Week 15-Posting 15

This semester of English has probably been the most beneficial to me than any of my other English classes.  I have learned how to write in different styles and methods as well as learned new terms that I had never known about such as focal point and what a ritual is in a field sight.  The toughest part of writing for me has always been the researching process for a paper.  I would always have trouble finding sources that make no sense to my particular topic and would have trouble following the source to find the information.  I feel this is the process that I have most improved on this semester.  I enjoyed doing interviews and making surveys for the mini ethnography as well as having a library day in class to learn how to find sources in the humongous university library.  It wasn't just all about the books and the website sources.  We were able to interact with real people and get real reactions the research we were conducting.  The main thing that I feel I still struggle with in my writing process is depth or explaining things in much more description.  I have always been the person to be a bit too broad with my writing and not describe things thoroughly, thus making the reader get lost eventually.  I am really trying to work on this with my mini ethnography.  I have a couple suggestions for how the class could be conducted more efficiently in the future.  First, I think working with and learning about the annotated bibliography more would come as a big help.  I felt like the due date for this paper was a little soon and I know we had talked about it in class, but it was still one of the more hard assignments I had done.  I was not able to be descriptive enough because I felt like I was just repeating myself in the paper.  Perhaps a conference for each paper could be a suggestion as well.  That way everybody can take their drafts and present them in front of you (Professor DiSarro) and get verbal suggestions instead of the written comments because some people are just verbal learners and need to be told what it is that you're looking for in their paper to make improvement.  Overall, I feel like this has been a very educational and beneficial semester of English.  I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if I had a different professor.  Keep up the great work Professor DiSarro. 

Week 11-Posting 11 GET OUTA JAIL FREE

I have always been one to write creatively.  No matter what the assignment or piece of work that I decided to do for fun is I always have to have a little portion of it come from my mind.  That is why research papers and I do not always get along.  My writing process was somewhat different before I started English 104.  Dr. DiSarro has made an improvement to my writing process because yes even though these blog postings might seem like a waste of time or an assignment that really gets in the way, I feel like they have actually helped me in the planning and observation process for my papers thus helping me to write a more structural paper.  None of the assignments in this class have I ever found very easy haha.  It has pretty much been a challenge for me the whole semester, but I like that because it keeps me focused and wanting to learn different styles as writing could quite possibly play a big role in my life.  I want to produce film and learn of every aspect of it.  This includes script writing.  I feel like English 104 has helped me to possibly get a head start in script writing because I know of different ways that I would want to plan out what I want to write therefore making it a stronger script. 

Week 14-Posting 14

I feel like the best piece of writing that I have done this year was the literature review/ Research Proposal.  I liked doing this because to me it was almost like writing a miniature version of the mini ethnography, the assignment that we are trying to get to all year.  Also I feel as if it allowed me to express more of my opinions as well as my research too instead of just one or the other.  I felt more comfortable because I thought it gave me more of a chance to be creative instead of having to follow absolutely specific guidelines.

Week 13-Posting 13

Joining the fieldsite that I am researching, the fitness room, was the best decision I have ever made.  It wasn't even a phase in my mind to be an insider to this subculture until my best friend had died at the age of 16 of a heart attack from unhealthy lifestyles.  It's pretty sad that it took me to lose a very good friend in order to change my life around, but I feel that it has been a tribute that I'm making to him.  For other outsiders to this subculture, some of them haven't exactly gone through what I have to want to join this field.  Many people are either scared or too intimidated to join the fitness room.  "Stereotypes are a nightmare," said Ball State University sophomore Stu Purcell. "I hear about how if you don't know how to do a lift or even give the slightest hint of unsureness, you will be made fun of."  Mr. Purcell is not the only person who feels this way. There are many people who think that there is a high possibility if there self-esteem being ruined.  I, personally, could care less, but I wanted to observe the fitness room while working out to see if I could tell the difference between the insiders and the outsiders.  I asked the employees of the fitness room if I could sit and take observations.  They gave me permission to do so.  Sitting in a chair in the back of the fitness room, with a pad of paper and a pen, I watched as each person came into the fitness room.  I watched the way they looked around the room, whether they had a specific ritual, if they knew where everything was located without the look of unsureness, whether they were with other people or just by themselves.  I obtained many different observations.  This was definitely a successful experiment.

Week 12-Posting 12

I believe rhetoric is the use of persuasion.  I think the way we act plays a great role in the usage of rhetoric and also the way we speak.  When we use rhetoric in speaking, we are getting our point across and using a great form of persuasion.  I hear the word rhetoric in American politics quite often.  On stations such as CNN and FOX News, they are constantly using rhetoric to persuade the people whether the president is doing his job well or if he's not.  It can be used in both a negative and positive context. It can be used negatively to bring attention to people for them to think it's negative and same with the positive context.  I can use rhetoric to persuade people to use the fitness room and give points about why it is a great place to meet people.  

What is writing?

I believe that writing is a way of expressing, informing, persuading, or entertaining an audience with ideas and themes.  

Family Background

My family history goes pretty far back.  My great grandfather Marcus Christopher played for the Rochester Jeffersons, a sandlot football team back in 1917 who was actually owned by a guy named Leo Lyons, one of the first fathers to create the nfl.  In about the early 1930's, my great grandfather had changed his last name to Kitt because the last name Christopher is the English name of Kitt and he was the last Christopher in the family tree to had been alive at that time, losing all his brothers, sisters, mom and dad, as well as close relatives to old age and disease.  Starting the new last name of Kitt, he married a woman and gave birth to my grandpa as well as 7 other siblings to her.  Their family had started a tradition of playing a game of football every thanksgiving with the local neighbors.  Ever since then, even though we have many cousins and siblings to play a football game with, we still go out and ask the neighbors to play.  My grandfather is now passed away dying at the age of 98.