Necessities

As my final project.

 

Open to the Other

Inspiration isn’t a rare thing. Heck, I feel that everyone around me is inspiring in their own way, and that the world around me has a lot of ideas to play with.

But sometimes…

When I’m searching for it, sometimes it just doesn’t like to show up right in front of my face. But is this a fault of mine? Am I shielding my mind with my initial, rigid thought from the ideas I encounter every day?

Now that I put it in question form… it seems like that is just the problem.

This institution of Washington College is teaching me to look at a problem from all different perspectives and approach it with the knowledge that there is much more to it than it seems.

This road map doesn’t only have two major highways, and I need to pay attention to the little side roads that get me to where I need to be also.

Food, Water,.. and a Laptop

I need a laptop.

Well yeah, I’m in college. Every college student needs a laptop.

Oh wow, you don’t have a laptop? Well then how do you get any work done?

Oh right, the library has computers. I thought those were just for printing.

You go to the library every time you have to do any work? That’s crazy man.

 

But not really; not crazy anyway. That’s just life adjustment, our ancestors were good at that.

 

The beginning would be a reaction of many students here at WAC, including myself. I met that (lap)topless individual last year as a freshman, after a whole semester of typing, working, charging, downloading, and updating my very own laptop that I was so grateful to receive as a graduation gift in high school. Now that I had my own laptop, it never occurred to me that there might still be individuals out there without a laptop of their own, and I was shocked when I met a person of that status.

 

I guess I don’t need a laptop.

 

But I certainly couldn’t survive without my phone..

No?

..watch?

..shoes?

…

Food, shelter, and Water.

Three things (easy to get) in order to survive.

However, these three things aren’t so easy to get for other people in other places, what with Human Rights violations, poverty, corrupt governments, and even simply location.

How then do we have the perception that “I need a laptop?” Because I’m not just surviving, but I’m also getting an education (a darn good one).  This requires more, therefore I need more, but how much more; how much more is enough?

 

What I need is proportional to how much I’m doing or how many opportunities I have. The way I perceive my life dictates my necessities.

Perception of Sound, part 2

So I worked around having to buy an upgrade in order to share the sound bits.

Put in some earphones and try to perceive what’s happening. Sounds can give a lot of information, and one can still understand a lot about what’s going on just by listening.

Yet others may have a slight advantage to this because they might also experience these sounds on a daily basis.

It all depends on what your experiences are.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=489894087730381&l=683814695879042326

The Perception of Sound

Tuesday in Neurobiology we learned about the transduction of sound. That means the process in which the mechanical stimuli (sound waves) are transformed into electrical signals that our neurons can then use to relay the signal to our brain. I learned that the ability to detect higher-frequency sound waves and turn them into an electrical signal diminishes as a person ages, therefore some older adults cannot hear certain frequencies that younger college students can.

Just imagine what some adults are missing. Younger kids could have such a high frequency that they could be talking behind our backs the entire time and we wouldn’t even notice!

But that’s not all, after transduction (transforming the signal), and transmission (relaying the signal), there is perception, in which our brain receives these signals and decides to make something of it.

So not only do certain people hear certain things, but what they make of it could differ indeed.

No wonder everyone has all these different opinions. How we recieve and interpret these sounds of our life mold us into the individual we are.

I have recorded some of the everyday sounds that I encounter, that other people might perceive differently. I am having trouble posting them to this blog, but once I figure it out then see if you can tell what they are.

Multimedia and the Possibilities

A multimedia production is pretty self explanatory. You include different forms of media that work together to talk about one subject, and then you have an awesome production.

I am quite excited because we are allowed to use any variety of media in order to complete our next “writing” assignment. And so far we have been introduced to many different essays that are not written, but spoken, or visually recorded. All of these will become examples and something that I can use to guide my way through my own project.

I specifically enjoyed all of the video essays that we first had to watch, and how all of the different authors created something very different using the same type of media. And if there are that many possibilities just with video, then just imagine how much else could be done when multiple other medias come into play! I do want to create a video for my project; a very creative video.

I am a fan of the narration, and of the slow motion.

If I could get both of those things in there, then the video will be pretty inspiring.

I’m continuing to learn more about all of the different types of essays out there and I am being introduced to some things that I didn’t even know existed.

