Blog Post 9

I saw a very interesting picture on Facebook the other day that said some interesting things about the young people of the working class. The left side showed American soldiers going into battle and it said "20 year olds in 1944, giving everything” and the right side showed Occupy Wall Street protesters and it said "20 year olds in 2011, wanting everything." It just shows how drastically the mentality of young people has changed in the past 60 years. During World War II, so many young, working class people were willing to give their time, and some even their lives to serve and protect their country. According to the picture, young people today are the exact opposite. They want their country to provide everything for them without having to fight or work for it. They feel like everyone is entitled to the same things, regardless of their financial status. I’m not saying that everyone should join the military, but they should at least work for what they want instead of expecting everything to be handed to them. If all the people participating in the Occupy Wall Street movement would get jobs and go to work and earn money, they could afford some of the things that they are begging for and earn them on their own. Also, I think the Occupy Wall Street movement is very poorly organized. Many people don’t even know everything they’re protesting for, and for every person that believes in the movement, there’s another person participating because it’s the “cool” thing to do.

Blog Post 8

My Commonplace essay will be similar to my analytical research paper. It will focus on the social exclusion of immigrants in America, using examples from Outcasts United and the secondary sources from my paper. I will discuss the ways in which immigrants are unfairly treated and why they are often stuck in the working class because they don't speak good English and are unfamiliar with American customs. The essay will persuade readers that diversity is a good thing, and people should be more accepting of immigrants and help them assimilate into American society. America is supposed to be a melting pot of different cultures, so people of every culture should have an equal chance to succeed. The hardest part of this essay will be making it compelling, immigration is not the most interesting topic for many readers, so I will have to be creative in making it interesting.

Blog 8

My commonplace will probably be the similar topic with my ARP. As my audience is my class made of students coming from different countries, there are many different education styles in different countries. My ARP talks about the Chinese education and American education. I think most students in our class do not know exactly about the current situation about Chinese education, even the Chinese students, some of them do not know the truth. It seems like the Chinese education is nothing to do with the students from other countries. Actually, I think the unreasonable situation exists in almost every society. I hope everyone will think more about the real situation in his society including the education, the medical service or job opportunity.Also, to the phenomenon that the government gives pressure to those who dare to speak out the reality, we should pay attention. To the Chinese students, only when you know the truth will know what to do in the future. To the foreign students, I hope some of them will have the ability to help those developing countries solve these unreasonable problems. And they may find the similar situation is in their country. Besides, we know there are many poor people who can not afford the tuition all over the world. One day, If we have enough money we should donate it to the charity of education.

Blog #8

My Commonplace essay will probably be about how colorblindness affects our actual school system. I think it definitely speaks to my audience (my English class) because the students in my class are from everywhere around the world. So, they might have experiences with any kind of racism or they probably have an opinion on racism. That is how I am going to make my audience curious about my essay. I am thinking about starting with a little story about that topic. Maybe I will try and use Scruggs’ (an author of one my source in my ARP) story at the beginning of my text. She tells a story about a black child who went to school and was treated slightly differently than the white students. Additionally, the teacher did not talk about the African culture at all. He started right away with the Greek culture. This inequality made his mother really mad about the school system and she started to speak with the head master of the school and the teacher. This story will created curiosity on the one hand side and on the other hand side it will create pathos (emotions). Particularly pathos catches interest. Then I will try to develop my thesis that we have to change our curriculum to solve that problem. Another point might be that our old system of colorblindness is wrong even though it has been a good first step out of the racism in the 50ies and the 60ies but the idea has to develop.

