Blog 12 Best and Weakest Portfolio Paper

Out of my three papers that I have selected the one that represents my best work is my personal analysis essay. I think this because I believe that I have good argument that parents really shape what we do with our lives and who we become. I think that I have good quotes to back it up and an overall good organization to my essay. One thing that I tried to work on my unpacking my quotes and I thought that I did that well in this essay. I think my essay that needs that most work in my research paper. I was confused on the prompt and I thought that we were doing a research paper about the book, tv show, or movie we selected and what effect it had on American culture. So I have a lot of information on my tv series and why it was so influential. But I need to change my content and explain the change in American culture that occurred and use my tv show to support that. So unfortunately I have A LOT of work to do on that. And im bummed about that because I thought I had a really good start to my essay and now I have to throw that out. My weakest area in the paper would be not starting off on the right foot and I need to do more research and change the angle that I was going on. I also want to do more explication but of different episodes. Over all I have a lot of work to do on my portfolio. I don’t know about anyone else but this portfolio is stressing me out!

Blog 11: Krakauer's Research

Overall I feel that Krakauer did a pretty good job in obtaining good research for Into The Wild. By using sources of the actual people that McCandless encountered during his journey was the most reliable was to go about getting quality research. There is a problem with this method though because Krakauer collected his research after McCandless died so the people he interviewed might not have remembered everything correctly or been as accurate as they could have been. But I think that for the most part interviewing those people was the best way he could have obtained research. One thing he did lack information in is the actual cause of death of McCandless. Yes Krakauer does give his thoughts on what he thinks happened to McCandless but they were later disproven. I also think that it was good the Krakuer went up to the site where McCandless spent his final days. I think the best research is hands on and that is what he did by going up into Alaska

Blog 10: Research Paper Topic

The primary source of my research paper is the Mary Tyler Moore Show Television Series. It portrays the changing role of women during the 1970s and the women’s right movement. The main character Mary Richards is the first single never married, independent career women to be the central character in a television series. This phenomenon wasn’t unheard of in the early 1970s but it was never portrayed on television before then. She shows how women don’t need to be with a man to complete their life. Just as the theme song for the series says you can make it on your own. My paper is centered around women’s rights and the changing role of women and how the Mary Tyler Moore Show was the first of its kind. My classmates (particularly the girls) should care about this topic because women’s rights have significantly changed throughout the years. Women did not always have the opportunities that we have today. The typical woman doesn’t have to go and find a man to start her life. We are completely capable of being independent and start a career on our own, just as Mary Richards demonstrated. Personally I wouldn’t have been able to go to college and seek out a business degree if it was prior to the 1970s. All of the women at college today are extremely lucky when you think about how the “typical” life of a woman used to be. "Typical" meaning a life that was started by a man and now they only make their man happy and take care of the house.

Blog 9: Research Paper

The topic for my research paper is the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I am going to look deeper into the impact this show had on women’s rights and how it showed the changing role that women were starting to have in society. It is relevant to current American culture because this show was the first television show to really show how society was starting to change through the roles of women. Without the change of women’s rights no women today would be able to have the opportunities we are presented with. Such as going to college and being a career women. I think today it is important for women to establish themselves with a career and be self sufficient, instead of finding a man to support you. The Mary Tyler Moore show was the first television show to have the leading role be a women in a career role and not seeking a man to make her life complete. At this time when this show was running there really were not any other shows like it. The Mary Tyler Moore Show definitely broke down the stereo type of the view of a typical women. I especially think this topic is relevant to me because without the change in women rights I would not be in college right now seeking out a business degree. My opportunities available to me would be very small and I am very fortunate to have the rights that I do. The Mary Tyler Moore Show really showed the change that was happening in the 70’s.

Blog 8: Essay Assessment

The paper that I have selected to access is the close reading essay. After looking over the evaluation system handout we received in class I would give this essay a low plus (if I can give pluses or minuses). I think that I have a lot of work to do on this essay if I do choose to put it in my portfolio and one of my three papers. I don’t think I unpacked my quotes well enough so that needs to be fixed. I think that I need to utilize my sources more and describe the authors of the quote further in depth. I do have an argument/ idea running through my paper, that all of our actions are catalyzed by a motive. Whether it is through our life experiences, family, or literature that we read. I do not think that my sources are engaged in my essay well enough. So that is defiantly a component that I need to work on. I also think that the writing in this essay is a little choppy and that my transitions could use some work. Over all I defiantly have the understanding that this essay needs a lot of revision, which is ok because this call is all about revision and how writing is a process. I am curious to see what comments Rachel has to make on this paper and to see if she accessed it similarly to how I did.

