One of the key ingredients of English 111 that students were to leave knowing was the revision process. Near the begining of this class students were asked to submit a diagnostic essay. Towards the end of the class, students were instructed to revise their essays and post them together to make the improvements obvious. Here's mine:

First Draft:

Over the course of my short time on this wondrous planet, I have been lucky enough to learn from a great number of interesting influences, be they people, literature, media or events. I had the distinct privilege of being raised by and around people who took it upon themselves to make sure that I had the influences that they believed I needed. As a child my most prominent influence was, no doubt, my mother. She definitely instilled within me the values and morals I posses today. Although she takes the title in shaping my life, she cannot do so in changing it; I feel that I am due that honor. The person I was just two short years ago is vastly different from the person I am now and ultimately will be. This is such, due solely to the conscious decisions I have made within my life and self.
As I reminisce about my life’s history, I am reminded of all the ideals and behaviors I chose to change, refine or retain. Values I’d already obtained and chose to dictate my actions were; my lust for knowledge, the ability to forgive and above all reverence and love for the Mother Earth and Universe. These key ingredients seemed, to me, the best foundation for a happy life.
As an adolescent, I did many, many things that made me into someone I never planed, or wanted, to be. I looked up to a number of influences that twisted my beliefs and thoughts around, ultimately feeding them back to me as if they were my own. Eventually, through the grace of God and of my own determination, I realized that only I posses the power to change my life. It was about this time that I began to understand what should motivate me. This was the epiphany I needed to orient myself in a morally satisfying direction and start my transformation into adulthood. Though I chose values I already possessed to determine my actions, the biggest changes made came in what I chose to change. I analyzed all the positives and negatives in my life, decided what to surround myself with and what to separate myself from and then began to act!
When the haze of adolescence wore thin, I truly grasped the concepts I had previously been toying with. I sought out therapy for my severe depression, ultimately landing me a place in the residential psych ward for fear I would hurt myself. There, I re-devoted myself to the so-called “Christian” way of life. I put more emphasis on the way I treated people and did my best to bring joy to others, despite minor inconveniences to myself. The way I presented myself until that time was, dare I say, atrocious! I walked with my head hung low, radiating the essence of self-loathing. As these facts came to my attention, I decided, for a time, I would try looking up at the majesty that surrounds me daily.
This idea was the catalyst in a myriad of events leading to my improved self confidence. From looking up, I gained a wonderful new perspective on my place in this world. I decided that life was too short to be anything less than happy. From this decision another came into light; how I presented myself did not only encompass my body language but also my dress, which was very dark and foreboding to anyone who might have possibly been interested in knowing me. After changing my whole self image, people began to take an interest in my unique world vision and I began gaining friends. Gaining friends led me to revamp my view of school. It was no longer a place of degradation but a social and intellectual paradise! I was truly amazed at how one simple difference in the way I looked at life, could change everything I knew to be constant. Changes made in the extreme were the most obvious but, perhaps, not the most beneficial. Humans constantly redefine what it is to be human. In the same manner, I am constantly redefining and refining what it is to be me. Everyday I live, I gain some sort of knowledge. It’s not always noticeably beneficial, but still, I may learn something of a greater part. For all the changes I have made pertaining to my daily learnt knowledge, I have most changed my life.

http://cre8ive-technol0gies.com/Animation/Goth-Girl-Flower-2.gif

Revised Draft:

