FINAL:

Katie Mulville

WRA 140 Section 011

Final Blog Assignment

April 17, 2011

I Blog, Therefore I Am

As a kid learning to write, you are constantly pounded with the concept of writing formally. As I was taught to write throughout my K-12 years, the idea of writing in a blog as a homework assignment was inconceivable. You can’t write a blog for a school assignment, just too informal. Yet, here I am, writing a blog for a college English class as part of my final grade. I’ve only made a dozen or more blog posts but I feel that I have expressed myself more in those twelve posts than I could have in twenty formal essays. What is this new form of writing known as blogging?

It’s a four-letter word: B…L…O…G… BLOG. The word “blog” was added to the English dictionary only five short years ago. It’s a relatively new term defined as, “a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections and comments (Merriam-Webster),” but it means much more than that. It’s more like an online diary where people can post to the world how they view, feel, and believe about a particular topic. It’s much stronger than that old diary you stick under your bed or hidden in your underwear drawer because its put out there for the entire world to share, read, and comment on. “Blogging”, otherwise known as “making frequent blog posts”, has become one of the most recent trends in American life, soon to be replaced by another, cool, trendy, online fad. But for now, blogging is it. You blog, therefore you are.

Contradicting to the style of writing bloggers use— which is normally very informal text, as if you were speaking to another person not the paper— there is the writing one does in school. When writing papers in a school setting, the student’s paper usually has audience of… well… the teacher and that’s about it. If the student if writing a paper, knowing its for the teacher and only the teacher to read, their tone is often formal and lacks opinion and voice due to the paper’s slim audience. Teachers may even try to switch things up by making students do in-class journaling where the students take the first few minutes of class to write down their feelings about the day. But once again, only the teachers eyes will be seeing and, more importantly, grading the journal. Students will once again, not fully express their views and opinions because they are trying to please the teacher, writing like, they believe, the teacher would like. Giving students the opportunity to blog means they will finally have the chance to write things they and their fellow peers care about and even give them the break to read their classmates blogs to see what their views and feelings are. Allowing kids to read other student’s blogs will even help the student grow and develop themselves as a writer. Most kids hate to write and what better way to get them to than putting together the two things they love: technology and the social media.

The discovery channel recently published an article about blogging being good for a student’s health. “Blogging can help students feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face (Ryan).” It’s a win-win situation: teachers get the results and the students get to do something the actually enjoy.

            With any other online or computer technology, there is always the issue of availability of the technology. Do all students have access to a computer? If not, are there computers available in the school for all students to use. School districts, such as Detroit Public Schools, which could potentially benefit from blog writing, just doesn’t have the resources available for students to take advantage of. Schools like this will have to resort to old fashioned in class journaling.

            Its not fair to say that all classroom writing should be done via blogging but by replacing some of the traditional classroom composition work students may start to enjoy the writing they do in English class and teacher will begin to enjoy teaching it again. It’s a simply four-letter word, changing classroom all across the country: blog. Blogging used in classroom helps kids express themselves in a more free and open environment. Blogging may only be a trend of the present, but its changing the way students write. I blog, therefore I am. (Ryan) (Blog)

Works Cited: 

Blog. 17 April 2011 <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blog>.

Ryan, Claudine. Blogging's Good For Your Health . 3 March 2008. 17 April 2011 <http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/03/blogging-social-health.html>.

Women in the News

Last night I read the reading assignment "You've Come Along Way Baby" pages 233-250 and I shed some light for me on a topic I never really thought about: Women in the news. 
The section mainly talked about how women reporters are never the main anchor but rather the co-host or co-anchor. For women in news they MUST have the looks which men don't necessarily need as much as women in the field. 
The chapter spoke a lot about Katie Couric and her new anchor job at CBS. When Katie Couric came to CBS in 2006 she brought with her the notoriety and success she had achieved at NBC’s Today Show. She inherited a news broadcast that was the 3^rd  highest rated among the network news, a shadow of its formerly powerful self in the 60’s and 70’s when Walter Cronkite, an American icon, was the anchor. But according to the book, it was a disappointment. Many say Couric was brought to CBS to attract younger viewers and they hoped to achieve that by having a women at the anchor: something which had NEVER been done before. Since then Katie has decided to step down from CBS and start her own day time take show.


We are in the final days of Katie Couric as the anchor of the 3^rd place CBS Evening News. Her departure is not fully set yet, so it’s not a total certainty, merely a virtual one. What is certain is that her contract ends in June and CBS will surely not renew it at the current rate of compensation which is reported to be $15 million annually.


What’s next for Couric? The future is unclear, although she is reportedly considering creating her own syndicated talk show.  Rumor is that it may include her former co-host Matt Lauer, whose NBC Today contract runs through 2012. What is clear is that network TV news is still having trouble making women its main anchor. I admire Katie Couric and in my eyes she is a symbol for women everywhere to never give up on your dreams.


For more information about Katie and her departure from CBS check out this site: http://www.mayoseitzmediamonitor.com/katie-courics-departure-from-the-cbs-evening-news/




-Katie M!

What's Wrong With Women?

