ePortfolio

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          Dear future college writing 2 students,
Congratulations on finishing college wring 1 and moving on to the next level in your college writing careers. You have all chosen a very wise, and excellent professor: dr. kyburz. This class has taught me many things and also reinforced topics I have learned before. You will come to realize things you thought you knew, you really didn't know or you didn't learn them correctly. A major element I have learned in the course of this class was exactly what dr, intended of us: write early and revise often.

          There were many major assignments throughout the class and I could not stress to you enough that writing early is key. You will not be successful in the class if you do not write early drafts. If you wait to turn in a draft for review, you have lost valuable time. The day an assignment is given to you, go home and write. The quicker you get a draft in for feedback, the more time you have to correct it before the deadline. The more drafts you write the more improved your paper will be. If don't write quickly, you don't have enough time to revise your work. If you would like proper feedback and have time to apply the feedback, write early.

          Another element I am sure you will take from the class is how to write an effective summary. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eeCKWH7ZchYjVb_pnJns0xiPJWyYfR8Bun9I_npeBb0/edit. This last assignment in class, the argument, was mainly composed of summary writing. Along with summary writing, one had to analyze why the author was including what they did and how they did it. The bulk of all our papers was summary because in order to analyze our source, we as writers needed to inform our audience of what exactly was going on within the article. When she assigned our very first assignment,  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RrwPpGUKQU2HUWPTm6ZDBfuqq-V7-OvfveZ4lA_rPOo/edit, a summary on a short film, I thought the assignment was going to be a breeze. In turned out that this was one of the papers I had to revise often. We were taught or maybe not corrected to include analysis within summary writing. Dr. Kyburz drilled in our heads for the assignment and throughout the whole semester that summary does not include analytical information. The purpose of a summary is to state exactly what happened and not to analyze. Summary writing, again, was the bulk of all our writing.

          https://docs.google.com/document/d/16fEJg8FDKwgCu633RsdcI24jsE_-nXwXCCnrg6V0s54/edit    This document is revised to fix my MLA format. The final draft i handed in works cited page was half way down the page. It was been corrected so that it starts at the top of the page. MLA format is very crucial in the course. As dr. mentioned in the syllabus, we need work ethically and give credit to those who earned it. For every paper, there must be an in text citation along with a correctly formatted works cited page.Pagination and a proper heading is also expected in all papers. MLA format allows your paper to look formal. MLA format has a lot to do with your grade. You can fail a paper for not properly using or the absence of MLA. You can not write a scholarly essay without proper format.

          To conclude, this class has taught and reinforced a lot of the material I already knew. From writing early to revising to often to correct summary writing. I also learned that MLA or any format of writing is crucial to the over look of your paper. This class will definitely increase your knowledge and expand your understanding of rhetorical writing. dr. kyburz is an excellent professor who cares about your success and is very open to helping you out.

          Sincerely,
          Noe Ortiz

Summary and analysis post

            Summary and analysis is nothing new to me, as a rhetorical analysis paper was done in college writing one. Dr. kyburz does incorporate new things to her assignments that are often new to me. Her quote sandwich is something new to me and something that seems like I have been doing. I still stand a little confused on what exactly or how exactly we are to expand this piece into five pages. I would like to know also what are we going to be writing this analysis on? Will we be sticking with the piece about art and have everyone write about the same thing or will we later pick our own piece to write our analysis on? For now, the summary part was simple to do because of the earlier assignment we had to do, which I felt truly taught me how to write a correct summary. The analysis seems like it will cause a little bit of conflict. Personally, I hate selfies and I hate art, so this article is difficult to write about because I am, truthfully, not interested in it. As I commented in older blog posts, dr. kyburz’s assignments were nice and fun to work on because they were over material we enjoyed. A student will do better if the assignment they’re working on is over material they enjoy and can relate to. I feel once and if we are able to pick our own topics, this assignment will become much easier and maybe more interesting to not just me but for other people as well. As we have more opportunity to discuss the assignment in class, the expectations will be more clear and it’ll all be easier. 

