Prewriting Blog: Essay #4

For essay #4 I chose to do prompt #1 because I do believe that every youth culture has a movement. Actually, we have two. The first one is the president elect Barak Obama in that when he was elected, he became the United States’ first black president. This election will change Americans forever because in the sixties we (Americans) discriminated against the blacks and now after this, we can say that America has overcome its racial segregated past and look towards a future of equality for all men and women. Or there’s the other movement that has to do with prop eight. To which gay and lesbians should or shouldn’t be allowed legally married. This is a movement of our youth culture because many young adults are into freedom of speech and the pursuit of happiness. Young Americans think that it shouldn’t matter who you marry know matter what your beliefs are. Compare and contrasting traditional marriage and gay marriage could be used here. As for the above I could do the civil rights movement in the 60’s. I definitely no matter which one I pick use language that won’t hurt others’ feelings and make strong points and back them up with good evidence. In Susan Jacoby’s book she talks about the movements of the 60’s and how they affected the United States as well as the youth culture. I think that Jacoby’s chapter 6 and 7 both correlate to what’s going on today in that the students at Berkley and protestors in general in Jacoby’s novel fought for what they thought was right. That’s exactly what is going on today in youth culture in America.

Reading Blog #4

According to Jacoby, 1960’s youth culture left “a lasting anti intellectual imprint on culture”, because of its music, hippies, and drugs. The music of the sixties was primarily, based on the freedom of speech movement. Freedom of speech was huge in the sixties young Americans felt that they should have the right to say whatever they want as part of the second amendment to the constitution. In 1969, thousands of Americans, known as hippies, and college students gathered for “Woodstock” which was basically a week of drugs, sex, and music. Woodstock was famous primarily for its major attendees, who were hippies. “Hippies” were created by the media and were classified as people who were free spirits and thinkers. When this persona was displayed on television, young Americans copied it and that is how hippies came to be. They dressed in weird outfits and did drugs to help them escape. Drugs affected the sixties a lot, students were a popular user for drugs in the sixties; they used it as an outlet to let go and escape from things like school and work. “Hippies” did weird drugs and psychedelic drugs. All the drugs would allow the user to let go and escape the world for a period of time. Today’s youth culture is surprisingly like the sixties in that we express our opinions and are free to take a stand on what we believe. I remember in high school, we did a day of silence protest to support gay and lesbian rights. The youth movements taking place today have to deal with civil rights, and like the sixties, we protest against those who don’t share our beliefs about a topic. The civil rights movement that is taking place right now has to do with whether or not gays and lesbians have the right to get married in the United States. Another movement taking place right now is the president elect Barak Obama, as he marks the first African American president in US history and overcomes America’s segregating, discriminatory against the African Americans past.

Self Evaluation: Essay #2

In this essay I had many problems. I had trouble understanding what the definitional claim meant and how to apply it to my essay. I didn’t have any problems with getting sources to use in my paper and I think I did a nice job of integrating them into the paper and using analysis to back up my claims. However, I think I could have used the PIE paragraph structure a little more. It would have made the paper flow better. I had a few problems with MLA in that I didn’t cite one of my sources well on my works cited page. I also had problems with using citations correctly when I used a source. I believe that from the first draft to the last It was an overall improvement. Even though I edited it a lot I should have had a couple of people assess It for errors. I feel that I had some trouble with the type of claim that you wanted, which made it harder to write, but if I would have come to you and had you explain it better, It would have been much easier. In this essay I chose to do an outline first, which made it a lot easier to organize what I wanted to say. Grammar has always been an issue for me, but I think that I have learned how to fix my grammatical errors with the textbook you requested us to purchase. Which makes it easy for me to fix them when I cant figure it out. In the lectures in class I took notes on what was said and used them in my paper to add analysis to it. I used one of the extra pieces of writing that you had us read and made it connect to my claim. The writing process for me started in class with the note taking and then the prewriting blog about the prompt, witch makes it easier for me to figure out what is expected of me. Also I like how you choose to have us do a free writing exercise, known as the crap draft, this draft makes it better for me to just write, then go back later with a highlighter and pick out the points out of all the crap.

