Weekly Reflections

I enjoyed watching this video because it was not only informative, but it was entertaining. Celeste Headlee gave ten points on how to have a better conversation and how people do the opposite of the points she gave whether we want to admit it or not. Two points that stuck out to me was do not multitask and be brief. I have a horrible habit of letting my mind run wild all the time, even when I am sleeping. My mom could be telling me about her promotion she got at work and I will be thinking about what I want to eat for dinner later. And doing that, it leaves me daydreaming and it will show all over my face that I am doing so, and so then the person I am talking to thinks I am not listening. I am listening, just not all the way. And with my mind running wild, I tend to make a conversation that could have really ended in five minutes and make it last for 15 because I would start getting off track. Watching this video is making me take in consideration what I am doing in a conversation, so I can have a productive one.

1. I give the first student an A letter grade. They do well in getting their points across with the topic they chose. They mention how others might feel about Anonymous, but they do not go into much detail about it. They add a good comparison to her argument, but it was a little lengthy. However, they did not use a simple generic voice.

2. I give the second student an A letter grade. They have a great hook and build up to their thesis. They clearly state a counterargument about their topic of activists. They did not stray from their topic, and brought up good points throughout the paper. They also had a great conclusion that summed up everything nicely.

 

I chose this social media post to highlight a public figure’s honest review on the Black Lives Matter movement. Sometimes you can differentiate between a public figure’s view on this topic by what they post on social media and the caption they use. You ask yourself questions like: Is this to show concern? Do they actually care? Are they just posting a black screen? Was this a management move? I, therefore, wanted to analyze Harry Styles’s post on the matter. 

Harry Styles is a part of one of the most influential boy bands in the world, One Direction. He has his own solo platform and had multiple songs stay high in the charts according to Billboard Music, including his hit song “Watermelon Sugar”. Being the huge star that he is, he has quite the fanbase and followers who admire him; thus, him having 31.6 million followers on Instagram and 35.4 million followers on Twitter. With a movement like Black Lives Matter, what many black people would like is for someone of such a popular following to acknowledge what is going on and support the cause. 

With Harry Styles’s Instagram post, he used appeals such as logos, pathos, and ethos. The purpose of this post, I believe, was not to only show he supports the cause, but to educate his followers that do not know the true purpose of Black Lives Matter. He starts off his post saying how he does everything without fear because he has white privilege. When he starts off acknowledging what he has, it made the post more comforting. He knows that he is privileged and he owns up to it. This goes to him using logos as an appeal because he is stating facts about himself: he is a white man from the U.K. The entirety of the post revolves around the appeal of pathos. However, the ending of the post is what really appeals to emotions. He strategically put the following in all caps: “LISTEN, READ, SHARE, DONATE and VOTE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. BLACK LIVES MATTER.” He puts emphasis on how important educating yourself is, how the situation has got completely out of hand, and ends with the strong statement of Back Lives Matter. Also, what I have noticed is when he talks about educating yourself, he uses a commanding tone almost like a requirement. He applies ethos and his credibility simply using his platform. He knows he has a lot of followers and he uses that to his advantage.  

1. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stresses are traumas children endure and suffer through even into adulthood. I compare it to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Examples could be: physical, mental, verbal, or emotional abuse, the loss of a parent, a car accident, a bully, racism.

2. Adversities like poverty, racism, and violence could impact a child’s development mentally. They could grow up thinking that it is all they deserve, and start to settle into those adversities. Meaning that if a child grows up in poverty, all they are going to acquire is poverty life, and start to think they cannot go further than poverty life.

3. ACEs can affect literacy because the trauma children endure can affect their academic performance in school. Since ACEs heavily impact a child’s life, they can affect brain development like I said before. Studies show that children who endure these traumas has a poor performance in school. Violence can extremely affect the academic development and performance in a child, because all the child knows and think of is the abuse they receive.

1. Her passion for children’s health is what I believed heavily impacted the Flint community. The lead in the water could have effected the children of Flint’s cognitive and behavioral problems. She had to go and find undeniable proof, proof that even the government cannot brush aside or call it a hoax, to get Flint to get back to receiving clean and healthy water.

