Free Write

This week has started off pretty crappy. First my car got towed on sunday night and I had to pay 250 bucks to get it out. It was such BS because my car was parked legally, there wern't any signs or anything. I thought my car had gotten stolen at first. So I called the police and found out it had been towed. I think I almost would have rather gotten it stolen so I could get insurance money and a whole new car. I love my car actually so I'm glad I got it back. But before I got my car towed I had gotten in a wreck a week ago, so my parents are not very happy with me. I told both of them but they haven't really responded too much. I think they are pretty pissed. Oh well what can you do. I found out that I got a job for the summer lined up, not too exciting though because I basically got my job from last summer again. Waiting tables at Posados. Hey at least its a job, I'm hoping I can actually find another one too that maybe makes a little bit more money. I've decided that I'm never driving again because only bad things seem to happen when I'm in the car. Sounds like a good plan.

Unit 3 Proposal

For Unit 3, our group has decided to do the legalization of marijuana.  We will take the acitivist side of the argument and basically break our argument down into three genres.  We will focus on our generation, our parents generation, and senior citizens.  Each group has a specific reason why marijuana should be legalization and we plan on discussing these reasons.  Our generation tends to use pot recreationally, our parents generation would like to tax marijuana in order to get some economic benefit out of the whole situation, and senior citizens would use marijuana for medicinal purposes to help with chronic disease and pain.  We plan on using some sort of political cartoon or poster for our medium as well as a business report or some type of report.  This way we can include visuals with the report, but still be able to get statistics across to our audience.  This is a great topic because there are a lot of sources and opinions on this issue so we plan on using these sources to get our argument across.  Sources with a lot of emotional appeal and ethical appeal will be our best bet when trying to get our point across.  By using a business report or newspaper article we will be able to get the facts across to our audience and as long as we include political cartoons and other visuals with it to keep it interesting.

In Class: Argument Book visuals

The first question that I found most interesting was the what argumentative purpose does the visual text convey? This applies to Unit 3, because this unit is about arguing one side of an argument so it is very important that you know the purpose of these arguments. Especially Visual arguments. A strong visual argument allows the argument to convey emotion across to the reader or audience. When readers see strong emotions in an argument, especially visually, we tend to express opinion on the matter. Another question like what emotions does the visual evoke? This is important in a visual argument, because getting emotion across to the reader is important, because emotions are very strong persuasive elements. The next question I found interesting was how is the visual text composed and where is your eye drawn to first? This is important in a visual argument, because where the reader looks first is their first impression on the matter, and how they will look at the rest of the visual.

In Class: Reading Last Night

The reading last night was a chapter about style in arguments. It started out with sentence structure and argument which talked about how to organize your writing in a way that makes your argument flow. This is important to argument, because if your reader cannot understand your writing, you will not be able to get your argument across to them. It then moved on to punctuation and argument, which talks about how to punctuate the most effectively to make your argument the most effective. Figurative language is also important to argument style. It is important to have good comparasion, because arguments usually involve some sort of comparing to something else.
In applying this to our Unit 3 paper, it will be important to make sure I have all of these things. We will need to have good sentence structure and punctuation to make sure to be able to get our ideas across. And having good figurative language is a necessity in all good writing, because it adds analysis to your claims.

Unit 3: Job Title

In our group of Jenna, Ashley, and Brennn, I am the research/technology guy.  Basically my job entitles finding sources, along with Brennan, for our topic.  I'll be responsible for finding a lot of information for our group to use, so I need to make sure I find good, credible sources.  By finding good sources, I'll be able to help make our presentation look credible and factual.  The second half of my job is to do a lot of the technology aspects of the presentation.  These means if we need any images, I'll have to make images in Photoshop.  I'll be in charge of powerpoints if we have one in our project.  Basically any program that we have to use, I'll be the one using it.  This role is pretty important to the group, because I'll be in charge of making our presentation look professional and clean, as well as streamlined.  The group won't be able to function correctly if our powerpoint is constantly messing up, so my role will add a lot of functionality to the group.  The other members in my group had other roles that will be important to the functionality of group as well.  Ashley is our group leader/organizer so it is her responsibilty to make sure we are well organized.  Brennan is our Genre researcher, so his research will be key to tieing in all the genres into our presentation.  All of our roles together will build up to a top-performing and organized group.

In Class: Group Project

This one time in high school I had to do a health project. I was in a group with people he didn't like to do pretty much anything. So I ended up doing everything, which sucked. But it was only highschool so it was like a powerpoint that took me an hour, but still I was pissed. Other then that most of my group projects have been pretty good. As long as people do what they are supposed to and turn in things on time its all good. A group needs a strong group leader to organize stuff and make sure things get done, so I guess that would be my biggest concern. Also, make sure that the work is distributed evenly.
An ideal group work situation would be a group that has everyone doing their part exactly the way they are supposed too. Getting things turned in on time, practicing their presentation part, helping others out that need it. All of these things would make a good group. Also a group that communicates well with eachother is ideal. You don't want people just sitting there not saying anything, because that gets you no where. Having fun in the group definitly makes it more enjoyable, but making sure the work gets done first.
The different roles of this group will include a team leader. The leader will be someone who organizes the group and sets others roles for the group members. They will also help make sure the project is getting accomplished in a timely manner. Another role would be researchers. These will be the people researching the subject and finding material to be used on the presentation. Another role might be a powerpoint creator, or some type of presentation. Of course everyone will help contribute to the presentation, but there might be like a technology type of role person. Leader, technology person, researchers are all the roles in a group.

In Class: Writing this semester

Looking back at my first posts on this site, I would have to say there have been many interesting things written. From introducing my self to writing about what I had for breakfast one morning, all of this shows just how much writing we did this semester. After doing all of this writing, I would hope that my writing has actually improved. Based off of my first post, I would say it has because I wrote pretty much ridiculous things. Although I appreciate all the writing we've done, I'm glad to have another Unit done and in the books. I'm not looking forward to moving on to the next unit however. No more writing please. Probably won't happen but I can always dream can't I. Right now my brain is so fried from writing so many pages last night, I would like nothing better then to just zone out and do absolutely nothing. That's what I'm gonna plan on doing any way, and actually I think that probably happens in class more often then I think it would. I would like to take a nap right now, that would be awesome. Maybe eat some breakfast since I didn't get too, because I was finishing the unit paper this morning. Done with writing for now.