Blog Post 7

My writing has improved quite a bit this quarter. I am now a lot better at writing with an analytical focus, asking questions and making arguments about the thoughts presented, instead of just presenting them. I am also better at organizing my ideas into well-thought out paragraphs, which form a high quality, structured paper. I still need to work on expanding my ideas to make my papers longer. I have always been a very concise writer, and I need to expand on my thoughts and make them more interesting. That is the main thing I need to do when writing my ARP. Expanding my paper from 3 and a half pages to 7 or 8 will be very difficult for me. I need to further expand on my existing thoughts and maybe even find and implement one or two more secondary sources. I also need to write a solid, complex thesis statement that encapsulates the views of the entire paper, and strengthen the topic sentences in each paragraph

Hey guys, as Chase told us that we are allowed to use more sources into our paper, I looked for new sources to finish my paper. I found a nice quote of Marie Curie which I could work into my paper. It fitted perfectly my paper. Additionally I searched for statistics which prove the things I am saying in my essay. In general, I tried to make my writing more fluently and easier to read. By putting topic sentence in front of nearly every paragraph I have reached that aim. I also had a try to understand the American reader and how he is different from the reader I was used to write to. He needs a general overview at the beginning of the essay instead of the German who wants a clear climax in his reading. A further point of interest of Chase was that my sources communicate better with each other. I tried to do that by putting comments at the beginning of each paragraph. That somehow shows the reader how the essay will go on instead of saying him: You have to build up an own opinion based on the information I am giving you. At the end I would say that my essay is now really round and that I have developed so much as a writer. I got new ideas of writing which just gave me a different view on my writing. Also analytical talking in class gave me interesting ideas how to write my essay.

Blog7

I chose my primary source from a Chinese blog which refers to Chinese current education. So I try to find more information about the education in China to prove the blogger's opinion. Also, I need to find the information about American education. I need to analyze my secondary source to support or oppose the opinions from primary source. And I should give my own ideas. But I did not understand well of the requirement for the essay. I did not integrate the primary source and secondary source. What's worse, I did not analyze the secondary source. I just put the sentence selected from secondary source in the SSI. I need to analyze these sentences. And I need to clarify what the secondary source imply. Then when I got the feedback of my SSI, I realized my mistakes. I revised my SSI according to the suggestion I got in my feedback. I also stated my own claims in the SSI. As English110 is a writing class for every student including the native speaker, it is more difficult than the English 108 or 107. And the writing rules are also different. Although my writing ability,compared to native speaker students, is so bad I still get an improvement in this class. Chase taught us a lot in the class and I also learned a lot from classmates' writing. I read everyone's blog in my group to learn the vocabulary and sentence structure. I hope I can write a high-quality essay one day.

blog6

Roseanne is a very funny comedy. It talks about a working class family's life. Roseanne works in a factory and she has three children need to be taken care of. So when her daughter's teacher told her about the weird thing her daughter did in class, she just said she was so busy than she did not have enough time with her children. It makes me think of my family where my parents are busy with their work everyday.But I know most family in China is like my family because if one of the parents choose to stay home with children, it will become difficult for the other to raise the whole family. If the family have to worry about the daily cost, it will arouse the quarrel like the couple in the tv comedy. So it is hard for parents to spare enough with their children when they have to work all day. In China, many parents also have many things to do after work. I think it is not fear compared to the upper class. At least, they do not worry about the daily cost or one of the parents can stay at home with children. When I was in middle school, some of my friends was becoming "bad" students at that time because of lacking the concern from their parents.

Roseanne

The TV-series "Roseanne" is able to be funny about something actually very sad! That was my first impression after I watched the pilot episode of Roseanne in class today. A mother who is unsatisfied with her whole life and who is unable to spend time with her children because she has to work, solves her problems with black humor. To prove that you just have to have a look at the wishes she wants: She says that she would wish to have children who do not answer. She is married to a husband who is a lazy bum and who says that he would have liked to marry someone different. Roseanne has to do everything on her own but the problem of that is that she is not able to do it well. An example for that would be the fact that she buys the a blue rucksack instead of a red one for her daughter and that she lets the cornflakes just fall on the table instead of in the pan. I think she would need the help of her husband. One of her daughters has problems in school and is not able to solve the problem with the teacher on the one side and with her daughter on the other. I think these series were so successful because they actually describe the average American household and many Americans could identify with her problems and how she deals with them. It also shines a light on strong women and on a feministic society. If you have a look at the dialogue in the middle of the episode between her four colleagues that becomes quite clear.

