TOW #31: Letter

After this month, you will never again pick up or even look at Eats, Shoots & Leaves. That's the good news. If you put effort into this class, your writing will drastically improve. That's also the good news. Most of the writing you do will be non-graded in-class essays. That's odd; it's almost as if this entire paragraph is good news. This class is not nearly as bad as the seniors would lead you to believe. While the work standards are high, the workload isn't heavy, and it's all helping you improve the quality of your writing. A packet here, a blog post there-- if you don't do the work that is expected of you, I have no sympathy.

Schedule meetings with Mr. Yost and Ms. Pronko when you need help. They're so generous with their availability that not utilizing them as a resource is almost insulting. I personally wish I had made more appointments, but I'm the type of person who is scared to let people read my rough drafts. Don't be me. Don't be a wimp. If you need help with a paper or a certain type of essay, ask Mr. Yost if he has time to look over it or help you practice. Consider this the push you need.

You are going to have failures. You will have big failures, and these you will fix. You will have small failures, and these you will blow out of proportion. Do the work, put the time in, take a deep breath, and you will be fine. Failures only make the successes more exciting.

Plus there's always toga day to look forward to.

Oh, and however "good" or "bad" you think you are at English, you're wrong. Really. Don't get discouraged; don't get cocky.

TOW #30: Documentary Continued

Jesus Camp, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, documents "Kids on Fire," a summer camp run by Evangelical pastor Becky Fischer to train children for the "army of God." In the film, radio show host Mike Papantonio criticizes Fischer for forcing militant religion onto children as young as six years old. To justify her actions, Fischer replies, "It's no wonder, with that kind of intense training and discipling, that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam. I wanna see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I wanna see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places, you know, because we have... excuse me, but we have the truth!" Although not argued by the filmmakers themselves, this claim is one of the main focuses of the film as it follows Fischer trying to make that dream a reality.

To begin, I'd first like to point out the fact that Fischer believes Israel is an Islamic nation. Such unintentional irony severely damages her ethos. In fact, it's almost funny, which is good since this is otherwise a distressing issue. Fischer doesn't even say she wants children to "be ready to lay down their lives," as if that's much better. According to this claim, Fischer wants to see young people "radically laying down their lives," implying that she believes there is currently a need for children to die in order to protect Christianity because it's "the truth," therefore justifying any form of violence used to "defend" it. I might be interested in exactly what plans she has for this hypothetical child army if it weren't such a terrifying, inhumane concept. Fischer reasons that Christians should be prepared to evenly match Muslim's actions, not even pausing to consider whether God would actually want adults to send children to die for Him. Children under twelve can't even be employed in the United States, let alone be sent into battle. In addition, the fact that Fischer associates Islam with evil and Middle Eastern nations with Islam reveals a generalizing, racist, dehumanizing view of those who live in the Middle East or are of Middle Eastern descent.

I am concerned that Fischer lectures for a living about a situation on which she is not competently educated. I am concerned that she sees Islam as the direct enemy of Christianity, and the Middle East as the breeding ground of Islam, and therefore of evil. I am concerned that she thinks Christians must militarize or let the Muslims win. I am concerned that she thinks there will soon come a time when her religion must be defended by force. I am concerned that she believes violence is God's intention for the human race.

I am deeply, genuinely concerned that a woman who works directly with children would like to see them die for her cause.

TOW #29: Documentary (Jesus Camp)

In 2006, filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing released Jesus Camp, a documentary about a summer camp called "Kids on Fire" that encourages Evangelical Christian children to become social, political, and potentially physical warriors of faith. Run by pastor Becky Fischer, "Kids on Fire" trains kids as young as six years old to be part of the "army of God" through purification, education, dedication, and sociopolitical activism. Little information is available online about the filmmakers, but it is evident that Grady is Jewish, that both directors have produced several documentaries on a wide variety of subjects, and that the two have worked together on multiple projects.

Grady and Ewing claim that the documentary "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view*," but the directors must have known that there would be strong backlash against both the film and the documented religious practices. Public reaction was so negative that Fischer shut down "Kids on Fire" just two months after Jesus Camp's release because of the criticism she received for "brainwashing" children. By using emotional content and including a "voice of reason", Grady and Ewing spoke from a neutral perspective but still managed to convey shock and horror to most audience members.

As a documentary about children and religion, Jesus Camp evokes a wide range of strong emotions. The filmmakers used this to their advantage by using their footage to further appeal to pathos. Although the documentary is about the camp as a whole, it focuses on the lives of three ten-year-old camp attendees to create a stronger personal connection. Once the audience begins to feel sympathy for these children, to filmmakers show them sobbing at camp because they're sinners and God cannot love sinners. These children are shown in intense prayer, sometimes speaking in tongues and falling to the ground. When prompted they exclaim that they would be proud to die for their religious beliefs, implying that "Kids on Fire" is creating dozens of willing martyrs. Showing such heartwrenching scenes allows Grady and Ewing to convey the intensity of the "Jesus Camp" while seemingly staying neutral.

Between segments, Jesus Camp cuts to footage of  Mike Papantonio, a radio host discussing why "Kids on Fire" is dangerous and immoral. Papantonio ostensibly presents a counterargument to the one demonstrated by Becky Fischer and the Jesus Camp community. In reality, the emotional nature of the film has already angered most audience members, and Papantonio is just there to articulate the problems that are upsetting them. Papantonio's purpose culminates with a radio interview with Fischer that directly challenges the ideas of the Evangelical leader. Papantonio, representing rational public opinion, opposes the entire idea of training children for the army of God, thus coloring the tone of the entire documentary. Although Grady and Ewing claim to present an unbiased perspective, Papantonio is the voice of the audience and thus the voice of the documentary as a whole.

