Max's Portfolio

Post a picture of your Favorite Strategies Sheet and write a 200-300 word framing statement discussing your favorite revision strategies. Have you found any of these strategies useful outside of ENG 110? If so, elaborate. If not, how do you plan to use the skills you have learned in this class on future papers outside of ENG 110?

I tend to rely on the same style of writing as I always have:

Outline my main points -> Expand on main points -> Add quotes and citations -> Make sure the first and last sentence of each paragraph correlate -> Make sure that the last sentence from each paragraph relates to the thesis -> Grammar.

This “Road Map” of my writing style really made me realize how much of a creature of habit I am. I didn’t give it much thought until I wrote out how I write, and it is rather insightful. I feel that this way of writing suits me well, but I also should experiment with other ways of creating text. Outside of ENG 110, this process can be applied to lab reports as well, since my style of writing creates a very logical flow of ideas, which is perfect for scientific papers. I can use this “map” of my writing style to proofread, and clarify any essays or writing assignments I have in the future.

Your goal (or goals), articulated in your own words

My overall goal for this final essay is to better argue my main points. I feel like my essays thus far have met the requirement, but I want to make my last essay exemplary.

The steps you plan to take to achieve this goal (in order of priority)

-Clarify ideas

-Center my essay around a few main points

-Better quoting and flow of ideas

-Better MLA citations

What you see as your biggest challenge?

I feel like the largest hurdle I have to jump over before I can reach my goal is clarification of ideas. I have many, many ideas, facets, and other little things I want to mention in my essay, but I have to condense it down to make a strong argument.

And what will you do if a challenge comes up that proves too difficult for you to solve on your own? In other words, what resources do you plan to use?

-Online resources about whatever I need

-Asking my Professor

PART 1: Begin to brainstorm how you plan to incorporate other media into your final essay. Include links and/or descriptions of media that you hope to use in your final essay and describe how these choices will work with your alphabetic text to better communicate your overall idea. Finally, attempt to label each source and briefly mention how you will go about correctly citing these sources in your Works Cited section.

For my final essay, I have considered using facets and pictures to assist in making my main points. I liked how Jonah Lehrer used facets throughout his essay, and I hope to do the same. The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is very accurate. I believe that a well-placed picture can help describe a point better than paragraphs full of text. Along with facets and pictures, I am hoping to cite several articles about beauty in general. The links for two of these are below:

https://www.keen.com/articles/love/what-is-true-beauty

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/03/the-truth-about-beauty/305620/

PART 2: Complete a working outline for a preliminary peer review. Your peers will visit your ePortfolio and leave comments on your blog, so there is no need to bring in a physical copy. Your outline should mention which peer project(s) you hope to work with. Your outline should also mention where you want to place other media, as well. Remember that this is a working outline, and it’s okay to write things down, even if you suspect things will change as you write and process your thoughts. Your outline will serve as a tentative path for your first draft, but an outline should never be set in stone. Your outline serves you, not the other way around, and you can always deviate it feels right.

• Intro
• 1st Paragraph/Point- Society’s Perception of Beauty. Two facets, one cited article
• 2nd Paragraph/Point- Armstrong’ Essay, Going over some of his points, cite a few quotes
• 3rd Paragraph/Point- “What is Art For”, Going over some of the main points, cite a few quotes
• 4th Paragraph/Point- Review someone’s Art Project, pull out some quotes
• 5th Paragraph/Point- Fixing Society’s View of Beauty, cite another article
• Closing

Blog #13 – (200-300 words) Explore Armstrong’s statement, “To regard beauty as a luxury adornment or a social signifier was to miss the true potential of the experience.” Expand on this comment. How do you view beauty? How do you feel that society views beauty? Choose at least one other quote from Armstrong’s essay to integrate into your writing as you consider all that Armstrong’s statement implies.

I think that Armstrong’s statement has many facets, and that it has a very deep meaning. It hints at the fact that he believes beauty is not reserved only for expensive and luxury items, but it can be found in all aspects of life if someone is searching properly. I view beauty in many ways. There is human physical beauty, and human emotional beauty.  Then there is beauty in art, landscapes, music, etc. I also feel like society’s view of human beauty has caused more problems than it should have. Fake, plastic, unrealistic women are glorified in magazines, news, and other mass media. Take the Kardashians for example. This has done nothing but give young girls and women unrealistic expectations of how their appearance should be. It is a massive problem, and I find it disgusting that plastic and fake celebrities are glorified in this society. Until we move back to viewing beauty as more than appearance, our society will continue to have these problems.

