TOW #29: A Letter to future APELC Student

Dear Future APELC Student,

First of all, I would like to welcome you for a year with APELC. In this class, you would learn to write in a way that is completely different than how you were taught to write all the previous years. Little rules that you followed so devotedly in all your previous English classes such as writing a five paragraph essay that outlines your three examples in your thesis will become useless. You will learn to write in a more professional level, rather than the formulaic writing style you used to follow. Throughout the course, you will definitely read and write a lot. With other things going on in your life during Junior year, this course can sometimes become overbearing. However, it is important for you to stay focused by doing your homework and completing the assignments on time. There will be times when you will work hard on a paper but receive a grade that is not satisfying. However, you cannot be discouraged by the grade; you need to keep trying by approaching Mr. Yost and Ms. Pronko. The learning in this class comes natural as you write more and do your homework. You cannot particularly study for the exams given in this class, but practicing will definitely improve your scores. You are usually given more than enough time to complete your assignments and stay on top of your reading. A word of advice would be do not procrastinate. Although given enough time, if you try to finish it the day before, you will be overwhelmed. The extra time is given so you can balance your time with other classes’ assignments, not to procrastinate. Lastly, think of the reading assignments as something that you would read during your free time. You will be surprised to find that the readings are actually interesting. The prejudice towards school readings will hinder your progress. Once you start enjoying the course, you will learn more and as a result get better grades. Good luck and just remember that if I survived, you can survive as well.

SIncerely,

Ji-eun KIm

TOW #28: TOW Reflection

Whether I can believe it or not, this school year is already coming to an end and this is my second to last TOW post for APELC. Although it is hard to believe that I completed an entire AP level English course, the progressions and changes that are apparent in the TOWs provide evidence that this year is coming to an end. During the beginning of the year, my TOWs were primarily focused on summarizing the nonfiction text and presenting two or three rhetorical devices that the author uses in the text. These paragraphs were very formulaic and direct to the point. As the year progressed, I began to incorporate a creative hook to introduce the text that I read and summarized what I read very briefly. Instead of simply listing the rhetorical devices used by the author in a very formulaic way, I began to analyze the effect of these devices and whether if the author successfully used these devices to strengthen their point or not. Not only with the TOWs, but also with our practiced timed essays, I mastered how to find the rhetorical device used by the author quickly. Also, I can decipher author’s purpose more quickly and accurately compared to the beginning of the year. Not only that, I think my general English level improved as well with the writing practice that comes with the TOWs as we were expected to do one TOW entry every week. Although my English and writing skills improved, I could still improve on fixing the awkwardness of my wording especially when I am not given the chance to proofread my writing. I definitely benefited from the TOW assignments because they forced me to write and read every weekend during my freetime. Assigning the TOW as homework made me try to improve my writing. Although I do have to admit that not all TOWs had the same effort put into them, this fluctuation actually motivated me to try my best on the TOW post after the one with less effort put in. For next year, I think it could be more helpful if Mr. Yost or Mrs. Pronko could grade more TOWs. Since I turned in the TOW that I thought was the most well written for a grade, the teachers’ feedback on that TOW made me fix the mistakes that I tend to make when writing.

TOW #27: What is the Monkeysphere? By David Wang (written, non-fiction text)

Just think about it. “Which would hit you harder, your Mom dying, or seeing on the news that 15,000 people died in an earthquake in Iran?” (Wang 24). Just like this rhetorical question, Wang asks numerous rhetorical questions that makes people think and reflect about their natural selfishness. We tend to care more about the people who are actually related to us, and the number seldomly matters. Wang makes use of analogy as he compares monkeys to humans and explores the made-up term monkeysphere. He talks about how it is easier to memorize a few monkey names but very difficult to remember one hundred monkey names. Wang partitions his paragraphs by asking a rhetorical question and answering them in the paragraph. For example, to address the possible counter argument he answers the question’ “Why should I feel bad for them? I don’t even know those people!” (Wang 22). He also makes use of hypothetical situations and easier analogies to make people understand. He explains that the things people do and say to strangers just because they are strangers and people do not care for them tend to act selfishly and carelessly. He explains that people often yell outside the window while driving and curse at them just because there are thousands of other people on the road who they encounter even without noticing each other. However, he explains the hypocrisy that people would not yell and curse at their friends in an elevator with three people in it just for pushing the wrong button. He explains that strangers are outside our monkeysphere, but we are outside of stranger’s monkeysphere too. He goes on to explain that there are no “Super monkeys”, meaning no one, including yourself is not special. He does a good job in explaining every possible counter argument he would have to deal with by answering an over-exaggerated rhetorical question like “So I’m supposed to start worrying about six billion strangers?” (31). Of course you do not, and you cannot. He just wants people to be more aware of the things going on around the world and acknowledge the fact that other people do not care about you too.

TOW #26: "One dies, million cry" (nonfiction, visual text)

This advertisement juxtaposes the death of Steve Jobs with millions of people dying in Africa due to poverty, famine, and water depletion. Steve Jobs died because of Pancreatic cancer, a irreversible disease that cannot be altered and is beyond human hands. However, the death of millions in Africa is something that people can ameliorate with their will and conservation. The author of this photo wants to show the audience and criticize the public that even when there are thousands of people dying everyday due to famine which is partly due to our fault. However, we overlook that very fact. In contrast, when Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple died, millions of people cried and were grieving. Here, the author presents the hypocrisy. Obviously, people dying in Africa is much greater problem because it is millions of people compared to the death of one single man. However, I do not think the author’s argument is very strong. Steve Jobs is someone who changed millions of people’s lives and brought a new innovation to the world. I am not saying that Steve Jobs’s life is much more important than millions of people’s lives. Everyone’s life is equally important. However, Steve Jobs is someone that most of the people in first world countries know. In contrast to millions of people dying in Africa, who people consider and group as one and do not identify individually as one by one. The photo itself tries to mimic how the world equalizes the death of one single notable person to millions of people in Africa by replacing the Apple logo with African continent. Also, the color of black and white represents the colors used by the company Apple for their advertisements and perhaps to mourn the death of not just Steve Jobs but also the millions of lives in Africa. I think the advertisement could have been more effective if the author did not minimize the death of Steve Jobs. If the author acknowledged the deaths of both groups, Steve Jobs and impoverished African Americans, it could have been more effective and would have to deal with less controversy.

