First Week Response

When I hear the phrase “the writing process” I think of a couple things.  The first thing that comes to my mind is that there are many different ways that someone can attack the writing process and that not everyone goes about it the same way.  Personally “the writing process” to me means the whole process from start to finish on how I write essays, papers, journal entries, etc.  I always have the same process going into a paper all the way through to the end.  When I am given a prompt to write about I copy it to the top of my document before I start writing anything.  The next part of the paper that I will do is just write down some notes of what I want to say so I can have it all laid out and I won’t have to worry about repeating myself, plus it just makes the actual paper much easier to write.  Once I am done with that I proceed to writing my paper.  

When I hear the word revision when it comes to writing a paper it means to go back through the paper and look for all parts of the prompt and that I have them appropriately in my paper, looking for edits, and just making sure my paper makes sense.  This is important in my writing process because when I am writing I tend to sometimes get a little side tracked and I write too casually so having a couple people revise my paper is always a good thing for me.  In the past I have revised my own paper, and asked for some help in the past from others to go through themselves to see if they can understand what I am talking about.  In the past some of the people I have had revise my papers were either classmates, roommates, friends, or my mom.

The Limits of Friendship

2)  The two terms that are used a lot throughout this passage are the Dunbar number and the rule of three.  After reading this passage I took away the meaning of each of those phrases.  When I read through the passage my taking of the phrase the Dunbar number I thought of it as psychological sense where as a human there is only so much you can remember in a short period of time so by trying to learn so many people’s names and then having to correlate the names with a person’s face.  “Dunbar did the math, using a ratio of neocortical volume to total brain volume and mean group size, and came up with a number.”  At some point everyone’s names will be a blur and in the end you will have to re-learn everyone’s names to faces again.  Of course there are different levels to it and one of the best ways to have a comparison would be a celebrity since they meet so many people on a daily basis.  The rule of three to me means the three most average levels of “friendships” are the ones closest to you, up to friends you just hangout with every so often.  Everyone has their close circle of friends and then those you talk with only when you accidentally bump into them somewhere. “The Dunbar number is actually a series of them. The best known, a hundred and fifty, is the number of people we call casual friends.” 

3) In my opinion a good friend is someone who likes you for you and that you can count on to help you through your struggles in life. This help can come from advice, comfort, or just a listening ear. A good friend also helps you celebrate your happiness and success instead of comparing it to themselves and making it about them.  Maria Konikova writes about the science of relationships emphasizing the necessity of physical touch, whether it be a friendship or any other relationship.  Konnikova asked “So what happens if you’re raised from a young age to see virtual interactions as akin to physical ones?” This made me think that this could already be happening.  Personally, I have a couple friends that do not see a difference in online and physical interactions. This could be a result of our generation growing up with social media platforms.  It seems as though some people only get happiness from interactions online.  This makes me wonder how much longer humans will actually feel the need for physical interactions. On the other hand, I was raised in a household where everyone loved giving hugs to each other.  As for me, that rush of happiness and emotion when you get a hug from the person you wanted or needed it from will always be there.  I love those feelings and I truly believe relationships will lose all purpose and meaning if communication keeps being moved online.  In conclusion, physical interaction is necessary to maintain a healthy friendship.

4) At UNE my social media can have both a positive and negative response to me.  At UNE I think social media can be a great experience and a great thing to have for a few different reasons.  One being I can keep in touch with friends of mine from back home that I would not get to see as much.  Another reason could be finding your new ‘home’ at the campus because we do have the club fair that everyone can go to to see what sports they can partake in, but you can also go on social media and see some of the things about all the different teams to help you make a decision on what you want to play.  It also just makes life a little easier just being able to keep in touch with everyone while we all get homework.

At UNE having social media can be a bad thing too.  First off it is a huge distraction from homework and classes and being a productive student which in the end is not good only leading to bad grades and falling behind.  Another big reason why it’s not great is because we do not go outside and experience the world or nature as much.  I love going out and going for a longboard ride, but not many people will anymore because they would rather sit in bed and play video games or talk on Snapchat. I do not know which I like more because they both have positive things if it was there and if it wasn’t, but I think if I was to pick I would rather not have it as much so I could get more of those close relationships to feel that rush of endorphins running through my body.

Annotation Styles

When looking at and doing annotations my favorite one or the one that resonates with me the most I would think is exploring relationships.  I think this one for the reasoning that in most books or journals that I have read I have an easy time remembering something in my life that was like that or have an easy time relating it to the world or a previous book I had read.  The one that I am most scared of doing would be the extending portion because there are times where I do not entirely understand what I am reading and then there are times where I would think I would know what I was talking about and end up being completely wrong. So I just do not like the chance of me embarrassing myself.

