In text context essay (rough draft)

  Primary: Modern Family

  Secondary: Leave it to Beaver

 Still trying to find a balance between gender roles and gender identity when it comes to stay at home parents. If you have any suggestions or opinions to which way my writing seems to be leaning towards and how I could make it better it would be great if you left a comment and let me know :) 

            Typically, when people think about a couple, they tend to think the man should work and the woman should stay at home. It goes back decades, even centuries, that the man in the relationship is in charge; the question at hand now is, is it still that way? The answer is no not necessarily, there are families who have a mother at work and a father at home, families that have both parents working and many other situations that differ from what people use to consider the norm of a male working coming home to a woman cooking dinner. Society is more accepting of change and equal opportunity.

            In the Modern Family sitcom there is a homosexual couple that adopted an Asian baby girl to raise and love as their own. Not unlike many other families one person in the relationship stays home to take care of the child and house while the other goes to work. The man that stays home with Lily, the couple’s baby, is a larger male who is more sensitive and emotional saying things like “but this place has duckies, Lily loves duckies” (modern family) when trying to determine which pre-school would be best for their daughter.  This just shows that he is thinking with his heart, by taking into consideration what their daughter likes, and what would make her happy. In many ways people relate this to a stay at home mother because of the emotional aspect, often times in shows and movies the mother is the one to encourage the child to do what makes them happy.

For example, in Leave it to Beaver the episode “Wally’s girl”, Eddie’s alleged girl decides she wants to go to a dance and would like to ask Wally, Eddie’s best friend, to accompany her. The problem is she is a little unsure about asking him because she does not know if Wally will want to go but sure enough her mother is right there to tell her to call him and see and even after the phone call the girl’s mother is more than willing to talk to Wally’s mother to see if there is something she can do, all to make her daughter happy. This shows the mother puts her daughter first and is sympathetic to what her daughter wants which is extremely similar to the stay at home dad in modern family.  So even though the stay at home parents in both shows are different genders they share the same outlook when it comes to taking care of their children.

            In neither show of Modern Family or Leave it to Beaver is there a discrepancy about the stay home parent being more hands on when it comes to making sure their child is happy.  Though there are differences between a homosexual, stay at home dad and a heterosexual, stay at home mom, people in today’s society are becoming more accepting and seeing it is not about the sex or orientation of the stay at home parent but rather that the parent put the child first. 

Sentences

Commas

I had to find a way to stand out and get admissions to notice me, but still make sure I showed that I was a well-structured writer.

- Need to take out the comma after “me”.

 Through my story I hoped UA admissions would be sympathetic to what I had gone through and also see me as a determined woman who will fight against all odds to create a better life for herself.

-I need to add a comma after “story”.

For example, “My parents did not care if I got good grades or not; I guess you could say they were a little busy with their own problems and did not set a high standard for me and my sisters”, when I talk my parents caring I was straight forward because I did not want to down play everything I had to overcome or do on my own.

- I need to take out the comma after my quote and replace it with a period

 Through the text readers are brought to see a difficult emotional time in my life which forced me to make a decision about my life all on my own.

- I need to add a comma after “difficult” in order to separate it from emotional and make it easier to understand the sentence.

Quotes

 “As I stopped coming to visit, I hoped my mother would stop all the drugs and drinking in an effort to still see me, but instead she used me as an excuse to continue using”

-(In the beginning of my UA essay I wrote about my mother’s addiction and how if affected me,) would have been a better way to introduce my quote

“I would not stand around while my mother killed herself”

-       (My statement that…) would have been a better transition rather than just throwing in the quote first.

Topic Sentences

 On another hand I had to use words that were more bold in a negative sense.

-       (Through the use of bold negative words I eluded sympathy from my audience in hopes to show I can handle the challenges of college.) would have been a better topic sentence.

 In my essay I used a hyperbolic diction to help get across my story to admissions because even though I might have used words to exaggerate a certain point, I did it because at the time that is how it felt for me.

-       (In my essay I used hyperbolic diction to help get sympathy from admissions and prove that I am independent and can handle college.)

