Author: l.porcari

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05/10/16

Remix Project Pitch

For my project I;m going to make a mini-documentary.  I’ve always loved documentaries and I feel that the nature of my paper (writing about college affordability) lends itself well to the documentary form.  I was inspired by the one presentation Professor Blankenship showed us about race in Hollywood.  I’m going to try to find either documentary or lecture clips that I can use as voiceovers, and maybe even do a voice over of my own.  I would like it to be both informative and persuasive, both sharing facts about the issue of college affordability and sharing my interpretations of those facts.

03/31/16

Research-Based Argument Proposal

The central argument I plan to make in my research-based paper is that education is supposed to be an avenue by which the underprivileged can go as far as their talents will take them, but that today it achieves the opposite: ensures that the no one except the privileged can go to college without taking out a crippling amount of debt.  I will point to my parent’s experiences to show the shortcomings of our education system historically.  And then I will bring in my own story to show how these shortcomings have only been exacerbated in the last 30 years.  I plan to look at the issue of college affordability through the lens of the underprivileged, with emphasis placed on America’s ideal of social mobility.

03/29/16

Literacy Narrative

Both of my parents were the first in their family to go to college.  My mother was born in Detroit and grew up in poverty.  Neither of her parents had gone to college, but her mother, determined that her daughter would go to college, delayed her retirement for years so that my mother could have the chance to go to college.  My dad was the son of Italian immigrants, neither of whom went to college, and was the first and, until me, the only person in my family ever to go to college.

 

What sounds like a feel-good success story, however, hides some disheartening facts.  My mother, after moving 12 or 13 (I don’t know the exact number) times before she began high school, worked very hard during high school and went to the only school she could afford, Pratt Institute.  After getting her bachelor’s there, she was accepted into Columbia.  Being that no one in her family had ever been to college before her, she could not pass up the chance to go to an Ivy League school.  Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough money to go there and still do the work she wanted, which didn’t pay well enough to justify taking out so much debt.

 

My father was accepted into Cornell after High School, and desperately wanted to there.  He wanted to study physics and math, and Cornell’s programs in both were very well respected (Carl Sagan taught in their science department.)  Unfortunately, he didn’t have the money to go there and instead had to go to Stonehill College, a small college in Massachusetts that offered him a full scholarship.  Later, while working on his PhD in Physics at the University of Iowa, he was forced to forgoe his dream of being a college professor altogether because he began to realize how little money he would make.  None of his siblings had gone to college, his father was dying of cancer, and he had to start making money.  So he used his math degree to get a degree at an accounting firm so that he could begin making some money.

 

My parents were unable to go to the colleges of their choice not because of high tuitions costs, like those seen today, but because they were poor.  So, when they were older, and not poor, they made sure to save up money for me to go to college.  Unfortunately, because of the high price of tuition, I still would have had to take out debt had I gone to a private school.  I was accepted into many very good schools, but went to Baruch primarily because I got a scholarship.

 

It’s astounding to think that, because of how expensive college has become, as a middle class kid today, I faced the same obstacles my poor parents did decades ago.  It is as if the only kid who can really go to the best college they get into are the one’s who rely on a great education least, wealthy children.

03/23/16

Mother Tongue

Amy Tan’s basic argument is that there are multiple “versions” of English, and that these different versions denote more than just differences in ability to speak English.  A certain accent, or way of speaking English can become a part of one’s cultural identity and serve as a bridge to the past and a marker or continuity.  Tan makes this argument through the personal story of her mother and her mother’s broken English.  Tan’s mother was a Chinese immigrant who spoke “broken” (Tan isn’t a fan of the term “broken”) English throughout her entire adult life.  Tan reflects on the way that this made life more difficult for her mother, but also how it helped form her identity in America and her family’s identity in America.

 

I definitely speak different versions of English depending on who I’m around.  If I’m at work and talking on the phone, I try to sound very mature and professional and most people on the other end of the line probably think I’m close to 30.  With my friends, however, it’s very clear that I’m just a (relatively) young and unpolished kid.

 

These different versions of English certainly form different identities I hold.  I’m the young pseudo-professional when I’m in the office, speaking at mature as possible.  With my friends, I’m my laid-back and easy going self, not making a huge effort to impress anyone or act professional.

03/15/16

Revising Attitudes

I think that the way schools generally teach writing encourages students to view writing as a linear exercise in which the goal is not good writing but completion of the paper.  The emphasis is less on the ambiguities of writing, the style and the art, and more on meeting deadlines and simply writing something.  As students mature as writers, however, it is important to begin to understand that writing is a multi-step process in which writing is revised multiple times and the final product consists layering multiple revisions on top of each other.