After watching the class Art presentations, I found some pieces in everyone’s project that spoke to me. I found that Mitch and Raja’s presentation about analyzing the painting “The School of Athens” by Raphael. I had never before seen the piece, and I was captured by the beauty and expertise that the painting exhibits. I thought that the information they presented about the people in the center of the painting being more ornately dressed and higher of importance was an interesting way of looking at the artwork. They vividly described their first experience with the painting in the passage “When we encountered the painting, we were surprised with the way Raphael drew this with extreme detail. The immense hall of the school, as compared to the people, was, we thought, to show the variety of ideas that are inside it from humanities to sciences. Upon closer examination, we realized that people in the middle were much more vibrantly dressed and more detailed than the people on the sides and we thought that maybe, Raphael painted the more important people, as he saw it, in the middle and he transitioned to the less important people.” I thought that their description was very accurate and vivid.

I also loved how they played Chopin’s Nocturne behind their presentation and how the connected the classical music with the physical artwork. Overall, I thought they did a great job presenting, and I enjoyed their work.

Let’s Talk About Art Project

If you were to sit in any local school board meeting, you are sure to hear an outcry from parents about how underfunded arts programs are, or how their child’s “intellectual creativity” is being hindered because of the district’s decision to primarily fund the science, technology, engineering, and math-oriented education style. There seems to always be this overarching “idealism” that art is such a vital aspect to children’s proper development and education. The Oxford Dictionary defines art as “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” The question is, what is art’s proper place in society, and furthermore, does art have a place in STEM education? Art should be kept as a hobby, or a source pleasure, and should certainly not be integrated into STEM education.

I think that overall, my writing is easy for a reader to follow. I often use clear and concise transitions between ideas, which helps the reader follow my writing.

Part 1) The main argument in Jonah Lehrer’s “The Future of Science is… Art?” is that science can only explain a part of human life through experimentation and data. He insists that to fully understand human nature, we must look objectively at consciousness as a whole, specifically human creativity. I specifically enjoyed the facet regarding Dvorak’s 7th Symphony, and how the audible “language” of the music causes the mind to feel rewarded when music flows in a way that the brain can predict. Music is by its nature artwork. It conveys the composer’s emotions to the listener, and can cause the listener to feel emotions as well. Lehrer uses this example of creativity, but he doesn’t mention the fact that music is also very structured, orderly, and “scientific” as well. Anyone who can read sheet music understands just how strict, structured, and unforgiving written music can be.

Part 2)

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle- In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle or Uncertainty principle, also known as orHeisenberg’s indeterminacy principle, is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle

The bridging principle- The brain’s neural “even” that explains how the activity of our brain cells create the experience of consciousness

Reductionism- The practice of analyzing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of phenomena that are held to represent a simpler or more fundamental level, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation.

Synapse- A junction between two nerve cells, consisting of a minute gap across which impulses pass by diffusion of a neurotransmitter.

Epiphenomenon- A secondary effect or byproduct that arises from but does not causally influence a process, in particular.

Holistic perspective-  Characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.

Metaphor- Relating one thing to another without using the words “like” or “as”.

Part 3)

Antonin Dvorak- A Czech composer born in 1841. Lehrer uses his 7th Symphony as an example on how the brain reacts to different musical compositions.

Niels Bohr- A Danish physicist born in 1885. Lehrer uses his study into the appearance of atoms as an example on how science is sometimes limited when it comes to re-imagining material that is already commonly accepted as fact.

1) What is the immediate context for this essay? Where and when was it first published? Who wrote the essay, and what do you notice about the author’s bio?

Originally published on the World Post, an online news and blog site. Written by Yo-Yo Ma, a successful cellist holding many awards.

2) What is the imposed context? What circumstances surround your personal reading experience? What is your purpose for reading this text?

Personally, I thought that having Art in STEM education isn’t “bad” per se, but is it worth the money that could be used to improve STEM programs in the first place? My purpose for reading this text was to complete my assigned homework, and to pull as much information out of the text that I can.