When I wrote my essay at first I only thought about the words I should not use so much, it was not till later I went back and replaced some of them.

               -( Through word my selective word choice in my essay I demonstrated how I am a determined person that will continue to word hard at the UA.)

Incomplete Sentence

 Especially from my view, because it shows that I had to be independent and responsible at a young age when many kids were having fun.

-       ( Through my story I showed I had to be independent and responsible at a young age when many kids at my age were having fun and I could continue to be responsible at the UA.)

Lassell Poem

I found the "How to watch your brother die" very moving. I think it showed a good view of how many people deal with uncomfortable, and difficult situations. The main focus of the poem obviously being a brother having a hard time grieving the loss of his brother. I think in a way the man lost his brother long before he actually died, he lost him when the brother told him he was gay. I think he lost him at this point because he did not know how to be close with him, how to deal with this change, the person he grew up with and was close to has really been a whole another person in a sense. I also think that through his brothers death he realizes he shouldn't have turned away from his brother that it probably would of been nice to have support when he came out. Seeing the way people look at his brother just because of his sexual orientation angered him because well, why should that matter? His brother is dying and people are sitting there judging him for being homosexual, like it is a disease so they cant get to close or help him?  For the first time I think he saw how hard it was for his brother to live a normal life like everyone else and how tough it must of been to go through it without his family. It's obvious in this text that it shows how uncomfortable people are about people being different especially when it comes to sexuality. I also noticed "it's just like a wife, only commitment is deeper because the odds against you are so much greater" because I think it is so true. People in the gay community I believe are held up to a higher standard when it come to relationships working. I think people do this because many people against gays can then say "see their relationships don't even last, they don't take it seriously so why should gay marriage be legalized?" Homosexuals are often put in horrible situations and treated differently for something they did not choose and I think Lassell's poem shows how people need to open their eyes and be accepting because you never know what you're missing out on, whether it be life in general, a good friend or something else people shouldn't pre-judge because by the time you realize how great someone or something is it might be to late. Overall, I enjoyed Lassell's poem and found it to have a lot of emotional appeal whether you're supportive or not of gays.

Journal #6

If you have ever watched an Old Spice commercial and laughed and were enticed to watch the whole thing you would think that the commercial was doing its job, right? Well what if that was not enough, though many people do watch the commercial that does not mean it has helped sales rise. Many different techniques are used in the Old Spice commercial, for example they use a famous athlete, they always use someone with a nice body that has there shirt off and lastly the commercial directly talking to women in order to help sell the product. In the Old Spice commercial pathos and ethos are intended to influence there audience to buy there product by asking questions, using humor and showing that this attractive man has all these great qualities but in reality these things are excluding many demographics and are hurting sales.

In the Old Spice commercial with Isaiah Mustafa, a famous football player, he tries to get young men to buy Old Spice by showing that he uses the product and that young men who use it as well can be the kind of man women are attracted to. Though normally you would think this would make sense because men want to attract women but unfortunately, they are excluding a large demographic of homosexuals by doing this which does not help there sales. Along with the problem that they are only appealing to a certain percent of there audience by trying to get men to want to buy the product to get women to like them, using a famous football player also does not help influence those who do not watch football. The idea of using a football player was intended to allow the audience feel familiar with the spokesmen and in hopes people would look at him as role model because of football therefore wanting to be like him and in turn get people to buy Old Spice so they can be like him. This did not happen as well as Old Spice planned because Isaiah has not been the most known football player and has actually gotten more publicity and gained fans from this commercial than the other way around. So in reality ethos worked against there intended purpose.

Every Old Spice commercial has a few things in common one of the most obvious being an exaggerated humor. This humor is used to appeal to college aged males and though it does accomplish the humor aspect it does not help sell the product, in fact in the commercial the humor distracts from the actual product. More often than not the product is not even in Isaiah’s hand except at the beginning of the commercial and the end. Even with that the full name of the product is only mentioned once in the whole commercial. So though Old Spice uses pathos to create a emotional connection with it’s audience using humor it has not been beneficial with a 7% drop in sales for Old Spice body wash.

