Day 7: Thesis and Review

What’s the Point?

Summary The thesis is the claim you’re trying to make about a topic. The author, David Hengel, states that your thesis is like a series of questions that you’ll be answering throughout your essay. To construct a solid thesis statement you must ask yourself a series of questions. The first three have to do with what you see?, what do you think about what you saw?, and why does what you saw, matter? After answering those questions you have to ask yourself whether the thesis you came up with is too simple?, too broad?, or too speculative?. It is important to keep in mind that your thesis can evolve throughout your essay to show what you’ve learned in your analysis. The rest is the fun part, the thesis gives your essay a direction to go in so from here you begin the writing process.

Response This essay helped me with my own thesis statement. It gives the reader a checklist, almost, as to what to ask about their thesis statements.

Responding—Really Responding—To Other Students’ Writing

Summary Before responding to someone else’s writing, you first have to understand the context of the writing. This’ll help you know what to look for and point out what shouldn’t be there. It is important to keep in mind that you are a reader, the writer’s second pair of eyes, a helping hand. As a reader, you’re meant to give the writer feedback on the paper itself. The more specific, the better. This shows the reader if their point is getting across to the reader as intended.

Response After reading this essay, I more or less have a good understanding of my role as a reader of someone else’s writing. I know what I can do to help the writer create the best version of their writing. Criticisms are worth more than compliments.

Day 6: Project Pitch (Erik Alatorre)

Topic Mr. Robot (Top Pick)

When I first watched the show I was blown away by just about everything. It is set here in New York City, which made it both familiar and relatable for me. There’s a little something for everyone to relate to in the show, from drugs, mental illness, materialism, and more.

Pros: Episodes are about 45 minutes to an hour in length so there is enough content to analyze. The show is a little over 3 years old so the topics are trending with the times.

Cons: So many possible aspects to analyze, hard to choose which ones I’d like to discuss. The show has three seasons that you would need to watch in chronological order to fully understand.

Topic Saturday Night Live

I haven’t watched SNL for that long, maybe like 6 months, give or take. The viewership has declined in recent years but it’s still a great show to get a couple of laughs and commentary on current political issues. SNL is also set in New York City “And live from New York it’s Saturday Night!”

Pros: Saturday Night Live can appeal to many people. Everyone likes a good laugh but not everyone understands politics so in both a good and bad way, SNL makes it simple and fun.

Cons: Sketches cover a wide variety of topics, but they are also very short (average is about 5 minutes.)

Topic Soccer in America

Everyone knows that basketball, football, and baseball are the dominating sports in the United States. However, soccer, or football as known by basically the rest of the world, doesn’t have the dominating presence despite being known to more people in every corner of the world. Why is this the case? What factors are at work?

Pros: The topic has become a big talking point in recent times and it’s a topic that I could easily write a lot about since I’m a big follower of soccer.

Cons: Like Mr. Robot there are so many reasons that could be discussed and it’s about choosing the biggest reasons or the most interesting ones.

Day 6: Writing as a Process (Erik Alatorre)

Introduction to Composing as a Process

Summary: Writing is a messy process that involves planning, drafting, and revising. The writing process is a compilation of everything leading up to the final product. Writing is an active process, not only are we putting our thoughts on paper, but also creating new ones as we write.

Response: Writing is a long process. However, it is worth the time and effort because at the end of it all, the final product will be the best it could be. Every time you write you learn a little more about your abilities as a writer. For me, writing can be easy once you get into the rhythm of things.

Freewriting

Summary: Normal writing can be restrictive to the writer. With the constant interruptions to fix spelling and grammar, you might lose your train of thought, as a result the paper doesn’t come out as good as it did in your head. Whereas, freewriting allows the writer to be ‘free.’ The writer stops for nothing, simply putting words on paper and eventually the words you wrote will start to make sense.

Response: For me, free-writing isn’t something I’m too fond off when putting ideas on paper. I prefer bullet point lists because they’re quick and concise. Sure in free-writing things don’t have to make sense but then it becomes a hassle to try and make sense of the free-write.

Shitty First Drafts

Summary: The first draft is where you put all your ideas on paper. You might or might not like the ideas but, like the author said, you have to trust the process, everything will work out in the end. Its meant to be a rough outline of what the final draft is going to look like.

Response: The first draft is the first step towards the final draft. There is no masterpiece without a sketch.

Connections

All texts agreed that writing is a process. The first draft or the free-write are usually the first steps in the writing process. Simply jotting down your ideas without fear of being judged. Once the first step is complete, all that’s left is to refine the ideas into a final product that is cohesive and logical.

