Expanding my knowledge

I have always felt confident in my ability to write and express myself. I did very well throughout all my school years up until I hit English 101 this past year. It definitely opened my eyes and made me realize the difference between high school and college English. I managed to barely get through English 101 and how blessed I am to have landed in our current course English 103. It has definitely been an experience in itself being challenged in such ways it caused major frustration and at points almost overwhelming. Now that we are three-fourths of the way there I am glad I hung in there. I have learned and expanded my ability to do things I never experienced or thought of doing. I still struggle with things here and there but continue to do the assignments and allow them to assist me.

All the writing assignments and multiple critical thinking work has allowed me to start to think about things a lot more. I have started to ask many more questions when faced with situations and realize how these questions that are assigned to the readings allow us to understand the passages a lot easier. These critical thinking questions have also assisted in the writing assignments that have been assigned. When I start to critically think I come up with more information for my paper and new conclusions. It has paid off immensely and will continue too as the course goes on.

As our English103 course starts to wind down I have seen 2 essays that literally made my stomach ache when I seen the instructions; I did not think I could complete the assignment. After I sat down for hours trying to figure out what to do, with some help from the smart thinking crew, compliments of avc.edu , I actually wrote a good paper. I do not feel like I am a pro at writing analysis papers now after that one, but I do feel confident and now know what I am actually supposed to do. The current synthesis essay we are working on is most likely going to have the same effect on me. The multiple drafts she allows helps me to get an understanding and improve my work every time.

I enjoy writing essays on more personal levels and opinions, however the assignments that Ms.Gross has assigned throughout the course has helped me to become comfortable writing other things. I am starting to see the value in writing assignments and all the work that has been assigned throughout my school years. I will use all the techniques and skills taught to us and all the skills gained to further any paper or assignment from here on out. My writing can only improve from here and I have slowly started my way through this course. Despite what difficulties I have run into along the way, I can see improvement in my writings and I am satisfied with that, I look forward to gaining more knowledge and being able to meet the criteria for that “A” paper.

Cartoon Worth 1000 Words.

According to Mort Gerberg “Cartoons are the most powerful, the pithiest form of communication, used everywhere and in many forms. In the above picture is a 994 unseen words; I use that phrase because we are used to the saying a picture is worth a thousand words and since there are 6 words in the photo I adjusted the 1000. Now back to my photo, the illustrator whom remains unknown sketched out a photo of a high school graduation with seven students, three women and four men. As I acknowledge that, it tells the viewer that more males are enrolled in high school than females and since the male is in the front of the line it allows us to believe males are usually at the top of the class. On the contrary there are more male drop outs in the photo that then females, that ratio is 2/1. This ratio gets us to believe that men have the whits but they lack the motivation to fully utilize their smarts. The fact that the men do not have feet or shoes in the drawing like the females do, is an observation I made that backed up my previous statement about how the males are not motivated on their own, they need a push or a leader to follow. On the other hand there is one woman to every two men that graduate. The women have shoes which illustrates that they make their own decisions and walk on their own two feet. The challenge is the same for both genders, it is the same work and teachers that they deal with but only the strong survive, and in this instance it is only the highly motivated. The illustrator uses creativity with their idea to eliminate but yet still include the drop outs in the photo by outlining them. The effect of the outline gives us the idea that they are there but not completely because they do not get the full sketch that the others did. The illustrator’s humor comes in the way he drew these cartoons up. The cartoons used look much older that high school students. I can easily confuse them for mothers and grandmothers, which leads me to the next conclusion drawn from this photo; more and more older people are going back to high school to get their G.E.D, also known as a diploma. This makes a valid conclusion due to the fact that the economy is so bad many people did go back to school to complete what they left behind.
The diploma in the right of the photo along with the gowns that the people are wearing and the noticeable sign that reads “High School Graduation” is what shows us the social function in which it was taking place. This add was most likely used in a high school newspaper or article that discussed dropout rates and men versus women in the education. The illustrator most likely put this in a school newpaper to open the eyes of the sometimes stubborn and ignorant high school students and get them to realize that the person sitting to the left and right of you just might not be graduating and if you are to the right or left of someone it may be you who is not graduating.

Freedom of Speech; Not so Free

Freedom of Speech; Not so Free
The first amendment has allowed Americans to believe in a sense of freedom that is not exactly there; Freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has never been free. I once read a passage by a man named Stanley Fish and he claims “The version of crying wolf is crying first amendment”, In the sense that, as Americans, we are lead to believe we can say what we want but the truth is we are limited. We suffer consequences left and right because we are unable to intentionally cause emotional distress upon others or be obscene in public. Society suffers plenty from the first amendment right, we all should be able to express our opinion in a respectful matter and not suffer any consequences.
Having to scream out first amendment rights after saying something someone questioning you on, is unnecessary, it is possible though in today’s day and age it may get you out of a hole. We all have grown up believing we could say whatever we would like, then the reality check came in once we said “shut up” at school and received demerits; that’s when we began to ponder what exactly is freedom of speech then. Truth is, we can say almost anything we would like, as long as we do not incorporate harmful or offending commentary in our speech. We cannot call this freedom of speech though; it should be rephrased to sheltered freedom of speech.
The First Amendment is an important idea and a good principle when it is being utilized in the way it is described and not tossed around with different exceptions here and there. It is hard to make any restrictions at all on speech due to the First Amendment being so broad. As a result of it being so extensive, boundaries are set and made without the deliberation of political groups. Freedom of speech is vital but it must have limitations like all other freedoms. These must be acted upon in the context of conflicts with other rights. If people have a right to life, then yelling “fire” in a crowed would violate their rights, this could not be fair to others and that is why there are exceptions, however, not all are reasonable.
The silencing and the government censorship process are an incompatible combination. In any efforts the government might make to shelter people young and old from bad ideas. We are deprived of the right to makeup our own minds and form opinions. We act with fear when writing and talking because we are in fear of being criticized, censored or punished for our work. It is unbelievable to me that a group of people can decide what is reasonable for a whole nation, especially when they can hardly handle their own problems. Since we begin to fear these things we begin to self censorship. Self censorship is when we bite our tongue or cut the sentence short before we go to far and touch on issues that raise eyebrows like sexual preference, race and religion.
In America we are known to live such free lives, however limitations are set on every form of freedom we have. Just like for every action there is a reaction and for every cause there is an effect. When we utter to much from our mouths we suffer the consequences. Things that are free do not come with consequences so there for freedom should not be anywhere near the word freedom of speech. Freedom of speech needs to either be redefined or made to be what it has been created to be.