May All Your Days Be Circus Days

I was fortunate enough to see Ball State's production of A Circus in Winter on opening night and was completely blown away. From what I understand, the creation of this musical extravaganza took a total of 2 years to complete, and was helped written by many Ball State students and alums.

I've actually read the book, A Circus in Winter, written by Cathy Day, who actually works here at Ball State. I read it this summer, having been recommended it to me by my brother Andrew, who had to read it his freshman year for one of his classes. I absolutely fell in love with the book and its very heartfelt, touching, adventurous, and emotional stories. I've been waiting to see this musical for a while, and i was not disappointed.

There is so much that i could talk and ramble on about with this musical, but i don't want to spoil anything for anyone that might read this. What i will say is that even if you don't like musicals, this is a musical you don't want to miss. It is so obvious by the set, the actors work, the costumes, and songs that a LOT was put into this. Theres even a gigantic elephant. How can you go wrong with that? The music is infectious and the acting is great. I loved how they incorporated dynamic characters from the book and transitioned it to the stage.

A Circus in Winter is a musical that definitely should not be missed, and i'm not just saying that to get a good grade on this journal. I have no doubt that if you see this musical you will not regret it. And for all the freshman out there, your ticket is free!

How Persuasion can be Powerful

In chapter two of “Envision” I was able to learn interesting facts about strategies of persuasion. There is that one question that I ask myself when I buy an item. What convinced me to buy that product? This can range from a new cell phone, sports drink, or the college I decided to attend. There are numerous different reasons why people choose to buy something. The question is did that person truly need that item or did persuasion cause them to buy the product? There are countless different strategies when it comes to persuasion. Some companies may use powerful words, while others may use only imagines. The strategies are equally effective in both visual and written text. Words can be powerful when it’s short and to the point. Two or three words can have a positive impact. An example is President Obamas campaign slogan was “change”. That simple word went a long way during his campaign. The other strategy is using imagines to show your product. An example is a hair product. A company may show a picture of someone before they use the product, then an after shot. The point is to show how the product can improve your hair and make you look different.

There are three rhetorical appeals, which are logos, pathos, and ethos. As a writer you use logos when you construct an essay around facts and reason. When someone uses logos they favor the use of logic. Pathos is appeals to emotion. Pathos is defined as “suffering” or “feeling”. The goal is to put the audience in a particular mood or frame of mind. Ethos is appeals to character and authority. Ethos works as a rhetorical strategy by establishing the goodwill or credibility of the writer or speaker. Most of us use this everyday as a writer, you construct an argument in which your power to persuade depends on credibility. Depending on your strategies used to persuade an audience will determine how successful you will be.

A Little Help Can Go a Long Way

Today, I was able to meet with Mrs. Evans to discuss my rhetorical analysis writing. Each student signed up for a fifteen minute conference with Mrs. Evans to discuss our writings. I enjoyed having the opportunity to have a one on one conference with Mrs. Evans. Class being canceled for two days was a wonderful idea. During class it is too difficult for Mrs. Evans to help each student during class. With conferences she is able to help you and only you. I appreciate the feedback that Mrs. Evan gave to me. Mrs. Evans was kind enough to point out my errors in my paper.

Throughout the conference Mrs. Evans, made my mistakes clear to me, and help me correct them. Peer editing is an efficient way to improve your writing. Mrs. Evans is giving students over a week to improve their writing. During this week students should have others read their papers as well. There is no such thing as to much peer editing. Writing is an ongoing process that takes time to get your paper perfect. I have been able to experience peer editing in two ways. On our first paper we did the peer editing process in class. I enjoyed this because five students had the opportunity to read my paper. This helped me correct all my errors in my paper. On this paper we all had the opportunity for Mrs. Evans to help us with our papers. I am glad that these conferences are possible. Conferences never happened during high school. In fifteen minutes I feel like I got a lot of feedback and now am able to improve my paper.

