The topic I will am interested in for my Unit 2 task will be on Cultural Appropriation and how it is affecting the fashion, and entertainment industry. All that has been going on in America where people feel that it is fine to be culturally insensitive I feel that people need awareness. This has my full attention and many need to become aware on what is right and wrong when people are stealing or borrowing culture.  Ito inform want to touch basis on what is Cultural Appropriation, who does it affect and how offensive it is to steal and borrow culture. I want this paper to be both informative and educational.

There were several bad ideas mentioned in the composition, but all started when the general education shifted from exclusivity to inclusivity. With this sudden change, the core disciplines will focus on agriculture and technology, getting rid of traditional academic learning. It is also mentioned that the lack of quality writing instruction has an impact to illiteracy, and it failed to meet the demands of the literacy instruction. However, the agency has already proposed a temporary solution to this. In the end, he concluded that there’s no such thing as literary crisis. Only, the complexity of writing and literacy continues as the world advances.

It is said that the sudden change of traditional ways of education has dimmed the light away from the previous core subjects including the ability to read and write. They greatly emphasized the importance of research and so the literacy crisis began. The author says the technology that we thought will save us from illiteracy is leading us to the demise of traditional writing of young writers.  More so, the inclusivity of general education has produced more varied students, which impacted the quality of literacy in the country.

The first and foremost reason I chose this article was the title as I wanted to know how America, being a superpower in the world can be affected by literacy.  A country’s welfare, economy, wealth, GDP is also sometimes dependent on the countries’ literacy rate.  I chose this article because I found it interesting to know that technology is affecting our style of writing. I always thought technology is a boon in this world as it helped people to be advanced, but by reading this article I felt the opposite and realized how technology is affecting us. I feel like we students come from different socio-economic backgrounds, so writing center in educational institutions should encourage students to reflect on the methods that allow them to write effectively. The writings should be collaborated with other students and tutors to share comments and strategies.

Part 2-
In the traditions we celebrate and in the cultural rituals that we grow up with sometimes making sense of it becomes an ignored processes but when you sit to think why certain things are the way they are, you realize how much is actually wrong or right with what you believe in.
In my essay about my discourse community I talked about the cultural practices that I have inherited I’ve the years and I have also talked about learning more while trying to teach someone else about my culture.
In the process I have learnt two things, one that there is top down power hierarchy in every ritual that is carried through which is generally the caste system, and it is something that I fortunately not been affected with all my life because I have fortunately grown up in a more developed part of India, however the second part of the problem is something that effect all discourse communities, large or small alike.
In religious practices, women are usually not considered as being important. In fact, most ritualistic traditions are performed by men and contain prayers that include men. Sometimes if you even come to question why women are just being ignored in a prayer or why certain traditions cannot be performed by women, you are simply ignored.
It is both a question and a struggle that I have had to live with for as long as I have tried to learn more about my own culture.
It comes as a riddle to me as to how the people of culture can worship a goddess and disregard in the women in their culture in the process of the worship.

I will be delving into detail about the role of women presently in ritualistic practices and how far we have progressed and what else we can do to take it a step further.

FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION SHOULD BE SKIPPED Paul G. Cook

The article that captured my attention was First-Year Composition should be skipped because I strongly believe that this should be a prerequisite before taking any intensive writing course. To read that this is even a thought is crazy, because people need a writing composition class to prepare and enhance your writing. I was fortunate to have an extensive writing class and a teacher who was also an English professor. She always made it her point that a writing course was essential before we began and course that required extensive research. Which to me makes no sense for state legislatures to try an advance a college education. As stated in the text “State legislatures and policy makers, in their efforts to make higher education faster and more flexible, are busy touting MOOCs (massive open online courses) and dual-enrollment programs that allow students to take FYC in high school as an alternative to the traditional two-semester, two-course sequence.” An exam can not determine or develops writing skills necessary for college success. I agree with author when she states that this idea must go away. I mean it makes no sense to try to do away with a major preparation for college readiness. It is crazy because High Schools blame Middle Schools for not preparing their students with the writing skills and Universities blame High Schools for student not being college ready. Everyone plays the blaming games instead of understanding that a Writing Composition class is an essential need and one must take it to measure student writing skills. I for one do understand how important it is  to take these courses because they prepare and give you the writing mechanics one needs for college success. Doing away with this class or teaching an online class is definitely  a bad idea because you need to take your time developing your writing skills. I do not agree with this because we need people graduating with writing abilities.

I chose “Rhetoric is Synonymous with Empty Speech” by Patricia Roberts-Miller. This article speaks to the idea that many consider rhetoric writing and speech to be untrustworthy. Roberts-Miller states, ” Rhetoric, to them, is something that hides the truth.” The author discusses that considering rhetoric as unreliable is a bad idea. Aristotle, a philosopher, was a teacher of rhetoric. The author describes Aristotle’s stance, “He described it as a discipline and a skill that enables you to see the available means of persuasion.” Interestingly, I believe that the author used rhetoric to convince the reader, or persuade them that it is a bad idea to believe that rhetoric hides the truth. Rhetoric should consider the opposite position of the argument. There are different ways to approach this strategy: a writer may try to persuade you that their argument is right by showing why the other is wrong. A writer may try to persuade you instead by showing the reasons they are right first, and then why the other side is wrong. Finally, the address to the other side can be a single sentence or clause. An example of this use of rhetoric was in one of John F. Kennedy’s speech, in which he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” The author concludes that, as expressed in JFK’s quote, “Rhetoric is a way of thinking. It is not just something added to a thought derived by other means.”