 

I’ll definitely try to take a more positive approach to revising as a I revise my paper.  I’ll try to make the best of it, and genuinely make it a positive and productive experience.  Revision certainly provides many opportunities to feel discouraged and overwhelmed but I will remember the stories of positive revision experiences included in this essay and will seek to make positive changes to my paper.

03/3/16

Responding to Others’ Writing

Many students often have trouble writing school assignments because they are afraid that their writing will be criticized by the teacher.  I certainly am one of them.  The teacher’s comments can seem like the authoritative opinion, judging not only one particular piece of writing but also your ability to write in general.

 

The chief purpose of writing is expression.  Certainly there are smaller purposes, but by and large the most important is expression.  When a student really fears their teacher’s criticism, they will not feel comfortable expressing themselves.  The end result is that students learn not how to write, but how to get a decent grade.  In the end they are not any bit better at writing than they were before, and may in fact be more afraid of writing than they were before.

 

Richard Straub hits the nail on the head when he says that when responding to a students writing you should not seek to perfect or rewrite the piece, or even to merely point out all the errors.  Instead, you should make suggestions and try to help the reader improve the writing.

 

This mindset, of helping rather than judging, is applicable not only to English and Writing classes but to many other school subjects.  The problem is, of course, that most teachers focus more on judging their students work than on improving it.

03/1/16

Shitty First Drafts

Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” is a very interesting and helpful piece.  I found in it many ideas I myself have though at different points, such as the importance of just getting something, anything, down on paper.  I think a big reason many students feel pressured writing is that they rarely write multiple drafts.  So when they’re writing the opening paragraph, it’s not a “shitty first draft” that no one is going to see.  It’s the finished product that’s going to be graded and torn apart.  The anticipation of this sort of criticism leads many students to not be able to get anything down on paper at all.  Nothing sounds right and they don’t yet know what they’re trying to say.
The best way to write a “shitty first draft” is to put down on paper whatever comes to mind, in a sort of stream-of-consciousness writing.  Even if the sentences don’t logically follow one another and the phrasing is awkward and imprecise, just put it down and forget about it.  The important thing is not what your writing, but that you’re writing.  As long as you have something down on paper, you can begin to organize your thoughts and see more clearly the specific topic you want to write about and the points you’d like to make.

02/23/16

Rhetorical Analysis Baldwin

The exigence of Baldwin’s piece is the one hundredth anniversary of emancipation.  One can imagine that upon the one hundredth anniversary of emancipation there was, at least in the African American community, a good amount of commemorating and nostalgia.  It must have seemed to most young people that a great victory had been won and the struggle has been consummated a century earlier.  While emancipation was a great victory, however, it was followed by a century more of slavery in everything but name, ruining the lives and defeating the souls of millions of African Americans.  While people were celebrating the one hundredth anniversary, Baldwin wanted to make clear the current state of African Americans in the United States.  He wanted to provide a sober description of reality for most African Americans, and chose this occasion as the right time to do it.

 

The audience appears at first to be Baldwin’s nephew.  Upon further inspection, however, it becomes clear that Baldwin is speaking to the entire African American community, particularly the youth.  He’s speaks to the youth and tries to explain how the world will break them down and hurt them.  Baldwin does not want them to have any illusions as to what life will be like and how people will treat them.  Towards the end of the piece, however, Baldwin seems to begin speaking to a larger audience about bitterness and forgiveness.  He urges the African American community not to be bitter towards the whites who treat them unfairly, but instead to try to see the basic humanity inside everyone.

 

The constraints Baldwin has to deal with are the audience’s valid reasons to resent America and white people.  The African American community has been treated horribly, and one can understand the temptation towards bitterness and resentment.  Surely Baldwin everyone else understood this.  He seeks, however, to overcome this resentment and instead look for the basic humanity in everyone, white and black.

02/18/16

Letter to my Nephew

James Baldwin, in a letter to his 15-year-old nephew upon the 100th anniversary of emancipation, instructs his nephew not to be bitter towards white people or to hold against them the racist beliefs they hold.  He instructs his nephew rather to be welcoming and loving of them, and to try to change them into who they should be.  This involved the breaking down of the illusions that prop up racist mindsets.
This is a very bold and brave idea and is a testament to Baldwin’s strength of character.  Although he may sound cynical at times when speaking of the obstacles placed in front of his nephew, I think writing off his warnings to his nephew as cynical is a superficial analysis of his ideas.

 

Perhaps Baldwin takes honesty this seriously because he understands the dangers of illusions.  Racist idea’s themselves are examples of illusions, which, as Baldwin says, enhance the holder’s sense of identity.  Likewise, Baldwin would not want to put his nephew under the illusion that America was giving him a fair shot.  In this sense, what initially appears as cynicism is in fact and example of hope defying the odds, as Baldwin affirms that the way America treats his nephew is not right and is not normal.  Baldwin nudges the reader toward envisioning an America free of these illusions, where his nephew is treated as he should be.

