Posted on July 27, 2016
The Unknown Writing
Tweets are sent at a rate of about six thousand per second, which equates to about fifty million tweets per day (Weil). Each tweet being methodically thought out by the author, specifically to draw the most attention to their tweet. The genre works very similarly to a blog, where audiences can follow people and pages that appeal to their interests. However, followers can retweet others tweets, so that the followers of the original follower may see it. This ability for Twitter users to show new content to their followers differentiates Twitter from all other social media websites. Unlike Facebook, which has become known as a place where people go to rudely rant and push their ideas on others, Twitter allows their users to show their ideas, while also restricting them to one hundred forty characters, which keeps the audience interested. Although Twitter has become a form of spreading ideas to masses of people, the argument has been made that Twitter should not be considered as a new form of writing. The soldiers of this side of the debate argue that tweets do not go through editors and the publishing sequence and, therefore, do not count as writing. However, because of the ability of Twitter users to touch the emotions of their audience and quickly give out and collect useful information, Twitter should be considered as a form of writing.
First, Twitter users are able pull emotional strings in their audience’s heart. For example, social media has recently been used to spread the idea that police officers in America are racist against the African-American population of the country. Any user can search for these tweets and retweet them so that all of their followers can see those tweets. Because of the ability for each user to retweet a tweet, tweets can reach thousands of people, even if the original tweeter does not have thousands of followers. For example, in Figure 1, I sent out a tweet that was meant to be a spoof on the current political race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Although my twitter only has 265 followers, my tweet was read by over 5,000 people. That being said, not all 5,000 people were emotionally touched by this tweet and were moved to make a large social movement, I know that I touched at least a hundred people, because they liked the tweet, as shown in Figure 1. The like feature allows readers to easily show the author of the tweet that they liked or can relate to said tweet. Meanwhile, through only 36 retweets, my audience expanded from under 300 people to 5,000 people. This is very similar to the rise of the traditional author. An author who uses the traditional method of writing (i.e. papers, poems, or novels), would write multiple works before their name gets spread through the market. For instance, Ray Bradbury wrote multiple novels and poems before getting it right with Fahrenheit 451. The novels before Fahrenheit 451 may not have been well known, but they put Bradbury’s name in the market, which led to his name being spread around between friends, eventually leading to more sales through friends recommending him to their other friends. The process of finding the right tweet follows almost the exact same pattern, starting with small tweets that may go completely unnoticed. These tweets are followed by tweets that may get retweeted a time or two, which is similar to the readers of Bradbury telling their friends about his works. Finally, a tweet or two pull the right heart strings and could lead to a rather large audience. Therefore, tweets work in the same way as the traditional way of writing to bring attention to their authors through the emotions of their readers.
Figure 1
In addition to touching the emotions of the audience, twitter also eases the communication between the authors and the readers. To explain further, Twitter gives the option for users to give polls to their followers. These polls work the same way as regular tweets in that they can be retweeted to reach larger audiences. These polls allow the author to quickly read his audience, and determine how they feel, without having to sort through multiple comments or emails. These polls could have an affect on what content the twitter publishes. For example, in Figure 2, the Twitter user could identify that a majority of his audience are Pittsburgh Steelers or Baltimore Ravens fans. This capability works so much better than the method traditional authors have used, that the authors have started creating Twitters for themselves. So, in a way, Twitter actually works better than the traditional methods of writing.
Figure 2
As a direct result of all of these similarities, Twitter should be thought of as a form of writing, especially considering the fact that Twitter allows for an easier way of talking with an author’s audience. The best way to sum this argument up was made by Dennis Baron, a linguist, in his essay on the evolution of writing. Baron explains that, “…the computer is simply the latest step in a long line of writing technologies” (693). Although this quote directly references to the invention of the computer, the reader can infer that all of the inventions that use the computer fall under the same category. Twitter has become next in this long line that Baron refers to. Just like the computer, people who refer to Twitter as a new form of writing are looked at as eccentric (Baron 695). However, Twitter has become the face of this generation’s writing form, and must be the newest form of writing, as this generation does not do nearly as much traditional writing as the generations before.