The Specifics of the Blueprint

When creating an essay to introduce a philosophy or argument the author needs to pay particular attention to the structure of the writing, because the structure is important in effectively presenting information to the reader in such a way that the reader agrees with the thesis. However, if the reader is of the opposite mindset, that same information needs to be able to support and defend the author’s thesis, and that in part is determined by the structure of the paper also. This structure of writing, the blueprint of the essay, is the rhetoric of the essay, specifically the Ethos, Pathos and Logos of the writing. Annie Dillard’s blueprint in Teaching a Stone to Talk, and Eric Schlosser’s blueprint in Fast Food Nation are similar in certain aspects, and both build strong Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in their respective essays.

Dillard and Schlosser both lead the reader through an idea, a thesis; down a path through their respective thinking, introducing facts and images as the reader goes down this track. However, although Dillard and Schlosser both have a path, these paths are different in order to lead the reader to the respective conclusion.

Teaching a Stone to Talk is a collection of essays that are focused around thoughts and ideas originating from different “expeditions and encounters.” Although the essays seem to have no specific arrangement, there is actually a path created from essay to essay. A section of this path, starting with the tenth essay, shows the connection of Angels, to God, to an abstract thought, then to a self-sufficient thought. These are the ideas of Dillard’s “A Field of Silence” (130), “God in the Doorway” (137), “Mirages” (140), and “Sojourner” (146) respectively. One idea preludes the next to show the reader toward the grand thesis of the book. This easy-leading path gives the author credibility, improving the ethos of the essay, and also calms the reader, strengthening the pathos of the book as a whole.

Schlosser also creates a path through Fast Food Nation from each chapter leading into the next by content. In addition, Schlosser creates a consistent path throughout each of his chapters in the book; ten paths for each of the ten chapters each starting with a noun; a person, place, or thing. Specifically, Schlosser’s “The Founding Fathers” begins with Carl N. Karcher and his brief biography as “one of the fast food industry’s pioneers” (13). This brief biography or history proves the credibility of the beginning subject, strengthening Schlosser’s ethos in the book. The chapters then go on to describe the success or distress of the subject in the beginning, including statistics and facts such as the Interstate Highway Act “building 46,000 miles of road with more than $130 billion of federal money” (Schlosser, 22), to describe exactly why Carl Karcher decided to change his business, and to build the logos of the book. Finally the chapter ends with emotional appeal, pathos, in order to conclude the path, such as Kenny’s story in “The Most Dangerous Job.” These two types of paths that Dillard and Schlosser create are both very consistent, leading the reader comfortably to the respective theses and conclusions ahead, building the authors credibility.

A powerful part of any writing is the author’s presentation of facts relating to the argument or thesis, and the presentation’s effectiveness in persuading or influencing the reader by the end of the essay. Both Dillard and Schlosser neutrally present relevant facts in such a way that the reader is comfortable with the information and continues exploring the essay; the reader would less likely be willing to acknowledge the thesis if the author is biasedly forcing information upon the reader.

Dillard presents the reader with blocks of information at a time, ranging from any subject imaginable. Although she discusses history, biology, and astronomy, Dillard never claims herself as a professional historian, biologist, or astronomer. At one time, in “Sojourner,” I even questioned Dillard’s facts on the Mangrove trees’ ability to make their own soil from the aerial roots trapping debris and collecting water, allowing bacteria to grow, die, and drop down and create soil along with the other “accumulating rainwater, leaf rot, seashells, and guano” (147). I researched this phenomenon only to find truth I what she was describing, and in addition, through class discussion I realized that she researches intensely before writing about a subject that she experienced. This type of information presentation is reassuring, relevant, and also credible to the reader.

Schlosser presents information to the reader in a similar way, non-threatening and unbiased, so that the reader can interpret the supplied information for his/herself. Schlosser’s facts are very quantitative, including dates, percentages, money values, and BMIs. He informs the reader with hard facts that have to do with the subject at hand to both build the credibility of the main subject of the chapter, and to support the thesis. In Schlosser’s “Why the Fries Taste Good” he shows how financially savvy J.R. Simplot was during his teen years by using exact prices, such as the deal to purchase interest-bearing scrip from teachers at 50 cents on the dollar and then selling the scrip to the bank for 90 cents on the dollar, and by using dates to show Simplot’s efficiency, such as how he transitioned from a runaway to a potato farmer in just a year (112). For the reader this information is credible because of the knowledge of Schlosser’s past experience with Atlantic Monthly, Reefer Madness, Chew on This, and Food Inc. (back cover). This information is also easy to deal with because the reader doesn’t feel forced into an idea because “it was never [Schlosser’s] intention to tell the readers what to think” (Schlosser, 276).