Elements of argument reflective post

          The calendar guides us to write and share our rough draft of our summary and analysis, but since we were not able to get to that part, I am going to address the other two points that were made in the calendar. How I understand argument and also explaining what I know about argument already.
          Understanding the elements of argument is not hard since we have been exposed to them before, just not in a direct matter. Obviously, there can not be an argument unless there is a specific type of claim. Within that claim, however, there must be room for what maybe you can call controversy. Your claim can not be 100% factual because then there is no argument. Also, if your argument is opinionated, you will have difficulty finding evidence to help support your argument. And as I mentioned before, your argument must evidently be able to be argued. Since the beginning of our writing careers and maybe even before that, we naturally look for reasons to support what we do.  Being why we got in trouble as kids or why we asked our parents to let us use the car. Evidence is a key factor in an argument because a goal can be to try to get someone to see your side of the story, and without proper and strong evidence, there is no argument. Inartistic evidence is evidence gathered not by our imagination but rather through formal findings such as reports books, or articles, which is obviously most common. Artistic proofs come from within and often appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos as well. For sake of all arguments, we need to have reason, We don't argue for something we don't have a reason for. Like every proper and formal argument, it is necessary to state the opposite side. In reality, addressing the other side only makes your argument stronger. As dr. kyburz has mentioned, we all know this. None of these words, but warrants, is new to me. During high school, writing papers and trying to argue a stance was not the easiest thing. Clarifying these terms will make this assignment easier.
          Like I mentioned before, I know a lot about argument and it is nothing new to me either. one of the course's guiding concepts is that all claims require evidence. I stated that no matter when we began, we naturally had reasons or evidence for everything we did. From writing papers to explaining to our angry girlfriend why we couldn't text back. We see it in our daily lives how candidates give evidence on why they are best fit for positions. Meaning has context was a little difficult to understand to me. I understand that behind every author, there is a purpose but the word context is troubling me. Does it mean that meaning has background. I am having trouble understanding that part. Writing in revision is something we all as writers can refer to. With years of writing, there have been countless drafts written and millions of peer reviews, and teacher conferences. The only way to get better at your writing is to revise and to ensure that everything is as best as can be. Familiarizing yourself with your writing and getting feedback is essential to writing a great paper. These concepts come into sharper focus because they in reality have a lot to do with argument. You definitely need to back up whatever your saying with great evidence, and give your meaning something the audience can clearly see, and lastly, you want to revise what your putting together, constantly. Who knew argument elements were so engraved in our heads.

Presidential Election

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/01/politics/presidential-poll-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-abc/


         According to a CNN article posted by Tom Kludt on November 1st, 2016, the race between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has gotten closer. Polls last week showed that Clinton held a double digit lead on Trump. After a new FBI investigation was reopened on Clinton's email scandal, her numbers have dropped significantly. Actually, an ABC poll suggest that Trump holds a one point lead on Clinton, although the CNN article says that is not likely. "Statistically negligible", Trump's lead is probably non existence as there as a 3% margin for error.
        As elections are a week away, it is reasonable to say that this election will be one that will go down in history. Clinton can be the first female president, and as for Mr. Trump, can become the worst president in United States history. Clearly biased, Donald Trump is simply incapable of running a country like the United States, or any country for that matter. Personally, I am not much of a fan of Mrs. Clinton, but she does prove to be the lesser of the two evils. One thing that does make me back her up is that she carries on her a lot of experience. Years of government service definitely qualifies her to be the next president. Trump is just a load of nonsense and none of his ideas are plausible or attainable. He's been a joke since the beginning and the fact that he has so much support truly says something about the country we live in. Granted people have their right to their opinion, I think it is an absolute mockery that our election includes a person like Mr. Trump.
       Good outcome or not, this election will go down in history as one of the craziest elections. I really hope that whoever is elected, can truly make the country a better place and look into everyone's interests.

Tweetstream Reaction

          Kate Harris and Tracy Barrett effectively expose the audience to a wonderful, impacting piece of work. They begin the article by asking a great question," What is the purpose of patriotism." By asking this question, the authors not only makes the audience think, but also establishes what the rest of the article will be revolving around. Next, they introduce us to who they will be utilizing within their article and how they relate to the topic at hand. Frederick Douglass, who was a slave in the 1800s, is introduced to us. He was able to escape to the north and was well known as an author in the 1850s. Douglass gave a speech on July 5 known as, "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" The authors describe how his speech  began as a common one. Establishing points where no one could disagree, but during his speech, he took a turn. He said that being black, he could not celebrate the Fourth of July the same way others could. During his speech, Douglass gets the audience to understand that slaves are excluded during the holiday. The authors then switch to Kaepernick, who chose to kneel during the national anthem at football games. His reasons being ugly presidential campaigns, police violence towards African Americans, and the inability to resolve the immigration issue. David Brooks speaks out against this protest saying that the anthem is an ideal to look up to and if any high school student were to attempt it, it would be losing shared identity and risking disunity. 