Works Cited
Baron, Dennis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies.” Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth A. Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 690-709. Print.
Best Sports Polls (BestSportsPolIs). “Based On Previous Results, What Is The Best Rivalry In The NFL?”. 20 Jul 2016, 6:01 p.m. Tweet.
Hagan, Garrett (garretthagan_). “Is your refridgerator running? If so, I might vote for it.” 20 July 2016, 8:27 a.m. Tweet.
Weil, Kevin. “Measuring Tweets.” Twitter Blogs. Twitter, 22 Feb. 2010. Web. 26 July 2016.
Updated on July 27, 2016
Scientific vs. Mass Media Articles
The Zika virus has been talked about nonstop for the past few months by the mass media. The virus has laced the Olympics with fear. Officials, athletes, tourists, and natives all have fears about contracting the virus. Some athletes have even dropped out of the competition solely based on the virus. However, the truth is that not much has been discovered about the disease. Little is known about the effect the virus has on the carriers. This being said, doctors are working on a vaccine for Zika. So why are all of these people still fearing for their lives? All four of those discourse communities (Wardle and Downs 795) seem to agree that they all will contract the virus and bring it back to where that athlete originates from. However, that is not true. The virus is only spread through mosquitoes and sexual intercourse. Both of those infection means can be avoided, or at least fought off. The mass media has played the public into believing that the Zika virus will be the next plague. Most stories that are intended for mass-consumption include scary numbers, negative information, and the feeling that the readers are on their own to fix whatever the problem may be. However, scientific journals show that the Zika virus is not as large of a problem as the media and rumors make it out to be. These journals do not show the scary numbers that invoke fear into the hearts of the readers, but instead give the public enough information so that they can form their own decisions on the topics. Mass media articles often play with the fear of their audience, while scientific journals allow the readers to form their own opinions, as shown through the content, framing, and word choice of the respective pieces.
To begin, the authors of mass media articles include large numbers that are meant to overwhelm the audience so that they are less prone to make an argument. For example, an article by Alexandra Sifferlin that was published by TIME Magazine states, “But since its invasion in Brazil last year, the Zika virus has torn through Latin America , likely infecting millions”. The author of the article uses verbs such as torn to induce the feeling of fear into the audience. At first glance, the reader can tell that the virus has infected millions of people within Brazil alone in a short period of time. This can immediately set the reader into a state of shock that a virus can infect so many within such a short time period. However, considering the fact that the virus is spread through mosquitos and sexual intercourse, it should not be a surprise that Brazil has become a problem in an area where mosquitos and criminals both run rampant. Also, Sifferlin includes facts such as, “Puerto Rico has already reported more than 700 confirmed cases, including 89 pregnant women, and one person has died from the disease”, to try to show the reader that the virus has infected a great quantity of people outside of Brazil. However, when computed, only about thirteen percent of the infected group was pregnant, and only .14% of people actually died from the virus. Sifferlin presented these numbers in a way that force the audience to feel the way she wants them to about these facts. By doing so, the audience will not know how few people are actually affected by this disease. Meanwhile, the scientific journals do not throw such large numbers at the audience all at once. These journals take their time and explain the meaning of each number rather than overwhelm the reader. For example, one article by Adrija Hajra, Dhrubajyoti Bandyopadhyay, and Shyamal Kumar Hajra refers to the amount of illnesses caused by disease recorded in October of 2013, which was ten-thousand, but then continues to explain that there were also two diseases included in that count as well (125). Because the reader has been given all of the information possible, the rhetors (Wardle and Downs 801) allow the audience time to interpret that data how they would like.
