Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

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If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?

initial summaries on Kothari

Post (for extra credit) your analysis of the rhetorical situation and rhetorical stragies evident in your classmate's first attempt to sketch a direction for their Unit Two paper. The assignment is described in the Homework for March 6 (due March 8). Please give a title and subheading by using three equal signs before and after the title. For instance, (click on "edit" to see the coding for the subtitle, "Kent responds to Corona Pants", and do not forget to sign with four tildas! steph (COM) 13:25, 4 March 2007 (EST)

Kent responds to Corona Pants

Just an example! (psych!) steph (COM) 13:27, 4 March 2007 (EST)

fyi - the other extra credit opportunity is posting your assigned homework on the conversation taking shape among us on learning and teaching. steph (COM) 14:14, 4 March 2007 (EST)

Tom's Choice

Tom has chosen to write about the story, “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” Rather than summarizing the two stories or making any claims, Tom skims the surface by explaining his likes and dislikes between the two. His reasons were actually very similar to my own reasons for picking this story. According to Tom, “How To Tame A Wild Tongue,” was just too unfamiliar to write about. Like myself, Tom is not familiar with the Spanish language, and therefore couldn’t understand most of the story. And certainly, couldn’t relate to it. I feel that this was what made his decision so easy. Then when reading “If You At What You Eat, Then What Am I?”, Tom found himself interested. This story included ideas about food that he had never thought about before. Also, the Indian culture is something that is unknown to him, but he would love to learn more about it. As you can see, To made his decision based on a few main details. First, he decided what he liked and disliked about each story. And then used that to decided which he would feel more comfortable writing about. I feel Tom made the best decision based on his current knowledge of the two stories. Jessica 21:54, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Anna responds to Dan

In your paper, it was evident that you used logos in your writing. You addressed the focus of the short story, If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?, and then incorporated that into your outline of the paper that you will write. That to me said that you utilized the logic and reasoning of the short story as a starting basis for the upcoming paper.
You also used pathos since you pointed out that the short story does talk about the “daily battle to be accepted as American” and how you want to write about the “troubles foreigners have assimilating into American culture”. Words like ‘daily battle’ and ‘troubles’ expresses your attempt to appeal to your readers while you plan to write your essay.
There were a few ”skimming” statements in your paper. You stated, “The short story focuses on the difference in foods and how it related to her daily battle to be accepted as American.” This is a general statement because this was what the whole story was about, probably not the actual message or focus of the deeper meaning in the story. Also, you didn’t provide any insight as to why you thought Kothari chose her focus in her short story. You also said, “food is used as a way to relate to her parents, her peers, and her husband” but you didn’t explain why you thought Kothari chose to use food as the metaphor.
There were also “summary” statements in your paper. “… Story about an American born girl of Indian descent.” This is a very basic statement and anyone could have observed that from reading the introductory paragraph before the actual short story began.
You said that you wanted to write about the troubles that Spanish speaking immigrants and Middle Easterners have assimilating into American culture. I don’t think that this would be considered as a claim. You didn’t express in detail of the direction that you wanted to go with your upcoming paper so I don’t really see clear ideas that are present to create an arguable claim.
Annerrs 23:22, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Andy's Choice

There were several different parts of your paper that fell into one of the three categories of claim, summary, or skimming the surface. There were many points that were very strong and positive, but there were also some parts that could use some work. This, however, is completely understandable because this type of paper wasn’t meant to be something that was deep and meaningful. The areas that could use some critiquing, though, are more to make sure that any observations that you have are completely explained.

There was only one instance that really struck me as only “skimming the surface”. This was in your first paragraph when you presented the idea of her identity being shown through the food that she ate. This is a very good statement because it brings up the whole topic of identity, but doesn’t go deeper into why she might be using food to show the reader what she believes to be her concept of identity.

There were two sections of your paper that fell into the “summary” category. In your description of the places where she lived was quite accurate, but it only gives those key points that the reader could conclude simply by reading the text for facts.

The section that most intrigued me about your paper was when you talked about her changing attitude towards her parents. At first I thought it wasn’t going to be too broad because you said that you didn’t know where you were going with it, but in reading on I found that you actually explained your reasoning by questioning why about that particular part. The only slight modification is that it could be a unique viewpoint about the article. Otherwise, very well done as was the paper as a whole. Atshekleton 00:34, 8 March 2007 (EST)

How to Tame a Wild Tongue

initial summaries on Anzaldua

Post (for extra credit) your analysis of the rhetorical situation and rhetorical stragies evident in your classmate's first attempt to sketch a direction for their Unit Two paper. The assignment is described in the Homework for March 6 (due March 8). Please give a title and subheading by using three equal signs before and after the title. For instance, (click on "edit" to see the coding for the subtitle, "Kent takes on The Flying Scotsman", and do not forget to sign with four tildas! steph (COM) 13:27, 4 March 2007 (EST)

