The three artists and their art that struck out to me during this assignment were Juergen Teller, Jayson Musson, and Andy Warhol. To begin with, my impressions of all of the three artists’ work were contradictory to how I generally portray art in my mind as being deep and elegant. The photographs taken by Juergen Teller are mostly revolving around female nudity while others capture views of people in distorted settings. One of his photographs depicted a huge gallery surrounded by a number of paintings, seemingly famous and expensive, with a couple of naked women sitting in the center frame of the picture. It is hard to understand what exactly is going on in the frames but that in itself is what captures the audience’s attention. Moving on, Andy Warhol visual art included a number of different mediums, including but not limited to paintings, sculptures, sketches, photographs, etc. Unlike Juergen Teller, it was rather easier to interpret the image. I personally like still portraits with subtleties enabling the viewer to have a personal connection to the art and that is exactly what I enjoyed the most about Andy Warhol. Lastly, Jayson Musson was the most fun out of all the artists. From his honest take on the stereotype in the artist community to his extremely candid work, Mr. Musson makes his art speak his philosophy. Interestingly, my first impression when I saw Jayson Musson’s work was how it reminded me of the NFT (non-fungible token) art that is being bought and sold nowadays for a lot of money. Even then, Mr. Musson successfully envelops great meaning in very basic artwork.
Author: m.aziz2
Final Day (Muhammad Aziz)
Summary
The research essay, “Stereotypes: The Real Evil”, talks about how stereotypes are the primary cause of racism. The essay begins by anecdotes and personal experiences of the author. He explains how he also was once a victim of racial stereotyping and how that led to racist treatment. He then brings in the experiences of others who have racially stereotyped people based on their looks. These experiences solidify the idea that he is not the only one. As the essay progresses, the author brings in counter arguments and refutes them with experts opinions. Firstly, he explains the mental process when people are behaving in a racist manner. It is found that the personal biases that drive such actions are caused by inner apprehensions and anxiety. The second support argument that the author provides is the misconception of positive stereotypes. He diminishes the claim that such a term even exists. Then by referring to a research study, he proves that even if there is a thing such as positive stereotypes, it is not positive at all since it brings peoples attention to negative stereotypes as well.
Response
This essay was very relatable and touched a topic that is very sensitive but yet demanding attention. I am pretty sure everyone has once in their lives have been an active part of racial stereotyping, either by being the victim or the culprit. The essay was well written throughout. It lacked grammatical cohesion in some of its parts but overall, it was successful in providing some very insightful and compelling argument.
Style Imitation (Muhammad Aziz)
It is sometimes very hard to figure out the real happiness that one is missing in their lives, all the while thinking that what they have is sufficient. I was in content with the life I was living, with the fixed routine I had, with following my schedule and not ever willing to commit the sin of thinking out of the box, with criticizing anyone/everyone who tend to not follow the life I had, but at the same time it all seemed as if I was the only one doing such a thing. When we first made the plan of going to Poconos during the summer of last year, to sit in a car for three hours just to enjoy the serene and beautiful scenery and to breathe in the fresh air of the mountains. I had packed myself every essential that I deemed necessary to save me from boredom, I had learned and researched everything I could to make myself well equipped for the trip and to be well aware of what we had to do when we get there in order to save time, I had read books and articles about the local vicinity to know about the atmosphere of what it felt like to live there, all of these were nothing but signs that I wasn’t well occupied with the idea of being spontaneous.I guess I really wasn’t. Sometime during the trip, I forgot about everything I had planned for the trip, all the effort I put in to make this trip more comfortable for me now seemed nothing but a waste of my own time, maybe because I was so mesmerized by being and living in the moment that everything else seemed irrelevant. I know now that no matter how well he or she tries to plan everything out, the best feeling in the world is to go unplanned and live the moment, when one realizes that this feeling would have never ever been felt if it was already known them.
Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of the Wimpy Kid.
In the summer of last year, we planned to visit and discover Poconos was made with my friends. This plan was made literally a few days before we went. I am a very organized person and I like to do my work before the deadlines. Planning something last minute is not my quality. So this was something we would have most definitely never done if it wasn’t for my friends. They are all very well aware of how I am and they did their level best to convince me to come. Nevertheless, I went with the plan, all the while having extreme anxiety and stress. It was a three-hour drive and since we were like ten people, we had to get two cars. Initially, it was very boring because everyone was very sleepy and tired but as the day progressed, the mood in the car got better and more lively. As we got there, the serene and beautiful scenery left me in a state of amazement. This wasn’t the only thing that awed me, but hiking around the mountains and breathing the fresh air made me feel as if there was no tomorrow. One thing I did realize from this experience was that I try to follow my schedule and plan everything ahead of me when sometimes it’s good to just live in the moment.
