only get better (if revised in the right way of course). Most people have a bad reputation with revision and see it as a sign of failure, that it isn’t good enough. However, revising doesn’t imply that the writing is bad but that it can get better and be more focused on the ideal point that the writer was trying to convey the first time.
A metaphor I have for revision would be doing tricks on a skateboard. In order to learn how to do tricks on a skateboard, you need to figure out what move you want to learn. This can be compared to what message a writer wants to write about. Then the skateboarder needs to first have a foundation of how to write a skateboard. This can be compared to the zero draft of a writing. Next, the skateboarder needs to try attempting the trick move. It will probably be very sloppy or messy. This can be compared to the first draft of a writing. The skateboarder will then attempt to keep trying the same trick move which is the revision of the message in the writing. Finally, the skateboarder will expertise the move just like how the writer will have a final perfect piece.
“A piece of writing is never finished.” This is very true because every piece of writing has room to be revised. The only reason why a writing piece is “finished” is because there is a deadline. Without the deadline, anyone can keep revising a paper to make it better than before. There is a lot of frustration that comes with “finishing” a paper because the writer never feels like the paper is finished. However, Donald’s Murray’s “Revising Your Own Manuscripts” tells us that we need to stop being overly critical of our writing because that is the only way we can successfully revise a paper without rambling off topic.

Day 13: Anzaladua and Naylor (Eunice Ban)

In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldua talks about her own language which is Chicano Spanish. She states how Chicano Spanish is very ambiguous because it’s not the kind of Spanish that Latinos would speak. It also has lots of variations which make it hard to explain the language. What is interesting about this is that there are prejudices against Chicano people just because they speak a different type of Spanish. The Chicano people have found their name and place since 1965 when Ceasar Chavez and the farmworkers united, I Am Joaquin got published, and when la Raza Unida party was formed in Texas. However, they still face struggles of trying to maintain their language and not give up their native tongue. This is because of their struggles of identity from getting looked down upon by English speaking people AND Spanish speaking people.

In “The Meanings of a Word,” Gloria Naylor argues that a mere word is harmless and that it is the meaning of the word that carries the power of a word. When she was younger, a boy called her a “nigger” as a means of humiliating her. She knew then that the word was supposed to be degrading, however, didn’t know why he used it then because she had a different meaning of the word in her head. She explains how she has heard the word being used many times but thought it was a word to describe a man. She only realized that it was a degrading term when the boy had said it to her that day. This is interesting because when we’re young, we don’t understand the full meaning of a word until we hear the word being used in every way possible. The word itself can be used for many things, but the context and history of the word limit it to be used only in certain situations.

Day 12: Alexie and Tan (Eunice Ban)

In “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, he talks about how he learned how to read by a Superman comic book. He states that his father loved books and would always purchase many books so he learned to love books as well. When he was very young, although he doesn’t remember the content, he looked at a Superman comic book and taught himself the knowledge of paragraphs. Then everything he could think of, he thought of in paragraphs. This is interesting because I never thought of it that way. He compares different locations to paragraphs and even compares the different people in these locations to paragraphs. However, his knowledge of knowing how to read was difficult to sustain due to the environment he lived in. Despite this, he pushed through and continued to work hard and became a writer which is very inspiring.

In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, she talks about how we have and utilize different languages according to a situation. She supports this argument by giving an example of a speech she’s given to a crowd. When she was giving this speech, she spoke in perfect grammar and full sentence, what school has taught her. However, she soon realized that this very speech she was giving was completely different from the way she spoke to her mom. To her mom, she would speak in broken English. To other people, they might not understand the broken language she uses with her mom, however, to her and her mom, they have an understanding of what they are saying to each other. This suggests that everyone uses different forms of languages when they encounter different people. I can relate to the author because I also use broken English at home and use various types of languages when I’m speaking to my friends and when I’m speaking to professionals.

Day 11: Literacy Narrative (Eunice Ban)

In “Introduction to (re)Making Language,” Seth Graves talks about how the gothic novel provided an outlet for exploring horrors and corruptions of the mind. It first became popular in England during the later period of the Enlightenment Era. One example of a gothic novel is “Frankenstein”, by Mary Shelley and the character in the novel gives an example of how communication and language are essential even in our feelings. The character feels very lonely and was desperate to have someone to talk to. This shows that communication helps us to cope with our feelings.

In “Language, Discourse, and Literacy,” Groves refers language to an interaction recognized by a specific community. He explains that an image, gesture, a line of computer code, or even an emoji can all be a form of language when they are used in a symbolic exchange of communication. Furthermore, he explains that the language we use affects the way we think and the language we have are based on discourse communities. A discourse community forms when a group shares a common set of language-use practices. When one uses literacy they have knowledge of discourse and this can be found in written language.

Language is interesting because it helps us to gain new knowledge. When we gain new knowledge, we are also opening our minds to different emotions, good and bad. It helps us to find new ways of expression which is why language is always adapting and changing. The reason why we think and act the way we act is because of the kind of exposure we have of literacy. With limited literacy, our minds also become limited as to what we feel and think.

Thesis and Review (Eunice Ban)

In “What’s the Point” by Daniel Hengel, he makes a good point that a thesis can be thought of as the claim made in the writing or paper. He also gives us tips and advice on how to write a paper or an analysis. He breaks it down into three questions: What do you see? What do you make of it? Why does it matter? For step one, we need to identify something that we are interested in whether it be a word, a character, etc. Then our next step would be to write and analyze about what we noticed about the “something” we identified. Our last step is to talk about why this analysis is important and why it holds value. Hengel refers to this as the “so what” of the essay; an interpretation that gives the reader a new perspective. This is important because when we write our analysis we might get stuck on what the focus of our paper is, so these three questions can really help us to stay focused on one point.

Peer review is something everyone has heard of or have done before in their lives. But, where is the line between being too nice and being too critical? “Responding—Really Responding—To Other Students’ Writing,” by Richard Straub gives us insight on how to give effective feedback. Some of the questions he tells the reader to think about while peer reviewing are: what are your goals? How do you get started? How to sound? How much to comment? Etc. Straub emphasizes the importance of specifying all comments and also giving suggestions without sounds like your rewriting the paper for the writer. He also emphasizes that we need to sound as if we are talking with a friend. This is important because although peer reviewing is something everyone does, most people don’t know how to do it in an efficient way. I also had a problem with peer editing because I wouldn’t know what to comment on peoples’ writing. This reading allowed me to know exactly where to start and how to develop suggestions without sounding like I am trying to change or rewrite the writing.

Project Pitch (Eunice Ban)

Out of the three topics, my top choice is to analyze a music video. Specifically the music video of Pink’s song ” What About Us”. I love the song and watching the music video made me love it even more. Since I never got to analyze the music video, even though I found it interesting, I want to take this chance to do that. Some pros of analyzing the music video are that theres lots of scenes going on and it also correlates to the lyrics of the song which is also interesting. There are lots to analyze such as the people chosen to be in it, the setting, the props, etc. I can’t really think of a con for analyzing this.

The second possible topic to analyze is a commercial. Commercials are very interesting, especially since I’m a marketing major. Just like a music video, factors to consider for analysis are props, people, setting, etc. However, the cons of analyzing a commercial is that there might not be enough context which would limit my analysis.

The third possible topic is to analyze a TV show. I would like to analyze an episode or a season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. This is because there’s always drama going on in the family and there lots to talk and analyze. However, the con would be that there are so many episodes and seasons that it would be hard to choose which one to focus on. Also, each season leads to the next one so I would have to talk about past incidents that happened. because of this, the analysis might seem too confusing for a reader who don’t know or watch the Kardashians.