There are several features of my life that I am delighted to deem myself lucky for having, encountering or escaping, but in the short time I have spent on this wondrous planet, I consider myself the most lucky because I had the all too rare chance to learn from a vast number of fascinating influences including, but certainly not limited to, the people I have encountered, the literature I have read, the media that bombards us all daily and the events, good and bad, that have taught or molded me into the person I am so proud to be today.
The distinct privilege of being raised by and around superb authority figures was mine; People who took it upon themselves to ensure they were showing and being conducive, superior influences that they believed I needed. As a child my most prominent influence was, without a doubt, my mother. She unquestionably instilled within me the values and morals I posses today. Although she takes the title in shaping my life, she cannot do so in changing it; I feel that I am due that honor. The creature I was just two ephemeral years ago is vastly different from the individual I am now and ultimately will be. This is such, due solely to the conscious decisions I have made within my life and self.
I am not so ignorant to say that I am the only thing that changed my life, I simply mean that I feel that the steps that I have personally decided to set in motion, (due to ideas formulated from information collected from outside sources) are the biggest changes in my recent life.
As I reminisce about my life’s history, I am reminded of all the ideals and behaviors I chose to change, refine or retain. Values I’d already obtained and chose to dictate my actions were; my lust for knowledge, the ability to forgive and above all reverence and love for the Mother Earth and Universe. These key ingredients seemed, to me, the best foundation for a happy life.
As an adolescent, I did many, many things that made me into someone I never planed, or wanted, to be. I looked up to a number of influences that twisted my beliefs and thoughts around, ultimately feeding them back to me as if they were my own. Eventually, through the grace of God and of my own determination, I realized that only I posses the power to change my life. It was about this time that I began to understand what should motivate me. This was the epiphany I needed to orient myself in a morally satisfying direction and start my transformation into adulthood. Though I chose values I already possessed to determine my actions, the biggest changes made came in what I chose to change. I analyzed all the positives and negatives in my life, decided what to surround myself with and what to separate myself from and then began to act!
When the haze of adolescence wore thin, I truly grasped the concepts I had previously been toying with. I sought out therapy for my severe depression, ultimately landing me a place in the residential psych ward for fear I would hurt others or myself. During my stay there, I re-devoted myself to the so-called “Christian” way of life. I set more emphasis on the way that I treat people and did my best to bring joy to others, despite minor inconveniences to myself. After implementing these decisions, I went to the opposite extreme, allowing myself to be walked on. As the natural way of maturation took its course, I began to settle in a satisfactory middle ground.
The way I presented myself until that time was, dare I say, atrocious! I walked, unaware of anything outside of my morbid thoughts, with my head hung low, radiating the essence of self-loathing. As the way I presented myself became apparent to me, I decided to devote, for a time, more attention to my outward appearance. I decided that I would embark on a journey, my first attempt in years at looking up at the majesty that surrounds me daily.
The idea to look up was the catalyst in a myriad of events leading to my improved self-confidence. As I began looking up more often, I began to be enlightened to a wonderful new perspective of my place in this world. I attribute some of the new found happiness I had obtained to a Caratonin increase caused by increased sunlight but I know this is not the only factor, by far, that contributed to my metamorphosis. I feel that a big part of this reformation was my decision that life was too short to be anything less than happy. From this decision another came into light; how I presented myself did not only encompass my body language but also my dress, which was very dark and foreboding to anyone who might have possibly been interested in knowing me. After changing my whole self-image, people began to take an interest in my unique world vision and I began gaining friends. Gaining friends led me to revamp my view of school. It was no longer a place of degradation but a social and intellectual paradise! I was truly amazed at how one simple difference in the way I looked at life, could change everything I knew to be constant. Changes made in the extreme were the most obvious but, perhaps, not the most beneficial. Humans constantly redefine what it is to be human. In the same manner, I am constantly redefining and refining what it is to be me. Everyday I live; I gain some sort of knowledge. It’s not always noticeably beneficial, but still, I may learn something of a greater part. For all the changes I have made pertaining to my daily learnt knowledge, I have most changed my life.

http://www.karenkuehn.com/photos/series/dreamgirl/Hippie-Girl-2.jpg

I Remember...