They Say/I Say Templates

When I was reading through They Say/I Say I found it very helpful reading through and seeing all of the different kinds of templates that I can use in an essay or journal entry.  It can definitely give me many more ways of writing a paper and also can give me many ways of helping me get my point across to the readers.

One of my favorite templates I saw while reading was one of the ones in the preface that goes over what a story is talking about and then giving my own life experience that is either a similar or different or similar and different way in some way to what I just read and explained.  Then you explain what your experience is and end with what you conclude from your thought.  I enjoy this template because I like thinking back to my own life to remember what I have experienced in life that could in one way or another to compare to what I was reading.  I also enjoy that I can put my own thoughts into this type of template.

Another template I like is the one that talks about an ongoing debate.  In this one you bring up a debate amongst a lot of people when there are two or more views.  You can talk about any ongoing debate.  I like this one because I feel like I have normal conversations like this when it comes to certain topics like the NBA.  The NBA has many different viewpoints that talk about who is the best team right now, best player right now, best all time player and so on.  

Specificity Corrections

After reading through my paragraph I saw that there were a few pieces that needed either rewording or just needed to be taken out.  Some of the specific examples that made my paragraph better was rewording.  I reworded a part where I rambled on and said, “A good friend also helps you celebrate your happiness and success instead of comparing it to themselves and making it about them.”  I reworded it to say, “they are there for you,” and I did this because it helped cut down on what I was saying, plus it made it make more sense.  I will definitely be using this again because it was a huge help in the end to make what I wanted to say make sense without going off track too far.

Chen Reading Response

  1. Megan Phelps Roper was born into the family that founded the Westboro Baptist Church.  Her mother and father preached and helped hold the church’s community together.  Although their views on what God wanted people to preach and believe is different from any church that I have attended in my life.  As a young girl Phelps-Roper started helping at the church in middle school.  Some of the church’s beliefs were unusual.   Her family believed that AIDS was a curse sent down by God.  The church’s community would go out on the streets and basically anywhere they could get people’s attention holding and picketing signs that read “Thank God for AIDS!” (Chen, 73).  Not only would they justy go out into the street they would also go and picket the people that died from AIDS.  Along with AIDS, the church believed that war, natural disaster and mass shootings were all signs from God that we are a “Doomed Nation.”   When it came to war the community of the church would go out to funerals of men that had died at war and celebrate the fact that he died.  They would picket signs that read “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” (Chen, 74).  The other big issue this church had was the high rising acceptance of those who were a part of the LGBTQ+ community.  They had a hatred for those who were homosexual and would picket signs that read “God Hates Fags” (Chen 74).  In the reading there is a part that says, “Phelps also believed that fighting the increasing tolerance of homosexuality was the key moral issue of our time,” (Chen, 75).  By the end of the piece Phelps-Roper had made a big switch in her mind about the Westboro Baptist Church she was with.  She had a thought run across her mind one day that made her believe what she had been doing her whole life was wrong.  “What if Westboro had been wrong about everything?  What if she was spending her one life hurting people, picking fights with the entire world, for nothing?” (Chen, 86).  She realized all the hate and the ways that she had been treating people was not the right way.
  1. Social Media I think put a fire under Megan Phelps Roper when it came to social media.  I think it gave her a way in her mind to spread whatever she wanted and people all around the world could see it.  Her initial messages being put on social media, I think with the thought that anyone could see it, was to make it as ‘truthful,’ in her opinion, as possible.  She may have thought that she could get the word of God out to the world and in her mind it was not harsh.  In this piece Chen writes, “What if Westboro had been wrong about everything?  What if she was spending her one life hurting people, picking fights with the entire world, for nothing?” (Chen, 86).  The other thing is that when she was getting in response to her tweets were responses that did not share the same beliefs that she and the church shared.
  1. When Phelps Roper changed her point of view on a lot of things was when she was talking to her friend.  She was very curious about this stuff and by just having a calm and understanding conversation I think is what got through to her.  The way to get through to her was having understanding conversations where you have no judgment towards her that leads her to explain herself.  When someone on social media puts something opinionated and someone else doesn’t like it there can be hate speech given back and since it’s going around the person that put the opinionated statement out there will go back with hate speech and there will be no progress, so in the end hate speech gets you nowhere.
  2. I think if I were to meet her today I would ask her what advice she could or would give to someone about social media in general and what advice she would give to someone who is doing something or making a lifestyle off of something just because their parents are forcing them.  I would ask this because she had change in her life and to see what changes she would have liked to have made when she was younger.

First Essay Peer Review Experience

After reading and reviewing my partner’s paper and making edits and suggestions I would say that I need a little work on my peer reviewing skills.  It was a snow day and we all were home for the day to edit the papers.  This was my first peer review in over two years, so I was a little rusty on what exactly to do, but I do think I provided a couple good suggestions for him to use to make his paper a little better.  I would say that on a scale of one to ten, ten being the most comfortable, I would say I was at a five because I had not done it for a while and I also just did not know where the line was and did not want to be mean or rude.

