Welcome back to my final blog post! The semester has come to a close and for our final blog post we are tasked with making a reflective video, much like the one we did for our Blog post 7: Midterm Reflection. This video will be taking the concepts of Reflective Writing and I will be using it to frame how I make my video for this week. I would also like to note, that I would like this post to act as a fourth formal assignment for the class. For the reflection I am going to be answering a series of four questions, they are as follows:
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In this blog post, I am using and "X-ray" process so i can see the "bones" of my research project argument. At this point, my research project is still a work-in-progress, so this post serves as a part of my revision process.
1. My thesis statement is: Cell phones encompass a negative American zeitgeist today and in the future because they consume almost all the time and attention of, and embody the younger generation of today. 2.My first supporting point that argues the how or why of my zeitgeist is: The first supporting point that I use within my project is the fact that cell phones consume almost all of the time and attention of the younger generation. In my project, I almost split this into two supporting points. The first of which being focused on the time aspect. 3. My second supporting point that argues the how or why of my zeitgeist is: The second supporting point that I use for my project is branched off of the first. Like I just said in question 2, I kind of split the first point into two parts. So the second part would be focusing on the attention aspect of cell phones and how they take up almost all of the attention of the younger generation. 4. My third supporting point that argues the how or why of my zeitgeist is: The third and final supporting point of my project is that cell phones embody the younger generation of today. Now this can be taken as a very broad point, but I narrow it down. Overall I use the term "embody" to mean that it has taken over the lives of the generation. I go into detail about how when the generation is thought of the first thing that pops into your head is someone on their phone. I also touch on the aspect that cell phones are so important to this generation that many say they cannot live without them. 5. My counter-argument and rebuttal is: For my counter-argument, I dip into the fact of how useful having a cell phone on us at all times is. You can make emergency calls, you can always stay in touch with people, and you have the entirety of the internet at your fingertips that can be used for research or furthering knowledge on something. My rebuttal to this is that while that is true, that is not what they actually use the phones for. Of course some do, but 90% of the time, it's looking at apps and social media. Not doing research or being productive.
For this weeks blog post, I am going to do something a little bit different. This blog post is going to serve as a place for me to get all of my sources down in one place, and to take those sources and grab the most relevant info for each of them. This way I will have all of the source material for my research project in one place. It will also help me with further narrowing my topic from Blog post 10: Exploring American Zeitgeist, as well as compiling information for my argument from Blog post 11: Cell phones. So unfortunately this blog post will not be very interesting, but it will give you a better idea of what I am looking to do. Keep in mind, I am not done researching my topic, so these will not be the only sources I use.
1. US Time Spent with Mobile Phones
Welcome back once again! The semester is starting to close out, only a few more weeks and we will be done. However, we are not there yet, so another week, another blog! For this weeks blog post I am just going to be talking a little bit about my research project. We have a lot of freedom with the upcoming posts in regards to what we want to actually put into the blog posts, but whatever it is it must relate to the research project.
So my research project started out in Blog 10: Exploring American Zeitgeist. In the blog post, I talked about the beginnings of my research project. I answered various questions that helped me lay out the framework for my research project. As the answer to the first question stated, I wanted to do my research on the negative affects of social media on young adults starting college. However, once we sat back down in class and talked about it more I realized that this was not the right direction to go in. So I looked into it more and I am going to change my research topic. Now, I am not going to change it drastically, I am just going to make it less broad and more focused. So the focus of my research project is going to be: Cell Phones as a zeitgeist. When I looked at my research question I asked what social media is mostly attributed to the negative affects on people. I realized it wasn't one type or one certain app, but in fact it was the phones. So the main question that I am going to be researching is "Why are phones an American Zeitgeist and why will they continue to be". The focus is going to be on younger college students just like before, somewhere in the first year or two of college. I figured that the overall negative affects come from the fact we have phones on us at all times, and they are the things leading to distractions. Without having a small computer in our pocket many of the problems with social media wouldn't arise. Therefore, it makes more sense that a zeitgeist for American young adults in college would be cell phones. More to come in my research paper, so stay tuned. Hello once again and welcome to my blog page! This week is blog number 10 and it focuses on our research paper for class. For our research project we will be exploring Zeitgeist and creating an argument based on one we find interesting. The term Zeitgeist is roughly translated to “Spirit of the Age” and refers to something that encompasses a point in time and represents it. For this blog post, I will be answering a few questions on my zeitgeist topic. These will help me lay out what exactly I will be researching and give me a good base to start from. However, my topic is subject to change, if I so choose to go another direction.