I remember the first day of my English 111 class, my first college class ever. I was exceptionally nervous and anxious for the teacher to arrive so that class would begin. I remember taking notice of the only person to enter the room that didn’t look like they’d just walked out of high school; he was youthful and striking with Auburn hair and freckles. He sat just behind me, a place I am very uncomfortable having people, waited a few moments and preceded to query on how long we were to wait for the teacher before leaving. He then introduced himself and asked us what kind of assumptions we had made about him before hand.
In my personal opinion, this is a manner of teaching that immediately allows the student to take notice of the value in knowledge as well as the best way to ensure that students retain the knowledge taught.
There is a fairly short list of what I learnt this semester that can be also be easily defined or described, most of which involve maturation in the thoughts behind what is written as well as a hard lesson in how to manage and organize time and loose direction coupled with rigorous format. Never before had I been introduced to the Rhetorical Analysis Triangle. I found it a rather useful way to remember the three key elements of a written work, Author, Audience and Purpose. The fact that the triangle is used also helps students to remember the Purpose Triangle that is offset from the main triangle, containing the three major purposes for writing a piece of literature, to inform, to persuade or to entertain. The third and final triangle consists of the three rhetorical appeals, Logos, Ethos and Pathos.

http://www.english.uga.edu/writingcenter/images/resources/triangle1.gif

If there is nothing else that I have learned during my time in English 111, it is Logos, logical appeals, Pathos, emotional appeals and Ethos, ethical appeals (the authors apparent credibility). I can imagine that these appeals have been known to me before I could even define rhetoric, but in learning the triangles, I have refined my ability to scrutinize text, both written and visual.
I have been presented with several challenges over the duration of my time in this class and have managed to conquer several! Not only did I learn to better analyze written works and unwritten text, with or without ‘copy’, interestingly enough, I also learnt how to analyze the X-men (movies)!
As my professor will tell you and has told all his students, myself included, if there exists only a singular element each student may gain because of their time spent in this class, it is the ability to follow directions.
I can say that I found it an extremely rigorous course only towards the end as the mental list, hanging ever so precariously in the deep recesses of my mind, approached and surpassed maximum capacity. I have learnt not only to budget my time but to manipulate it, doing more than I even conceived possible in a very short period of time.

Link to Tidewater Community College: http://www.tcc.edu/

(Allen, Lonnie. USA War: An Instruction Manual; The ComicSpace, LLC Network 7)

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/LonnieAllen/usawar/series.php?view=archive&chapter=2307Recently, I was instructed to read a very controversial piece of literature entitled ‘War: an instruction manual‘. I found it very straightforward and to the point. The author is an American man by the name of Lonnie Allen. His comic/article seems to have been written within the past year and obviously written within the past eight. I feel that the layout Mr. Allen chose was meant to compare war with something menial; he shifts something so severely serious to a stage of total emotional detachment.

Mr. Allen had a message to deliver unto the American people but specifically those Americans who fail to see the importance in political activism. I got the impression that the purpose of his essay was to motivate today’s Americans into being an active part of the solution or any part of the solution at all; he seems to be attempting to motivate Americans into changing elements of their government that they disagree with, instead of merely complaining about it or simply ignore it altogether. I have also realized that his intent is lost to many that I’ve chosen to share it with but those with open minds see that the author isn’t advocating or belittling war, he is simply attempting to focus his audiences attention to something utterly unnoticed or at least 'swept under the rug'. In my opinion, he models the simplicity of his manual after the simplicity felt in the average American’s discussions of war.

The text is extremely emotional in its appeal, strewn with pictures of severed cartoon body parts and illusions to the horrors of Vietnam. I feel that this blunt, "throw it in your face" layout may be what dictates the angry reaction I seem to be continually recieving upon sharing this piece of literature. Logos is implemented with the use of several balancing acts within the text such as ’vote…or don’t one gets elected anyway.’ He also ties in many aspects of common America and it’s patriotism, such as the support our troops ribbon and the taxpayer sitting on his easy chair watching television.

I think this comic is a remarkably sad but accurate account of American government today and recomend it to anyone who is not easily offended by the truth.

Born in the U.S.A.?