I had some strengths and weaknesses when peer reviewing my partner’s essay.  Some of my weaknesses when reviewing this paper were that I was having trouble getting my head out of my high school ways of fixing someone’s paper.  This means that I was going through and looking for grammatical errors, so every once in a while I would have to go back and reread some of the parts.  I also had trouble thinking outside of just the checklist on the peer review paper.  I was not thinking creatively enough.  A strength of mine was that I was noticing where a couple quotes could go in his paper and helping him find places to add a little length.  The other thing I did that I thought was a strength was that I suggested that he use a little more of his personal experiences.  In the next paper I think I am just going to rely on what I think at first to be a little creative then once I am done reviewing it I will go through and see what he doesn’t have from the peer review guidance sheet that was handed out in class.  This would be so I am not just completely focused on the checklist the whole time.

First Essay Revision Strategies

I think after writing this first paper I have found that I have a couple strengths and a couple weaknesses when it comes to me writing these.  I think there are a few pieces that could be fixed to make my writing better all around.  My wording is not great and it brings me to a point where some sentences make sense in my head, but do not actually make sense on a sheet of paper.  I just need to not put so many vague words in my piece and it might help my paper flow better as a whole.  I could also use some more personal experiences to get my voice in the essay more.  

I think I need some work on my thesis as well.  I got a lot of help from Elena and she helped me correct and fix my thesis into a well written sentence, but I need to figure out how to do it on my own.  When it came to my introduction paragraph I think it was written well in the end because I got some good pointers on what to take away and add to it and in the end I had a description of each person in both stories that we read.  I think my conclusion needed a little more work, but my issue is I do not know what exactly needs to be in the conclusion other than restating the thesis.  I never feel like I have enough in this portion of the essay.  I also feel like I need to add a little bit more of my voice in the next essay we write to help people see where I am coming from and why I feel that certain way.

Bloom Reading Response

  1. Bloom makes the point that we can all have a default setting and uses the example of the spotlight.  One of the things that Paul Bloom talks about is how empathy can direct you away from the bigger things in life. He explains empathy as a spotlight, meaning that the light shines brightly in a narrow area.  This in turn makes anything else become dark.  This means we have devoted our attention to this one thing or person that something bad happened to, leading us to have little to no vision of the rest of the awful or sad things surrounding us. This can be a bad thing because of many reasons such as caring too much about one thing that something major could happen in front of you or in your general vicinity.  You could also have no idea because you are just too focused on the one person or thing that is having trouble. Another reason that this could be bad is that when you focus on one thing too much and not all of the surrounding factors then you can be given wrong or misleading information.  People giving misleading information is experienced on an everyday basis.  From personal experience I feel like we see this everyday or almost everyday on the news. One story can be put out there and people will listen to it and if it is a sad story then a lot of people are going to have empathy towards the person or people in the story, but what we do not see is both sides of a story.  When first hearing about a story on the news it is only human for us to react to it in either a good or bad way.  If something bad happens to someone we are going to feel bad and have a narrow vision of what actually happened.  We will have this narrow vision, like a spotlight, because we think we already know the full story and have already made up our mind on what happened and who to believe.  This in turn could lead to misleading information since we usually only hear one side of a story and not why a certain event took place.
  2. I agree with Bloom’s arguments that empathy can lead you in a wrong direction because everyone around you has secrets.  If everyone has the spotlight directed in the direction they want then a lot of misleading information will be spread because everyone just wants to believe what they first saw.
  3. My initial thoughts on Bloom and what he was saying was not making a lot of sense to me until I took a minute to just sit and process what he said.  At first I thought that empathy was always this great and amazing thing that helped boost someone’s mentality, but after reading this article apparently that’s not always the case.
  4. “Spotlights only illuminate what they are pointed at, so empathy reflects our biases.”  I challenge this quote that Bloom wrote because there are people that have their own opinions and there is never just one opinion.  Even though this is true that does not mean that we can not try and help someone with a different view or opinion that we have.

