Final Wrap Up [At the end--Thank you Dr. Harkey!]

Dear Dr. Harkey:

I was going to write you a Thank you note via Email, and then I thought it will be more like a surprise to post it on my blog.

So... Frankly speaking, I was always hoping to get out of the class so I don't have to do the time-consuming and demanding work anymore, but now I am really missing our class, especially during 4-5pm when we regularly meet.

I just heard the feedback you gave us. Thank you very much. We agree with every single one of the suggestions you provided. That must be a great amount of work to record for the groups for all 3 of your classes. We really appreciate your hard work!

I want to say that Eng1101 is unique from any other English classes I have ever taken. It is more than just "essays", I really learned how to think and generate ideas in the region I have never touched before--"Realness and Reality". You made us use new media to express our thoughts, such as Prezi, audio and video, and Pucha Kucha(really hope we had time to do it). I feel like I am exploring a brand new world of advanced technologies and I definitely need to use them when I make presentations in the future--I bet that would be eye-catching and breath-taking!

It is a shame that I wasn't able to select your English 1102, I am taking 21 credit hours next semester and it was so hard for me to choose the classes I want. But still, I will see you around and say hello to you! Good luck on grading our assignments. (I cannot imagine how hard will it be to read our 1000 words essays and grade them (plus the blog post) in just a couple of days. If you can do it, you are awesome!)

Thanks, one more time. You are one of the most wonderful teachers I have ever met!

Merry Christmas!

Wen Qiu
12/13/2011

Final Wrap Up[5-Final Essay]

Wen Qiu

Professor Harkey

English 1101

7 December 2011

Street Art or Reality TV: Which One is More Real?

Consider two groups of audiences, viewing two genres of art: one is watching the three-dimensional, market-driven and derived Reality TV while sitting on the couch , and the other is enjoying the two-dimensional, inspiration-driven and original street art while passing down the road. Which group of audiences will receive more perception of realness? Although based on theirs names, Reality TV is meant to be more authentic and original, I argue that street art will provide its participants more realness because it is an art form that expresses the very basic and pure information.

Firstly, any three-dimensional show (the making of motion pictures) is a form of “le septième art” (also called 7th art), which means syncretizing the static and the dynamic, time and space. Since the perception of realness not only refers to the physical fact but also to the mental process, the more information one receives, the less space is left for him or her to ponder and link the information with reality. Different from Reality TV, street art is the two-dimensional work that keeps the artists from overloading information and limits them to express nothing but the very essence.  By looking at street art, the audience will be provided with more freedom to relate the artwork with real happening. Moreover, in terms of participants’ involvement, two-dimensional street art is easily approachable while Reality TV shows are untouchable, thus viewers can be involved in street art more than Reality TV. Since “reality” is unique to every single person, only the thoughts and feelings generated from the audience based on his or her own outlook will not result in a digression from concrete “realness”.

Secondly, it is self-evident that Reality TV is driven by the market for profit. In order to survive the competitive environment, directors and editors must select a compelling narrative that audiences are interested in, thus most of the themes and subjects are derived several times from the exciting and scintillating stories, in ways the show turn out to be “a hybrid mutant of documentaries and stories.” (Shields 109) In other words, the quality of so-called “Reality TV” is not determined by how real it is, but by how intriguing it is. On the contrary, street art is purely inspiration-driven, providing viewers the initiative of insightful and provocative thoughts. Although street artists are driven by various motivations and objectives, there is a strong current of activism and subversion in street art, which serves to draw the pedestrians’ attention effectively. Consequently, street art can be a powerful platform to reach the general public, and motivate the audience to think thoroughly about the unveiled side of the society and reality.

Banksy is a pseudonymous English graffiti artist; his street art One Nation Under CCTV shows that the policeman and dog are appreciating the person painting the words without interrupting while the real closed circuit television is being placed there not doing anything.  Although people may have various standpoints about the piece depending on their attitudes towards surveillance and street art, they share the perception about the police, common utility and general public based on their own definition of reality.