[http://music.aol.ca/gallery/music-in-politics/]

I’m sure all of us have heard Bruce Springsteen’s song entitled “Born in the U.S.A.”. It’s often played at Fourth of July firework shows and any other patriotic event in which music would be appropriate.

I wonder how many people know more than just that iconic phrase “Born in the U.S.A.”. I also wonder, of those that do know the words to the song, how many actually know the meaning of what they are singing. Most everyone, myself included, cannot hear the meaning of the authors words, overshadowed by patriotic sounding music and voice. When presented with a printout of the lyrics and began to read them, I was shocked! I realized just how ironic it is that this song is constantly used to convay patriotism.

This song vilifies America in a seemingly deliberate guise of American patriotism. As I watched the video of his performance, I can’t say that I saw a lack of pride in Springsteen; his eyes remain closed as he raises his fist with the repetition of each “born”. Every video I shuffled through played this way but I was lucky enough to find one video in which the tone matched the sad somber words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8TwMqpBeL4&NR=1

The video above seems to be a much more recent one than the 1980’s one below and perhaps Bruce wanted to withhold his meaning until all could recognize his song.
I have heard this song and possibly even sung along to the chorus once or twice in the past. I will now do so with the satisfying feeling of knowing I am singing.

Lines nine through twelve read:
“Got a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man”
This appears to be a reference to war, specifically Vietnam.
Line twenty-two;
“I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong”,
led me to believe the references to war are specific to Vietnam.

These words are ignorantly sung with joy and pride when the words are so obviously gloomy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPudiBR15mk

The very last stanza, lines twenty-six through twenty nine, read:
“Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I’m ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go “

This seems the broadest stanza in the song. Bruce Springsteen touches on what were the major crises at the time it was written, the failing prison system and exponentially rising crime rate as well as the pollution problems and oil crises. Overall, I’d have to say that if nothing else Bruce is proud to be on that stage singing that song, for what reason, only he may know, but he had a message and he would be heard. Several will hear and not listen and still others will listen and question; “what are these words that draw of so many conflicting emotions attempting to say to me?”

The Metamorphosis

"The Metamorphosis" From the Franz Kafka story; A.C. Farley; 1986;Print size; 11" by 17"; Lightfast permanent colors on 100% rag acid-free paper; Altered Earth Arts Printshop; http://www.alteredearth.com/farley/farpnt2.htm

The Metamorphosis, when read with no prior knowledge of when or by whom it was written, seems the product of a deranged mind. Once some research is performed on the author the deeper meaning becomes apparent. Franz Kafka describes in his tale, a grim scene in which the main character is transformed into a dreadful creature. Over the course of his lifetime, Kafka lived this mournful metaphor. Being a Jewish man raised during the emergence of anti-Semitism in Germany, societies view of him shifted from a man to a vermin. This literal element of this metaphor, he forever captured in the writing of Metamorphosis.
Kafka didn’t want his books sold for money and didn’t want them published at all. He wrote those books for the sole purpose of expression. He needed, as all do, to express how he felt and the only way he could do this with any effectiveness, without the risk of punishment, was with his silent words that now echo so loudly within the minds of the book‘s readers. In this way all non-anti-Semitic literate people are he audience but the intended one was himself and Yahweh.
I feel that this book most effects my emotions but it is partly through my logic that it does so. Logic says that a family’s love shouldn’t be conditional and that all things are equal and thusly deserving of equal treatment no matter how misperceived they may be. Few would have been able to write a work with such a profound underlying meaning in this subject. As stated before, Kafka lived his book, metaphorically. Writing from the point of view of the newly verminized, he is, in fact, telling his own story and, obviously, no one is more qualified for that!
This short tale, of a mournful transformation into something hated while others stand by, conjured all the emotions associated with the misperceptions leading to the mistreatment of someone different as well as compassion for the main character and hatred for his transformation as well as anger at those who mistreat him for what he has become. I highly recommend this tale, as long as you have a strong stomach!