Krakauer's Self-Expression: Blog 7

After reading Krakauer’s experience on the Devils Thumb i thought it made Chris’ story more credible. Yes I do think that McCandless is an complete idiot and what he did was reckless but when I hear about others doing similar things it makes McCandless seem like less of an idiot. When Krakauer was relating other similar stories to McCandless’ I felt the same way as I did when reading Krakauer’s story. A small sense of compassion towards McCandless because he wasn’t the only person to pull a stunt like he did. I really did enjoy reading Krakauer’s story and how similar it was to McCandless. I thought that it gave Krakauer more credibility to write about McCandless’ experience because he really could relate to why McCandless would go on the Alaskan adventure that he did. The parallels that McCandless and Krakaure shared were truly remarkable and in a way kind of creepy. The fact that they both had unstable relationships with their fathers and used the wilderness and an escape from society. I would never have thought Krakauer would have gone on the epic adventure that he did and succeed at it. When reading a novel you never really think about the author and their life you are only thinking about the main character. And I thought it was very interesting to have a change like this.

Blog 6

I think that the examples the Krakaure uses to compare Chris to other people help the story. I don’t think they are amazing pieces of the book that if taken away would be disastrous. But I do think they add a little something. The examples the I like the most are the stories that shows people who are similar to Chris. As stupid as I think he is when reading those it made me think he was less stupid because other people had done things like that too. An example of this is the story of McCunn and how he left himself to die alone from doing a crazy adventure. “Somehow, though he neglected to arrange for the pilot to fly him back to civilization at summer’s end, and it cost McCunn his life.” He too was ill prepared and didn’t arrange the proper materials to get back home. Just as McCandless was ill prepared and if he would have had a map he would have found a way to get across the river and save his life.

Blog Post 5: Taylor Swift

Yes, I do think that after reading the Taylor Swift article I was influenced on my opinion of her music. It made me take a step back and really think about the content of her songs and her overall image that she is portraying. I found that she has an immature quality about her that I didn’t see before. Especially when the author made the comparison of Taylor Swift to Lady Gaga and how they are close in age but they see decades apart. This article made me step back and see how juvenile all of her songs really are. Each song is about boys. I think especially in today’s generation women don’t need a man to complete their life. Most women are establishing their careers and then finding a man. I do think that the pictures were helpful. This is mainly because the article was so long and having a picture to look at helped keep me engaged in the article. I did think they added to the overall content and helped support the author’s argument. My favorite graphic was the complete works of Taylor Swift symbolic analysis picture. It really showed how simple her music really is.

Blog Post 4: Logos, Pathos, Ethos

In my opinion I think that it is most important to obtain a balance of all three. You need to show your credibility of why someone should be listening to you through ethos. Keep them emotionally invested through pathos, because if they don’t care about what you are saying they are not going to continue reading your essay. Finally you have to have supporting text to back up what you have to say. So the logos part of it is important also. In my Into the Wild essay I tried to have a balance of all three and I think that I was able to achieve this. I tried to portray supporting text and emotionally connect the reader to my words. In my American Literature essay I also attempted to find that balance. I do think that I might have been lacking some ethos but I can work on getting a good balance through the revision process.

Blog Post 3: McCandless Response Essay Opinion Change

When writing my McCandless response essay my opinion was that he was a reckless idiot and not a courageous hero like others might believe. While I was writing my essay I wasn’t thinking at all about his journey across the United States at all, I was strictly thinking about just when he went into Alaska. So it’s hard to relate what we have read to my essay because my examples from my essay don't really fit with the text we just read. An example of this would be that I wrote about how he didn’t have enough materials with him when entering Alaska, but when he started this entire journey he had a car full of stuff. Overall my opinion has not changed since further reading the book. I still think that McCandless is an idiot, but my reasoning in my essay doesn’t match with the last two chapters we just read. I am interested to keep reading and see if at some point in the book my opinion on McCandless will change. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Blog Post 2 : BC Response

After going through writing boot camp during the first couples of weeks of class, the most significant thing that I learned was about revision. I learned that writing is primarily all about revision! I also found out that it’s not just about revising grammar and punctuation but the content as a whole. I thought that writing the American Literature essay day by day and revising it little by little really demonstrated how important it is to revise your essays a lot. Having opportunities to revise each part of our essay was definitely helpful for me. Due to the fact that writing is such a hard subject for me and I need a lot of time to have a paper come together and being able to revise it multiple times helps. From editing my homework little by little the content of my paper completely switched from one view to another. So I would say that this process of multiple revisions was helpful. And now I know that it’s ok to have mistakes in your papers because confronting them is the first step towards revision.

Blog Post 1 : About Me

Hey my name is Cammi Powers and so far my first year here at Washington States has been great. I survived my very first semester, joined a great sorority, only had to use my map twice, and managed not to get too home sick. I am from Woodinville Washington and I think it’s great there. I moved to Woodinvlle from Kent when I was one. So I have basically lived there my whole life which has been perfectly fine with me. I live there with my mom, dad, sister, and my dog. I do miss them but not as much as i thought i was going to. As far as my writing goes I am going to be honest here, I really don’t like writing. English has always been one of my least favorite subjects and I am not very good at writing. I dread whenever I have to write an essay, and I know that in college I am going to have to write a lot over the next four years. So I am hoping that taking this class will helpimprove my nonexistent abilities of writing. During high school my grades where always pretty important to me and that hasn’t changed since I have been to college. Yes my grades did slip a little bit last semester but I am thinking that I am not the only one who experienced that. I’m hoping that I can raise my GPA a little bit after this semester.