Mass media articles also use a common tactic known as framing. Ferzli, Gardner, and Jones address the framing methods of the media in an article out of American Biology Teacher. One explanation expresses that, “The media packages the same content differently by selecting different words, images, phrases, and presentation styles to focus the receivers on certain aspects of an issue and to help them make sense of its potential complexity” (333). The media uses these tactics so that the audience has no choice but to immediately think the same way as the reporter that wrote the article. Without being provided any other information, the reader may feel like they are not educated enough to make their own assumption. Sifferlin uses this tactic throughout the paper by not providing any positive information. For instance, Sifferlin states that, “Other states, like North Carolina, have eliminated mosquito-control programs in recent years and are now in the position of having to start from scratch….” Although she is only referencing a specific state (North Carolina), she leaves the audience to wonder what other states have eliminated their mosquito control programs. Again, she plays off of the fear of the audience, while also giving them no other option other than to worry if their state government has taken any measurements to prevent the virus. However, the scientific journal does not use framing at all. In the article by Bandyopadhyay, Hajra, and Hajra, they make a harsh statement saying that, “There is no particular treatment for ZIKV infection” (125). Although they make a very negative notion, they back it up by using the rest of the paragraph to explain that it can be fought through “Taking rest, maintaining adequate hydration, and appropriate nutrition…” (125). By giving an explanation of what some things the individual can do to help maintain their health, Hajra, Bandyopadhyay, and Hajra give their audience the sense that there is hope in fighting this virus. The mass media article, however, puts blame onto scientists by claiming that, “There are no approved drugs or vaccines for Zika, mainly because scientists long assumed the virus was so benign that it wasn’t worth the resources required to investigate treatment” (Sifferlin). Through a reading of both articles, one can see an obvious difference in that the mass media article does not allow the reader to make their own judgements, but the scientific article simply shows the facts and allows the audience to form their own opinion. One reason that the scientific authors do not use framing are the constraints placed upon their writing. Esther M. Van Dijk explains that scientific articles must follow nine specific themes. Scientific articles must include:
(1) scientific methods and critical testing…; (2) creativity; (3) historical development of scientific knowledge; (4) science and questioning…; (5) diversity of scientific thinking (no one method); (6) analysis and interpretation of data; (7) science and certainty (tentativeness); (8) hypothesis and prediction; and (9) cooperation and collaboration. (Van Dijk 1091)
By following these constraints, any framing that would have been done by the authors are systematically eliminated from the essay. By interpreting the data, the scientists make the data easier to read for the average audience member, giving the audience of a scientific peer reviewed article even more of a chance to form their own opinion.
Finally, mass media articles also use a specific language so that the audience again has no choice but to believe exactly what the author wants them to. In Sifferlin’s article, she repeatedly refers to the virus as a disease. She does this so that the reader has an even worse perception of what the virus is and how much it actually matters. However, in the article by Hajra, Bandyopadhyay, and Hajra, they refer to Zika as both a disease and virus, playing down any claims that the Zika virus will be the next plague. Although Hajra, Bandyopadhyay, and Hajra do reference Zika as a disease at a couple points throughout the article, they do provide evidence that Zika should be treated as a virus rather than as a disease (viruses can only be vaccinated while diseases need to be cured). By doing so, Hajra, Bandyopadhyay, and Hajra address the importance of the need for something to be done to prevent the spread of the disease, while also showing that the Zika virus has been played up to look worse than the virus really is by the mass media. That being said, Sifferlin does refer to the work being done at the National Institutes of Health to create a vaccine, but does not address the difference between a vaccine and a cure. Again, this is Sifferlin framing her article so that the audience will have no choice but to believe her when she tells them that Zika is a disease. If she had referred to the difference between a vaccine and a cure, more of her audience might question her credibility because she would be contradicting herself by trying to play on the fear of the audience, while also showing that there is some hope.