02/16/16

Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl Ad

The subject is Apple’s new Macintosh computer.  The purpose of the rhetoric is to convince people to buy Apple’s computer, and Apple argues this by contextualizing the release of the computer in terms of Apple vs. control.  Apple is portrayed as breaking down systems or control and setting people free.  This makes buying the Macintosh computer an act of rebellion and an exercise of freedom.

The audience is the millions of Americans watching the Super Bowl.  This is a very large and diverse audience, which introduces some constraints.  The first, and biggest, constraint is the sheer size of the audience.  Apple had to make references that the majority of Americans would understand.  Therefore, they used 1984 because even though most American’s haven’t read the actual book, most are familiar with the main ideas behind it.  The other constraint was time.  Apple couldn’t make a feature-length film based off 1984 to market their new computer.  They had to condense their message into a minute-long ad.  So the only words you actually hear, besides the ramblings of the man on the screen, are Apple’s announcement of it’s new computer and its short assertion that “1984 won’t be like 1984.”

The pathos, or the appeal to values, is Apple appealing to American’s sense of independence and antipathy towards authority and control.  These values are exemplified by the popularity in America of the book 1984, which Apple takes advantage of to market its product.  The “ethos,” or appeal of credibility, is achieved through Apple identifying itself with with the woman breaking the screen.  Perhaps some Americans in 1984 thought modern technology would bring us to a dystopian future.  Apple positions itself on the side of the common person, against that sort of dystopian future where technology controls our lives.  The logos, or appeal to logic, is indirect but still effective.  Nearly all people, regardless of political ideology, are at least theoretically opposed to centralized control as seen in the Apple advertisement.  Even those whose ideologies have lead to centralized systems of oppression think of themselves as opposing such systems.  Apple appeals to this undercurrent in almost all ideologies, opposition to oppression and restrictions on freedom, and positions themselves on the right side of it.  “Kairos” means an opportune time or the supreme moment.  The “Kairos” in this commercial is when the woman is running toward the screen with the guards chasing behind her and just barely throws the object at the screen before the guards get to her.  If she had run just a little bit slower the guards would have caught her and the best moment, or Kairos, of the ad would have been lost.

02/12/16

What is Rhetoric?

I found it very interesting how the author located rhetoric in society as something useful that contributes to causes we care about.  Rhetoric isn’t just empty words or baseless phrases.  It’s a real-life material that becomes a sort of currency that people use to communicate ideas.  Therefore, rhetoric is incredibly important in that it shapes our ideas about the world and has the ability to influence real-world events.

02/11/16

Backpacks vs. Briefcases

The one idea that really stuck out to me was the importance of context in rhetorical analysis.  What may serve as effective rhetoric in one situation may not serve as effective rhetoric in another.  In terms of writing, this idea has very insightful implications.  You’d write a legal brief very differently that you’d write a poem.  What may be very effective poetry writing would be very confusing legal writing.  And what would be very effective legal writing would be very dry and boring poetry.  When writing, and when analyzing rhetoric, you have to take into account the broader context in which the rhetoric occurs in order to understand whats happening.

02/10/16

Everbody’s a Critic.

A.O. Scott, in his article “Everybody’s a Critic. And That’s How It Should Be,” lays out the case fro the role of the critic in modern society.  Scott himself is a film critic, but he speaks more generally about the arts.

Scott sees art and the aesthetic life as playing a very important role in society.  He criticizes our tendency to push art off to the side of our lives and essentially saying that it’s not that important.
With art thus occupying a central role in society, Scott then asserts that the obligation of each citizen is to participate in the criticism and conversation about that art.  He correctly points out how humans are the only species with the ability to create or appreciate art, and that we should not let that ability go to waste.

People have for a long time acted as critics, but this role was reserved for a select few, including film critics like Scott himself and organizations like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  In our modern world however, this role is being democratized, in large part thanks to the internet.  People can now air their opinions with ease to a perceptive audience, and engage with each other about art and their preferences about it.

I agree with Scott that conversations about art, and the aesthetic life in general, are very important to the moral and spiritual well-being of a society.  I’m not sure, however, of the efficacy of these conversations.  The ancient maxim goes: “Of tastes there is no disputing.”  It is beneficial not so much to come to any sort of agreement on artistic idea during our conversations, but rather the conversation itself is what benefits us.

02/9/16

The Egg and the Sperm

In “The Egg and the Sperm,” Emily Martin argues that our ideas about biological reproductive processes are influenced and constructed by cultural ideas and stereotypes.  In other words, the female egg cell is seen as the inefficient and passive receptor of the quick, dominant, and penetrative male sperm cell.  Martin shows that these ideas have little basis in reality and are a reflection not of the objective biological processes but of our cultural ideas about gender.