Throughout each of Dillard’s and Schlosser’s respective essays, the reader is presented with a rhetoric of an essay that both does the job to guide the reader through the work by setting a trustworthy path, and to provide the reader with credible, relevant facts and details along the way. Although their essay’s blueprints are similar, Dillard and Schlosser both approach the forms of their blueprints differently. Dillard creates a long path through the entirety of Teaching a Stone to Talk by arranging her essays in such a way that they are connected, while Schlosser creates a consistent path in each chapter for the reader to follow by introducing a subject and then explaining the story of that subject. Dillard presents facts to the reader in a credible way by consistently providing true information, and the reader doesn’t feel forced to accept any larger idea than just the facts. Schlosser also presents his information, only quantitatively, also not forcing the reader to accept any larger idea, but to just inform the reader. From these blueprints, both Dillard and Schlosser created compelling essays that contained strong and Ethos, Pathos, and Logos which effectively presented their theses.

 

Works Cited

Dillard, Annie. Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters. New York: Harper & Row, 1982. Print.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001. Print.

A.S.A.P… A.

From the teacher’s latest entry…

http://americanautobiography.wordpress.com/2013/03/23/a-slaughterhouse-somewhere-in-the-high-plains-rhetorical-analysis/

He mentioned an interesting concept device created by the Kenneth Burke.

Who looks like Doc, from Back to the Future.

But with a beard.

Anyway..

He created the Dramatistic Pentad. Which has the parts as follows.

Act,

Scene,

Agent,

Purpose, and…

Agency.

A

S

A

P
.
.
.

P

I am going to identify all of these elements in the first part of chapter 5, part 2 of Fast Food Nation.

Act: “What happened? What is the action? What is going on? What action; what thoughts?”

Well. From reading the first part of the chapter I can clearly see that J.R. Simplot’s life story is happening. Schlosser is retelling the success story of this man and his potato-selling career. Starting from Simpot’s birthday back in 1909, and ending the first part around 1999, at age 90, when Simplot quit his skiing.

Scene: “Where is the act happening? What is the background situation?”

Well this story is probably being told by Simplot himself in the J.R. Simplot plant in Aberdeen, Idaho, where Schlosser describes reaching in the first paragraph, and then entering in the second. But the story happens everywhere Simplot lived and had a business. That includes towns and cities in Idaho, Oregon, a trip to California, and all of Simplot’s factories.

Agent: “Who is involved in the action? What are their roles?”

Well easlily J.R. Simplot himself can be identified as the main player of this part of the story. And we do have some supporting characters to credit also. There is Lindsay Maggart, his landlord; Clarence Birdseye, one who has patents on several flash freezing techniques; Ray Dunlap, Simplot’s head honcho chemist guy; Ray Kroc, the guy who first started to sell Simplot’s frozen fries in McDonald’s; and of course, Eric Schlosser, the author of this book.

Purpose: “Why do the agents act? What do they want?”

The agent of this part of the chapter, J.R. Simplot, is acting  in order to become successful. Based off of what Schlosser is is describing, it seems that Simplot’s main reason why he is doing all of this business is to just become successful. He just wants to grow his business and what he does.

Agency: “How do the agents act? By what means do they act?”

J.R. Simplot acts by making connections and figuring things out. It’s amazing to think that such a successful business man learned everything he knows by just experience, and no schooling.

 

And that is everything to it.With these five features of drama in writing, Schlosser is able to make the first part of this chapter seem very interesting, and makes the reader want to continue reading.

Immersion

Taking Spanish, I have been told that the only way I will fully know the language is to travel to a country where Spanish is the primary language, and live there for at least a few months. That forces me to use the language all the time, for every interaction, and for every transaction. I need to immerse myself to become fluent.