DFW Reading Response

  1. In the speech “This Is Water,” David Foster Wallace talks about how most people are self centered and how we think everything is being done to us.  As humans we think as if everything and anyone that does something out of the ordinary that they are being an inconvenience to us.  In some cases this can be true, but he explains that we can be the one inconveniencing others. I think everyone knows that, but when it comes to certain situations we may not always acknowledge that.  For instance he talks about how someone could be driving and they speed by you and go into your lane.  Now from your point of view it looks as if he cut you off and it can seem like they are disrupting your flow of getting somewhere, but we never actually think about why these people are doing it.  The first thought that comes to mind is ‘Oh there just being a complete jerk’ and ‘Wow what the hell was that’, but as David Foster Wallace explains, the person that cut you off could have a child in the backseat that needs to get to the hospital because something had just happened to them.  Empathy in his mind is something that is just not good because it brings out how self centered we all are.
  2. Before reading this I had not even thought about empathy in that way because it just didn’t cross my mind.  After reading this though I can totally understand where he is coming from and I kind of agree with DFW because it is just something that no one takes into consideration.
  3. I am not exactly sure because he could be talking about empathy and just the way he views it, but it also seemed like he was just hinting at how self centered everyone is and don’t actually recognize their surroundings.
  4. “Paying attention to what is going on inside me as I’m sure you guys know by now is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head.” (DFW 7:50-8:00).  I fully support this because not everyone understands how hard it is to focus on one thing at a time.  For me I can’t sit down and start doing something but after a few minutes I am either lost in my own head or just distracted by a lot of other things so I can agree how difficult this can be.

Coates Reading Response

  1. One of the biggest relationships between education and success from Coates perspective is that education can lead and help you through the path of success, but the school system does not always help.  He explains that every person has a different way of learning and different things that they like to do, so why are we having all students and kids take the same courses like history, science, and math when someone can have a career in art.  The other thing is that everyone learns differently so some people are put at a disadvantage when it comes to learning in the school system.  There is also not much talk on what the outside world actually looks like, so some races are trying to learn and be successful, but are at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing what happens to some races in the real world.
  2. This form was intended for his son, but could have also had a lot of other people in mind.  It is like a letter because he is trying to inform and help his son learn what the school system is really about.  He shows he has a larger audience in mind as well when he talks about the school system in general and what they teach and how it is not the right way to go about things for some people in the school system when it comes to teaching us about race.  The audience he is reaching too can take this and learn a little bit from it and try to form a group to make a stand on this issue.
  3. When I look back I notice that I never really learned about racism in the school system other than what happened many years ago with slavery and the JIm Crow laws.  I also realized there was no teaching us how to get around and lessen the amount of racism today.

Cadogan Reading Response

  1. Once Cadogan first got to New Orleans, he thought that America’s crimes were different, but nothing to completely worry about.  His mind was changed when he tried to help an elderly white man cross a street when his wheelchair got stuck and encountered, “On one occasion, less than a month after my arrival, I tried to help a man whose wheelchair was stuck in the middle of a crosswalk; he threatened to shoot me in the face, then asked a white pedestrian for help,” (Cadogan 8).  The man had pulled a gun on him and threatened to kill him, which showed him that most people looked at him as a threat just because of his skin color.  He would also be stopped and looked at as a threat for just going on a run so he had to be very careful wherever and whenever he was out and about.  We learn that each of these cities along with many others are still very racist and that there is a lot more pressure on a man of color not to mess up when they are out because they could be looked at as a threat.
  2. Well I can not entirely relate to him, but I do know that I do some of the same things he does when walking outside either at night or during the day.  When I am walking around campus one thing I do is if someone is in front of me walking the same direction I either go off the route where they are going to get away or I just cross the street so no one feels uncomfortable walking alone.  He also does this when roaming the city streets in the middle of the night so no one feels uncomfortable or feels threatened in any way.
  3. One time that I felt uncomfortable walking around in the city was when I was outside walking my dog at night to let him go to the bathroom there was a car that parked across the street from me and just drove at like 2 miles per hour by me and I felt scared no knowing what was going to happen so I just waited for my dog to finish peeing and then I just turned around and walked away while glancing over my shoulder every once in a while t make sure nothing was happening.

Biss Reading Response

  1. The two narratives that Biss is using in this piece is the invention of the telephone and then also talking about lynchings and hangings that happened to people of color on the telephone poles.  They intersect and interact because the telephone was invented and then came the telephone poles which everyone hated, but later on used those poles for killing or torturing people of color.  I did not realize that people were digging up the poles all the time when they were first being put in the ground.
  2. Well the game of telephone relates to a bigger picture here because when kids play and when I play I do not think I ever saw a group of people that got the same phrase from where it started to where it ended.  This is otherwise known as false rumors.  People were out and watching the killings happen and wanted to listen to the bigger group of people and hate on the people of color because of some either true or false rumors.  The rumors get spread and in the game of telephone no one will believe what the first person said which relates to no one would listen or believe what the person of color says.
  3. I do not think my opinion changed on her unless I missed something big because she is just a woman speaking and spreading awareness on a situation.  If this is based off of what she looks like I do not think what someone looks like should matter in viewing this type of stuff because again she is just trying to spread awareness. (I am sorry if I went in the wrong direction on this one.  Was not sure if you were trying to see if someone would change their mind on what she is saying because she was white.)