          In my personal opinion, I agree. From background knowledge, we are all aware on how slaves were treating. Frederick Douglass does an exceptional job in presenting his argument. The country says it is celebrating freedom or independence, but those who are slaves, how is it possible to celebrate freedom or independence when you are "property" of another person simply because of the color of their skin? The fact that they chose a well known activist like Frederick Douglass to compare Colin's choice to protest is crucial. It is evident that racism occurs within the country. As the article mentioned, a terrible presidential campaign clearly depicts racism is an issue. Being part of a democracy, it is anyone's right to protest, peacefully. Choosing to kneel during the anthem is a right a citizen has. In terms of David Brooks, I agree as well. The national anthem does create a sense of unity and has been part of American tradition for years. Seeing that a lot of the country has pride in what we are, I can see why people would be insulted and why disunity is encouraged. However, the freedom to protest is part of being American. One can not say they are proud of America, but be upset when someone exercises their right to be American. Overall, no one will ever think the same. Racism will exist, there will be hatred. Being part of this society does include being able to protest, whether it's liked or not. 

Presentation Reaction

             Throughout all my blog posts, I constantly praised the project for giving us an outlet from the traditional assignment. Besides writing about topics we were interested in, we were able to make the assignment creative and take a break from writing. The multimodol challenged our thinking but in a way that was overall fun and new to me. Rhetorically, how to discover complex thought  was definitely engraved within the project. How to make your audience feel and what you wanted them to take away from your film was very complex. Because not everyone can think the same, it was complex to get the audience to be on the same page as me. A key element in the film and the paper in general is how to organize my thoughts to create an impression. In the introduction of my paper I needed to make my stance clear by stated what I believed. The film's main goal was to guide the audience to a certain impression of my stance. Different tools were used to get my audience to where  I wanted them to be. Balancing emotion was very difficult in the paper. Because the introduction was how you felt, I felt inclined to continue to include emotion within my paper. To write the paper, you had to think about others in a realistic way and not by making crazy claims or including too much emotion. I needed to cite all my sources from which my images came from. To work ethically, it is necessary to give credit to those who earned it. My presentation was very smooth. It was easily accessible, technology did not get in the way, and the class received the message I was looking for. A lot of the guys enjoyed it because of their interest in sports. A classmate defended my choice for a specific picture, which was really cool. Overall, again, I really enjoyed writing about a topic I enjoyed and being to express myself in ways that was not in writing.
 
       

Multimodol

               As I have talked about before, the multimodol part of the project was a very good way to get us interested into the project. I had trouble finding ways on how to approach my multimodol. For the most part, everyone was mainly doing their part on a very emotional issue. Drunk driving, abortion, or discrimination were some I was able to see. As far as my topic, subsidized sports stadiums, it was very difficult for me to find the emotional aspect of my issue. The film has a lot to do with mood and vibe, as dr. kyburz had mentioned. I was in the end going to do a powerpoint because I felt that it was most appropriate for my issue. After thinking, there is an emotional side to my issue. Although not as strong as other topics, I can argue that money is being essentially thrown out on a large playground. Not everyone gets to enjoy what stadiums bring to them and the fact that they cost millions of dollars was enough base to make a film on. I decided to go ahead and use what dr. kyburz had recommended, which was Youtube Editor. I don't label myself creative nor do I make youtube videos for fun, so I thought I would have some trouble. In the end, youtube editor was very simple to use and gives you good tools to be creative.  The film creates itself quickly and the tool is not complicated. After completion and feedback, I can see what I need to work on to better my film. The film also helps me edit my paper. Overall, the assignment is very entertaining and not repetitive as other writing assignments seem to be.

Microtheme Project

Turns out that the one-page paper is exactly what dr. kyburz had said. When she said that the paper was to be only one page, I thought the paper would actually be a lot easier and simple to complete. After all, cramming a lot of information and being able to impact the audience is a very hard task to do within just one page. I do feel like, however, this is a useful technique to learn. For years, we have been given loads of pages to express ourselves, and we often find ourselves looking for more information to add. In the this microtheme paper, irrelevant information must be excluded and only information necessary must be within the paper. What makes this assignment fun to work on is that we discuss issues that matter or a topic we can easily argue about. In my case, I chose to write about subsidized sports stadiums because I enjoy sports a lot, and it’s also a topic I can form an argument about. Also, this assignment isn’t the basic write a paper and turn in type of assignment. The multimodal aspect of the assignment is another great way to capture student’s attention. I feel like giving students the option to express their ideas in ways other than a paper, is a good way to get them to fully express themselves. I personally will be using a PowerPoint given that my topic is of a more informative sense rather than it being emotionally driven such as drinking and driving. Great assignment!