2. What I make people aware of  is African American people in the health system. I do not just mean how they are treated differently when it comes to medical attention, but the diseases they have compared to others. For example, my mother has sickle cell anemia; it is actually nicknamed the “brown skin disease” because only people of color can get this chronic illness. Just from what I have witnessed myself being in the hospital with my mom, if you put a sickle cell patient and a flu patient on the same floor, doctors and nurses would give the flu patient whatever medication they need, but with a sickle cell patient, they would reduce the amount of pain medications for them, and if they ask for more, they are considered drug seeking. I just think it is important that people, especially people of color, can see the difference of treatment between patients. Most people do not know that sickle cell month is actually in September. Why? People are not aware about sickle cell anemia the way they should be.

3. What I can do is do my part. I always take care of the Earth any way that I can when it comes to the environment. I pick up after myself, pick up an trash that I see on the ground, and with my church, once a week throughout the entire summer, we go around with our sticks, gloves, and trash bags and find any thing trash related on the ground in our area and pick it up to either put in the trash or recycle.

After reading this twitter thread, I immediately went back to when I was younger and wished I was a different race. I went to a predominately white school, and I mostly saw white kids who hung out with other white kids. I thought back then  “what if I was white?” Even in high school, the black kids did not want to hang out with me, because I acted too white; I was too bourgie. When I drew pictures of myself, I used a lighter shade of brown, gave myself straight hair, and a “white” name. I thought it was the only way to fit in. But as I grew older, I really appreciated my race. When movies like Black Panther and Black is King came out, I saw how beautiful, powerful, and blessed us black people are. There are going to be moments where I think “would my life be easier if I was white”, but I could not be more proud to be black.

Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page	Inviting the Mother Tongue: Beyond “Mistakes,” “Bad English,” and “Wrong Language”   Elbow, Peter. “Inviting the Mother Tongue: Beyond “Mistakes,” “Bad English,” and “Wrong Language”. Article. 359-365. Print.
Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words	This is article is about how students feel they have to conform to Standard Written English (SWE) in order to achieve in their writing class even though it is not their mother tongue. I was really into reading this article, because it was honestly reading every thought I had in my head when it came to writing. I do not have “perfect English”, and I remember from African-American people I would receive the comment: “I speak well for a black girl”.  I would also receive comments like: “You go to a predominately white school; you have to speak like them.” Comments like this or critiques from your English really tears down your self-confidence as far as your language. It makes you feel like you are stupid if you do not speak “correct” English.
Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author.	Acquiesce- “to give in”
How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?	This article connects to my own research. I have seen articles of scholarship winners and their essays and compared them to black applicants of the scholarship. The essay of the winner sounds more politically correct, has correct grammar, and sounds more polished. More benefits are given to those who sound “educated” or who follows SWE.
Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion.	Has your mother tongue taken away benefits and opportunities for you?

A piece of advice I would prove useful is to ask questions. It is okay to ask a million questions until you understand the material you’re given. I understand that as young adults we have huge egos and pride, and we do not have to ask for help. But it is okay to ask for help, because if you don’t, you’ll be stuck behind. Which leads me to my next piece of advice which is to go at your own pace. I believe a pro of online courses is that you are not pressured to “keep up with the class” or have a feeling you are three steps behind everyone else. You are able to go at your own pace so you can really grasp the concept of the material.

I am most excited to meet new people. From where I am from, everyone is generally the same or act the same way, so I am excited to just meet different people. I am least excited about online courses just because I am a visual learner. However, I took online courses before, so I can adapt to this and still come out on top.

Advice I would give to seniors is that senior-itis is a real thing. It is very easy to get distracted during this time, because you are on a high for graduation and prom and any other senior perks. But it is very important to stay focused while still enjoying your senior year otherwise you will get behind.

Weekly Reflections are longer, more thoughtful posts that you will complete about every week of the semester. Topics for these posts will vary by instructor, but they will usually be completed outside of class and have a specific word-count requirement.