The Effectiveness of a Source Ch. 5

When writing a research paper you need to find a reliable and credible source so the paper will be effective. To obtain these sources you need to make sure that the article is dealing with the same topic and is helping get different points of view on the subject of the research paper. Also it imperative to compare multiple sources and then decide on which ones would be better to use because some maybe better than others. An example given in chapter five was comparing Time Magazine and Science with a similar article on climate change. These articles are on the same topic but take different approaches so if you are taking a more scientific approach with your research paper Science would be a more reasonable approach. This section of the text was helpful because it makes it easier which sources would be more effective to use.

            Other aspects that are important are primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are “the sources that you originally analyze in your research paper” some things that can be used as a primary source are: speech scripts, advertisements, photographs, historical documents, film, artwork, audio files, and web sites.  Secondary sources are the sources that “you use to provide commentary on your primary material or your topic in general” some of these are: scholarly articles, popular commentaries, background materials, and survey data. This section of the text was helpful in realizing on how many types of sources are available and reliable. 

Holly Demaree

New and Improved Ways to Get Started

Chapter 4 of our reading in Envision focuses primarily on generating ideas to research. First and foremost, this is something that I've never struggled with, but it still brought to my attention a few interesting strategies to test in the future.

The very first strategy the text mentions involves looking at a given source and asking questions about it. It's an incredibly easy way to find ideas, especially when dealing with visual images or actual speech. For example, you could ask the simple question of why a speaker worded a phrase the way he or she did. Such a simple questions has a nearly infinite number of answers. This was my favorite strategy mentioned simply because it's so versatile.

The Big Boot 07/27/11

So i got about an hour of sleep last night, and was not looking forward to my eight o' clock class. When I arrived it was to my delight to see Luke and Jon up to their usual routine of exchanging weird remarks. As we settled down in our cozy little chairs, that seem to lean back to an almost horizontal stance, we huddled around the table as the class was given the task of defining logical falasies. My table had post-hoc and slippery slope. Since we were already familiar with the two the assignment was very simple. The rest of the class seemed to be struggling. After Luke and Jon's occasional discussion about wrestling we decided to give the following example for slippery slope. Wrestler A bounces off ropes, Hulk Hogan then administers a big boot to the cranium. Therefore buoncing off the ropes results in big boots from Hulk Hogan. After finishing with out assignment, Luke took it upon himself to look up different videos of Hulk Hogans Big Boot. This took up some time as the rest of the class was finishing up.Since we had spare time Mrs. Evans took it upon herself to teach the class how to edit blogs. Soon after we began our presentations over logical falasies. Throughout the class Jon had this blueberry muffin sitting on the table which he promptly stated before class started," no, you may not have any of my muffin." I did not care because i don't like blueberry anyways. And it was not untill towards the end of class that he opened the muffin and did not even take a bite. he just allowed the soothing aroma to settle throught the classroom taunting my taste buds nearly breaking me down. As the other threee at my table went up to present i decided that it was not nesecary for my presence in the front of the class. As the rest of the class was being wrapped up and the presentations were almost over my eyes were slowly diverting away from the front of the class and more towards the back of my eyelids, but alas class ended and i jumped outa my seat and headed straight for my next class.

Planning and Proposing Your Research Arguments

When first trying to write a research paper, I remember not knowing where to start. While reading Envision, Chapter 4, the introduction gave me the idea that it might be easier to start out with small unspecific questions first, and research those. Later, you will find that you are asking more specific questions, and this will lead to finding a focused research topic. It also says that the way to make things easier and more organized is to have a research log. When I did my first research paper, I remember having a folder containing all the articles I found, and book titles with page numbers, and it definitely helped me stay in order, especially when I highlighted important information.

Having a research topic is what you are researching and writing about, so you should be able to make the topic your own, and make it not so limited.