In summary, the mass media will often play with their audience’s emotions so that the audience will believe them, while scientific peer-reviewed articles allow their audience to form their own opinions, as shown through the content, framing, and word choice of each piece. As shown, we as an audience need to do research on our own so that we can be fully educated on each decision before we make that decision so we may strive for the best possible outcome. If we do not act before our decisions are made, we are allowing our society to be controlled by the mass media. We, as a society, as well as generation by generation, will lose our individuality and uniqueness because there would not be any new social movements to change our society or our laws so that it more fits the beliefs of our generation.
Works Cited
Gardner, Grant E., M. Gail Jones, and Miriam Ferzli. “Popular Media in the Biology Classroom: Viewing Popular Science Skeptically.” American Biology Teacher 71.6 (2009): 332-335. Printed Handout.
Hajra, Adrija, Dhrubajyoti Bandyopadhyay, and Shyamal Kumar Hajra. “Pika Virus: A Global Threat to Humanity: Comprehensive Review and Current Developments.” American Journal of Medical Sciences 8.3 (2016): n. pag. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 July 2016.
Sifferlin, Alexandra. “What You Need To Know About Zika + How To Beat The Virus-And The Mosquitos That Carry It. (Cover Story).” Time 187.18 (2016): 32-38. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21 July 2016.
Van Dijk, Esther M. “Science Education.” Portraying Real Science in Science Communication (2011): 1086-1100. Printed Handout.
Wardle, Elizabeth A., and Doug Downs. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Print.
Updated on July 25, 2016
Preparing Lives via Literacy
Many organizations and teams have their own goals, whether it be to win the next game, improve each player or the team as a whole, or to simply come together as a team. This, in very broad terms, defines a discourse community. To be more exact, John Swales defines a discourse community as “…[any community where] there are common goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange, community specific genres, a highly specialized terminology, and a high general level of expertise” (224). In summary, a discourse community is a group that uses literacy to further its goals. An example of a group like this would be the Young Marines, a non-profit organization that prepares young children for life in the military or a paramilitary organization, such as a police force. The Young Marines are open to both boys and girls ages eight to eighteen who have any interest in the military or any kind of military-like lifestyle. The main goal of the Young Marines is to teach their three core values, teamwork, leadership, and discipline. Through these values, the program teaches its participants to keep clean and stay on a lawful path. The program is also a recruiting tool for the military. We go hand in hand with the Marine Corps and try to prepare our members for that branch of the military. Also, another goal of the Young Marines is to teach their members how to mature and give them a maturity that can rarely be seen in today’s generations. This program uses a chain of command, guidebooks, and an obligation and creed to further prepare its members and teach the three core values.
The first major aspect of the program is the chain of command. The chain of command works similarly to a triangle. At the bottom of the triangle are the privates, the private first classes, and the lance corporals . These are kids, normally ages eight to twelve, who recently joined the program and may still be getting used to how things work. However, they are also the guinea pigs of the level above them, which would be their squad leaders. The squad leaders are Young Marines who have already established themselves as responsible leaders. These kids are normally ages twelve to fourteen, but are supposed to be held accountable for their specific squad. Above the squad leaders lie the platoon leader, and above him stands the platoon sergeant. The platoon sergeant reports to the executive officer, who then reports to the unit commander. This chain of command is followed to the letter and there are few ways around it. The unit commander uses the chain of command to give out orders on what the unit will be doing that day. For example, the unit commander may give very broad, general orders to his executive officer, such as “I want the Young Marines to have a land navigation class on this date”. The executive officer then gives the platoon sergeant a time in the schedule and a location to teach the class. The platoon sergeant then might tell the platoon leader what should be taught to the platoon. Finally, the platoon leader would carry out the commands given to him ultimately by the unit commander. However, the chain of command is a two-way road. Any feedback or problems of the Young Marines in the unit would be given to the squad leader, who would then report it up to the chain of command until it reaches the proper authority. The difference between going up and down the chain of command is that ideas going up the chain of command may not always make it to the top of the triangle, however everything from the top makes its way to the bottom (Hagan). This chain of command allows the unit commander to quickly and effectively give orders to his unit that hopefully would be made with the furtherance of the three core values of the program in mind. Through his decision of what the unit would be doing that day, the Young Marines in his unit will learn something new about how the core values would have an effect on their lives at some point in the future. The chain of command also works as a way to push Young Marines through their guidebooks. As a Young Marine progresses through their guidebooks, that person also climbs the chain of command and receives special privileges that would not be given to someone who is a private. The ability of the chain of command to flow both ways allows the organization to better itself through feedback, as well as make it easier for the Young Marine unit to grow and come together as a team, and pushes individual Young Marines to work harder fpr the next rank.