What is the zeitgeist topic I want to research? I believe that I am going to research the topic of social media and how it destroys our ability to communicate, interact with one another, and overall live. Now days everybody is consumed on their phones and on social media, nobody knows how to interact anymore and it essentially poisons our minds. I want to research into this as it is a huge part of our society today. What is the primary source I will use to begin my research? The primary source I will be using to begin and go through with my research will be a scholarly article published by Waseem Akram entitled A Study of Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media on Society. For me this provides a good basis for argument as it has both sides of the argument throughout the text, and provides a lot of good information from a reliable source. Who does the zeitgeist topic impact the most? This topic is mostly effecting the youth of America, but I am going to focus specifically on college students between the ages of 18 to 22. When did this zeitgeist emerge? This zeitgeist would have emerged from the start of social media, which would be roughly around the early 2000’s. The first official social media site was brought about in 1997, however not everyone had access to the internet and social sites. It was not until the early 2000’s that people really started using social media, and it has only gotten worse and worse and the time goes on. Where (consider community) does this zeitgeist impact the most? I would argue to say that the community or group of people this impacts the most is college students, especially those in their early years of college. This is the generation that uses social media the most and is most tied to the internet. If you took everyones phones away, these would be the people who it would impact the most. Why does this zeitgeist exist? This zeitgeist exists solely because of how tied people have become to the internet. The invention of the smart phone with capabilities to access the internet at the touch of a button is a large contributor to this. We are carrying a small computer around with us day and night and people have become so unhealthily attached to it. Having all of the access to the internet we have and having so many social media sites people would rather sit on their phones and scroll through facebook than actually communicate with each other or pay attention in classes. How does the zeitgeist topic make me feel (impact on your being)? For me personally it aggravates me. The fact we live in a society that everything is at our fingertips and we still have people who are lazy and sit around all day doing nothing but scrolling through social media makes me angry. For me, I try to stay off of my phone and social media as much as possible, because I know that in order to succeed in life you need to be driven, and the use of social media and constantly being tied to your phone hinders this. How does the zeitgeist topic make me think (impact on your knowing)? Following the last question, I look for this in people all of the time. I am constantly looking to see who is continuously on their phones, whether in class, on the road, or even while having a face to face conversation. I see it way too often and it proves the point that we as a society have a problem that needs to be addressed. How does the zeitgeist topic make me want to make change (impact on your doing)? I want to inspire people to get off of their phones and stop basing their lives off of social media. This zeitgeist is not something that I want to be a part of and I am ashamed that it really does describe our society. This topic invokes anger in me as I said before, and I want to do something to change it, because it is one of the downfalls of our society. For this blog post I will be comparing the pieces To You, I Belong (Becky Thompson), What is Literacy? (James Paul Gee) and We Are Many (Pablo Neruda) to our classes Discourse Community Values. Each of these pieces of literature coincide in some way shape or form to our discourse community values.