Blog Post 6

Today in class we watched the first episode of the TV comedy "Roseanne". The show focuses on a working class family. Rosanne, who works in a factory, her husband Dan, a handyman, and their 3 children. This is different from most sitcoms because it focuses on a working class family, as opposed to a middle or upper class family. This means that the show most likely attracted a different audience than other sitcoms. Working class people could relate to the characters and find the humor in their situations. The husband and wife fought and argued a lot, which doesn't happen in most sitcoms, and suggests that this behavior is more common among the working class. They only stopped their fighting when their daughter hurt herself and they had to work together to help her, which shows that they have the same family values as everyone else. Being from an upper-middle class family, where my father works but my mother stays home, I found it sad when Rosanne told her daughters teacher that she has no free time to spend with her children. My mom was always around when I was growing up and I don't know how different my childhood would have been if she was working a full time job.

Blog5

At the end of my PSA, I proposed a research question. My primary source referred to a noble phenomenon in New York which to some degree critiques the Chinese government. But I did not notice one picture below my primary source: it is a poor child in China not in America. Although this blog reflects something indirectly, there are many people who dare to write some true things in blog. Unfortunately, some of them have been threatened by government secretly. Last month, one of my friends invited me to have dinner with his father who is a visiting scholar to America. He is a famous economics professor in China. He likes writing the truth on his blog about both the reality in China and other foreign country's culture. Surprisingly, he told us he was brought to a secret place by the people from government when he was in China. Some people talked with him and warn him to stop writing the articles, because they do not benefit China.Finally, my friend's father chose to live abroad because he could not continue to speak the truth in China.He must think about his family. We can not imagine how the pressure and threaten he has. I just feel very disappointed, because I can not tell what is the correct information and recognize we get from our daily media. Living in a life with lies，no wonder the low class people stay low all the time. High class people deprive the interests and rights from low class people. Maybe this happens in other countries as well. At least, I hope we can know the truth.

Blog Post 5

For some reason, whenever I think of poor people or the lower class, I always think of "The Gathering of the Juggalos". The Gathering of the Juggalos is a music festival put on by the rap-rock duo, Insane Clown Posse. To many, including myself, the group is a subject of ridicule and jokes. Their lyrics are usually violent, disgusting, and nonsensical, and they always paint their faces like clowns. Pictures of the Gathering on the internet almost always show people many would describe as "white trash" However, the group has a huge following of die hard fans, that call themselves Juggalos, and it seems like most fans are lower class. There may be a correlation between the lower class and violent music. It reminds me of the song we listened to and analyzed in class "16 tons" where the working class man in the song referred to his fists and implied that he was good at fighting. The working class may feel like they need some sort of upper hand on those higher up on the social ladder. It's interesting to think about that different social classes are that different that they listen to different types of music.

To globalization post

That post might have been provoking... I am looking forward to read your comments.

Blog 5 Globalization

I think the topic we had in class today was really interesting. Does the globalization cost jobs of first world countries? I would like to give my very personal opinion about that. I would say: "Yes, it does, but that's unfortunately part of the captalistic system that we have and want to keep." The only way out of that misery is creating a product that's better than a comparable product from outside. The only possible way to do that is actually investing money into a better school system. The American universities are known to be the best in the world but their high schools are in comparision to Germany an absolute scream and basically that's one of the problems (because not everyone can attend universities). If everyone had a better education they would all have better chances to get a good job and to speak for the product case the product would be better than a product from outside and so the consumers would buy that product. That's the essence of captitalism you have to better than your competitor and if you cannot be better be than them you have lost and you have to get out of the market, but that would not be a problem if the system of education would be better because then they would get other jobs. For example: An orange which is imported from Brasil is cheaper than one from Florida. If a farmer from Florida does not sell anything because the product from Brasil is as good as his but cheaper he has to get out of the market. That might sound really crucial but that's captalism and the only way to get out of that situation is a better EDUCATION.