Secondly, we use a set of guidebooks to teach our Young Marines how to run different drills. For each rank there are a different set of learning objectives. The privates are tasked with learning menial duties such as how to march and basic history such as what day flag day is. As mentioned previously, privates tend to be between eight and twelve year olds, so not much can be expected from them. Once a private gets passes a series of questions on all of the required learning objectives for his rank, the private earns a promotion to a private first class, the rank immediately above private first class. This promotion gives the Young Marine more responsibility than a private, as well as more learning objectives in what is called the basic guidebook. After testing through lance corporal, a Young Marine advances into the junior guidebook. Once in the junior guidebook, a Young Marine again assumes more responsibility than the ranks below him and subsequently might be in charge of some of those Young Marines. The Young Marine continues this cycle of learning certain objectives, testing on them, and giving speeches at certain ranks, until he has passed through the basic, junior, senior, and advanced guidebooks. Once through the advanced guidebook, the Young Marine has reached the highest rank possible without being awarded a promotion. The rank one receives is strictly based upon where they are in these guidebooks. The guidebooks are looked at as a right of passage into the higher ranks of the Young Marine program. As a Young Marine advances through the guidebooks, the three core values take a turn. A private needs to worry more about discipline and teamwork than leadership. However, as that private progresses through the ranks with the help of the guidebooks, leadership takes on a new meaning (Hagan). Without the guidebooks, Young Marines would not be able to learn the certain items that the Young Marines earn money for such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education, otherwise known as the D.A.R.E. program. The higher rank a Young Marine earns is directly proportional to where they are in the chain of command. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the chain of command is a significant genre in which orders and feedback make it from the unit commander to the privates and back. Because of the guidebooks, the chain of command is simplified and categorized much easier.
Finally, the Young Marines also have an obligation and a creed that are memorized and recited every drill so that they are drilled into the head of each Young Marine. The obligation explains how the Young Marine that takes that oath will “set an example for all other youth to follow and I shall never do anything that will never do anything that would bring disgrace or dishonor upon my god, my country and it’s flag, my parents, myself, or the Young Marines” (District of Columbia Young Marines). The obligation is always referred to during disciplinary meetings because the Young Marine program looks at the obligation as an oath, and if broken, the punishment can be harsh and swift. The obligation was created by the founding unit of the Young Marines in Waterbury, Connecticut so that members of the program will mature much quicker than their peers around them in their civilian life. The unit in Waterbury also created a creed, which is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as “an idea or set of beliefs that guides the actions of a person or group”. This creed, similar to the obligation, was made to set a standard for Young Marines as they enter the program. Also, any Young Marine who goes against the creed will face swift punishment. In summary, the creed states that the Young
Marine will remain clean, both mentally and physically. It also states that the Young Marine remain “alert to learn at school, at home, and at play” as well as urging the Young Marine to “remember that having self-discipline will enable [the Young Marine] to control [the Young Marine’s] body and mind in case of an emergency” (District of Columbia Young Marines). Both the obligation and creed are followed so strictly as they are so that the Young Marine learns that going against an oath or creed has serious implications on that Young Marines life. Adult leaders in the program feel that it would be better for the Young Marines to learn now before a similar breach could cause them to lose a job in the future. The obligation and the creed both teach Young Marines to be mature and think less like the eight year olds that they might be. With the maturity taught by the creed and obligation, the younger kids in the organization have an easier time working with the older kids, some of whom may be the same rank as the younger kids. The newfound maturity also makes it easier for the Young Marine to become a leader who is respected by his teammates, rather than a boss who pushes them past their physical or mental limits.