Lastly, in the field of Reality TV, most of the shows are reshaped several times from the real stories before they come out to the public. Even producers themselves, claimed that “the program's biggest challenge is creating format twists to maintain originality” (Ross) and “it is important that we go 'outside of the box' to find ways to facilitate treatment with the audience.” (Trites) For example, the American reality show Survivor is derived from Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe that is derived from a true story of Alexander Selkrick on The Englishman. By the time a real story is adapted to a Reality TV show, it no longer resemble the realness. Although all forms of art are not concretely authentic, compared to any other genre, street art obtains the shortest distance from the artist’s inspiration and thoughts to the final piece of work because it is separated from production and adaption. Since the degree of originality and reality is proportional, the most original means the most real.

            Some might argue that majority and popularity define reality. In terms of general exposure, Reality TV is watched by millions of audiences who are not necessarily well educated and extremely intelligent, while street art (usually politics-related and social issues-relevant) is viewed by many people but only appreciated by the limited number passing pedestrians who are insightful and cognitive. Although Reality TV is a form of art that is more generalized because it is easy to be accepted, and that might mislead people to think Reality TV is more authentic and original, David Shields gives the precise and professional definition of what is considered to be real as “a deliberate ‘unartiness’: raw material, seemingly unprocessed, unfiltered, uncensored, and unprofessional.” (5) Street art, which is completely removed from information overload, commercial enterprise, and prevalent derivation, perfectly fits in the description given by Shields. Thus, as it is elaborated above, street art is more real than Reality TV.

Final Wrap Up[4-Audio&Video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzsuRe5SrFk

This is the link for the revised video for our third assignment, it's my favorite and most satisfied one!

Final Wrap Up[3-Photo Essay]

Final Wrap Up [2-Banksy Essay]

Final Wrap Up [1-Prezi]

Structure

Original, Incomplete Prezi

Final, Complete Prezi!!

Just found an interesting video of Reality Hunger!!

It's so much fun to watch it after we've gone through a great portion of the book. Although the video is pretty much a introduction for Reality Hunger, it helps me to review the sections and our class!

Here we go!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Unee_UlZY

Nietzsche's Thought of Morality as Anti-nature

I accidentally came by some of the articles that I was really interested in when I searched natural and unnatural. They were about Nietzche's thought towards morality as anti-nature.  I was attracted by the seemingly "unreal" but actually logical reasoning, and the paragraphs below are my thoughts pumped up in my head while I was reading: 

People always question the point that whether one should view morality as anti-nature. While some people argue that there should be and exists moral pronouncements that human beings need to follow and preach, particularly in a Christian-sight, the gospel in the Bible and the praise of God. Other philosophers, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, point out that morality is anti-nature. Nietzsche considered moral rules and laws as a stratagem of the weak to dupe the strong. He also believes that morality is the negative valuation of life and the attempt to suppress passions, and will-to-power is the basic internal drive that dictates all human thoughts and actions. It is people's instinctual need to manifest power over nature, to immerse ourselves in the belief that we can understand the world.

Nietzsche clarified why morality is anti-nature by providing the points that passion shouldn't be castrated and extirpated, religious morality prohibit various forms of sensuality and the accepting of instinct with numerous evidence.

Like he said, all passions have a phase when they are merely disastrous, when they drag down their victim with the weight of stupidity. While a strong-willed and reasonable person can dip into the passion, reap the benefits but avoid drawbacks, most people are not so strong and controlled, their passions tend to take over them and people turn out to suffer the results, people craft moralities that label the passions themselves as evils instead of their weaknesses, in other words, it is often the very weakest who impose absolutist and often irrational barriers against that which tempts them most, then hypocritically declare themselves immune.

 Religious morality also prohibits various forms of sensuality, he clarifies and capsulizes his view of the opposition of religious morality by saying that “ant-natural morality—that is, almost every morality which has so far been taught, revered, and preached—turns, conversely, against the instincts of life: it is condemnation of these instincts, now secret, now outspoken and impudent" (Nietzsche). which means that one should learn to respect his instinct and try to go with what one feels to do instead of what one ought to do.

            At the end of the excerption, Nietzsche points out that one should live his unique life by the very natural instincts and be aware of the four great errors which are confusing the effect and cause, positing the mental thought as a cause, positing causes where there are none and considering “free will” as the cause. These are the factors that fooled people to take the views of Moses, Aristotle, Jesus, Muhammad or any other kind of godly hero images for granted to seek true virtue, according to Nietzsche, truly good deeds had to exist, like love, beyond the moral rules and laws.

