In Class: Free Write

For this free write I think i will start off with how my Thanksgiving went. Because my family is in California I was not able to celebrate the holiday with them. Prices for an airline ticket were well over 500 dollars and since I'll be home in December I decided to stay in Fort Worth. Since everyone else at the school had decided to leave, it was a very boring Thanksgiving. I did a lot of tv watching, internet surfing, and running. I think this was the first time in a while when I was glad Monday was here.

Now that school's back in session its time to get focused and finish up the semester. Once that is done, I will be moving back home to California and leaving Texas for good. I plan on going to San Diego state, a school that costs a fraction of TCU's tuition and is much better in almost every way.

Unit 3 Proposal

The issue that we have chosen for this project is publishing unnecessary and inappropriate details about one’s personal life through facebook. Overuse of facebook has many negative effects on incoming college freshman which include being a distraction to academics among other things. Regarding this topic, we think that incoming freshman to TCU should be advised to limit what they share publicly on their facebook. Additionally, they need to be made aware that information they believed to be private can be seen by anyone, including their future professors and employers.

Our target audience for this particular issue is incoming TCU freshman, with facebook accounts, that have just graduated from high school. Our audience will be made up of both males and females ranging in age from seventeen to eighteen. Focusing in on TCU freshman, most of the audience members will be from middle to upper class families.

Our first medium will be an article in the Skiff discussing the dangers of facebook to incoming freshman and advice from more experienced, older students. Second, we are going to create a flier which would be handed out during new student orientation. The flier will include a general example of what an inappropriate facebook page looks like for incoming freshman. For our final medium for this argument, we decided to have a short video that could be shown to incoming freshmen during orientation as a warning about overusing Facebook.

In Class: Last night's reading

In last night's reading, I read about how visual arguments can be made. The reading talked mostly about advertisements and how they capture peoples' attention. Visuals made with color for example, can appeal to emotion (the color red tends to draw people to it). Different types of visuals have different effects. In the book, the same argument was made in three different ways, one was textual, one had graphics, and one was a list. It showed how each one has strengths. The reading also described how pie charts and graphs are useful when making arguments. People like to look at them over normal text and they can keep a reader entertained.
For this project, this reading was very helpful. It showed lots of examples of things that we will probably be doing in our arguments about facebook.

In Class: Reading Assignment

In last nights reading I learned different ways to make any argument. There are plenty of options to choose from, for example, you can use a metaphor, simile, and others to make your point. From what I understood, the reading from last night focused mainly on how to connect with your audience and how not to alienate them with certain language. It talked about when to be formal and when to use humor to make your point. The book used examples to show which one is appropriate for different situations. Other things that I got out of last night's reading was the names people are given. For example, his airness.

Job Title

For Unit 3, my group and I decided that I would take the role of writing and editing. I believe my official title was something like "The Mark Twain of Group Awesomeness." However strange my title may be, I am mostly responsible for the bulk of the writing that will occur for this project and will help in editing as well. I took up this role because I am not the most creative person and I feel that I can write and edit well enough. Being in charge of some of the writing will help my group function more efficiently because people skilled at creative aspects of the project will not have to worry about what they need to write. Although we do not know our topic yet, I think I would also like to be in charge of part of the visual argument that my group makes. I feel that I can put together a good appeal to pathos with attention grabbing pictures and videos.

My other group members are Ashley Freel Kelly Putterman, and Alan Townsend. Ashley is our creative thinker, Kelly is our note taker and Alan's job has yet to be decided. As we choose our topic, I am sure that we will each pick up other jobs that coincide with out subject.

In Class: An Ideal Group Situation

In the past, I haven't always had the best groups to work with. Usually, there is at least one person who doesn't pull their weight, and almost always, not everyone sees eye to eye. Thinking of an ideal group then, I would want everyone to be excited and motivated about the topic so we could work as a cohesive unit. I would be nice if everyone knew their roles, doing things that are their strengths. An ideal group would have each person who knows how to write, and formulate a good argument (this never happens).