#advanced composition

[knowledgestudies]

First ever advanced composition notes for this semester and more advertising notes! So much stuff to get done this week in preparation for finals next week! I just reallllllly hope this semster goes by quickly, I have group projects in every class this semester and it is the worst! But it’ll all be worth it when I graduate! :)

[justwriterbritt]

The trunk to whose root the reformer would lay the axe is the only support of the particular branch he wishes to retain.

Lewis, C. S. “The Poison of Subjectivism.” Christian Reflections, Edited by William Epperson and Mark Hall, 1995 ed., Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967.

[actually-mads-blog]

I need to have a 5-page rough draft of a nonfiction paper done by Wednesday. There are no stipulations regarding topic. Give me your dumbest ideas.

[bellarambleson-blog]

What would Tigger say to a struggling student in college?

To be the most honestest, I diddin even know that there was a such a thing as a college where you goes ta school. I thought a “college” was a mush-up of pictures in a scrappybook with happy times and stickers. But ya know, the more Christopher Robin tells olla us in the 100 acre wood abouts college, the more I say it really is a mush-up of happy times, and the scrappybook of happy times will be in your memories.

But som’ve the times, the happy times are kinda hard to remember, or hard ta come by. When I’m down, I don’t feel like bouncin, even tho’ bouncin is what Tiggers love the best. Som’ve the times, all them books n homeworks stuffs gets too heavy for one person ta carry, and you can’t do your best bouncin’ if you try ta carry all that junk around with ya, you would barely get up offa tha ground. So pick up the smaller stuff. Don’t pick it up all at tha same time. Give yerself some room to bounce. Then, you can bounce and trounce over the piles of books and papers, and they’ll be behind ya.

Above is one of the style exercises I completed earlier this semester, in which I tried to imitate Tigger’s style of speech in response to the hypothetical situation of Tigger giving advice to a struggling college student. My methods included watching numerous episodes of the Disney Channel Winnie the Pooh show and watching “The Tigger Movie” repeatedly helped me form a basis for his speech, so it was overall a very enjoyable assignment. I like any excuse to watch Disney stuff.

I wanted to force the reader to hear the phonetic changes in the words that Tigger makes when speaking certain words, so naturally I had to change the way they were spelled.

[crystalsadvcomp]

Reading Reflection 5

All of the readings this week talked about ‘Spoken Soul’, which is such an interesting topic to me. A lot of the popular present-day mediums for expressing yourself verbally have at least a few vernacular deviations from ‘proper speech’. Although society as a whole would rather not accept these variations from the norm, and instead see it as either a fad or a mark of lower intelligence, it is an important part of African American culture. I, for one, appreciate that the readings expressed a sense of being able to choose just how much of one speech pattern or another a person uses: the world isn’t a place for an ‘all or nothing’ mindset, there can be compromises. Although, this gap between the vernaculars is taken in a negative sense in John Rickford’s Adele Givens quote: the existence of a ‘fake’ voice and a ‘real’ voice. I would never want someone to have to sacrifice their casual vernacular and feel any discomfort just to be able to talk to me. It wouldn’t be fair to them as my equal.

The use of African American vernacular is very soothing when you think about it in the context of it correlating to that person’s trust in you. If it helps calm the hearts of men and women in their churches, brings amazing songs into existence, and creates a casual atmosphere during comedy routines or even in daily conversations, it should be respected.

The readings also reminded me somewhat of one of my favorite comedians, Keegan-Michael Key, so I thought I’d add his Obama’s Anger Translator skit from the 2015 White House Correspondents Dinner.

[crystalsadvcomp]

Reading Reflection 3

In both the past and present day, there have always been certain personas and stereotypes with which people tend to categorize the population. From the ‘Good Samaritan’ who must do no wrong in their life to the ‘perfect housewife’ who stays loyal to her husband and provides her children a safe home. The unrealistic expectations of perfection from categories like this will negatively affect the person branded with it, as evidenced by the stereotyped labels for African American women. Humanity will never fit into these neat, little categories, especially when these categories are as one-sided and unforgiving as the “Mammy” label: the lust-less, obedient African American female caregiver. This one still appears partly in media today.

Society causes a shift in the realistic perspectives of people; it shapes our understandings of ourselves and of others. Our experiences with the world help mold us into the people that we become and it really does not help anyone to be living with discrimination or physical punishments as seen in “First Lessons” and cultural erasure. “To Protect and Serve”, as Elaine Richardson commented on, the motto of the United States police, is also the motto for the stereotypes of African American women and should not be forced upon them.

[crystalsadvcomp]

Reading Reflection 2

I personally really liked a line from the introduction of this week’s readings: “Here, African American Vernacular English is presented as a part of the culture of African American survival and development from slave ship to scholarship.” This sentence, along with expressing the importance of the revolutionary shift from being horrifically mistreated to becoming beautiful, shining stars in so many fields, helps to give African American culture the limelight it deserves in the English language. As I read through these pages that Elaine Richardson had written, I found a common connection between each chapter in how passionate Richardson is in providing African American history as well as personal, emotional aspects to her lessons. For every fact that she gives about the current and past state of the education system, literacy, civic and human rights interpretations, etc., a personal experience or opinion comes with it; it is a great way to write that speaks to the reader. She spoke of the negative results of a ‘white supremacy’-based system, as it will only help the people who can benefit from it. Everyone else is swept under the rug and ignoring entire portions of the population is never good. Many different aspects of cultural erasure, as well as the well-deserved gaining of societal rights, were discussed throughout these two chapters, but these only emphasize what still needs to be done to make total equality a reachable result for everyone.

[crystalsadvcomp]

Reading Reflection 1

After reading both Frederick Douglass’s “Learning to Read and Write” and Shevaun Watson’s “Good Will Come of This Evil”, I found that the connection between the two lies in how widely important it is for people to have access to schooling. So many important revelations came to Douglass after he started learning to read from his mistress: he could finally recognize the unjust treatment of himself and his fellow men, as well as contemplate solutions for how to equalize the power and authority that everyone should possess over their lives from birth. If he had been kept from learning how to read, he never would have been able to gain the knowledge and confidence necessary to fight his oppression that he gained from printed works like “The Columbian Orator”.

In “Good Will Come of This Evil”, it talked about how even a Christian Church in Barbados, regardless of any good intentions of literacy, deprived its slaves of any education for many, many years. Without the ability to read and write, these slaves would not be able to express their dissatisfaction and downright hatred of slavery through written or spoken word, much less think critically on the subject. With our present-day society’s emphasis on functional literacy and education, I think a lot of people tend to forget how hard it would be to exist without the ability to define your values, morals, and personal opinions.