Using Sources/ Writing Style (Muhammad Aziz)
Using Sources Summary and Response
The reading “Using Sources”, by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz, is about identifying the most useful sources and integrating them into your own piece of work. It is important to note that finding information is easy but knowing how to turn them into “credible information that will be persuasive to your intended audience” is what makes someone a good writer. The authors further explain the whole idea behind the term “infotention.” It is simply a fancy word that explains how to collectively use your brain and web to identify the sources that don’t only provide you with the most valuable information but also comes from a well-known source. Moving on, the authors differentiate between paraphrasing and summarizing information, using quotations to emphasize the author’s precise words, and utilizing signal words to “characterize the author’s or source’s viewpoint as well as your own.” The latter part of the reading talks about employing sources in a correct and a proper fashion that would further develop your argument, instead of making it sound like a cluster of unorganized information. In my opinion, having guidelines to do all these things was really helpful because as much as the argument made sense, but if I couldn’t use it properly then there wouldn’t be any point. So having guidelines that I can follow gave me a physical sense of direction as to how and where to improve when using sources.
Introduction to Refining Your Writing Style Summary and Response
The reading “Introduction to Refining Your Writing Style”, by Lisa Blankenship, gives its readers important notes to keep in mind when writing a paper. For one, when you write a paper, whether academic or popular, discourse communities should always be part of your conscious. It is a fact that for academic writing certain disciplines, values and styles should be given special consideration for your point to go across. What is also important to consider is the audience. If one is employing the use of conventions that are not persuasive to the intended audience, the argument wouldn’t be persuasive at all. When a person understands what his/her audience’s style is, he/she gains “cultural capital” over its audience. In response to this reading, what I found really interesting was how learning different styles give one flexibility in approaching different kinds of audience. Not only this, if he/she intend on improving their respective styles, they also can get the attention of a more professional audience in that field.
Research Process (Muhammad Aziz)
Finding Evidence, Summary and Response
In the reading “Finding Evidence,” by Andrea A. Lunsford & John J. Ruszkiewicz, the authors talk about the basics of constructing a research paper, more specifically, how to find the most effective evidence for one’s paper. It starts out by explaining the importance of evidence; it makes one’s claim sound more logically and reasonably correct. Then the article moves into discussing the correlation between one’s evidence and its claim. If the evidence is not relevant and doesn’t “match the time and place” of one’s argument, then it does the opposite of its intended purpose and dissuaded its audience from further reading the paper. As the article further progresses, the author puts forth different methods of collecting evidence. A writer can use either first-hand resources, such as anecdote, interviews, and surveys, or second-hand resources, such as books, journals, and online data, depending on his/ her rhetorical situation, to strengthen their claim. In my opinion, I think the best way to produce the most effective results is by using a combination of both first- and second-hand resources since it will not only make the audience look at reason but also give the writer credibility to speak. Also, this article seems to be for people who are getting into researching with little to no knowledge of researching, such as myself for the next assignment.
Under My Thumb, Summary and Response
In the essay “Under My Thumb”, by Chelsea Booth, the author digs into the gender inequality in the music industry and how that affects women as a whole. Chelsea incorporates many different pieces of evidence such as personal experience, statistics and observations, and experiments. The author begins by reminiscing over the past experience she had with a guy that made her realize all she wants is to be considered as equals. In addition, she then realizes that it’s harder for girls to love music than guys since the music industry and the history is just made up of male musicians and very few unrecognized females. By doing an observation of her music class and experimenting the allocation of time on each content, it’s quite understandable that there is an excessive amount of time wasted just on the “silence” when that same time could have been used to go over female musicians. Moving on, this gender inequality is further developed in the music industry that even during concerts women are not treated right; they are molested, raped and sexually assaulted in every way. To support this claim, Booth uses both personal experience and statistics. In the end, by including personal experiences and other sources of evidence, Booth proposes that even though females have the power to change, they are just waiting for the chance to express themselves. In my opinion, this seems like a very powerful essay and there is no doubt it got an award too. I love how Booth uses different pieces of evidence to highlight the sexual assault she has faced in life which, in turn, establishes the bigger idea; women have what it takes to change the prevailing vices in our society.