What I Learned

            The documentary project was an unquestionable learning experience in all aspects of writing. From rhetorical context all the way to mechanical issues, the project was a learning experience. In previous writing classes, I have had the opportunity to write summaries. After writing this documentary summary, I feel as if my other summaries were incorrect. If I recall correctly, I remember including some analysis within my old summaries. dr. kyburz constantly drilled in our heads that summaries can not contain any analytical information, so my eyes were constantly on the lookout for analysis. Also, I learned that this assignment asked for critical thinking skills. Not only did I have to focus on excluding analysis, but I also had to worry about not including too much or including details that in reality are not important in the summary. Creatively, stronger verbs to emphasize the film's impact was also needed to strengthen my paper. As far as genre goes, this was difficult. Because  I could relate to the topic at hand to an extent, it was difficult to not analyze and include emotion within my paper. I learned that the genre does set the tone of your own writing whether it's noticed or not. Mechanically, the use of present tense verbs was a must in order to keep the paper on a consistent path. Overall, the assignment did well in teaching me what summary really is. Although i had prior experience, I felt like I actually learned how to do it for the first time and correctly as well.

Doc Summary

       Honestly, the documentary project is working well. The documentary I chose to watch, Cartel Land, is very interested and mind grabbing. Being Hispanic, and of Mexican decent, I can related to a lot of things that go on in the movie. Except the drugs. While I was watching the film, I actually took off the subtitles that translated the film back to English. Because I speak Spanish, I did not feel the need to have the annoying subtitles obstructed some of the view. All the slang and the bad words spoken within the movie, only made me understand the film even better. While the captions were still on, however, I noticed that there was a slight variation in translation. Good or bad, the subtitles don't necessarily provide the most accurate translation. When it came to writing, the topic was very easy to address and come across. A problem I did encounter was definitely not trying to analyze. Because the film essentially depicts what I have seen first hand or see a lot of on the Mexican news, it makes it very easy to want to come up with a conclusion or pull something the the director did not necessarily include or say. Getting the analytical part aside, summarizing the film was a breeze because as I mentioned before, I can relate to these topics and have seen its effects first hand and is clear to have taken over the country as a whole. I hope to further expand on these types of topics. To get a student to do well, the topic must be of interest to them, and I feel I did a good job. I felt connected to the topic and because I could relate, I was able to one enjoy what I was writing and do a good job on it.

"This Is Water" Post

                "This is Water" video definitely leaves the viewer with a lot to think about and provides us with a new perspective. This video relates to rhetoric in so many ways. The most noticeable factor included within the video is the use of animation. The song, the way the words move, and the interaction of those words effectively move the audience's attention to what the director wants them focus on. The purpose is to get the audience to understand that we as judgmental individuals, are not aware of what others are going through. The words follow the rhythm of the music in order to establish the current mood of the video. When the speaker was discussing serious parts within the film, the words seem to get slower, and when  the film reached an important part the music seemed to escalate. Rhetoric is a strong tool used throughout the film and is clearly effective in persuading the audience. Also, a strong tool utilized is the speaker's way to switch the mood of the film. After discussing the possible problems those in the market had, he begins to justify what our true purpose of our education is. To me, that was extremely impacting because we spend thousands of dollars for 4 years of our life for something that means much more than receiving a diploma. Our education teaches us how to think and how not to fall into "default setting." This persuades his audience, at this commencement speech, that what they hold in their hands is so much more than a diploma. Rhetoric is effectively used to move the audience to realize that the world is much more than them and is not about them, and thinking is critical.

Trump in Mexico

       2 days ago, Republican candidate Donald Trump and Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto met in Mexico City to discuss various types of political issues. Something seemed to be missing during the unprecedented visit to Mexico by Trump. The wall. From what almost seems to be the campaign slogan, a lot was left unspoken during both politicians visit. Although Trump did mention the wall in Nieto's presence, the talk fell short from what was expected. Nieto stated that what he wanted to establish was that Mexicans were not what Trump had said they were citing that Mexicans are hard working individuals who value their culture. Again, Nieto has shown great weakness to not only a potential new world power, but again, sadly, to his people. Nieto has the worst approval rating by citizens in years and him not taking control of their meeting, in his own country, did him no good. On the other hand Trump showed his robust figure and ran the speech and came to Arizona to deliver a strong speech to his supporters. Hillary Clinton's campaign strongly criticized Trump by saying he "choked." As the election gets closer, things are starting to heat up more and more.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-blasts-trumps-trip-to-mexico/

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/01/politics/enrique-pena-nieto-op-ed-donald-trump/index.html