In addition, Stephen Jay Gould’s view of nature and morality is in the same direction as Nietzsche’s but slightly different. He questioned the existence of god by presenting the dilemma that “If God is good and if creations reveals his goodness, why do nature’s victim suffer?" (Gould). His also uses the life span of parasitic ichneumon wasp to illustrate a scientific view that natural lives such as animals are living nonmoral lives. From Gould's words our failure to discern the universal good we once expected does not record our lack of insight or ingenuity but merely demonstrates that nature contains no moral messages framed in human terms, one can safely draw the conclusion that Gould's viewpoint supports Nietzsche’s thesis that no morality exists in the very natural world and its creatures, yet at least animals, are living by their very instinct, they can be content without being rewarded the satisfaction of obeying the rules of religious morality.

Response in Reading "Tha Realness": In search of Hip-Hop Authenticity

I feel like reading "Tha Realness": In search of Hip-Hop Authenticity by Jonathan D. Williams from University of Pennsylvania contributes a lot in generating, writing and polishing our final essay. I absorbed a great amount of insightful thoughts, good ideas of structuring and MLA formatting tips while reading the essay. I'm sure I will be using some of them in my essay.

About generating ideas:
1. If you are able to highlight your thesis using an unusual way. It will be great to put it at the beginning of the second paragraph... After having a brief look at the basic introduction and background, the thesis statement will as a matter of fact make a stronger sense. However, we need to make sure that it is recognizable enough, or it may confuse people.
2. There is no need to write something that is irrelevant to the statement you are making. A straight forward opening for the statement will contribute more than anything else.
3. Counter argument is very necessary in order for us to form a complete and balanced essay.
4. Paragraphs needs to be interrelated-- in other words, try to polish the essay as smooth as possible-- pay more attention into linking the paragraphs.
5. A few quotes and citations can be great back-ups for elaborating and convincing your thesis to the audience.
6. Try to quote the citations in your own way, i.e., instead of putting the whole sentence in the paragraph stubbornly, it helps a lot to just use part of it. This is a great way to demonstrate your writing skills and you understand both the topic and the reference really well.

About MLA Formatting:
1. Last name+ page number located on the top of the page.
2. 1 inch's space from the first line. Half of a inch from Last name+ page number.
3. First line of the paragraphs needs to be indented.
4. No extra space between paragraphs.

WOVEN text 21: Exploring, Planning, and Drafting.

In order for us to do a great job on the final essay, it is necessary for us to go through the tips and ideas about how to select the topic, how to develop and how to contour the structure. WOVEN text 21 provides us extraordinary ideas of the topics I mentioned above.

21a Exploring a topic:

Although it seems so trivial that people always tend to forget about it, it is crucial for us to always brainstorm about the picture/the structure of our essay. Once you get the general map about what you are writing, you process of composing will be smooth and easy.


The steps are elaborated as follows:
Brainstorming:
It shouldn't take a long time, just spend five to ten minutes to think about what are the possible topic/points you can emphasize or even expand.
Free writing:
"Free writing is a method of exploring a topic by writing about it for a period of time without stopping." Just like what WOVEN text points out, free writing is a process that "automagically" provokes the insights and ideas. You may not use very much of what you are free writing about, however, the potentials it provides is very essential and important.
Looping:
Free writing -- summarize the intriguing idea in one sentence -- think about more ideas, to back up the statements, or to expand the topic -- repeat the process
Keeping a journal:
Writers always don't get all the ideas at one time, it will be extremely helpful for you to jot down the ideas and thoughts when they come up in your mind randomly. If possible, create a map of your main points will help you to "logicalize" your ideas so that you can make sure you articulate them very well.
Asking questions:
Another basic strategy for exploring a topic and generating ideas is simply to ask and answer questions. Asking and answering just basic questions will help you articulate the statements for one more time. (Those questions includes those to describe a topic, to explain a topic, and to persuade.)


FOR MULTILINGUAL WRITERS: USE YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE TO EXPLORE IDEAS!! I've found this method to be extremely helpful.For generating and exploring ideas — the work of much brainstorming, freewriting, looping, clustering, and questioning — consider using your native language; it may help you come up with good ideas quickly and spontaneously. 

21b Narrowing a topic:

After exploring ideas, you may have found a topic that interests you and would also be interesting to your audience. Due to the words limit or time limit, the topic, however, may be too large to be manageable. If this is the case, narrow your topic in order to focus on a more workable idea. In my own perspective, always try to weigh each of your statements first -- to see to what degree are that closely related to the topic, and then, seek out how much back up statements you can use in order to let the audience fully understand what you are trying to persuading or elaborating.