Prewriting Blog: Essay #3

In Chapters four and five of her book, The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby writes about the effects of communism and middlebrow cultures on Americans during 1915 and the American involvement in WWII, as well as after. She discusses about how intellectuals were seen as communists, and therefore shouldn't be trusted. Middlebrow culture, which was mostly practiced by the middle class, became more and more popular as the 20th century rapidly approached. This culture emphasized itself as a way to educate oneself. With publications like the BOMC (The Book of the Month Club) and Great Books, these publishings helped young minds as well as adults broaden there range of thought towards literature and science, as well as history and current events. Communism, which is discussed in detail in chapter four, can be linked to everyday thought in America now. For example, recently, Americans have stated that Barak Obama is a terrorist due to the fact that his middle name is Hussien. Hussien, as we all are well aware of, Saddam's last name, and he was a terrorist. This is a connection that is made by the typical middle class citizen who automatically assumes that an intellectual (Obama) is like Hussien (Saddam) because he was a terrorist, so therefore Obama must be a terrorist also. Intellectuals during 1915 and 1941, were considered to be communist simply because they were educated. This assumption was made because Stalin was controlling the Soviet Union and people thought that intellectuals were in this category because the Soviet Union was a country full of intellectuals.

Reading Blog

From 1915 to the beginning of America’s involvement in World War II in 1941, the Soviet Union was being run by Stalin, hence the name Stalin’s Soviet Union. The country was heavily communistic and this is what caused the first red scare after world war I. The first red scare began when the mayor banned the display of red flags in New York in public that supported the year old Bolshevik government in Russia. This caused a widespread panic of “reds”, known as Bolshevik supporters. With this scare on the rise, it led to assumption that all liberal intellectuals were communist supporters and therefore couldn’t be trusted. Although it ended fairly quickly, the scare had made a major social impact on the people of America. The raids stopped, and people went on with their lives. Even though the red scare was over, people were still very skeptical of intellectuals in America. The appetite for communist ideas was big due to the fear of who may or may not be in that category. During this time, Americans were gullible and fearful. These two, when mixed together were a deadly combo. Much like the segregation of African Americans and whites, it caused a huge segregation between those who were supporters and those who were not. This also applied to the intellectuals because many thought that just because they were intellectuals, they were communist. In addition to that, discrimination was extended entering the country as immigrants. I think that liberalism and intellectualism go hand in hand and are synonymous in a sense that intellectuals are mostly all liberal. This connection can be made about the intellectuals in society today.

Self-Evaluation: Essay #1

In my final draft, i had very little gramatical errors, and maybe a few words that were misspelled, but i think i could have put a little bit more thought into the statements i made in my essay. Also i think that i should of used the PIE concept of writing paragraphs more, it would of made the essay flow better. Though i did have good content in the essay i didnt use Jacoby or my sources very well in the text. I needed to integrate my sources into my opinions better and it would of made the essay better. Some of my content was very good and had a strong reason for being there, however the analysis part is where i kind of got lost. Ive never been good at analyzing texts, and i feel that in order for me to succeed in writing i need to be able to possess that skill. The MLA formating of my essay was correct, though i didnt put in a works cited page at the end of my paper. I think i wrote one, but just didnt print it. So that leads to another change that needs to happen, i need to be more organized with how i do my writing, this way everthing comes out the way i want it to.

Pre-Writing blog Essay#2

Susan Jacoby argues in her second chapter about how Americans today use rationalism or "Critical Thinking" to make decisions about political standings as well as day to day choices. She argues that "while not all intellectuals are rationalists, nearly all anti-intellectual are anti-rationalists". This means that Americans who are in the category know as anti-intellectual(which means one who is dumb) don't use critical thinking to make choices. The sudden increase of anti-intellectuals today makes society run on the decisions that are not well planned or thought out. This makes for a government that will run our country into the ground. People like Ralph Waldo Emerson want to change the direction to which America is heading. Emerson writes in his speech " The American Scholar", that in order to become a scholar(intellectual) you must be able to make changes. These changes must be applied to your environment, what you read and your actions. If you achieve all this, according to Emerson, you will be considered "man" thinking.Which is an intellectual. This will solve the problem that Jacoby expresses. The causes of this increase in anti-rationalism is the increase of anti-intellectuals. This is brought on by a society that is illiterate. Americans who can't read, can't make critical decisions because they can't comprehend what they are reading. The consequence of this is an American society that just elects governmental officials based on appearance, which is not good. Appearances can be decieving, and just because a canidate up for election looks good, doesn't mean he or she is the correct choice.