Hence, the chain of command, guidebooks, and obligation and creed, are genres with which the Young Marine program works towards its goals of teaching maturity, teamwork, and leadership. The values that the program teach prepare its members ultimately for a life in the military or a paramilitary organization. Not only, does the program prepare the members for a difficult life, but it also tries to teach the members how to live life in a lawful way, in a society where it seems to be cool to be unlawful.
Works Cited
“Creed.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 14 July 2016.
Farnsworth, Travis. “Douglas County Young Marines Logo.” DCYM About Us. District of Columbia Young Marines, n.d. Web. 14 July 2016.
Hagan, Keith. Telephone Interview. 12 July 2016.
Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth A. Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. N. pag. Print.
Posted on July 25, 2016
Learning to Not Hate Writing
I cannot stand to write, and I barely like to read. Both of those verbs make me want to fall asleep just looking at them. That was not always the case however. I used to love both reading and writing. I would sit down and read a historical book for hours upon end. And then, whenever I got the chance to, I would show off my new found historical knowledge by drawing parallels between the new information and whatever I happened to be writing about that day. All that said, I changed somewhere. Somewhere in the history of me, my love for reading and writing became a hatred towards both of them. I believe that whatever changed me happened in eighth grade but I have never been quite sure. To be honest, I do not believe that it matters. What actually matters is that I overcame whatever obstacle that was in my way, and I actually became a better writer from that experience. In our lives, everyone has some person or moment that gives us enough push to get over those obstacles.
In 2001, at the age of three I learned to read. A few years later, my kindergarten teacher taught me how to write. From that point on, I loved both of them. I would write constantly about what I wanted to be when I grew up, what I was thinking about that day, whether or not I enjoyed school or even the lunch that was served that day. I would just sit down and read and write for hours. The librarian at my elementary school, Mrs. Schubert, had been in that same library for fifty years. I never thought of it, but Mrs. Schubert was my very first sponsor. As Deborah Brandt states, “[Sponsors] help to organize and administer stratified systems of opportunity and access, and they raise the literacy stakes in struggles for competitive advantage” (56). Mrs. Schubert showed me every book in that library that had any relation to what I was interested in, which at the time was the pacific theater of World War Two. Every report I wrote from the first one until fifth grade was about that part of the war. Of course, as most elementary students have a tendency to do, my papers would be random and weird but were a blast for me to write. Every time I wrote a report I looked at it as a new opportunity to learn. Mrs. Schubert gave me the opportunity to learn all I could about that theater of war and helped me along the way. It was also at this time that I joined the Young Marines, a Marine Corps version of the boy scouts. I have spent the last ten years in this program and have written many speeches in this program. Meanwhile, there will always be one speech that I remember clearly. I gave a presentation on the Iwo Jima flag raisers while in fifth grade. Even though the battle and the war were both very gruesome, I managed to keep the speech very gay and decided to focus on the survivors of the group and their lives after. I wrote that speech the only way I knew how to, being in fourth grade. I jumped all over the place and did not really have a logical order of information. Thankfully, my father stepped in and helped me organize the information into a sensible order. From this speech, I really learned the basics of selling a topic to an audience and what would appeal to them. However, some of my bad habits would catch up to me soon after this well remembered speech.
