Rhetorical Analysis V1: Interracial = Including a Black Person?

While the Interracial Relationships video did an admirable job attempting to address an important issue in today's society, it fails to penetrate the issue at a deep enough level and also to establish pathos with the audience because of its narrow focus on African Americans as well as difficulties with the narrator’s voice and an unclear goal within the video.

The issue of interracial relationships is difficult to tackle and while attempting it at all is admirable in its own right, the very first step that should be taken in every case is a step away from the issue. It’s extremely important that when talking about any issue dealing with race that the author realizes the sheer number and variety of races that populate the world as a whole. Having realized that simple fact, the author will then by necessity be forced to take into account the ways in which an issue has affected every race and not just the race of the author him/herself. This first step is essential to establishing ethos with the audience because in any academic medium, the author of a piece is expected to remain as unbiased as possible so as to allow evidence to prove his/her thesis rather than sheer emotional weight or pathos. The text slide in the video in which the argument finally becomes clear is one that simultaneously seems to complicate the argument by specifically dealing with interracial relationships involving a black individual. Also, practically the only fact in the film was specifically based on a black and white couple, and every picture shown at the end of the video involved at least one black person. The video’s failure to demonstrate its understanding of the problem on a larger scale removes almost every iota of credibility from the video and leaves the video with only a couple of means to get through to the audience.
Along with the video’s narrow focus on the black individual, the lack of properly cited material also brings the author’s credibility into question. The credits only include the first names of the individuals who created it. There are no attributions to the writers of the songs used in the film, or of the movies, interviews, and news clips. The individuals being interviewed were not mentioned or thanked. This loss of credibility weakens the group’s argument.which leads the audience to feel that the argument itself isn’t supported by facts. This can be dangerous in an advocacy film as the film could then have the reverse effect of encouraging its audience towards the opposite point of view from the author, or at the very least, lose the attention of the audience.
The narrator of the film is the next difficulty because of its particular monotone quality. It seems to say a great deal of words with very little substance.

Interrelational Film Notes

1. Film starts with several different interracial comedic scenes which could draw the audience in but fail to do so as the film quickly switches to a serious voice recording.
2. The first text slide moves by so quickly that you feel like you’ve missed something. If you pause on the frame you can read through the text but it doesn’t seem to be explained at all either by the text itself or by the voice.
3. There are two separate points of view laid out in the video, an interview with an older white male who is against interracial relationships but claims not to be a racist and a young hispanic man who thinks interracial relationships are fine. The group seems to have spent more time on the white male which confuses the audience as to whether they are arguing for or against interracial relationship until we get to the slide at 0:54 where the text clearly demonstrates that the video is advocating for acceptance of interracial relationships.
4. We next see a news report of the extreme anti-interracial relationship view which involves a man hiring an assassin to kill his daughter in law. This is followed by another text frame in which it becomes clear that the creators of the video are probably black because of the specificity of dealing with thoughts on black people involved in interracial relationships. As a white male myself this automatically distances me from the topic at hand. There is also traditionally african american music playing in the background which seems to detract even more from the ethos of the authors as it would seem that they are unable to pull back and look at the larger picture of what interracial relationships mean. A clip of a black TV show on BET is seen next and seems to go off topic in a way because it is dealing with specifically black individuals who enter into interracial relationships. The scope of the topic seems much narrower than it should be.
5. What would seem to be primary research is shown in a series of interviews starting with a young black woman, an older black woman, a younger hispanic woman, a younger black man, and finally a younger white male. These interviews are actually one of the better sections of the video as they seem to show a large variety of differing viewpoints even within the same races and all of the people being interviewed seem to be well spoken and have strong opinions on the matter.
6. The voice comes back into it again but in reality it tends towards the monotone and because of the lack of visual stimuli during the spoken sections the voice becomes less interesting and the audience begins to lose interest.
7. There is a text slide which brings up the Miscegenation law which was on the first text slide but once again the audience doesn’t really get enough information about what happened. The music is upbeat at this point perhaps to emphasize the positivity The Lovings overturning the Miscegenation law although it doesn’t seem to be stated whether they are successful or not.
8. Finally the video is concluded with around 15 pictures of various interracial couples, mosty famous and pretty much explicitly including one black person.
9. Credits include first names only of the group members but no citing for the news reports or movies used in the film.