Martin’s primary argument is that these ideas are so deeply embedded into our collective consciousness that they are very difficult to completely get rid of.  For example, recent discoveries have shown that the egg-sperm relationship is more fluid than the terminology popularly used would suggest.

I share Martin’s concerns about the gendered language we use to talk about concepts that really should be quite detached from ideas about gender.  I don’t, however, share her glim outlook regarding the ability of our culture to overcome these ideas.  While these ideas are deeply embedded in our culture, they are not inborn in us.  They are a result of the way we raise our children and the way we talk about these ideas in our common life.  It’s not something we can’t change.  Certainly it will be difficult to change these dynamics, but it’s certainly something we can accomplish over time.

02/9/16

Bush aims to just survive New Hampshire

People often complain about the media overdramatizing stories.  Every time there is a virus going around the media ponders whether this is the start of the apocalypse and whether we’re not all better off just living the rest of our lives permanently indoors.  The other day, I came across a great, although not immediately apparent, example of an overdramatized news story.  The headline read: “Bush aims to just survive New Hampshire.”

Let’s pretend for a moment that the title of this article is literally true.  Jeb Bush is in New Hampshire right now, and he may die within the next 24 hours depending on how the voters cast their ballots.  You can imagine Jeb taking on a Bear Grylls-like survivalist persona as he fights for his life in suburban New Hampshire.  The article points out that many people do not expect Jeb Bush to survive this ordeal, but Jeb is defiant and insists he will make it out alive against all odds, saying “You don’t have to listen to the pundits.”

All humor aside, this article is interesting for what it tells us about how we view campaigns.  We think of the candidates as gladiator-like warriors brawling in an arena while the country attentively watches.  People cheer for their respective fighter and are always entertained by a particularly dirty fight.  Carl von Clausewitz said “war is merely the continuation of politics by other means.”  Maybe it’s just as true to say “politics is merely the continuation of war by other means”

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/jeb-bush-new-hampshire-primary-218919

02/4/16

Response to Lakoff

I was very excited to read the first few chapters of George Lakoff’s Metaphors We Live By because last year I read his book Moral Politics and really enjoyed it.  Moral Politics applies Lakoff’s ideas regarding metaphors and cognitive science to political thinking and opinion-making.

When I began reading Metaphors We Live By, however, I was slightly disappointed.  The main problem, as it appeared to me, was that Lakoff emphasized how metaphors influence how we conceptualize the world around us (which was completely valid), but failed to acknowledge that we use different metaphors to understand certain concepts because of some real-life aspect of that concept.  The impression I got was that Lakoff saw metaphors as being somewhat arbitrary and only tangentially related to the concepts they correspond to.  Lakoff under-emphasized the extent to which metaphors are as much a reflection of some reality of the concept as a distortion of the concept in it’s entirety.

For instance, we use the argument–as-war metaphor to explain war at least in part because of the competitive aspects of argument and the impassioned feelings of rage that often accompany heated arguments.  The metaphor, it seems to me, does not create that impression of the concept of argument, i.e. the impression that arguments are competitive and often heated, but rather the metaphor expresses that impression of arguments.

This was at least the way that things appeared to me after the first two chapters or so.  In the third chapter, however, Lakoff acknowledged that metaphors hide certain aspects of the concepts, implicitly saying that metaphors only emphasize one concrete aspect of the concept over another.  This seemed to me much better than the tone of the first two chapters which, perhaps in an effort to get his point across, really stretched trying to make clear how metaphors inform our perceptions of concepts.

After finishing the reading, I found Lakoff’s ideas much more agreeable than they seemed to me as I was reading them.  The importance of Lakoff’s thought is not that he makes clear the specific dynamics underpinning the relationship between metaphors and our perception of the certain concepts, but rather that he sheds light on the fact that there is a relationship between the two, a fact which he correctly says virtually no one is consciously aware of.

02/3/16

Luke

Hi everyone! I’m Luke Porcari and I’m a freshman from Long Island majoring in either finance or public affairs (I have to decide soon!)  I’m an avid reader and always have a book with me wherever I go.  I read mostly history and philosophy but a little bit of fiction here and there too.  I have a beagle named Bella who wakes me up at 5 AM every morning so that she can begin her day by running around my house.

Another thing about me is that I love politics.  I’ve actually interned on two different political campaigns so far, and had a lot of fun doing it! It’s a lot of work but it really is a good experience being able ot go into your community and really get a sense of people’s concerns and the issues they care about.

I love to travel and have been to Italy twice! I went there the summers before both my freshman and sophomore years of high school.  I have some relatives to live over there so we spent time visiting with them but we also got to travel around the country a bit and see all the big cities.

I’ve included a picture of some books to represent my love of reading!

 

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https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/lukeporcari/