A Letter to Myself

Dear 9-year-old Anitta,

            On October 31, 2004, you will scare your little sister so intensely that she will trip over a toy on the ground and tumble backwards. Due to this regrettable event, she will have accidentally hit her chin on a coffee table and bust it open, causing enormous amounts of blood and tears to go all over the place. Due to the scare mishap, you will cause a long, unfortunate visit to the emergency room for three stitches. The visit to the emergency room will take longer than expected, so trick-or-treating for that year will be cancelled. But I guess you deserve it right?

            Now, at 18-years-old, I honestly wish that I hadn't done that because every time I see the tiny, red scar under her chin, I feel a pang of regret and utter disbelief that I caused my baby sister to miss trick-or-treating. I realize that accidents happen, but this accident could have been prevented if you had decided not to scare her. So that’s the new plan, on Halloween in fifth grade, you cannot scare anyone! Even if it means that you will have one less laugh; don’t worry about it, believe me, you won’t even remember the joke in a couple of years.

            As soon as you get home after school, do the things you usually do: put your backpack in the kitchen, wash your hands, and grab a snack. After the snack, you usually watch TV for about and hour, but you’re not going to do that on Halloween. Instead, you will dump all the candy you received from school onto the floor, and sort through it all. Eventually, Mom will scold the both of you for having eaten too much candy, and you will be forced to put the rest away after cleaning up your wrappers. Then, you and Angela will proceed to the toy room. You get there before she does, so you think of an idea to scare her; after all, it will be Halloween. But once again, DO NOT SCARE HER!!! If you do, you will be filled with regret for the next few years. And after the accident, guess who is going to act as her personal slave because of the remorse they carry? That’s right, it’s you.

            Unless you want to be filled with regret, sadness, and skip trick-or-treating for the year, I suggest that you do not scare Angela on Halloween in 2004. Believe me, as the older and wiser you, getting to trick-or-treat instead of sitting in the emergency room is the way to go. Good Luck!
                                                                                                               Sincerely,

                                                                                                        18-year-old Anitta

Advertisement Redesign Reflection

Going into this essay, I was a little worried about how I was supposed to explain how to redesign an advertisement in 5-7 pages. I wasn't sure if I would be able to explain all the details I needed to just by using one, simple looking ad. I also kept wondering if I had chosen a good advertisement and if it would be too hard to explain the rhetorical appeals

After flipping through countless magazines, I finally found one that could be applied to males and females. Most of the ads I had found previous to the Beats ad were about makeup, which I felt would be harder to redesign for a new audience. After I found my ad, I continued to think of ways to redesign it and I tried to answer a couple of the guidelines before I even started. By doing this, it made writing the essay and thinking of ideas a little easier.

As I looked through the magazines, I would stop every so often and try to think about two audiences for an ad. When I found the ad that I used, it made it a little easier because I took some supportive points from the previous ads. I mostly typed points that I thought were important, and then put then into paragraphs. After the paragraphs, I added supporting details to make each paragraph flow a little better. I mostly sketched it out after picturing it in my mind. I felt that by picturing it in my mind, it would be easier to add and take away things that if I sketched it out.

As I began the essay, I had no idea where to begin. I was overwhelmed a little bit by the amount of pages. But after just typing up information in underdeveloped paragraphs, I realized that 5-7 pages were not that big of a deal. As I started on the redesign portion of the essay, I realized it was a little difficult not to use the first person perspective. I continuously kept typing things such as “I would change this because…”. After the peer review, I learned a couple ways to avoid using the word ‘I’.

            One couple thing I really liked about this assignment was that before we started the essay, we redesigned an advertisement in a group. By doing it in a group, we were able to bounce ideas off of each other and make our redesign even better. I also liked being able to choose my own advertisement. By choosing our own instead of being assigned one, it made me a little more relaxed because in some way I was in control of part of the assignment.

            While doing this essay, I developed a better understanding of the rhetorical appeals. It made the appeals easier to understand and easier to apply to everyday life. If we had just done an essay about the appeals, I don’t think I would have learned as much because originally, the topic was a little hard to understand. But by doing the group redesign as well as discussing how each ad could use the appeals, I learned more that I would have if I had just done a rhetorical essay.

            If I had a second chance to write this essay, I probably would have chosen an ad that would have changed my audience significantly. For my ad, the only thing that changed was the gender, and everything else stayed the same. I would try to apply my new ad to an entirely different audience.