21c Drafting a Working Thesis:

A working thesis should have two parts: a topic part, which states the topic, and a comment part, which makes an important point about the topic.

A thesis states the main idea of a piece of writing. Most kinds of college writing contain a thesis statement, often near the beginning, which functions as a promise to readers, letting them know what the writer will discuss. Though you may not have a final thesis when you begin to write, you should establish a tentative working thesis early on in your writing process. The word working is important here because the working thesis may well change as you write. Even so, a working thesis focuses your thinking and research and helps keep you on track.

FOR MULTILINGUAL WRITERS: STATING A THESIS EXPLICITLY. Besides that, always let others to proof read what your thesis is, just to make sure that it is not awkward to some degree and it is on the right track.

21d Gathering Information:

Online research; Library research; Field research:
Basically, you can do three kinds of research to support your thesis: library research, which includes books, periodicals, and databases; online research, which gives you access to texts, visuals, and people on the Internet; and field research, which includes personal observation, interviews, surveys, and other means of gathering information directly. 

Writing often calls for research. An assignment may specify that you conduct research on your topic and cite your sources. Or you may find that you don’t know enough about your topic to write about it effectively without doing research. Sometimes you need to do research at various stages of your writing process — early on, to help you understand or define your topic, and later on, to find additional examples and illustrations to support your thesis. Once you have developed a working thesis, consider what additional information you might need.

Thoughts about WOVEN Text 18--Analyzing Arguments

18a Recognizing Argument

"In one important sense, all language use has an argumentative edge." We want to persuade our audience to believe in, or assent to our words, by raising tones to emphasize it(also with facial expression), using emotional expressions, or simply choosing tangible, attractive way to speak it out(just as the banner in the picture: God Bless Our Troops).

18b Critical Thinking 

"Critical thinking is a crucial component of argument, for it guides us in recognizing,formulating, and examining arguments." We are quite familiar with critical thinking(mostly its meaning, and skills of doing it), since we all prepared SAT reading, which is call critical reading(critical thinking). 18b talks more in detail about the definition, and range of critical thinking:

Playing the game of believing and doubting:

We should be able to shift our stances when we are reading, that is, to assume the we are the author first, and try to perceive everything as our own words and assent to it spontaneously, and then shift stance to the very opposite side -- to act like a debater, to pick out the downsides/ disadvantages of the arguments.

Asking pertinent questions:

We'll choose our own questions as we move on reading and critically analyzing the passages-- for me, I would like to pick the following questions to help me digest what I'm reading:

1.What are the writer’s qualifications for making this argument?

2.What sources does the writer rely on? How current and reliable are they? What agendas do these sources have? Are any perspectives left out?

3.What is the writer’s agenda — his or her unstated purpose?

Getting information:

In order to understand the whole picture, you'll need to find our more about the piece of reading.

Interpreting and assessing information:

Based on the step above, we should be able to examine and assess the attitudes, pros and cons of the author's words, even he/she tends to be neutral-- no arguments are absolutely in-the-middle-of-the-road. 

Making and assessing your own arguments:

The ultimate goal of all critical thinking is to construct your own ideas and reach your own conclusions. 

18c Cultural Context for arguments

Pay attention to clues to cultural context,and be open to the many ways of thinking you will encounter. There are different cultures within the worlds and different types of people within the culture, so be sure to understand the author's culture so that you can completely examine his/her work. "Take a writer’s cultural beliefs into account before you begin to analyze an argument!"

18d Emotional, Ethical and Logical Appeals

"Aristotle categorized argumentative appeals into three types: emotional appeals that speak to our hearts and values (known to the ancient Greeks as pathos), ethical appeals that appeal to character (ethos), and logical appeals that involve factual information and evidence (logos)."

Emotional Appeals:

--A way of arguing thoughts by relating the point with people's real daily life. Although some pointed out that doing this may mislead people and make people misunderstand things, it turns out that Emotional Appeals is very effective.

Ethical Appeals:

"Ethical appeals support the credibility, moral character, and goodwill of the argument’s creator."

Logical Appeals:

Most people believe that logical appeals are trustworthy. However, critical readers need to examine logical appeals just as carefully as emotional and ethical ones. What is the source of the logical appeal — and is that source trustworthy? We need to pay attention to the structure of the logic proof, and find about the credibility of the arguments.

