Rhetorical Distillation (optional homework)

In the article “Rehearsing for death: A pre-K teacher on the trouble with lockdown drills”, Launa Hall speaks out and claims that the way that administrators handle is going in the complete wrong direction. By depicting her experience during a lockdown drill with her preschool class, she shows the unproductive nature of the way that lockdown drills are run. She shows her traumatic experience in order to enforce the fact that people need to change the way that they prepare for attacks in schools. By speaking to administrators around the country, Hall hopes to end the epidemic of lockdown drills that teach children to cower in fear rather than try to survive.

Biased Editorial

In the editorial “Same-sex marriage would generate millions in wedding spending for Louisiana, study shows”, the author helps prove the benefits of gay marriage by attacking the argument to benefit a skeptics point of view. By using his biased opinion on the subject and also creating a useful scenario for people who don’t believe in the subject at hand, the author is attempting to shed new light on the subject. In the hopes to sway people’s opinions, he employs many types of bias.

By using Availability Cascade, the author repeats his point of view many times and in many different ways with the ultimate goal being that everyone agrees with what he is saying. Many times, and in many different ways, he explained how “Louisiana could add an additional $28 million to the economy if the state would legalize same-sex marriage”. By saying something over and over again, one hopes that eventually it will become what it true. In this case, the author hopes that people will begin to understand the possible benefits of legalizing same-sex marriage.

Through Focusing Effect, the author continuously reinforces his main point about the positive consequences of legalizing gay marriage, specifically through the study done about the amount of revenue the state would produce just from the weddings alone: “The study used very conservative spending figures to reach its conclusions. The average wedding in Louisiana costs more than $21,500. The study estimated same-sex couples would spend about a fourth of that (or about $5,300) on their weddings because they often do not receive the same financial support from their families that heterosexual couples receive”. By focusing on this one piece of information, the author is hoping that it is enough to persuade the person into believing his opinion.

By using these types of bias, the author’s main goal is to make sure that his point is being understood by everyone that reads the article. His plan was to make the idea of legalizing gay marriage seem like it would be beneficial to everyone, not just gay people. This is a smart way to get people to listen to what you are saying if you are dealing with conservative people who don’t like to hear about liberal activities, like legalizing gay marriage.

Profile of Alyssa

Alyssa, a student at Norton High School, proved to be a very interesting character after I conducted an informal interview. “Saturday”, stated Alyssa when I asked her what her favorite day of the week was, because “it’s a free day to do whatever you want without having to worry about school the next day”. Saturday is probably the day where Alyssa would be found snuggling up and eating a nice bowl of her favorite ice cream. “Raspberry”, she said, was her favorite “because it’s fruity and I like fruit”. Surely the fruity and creamy experience of raspberry ice cream would make anyone's Saturday a little more magical. Sadly, the element of paranormal specimen has never occurred for Alyssa on these comfortable Saturdays with her raspberry ice cream. After saying that she never has endured a paranormal experience with a ghost, Alyssa displayed her desire for one: “I would really like to see a ghost!”.

After probing at Alyssa’s brain for a while, it became aware to me that Alyssa’s happy place is one like I have never heard before: “My happy place is underwater”. She desires to be in the water, “looking around at all there is to see”. “I like it”, she continued, “because it’s quiet and there’s nothing to distract you”. Hearing this intrigued me and made me understand Alyssa more, as a person.

Incentives

        Incentives are used to get certain behaviors or results from people, and some incentives work better than others. Most of the time, it is believed that monetary incentives yield the best results. The larger the value of the incentive, the better the results. The lesser the results, the less people will want to accomplish a task. However, it has been proved time and time again that tasks that involve even the simplest of cognitive thinking, even if a high value incentive is promised, will ultimately result in a failure.        An aesthetic experience is an experience that you feel with all of your senses. An aesthetic experience that I will never get tired of is stepping out onto the soccer field right before a night game is about to begin. The feeling of jogging to my position on the field with my team is something I will never forget. I have never felt more alive or more apart of a team then during those moments. The excitement is something I can’t even put into words.    