StoryBoard

When the Numbers Crunch Us

We live in an age of information. In 10 point font you can fit roughly 133,251 pages of single spaced text into one gigabyte of memory. That's about 445 books at 300 pages per book. Most laptops come with at least a five hundred gigabyte hard-drive already installed. Desktops often come with a terabyte or two terabytes of hard-drive space (1024 gigs in one terabyte). Petabyte hard-drives (1024 terabytes) are expected to become common for consumer use in less than a decade. The math is quite simply astounding. Suffice it to say that a million books could easily fit in the palm of your hand in a 2 terabyte hard-drive. Beyond the physical storage directly available to the average consumer, the Internet itself has revolutionized the way humans make decisions and gather knowledge, as well as how we access the technology available. A Wikipedia article claims that in 2007 the world had the technological capacity to store 295 exabytes (295 billion gigabytes) of information, and the Internet is what enables the average human being to access all the information stored therein. The question then becomes clear, what in the world are humans doing with this vast amount of information available at our fingertips? The simple answer is, we stare at Facebook for hours and hours on end.

That’s understandable though, isn't there such a thing as information overload? Well actually, no there isn’t, or at least it’s not that big of a deal according to several different sets of research done by the PEW Institute. In Sorting out information technology users, published in 2007, PEW researchers found that, “the Connected but Hassled [group] who comprise 10% of the population – expresses worries about information overload and doesn’t see ICTs helping their personal productivity.” The other nine groups of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) users defined by the research showed no concern over the possibility of information overload. If most people don’t feel that they’re suffering from information overload, then what other reasons could there be for Americans spending so much time involved in social networking or media streaming websites instead of pursuing the knowledge that is readily available  in order to learn and improve themselves? Social pressure, a paradigm shift in the practice of community, or are we just natural procrastinators? In the same article, research shows that while 85% of Americans are connected to the Internet, only 8% of them are really utilizing the technology to its full potential.

Personal Computers first started showing up on the market in the late 70’s and started a drastic shift in the availability and cost of information. This led to rapid growth in the accessibility of technology and information in general, as well as through the Internet and a tendency towards world communication and information sharing (Wikipedia). Physical books are being supplemented with electronic texts and multimedia content. Dennis E. Baron writes that the vast majority of Americans have accepted typing on computers as the most effective form of writing, and that more and more Americans are shifting their reading habits from physical print to their computer screens (11). Educational games and videos are being created all the time for the benefit of the American youth as well as adults. But the common trend seems to be putting more space in our computers in order to satiate our need for instantly available media like videos and music that often don’t have a great deal of educational value. Sure, it's nice to be able to play a time consuming game while we wait for a doctor's appointment or a ride, but what's the actual value of it? We use the phrase "time consuming' constantly in reference to traffic jams or a project at work, but we don't even seem to notice when we spend three hours looking at our friend's Facebook updates or silly Youtube videos. In some ways the information of text can be condensed when put into a video/audio format, but how many times have you walked out of a movie theatre thinking, “Boy, what a waste of time.” Multimedia for the purpose of entertainment has its merits. Movies and music are valuable artistically, and humans do need rest and relaxation. It’s just important to realize that a world obsessed with entertainment won’t have room for progress.

 The PEW research center and many other sources have noticed that the Internet is quickly taking the place of TV in the home. In The Future of the Internet I, experts at the PEW research center predict that by 2014, all media will be streamed via the Internet. Americans seem to have a habit of replacing one technology with another in order to keep themselves entertained but aren’t we abusing the technology? It seems like Americans are choosing to do what’s easy. Instead of going out to the park to toss a football with the kids we’re sitting at home watching other people do it.