Many people would argue that using logos is good idea to increase sales by directing the commercial to the women and asking questions and letting the audience answer. Unfortunately, this has worked against them for a few reasons one being it confused viewers about who should be buying the Old Spice body wash. Asking women questions such as “Should your man use Old Spice body wash? I don’t know” allowing women to answer but by having Isaiah talk to the women it leaves men out because the focus is being directed to what women want and like rather than just focusing on men and finding out what they want. Though I believe Old Spice was ultimately trying to get men to ask themselves what would women like because they were inferring that men are trying to attract women, I think this was to complicated for a commercial. Overall this just made viewers forget about the product and focus on the humor of the commercial.

In conclusion, through pathos and ethos and the many other techniques Old Spice used in hopes to up sell there product it back fired and seems to confuse viewers and just focus on the entertainment aspect which in turn only hurt there sales. Old Spice tried to be creative and complex with there commercial but it turned out to be to complex to follow the underlining message of buying the body wash. Old Spice has even recognized that the commercials have not helped and have stopped using Isaiah Mustafa, even though he has become extremely popular and loved by viewers, it has not been enough to increase sales.

Journal #5- Sloan text

After reading and looking at the hypertext I realized I liked the written text better. Though it was nice to see pictures, I feel I got more from the text. I became distracted when I was at the website I would read a little bit then I would look at the picture and click on a new link, I ended up going back and forth to the links multiple times before I finished. I don't necessarily like to read a bunch of text all at once but the written wasn't that much and I feel I was able to get through it much quicker than the hypertext which I found more beneficial because I don't like to waste time. I did like that you got to see the pictures and understand better what the text was talking about but I'm one of those people that always thinks the book is better than the movie because I like to picture it myself and leave up to my imagination. From my point of view I think both have there strong points and I think which you like better really depends what kind of reader and person you are because everyone has a different way of learning. The hypertext and the written text were also different in the sense not everything talked about in the hypertext was in the written, it gave you different details which I thought was both good and bad, I thought it was good because this way if you read both you were still something out it but also bad because if you just read one your not getting the full story. Overall I think reading both helps you understand the written text better and gives more of an insight.

International Students

At first I wasn't really sure what to expect, or what we would be doing, I thought we would just fill out the question sheet and that would be it but after we were paired up and started talking it wasn't as plain and structured I thought it would be. It was interesting  and fun once May and I started talking time just seemed to fly by, before I knew it class was almost over. I was impressed by how independent she was and how she had come so far from home yet she was more happy to be here than she was home sick which was strange to me because I'm from Washington and I'm home sick and can't wait to go back. I was also surprised by how interesting America was to her, when she was telling me how she thought Americans were it was different because she thought we were outgoing and told no I'm really shy but then when I thought about it from her point of view I realized we do seem that way compared to people from other countries. I told her that I think I would like China because the schools are so structured and you learn so much and everything there is business but then she pointed out that kids get so focused on studies they don't go interact with other kids, that many become very isolated. Once I heard that I was kind of surprised because all the kids that I have met from other countries always seem so nice and I would never take them as the isolated type. May was really friendly and easy to talk to, it wasn't awkward and the conversation wasn't dull, there wasn't weird moments of silence or anything. She's adapted really well, her english was good and she had lots of questions about the classes and people here. You could tell she really liked it and was interested in our culture and being excepted into it. May told me about how everyone she has met so far has been really nice and welcoming which I thought was great but I was a little shocked because there are people in this world who are rude.  I've heard people from other countries say Americans aren't very friendly, especially when they come from small towns and are use to people knowing who they are or even if they don't they will talk to you but in America typically people don't just talk to a random stranger they do not know. So it was nice to hear that she is being excepted into our society with open arms. May was really cool and I'm glad I got the chance to meet her we had a lot in common and we even exchanged emails so we could keep in touch. So over all I was excited I went to class the other day cause I was able to meet some really cool people and at first I thought it was going to be some boring activity but I ended up enjoying myself and cant wait to keep in touch with May. The story Letter to Mexico, was really intriguing it made me want to keep reading because it was about issues that are relevant in today's society and had so much emotion in the story. When the narrator talks about how she feels hatred and how she hates her own people and how that is really hate of herself, it made me think about how there are times I hate my own people because of how they act or portray themselves to others which creates them to think negatively on all of us. The story also makes me think about how the international students might feel about Americans who go to there countries, do they have resentment or hate us for going into there countries and taking jobs and living there?