For me Discourse community involves a group of people who can relate due to a common goal, or a common end point. It is known that this is part of a discourse community, but many other factors come into play as well. There must be open communication between the community, and in our class we have been slowly working at that. As a class we are very quiet and do not talk much. However, we all comment on each others blog posts, and we have been attempting to talk more during class. Our Discourse Community Values encompass a lot of what a discourse community means to us in our specific class. It lays out our values in an organized list, and makes it very easy to understand. They are as follows:
The second text, What is Literacy? (James Paul Gee), Paul Gee talks about some of the same concepts. However the point I want to focus on in this passage is right in the beginning. Paul Gee talks about how if you think about the discourse of linguistics as an identity kit it will be easier to understand. He then goes on to describe how the bigger the discourse, the more that goes into it. You will see subcultures, or in writing multiple genre's. Relate this back to our discourse community values in the sense of multimodal writing. When we come together in our discourse community we have multiple different backgrounds, multiple different experiences. All of this is encompassed in our discourse as a class. One person may be great at writing narratives but suck at writing research, or maybe someone is really good at making blogs while another struggles. We come together, share our work, and it helps us shape our next piece of writing. We help each other out and take concepts from each other and put them together to make a compilation of all of them. This often leads to multimodal writing and expands our knowledge and writing capabilities. The last passage, We Are Many (Pablo Neruda), Pablo Neruda talks about his struggle as a writer and person. He seems to struggle with not knowing who exactly he is and why a different side of him always comes out. At the end of his poem he says he wonders if others are the same as him. As I have said already our discourse as a class comes together with multiple different backgrounds. Everyone brings something different to the table and eventually we find some type of common ground. But we use the experiences of others, and we use the stories of others to help us better understand our situation. Coming together in our discourse helps us with all of that and helps us clarify our own meanings in our writing. It puts things into perspective and helps us make meaning. While there Is much more in each of these texts that relate back to our discourse community as a whole, these are the ones that I found made the biggest impression on me. If you read through the texts, which I highly encourage, you will be picking things out left and right that go back to our community values, but as I said these are the ones that were most prevalent to me. Home Page Well-Being: Flourishing
Why Assessment Summary: I have all of the requirements for the page How Assessment Summary: Complete About Page Well-Being: Sustaining Why Assessment Summary: I need to include a picture of myself and be more descriptive. How Assessment Summary: I will have this completed by the end of the day 10/29/19 Narrative Project Well-Being: Sustaining Why Assessment Summary: Need more description and need to post more of my drafts. How Assessment Summary: By 11/01/19 Research Project Well-Being: Flourishing Why Assessment Summary: Since it has not been assigned, I cannot complete anything pertaining to it yet. How Assessment Summary: End of Semester Contact Well-Being: Flourishing Why Assessment Summary: All requirements for this page are complete How Assessment Summary: Complete Blog Well-Being: Sustaining Why Assessment Summary: I will continuously update with more blogs and revisions, it is not nearly done yet. How Assessment Summary: End of semester. Welcome back! This is blog post 7 for my English Composition Course. Now I know that I am missing blog post 6, that one was optional and I am not sure if I am going to post it or not, but this is our seventh assignment! For this week we are tasked with making a vlog. The vlog is supposed to be between 5 and 10 minutes and it is a reflection of the course and its content thus far. If you have any confusion on what a reflection is or the type of reflection I am presenting in this vlog please take a look at this video: Reflective Writing. So for this post I will be talking about 4 main points about this course and about writing in general. The four points are described and talked about in depth in the video. I hope you enjoy! Blog assignment number 5, we are slowly but surely coming up on the halfway point in the semester. I hope you have enjoyed my posts thus far! This week will be a little different than what I have been writing. The syllabus calls for us to watch and analyze three videos; Wizard of Oz: If I Only Had The Brain, Heart, Nerve, Wizard of Oz: Meeting the Wizard, Wizard of Oz: You've Always Had the Power. Once this was complete we were to take the aspects of the video and answer questions about our narrative project. To get an idea of what questions I’m answering or what I’m basing this post off of, I encourage you to visit my English Composition I class page, and view the blog assignment page. It will be under blog assignment 5.