            So what does the future hold? Technological advances are moving forward at a rate higher than any other time in known human history. Gerald S. Hawkins talks about “mindsteps” or paradigm shifts which are accelerating in frequency. Technology keeps growing and information becomes more and more readily available. Many futurists seem to believe that technology will continue accelerating at an exponential rate possibly leading to a Technological Singularity, or “the emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means” (Wikipedia) which would begin a new age in civilization beyond anything we’re capable of imagining. Current literature and movies seem to predict that technology will become so powerful or will go wrong in some way that eliminates life as we know it through an apocalyptic happening of some sort. As of this moment we have 988 years to find out as most futurists assume these world changing events will occur in this millennium. 

Works Cited

Baron, Dennis. A Better Pencil. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. .

Horrigan, John. “Sorting out information technology users”. Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 6, 2007. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. <http://pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2007/Sorting-out-information-technology-users.aspx>.

Rainie, Lee, Fox, Sussanah, Anderson, Janna. “The Future of the Internet I”. Pew Internet & American Life Project, January 9, 2005. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. <http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/The-Future-of-the-Internet/05-Predictions-and-Reactions/13-Personal-entertainment.aspx>.

Wikipedia Contributors. "Exabyte." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Mar. 2012. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.

Wikipedia Contributors. “Technological Singularity.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 5 Mar. 2012. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.

Form as defined by the reader.

Open form and closed form prose are basically a matter of style. I would imagine that most writers prefer one over the other based on their taste and personality. The difference is pretty simple, closed form implies a professional and non-personal voice whereas open form seems to often be conversational, creative, and fun. However much a writer might like one or the other there will be times when he/she chooses the other or a mixture of the two simply because the audience a certain piece is aimed at requires a more or less formal style. Any piece that is to be successful needs to consistently remember to compare itself with the needs of the audience and if it meets those needs adequately then it will almost always be a success.

Blog on the Essays: Finding a balance between open and closed form

     The blurring of the lines between open and closed form is easiest to spot in The Sociology of Suds. The author, by using interview research, is able to go from providing facts and opinions in closed form prose to providing a more open form feel by incorporating the words of those that he interviews. Are We Losing Our Edge does something similar in that it goes back and fourth from providing facts and data to providing thoughts backed up by what members of the research and development community have to say about his argument. While I generally prefer an open formed approach to writing because of my creative writing bent, I can see the merit of writing in closed form prose with elements of open for work or school related projects. These articles, by giving a voice to the community which they are discussing, are able to are able to make the issue at hand more personal to the audience.

Info Essay V1: When the Numbers Crunch Us

We live in an age of information. In 10 point font you can fit roughly 133,251 pages of text into a single gigabyte of memory. That's about 445 three hundred page books (another source estimated 430 books per gig of memory)...in one gig. Most laptops come with at least a five hundred gigabyte hard-drive already installed. Desktops often come with a terabyte or two terabytes of hard-drive space (that's about 1024 gigs in one terabyte). Petabyte hard-drives (1024 terabytes) are expected to become common for consumer use in less than a decade. The math is quite simply astounding. Suffice it to say that a million books could easily fit in the palm of your hand in a 2 terabyte hard-drive. The question then becomes clear, what in the world are humans doing with this vast amount of information available at their fingertips? The answer is, we play games on Facebook.

            It's sad but understandable. After all, isn't there such a thing as information overload? We've just got too much information and while they call it the information age and that seems to have so many positive connotations, hardly anyone is taking advantage of all the the learning available at our fingertips. We put more and more space in our computers in order to satiate our need for instantly available media like videos and music, but what value does a hard-drive filled with TV shows and movies really have? Multimedia for the purpose of entertainment has its merits. Movies and music are valuable artistically, but if all we had was text, wouldn't we be learning much more? Sure, it's nice to be able to play a time consuming game while we wait for a doctor's appointment or a ride, but what's the actual value of it? We use the phrase "time consuming' all the time in reference to traffic jams or a project at work, but we don't even seem to notice when we spend three hours looking at our friend's Facebook updates or silly Youtube videos.