I actually enjoyed english class in middle school. The small, interesting books kept me interested in between the one to two page papers we had to complete by the end of the month. That mix actually kept me enthusiastic not only towards my reading, but towards my writing as well. It allowed my feeble sixth grade mind to rest and focus on every little detail I put into my papers. The writing I did in those three years did not bother me mentally or physically. I did not get migraines or writer’s’ block or anything of the sort. Because of these breaks, I did well in those classes. My creative processes stayed mainly the same from when I learned them in 2009 till now. I begin each paper with a brainstorm, which normally turns into a web, which becomes an outline, from which I create the rough draft, followed by the final paper. Mrs. Wells, my sixth grade english teacher, taught me this expecting it to be useful for a year or two, and that I would find some form that was better suited for my style of writing. Little did we know that I would still be using the same creative process in my freshman year of college. Toward the end of middle school and leading into my freshman year of high school my parents got a divorce from each other. There was a long, drawn out custody battle and a legal duel over who got what. My brother and I tried to stay out of it the best we could but were brought into it anyways and were put through some very dramatic classes. It was around that same time that my grandmother had passed away. The very same grandmother who recommended I join the Young Marines. Although my writing was not affected that school year because it was the end of the year, both of these events would eventually send me into an emotional turmoil which I believe to be the start of my frustration.
My writing completely changed when I entered high school in 2012, and it reflected in the gradebook. My first year in Honors English I received a C average, and did not receive better than a C on any of my papers. We had to write a book report on Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare where my writing was at the level it was in elementary school. There was no clear organization of thought and none of my evidence really supported my thesis. Paragraphs were not introduced, but just started. It had seemed like I had forgotten everything I learned about writing while I was in middle school. Meanwhile, I assumed that this was just the nervousness of being a freshman in high school. Until the same occurrence happened in my sophomore year. I did not read a single book that whole year, even though we read classics such as Lord of the flies by William Golding and 1984 by George Orwell. Because of my lack of reading that year, I relied heavily on websites like Sparknotes and Cliffnotes. Not surprisingly, the papers I wrote for that class were even worse than the year before because now I had no idea what had happened in the books and my writing was not on par. For the 1984 paper, I even argued that Wilton Smith (the main character) was actually the villain in the story by trying to dismantle a society that worked very well with Big Brother. That was when my guidance counselor, Mrs. Babik recommended I drop AP English for next year and enroll in the CP English course. At first, I thought she was crazy. All of my friends were in the AP class and it was thought to be literary suicide to drop down a class. I decided that Mrs. Babik had been through this before and that she would know what was best for me, so I requested to be moved down a class for the next year. I was asked what I was thinking, if I was sure I wanted to do this, as if I was completely dropping out of high school itself. Even I entered eleventh grade expecting to be in a class with a bunch of rejects, nobody I knew, and people that everyone knew had been held back at least two years. But, to my surprise, I entered the room to see even more of my friends than I expected. They all looked just as happy as I did that I was in the class, like I was some godsend, sent there to help them all pass the class with flying colors. I was astonished that none of them even tried to cheat off of me. Because I saw myself as one of the better in the class, I felt no pressure to type a life-changing paper that would convince my teacher that I was able to skip the class. I simply sat down, and pumped out a paper. For this class we had to do a presentation on a social problem that we wanted to see fixed. I created a presentation on how professional athletes get paid millions while soldiers make enough to get by. I started off by listing the average pays of each and then gave a clear answer to the problem, reduce the pay for athletes and increase the pay for American soldiers. This report became my first A in an English class since seventh grade. I had no clue what I was doing, but whatever it was, was right. I began to learn more of what teachers looked for in a paper than I did in any year before that combined. I started writing more stylistic papers, that were more structured and organized, whereas my papers in the years before would be random and would jump from place to place. I once again found my ability to focus on what I was writing, that ability that I had lost after eighth grade. For the first time, I had received an A in a high school english class.
Although I expect this paper to not do well, I learned a lot about how my writing has changed through the years. I knew about the lack of grades in my early high school career, but I always assumed that that had come from just not putting enough effort into my papers or that my teachers had just become more strict and my methods just were not upto their standards. However, I realize now that those grades really came from the emotions I had left over from 2011. After all, we all have that one period of time that changes a large part of our lives.
Works Cited
Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing about Writing: A College Reader. By Elizabeth A. Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 57. Print.