Journal 1: Consider the Lobster
If David Foster Wallace was invited to a discussion in our classroom I would ask him if there were anymore animals he felt this way about. For an example, how does he feel about rodeos, where animals are treated very poorly and beaten in front of a live audience for their pleasure. I would be very interested to hear his response. I would also ask him if he is a vegetarian or a vegan or if he chose to live in a way that limited his diet for the purpose animal abuse.
The limits of a written discussion are that you can’t fully ever comprehend what the reader is thinking when reading your piece. Wallace asked his audience many thought-provoking questions, which was very helpful in my opinion and kept me engaged in reading which is normally challenging for me. This would help anticipatete and maybe answer the readers questions.
Journal 2: Drafting
My experience with drafting involved a lot of group work. My english teachers would often split up the class into small groups and each person in the group would have an essay to peer edit. The teacher would also hand out sheets with questions on it (usually basic yes or no questions) as a guideline to make sure the person’s essay had all of the requirements listed. If my vocabulary is lacking in my essay, I will often resort to an online thesaurus in order to ensure my essay sounds more intelligent and flows smoother.
When someone was done editing my essay, I would look over their edits and suggestions, and then I would start revising my piece. I fix all the grammar errors and sentence structure problems, and then proceed to read my essay a few times over again. I will often read my essay aloud to myself in order to make sure all the words flow smoothly. If a sentence is having a rough time flowing, I may start it over again from scratch, or just make a few adjustments in order to make sure it makes sense.
This whole process has seemed to work for me nicely. I enjoy hearing what others have to say about my work, and am always open to suggestions. If I have any further questions, I tend to ask a teacher for help and have him/her read my essay over if they are willing to and give me advice with what I may be struggling with in order to improve my overall piece. The peer editing process is something I would recommend because it benefits all students trying to hand in their best work. When doing all of these things, I tend to be much more confident with the essay I am handing in to be graded.
Journal 3: Images
The first time I observed occupational therapy in a nursing home was an experience to remember. Walking through the doors, the first thing I saw was a little old woman in a wheel chair. She gave me a friendly greeting and smiled ear to ear. Walking down the halls was very similar. All the old folks, those who were mentally stable anyways, would grin at me as if they were happy to see a young person in this elderly community and I would grin back. The halls led to an assortment of rooms where the residents in the nursing home stayed. The rooms contained two patients who each had their own bed and shared a bathroom. Each room had a large window that would let light in and fill the room with sunlight when the shades weren’t down.
The scent in the nursing home was almost vintage. The aroma of each room was very similar and it lingered in the hallways as well. I could also smell sickness in the air. In the cafeteria I could smell meat pie, because that’s what was served for lunch on that specific day.
The louder voices I could hear were those of the nurses and occupational therapists. They would often have to speak loudly to the inmates because most of them were very hard of hearing. While riding in the elevator, smooth jazz music was played. In the hallways, Christmas music was played because it was the winter season. The elderly loved the music and some of them would sing along to the words of the songs played.
As I mentioned previously, meat pie was served for lunch on that day. It wasn’t the best meat pie I had ever tasted but it was tolerable. As I bit into the pie, I noticed it wasn’t heated to my liking. I tasted the soggy pie crust and cold beef but continued to eat it because I didn’t want the cooks to think I was ungrateful. For dessert, peaches were served. I was sitting next to this old woman named Glenda, and she told me how peaches were her favorite. I felt the smooth texture on my tongue and instantly tasted a sweet taste which was much more tolerable than the meat pie served.
Being the observer, I would often have to hold the materials the occupational therapists would use; much like an assistant. A lot of the tools were metal and very cold and smooth on my hands. I would also hold rubber bands used to help the elderly gain back strength. These bands ranged from thick to thin. The thicker ones felt much heavier and corse on my hands. The thinner ones had little to almost no weight on them and were very smooth and stretchy. As we transitioned from patient to patient I would often shake hands with the inmates. I could feel all the wrinkles and ridges in each persons hand. Feeling these wrinkles, seeing the age spots that covered their hands, smelling their leftovers, hearing shaky and old singing voices, and tasting the cold air in my lungs from the breezy windows really allowed me to step in the shoes of these elderly people and really feel the experiences they must have gone through to get to this point in their lives.