            Some would argue that social networking sites and video games are the new TV, and I whole-heartily agree with that statement. The question is, why did we need TV?  Why do we need our social media and video games, and what's next? We seem to have a habit of replacing one technology with another in order to keep ourselves entertained, to keep from thinking too much, but why shouldn't we think? Isn't that exactly the quality that makes us human? Our ability to reason and form logical thought, to attempt to divine our place in the universe, is at the core of why we have the capacity to build civilizations and to attempt to be moral and just. Our ability to the think is the reason why we're not quite dead yet. I can't even begin to imagine how many times I've told friends or family that "I just need to check out," or "I need a little downtime," or my personal favorite, "I'm just feeling a bit drained." So what does all that mean? I would argue that it has to do with being overwhelmed mentally and emotionally, that is to say that our minds are taking in so much information that we simply can't process it all on a conscious level. So entertainment allows our conscious minds to shut down and the informational backlog in our heads gets filtered through our subconscious mind.

            So what does the future hold? Technological advances are moving forward at a rate higher than any other time in known human history. Gerald S. Hawkins talks about “mindsteps” or paradigm shifts which are accelerating in frequency. Technology keeps growing and information becomes more and more readily available. Many futurists seem to believe that technology will continue accelerating at an exponential rate possibly leading to a Technological Singularity, or “the emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means” (Wiki) which would end life as we know it on this planet simply because human minds aren’t capable of comprehending super-intelligence of this sort. Current literature and movies seem to predict that technology will become so powerful or will go wrong in some way that eliminates life as we know it through an apocalyptic happening of some sort. As of this moment we have 988 years to find out as everyone assumes these world changing events will occur in this millennium, the more likely outcome in my mind is that the current trend of avoiding thought and entertaining ourselves to the point of decay will slowly shut off the door to technological advances. If Americans don’t make a change in the fundamentally flawed approach that we have towards life then grow will eventually become impossible.

In Class Essay Reading Assignment: Decisions and Consequences

Are We Losing Our Edge

1. What is the author's main point about education in the United States?

That education is on the decline and that for a plethora of reasons potential students are becoming less and less inclined to study in the U.S. If they do study in the U.S. many students then return to their home country rather then stay in the U.S. where the regulations can be so strict. So if we're not enticing new minds to come to America to study, we're slowly losing the minds that research and develop new technology which keeps America on top of the field.

2. How is research used to explain that main point?

Research is primarily used in this essay to flush out the details of exactly why it is that America has lost so much steam in the educational and scientific front. Details like how the 9/11 attacks, having increased security, have also made it much more difficult for foreign students to come into the country depending on the type of science that they study. Research in this essay is basically used to verify and strengthen each of the author's points, which in turn increases his ethos.

3. What sort of primary research is used?

The author seems to have done several interviews with various scientists and students or at the very least to be quoting interviews that other people have done with them. This seems to be the main form of primary research used.

4. What sort of secondary research is used?

The secondary research in this essay pretty much hits every mark on the gambit he seems to use a lot of common  knowledge. Besides the common knowledge, he uses statistics, data reports, and interviews done by others in order to give credence to his point.

5. Explain how this research is credible.

Because the research is used in connection with common knowledge, it feels much more credible. The statistics and various quotes in the essay always come from credible sources such as a book published by Thomas Friedmen, a president of a university, in other words it's always from someone that has a reputation and can strengthen the authors ethos.

6. what would you steal? Why? How did this essay inform you how to write your own essay?

I'd rather not steal anything at all. I really dislike citing others and I'd much rather come up with my own ideas and talk about why I think they're awesome. But then again I'm just  narcissistic like that. If I had to, I'd steal the authors ability to weave so many different perspectives and facts into one coherent and compelling argument. I also like that the author takes a non-ethnocentric viewpoint on the situation. While talking about the research and development situation in America, the author uses the perspectives of those outside America in order to display the problems with what's happening.

Sociology of Suds

1. What is the significance of Mr. Lee's Laundromat to the community of Overtown?

Lee's Laundromat is definitely part of the heart of the community. It's a place where the community can interact and trade information as well as a place that's stayed the same for decades and doesn't change. In that sense it's kind of a solid core that the people of O-Town can rely on to be there as a staple and a part of their lives. Something like that brings comfort to a community in flux.