The Flying Scotsman talks about Unknown username

I feel that the rhetorical situation that is being approached is a mix of logos and ethos. Your paper seems as if it will be mainly driven by quotes from the original text and how you have personal knowledge of what the piece talked about. There was also a section of your outline dedicated to how you want to make your paper really good because the class will read it, this makes me feel like you will put a lot of work and emotion into it. The summary was about how there are multiple variations of the Spanish language and that you will be talking about them. You said that you have some personal experience or knowledge of the language and gave a few examples of how they differ. The claim I thought you made was that the author speaks and understands multiple languages. After reading “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, I realize that this is kind of obvious. However giving your final paper to someone that has not read the article, you will have to come out with a lot of evidence showing that she does know all these different languages and you will also need to show some of the differences in the languages that she talks about. TheFlyingScotsman 22:09, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Kent takes on The Flying Scotsman

Another example, that's all! :-) steph (COM) 13:27, 4 March 2007 (EST)

fyi - the other extra credit opportunity is posting your assigned homework on the conversation taking shape among us on learning and teaching. steph (COM) 14:15, 4 March 2007 (EST)

John responds to Anna +++ Anna elected to use both stories in her Unit Two paper!!

Your paper touches on all aspects of the rhetorical situation. You begin by clearly explaining in your own logic that the stories have a common theme; “Both narrators used a single metaphor to show the process of adapting to the American society”. This shows two of the six aspects of the rhetorical situation, you have both a knowledge of, and connection with, the subject, our two stories. Since you have established that the stories have a common theme, you conclude that they can both be incorporated into one essay, this presumption show that you have your own opinion of the subject. In the second and third paragraphs, you assume that the audience knows nothing or little about the two stories, and then you give them the information they need; “In Kothari’s article, she used food as a way to show the audience how her Indian culture is different from the American culture”, this hits the last three aspects of the rhetorical situation. John? 02:10, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Mariya's response

You have quite a relation with the struggles of the author of How To Tame a Wild Toungue. The struggle you go through trying to figure out if you are still Ukranian, or have now shifted to American is very similar to the struggle of chicano Americans which Anzaldua has conveyed. Your rhetorical situation of explaining your struggle to find identity with a nationality or language is shown very strongly to your audience. You use logos to describe your childhood, and also use ethos, for your similar experiences to the suthor of this piece help legitimize your ability to analyze it. I believe there is also some pathos, for people everywhere can relate to struggling with who you are, and you appear to have it even tougher than most people, for being unable to find a language you can call your own. Since you focus more mainly on your own personal search for identity, you mainly skim over most of the points of Anzaldua's paper in the first paragraph, and focus mainly on her challenge of representing herself. I believe this is a good summary statement regarding the article, as Anzaldua's struggle of identity is a main theme throughout the paper. The closest thing you come to a claim, I think, is the first sentence of the second paragraph, in which you state: “If Anzaldua is right about an individual needing a language to represent identity themselves, there would be many people in the US struggling to find their identity.” The thing that keeps this from being a claim is that you first say “If Anzaldua is right,” If you had merely claimed that “An individual needs a language to represent their own identity.” I believe you would have had a solid claim. I think this could be a good thesis for your paper, when we get to writing them.

Andy

Kelley Sweetser's paper on How to tame a wild tongue

Gloria Anzaldua’s essay titled How to Tame a Wild Tongue is a great piece of literary work that discusses the idea of borderlands, where two or more different cultures, economic classes, religions, come in contact. This is also know as a “hot zone.” I am an anthropology minor and we have studied this idea numerous times. It is something I am very passionate about. A particular obvious example of a borderland is affluent suburbs surrounding the inner city. For example there are two completely different societies in every way possible yet they share the same land. Anzaldua uses the example of the Chicanos. They are a group of people who strattle the boarder of Mexico and Texas. Here two different cultures collide. I think this is a particular good example because the Chicanos because their own group. Many geographical places in the world where borderlands exist create a new group of people with a new culture. They combine cultures from other groups surrounding them and use ideas and practices to form something new. In my essay I want to talk about the pos and cons of borderlands. I wanted to write about they can create new cultures or almost cause war. For example the Israelis and Muslims have been fighting over the holy land for over 60 years when Israel became a sovereign nation. It has caused nothing but distress and war. The notion of borderlands is very interesting especially in the United States since the US is a melting a “melting pot.” “The psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands, and spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest. In fact the Border-lands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy." This quote out of the whole essay is what I want to base my paper on. Ksweets 11:51, 8 March 2007 (EST)

John

The rhetorical situation you are trying to address is what parts of a person’s culture are acceptable to keep when you move to a different country and what parts need to change. You will be able to discuss this through the use of pathos, discussing the beliefs of an immigrant, and you will use ethos by creating life like situations to discuss the situation in present terms. When you have picked a viewpoint, the idea that you are writing about will be very easy to turn into a claim. Dan 13:21, 8 March 2007 (EST)