The reason why I chose this article is because in my own writing I try to include rhetoric. I wanted to see the author’s view on rhetoric writing, and I agreed that it can be used as a form of persuasion, rather than “hiding truth.” I’ve written proposals in which I use rhetoric to prove a point, and I briefly address why the counter-party is wrong, which allows me to prove why I’m right. I enjoyed reading this article.

For Unit 2, I will change my discourse community so that I can tackle some issues that are close to me. I want to tackle some of the issues introverts may come across, specifically in work-place settings. As a female introvert in a male-dominated field, it is sometimes very difficult for me to be taken seriously. My work ethic and capabilities make people respect me, but at the same time, being an introvert makes it more difficult to voice my opinions and actually be heard when I present an idea. This problem is not unique to me, though. Many introverts can relate to getting interrupted, exhausted from social interaction, and more challenges. I would like to adress these issues in Unit 2.

I picked the section “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers” from “Bad Ideas About Who Good Writers Are.”

The bad idea is that some people are just born good writers. Every good writer was not just born a good writer. There are writers that practiced and learned to become better writers. Just like with sports, not every athlete was always so good when they first started. Just like how athletes took time to practice in sports, writers can practice to improve and become better.

One of the many reasons that the author says believing some people are just born good writers is a bad idea is because “If a person thinks their writing ability is stuck in place, improvement is incredibly difficult…” If you are constantly telling yourself that you can’t do something, the chances of you actually achieving it is very low. I agree with the author when he says that good writers are not born, they are learned.

The title of the section is what brought me to choosing this piece. One way you can counter this bad idea that “some people are just born good writers” is that anyone including yourself can be a good writer with the right amount of practice. I believe that it is possible have something come to you naturally just like it is possible to become good at something. Anybody can become a good writer if they practiced and took the time to learn.

My topic choice is the challenges of entering a discourse community. In a way this is a continuation of my topic from Unit 1 because I am not switching discourse communities. I decided not to switch topics because the fitness community is something I feel familiarized to. I feel like the designated problem in my discourse community is important because entering and joining a discourse community can be difficult for some. Some people may feel lost or as if they don’t belong.

The reading I choose from “Bad Ideas from What Good Ideas is” is “Reading And Writing Are Not Connected”. The bad idea is the title of the chapter, reading and writing are not connected, throughout the reading, I understood how important reading and writing are connected because they both have the same functions. Writing has the function to use words, put ideas together and readings have the same function even though the ideas are already displayed, readers interact with those ideas using their own experience, imagination, and perspective. The author, Ellen C. Carillo says it’s a bad idea because “It is a bad idea to continue privileging writing at the expense of reading.” (pg38) Students that are in elementary school do not have an issue connecting reading and writing because the education system and teachers are simultaneously teaching both by reinforcing phonic skills and other ways to practice both reading and writing. However, it is an issue for students who are in college and universities because it privileges writing over reading more. I would understand why writing is more often privileged, it’s because If you learn to become a good writer and improve your writing you can have benefited from it, such as leading you to communicate better, raise you in your careers, or maybe writing your resume so well you can get a job that can be difficult to be hired. But what about reading? Reading is just as important as writing is, it also has its pros to help anyone in their future, not seeing reading as equally important as writing can cause students to struggle with interpretation, evaluation, and make comprehension.

The reason why I chose this piece is that I was hooked by the title wondering what the author had to say about “Read And Writing Are Not Connected”. In my opinion, I knew that both reading and writing are both equally important because I believe that what we already know helps us analyze the reading which helps us write down the information. So that means If we do not continue to read then our writing would be affected and vice versa.

Topic Choice

For the Unit 2 assignment, the topic I choose to talk about is fast fashion impacting the environment discourse community. My topic for the unit 1 assignment was the Foodie discourse community but I decided to change the topic because I didn’t think It was something important for me to spend time on researching, plus I did some light research but I didn’t find enough information to continue to talk about it throughout unit 2 assignment. The reason why I picked fast fashion and the environment discourse community is that, firstly, I am in a fashion major, I think it’s important to me to find out how fast fashion is harming our environment, secondly it’s educational and I think I will have fun writing about this.

A bad idea is a decision that  is not sensible and is incorrect. During our lives everyone has made a decision and had to live with that going through with lives but this is not a bad thing having made bad decisions can help us learn and prevent us from making more mistakes in the future. Making bad decision is a part of human nature no one in this world can say that they have never made a bad decision.

The author says that “writing in general” is a bad idea because there is actually no such thing as just writing in general. When you write whether it a fan-fiction, horror, science, history, etc  every writer need to be educated about that specific topic and when writing you need to have information about what you are writing on and what the audience of the writing expects. One really good example is from the section “You can Learn to Write in General” by Elizabeth Wardle in page 31 where it talks about how” a student fresh out of college is asked to write a report for the CEO , the student might know what a report is in general but the student has never seen a report from that specific company so she will have trouble writing because she needs examples, some inside info, needs to know about the CEO and also needs to understand what they want in the report”. These are the reasons why thinking you can Write in general is a bad idea.

I chose this piece because i used to believe in writing in general and how i had trouble with this idea. When i was in school i used to think i was writing in general but i was completely wrong because it doesn’t exist when writing a report, essay, stories etc you always need some background info and the writer needs to think about its audience. I do not  have a good idea to counter this bad idea but i agree with the author this is not bad news because it gives new writers permission to keep learning, to fail and learn from their past mistakes i think that being open minded might also help when you write.

SECOND PART: For the unit 2 essay i will continue to write about my volleyball discourse community. I will keep on talking about my discourse community about some of the problems/bad ideas new team mates  might face after joining the community. As for now im still not sure about what problem i will talk about in my Unit 2 essay but i will talk about something that is very common in a sport discourse community and how it affects every player in the community.