2. How is research used to explain that significance?

The majority of the research is done using interviews to directly gather information from the patrons of the laundromat. The various stories from people who have spent a great deal of time at the laundromat is all the author needs to show the significance of the laundromat to the community.

3. What sort of primary research is used?

Mostly interview research. The author interviews the members of the community for information and multiple perspectives. The author also seems to have documented his research with photographs of the community and its members.

4. What sort of secondary research is used?

I didn't see any direct secondary research, but it seems pretty clear that in order to find out the information to fill in the gaps and history of the laundromat, the author would've had to research background information outside of interviews.

5. Explain how this research is credible.

The research lends ethos to the author because each quote has it's own unique voice and is clearly from a member of the community. The pictures bring the audience into a deeper understanding of the community life and the environment that exists in O-town.

6. What would you steal? Why? How did this essay inform you how to write your own essay?

I like the journalistic approach to this piece where the focus is more on the stories of the individuals of a community rather than the facts and statistics. It makes the piece seem much more familiar and inviting. I would definitely steal that if I could for my topic but I don't think it'll work the same way with my topic. Other than that the way that the author ties in all the information was pretty interesting. The author almost isn't even a part of the story in a way because its so focused on the topic at hand and the people involved in the topic. I like that aspect of it although in most of my writing I tend to be very present in the story I'm telling. I wouldn't mind trying out the reporter voice that comes across in this article. I think when it comes to my essay I'll probably be keeping Suds in mind for it's voice. The familiar and comfortable vibe it gives off seems like something I would want to incorporate.

Research Sources

National Research Council. Report of a Workshop on The Scope and Nature of Computational Thinking . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2010.


     This particular book is simply a report or paraphrase of a workshop that was held discussing Computational Thinking which seems to equate, for their purposes, programming as a form of language or conceptualization that allows one to think about the universe and everything in it from a different perspective than previously considered through forms like art, music, language, mathematics, and science. Since I'm specifically interested in researching the growing trend in the public to penetrate the internet and software in a deeper way through programming (i.e. jailbreaking phones, cracking and uploading/downloading software, and personally tweeking computerized hardware and software) this seems like it could be a helpful resource in terms of understanding the changes that language of programming and the public who are learning it are going through.


Carter-Sykes, Cornelia. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew Research Center. 2000. Web. Accessed on February 17, 2012.


     This definitely seems like a good resource for statistics about average online usage by the public which I think will be helpful in understanding the way that the internet is used. The site covers many topics but primarily focuses on academic research into the way the internet is being used.

Researching Research

To start with I've never been a big fan of research. I understand its inherent values and the reason why its important in academia, but research, beyond its ability to stimulate my own interest and thought, has never been something I've enjoyed doing. However, it would seem that research, at least for this paper and possibly for others in my college career, is a required and potentially helpful element of writing. Luckily, I happen to be writing my paper on the growth of information through technology and the way that our lives are changing because of it. Ideally then, the best way to research topic that I've chosen would be through the same medium that I will be discussing. i.e. internet research with the possible edition of digitally available print content. Yes, there are inherent risks when  it comes to internet research such as the reliability of a source or the natural bias of a source, however, I've had a great deal of experience researching information online both out of curiosity as well as for project related information. Having experience with internet research has enabled me to notice key factors about websites that lead me to an understanding about whether the source should be trusted or not. I plan on only using internet based research as a means to exemplify the same point that I'll be making in my paper.

Pictures and Stories and What-nots

I feel like the main use for pictures in an informative essay is not only to bring the audience closer to the subject matter but also to help the audience comprehend the information being given. For instance, the main theme or topic that I have been pondering for the last week has been the radical growth of the availability of information in today's technology driven climate. To give a glimpse to the reader of the kind of radical change that we’re dealing with I used several pictures to illustrate roughly how many full size (about 500 page books) would fit into a single gigabyte of memory. It boils down to about 430 books. If the entire FIU library holds about a million books, then that information could be condensed from a seven story building to roughly 2.5 terabytes, which would sit comfortably in the palm of your hand. Pictures are exactly what we need to illustrate such a drastic change in the way we view the world and are the easiest way for a reader to comprehend the magnitude of the change that we’re discussing.