post 4

I choose a blog created by a Chinese blogger. This blog was forwarded from one people to another people by almost one million times during few weeks. The blogger told us a story: New York is very cold in winter, and the snow is so heavy. But public elementary school is always having classes as usual. So some of the children’s parents asked the school why their children have to attend school during such cold days. The school said because a lot of the poor classes children can not possess heating and free lunch, and if they stayed at home they would bear the starvation and coldness. Then those parents said you can only told those poor children to attend school. School said: “no, we can't help children while their dignity will be trampled.” It is obvious that the story presents us two classes, the rich class and the poor class. Also it tell us the poor class children can not get a good living condition like the rich class children in winter. SΩo I can try to find more details about the living conditions of both poor class and rich class. Maybe I can study the social structures of China and America both the similar and different parts. And I need to figure out why the blogger is noticed by such many people in China and if Chinese schools have the similar policy. Also, why the blogger choose a phenomenon happened in American is another question can be researched. Besides, I think the blogger tried to reflect some common phenomenon about the class warfare between rich class and poor class and showed us some difference about social policy between two countries. Or the blogger wanted to criticize some Chinese public organization such as schools. So Do authors face restrictions that discourage them from writing about certain topics?

Post #4

The book Outcasts United by Warren St. John deals with lower class refugees from other countries who settle in the town of Clarkston, Georgia with a specific focus on a soccer team made of refugee boys. The things the soccer players deal with mirrors what the other refugees have to deal with in their everyday life. The refugees and the other residents of Clarkston are very different in ethnicity, language, customs, financial status, and social class and often have difficulty interacting with one another. In order to accurately talk about how this book makes an argument about class, I will need to look into the class structure of Clarkston and other details about the town. The book indicates that most residents of Clarkston were better off than the refugees, but it doesn’t indicate whether they are mostly middle class or upper class, or what races and ages it is mostly made up of. I also need to know things about the size, population, and culture of the town. This may help to reveal why Clarkston was such a popular place for refugees. It would be interesting to know how much the refugees’ financial status played into their treatment and how much was differences in ethnicity and language. Regardless of which plays a bigger part, the interactions between the refugees and other residents is still an example of social class warfare.

MaximilianMogg Blog#4

Calvin Klein “One”. At the beginning this commercial is actually not very tough to understand but if you think about that topic more and more you want to know other parts of that commercial. So for example: I would like to know what the company "Calvin Klein" made thinking about creating a unisex perfume. It's definitely interesting to go away from men's and women's perfume to a unisex perfume. Another thing I would love to know about is why they tried to sell at that time. And why was it so successful at that time? It’s still one of the most best sold perfumes that have ever been produced. Something made the audience feel connected to that product. Something made them feel identify with that product. It must have been a huge market analysis that Calvin Klein did. Another question that would interest me is: How does that perfume smell? Does it fit with the message? The good thing about commercials is that they are just released for one purpose: Sell the product. They are just pretending to have a political or social message. Actually, by implying a message they just aim for an audience which is wanted by the company. What could be also interesting is the price that the product was sold for and other media which they used for selling this product. Why was it rereleased? In which countries has it been sold? The last question would be interesting because it goes with the question for the audience.

Comment on Cindy's post

Hey Cindy, I think your primary source is very interesting, because it goes with our topic very well. I felt also deeply moved when I read the story of that source. The school decided definitely in the right way because nothing could be worse than letting poorer pupils feel inferior to the rich pupils. School and nearly every other community is based on the principle of mutual solidarity. So, everyone should be treated equally and should feel equally to everybody. If the "rich" children accept and understand that principle they would have learned a lot for their further lifes.