The next step that can help, after you have chosen your research topic and have a list of questions is to prewrite. When I prewrite, it is normally called my “first draft” and then I edit it later as I go, but it makes it harder to create better drafts when you are not positive or knowledgeable on the topic that you have chosen. Therefore, I end up just starting all over and wasting extra time and effort.

There are many different strategies that can help you come up with a topic, and one way that I learned about was brainstorming with pictures. You first grab an idea, and then find pictures about that idea. Once you have pictures, ask questions that relate to the pictures, and eventually narrow it down to a focused topic.

Although there are three different ways to plan your research process in writing, I prefer to just start somewhere and edit later on. For many people the hardest thing for writing a paper is getting started on one. So maybe planning your research process would work out best, but I do know that this chapter was extremely helpful and I will definitely be using these ideas on the next research project.

A Nice Review

Chapter 4 of Envision, titled “Planning and Proposing Research Arguments”, deals with coming up with a topic, research and prewriting techniques, and how to construct and write a research argument. Throughout chapter 4, the authors used war propaganda posters to demonstrate the different topics brought up in the chapter. I remember doing something similar in high school that also involved war propaganda posters. I used many of the techniques that were described in the chapter while forming a topic for the “Hände weg vom Ruhrgebiet!” (Hands off the Ruhr) poster from Germany between World War One and World War Two when the French occupied the Ruhr area of western Germany. I my paper, I addressed the issue of how the events after World War One lead to the conditions in Germany, which lead to World War Two. In the poster, Marianne, the national emblem of France, is shown as a bloodthirsty giant as she crouches over the industrialized region of Germany and fallen German soldiers. The artist depicted her in this way in order to generate anger towards the French for the occupation of the Ruhr.

Chapter 4 discussed the prewriting technique of graphic brainstorming. Graphic brainstorming involves making web of ideas that relate to the topic. I personally find this method distracting and confusing because it is not set up in a structured form, it is more organic and requires more thought to be put into finding where one circle leads to another instead of where an idea leads to another idea. The chapter also dealt with how to narrow a topic, planning an argument and how to pick a topic. I cannot say that I learned anything new from chapter 4; however, it was a good review and it helped me remember the various techniques that I have learned.

Source of photo: http://www.landesmuseum-oldenburg.niedersachsen.de/live/live.php?navigation_id=24429&article_id=85019&_psmand=184

Jeanette Walls

Listening to Jeanette Walls speak was one of the most humbling and extraordinary experiences I have ever had. All of her stories seemed more real when she was telling them. She seemed very optimistic, which I found surprising considering the childhood she went through. She had such great analogies, like the demon. The demon represents a fear is and you have to fight it in order to beat it. You have to face your fear. I understand now why she is not still angry with her parents because she accepts the way they are. Her dad had a different past, and her mom might have some issues, but you cannot change someone, and you cannot change what they have been through. You could try, but if it were not for her parents, she would not be where she is today or look at things the way she does. I really admire her because even though she had such a rough childhood, she had goals and the determination to get herself out of where she was, and she did it well. She also believes that anyone can do the same if they really want to. I could tell that she looks at the positive side of things. When she was telling a story about her dad, she could have picked any bad story to tell and what awful thing her father did, but instead she told the story about the time when her father gave her a planet for Christmas. It was not a legit gift, but it was one of the happier times she had with her father, and she told that story instead of something upsetting. She really made me want to look at things differently. College is hard work and it is so easy to get frustrated, but if you have a goal and determination, you can get through just about anything.

Research Sources

In Chapter 5 of Envision, it talks about how you need to investigate resources and evaluating them. You can use your skills in rhetorical analysis to help evaluate sources for your own research, looking to the different elements of a text to better understand the perspective. A researcher needs to learn the topic, conversations, and research context. The first step in the research process lies within finding the best search terms to use. Primary sources can be found in many places and most exciting. The secondary sources are texts that provide commentary on your topic and often analyze the texts you have chosen as primary sources.