Literary Narrative Process Memo

            As I was completing the literacy timeline, it was somewhat of a nostalgic experience. The most logical place for me to begin the assignment was to start at my senior year of high school and work my way down to when I started reading. By going backwards, it made the process a little easier because it’s a little hard getting my facts straight about what happened and exactly at what age. There were a numerous amount of details, but I didn’t want my narrative to just be composed of memories, instead I chose a few topics and remembered as many details as I could about them. As I remembered details, I was appalled by how many books I have read for school. Each year, there were about three. Three books every year since 6^th grade is about 18 books that I had to ‘forcefully’ read. I found that the theme that most applied to my literacy life was telling the story of how my love for books increased and decreased throughout the years. It was pretty easy to choose my theme, and I was not confused as to what I was going to discuss. Some of the memories that I tried to remember were a little difficult because I was unsure of the specific age I was. Creating the timeline was probably one of the most un-stressful essay preparations that I have ever done. It was nice to have to do something in a different way for a change.

            My literacy narrative was a little more difficult than expected. The timeline seemed to be a walk in the park, but the narrative seemed to give me a run for my money. I had a lot of information that I had to squeeze into a tiny space, without having it be repetitive, choppy, or having it seem like it was just thrown together. The draft took the most of my time because it was difficult to put my life into chronological order without having random thoughts or statements thrown into it, which I felt were important. In order to organize it, I first started by typing up the basic events in order. Then I slowly stared from the beginning and added details that I felt were necessary in order to convey my life in an interesting way. After I had my partners peer review my paper, I removed a few sentences, added some more, and I also had to redo some of my paragraphs as well. I was also reminded that I should expand on some details in order to make the essay ‘flow’ better; this tip helped me out the most! My partners helped me successfully explain my story without it being a bore to read. Throughout the editing process, the animoto slideshow was on the back burner of my mind. I was constantly trying to find specific points in my essay that would work well in the animoto slideshow. My partners also helped me find a couple sentences that I should add, that seemed to be essential in order to get my story across. By thinking about the animoto slideshow, it made me add more details than I usually did while writing a paper.

            Unfortunately, my partners and I did not seem to have enough time to choose 15 sentences, but we had time to choose a few. My partners and I seemed to have chosen the exact same sentences to use in my animoto slideshow: the sentences that showed the most detail and which obviously showed my reading struggles. I used all of the sentences that my peer review partners said to, because they were the main essence of my essay  I tried as much as possible to keep the creative sentences there, but the limit on the number of characters I was able to use made the process a little difficult as well as irritating. I tried not to get frustrated while working on the animoto slides because of the character limit; instead, I tried to just take the sentences before putting them on animoto, and limit them as much as possible. If that didn't seem to work, then I captured what the main point of the sentence was, and I just reworded it as much as possible. The images I used in the slideshow were meant to make my essay easier to visualize; I hope that it worked. I chose those images because I felt that they were the closest images that I imagined using. For example, when I wrote about reading my first book, I thought it would be better to show an image of the book versus an image of me at that age. The images were used to complement the slides as well as show a little bit of additional information. I tried to add an equal number of images found on the web and my own images. I wanted to make it as personal as possible, so that viewers would be able to imagine it, even if there wasn’t a visual slideshow present. I mostly chose the song “Moving On” because it was featured on my favorite TV show, LOST. I listen to music from that show whenever I need to calm down, and I felt that my video needed a calm, relaxing song. There were specific parts in the song when the music became intense or slowed down. Ironically, those parts matched up almost simultaneously with the mood in my video. The song added an interesting aspect to my essay because I found the song from “Epic Soundtracks” on Pandora, compared to if I used a song with a slow, calm violinists’ solo. If I had to change something I would probably add a few more personal photos, and take out a slide or two that didn’t really seem to flow with the rest of my essay.

            Out of all three assignments, my favorite was the animoto slideshow because I got to be as creative as I wanted by choosing the music, background, and images that worked the best with my literacy narrative. I really liked thinking about my life and how my life has changed now that I have graduated high school and am a first-year student in college. It made me think about how the books that I hated reading also helped me become more literate.

Visual Argument (Nissan Leaf Commercial)

The commercial creators used imagery and visual descriptions to show a lonely polar bear, who seems to be floating on a thin ice block, come to hug a man who has recently bought a Nissan Leaf. The commercial aims to show people that the Nissan Leaf is energy efficient, and runs by electricity and not by gasoline. It reaches for peoples emotions as they see the 'aww' moment of when the polar bear hugs the man. This symbolizes that the polar bear is thanking the man for buying an electric car and preventing global warming.

The intended audience for this video could be people who are trying to find a new, 'in' car, or people who are interested in preventing global warming, and can simply do it by buying a car. This video also implies to businessmen or women because the man seemed to be on his way to work when he was stopped by the bear. This could show that the average American can save the lives of animals just by buying the car.

The Nissan Leaf commercial is an example of negotiated reading because it allows the viewer to interpret the video in many different ways. To me, the video implies that by buying the Nissan Leaf, you are saving the lives of animals; this statement, as we all know, is definitely not true. Sure, you may be able to cut down the amount of toxins in the air by not using gasoline as much, but can you really save animals that easily? If I were currently looking to buy a new car, I would definitely consider the Nissan Leaf because of the effectiveness of the commercial showing people that one of the first electric cars is the way of the future by not only putting the interest of consumers as its main priority, but also the interest of animals who are struggling during the time of global warming. One thing that makes me reconsider my want to buy the car, is that it is not an American made vehicle.