Writing my narrative project has allowed me to take a deeper look into my life and certain things that have effected me personally. Putting my story onto paper has allowed me to take a deeper look into the story. First off it allows the reader to travel into my mind. It shows them how and what I was thinking at the time. It portrays what was going through my head at the time. However, it also allows them to peer into my mind now, and see how I view the sequence of events and what I’ve learned from them. It allows them to see how I’ve grown since the event. My narrative also gives an insight into my emotions both then and now. The story I chose involves a moment in my life of intense emotions. Reading the story will allow you to see my emotions during the time. You will get a sense of how I was feeling during the encounter, and I try my best to convey it in a way that makes you feel the way I was feeling. Once again however, it will also show you how I feel about the story now. It gives you insight into the emotions that I feel whenever I talk or think about the story. Throughout the narrative while you read, you will notice various conflicts. Some of which are just regular every day problems, and others are much more serious. The ones I want you to focus on will be the ones that are more serious, or high stakes. A good story is conveyed through emotion, and one of the best ways in my eyes to convey that is through a conflict. If I can make you feel like you are experiencing the conflict, then the story will become more meaningful because it will feel like you are there. That is a huge goal of mine for this narrative project. Writing my narrative has given me the opportunity to look at the story and my life in a new way. Having me look back to stories in my life I can see how I’ve reacted to certain events, and reflect on how I’ve handled them. This portion isn’t so much for the reader but more for me. By constantly reflecting on my past experiences I will become better equipped to handle conflicts in the future. I’ve learned from my past and I can use that to shape who I am now. Writing my narrative has made that much more apparent to me. With all of those taken into account, I believe that both life events and the stories we tell ourselves about those life events shape our sense of identity. I don’t think that one has more pull than the other. Your life events shape who you are. You need these past experiences to learn and to create yourself. Now, your past doesn’t make you who you are in itself. Just because of something that happened in the past doesn’t mean that is how you will be or the kind of person you will be. That is determined by how you reflect on the events. That is why both are necessary to determine your sense of identity. Your past doesn’t make your future, what you take away from the past and how you use it does, but in order to do that you need the past experiences. They go hand in hand. Welcome once again to my blog page! For this weeks assignment, we were tasked with creating another emotional scene. However, this week we are to do so using dialogue and symbolism. So this week I will be talking about a night I spent on the DMZ in Korea. We are basing our blogs off of a story called Hills Like White Elephants (Ernest Hemingway), and using this as a reference. I encourage you to take a look at it! As for my post, once again, I hope you enjoy! It is the night of November 13th 2017. We are in South Korea on an operation to assist the South Korean ROK Marines man the DMZ (demilitarized zone). It is a cold windy night, roughly 17 degrees with a wind coming from the north at about 30 miles per hour. Myself and a fellow Marine named Forbey are stationed on the Mid-Eastern part of the DMZ along with a South Korean ROK Marine named Hancock. We are cold, we are hungry and we are tired.
“Why the hell do they gotta give us shit gear Bauer.” says Forbey, shivering in the unrelenting wind. “Man, I wish I could tell you, but one thing is for sure. This stuff is NOT warm enough.” “You guys cold?” said Hancock. “We are used to this weather, plus we get lots of warm gear.” “You don’t know the half of it Hancock. We have two layers and that’s it! I just want some food and sleep man.” uttered Forbey, clearly disgruntled as a gust of wind froze us to the core. “You know what may help?” I said. “A cigarette? please tell me it’s a cigarette.” “A cig. Come on over I’ve got plenty, just make sure someones keeping an eye across.” At this point Hancock made a gesture to me, letting me know that he would keep an eye out. I should explain briefly. While on the DMZ your sole job is to point your rifle across the border, ready to shoot at any time. If anything happens, the second you get the order you need to be ready to shoot. So we had to have at least one of us watching and pointing downrange. “Thanks man, this is definitely what I needed.” “You got it bud.” “Um. guys…..” “What is it Hancock?” I said. I could clearly hear the sound of distress in his voice. Something wasn’t right. “They are over there yelling.” he said. “They aren’t looking at us anymore, they are pointing their guns to the left.” Forbey and I promptly threw our cigarettes to the ground and grabbed our weapons and pointed across to see what we could. We could hear yelling in the distance and what sounded like a car engine. Then a call came over my radio. “All units load. Standby for clearance to engage.” the radio crackled. “Bauer what the fuck do they mean standby to engage?” “I don’t know what’s going on man, but it doesn’t sound good.” “Neubauer, do you see those lights? Off in the distance to our left.” said Hancock. Forbey and I look over and sure enough there were the headlights of a Humvee coming our way from the North Korean side. “Is… is somebody getting out and running?” “All units prepare to engage. Say again, all units prepare to engage.” crackled the radio. The unmistakeable sound of a bullet cracked over our heads to the left and we hit the ground. There was a slight pause and then. All hell broke loose. "All units, open fire." |
Douglas Neubauer"Expanding my writing through experimentation." Archives
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