Bucket List

Short Term:

·         Get accepted to college… at this point, I’m just hoping to get accepted somewhere so I don’t have to live at home for the rest of my life

·         Go on a cruise… I’ve always wanted to temporarily live on a floating vessel in the middle of foreign waters

·         Go skydiving with friends… nothing brings you closer to someone like flying out of a plane and almost dying with them

·         Visit my sister’s mansion… my sister manages and rents out a mansion to people in Georgia and I intend to visit after graduation

·         Stay somewhere haunted… Ghosts have been an interest to me since I was little and staying somewhere where they are known to be seen is a dream of mine

Long Term:

·         Visit Portugal and Ireland… my family is from Portugal and Ireland and I’ve always wanted to see where they came from and how they lived

·         Do volunteer work in Africa… working with people who need help is something that I’m very interested in

·         Get multiple puppies… I want to come home from work when I get older and get attacked by a huge mass of adorable puppies

·         Befriend Will Smith… I feel as though Will Smith would be the chilliest person to hang out with and that we would have a lovely time

·         Go to the Olympics… I would love to be able to go see the Olympians in their natural habitat

Sports and School

                Athletics within the world of education has become a norm for students today and is an essential part of their schooling career. Giving high school students the opportunity to do something that they love while being able to actually choose the activity they participate in implies that they want to be there.  Electively participating in something ensures that there is passion, drive, and motivation towards the activity. Children simply cannot have passion for something that they are forced to do. Adding the fact that you can’t fail more than one class makes it a little easier for kids to open their notebooks and binders after practice. This extra motivation makes athletes think about what they need to do in order to continue playing. Sure there are the kids that still don’t care to do their schoolwork and don’t care if they don’t play on the team and don’t care if they graduate high school or not, but those kinds if kids are few and far between.  Ultimately, the passion that the students have towards their sport is shifted towards schoolwork when the possibility of being kicked off the team comes into play.

                Being a student-athlete myself, I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without sports. I have learned discipline, respect, and what it’s like to be on a team. There are just some things that they can’t teach you in school. Sure, teachers can tell you all about graphing quadratic equations or what metals react with each other, but how is that going to be useful when I’m working a 9-5? Sports have often put my critical thinking to the test. Okay, we’re down 2-1, what formation will best improve our offense while still keeping our defense intact? Who is the other team’s best scorer and how can we eliminate her from their offensive attack? Being able to work things out with my team to achieve a common goal is the best feeling in the world. Even when we don’t succeed, we are learning an important lesson about failing. Sometimes kids are brought up thinking that they’re always going to get that “Participation Award” and are always going to win in life, but in sports there is a winner and a loser and you have to be able to take the defeat and better yourself and better your team because of it.

                Sometimes people who are over-active and have anger problems thrive when they begin to participate in sports. I know for a fact that if I didn’t play sports then I would be the angriest and pent up person; I would get in so much trouble from fighting and lashing out at people. This is true for a lot of student athletes. If sports were eliminated from high schools then teachers would have a lot of angry teenage meat heads on their hands, and they would not enjoy that. In order to have more attentive, motivated, and all-around better students in school, then athletics must be an available option for the students within the school.   

 

Works Cited

Ripley, Amanda. "The Case Against High-School Sports." Atlantic Oct. 2013: 72-79. Print.

My Pet Peeves

1.       When I can hear people chewing obnoxiously. If I can hear food sloshing around in your mouth, then you are chewing too loudly and need to stop eating or get away from me. Thanks.

2.       People that point out my road rage. You don’t have to tell me that I get annoyingly and excessively angry at my fellow drivers. It’s because everyone else should not be driving like total idiots.

3.       Girls that call themselves fat. Everyone knows that you’re not fat so shut up or next time I’m going to agree with you and make it an uncomfortable situation for the both of us.

4.       When people walk too slowly. I don’t know about you, but I have things to do and places to be so please be privy to people’s needs other than your own.

5.       People that backwash. If you take a sip of a drink of mine and I see fluid other than said drink come out of your mouth then that ends that and you can have the rest of it.

6.       Nose-breathers. I don’t care how you choose to take in your oxygen too much, but don’t do it so much that I can hear your whistling from wherever I am.