Manifesto (Muhammad Aziz)
In the article “Manifesto” by George Saunders, the author comments on the vices in our society. Specifically, how peopel tend to prefer violence and extreme methods to send across a message or simply, just ot get rid of their frustration. The author discusses a demonstration his organization held in order to illustrate that perhaps the easiest way to not spread violence is simply by not doing anything that would hurt anyone. The demonstration was held in four phases: in the first no one was beheaded; in the second one, no bombs or any type of sexual assault was commited; in the third one, no planes were sunk; in the fourth one, any type of explosives were prevented from exploding; in the fifth and the last one, no abuse, whatsoever, took place. This was just to show the audience that despite the hardship that everyone face in their lives, its best to refrain from violence to deal with it because there is always a better and much more peaceful way of finding a solution.
Researching Stereotypes and “Fake News” (Muhammad Aziz)
Researching and Making Claims Summary and Response
In the reading Research and Making Claims, the author, Seth Graves, puts forth the importance of researching in a piece of writing. He starts of by giving an analogy of going into to a forest. At first, if one will go through it, he/she will probably just see trees. But as they use the resources understanding what type of trees they are surrounded by, they will realize that what seemed as all the same before are now completely different and have their own specific names. Similar is the case with researching. It not only gives us the knowledge but also, “ expands the your capacity for emotion.” In a sense, it changes who we are. If looked at from a broader perspective, every paper written is a form of research paper since at some point one tend to use primary or secondary sources to support their claim. As a result it gives the paper more credibility since now the audience of the intended paper knows that the author has done some fact check before producing the paper; this is one the main reasons in doing research. The most interesting sentence of the piece for me would be “research has the power to change us.” I never looked at research in the sense that it could go as far as to changing someone. But, in a sense, this seems to be true because when you look at it, it opens up the realm of the unknown for us which makes us emotionally vulnerable to topics we didn’t know existed before.
The Research Process Summary and Response
Unlike Graves piece, “The Research Process”, by Seth Graves, Lucas Corcoran, and Kamla Belmihoub, talks more into the process itself of researching. Research not necessarily has to do with digging deep into boring and lengthy articles and big, dense old books but it is actually just about finding ways to satisfy one’s curiosity. Surprisingly, it is actually very relatable to everyone since it can be anything from asking around about a movie and deciding whether to watch it or not to something that strikes us as unusual or extraordinary in one’s everyday life. Inquiry is a n important aspect of research. Sounds like a very simple and insignificant method because we use it daily in our lives when we ask anyone about anything, but has utmost importance. This can be described as secondary source of evidence in terms of research. What seems to astounding is that the best research question comes from everyday life experiences- the more personal it is, the more intrigued you are to research about it. For me, the most interesting sentence of the piece was “…[research] isn’t so much a collection of facts that prove your case but rather a type of exploration.” In opinion this resonates with the sentence that intrigued me in the last reading as well since this is also regarding research as a way of further finding yourself in terms of your research question.
Revision Readings (Muhammad Aziz)
1) In the text “ Revising Attitudes” by Brock Dethier, the author uses the sentence “…For most of us revision is the only road to success” to highlight the fact that sometimes the initial draft for some people are full of flaws. Consequently, what revisions does is that it serves as a tool for looking back at our mistakes and giving us an opportunity to fix them. In other words, revision is the only to road to success. In my opinion, revision is the only accessible tool for a writer to make his/her work better.
2) In simple words, what Dethier is trying to imply by that metaphor is that as you work more on a car it gets better just like that if you put effort in revising a piece of writing, it will get better. I personally think of revising as playing a sport. The more you practice and improve on your techniques, the better you will get. Starting with the major weaknesses and then moving on smaller issues. By doing this, one can not only be better at what they do but also, they also know where their weaknesses lie.
3) In Donald Murray’s piece, “Revising Your Own Manuscripts”, the major focal point is to emphasize the need for revision. Just like in Brock Deither’s piece, Murray also argues that a piece of writing is never finished; it always has some margin for improvement. It is natural for someone to think that they are done with writing right after their first draft because mostly people think the effort they put into the first one is enough for publication, this group of people includes me too. In reality, this is never the case. As much as you think that you are done, first draft is just the beginning.