And I learned from a friend who took Philosophy that some old man with wrinkles once stated that the only way to fully know something is to both read about it, but you also have to go out and experience it. And we discussed in class about how Dillard did exactly that. She went out and wrote about the things that she experienced in nature, but she didn’t stop there. She actually researched these different topics top incorporate facts into her writing. Based on that old guy’s rules she really knew her stuff.

Immersion

Eri Schlosser is doing exactly that in his writing. Through his chapters, he is dipping the reader into these topics like I would dip a nacho chip into some nacho cheese . If we as the reader are the chip, then all we can sense at the POI (point of immersion) is Eric’s cheesy information. We’re being overcome by the smells that he invokes, and the tastes that we relate to those smells.

That sounds confusing.

Basically, he’s putting us into the subject he is writing about. Right now it’s the slaughter houses. We’re learning all there is to know by actually being put inside this topic, and then we decide what to thin on our own.

This style of rhetoric is important because it makes me as the reader feel that I am making up my own ind on what to think about what Eric is presenting me. I don’t feel that he is shoving this stuff down my throat at all, but that he is giving me dish after dish (or in this case burger after burger) and that it is my decision to accept them and taste them for myself and think of it how I would like. This falls into the section of Ethos. If he ever started to force us into believing what he thinks, instead of just offering an argument and letting us interpret it, the we might start resenting him, and we would stop listening to what he has to say, therefore he would lose all credibility. But he doesn’t do that, so I still like him.

Annie Dillard’s Rhetoric

Because the class’s next writing project will be about the rhetoric of the essay, I believe I should concentrate on the rhetoric of Annie Dillard in her Teaching a Stone to Talk. The rhetoric is the formation from paragraph to paragraph, how she gets from one thing to another. This idea of rhetoric is important because it is what is responsible for making the whole essay come together in the end and look good to the reader.

An important thing I’ve noticed throughout her individual essays is her use of reiteration. An example of this appears in her essay “A Field of Silence.” She succeeds to start the first few paragraphs with the same construction.

Paragraph 1:

“There is a place called ‘the farm’ where I lived once…”

Paragraph 2:

“I loved the place, and still do.”

Paragraph 3:

“I liked the clutter about the place…”

End of Paragraph 4:

“I lived there once.”

Paragraph 5:

“I lived there once…“

Paragraph 7:

“I lived alone in the farmhouse and rented…”

Lived, loved, liked, lived, lived, and lived again. Almost repetitive, but not quite. It’s all reiteration, which helps with keeping the reader focused and to the point; the point is that she really enjoyed the place and that the farmhouse was a very important place to her.

My father put forth some insight while we were watching an episode of “60 Minutes,”

“By the time this show ends, we’ll have watched it three times over!”

He had an important point, that before every commercial break there was a preview of what was next, and after every commercial there was a summary/catch-up of what had just happened.

As annoying as this may be, the show has to do this triple-play technique in order to keep  short-spanned, american’s attention stuck on their show and prevent us (the viewers) from changing the channel. It’s not as annoying as the television, but I can see Annie using  the same technique in her essay.

I commend her for that.

Not only does she connect the inner works of her essays, she also connects the essays, to make a chain, within the entirety of this book. A section which is a wonderful example is this chain:

“A Field of Silence” –> “God in the Doorway” –> “Mirages” –>”Sojourner”

They fit together to make a word chain that similar to the alphabet word game that I used to play as a child. (You start with a word. “Balloon.” Now I have to think up another word that starts with the last letter of your word; I have to start with “N” now. So…”Nickel.” So now your next word has to start with an “L.” Understand?) “A Field of Silence” ends with the idea of angels. Then “God in the Doorway” starts talking about God. Then from god the next essay, “Mirages,” goes on to discuss the idea of religion through discussing mirages and images of thought. Then this idea of religion is followed up by “Sojourner” with the idea of an individual system working for itself, which is what religion does.

It’s all connected!

So by looking at Annie’s rhetoric, I can see that she is in total control of how the viewer experiences her essays. I need to be in that type of control with my writing also, instead of just letting my thoughts roam, similar to how they are roaming right now on this page. Back to Dillard. She controls how her essays are read as the reader, and also she probably had a part in how the entire book was being printed, and I bet your booty that she planned what order the viewer was going to read the essays. Everything she does is with a purpose, and through all her hard work she is very able to keep the viewer coming back for more.