Intersectionality Readings (Erik Alatorre)

Dancing Around Objectification
Summary: Two separate women in different worlds find commonality in profession. They are dancers who are idealized and dehumanized by their audiences. However, their difference in race results in different levels of idolization. The Harlem dancer, for example, when she performs becomes dehumanized to both goddess and whore to the men. Whereas the white dancer of Invisible Man is forced to play both virgin and whore to her racially diverse audience. However, Ellison’s dancer has the social power to deny those men “below” her status, if not those above as well. Both works demonstrate women who are faced with sexualized and degrading treatment in America, but their contrasting perception highlight the issue of racial inequality.
Response: I feel like I would’ve understood the article a little more with more context about the text’s being discussed. To try and aid my understanding I ended up reading the poem and a quick summary of the book. It helped a little but overall I remain confused.
Questions: Doesn’t the setting of these two texts matter? For example, Harlem was a predominantly black neighborhood so most of the audience would’ve been black.

Intersectionality 101
Summary: According to the post, the theory of intersectionality examines how various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, etc. interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels. It creates a system of oppression that reflects the “intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination. There are three approaches to studying intersectionality, the interlocking matrix of oppression being one. The writer’s example in a nutshell, tells us that people are often oppressed for many reasons but it’s hard to distinguish which reason caused the most pain. Standpoint theory being another, is the idea that an individual’s’ perspectives are influenced by their own experiences in social settings. The example given for this theory was that if two people of the same sex and ethnicity can relate on those two factors but if they come from different economic statuses their viewpoints can vary significantly.
Response: This post reminded me of “The Dangers of a Single Story.” The speaker, who was born into a middle-class Nigerian family, was heavily influenced by this. When she visited the village of a boy who lived with her family she was amazed by what she saw. She said “…I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor.” This shows that there are many factors behind a person’s perception. Questions: Despite having read this I’m sure it’s not impossible for two people who associate with different groups to come to an agreement on a particular issue, right?

The Urgency of Intersectionality
Summary: Kimberle Crenshaw conducted an exercise with her audience in which she read out two sets of names, the audience was to remain standing if they recognized the name. The first set were names of young black men who were victims of police violence and the second set was almost identical except for the fact that they were women. A majority of the audience didn’t recognize the second set of names because the speaker states that “communications experts tell us that when facts do not fit with the available frames, people have a difficult time incorporating new facts into their way of thinking about a problem.” Thus the women’s names have simply been disregarded or forgotten. The speaker found that “intersectionality” resonated with what she was witnessing. Many of our social justice problems like racism and sexism are often overlapping, creating multiple levels of social injustice. Response: By this point I’ve gotten the gist of intersectionality and the video really solidified my understanding. I participated in the speaker’s exercise and I was able to recognize the first set of names as young black men who were victims of police violence. However, i didn’t recognize the second set of names. It really proved the speaker’s point that when you can’t “sell” the news it is often disregarded.
Questions: Do you think that we as a society will ever stop finding reasons to oppress a particular group?

Bechdel Test
Summary: The Bechdel test is a method for evaluating the portrayal of women in fiction. For a film to pass the test it has to feature at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The test has been used to call attention to gender inequality in fiction. Some explanations as to why many films fail the Bechdel test include the relative lack of gender diversity among scriptwriters and other movie professionals. However, there are a lot of kinks to the test that need to be worked out so take the results lightly. Response: This test bothered me a little because some movies aren’t necessarily tailored towards women. For example, the example they gave of a movie that didn’t pass this test was Pacific Rim (2013). If you haven’t seen the movie here’s a quick rundown, it’s a sci-fi action movie with giant robots called jaegers who fight creatures called kaiju. It’s a movie where humanity sets asides their differences to save the world and of course, humanity wins at the end. I mean if you’re a women into these kinds of things, go ahead and watch it, but you’re not there to watch the movie for the character development. My point being that the test should account for genre, among other things.
Questions: Is the test purely to raise awareness or is it supposed to deter potential movie-goers from watching a particular film because it’s not women-friendly?

The Good and Bad of Metaphors (Erik Alatorre)

“Metaphors We Live By,” by George Lakoff & Mark Johnson Summary: Metaphors are pervasive in everyday life, or so we think. Metaphors influence how we perceive things we see, read, and hear. The examples of “argument is war” and “time is money” are staples of American culture. Pop culture has normalized the connotations of metaphors thus making it easy to throw into everyday life. Metaphors can be taken literally and figuratively making them seem pervasive but in reality they are limited by context. Context includes time, setting, and audience. In certain cases, the meaning can be explicitly stated and context doesn’t matter, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Response: Word choice and context go hand-in-hand when trying to convey a message. Everyone has to be able to understand and/or not get offended for a metaphor to work. For example, when translating english to spanish you’d have to be in the know of the culture to be able to give a proper translation. A literal word-for-word translation might make zero sense.