Knowing how to write an annotated bibliography is very important. It's a list of research sources that provides informational notes about each source and how you might use it as you turn to drafting your paper. It's a way for you to synthesize arguments and add your response to what the source has to say about your research topic. In writing this, remember that effective annotations and note-taking practices can hel finalize your argument.

Questions and Research are the Key!/ Envision Ch.4

Make the your research topic your own by asking yourself key questions that will submerse yourself into the topic. These questions should lead you to your argumentative standpoint or opinion on the topic.  This process is important because it helps you find your preliminary topic and what you need to focus on while researching. Another point made in Envision was the importance of being interested in your topic whether it: interests you, inspires you, angers you, or you are some how focused the topic in another way.  If you are interested in your topic than you will be more likely to understand and research more thoroughly because you do want to know more about it.

            Another way to narrow your topic or define it is by doing different types of brainstorming. One type I learned about was visual brainstorming, which is where you write down your ideas and sub-topics in web form and the ideas and sub-topics that correlate are connected with lines.  This process helps you understand what topics or ideas you are more familiar with or are interested in due to how many bubbles and correlating lines there are.  There are also other ways to narrow your topic.

One aspect I discovered in the Envision chapter four was that free writing can be a way to organize your research topic that you have previously chosen.  One way to make your freewrite more effective is by using a three-paragraph model. The three-paragraph model is in the first paragraph you state your thesis to help keep a critical and focused perspective, the second paragraph identify the sources you plan to use to research your topic, and in the third paragraph figure out any obstacles or problems that may come up when researching your topic and how to avoid or solve the problems.  

            These three topics were the most prominent details that I learned about while reading Envision chapter four. These tips or processes will be helpful to me when we write a research paper this semester.

Holly Demaree

Build Your Own Glass Castle

“Build your own glass castle” were the wise words of a woman who indeed had to build her own glass castle, Jeannette Walls.  Some would argue that she was neglected as a child due to her father being constantly drunk and her mother being constantly lazy. Jeanette would say no, it was not negligence, it was life. Everyone has a different life; everyone has different “scars.” Some people have smooth scars, while others have more “textured scars,” but no one is scar free. The scars are referring to different events that tend to be life changing in the eyes of the victim, some have more and some have less. Though it was the freshmen common reader being discussed, the audience was clearly everyone and anyone. Why? Because everyone and anyone has, or will have an encounter with an obstacle at some point in their lifetime. Most people would take any bad situation and let it hold them back from reaching their potential. Jeannette Walls was raised to be nothing less than optimistic. Her parents were never ashamed of the way they lived; every event was like a new chapter, a new adventure, so they refused any kind of help. Mrs. Walls does not take her life’s downfalls and try to make people feel sorry for her. In fact, she made jokes about the majority of her life, while speaking to us. Though at the time it did not seem like it, she took her life and turned it into a blessing in disguise. Jeannette built her own glass castle, using her past to shape her future.

Wise Walls

Jeanette Walls walked into the audience with an elegant dress with a dressy jacket over it and heels. For the majority of our time with her she told stories from her childhood, some from the book and some not. From the many stories she told there two things that really stood out to me and touched my heart.

The first piece of advice that I found so simple yet so true was to just always tell the truth. Her mother told Jeanette that and it served her well. Throughout life I believe truth and honesty are so valuable. Life would be so much simpler if everyone just told the truth. Speak from what you know and come from the heart. Those two things are so valuable in life to me and I want to show that to my family one day.

The second story that really spoke wonders to me was the story she told about her mother falling off the horse. Jeanette was interviewing her mother for her new book and her mom was so happy with how she fell off her horse that day. Jeanette was shocked but after thinking about it, it reminded her of a wise lesson. That lesson was it is all about how you fall. Do matter what life throws at you or what bad times you are going through, it is all about how you fall. For every struggle there is a valuable lesson or gift. You can either feel sorry for yourself or face your demons and bounce back stronger. The hard times are what make you stronger. It is how we deal with these hard times that determine how we fall.