Discovering the Truth Reading Journal

Is this about writing, or smoking?  I was confused for most of the story, I understand about how we shouldn't smoke, and it kills, and ads in the late 80's and early 90's started the trend away from juvenile smoking.  I now somewhat understand what Ethos is,  something from aristotle.  Rhetoric is something that leads the soul through words, so I got that.  The advertisement with virginia slims is very powerful, and the commercial is extremely well done, and probably succeeded in the message it was trying to portray.  There description of how you must appeal to properties of thought that were known about in the days of the Greeks, and when the Truth campaign did these, they were successful in lowering the smoking rate significantly.

Opps! I'll Do It Again, and Again, and Again...

The SAT was the opening comparison, and having taken the competing ACT only once, I cannot relate to that section. I can, however, relate to the rest of the U.S.’s do-over society.  This has become even more apparent in the past several months with the bailouts given to large businesses.  I can understand the reasoning behind giving citizens money, but the economists wanted that money to be spent in market, not saved or used on house payments, so again the government failed, but its okay, we’ll just try again.  The constant emphasis on how good everyone is was apparent when I was younger and in school, but at home, not so much.  I was always told, “that was good, but you need to do this,” something I hated then, but reading this realize it was good.  I’m not sure if this is really going anywhere, I guess I’ll just do it again.

Book War Response

Living in a world with no books, it would be terrible for some and great for others, at first.  Then it would become more and more miserable as time went on.  The inability to teach children in school, or people to read stories and even history prevents the ability to spread the culture of the people.  I thought it was the cultural revolution, not cultural devolution.  The author’s ability to keep the few books they had, and to share the stories with the children of the area was not only culturally significant allowing people to learn about other cultures and former Chinese culture, but sharing stories gave them an escape from the usual day to day grind.  This was a short story, but a very impacting story.

Reading Response to Nguyen: The Good Immigrant Student

   Reading about Nguyen’s treatment as a Vietnamese refuge stuck in Grand Rapids is not terribly surprising.  With the U.S. just finishing the Vietnam war while she was beginning school, the adults in her life should understand why she was in America, but they didn’t help her at all, and let Nguyen stand out even more than she already did.  I do want to know how she spoke english so well, did she pick it up from the television cartoons, and how did she speak so little Vietnamese. This was found out when Nguyen told about her not being about to understand the Vietnamese being spoken in the ES: class, but knowing the english well.  These ESL classes are a need for students to be able to communicate effectively in the U.S., but they unnecessarily point out students that have recently immigrated that would normally blend in.  All in all, I think it was kind of unfair the way they treated Nguyen, but I’m not sure if that was avoidable in a predominately white area in the 1970’s.

The purpose of this piece is to tell about the singling out of refuge students by Nguyen telling about her education experiences in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Hurricane Earl

Last night, the whole east coast was worried about this big storm, so naturally I headed out to the station, and nothing happened. A little wind and a little rain, but I haven't headed back to Norfolk.