primary source

There is a piece of blog attracting my attention few days ago when I was browsing my blog. This is not a news announced by government or a part of those famous books. Instead, it is only a phenomenon in New York, and one blogger kept it down to show us through Internet. The content of this blog is: tell a story, New York is very cold in winter, and the snow is so heavy. But public elementary school is always having classes as usual. So some of the children’s parents asked the school why their children have to attend school during such cold days. The school said because a lot of the poor classes children can not possess heating and free lunch, and if they stayed at home they would bear the starvation and coldness. Then those parents said you can only told those poor children to attend school. School said: “no, we can't help children while their dignity will be trampled.” I am deeply moved by the school’s decision which make me think of the policy about wearing uniform when I was in middle school and high school.
That also a policy to protect those low-class children’s dignity. Although in school, there are upper class students, middle class students and low class students, they should be treated as the same. If the school only asked those poor students to have class, they would feel they are lower tho those rich students who can stay at home to enjoy their warm winter. They may think they are different or inferior to others. Besides, as we wear the same cloths in school, we do not need to worry about what cloths I should wear and feel uncomfortable when other rich students wear the luxury brand cloths.

Primary Sources

Source 1

Outcasts United by Warren St. John(published April 21, 2009) is a book about foreign refugees living in a small town in Georgia. Almost all of these refugees were very poor, and in a lower class than the other residents of the town. The book examines the interactions between the refugees and the other residents. Most of the time, the refugees get unfair treatment because they don’t speak proper English, don’t have money, or don’t know the American customs. For example, one refugee man was severely beaten by a police officer because he reached out to shake his hand, not knowing that he was not supposed to touch the officer.



Source 2

Source 2 is a photo advertisement for Levis jeans. It shows a woman wearing nothing but jeans walking through a grass field. It says “All I need is all I’ve got”. In the photo, all she has is her jeans. This shows that she is most likely working class and she is content with living a simple life. The advertisement appeals to the average, simple American, not the members of the upper-class. An upper-class person would not be satisfied with just a pair of jeans, they are used to a more lavish lifestyle in which they have many more posessions.

MaximilianMogg Blog#3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I_CyeNhUUU

“CK One”. This is an advertising short film for a special perfume by Calvin Klein. It was published in New York for the Spring/Summer Season 2009. The main purpose of this advertisement is to sell “CK One” perfume to a special audience. Calvin Klein uses not only a film in this advertisement to sell its product. Music and particularly the lyrics of the song by Jamie Burke are very important to create and convey its messages. So the advertisement is speaking to our visual and listening sense. The story of that film is that a guy with long black hair is starting to sing the song “We are one” and after a while a blond girl joins his song and it’s getting more and more young people singing that song. At the end of the 1:02 min long film there is a flacon of the product shown and a women’s voice says: “CK One. Calvin Klein. For all…forever.” To go over to the messages which are conveyed by Calvin Klein’s advertisement: the implicit message is the purpose to buy at least one of the flacons by Calvin Klein’s perfume “One” and the explicit messages are that we (which means all humans) are all the same, so that there are no differences between races, classes and genders and that we are all beautiful. So whether you are a woman or a man, whether you are black or white you can always wear that perfume because we are all the same and we are all beautiful.

Post #2

After reading Outcasts United, the book that all freshmen were required to read this year, I have become interested in migrant workers. It is very difficult for someone to live in a new country and learn a new language, let alone work at a new job. In the book, almost all of the immigrants were lower class, aside from one who had been living in America for a few years and started an insurance company. All worked for low pay, many for very long hours. Some were single parents and also had to take care of their children, resulting in very little time for rest or recreation. Personally, I cannot imagine a life like that. My father has always had a high-paying job, and has plenty of free time, while my mother has always stayed at home to take care of my younger sister and me. Although my father makes more money than the lower class immigrant workers, in some ways, they work just as hard. The big difference is education. Since my father grew up in America, and had the money to afford a college education. This says a lot about the gap in quality of education between the United States and some other countries. If Immigrants could afford to work shorter hours, they could take classes at night, at least in English, and be able to work a better job and improve their quality of life. However, since most are always working, they cannot become educated and they are stuck as a member of the lower class.