Photo Essay

Unit 1 Reflection: Skills to Pay the Bills

            Truth be told, I actually came into this class not expecting much simply because I've already taken four or five writing classes and written tons of papers and stories throughout the last five years of college. I was surprised when I found out that there were some key elements to good writing that I didn't have. We've talked about what a narrative is and how to tell a story through your writing, building tension, and exploding the moment in the class so far and each of those elements has been extremely thought provoking and beneficial. Building tension was probably one of the most important topics we discussed because I've never really been able to do it in my writing. For that reason, Its one of the areas in my writing that I want to work on the most, and this class has given me ample opportunity to do that. Exploding the moment was another really interesting exercise and one that I know I'll use often simply because really detailing a story in a non-wordy way its critical to having an impact on your audience. I also think the explanation of rhetorical was helpful in situating my mind's eye before I start a new piece. Having a direction is definitely helpful in creating a narrative. The other area that could be important although I've never really valued it very highly is to comment as a reader. I personally have always wanted people to be completely honest about my writing even if that means saying that it sucks. Obviously it's important to be nice about giving feedback to colleagues but I think sometimes more critical observations can be helpful. Then again I understand the need for the writer him/herself to learn to identify and fix their errors.

On Style, and thoughts thereof

            Style is rhetorical in the sense that the style of every individual piece of writing is influenced by the needs of the audience. Style is basically the way you as an individual write. When you're reading a novel, the style is generally how the narrator tells you the story. Style has been a huge part of my development as a writer. Through several of the creative writing courses that I've taken I've had to slowly adapt and chance my writing style to fit my assumed audiences needs and expectations. With the novel that I'm working on for instance, I realized that my audience was going to be a younger group of people who are interested in action and a fantasy universe. That knowledge alone educates me in how to modify my writing so that it comes off to the reader as being tension filled and active as opposed to my original style which tended to be very proper and conversational.

The Glimmer: V2

            John was always a troubled child from the very beginning. He displayed signs of destructive anger from the time he was two years old till that anger slowly shifted to an internal hatred of himself and by proxy the world around him. Pain and loss lead him to a place in which he was plagued by utter uncaring and sadness. In the sixth grade he was met with a thread or tether, to carry him through the tough middle school years, as he met the music director at Redland Middle School, Mr. Hudson. Mr. Hudson was an excellent teacher and someone that John looked up to. In seventh grade, on the first day of class John found out that Mr. Hudson had taken a job at a High School and that he wouldn't be coming back.

            "John, don't you dare buy that drink, we're loading the buses now." Mrs. Killroy was an exceedingly rotund woman in her late 40's to early 50's. The new music director at Redland Middle School had very little say-so over her students, and she found that the majority of students who had been there the year before despised her.

            John didn't bother to respond to her. He felt confident that he could get away with buying a soda even if it directly contradicted his teacher's command. There had been three people in front of him at the soda machine moments before who had ignored Mrs. Killroy's initial instruction to get to the busses. Why should it be any different for John? He had been waiting patiently for every other student to finish getting their drinks, and it was finally his turn. That sentiment, of course, lead to him choosing to blatantly ignore the seemingly powerless teacher. As he fished the dollar into the machine, he felt as if he'd escaped his drink-less fate and pushed down on the Surge button. He tried not to look at the teacher, as if he hadn't heard her.

            John must've drawn the short straw of karma that day as apparently the teacher was done being ignored. Her shoes clacked with harsh resonance on the ground as she burst forward and shot her hand in the vending slot. She pulled out the surge that John had just bought and paid for and then threw it smugly in the garbage. "GET TO THE BUS!"