I read an article online recently and it totally reminded me of what we discussed in class today. It goes right along with "You've Come alone Way Baby," pages 215-230.


Glamour this month: 11 Sex Moves Men Wish We'd Try; Plus: 100 Other Vital Man-Facts Worth Knowing. A Toned Body--By Tonight. You Can Do Anything! Extreme Dos & Don'ts: The Hair, the Thongs, the Cleavage--We Couldn't Make This Stuff Up. Pages and Pages of Hair Magic! All the Tricks and Styles You Need for Total Hair Happiness.


The portrait of American women painted by their magazines is devastating. There are two themes, both them explored with an unbelievably repetitive total puerility that is well crystallized in the phrase "total hair happiness": sex and appearance, which, in combination, seem to constitute both self-esteem and (thus) the meaning of life. It's difficult for a fellow not to notice - perhaps with a certain pleasure - that these interests converge on us: understanding men, pleasing men, manipulating men, showing men your breasts.


Women's magazines are, in short, monthly guidebooks adding up to thousands of glossy pages on how to achieve a chirpy, kicky subordination to men. They're actually not too far from Slave: How to Grin, Shuck, Jive, and Pick Cotton. 117 Things Massa Really Wants. The Right Body for Grinding Physical Labor - By This Afternoon!


Marie Claire: Make the Most of Your Shape with Best Haircut for Your Figure. 7 Silly Sex Tricks That Really Work. Would You Marry for Money? Four Designer Looks for Christina Aguilera. Get Beautiful Skin - Instantly. How Much Time Do You Really Spend Thinking About Your Body?


If the most superficial appearance was the deepest insight, Marie Claire would be profound. If the deepest human values were dissimulation, exhibitionism, and anxiety, then Marie Claire would be the Tao Te Ching, the Sermon on the Mount, the Dialogues of Plato, and it would show that American women are strong, intelligent, and wise. As thing are, it shows something . . . else.


Of course, not all American women read such magazines, and even those who do don't necessarily agree with the values deployed there. They are often interpreted by their readers with a touch of irony. And perhaps my personal condescension has something to do with the misogyny that is my heritage as a man as well as my personal burden. True, true.


But I don't think you can walk around town or go to a party and seriously deny that Glamour shows something about who a lot of women are and aspire to be. The people who create these magazines (mostly women) are selling them by giving women what they want, and they've tried other approaches with less success. You can't buy and read such magazines in preference to whatever else you might buy and read and then tell me that it means absolutely nothing about who you are.


Cosmo: Get Him Hot: 8 Naughty Dares to Try Tonight. Morning-After Beauty: It Doesn't Get Any Sexier That This! His Four Secret Sexual Needs. You, You, You!


I'm not really sure what happened to feminism. But at a gander it looks to me like patriarchy won, and that all segments of our society are reasonably satisfied with that result. Perhaps I will be accused of blaming the victim. But you'll never be free if what you most deeply desire is to submit. And there's no point in being free if there's nothing of enduring value that you know or seek.
Twist: He Doesn't Know You Exist? That's Because You Haven't Tried This Yet. Self: Get a WOW Body in 31 Days. 9 Teen Vogue: Update Your Face. Jane: The Wildest Sex Move Ever, and it's Klutzproof. Cosmo Girl: Make Your Guy Want to Commit, Now. Latina: La Verdad About Why He Isn't Calling.


One thing we could say by way of exculpation is that the American magazine industry, like American politics, is diseased by formula and a global failure of courage and creativity. And popular magazines practice a sort of least-common-denominator moronism that is common to all American mass-media, from major-label pop music to network television to, um, men's magazines. In fact, magazines such as Maxim are essentially Cosmo for men, and display no deeper set of truths. But the theme of what's wrong with men, though rich, must be left for another occasion.


Woman, what's wrong with you?


Article found at:
http://www.crispinsartwell.com/women.htm

SIN CITY or HOOKER HOUSE?

I am writing this blog from LAS VEGAS, Nevada! Me and my family are currently visiting family in Las Vegas and tonight is my last night here. Its been a great trip. I got to see my cousins who I very much needed to spend some family time with. We spent 4 night in New York, New York Hotel on the strip of Las Vegas Blvd., saw the Hoover Dam, The Grand Canyon, and of course, much exploitation of women! I've never been to Vegas, I know its called "SIN CITY" but I never expected this. On the corner of EVERY street stand old creepy men (even some old women) handing our nude "business cards" of their women. I talked with my cousins more about the problem and they discussed me with a story that was recently in the news about 400 underage kids. In one month the police found 400 CHILDREN under the power of their "pimps" basically being used as Sex Slaves. The children where beaten and abused so much they were even brainwashed the think they couldn't escape their captives.
Here me and my family were enjoying ourselves in the city of sin and we never realized the problems this city has with prostitution. It disgusted me. The men literally shoved the "business cards" into my hands. I just couldn't believe discrimination like this could happen in America.
Women here are literally views as pieces of meat in this city.
Below is an actual photo I took on my Iphone of the trucks that pass by the strip EVERY 5 MINUTES!!!!

What are your thoughts about this problem? Do you think there is a problem? or is this just SIN CITY and its fine? comment!

-Kate M! :)