*http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/40691698.html

TOW #28: TOW Review

Throughout the year, I believe my TOWs have been greatly increasing in quality and effectiveness.


http://nicolesapenglishblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/tow-3-article-fed-too-familiar-with.html

One of the first TOWs I ever wrote, my September 29 TOW about an article titled "Fed Too Familiar With Lost Labor Seeking New Messages for Policy" is a work of brilliance. I dedicate an entire paragraph to my reason for choosing the article and how well I believe the author achieved her purpose. My chosen rhetorical strategy is that the author "appeals to logos." I also use the phrase "I'm not sure if this next tool has a specific literary term," which I'm sure would have earned no less than a 5 on exam day.


http://nicolesapenglishblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/tow-11-article-catch-cold-go-to-prison.html

By December 1, my writing had significantly improved. To start, I don't dedicate a paragraph to my own reactions and thoughts about "Catch a Cold, Go to Prison: The Recidivism Debate." I identify two strategies (word usage and juxtaposition) and give each of them a well-developed paragraph, quoting the article in each one. However, I still have absolutely no semblance of a conclusion.


http://nicolesapenglishblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/tow-21-article-whats-point.html

Come March 9, I had again improved both the quality of my TOWs and the difficulty of my reading selections. I chose to read the article "Give the PAT the Boot" because it was about football and I knew next to nothing about football. I identified a single rhetorical strategy but thoroughly explained how it was used and what effect it had on the article. I then explained how the context of the article on the website also had an effect on the credibility of the article. I had much more of a conclusion than in the two previously mentioned TOWs and believe that this one was the strongest of the three, showing an upward trend in my writing.

TOW #27: Article (Are Car Journalists "Bought?")

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/road-cars/opinions/are-car-journalists-bought/

Goal: Understand and write about a topic I try to avoid.

One of the most pressing issues in the media today is the question of journalistic integrity. This is especially true in the car industry, where most of the reviews are positive and companies pay for writers to attend their conventions. Do car reviewers really mean what they say, or are their eyes clouded by dollar signs? In Andrew Frankel's Motor Sport article "Are Car Journalists 'Bought?'", he uses anecdotes and lists to prove that the best motoring journalists say what they really think about cars.

Frankel, a "senior contributing writer" at Motor Sport magazine, introduces the topic of journalistic integrity using an anecdote about a car convention he recently attended. While at the Tokyo Motorshow, Frankel explained to a friend that Honda paid for his plane ticket and hotel room, to which the friend replied, "In exchange for which you write nice things about their cars?" Frankel was not surprised to hear this question, but it made him think. The author uses this anecdote to introduce a common misconception in a way that makes the misconception understandable. He gives the reader the same evidence that his friend had to show why it is conceivable that many people may believe there's a cozy relationship between car makers and car writers. Once this is set up, he can begin to disprove it.

Frankel lists reasons why there might be more positive car reviews than negative, and why car makers care enough to fly writers out to their conventions if there's no guaranteed profit. First, he says, motor journalists quite simply love cars, and would therefore prefer to write positive reviews because they want to believe cars are good. "Secondly," he writes, "cars are still getting better and at an astonishing rate, which is not something I think you can say about watches, films or, in my experience, even dishwashers." Because of this improvement, there is usually something new and good to be written about a car that could not have been written five years ago. He goes on to list other reason why there seems to be a disproportionate number of positive car reviews. The effect of this list is that the misconception is disproven in several different, unrelated ways, leaving it well and truly dead.

TOW #26: Visual Text (Fire!)

Goal: Less claim, more devices

A man called Hysteria, holding a bucket of water, rushes up a ladder while yelling, "Fire!" to quench the flames of the Statue of Liberty's torch. Herbert Block's "Fire!" was first published in the Washington Post on June 17, 1949. Block, commonly known as Herblock, was an American political cartoonist active from 1929 to 2001. His drawings often commented on foreign and domestic affairs from a liberal perspective, as demonstrated by this criticism of the xenophobia and communist hysteria beginning in post-WWII America. In "Fire," Block relies mainly on cultural memory to argue that America's anti-communist witch hunts were exaggerated to a fundamentally un-American level.

America has always been particular about its patriotism. There are certain phrases that can rile up a crowd--just chanting "USA," for example, is usually effective--but our most significant symbols are usually images like the American flag or the Liberty Bell. By incorporating the Statue of Liberty into is political cartoon, Block is directly attacking the symbol that America holds so dear. However, Block is not the one with the water bucket. It's Hysteria, meant to represent the sociopolitical panic caused by the fear of spreading communism, who is about the put out the eternal fire of liberty. Block juxtaposes this American idealism with reality to show the hypocrisy in defeating liberty for the sake of protecting it.

Although we today objectively know that this cartoon is accurate, Block's audience in the 1940's and 50's either already agreed with him or was too committed to the very conformist culture that Block is protesting to appreciate or be swayed by the cartoon. In fact, people probably began to suspect that Block was a communist in hiding. It was a bad time for political cartoons, but Block's reach into cultural memory made this one seemingly effective.

IRB Post #4: Tuesdays with Morrie

A man sees his former college professor on an episode of Nightline and is reminded of his promise to keep in touch. He flies out to see his ALS-stricken professor and is so touched that they have weekly meetings. This is the premise of Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie, an account of the weekly meetings where they discuss love, life, and death.

Although it is a memoir like I Am Malala, this one promises to be more of an emotional narrative than a collection of facts and events. I look forward to reading a book with a little more heart.