TOW #25: The Female Body by Margaret Atwood (written, nonfiction text)

This week, I read Margaret Atwood's "The Female Body." In her article, she talks about how the female body can be viewed in many ways. The female body can be judged by physical appearance, the physical parts that identifies someone as a female. Another way is by the things women put on, "the basic female body comes with the following accessories" (3) and lists all the things that women may use to decorate herself and make herself more attractive. The third way is whether the woman is willing to change when someone tells her what you do not like about her. The author then mentions how the woman's body have different uses and that males sometimes use females to get things for themselves even when they are capable of getting things themselves. Then Atwood mentions how pleasure in female is not required but optional. “Pleasure in the female is not a requirement… We’re not talking about love, we’re talking about biology” (6). Atwood attempts to use humor now and then to lighten up the mood. For example, after she mentioned that pleasure is not a requirement for women, she talks about how “Snails do it differently. They’re hermaphrodites and work in three’s” (6). This attempt of humor could have been an analogy to show to males who take women for granted and exploit women that women are much valuable than snails. Finally she talks about the female and male brains and how they differ; females have a more laid back approach on things while males have an objective approach. The “Female Body” is mainly about how men keep women to do things and for nothing else. So when they lose the female they are lost because they don’t know what or how to do things themselves. Atwood had a condescending tone to those men who do not value women. I think her condescending tone worked but her views were very one-sided as she made her argument sound like that all men do not value women and exploit women’s intelligence and body. She made men sound like irresponsible and helpless beings who cannot do anything by themselves when women are not present. I think supporting that point of view was overly ambitious as she needs to respond to possible counterargument to make her points stronger.

TOW #24: Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich (IRB, written)

This week, i finished Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America. Unlike the first half of the book where she bashes out about how positive thinking is ruining the society and there is nothing positive about positive thinking, she actually talks about how negative thinking has the same effect as positive thinking. She actually claims that neither positive nor negative thinking is good. She says that one sided thinking and partial thinking is detrimental. She tries to redeem herself from her previous invective on positive thinking by arguing that realism is what people actually need. Additionally, to address her point that positive thinking is not only harmful for cancer patients but also for every individual, she uses anecdote and exemplification. She first uses anecdote when explaining how positive thinking has destructive effects to cancer patients by giving them false hopes and taking away their ability to prepare for the harsh truth.  She claims that as a former cancer patient herself, going through cancer made her realize "an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before—one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate." In addition, she uses hypothetical exemplification to address her point that thinking positively is only detrimental. She explains, "you cannot assume that your arrowheads will pierce the hide of a bison or that your raft will float just because the omens are propitious and you have been given supernatural reassurance that they will. You have to be sure.” With this hypothetical example, she makes readers realize that being clinical is what people need when looking at an issue. I personally think her arguments are a bit too harsh and radical. With topics like cancer, she needs to be more careful about the reader's feelings and how they would perceive her claims but she does not hesitate to outrageously claim that positive thinking gives patients false hopes. Although she did respond to counter arguments by claiming that negative thinking is also harmful, her methods were insufficient in settling the controversy of her argument.  If she did not note positive thinking, her arguments would have been less effective. She states that "we need to heed our fears and negative thoughts, and at all times we need to be alert to the world outside ourselves, even when that includes absorbing bad news and entertaining the views of “negative” people" but this point of view is way too pessimistic for the audience to agree. 

TOW #23: Love by Lauren Sister (written, nonfiction text)

Some describe love as a flame, something that burns brightly and passionately for a given period of times but goes off eventually. Some also describe love as a magical thing that cannot be easily explained through reasoning. However, according to Lauren Sister, a journalist who has been researching the chemistry of love, love is a very mechanical thing that comes with its reasons. She claims that people have a tendency to be attracted to ones who have the qualifications that they lack, a innate tendency to produce the best offspring. Also, we fall for people who have the qualities our parents had, because “Love is reactive, not proactive, it arches us backward, which may be why a certain person just “feels right.” Or “feels familiar.”... He or she has a certain look or smell or sound or touch that activates buried memories” (31). To support her claim, she uses very scientific terms like oxytocin and neurotransmitters and builds her ethos. She also uses anecdotes to explain the stages of love. She claims that her husband and she fully experienced the burning flame of love. However, this is not the end of their love. It is the end of one stage of another love, and the beginning of another stage of their love.

Despite its practical mechanisms SIster tried to explain in her essay, love is still a magical and wonderful thing because the chance that one might meet another person who triggers one’s oxytocin, “a hormone that promotes a feeling of connection” (55) is rare and for the other person to feel the same feelings about one is even harder.

Her claims are definitely interesting and original but I personally felt as if she was being too finicky. I believe that some things in life can be beyond reason and do not believe that it is our objectives to discover every single detail in human life. There are benefits to knowing the mechanics behind love: If people knew that they would succeed in love with one or the other, there would be no failures or disappointments in relationships. However, it is because people fail, that we have population control and desires.