In this blog post I will write a response to the debate if schools should offer sports or not. This topic stuck out to me because it’s unusual to see someone argue against high school sports. In the article “School Should Be About Learning, Not Sports” by Amanda Ripley, she makes good and surprising points about how sports shouldn’t be offered in high schools. For example, her main point was that sports distract kids into caring about their team more than their education. Ripley supports her theory by interviewing an exchange student from Finland and he said how “It was amazing to see how school wasn't just about the grades. In my home country, school is just for learning.” although the exchange student had fun in America, he proves Ripleys point by showing how other countries are more committed to their education than us. In the article “Turn Down the High School Football Volume”, the author, Buzz Bissinger argues how sports like football don’t need to be taken out of schools, they just need to be “Toned Down” and be more about the fun of the sport. Just like Ripley, Bissinger also speaks of a young man from a different country that he saw selling discount cards to help raise funds for his team. Bissinger purposely says how the young mans team recently just ended a 17 game losing streak. He does this because it shows that sports can be apart of kids lives without the competitive mentality that most Americans have. I believe with Bissinger because he make good points of how schools should offer sports. I have a bias view on it because I play sports and personally love them but I do think they can distract a lot kids to care more about their sports team than their education.
1 Comment
In this post I will write my week 11 Reflection. I will talk about what my class and I have covered in our two classes this past week. Also, I will talk about what I have experienced this past week.
In Class- My class and I spent our past two classes watching a film called Food, Inc.. The film goes into detail about where our food comes from and the manner the animals/crops are treated. Food, Inc. can be classified as an informative film and a persuasive film. It can be classified as an informative film because it informs you about all of the diseases and food poisonings that our food carries and how easy it can be prevented. It can also be classified as persuasive film because the director is trying to convince you to join their movement and start caring about the way our food is produced. This film should be watched by all Americans because it makes good points about our food supply and I think more food laws would be passed if people knew what was going on. Personally, there were two main parts of the film that i found disturbing. The first was the was the chickens and pigs were kept and treated. The chickens were scientifically fed to make them bigger and it also weakened them because they go too fat for their body which made them not able to walk. The pigs were kept in very tight areas covered with their own feces. If the country wasn’t so greedy, we could easily pass laws to help our country eat better but it would cost a lot of money and take a lot of work. Finally, the most interesting thing the film talked about was that it is cheaper to eat unhealthy than it is to eat healthy which is a surprise to me because most people would think it would be opposite. I-Search Paper- My class was assigned to start thinking about writing ideas for the I-Search paper due at the end of the year. I am having trouble thinking about a topics that interest me enough to write about. Hockey is my favorite sport but I was having trouble thinking of a topic to research within hockey. Right now I am considering writing about the legalization of Marijuana because it’s a huge argument in our country right now and I can get a lot of statistical information and surveys for my paper. Home- This past week hasn’t been bad. It could have been better because i was going to go to Penn State but i ended up going to Kutztown because it costed too much money to go to Penn State. What made Penn state so expensive is that all of my friends wanted to go into the Penn State Vs. Temple game and I didn’t want to spend all of my money up there. Kutztown ended up being a good time because I still had a lot of my friends come with me. the only problem was that it was freezing cold. This was a long film that covered a lot of issues that Americans should know about our food supply. What’s interesting about the film is that it didn’t only talk about meat, it talked about every food we eat. This film is meant to motivate people to help their fight against the major food companies such as Monsanto. Monsanto was talked about a lot in the film because they have so many restrictions in their contracts with the farmers and the farmers hate them. Monsanto is such a huge and rich company that they have power to tell the farmer what to do and if they don’t obey their commands they will either sue or cancel the contract. The film also talks a lot about Kevin's Law, Which is a law proposed by a 2 ½ year old’s mom (Barbara Kowalcyk). Kevin is a 2 ½ year old boy who died of E Coli after eating a Hamburger, in 2001. Barbara Kowalcyk is his mom and she proposed a law that gives the United States Department of Agriculture the power to shut down a plant that produces contaminated meat. I find it sad that this law is such a simple request but still to this day has never been passed. I think this law would only benefit the country not hurt it, it’s only the food companies that have a problem with it because they’re all greedy and want to make money. I personally didn’t like the film because it grossed me out and it made me not want to eat anything again. I think if more people watched this film that Kevin’s lLw would be passed and the country will have healthier food for cheaper which can result in stopping our obesity problem. I’m confident that within the next couple years, people will see this film and be more educated on our food supply and make a change. Film- Food, Inc.. Director- Robert Kenner Main experts who featured in the film- Moe Parr, Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser Research Question- How much food do Americans waste per year? Movie Notes -Corn takes up 30% of our land base -Average person consumes 200 pounds of meat per year -Cows get fed corn to make them fat, plus its cheaper (supposed to eat grass) -High corn diet causes E Coli in cows -E Coli is also found in Apple Juice and Spinach not only mean -10 % of Soybeans in the United States contain Monsanto’s Patented Gene In this blog I will post a reflection about the content we have discussed over the past week in class, Also I will post about my past week at home. We were also assigned this week to comment on one most recent post from each of Prof. Mangini’s class’s (9:35 / 12:10 / 4:00).