3) Describe the internal context. What is the rhetorical situation? What is the scope? What is the “so what?”

I believe that the internal context revolves around Yo-Yo Ma making a case for art in education, specifically STEM education.

4)Finally, please choose three unfamiliar words or references to gloss. Define or explain those terms in your blog.

Repertoire- A stock of plays, dances, or pieces that a company or a performer knows or is prepared to perform.

Sarabande- A slow, stately Spanish dance in triple time.

Cellist- Someone who plays the cello

It can even be said that artists ignore the world’s suffering, and choose to pursue their own, selfish creativity. Rhys Southan sums this stance up in the phrase “Artists, meanwhile, paint the beautiful landscape while the rest of the world burns.” Southan seems to target artists with his deliberate word choice, and the quote itself is pointed sharply toward who the Effective Altruists believe are selfish artists.

Slavery was an awful institution that affected millions of people worldwide, but the historical remnants of its existence are what reminds us of how terrible a system it was and keeps us from ever returning. It brings the quote from George Santayana to mind, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Santayana would surely agree that history is vital to the advancement of both society and culture past their previous wrongdoings.

*Additions in Bold Text

In Singer’s words, “you notice a child has fallen in and appears to be drowning. To wade in and pull the child out would be easy but it will mean that you get your clothes wet and muddy, and by the time you go home and change you will have missed your first class…do you have any obligation to rescue the child?” Singer uses a more relate-able situation to better explain how we have an obligation to help those who are sick, those who are in poverty, and those who are generally less fortunate than we are.

I didn’t have a direct quote for Peter Singer’s shallow pond example. I figured this one would do the trick.

-JMR

ORIGINAL:

     “Another core concept of the Effective Altruism movement is the idea of replaceability. Southan summarizes this concept as “the only good that counts is what you accomplish over and above what the next person would have done in your place.” This concept can be further summarized as: the good you have done in your life, minus the good that others would have done in your place, equals the good that you have personally contributed. This EA policy makes sense when you consider the fact that if you didn’t exist, someone else would probably contribute the same amount or more than you did. The only problem with this logic is that it what “someone in your place” contributes is virtually unquantifiable. The Effective Altruism Movement’s overall goal of implementing this policy is to make the average citizen contribute as much as they can, and to keep contributing more and more.”

REVISED:

     “Another core concept of the Effective Altruism movement is the idea of replaceability. Southan summarizes this concept as “the only good that counts is what you accomplish over and above what the next person would have done in your place.” This concept can be further summarized as: “the good you have done in your life, minus the good that others would have done in your place, equals the good that you have personally contributed.” This EA policy is a straightforward concept when you consider the fact that if you didn’t exist, someone else would probably contribute the same amount or more than you did to society. The only problem with this logic is what “someone in your place” contributes is not directly calculable. The Effective Altruism movement’s overall goal of implementing this policy is to make the average citizen contribute as much as they can, and to keep contributing more and more “good” to mankind.”

*Revisions Underlined

ORIGINAL:

     “The Effective Altruism movement revolves around the idea that resources and labor should be used to better society. If those resources are not directly being used to improve human’s conditions, then it is a waste of time and supplies. Effective Altruists believe that people who do not contribute tangible goods and labor to society are wasting their potential, and the contributions they could potentially contribute. This belief stands in stark contrast to that of Titus Kaphar, who believes that art can be used to better society by changing people’s perceptions of past events and historical paintings, sculptures, and other artwork.“

REVISED:

     “The Effective Altruism movement revolves around the idea that resources and labor should solely be used to better society. If those specific resources are not directly being used to improve human conditions, then it is a waste of time and supplies. Effective Altruists believe that people who do not contribute tangible goods and labor to society are wasting their potential, and the contributions they could potentially contribute. This belief stands in stark contrast to that of Titus Kaphar, who believes that art can, and should be used to better society by changing people’s perceptions of past events and historical paintings, sculptures, and other artwork.“

*Revisions Underlined

Overall, I didn’t add or remove any ideas, but I clarified the existing ones. I feel like my word choice was a little awkward in some parts of the paragraphs. By clarifying my word choice and specific ideas, my essay will definitely be easier to read.