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.