In class- The first post I commented on was an Ebola post in the 9:35 class. I decided to comment on this post because she shared the same view as me on the fact that the Ebola nurse was over reacted. The second post I commented on was in the 12:10 class. I chose to comment on this post because it was also about Ebola and every time I read about this nurse it makes me wonder how serious this disease actually is. The third and final post that I commented on was in my professors 4:00 class. I chose to comment on this post because John bevs the man and I like the way he posts because he’ll never fail to tell you what he thinks. #1http://diannodji.weebly.com/blog/the-world-ebola1 #2http://leeseungryeol.weebly.com/blog/read-the-world-ebola #3http://johnbevilacqua.weebly.com/blog/rhetorical-analysis Home- My weeks at home are pretty consistent because they are usually the same. I go to different colleges during the weekend and I do nothing during the week. The colleges I usually visit consist of Bloomsburg, West Chester, Temple, and IUP. But this weekend my friends and I are going to Penn State. I’ve never been to Penn State and I’ve wanted to play Ice Hockey there my whole life. Their hockey team is D1 so I would never make the team but I am thinking about attending Penn State Brandywine next year and play for their club hockey team. In this blog post, my class and I were assigned to write a Rhetorical Analysis about any of these videos CNN Explains: Fracking / Meteorologist Disputes Climate Change / Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham / Bill Maher: Atheism Not a Religion / The Norden / Reducing Recidivism (Pew) / Why Capitalism Works / The Unbelievably Sweet Alpacas / If Disney Princesses Were Real / Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs / OBJECTIFICATION AND...MEN? / Gaming Improves Multitasking Skills. I knew what video I was going to watch before I started the assignment because I’m not a religious person and I’m always interested in learning about different Gods and why people think Atheism is a religion. Therefor, I chose to write my Rhetorical Analysis on Bill Maher: Atheism not a Religion.
1 Min response- Bill Maher starts off the video saying that Atheism is not a religion. I agree with him because he defines Religion as “ The belief in and worship of a superhuman in controlling power” and Atheism doesn’t qualify. I can also see why people would think it is a Religion because it has to do with our creation. Obviously Maher is right because technically Atheism is not a religion. I can tell Maher is a religious person and he’s going to say anything to make Atheism look dumb. The purpose of Bill Maher’s video is to inform people that Atheism is not a religion. Also, the message that Maher is trying to send is the same as the purpose of the video. He wants people to stop saying that Atheism is a religion. Maher’s Logos is that he defines what has to be done in order for something to be qualified as a religion, and Atheism is simply not having a religion which is not a belief. I consider Maher to be highly credible with his facts because he is a known comedian and he is college educated. Finally, Maher doesn’t convey a lot of Patho’s in his video because his video is strictly fact and he doesn’t look for any emotion other than comedy. Possible Essay Topics- Is Atheism a religion? - What is Atheism? On election day my class and I was assigned to watch both Tom Corbett and Tom Wolf’s campaign advertisements for the 2014 election, and write a Rhetorical Analysis. This assignment was just an example for the next Rhetorical Analysis assignment. I like that we did this in class first because it is hard to get the hang of it but now that we all did one in class I have a better understanding of the assignment now. 1 min response- In Governor Tom Corbett's campaign advertisement (Republican) he explains what he has done during his time as Governor. A couple points that Corbett Emphasized was that he Reduce spending, saved 338 million on welfare fraud, and saved taxpayers 43 million dollars. If I only saw Corbett's advertisement then I would definitely think that he has made a big difference in the way we live. But personally I like to hear both sides of the campaign because a lot of the stuff that wolf says would contradict some points that Corbett made. saving money is his whole argument. The purpose of Corbett’s campaign is Persuade people to vote for him. The message Corbett is showing is that he is a man of his word because he stresses how he did everything he said he would before he got elected. Corbett is considered a credible person because he is well known by the people of Pennsylvania. In Corbett’s campaign he he is trying to keep the Republicans trust and he wants them to vote for him. 1 min response- In Tom Wolf's campaign advertisement (Democrat) he took a different approach than Corbett. For example a couple of Wolf’s points were that he Served in the Peace core, went to MIT and earned his PHD, Started off a working man driving a forklift, donates his salary to charity, and finally he explains how he donates his own profit with his employees. Wolf talks a lot about how he is a family man, this approach helps the audience think that he is a caring father/person and is give the illusion that he will take care of his people. I would not vote for Wolf because I feel that he did not say anything that he is going to do good for us as Pennsylvanians, other that donating part of his salary which only makes him look good. The purpose of Tom Wolf’s campaign advertisement is also to persuade people to vote for him. The message that Wolf conveys is that he wants to be elected because he believes that he can do a better job than Corbett and make this a better state. Wolf’s campaign is definitely more conversational than Corbett’s, he campaign is around all working class people and he tries to relate to them as much as possible. I know this because he uses his family as a testimony to look more credible to the people of PA. Possible Essay Topics- How do the Candidate feel on education? - What’s wolf’s plans once elected Governor (Specifically)? -What’s Corbett’s plans once elected Governor (Specifically)? In this blog post I will talk about my past week in class and at home. Typically, my class and I are assigned to do a reflection every week. I have liked writing the Reflections because each reflection i write i go back to my other ones and it reminds me what i learned the past weeks, and I know it’s only going to get better toward the end of the year when I look back at the beginning of the year.
In class- My class and I spent our time learning what Bias is, what a found poem is, and how to write a Rhetorical Analysis. At first, The Rhetorical analysis was hard for me to learn because there were so many terms involved in writing it. For example, the term Ethos which is the credibility, Pathos which is emotion, and Logos which is logic. They were hard for me to grasp because i’ve never heard them before. We learned an outline for the Rhetorical analysis that helped me with it a lot. The template was to find each of the following: Context, Purpose, Message, Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. I am still having problems getting the hang of the found poetry because I missed the class when we went over it. I clicked on the link provided but i still didn't understand it until my friend in another class explained it to me. After I was done the found poem it helped me see what I talk a lot about in my paper. At home- I was sick this whole week, I missed a lot of my other classes one of which was my English class. The problem was, my English class went over a lot of material including how to construct a found poems. I haven’t been able to go out because I wasn’t feeling well but it left me a lot of time to do these blog posts. So it was pretty much a boring week for me. For this blog post my class and I were assigned to reflect on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” video. In the video Stewart talks (jokes) about Ebola. He puts up news clips and clips of news article to show what Ebola is and how it works but he also comments on them and makes jokes out of it. I thought it a little bit annoying that Stewart wasn’t taking Ebola seriously, but he is a comedian and he does what hes gotta do to make money. I don’t find Jon Stewart credible because he only shows certain parts of news clips to make his argument or joke better. For example, Although Ebola is deadly and contagious, Stewart makes it seem like people with Ebola should be locked in cages and completely thrown out of society. “The World Health Organization” depicts almost everything about Ebola, the organization states that Ebola is a virus that is transferred through direct contact (Human-to-Human). I’m a little worried about Ebola because we still haven’t come up with a cure for it. But I’m comforted by the fact that there is no reported case of Ebola in Pennsylvania yet. I think the country is doing a good job containing the virus because in the video Stewart says that everyone coming in the country considered “high-risked” are tested for Ebola. I think in the beginning of the outbreak, the United States should have done a better job containing it so it doesn’t spread from state to state. I also think it was dumb how the doctor that was treating the first person with Ebola wasn’t tested before he started going out into the general public. If you are trying to get educated on Ebola, i don’t think this video would be productive. All Jon Stewart does is make everything into a joke and he doesn’t inform you how serious this virus is.
|