Anzaldua and Naylor (Muhammad Aziz)
How to Tame a Wild Tongue Summary
In the text “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Gloria Anzaldua talks about how she had to tame down her native language just because it was considered “illegitimate.” Since she was a Chicano, a term used for Mexican-Americans, she spoke Chicano-Spanish. Referring herself as a Chicano meant that people would just look down upon her as she spoke a language that had no real heritage. In a sense, they were orphans. This criticism started to affect their self-esteem as Chicano people. Even in their own discourse communities, they refrained from interacting with each other. The author explains the reason behind this as the interaction was seen nothing but a self-reflecting mirror that shows them their weakness and flaws. Although as the text progresses, authors attitude changes. She becomes more optimistic for the future of her people and how this identity that proves to be the reason behind all the discrimination will one day be the reason behind their unity and survival.
The Meaning of a Word Summary
The text “The Meanings of a Word,” by Gloria Naylor, explains how there’s a nuance of the meaning of a single word that can be defined as a notion of pride to an expression of insult. Naylor takes her readers on the journey of how she came to know about this reality. She narrates that she belonged to a black household where the word “nigger” was used to refer to smartness, impeccability, and dignity. But she never knew that beyond the walls of her house, the word meant something completely different. And Naylor learned this the hard way. Unlike the word’s positive connotations the author was familiar with, it wasn’t until one of her classmates brought her to light and made her understand that the word “nigger” is actually a very discriminating and degrading remark.
Response
One similarity amongst both texts was that both the authors had similar experiences; they were both, in one way or the other, discriminated. The only difference was that Anzaldua was raised completely aware of this injustice while Naylor came to know about this when she was in third grade. Also, what seems to be a constant factor in both texts was that their primary focus was on the impact the use of certain language had on them. They were never physically abused but still, the words that were used to describe them were good enough to leave them with a low self-esteem.
Alexie and Tan (Muhammad Aziz)
Superman and Me Summary
In the short story “Superman and Me”, Sherman Alexie narrates how he first learned to read. He was a Spokane Indian boy living in a middle-class family on the Spokane Indian Reservations in the eastern Washington state. Books were very accessible to him since his father was an enthusiast reader. His father got books from where ever he got his hands on. There were so many books at one point in his house that one could find books even in the bathroom of their house. When he first comes to learn about what a paragraph is, he turns it into a metaphor that he applies to every aspect of his life. Alexie explains that the first time he began to read something was when he held a Superman comic. He read the comic and as the pictures depicted some sort of action, he used his general knowledge as to what one would normally say when he/she is performing those actions and that’s how Sherman Alexie learned how to read. He was far ahead of the kids of his age. Perhaps, what annoyed Alexie the most and caused him to pursue a field in writing was because he wanted to change the norms of how Native Indians are perceived; most people think of them as stupid and backward in nature. As an effort to help to save the lives of the Indians, he made visits to the school at the reservation and helped children read and write.
Mother Tongue Summary
In the writing “Mother tongue,” Amy Tan talks about how the world perceives one differently if the language he/she uses is not understandable or, as she says, “broken.” Tan explains how the English she professionally use is so different than the English she grew up using at her house. Her mother was as Asian immigrant women who read all a variety of English readings daily, varying from scholarly articles to everyday magazines. But even then, her spoken English was considered “limited” or “fractured.” Most of her friends barely even understand a word Tan’s mother said. But what was astonishing to notice was that Tan understood her mother’s English. This is maybe because when you live with someone, you start to comprehend their “intent, passion, imagery, rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thought.” Anyways, apart from Tan, her mother’s English was not received welcomingly, in fact, most of the times she had to get involved and talk to the people on behalf of her. Tan refers to these instances as not only embarrassing but also detrimental to her learning of the English language. To break the norms that immigrants cannot be writers and to simplify the language used in literature, Tan decided to become a writer.
Response
Both of these readings are quite relatable to me as I am also an immigrant and face similar problems when it comes to distinguishing between the language spoken at home and outside. I also have to adjust to the stereotypes of the society where one is not served right or is looked down upon if he belongs to a non-English speaking country. And to make a resonating impact, I have to know what type of English I should use and where. More importantly, I have to learn the English that conforms to the conventions of the United States.