            John's pride was injured, his feelings hurt. In his mind he had done everything correctly. He let everyone else go before him, he was patient, and he felt that if everyone else had gotten their drink while disobeying the teacher then he should be entitled to a drink as well. The slight of ignoring the teacher a moment longer to get what he had felt he deserved seemed minimal in comparison to Mrs. Killroy's aggressive act. He felt his throat closing off  as the unfairness of not only this moment, but also life in general smothered him. He made a choice then to flip the switch on his emotions and instead to hate Mrs. Killroy with an unyielding and destructive passion.

            Over the next year and a half John would lose his first dog as well as his grandfather. After already having lost the only person he actually liked in middle school, Mr. Hudson, he was quickly losing the fight for happiness and was running out of things that he had a passion for. The one thing that really gave him a sense of satisfaction during those years was the cello. He could pour his emotions, fears, and worries into the music and all of those negative things in his life became a beautiful deep melody. He always thought it was interesting how so much pain and sadness could produce something so sweet sounding. Walking sedately into Orchestra class every morning he would tune out Mrs. Killroy and focus in on the cello sitting in front of him. When she told a story to the class he would practice the fingering of a piece that had caught his attention. He held on tight to the cello all the way through middle school and one day found him self auditioning at Coral reef high school with his old teacher, Mr. Hudson, sitting in front of him. Although there was some excitement at the sight of his old teacher, mostly John found himself unsure about how he felt. After all, he’d spent the last three years of his life shutting down emotionally so that he didn’t have to deal with the pain. Suddenly there was a white light at the end of the tunnel where one hadn’t been before. He missed out on two years with Mr. Hudson as a teacher, but the possibility of four years was now coming into the picture.

            “Hey John, take a seat,” said Mr. Hudson.

            There were two other people with Mr. Hudson that worked together to audition students applying for the school. The woman seemed kind to John, she was fairly young and attractive for an administrator and she seemed caring. While Mr. Hudson and the woman seemed to be happy to see John and eager to see what he had to offer on the cello, the other man didn’t seem at all interested in the proceedings.

            “Why don’t you go ahead and play us the first song you prepared John.”

            It’s lucky that John was so naive at the time. He played the pieces he’d practiced for the committee calmly and with passion and it was clear that they were very happy with his performance. Had he realized at the time that all the other students applying to the school had had private lessons and years more experience then he might not have played so well. But not knowing, he put in everything he had and not long after that he received a letter in the mail that announced his admission to the school.

            The next four years were wonderfully spent with good friends and a wonderful role-model. John finally came out of his apathetic shell and started to live life again to feel pain as well as love simultaneously. He continued playing cello throughout high school and through 2 years of college as well and even now picks it up occasionally when the mood strikes him. Since then he’s found new passions and hobbies that he fills his time with and it’s sad in a way that he didn’t keep playing, but at the same time were it not for music in the first place he might not have any of the things that he does today. 

V1: A Glimmer of Hope

The Glimmer

            "John, don't you dare buy a drink, we're loading the busses now." Mrs. Killroy was an exceedingly rotund woman in her late 40's to early 50's. The Orchestra and Guitar teacher at Redland Middle School. She'd only recently taken over after the previous teacher, Mr. Hudson, had left for a better job opportunity at a High School. He was a tough act to follow and because of that Mrs. Killroy was despised by every student who had spent the previous year with Mr. Hudson.

            John didn't bother to respond to her. He felt confident that he could get away with buying a soda even if it directly contradicted his teacher's command. There had been three people in front of him at the soda machine moments before who had ignored Mrs. Killroy's initial instruction to get to the busses. Why should it be any different for John? He had been waiting patiently for every other student to finish getting their drinks, and it was finally felt his turn. That sentiment, of course, lead to him choosing to blatantly ignore the seemingly powerless teacher. As he fished the dollar into the machine, he felt as if he'd escaped his drink-less fate and pushed down on the button for Surge as he turned his head and smiled widely at the teacher. Stop me from buying a drink when everyone else did huh? Hah!

            John must've drawn the short stick of karma that day as apparently the teacher was done being ignored. Her shoes clacked with harsh resonance on the ground as she burst forward and shot her hand in the vending slot. She pulled the surge that John had just bought and paid for and then threw it smugly in the garbage. "GET TO THE BUS!"

