In Class: Freewrite/Invention

They fit together because they are all different points of view of the whole Michael Phelps controversy. Each one has an author who states his side of the argument and then tries to back up what he or she says with evidence. Some of the texts do it better then other ones. The texts are similar in that they are newspaper articles with some sort of slant in them. Each one makes a different argument then the others, so they may appear biased. They are different because each article was taken from somewhere different in the world. One of them is from England, another is a local Pennsylvania newspaper, and the last one is a nationwide American paper. The meaning that I can make from these similarities/differences is that two of the paper share the same point of view so it will be easy to connect them. The differences allow me to show how different parts of the nation, as well as the world, reacted to the image of Phelps taking a bong hit. The difference in how each author backed up his claim was different as well. Some claims were backed up with solid evidence while others tended to be strongly opinionated.
The unspoken values and assumptions that allow this argument to function are the fact that everyone has an opinion about pot. Whether it be that you support it or you are against it, people will look at the issue and pick a side. Since a lot of people feel like pot is causing kids to lose their motivation and move onto harder drugs, the anti-marijuana side of the issue is strong. On the other hand, many people support marijuana use and are trying to get it legalized, so they will side with Phelps and support him. These three texts have led me to believe that we do live in a culture of assertion. People feel the need to give their opinions to newspapers or other forms of news outlets to get their points across. Although many times people do back up their assertions with facts that prove their point, many people tend to just say things that they think and not what is true. For example, the Hero Hoy article, Hero Hoy asserts his opinions without givng much evidence.