18e The Elements of the arguments

Claims--Reasons--Assumptions--Evidence--Qualifiers

18f Fallacies

Ethical fallacies:

Some arguments focus not on establishing the credibility of the writer but on destroying the credibility of an opponent.

Emotional fallacies:

Appeals to the emotions of an audience constitute a valid and necessary part of argument. Unfair or overblown emotional appeals, however, attempt to overcome readers’ good judgment. 

Logical fallacies:

Although logical fallacies are usually defined as errors in formal reasoning, they can often work very effectively to convince audiences.

Prezi Presentation Part 2

Self-Assessment of Group Oscar and Brief Review of Group Romeo 

“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” – Benjamin Spock

The sentence above has become one of my favorite mottos for a long time; mostly because I have “automagically” experienced exactly what it says for several times throughout my life. –Working with Prezi and brainstorming the complicated philosophical topic Realness & Nature provides me another chance to prove it to myself—I can make it!

It is always hard to start. To be frank, we procrastinated a bit after the project was assigned, not because we wanted to, but that none of us can figure out the steps, the clues to do it. We had 5 group meetings (formal and informal), and we spent the first three trying to sort out a logical structure. One of the biggest obstacles we encountered is: it had always been difficult for EVERYONE to select an interesting subtopic of their own that can perfectly fit into the whole map of our design. Eventually, “listing and matching” serves to be an effective way to overcome the stumbling block. We displayed all the binary oppositions we can think of and the fields (subfields) we might be interested in, and matched them one by one to explore whether or not the pair can be easily developed into a “chubby” topic. We are pretty satisfied with the overall structure that we got, and as you saw, I’m in charge of Realist and Idealist under the field of Politics and Law. Once I choose the topic, it is a lot easier to expand. Definition, evaluation, examples, and conclusion—I figured out that’s the clearest step for the audience to receive and acquire my presentation.

I think our group did a great job, although our presentation was bisected and Zhaocheng and I tried so hard to rush through our parts in order to save time (some of the stuff I prepared did not get a chance to present). Our structure is clear and logical, the presenters are well prepared, and our Prezi looks neat and nice. However, I do believe there is one thing that we need to pay more attention next time—time management. We ran out of time during the real presentation since we ignored the time limit when we rehearsed. Bruce Lee made the special remark that “Simplicity is the key to brilliance.”  As WOVEN text also points out, only some carefully selected key words can sometimes do a better job than a whole paragraph of description. Some parts of our presentation can be more well-organized by replacing the long sentences with key words, and then we can try to “decipher” our notes by adding explanations that is already in our minds.

I like Group Romeo’s presentation very much! Their “swirly structure” design is breathtaking! The presentation starts with a powerful quote “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”  To be honest, I personally think that one downside of their spiral design is that it confuses the audience about the structure—is it developed like a string or in topics and subtopics? Based on my understanding, I think they expand presentation into a major part, which is Real versus the Ideal (and 7 subtopics under it), and a minor part, which is “Realness” in technology. I’m amazed by some of the binary oppositions they chose and developed, such as Concrete v Conceptual and Superficial v Profound—those are the fields I never thought about! The 7 topics themselves are connected tightly with each other; however, I think some of them are a bit distracting from Real vs. Ideal (which is the headline), for example, superficial v profound and absolute v uncertain. In addition, I think their Prezi can be even closer to perfect if they can focus more on details. For the 2^nd shot, Real versus Ideal would be better than Real versus the Ideal; for the 7^th shot, I believe it should be flawed v perfect instead of flawed v perfected; and later, fantasy v factual can be changed into factual v fantasy since they always talk about real first, etc.

Overall, group Romeo also did an excellent job. Their Prezi shows us a clear structure logically moves from introduction to arguments, evidence and conclusion. They carefully selected the insightful 2Qs(quotes and questions) and interesting pictures to guide and support their arguments. Presenters are well prepared, and Prezi is well designed.

The sooner I embrace an attitude of curiosity, the sooner I will start trusting myself. I enjoyed exploring Prezi, working with my Oscar group and learning from other groups’ presentations. It was a great experience and I believe I will continue to choose Prezi as a fantastic way of presentation. After all, it’s cool and attractive!

Wen Qiu

09/21/11