Dustin Anderson: Digital Literacy

1. "Simply put, we can't keep preparing students for a world that doesn't exist. We can't keep ignoring the formidable cognitive skills they're developing on their own. And above all, we must stop disparaging digital prowess just because some of us over 40 don't happen to possess it. an institutional grudge match with the young can sabotage an entire culture."

This quote states that in some cases, teachers are sabotaging the future of their students by not allowing them to do tech related work or to learn about it on their own. By not allowing students to ‘mess around’ with technology, the teachers could be holding their students back from the opportunity to experience what the future entails. The amount of technology in the workplace is increasing everyday, and like the article states, if teachers do not possess the knowledge to teach their children about technology, they should be taught as well. Some schools try to stay away from technology because they believe students need to be taught the basics before they go out and learn about technology related subjects. If this is the case, I believe technology should be slightly imported into students daily lives; if your not going to teach them technology, at least let them use it, even if it includes using KidPix or any other coloring program.

         Technology is becoming increasingly important, and if it is not taught at a young age, future graduates will be overwhelmed by the amount of it used everyday. Schools nowadays are bent on teaching kids as much as possible before they have to leave that specific school. They cram information into students’ minds that are meant to help them, but instead just make them resent school. For example, one of the kids I babysit, who is in 5^th grade, was taught the digestive system. I did not learn the digestive system until I took biology in high school. Instead of teaching information that they just ‘skim’ through, they should be taught information that they will need throughout their lives, and technology is what they need to know.

Literacy Timeline

Kindergarten: I asked my dad to help me ready my favorite book (because it had flashing lights and bright colors), The Wizard of Oz, which happened to be a game book as well. He helped me sound out the words and associate the image with what I was trying to read. After reading this book, I decided to turn to books that I could actually read such as Junie B. Jones and Cam Jansen.

2^nd Grade: We learned about the rainforest and the different animals that lived there. I was assigned an animal that I was to research and present an essay with pictures to the class. I chose the queen Alexandra ‘bird wing’ butterfly, which is the largest butterfly in the world. I went to the butterfly exhibit at the zoo and found the butterfly. That hands-on activity made this assignment enjoyable.

4^th Grade: My teacher, Ms. Starr, would read to us in class, which developed my love for books. The books that she read to us that were my favorite included Alice and Greta as well as Bunnicula.

5^th Grade: We were encouraged to join the accelerated reader program in which after a couple books, you were rewarded with a prize. The more books, the better the prizes got. There was also battle of the books, which included reading a list of books and voting for your favorite.

6^th Grade: My first ‘forced’ reading for a project. I had to read The Giver and write a report about it. That book started the downfall of me reading for enjoyment.

7^th Grade: Our school had a program called ‘ Code Read’ in which we would drop everything that we were doing in class and just read. But it always turn out that the one time a month that they did this, I was required to read a book for class, so I was never reading for fun.

10^th Grade: To Kill A Mockingbird was by far the worst book that I was ever had to read. I struggled daily to force myself to read the dull introduction, the tedious middle, and the somewhat interesting end.

11^th Grade: I was required to read The Great Gatsby, which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We were told to have the book read by a specific date, so we technically weren’t forced to read it every night, but as it turns out, I did read it every night.

12^th Grade: My interest in books was spiked when I took a Literature of Suspense class. We were required to read The Other, And Then There Were None, and Sherlock Holmes. I developed my love for mystery and suspense books, and I found the time to read for fun. I also started to read books with corresponding movies because it was fun to find the difference between the books and movies and to figure out what scenes the director thought was unnecessary versus what I thought was unnecessary. 

Summary & Response: Two Questions

The literacy narrative that I identify the most with is “Two Questions” by Lynda Barry. In the narrative, Barry states that as a child she enjoyed writing as well as drawing, but as she got older and was ‘forced ‘ to do it for school, she began to lose her enjoyment. She had to then find a reason as to why she was doing it and what kind of enjoyment it had brought her. Barry eventually learned that by taking away the two questions, she was able, once again, to make amazing pieces of art.

 I can easily relate to this story because I too, as a child, loved to write and draw. But as soon as I entered about 3^rd grade, it became a requirement, and it then just became something that I had to do, not something that I wanted to do.  After the first assignment, the others began pouring in, and I saw myself beginning to lose the happiness that writing previously gave me.

This narrative immediately grabbed my attention because of the variety of interesting images and comment bubbles. Compared to the other narratives, Lynda Barry made this one the most visually creative. The assortment of images, which included cats, octopi, people, and ghosts, made the 12 page narrative seem shorter in comparison to the others. In some cases, the images provided supportive, insightful messages, while others provided words of failure.