“The Egg and the Sperm,” by Emily Martin Summary: The author wrote the article to shine a light on the gender stereotypes hidden within the scientific language of biology. No matter the role of the egg it seems like women just can’t win when it comes to biology. In one explanation menstruation can be viewed as a failure. It can be argued that menstruation makes useless products. Whereas, man is glorified for the process of spermatogenesis, the normal human male may manufacture several hundred million sperm per day.” The author makes the argument that biologists are hypocritical. She asks why the male’s vast production of sperm is not seen as wasteful. She wrote “assuming that a man “produces” 100 million sperm per day during an average reproductive life of sixty years, he would produce well over two trillion sperm in his lifetime.” In another explanation where the egg has a larger and more active role, the word choice invites another cultural stereotype where women are a dangerous and aggressive threat.

Response: Once again I have been made aware of something that was hidden in plain sight. Before reading “The Egg and the Sperm” I wasn’t really aware of the word choices used to describe the interactions between an egg and sperm. However, by incorporating gender roles in nature it makes it easier to understand or makes it relatable. Even if they are bias towards man our understanding of the interactions remains intact, slightly misguided but overall intact.

Connections: The sentence from “Metaphors We Live By” that reads “these examples show that the metaphorical concepts we have looked at provide us with a partial understanding of what communication, argument, and time are and that, in doing this, they hide other aspects of these concepts” best describes the connection between the two texts. In “The Egg and the Sperm” the argument of gender roles hidden in scientific language really only works if your culture, such as the one in the U.S., has the open-mindedness of seeing women equal to men. In other countries this still isn’t the case and women are repressed to a smaller role in society.

Every Body Happy (Erik Alatorre)

I see this advertisement at the Blink gym that I go to and it reminds me of the Google logo we discussed in class. It is colorful and the word selection is kept simple but effective in making potential members feel welcomed. Joining the gym can be intimidating for some people and the advertisement (originally a video and better than this photo) is meant to show people that all types of people can join and share the same goal of getting fit.

Tools for Analyzing Texts (Erik Alatorre)

Rhetoric is in everything we encounter. While we can just look from a distance the next step is to analyze the rhetoric. To analyze is to think about what previous life experiences best relate to the rhetoric at hand and how it’s influencing your opinions. It’s also thinking about how other people with different life experiences will look at the same rhetoric and arrive to another conclusion. When analyzing rhetoric it can be easier if you take the bigger picture and break it down into smaller ones. Doing so will allow you to look at the smaller details and then understand how they all work together to create the bigger picture. Analysis does not solely include the written text but the context of it as well. What was going on in the world or in a particular country at the time that inspired the text? Who is the text written for? Answering these questions can provide a whole new perspective that’ll open up your mind.

In brief, when analyzing a text you are answering the why and the how. Why was the text written? And how does the text serve its purpose? What I found most interesting about the text were the theoretical lenses. I have never encountered the formal names of these theories but have encountered them in readings throughout my years in school. A question I have is regarding whether this is the best method for analyzing any form of rhetoric. Are there other methods? What was the criteria behind choosing this method?

Erik Alatorre (What is rhetoric?)

Rhetoric is, according to the text, the method of analyzing the writing of others and a method of shaping our own thoughts and ideas. Rhetoric uses three big topics to describe how we reason and think. these three being logos, pathos, and ethos. People are free to interpret however they please, its up to the one conveying the message to make sure their argument is understood the way they want it to.

One resource that I see myself using a lot during my time here at Baruch is the writing center. It is important to get a second opinion before handing in a final draft. The professionals at the writing center can take a second look at your paper to make sure you don’t have any grammar or spelling mistakes as well give feedback and suggestions to make your paper the best that it can be.

Erik Alatorre’s Intro

Describe yourself.

I (Erik Alatorre) am someone who is easy to get along with. If you approach me with open arms I’ll show the same in return because it’s just the type of person I am. I am calm and collected when need-be but the side of me that likes to talk to people in groups has helped me tremendously in the past few years. I know that I’m smart and capable as a student and with the right mentality I can accomplish just about anything. I’m also the mediator, or the tie breaker, in most of the circles I’ve been in and I’ve enjoyed it because it gives me a sense of power.

Describe yourself as a writer.

I (Erik Alatorre) like to think of myself as a really good writer. I honestly believe that I write better than I speak. There is something about the freedom of writing vs speaking and letting your mind run on that excites me. There are no restriction as to what you can write about, in public speaking however, you have to censor yourself because you don’t want to offend your audience. I like to follow outlines as they help me jot down ideas and just incorporate my own little twists that bring it all together.