Journal #2

For my persona text I decided to use my UA essay. I picked my essay because it has a lot to do with growing up, my environment, and why I am who I am today. I think the essay shows a side of me that I tend to keep inside and very close to me. It's shows how I like to be seen but with more detail to why I come off the way I do. If i had to compare my text with a story we've read I would compare it to Tapahonso. I think both are similar in the sense that both don't let everything out, there's still stuff that is kept personal for there own reasons. Mine reasons being I don't want to be looked at differently, I worked so hard all my life to be seen as me and I don't want my past, or the way I grew up to influence the way people judge me. I believe Tapahonso was doing the same thing by not speaking her native language to in a way protect herself.  Yet at the same time both are trying to let people see them for them which means often putting yourself out there and being vulnerable. For Tapahonso that was getting up in front of everyone and reading her poem, something she created, something that was a part of her and only her, her poetry was the one thing she had that separated her from her family. For me my text is my vulnerable side that I am letting out and the way I chose to live my life and the decisions I've made is what separates me from my family. Another thing that is similar is we are both trying to keep apart of ourselves private, but in some way or another the part we try to keep hide is the part that explains so much about us. I really related to the Tapahonso text and thought it was very insightful. For me at least it helped me understand identity vs. persona which is part of the reason I chose my UA essay.

Journal #1

When i was a little girl I loved make up, playing with barbies, and dancing around my house, I was your typical little girly girl. I even remember how I loved picking out my own outfits in the morning and by outfits i mean tights, a shirt, two dresses over that and a coat. I guess you could say I was a little indecisive and still am only now i have better fashion sense. I was also obsessed with the movie "The little Rascals" I so badly wanted to be Darla and thought i was going to be a famous actress. Like the little actress I so desperately want to be, I often went to the school nurse and would act like I was sick to go home early. You could say school wasn't on my mind at five I was to busy dreaming of the bright lights and a pink limo.

Well as years went on i became less of a girly girl and more of girl with a million dreams. I remember pretty clearly when i was in fourth grade I wanted to be chef, a massage therapist, an accountant, journalist, and a math teacher. It was this year i became intrigued in learning and realized i could do anything i put my mind to. My inspiration came from my teacher, she gave me the confidence to believe in myself.

Fourth grade I learned to follow my dreams and work hard. I remember that year like it was yesterday, learning a new poem every week, doing math every morning, having reading parties and having a teacher that believed in you before you believed in yourself. I remember I knew I would like the class after we learned our first poem "yellow bus". Poetry was something so new to me yet i fell in love with it so easily and the same thing happened with math. I use to be horrible at it but everyday we would have a number on a piece of paper and we had to come up with equations to equal that number. I was so eager to to come up with as many as I could and hope my name would be called at the end to get the paper, I won four times. Learning what I was good at and passionate about made me want to further my education which meant I needed to get good grades if I ever wanted to follow my dreams. This is when I realized what hard work was and became a determined person.




Coming back to my story
For me it was hard to decide what I should write, trying to think of one specific time that changed me was just difficult because I have always just thought I changed over time and never really considered the moments themselves. Other than that I found after I wrote it that I did similar things to Hampl, such as fictionalizing certain facts. I really don't know the exact name of the poem from the first day of fourth grade I just remember that "Yellow bus" was one of the first ones I learned and I don't think I really won the math paper four times I think it was three but i'm still not sure. I also don't remember picking out my crazy outfits when I was younger my parents have just always told me about it and how I cut my own hair one time and show me pictures of how funny I looked. The thing is I didn't really think about it while I was writing, I wasn't distinguishing what I remembered from what I was told or what was fact. But in the end I like my story it's not the way I see it in my head but it's still the truth of how I changed.