Group Blog Post Prompt #2

At the first glance of class warfare, I can almost come up with nothing. Like most international student from China, I have had a much better chance than others who will never have the chance to study abroad. Studying abroad means a lot of money which is difficult to be realized by those people in low wealth. But I think it does not means the students who can study abroad is in the upper class. And government should help those great students who want to study abroad but can not afford it. Everyone have the right to get the education he wants no matter he is poor or rich. Another thing similar to the education is health care. I was moved by American health service when I just came. People can be saved in the hospital even if they do not have enough money at that time. On the contrary, no doctor will treat the person who can not afford the medical fee. They called those people lower class. It is ridiculous to treat lives unequal. Besides, I can hardly agree with the policy that some places are not allowed those people so-called lower class entered in. Everyone should get the same respect and politeness. I feel there is no reason to look down on those "lower class" people, because there have been no upper and lower in my mind. If some people stray in the street, we should think of the government duty more instead of avoiding those poor people.

Group Blog Post Prompt #2 MaxMogg

Hey groupmembers, I already talked about my opinion about social classes on carmen (if you want to read that you just have to go on carmen.osu.edu and look for "First Day Writing"). Taking that little essay into consideration I never thought about typical social class structure. So I would say that my interests don't depend on the social class everybody expects. For example I am a fencer. I know that many people think that fencing is a "high class" sport, but It might be because of the amount of fencers that have a good family background is higher than, for example, soccer. But I love to play soccer as well as I love to fence. I would say that my personality is strong enough to escape from the peer presure that the society's places upon many people. I'll put the last sentence in easier words: You don't have to be a member of a Country Club, to be in a high social class! That's my very personal opinion. Do what you want, do what is the most fun for you! Don't think about society's opinion about it. That's a very important rule of a country which says that freedom is its most important value. But actually the American society as far as I know it doesn't really care about that value. The society thinks that a guy who works at McDonald's is not high-educated and/or has no wealthy family background. In most of the cases that might be right but there might also be exceptions. These exceptions actually just prove that you cannot base your life on prejudices. If the guys just reads comics that doesn't have to mean that he couldn't read Shakespear's Hamlet. Maybe he just loves to laugh about Mickey Mouse. I love to read Goethe for maybe once year as much as I love to read my magazines.

MaxMogg's

Hi,

My name is Maximilian Mogg. I am from Germany and arrived in Columbus last Monday (so I am not that used to the American system of studying yet). I am 19 years old and a Freshman. My hobbies are fencing, music, movies and my dog, which I had to leave in Germany. Sad, but true. Fencing is not only my hobby. As I am part of the Ohio State Fencing Team and part of the German national team, it’s kind of my job to be fencer. I mean training for about nearly 20 hours a week, makes me think so. I hope to have a great time in Columbus and in English 110.01.

Max

Cindy's

Hello, everyone. My name is Cindy. I am a transfer student from China. My major is logistics management. This is my third quarter in OSU. I like travelling, swimming and sleeping. Eating different food is my favorite. Although I choose business when I entered in University, my dream is becoming a doctor who caer’s life. As english is my second language, I have some troubles dealing with it. So I hope I can get a significant improvement after taking this class.

Caleb Williams

Goals - Although I would be very happy to earn an A, the main focus of the course is to improve my writing skills. I have not always been the strongest writer throughout school, and I know improving my writing will be very beneficial as I continue through classes at Ohio State, and my job after graduation. I am a business major and I understand that writing is very important in the business world.



Introduction - My name is Caleb Williams, I’m a freshman business major from Worthington, Ohio, about 15 minutes away from Ohio State. I came to Ohio State because I wanted to attend a large university and stay close to home. My interests are sports(especially soccer, football, and baseball), music, and video games. I’m a Columbus Crew season ticket holder and am very involved in a supporters’ group called Crew Union. I try to bring new people to games whenever I can to teach them about the sport and the MLS. I am also a huge fan of the Detroit Lions and Detroit Tigers, since my parents are both from Detroit.