            John's pride was injured, his feelings hurt. In his mind he had done everything correctly from waiting patiently, to paying for the drink with his own money. The slight of ignoring the teacher a moment longer to get what he had felt he deserved seemed minimal in comparison to Mrs. Killroy's aggressive act. He felt his throat closing off slightly as he started to feel like crying, but he stuffed the emotion down deep and instead determined to hate Mrs. Killroy with an unyielding and destructive passion.

            This is of course just a brief description of a single event among many that steadily beat down on John until he became a child of sadness and despair, plagued by utter uncaring. A snapshot of the way in which he tended to be misunderstood as well as overdramatic. But its purpose it to show John's state of mind in his darkest hour, when the only thing that he cared at all for was music. 

Tension: How to Build it.

I was up by six in the morning yanking clothes on and grabbing my bag before flying out the door. I heaved down the sidewalk through the drizzling rain to a crescendo of monstrous barks as I flew past house after darkened house. As the doggy decrescendo finally played out I started to take a breath as I simultaneously heard a quick inhale directly beside me.

The throaty bark of the monstrous fiend beside me was enough to make me jump several feet off the ground. The fence that separated us acted like a counter for the dog to lay its arms on while it stared at me with it’s menacing little eyes. I rushed on past it but the black skin hot breath lingered in my mind.

When I arrived at my destination there were several other kids waiting around. Each one of them was older and more experienced than me. They all had dark skin, which scared me, and they had a funny way of talking. They grew quiet as I stood watching them. One by one they turned and looked at me as the dead silence started gaining momentum again and the whispers began to circulate. That was exactly why I’d never wanted to ride the bus to school.

Open Form Prose

How is a 60 second podcast like writing open form prose?

I'd say its pretty straight forward; Open-form prose is basically inviting the audience into a conversational setting where you can be yourself, tell a story, and communicate experiential emotion and knowledge. It's about forgetting the "rules to writing" so that you can just relax and let the narrative flow out in a very natural way. Open-form prose can be planned or unplanned, simple or complex, and either grammatically correct or not. In other words it can be anything the writer wants. As an example, the sentence I just wrote could have given off several different vibes. It could have been personal and relaxed; "In other words it can be anything you want," but instead I chose to make it slightly more professional by referring to the writer as impersonal. Changing just one word is enough to change the entire feel and flow of a narrative.

All that being said, the videocast that I did - in place of the required 60 second podcast - Was similar to writing open-form prose because, even though I planned it out, it was a very relaxed and personal message with a Pathos appeal to the listener. By inserting music created by me I was able to delve to an even deeper level of emotional appeal as well as to establish Ethos and to meet the exigency of the audience by providing them with a clear example of the story I was telling them.

Videocast: A History of Beauty.

Blog 1: A Little Thought Goes a Long Way

The obvious audience for college level writing would be a student's professors, administrators, and peers. Throughout my entire college experience the one element that has been consistently lacking in my own and my peer's writing was an adequate level of thought and time spent. It's likely that professors expect that the student puts in at least the same amount of time that he/she puts in. As a peer, there have been many times where I either felt ashamed of the fact that I was forcing my poorly written work onto other students, or times where I was frustrated by the lack of effort on the part of other students. It all boils down to time spent. If a student writes a paper for instance, and submits it without rereading it, then the audience then has to deal with tons of errors and is much less likely to appreciate the paper. If the same student takes the exact same paper, but instead of submitting it right away decides to take five minutes to read it, then they will have found a multitude of errors which can then be corrected and will no longer distract the reader from the core of what was written.

Tons of other groups are included in the audience for college writing. Companies, Grant Funders, Graduate programs, and even beyond that there are people who are affect by college writing whether it be fully developed or not. I think in this particular scenario the most fitting answer (although untrue) would be, "Practice makes perfect." The only way to guarantee that a writer meets the expectations of his/her audience is to just keep writing and to receive as much feedback as possible from positive and knowledgeable sources until writing becomes a honed skill and habit.