Journal 4: “They Say, I Say” Chapter 1
I found this first chapter pretty interesting because it made me realize that I have been doing a lot of things wrong when it comes to writing an opinion/debate essay. I would often touch on other opinions but I would never really elaborate. I would often just state my opinion and focus on that for the entire essay. The “they say, I say” technique really got me thinking that I may need to change my writing in order for it to be satisfactory.
I also liked how song writing was incorporated into this book and how the author talked about how songwriters and poets use templates. The author also talked about how the templates shown in the book do not spark creativity, they are just guidelines of what most pieces of work should follow. I would definitely have to agree with this because I honestly feel like templates don’t really make writing unique.
Something else that I found interesting was the whole “putting in your oar” concept. It basically means to put yourself out there in the world and become an engaged and intelligent person. Becoming a critical thinker is very important because it allows you to find other intelligent people who are on your same level of intelligence and having deep conversations with people who think about the same things you do must be really cool honestly.
Journal 5: “They Say, I Say” The Art of Quoting
This chapter integrates quoting with the whole “they say, I say” concept. Instead of just summarizing what someone else said, which is also less credible, quoting their exact words adds credibility, and does a better job of connecting two ideas together. A strong quote that does a great job connecting two ideas can definitely help out a piece of writing, however, if the quote isn’t strong enough, the reader may just think the writer is trying to use up words and space and show they have read an author’s work.
The “hit and run” example reminds me of what I would do a lot of in high-school. I would often just pick random quotes from a reading without actually searching for a more fitting one and not do much introduction or explaining of the quote. I would tend to just use the quote to fill up space in my essay instead of actually putting more quality into it.
I find it interesting that it is hard to over-explain a quotation. This doesn’t mean that I think it would be easy to over-explain, I just find it interesting that with a quotation, the best way to go about it, is explaining it to your best ability to ensure the reader can understand why you included it to connect two specific concepts together.
Journal 6: Peer-reviewed essays
https://clachance.uneportfolio.org/peer-reviewed-essay-links/
Journal 7:
My peers gave great suggestions with their comments on google docs and during the discussion. Hannah suggested to re-arrange the wording in my thesis statement so it made more sense. She also suggested that instead of laying out all the instructions to prepare my chosen favorite meal of butternut squash, that I include my grandmother in that to make it more personal. Jacob suggested that I describe more of what my grandmother looks like. That would definitely help when trying to get the reader to take a step in my shoes in visualizing what she looks like in my eyes.
I tried to be helpful in giving advice to my peers like they did for me. I advised for Jacob to rethink his thesis and make it a little more clear. He used the word “it” to describe something in his thesis statement and I suggested to describe what that “it” is. I suggested that Hannah describe her grandmother’s facial expressions when she included a specific quote she said in her essay. I couldn’t tell if her grandmother was being stern or playful when saying: “don’t play with your food”.
In my discussion group we talked a lot about flow and if the paragraphs we had written fit together nicely. I did not enter that in my comments but Hannah and Jacob’s essays flowed very smoothly. Jacob struggled a little bit with his thesis statement and Hannah struggled a little bit with description but other than that, I did not think their paragraphs were placed awkwardly. In my opinion, my group was very efficient in our discussion and talked about all of our comments and even more than was we had suggested on google docs.
My podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTnT_sbu_K4&feature=youtu.be
Journal 8: “They Say, I Say” Starting with What Others Are Saying
In this section of “They Say, I Say”, the author introduces many different templates to enforce proper writing etiquette with the technique that is mentioned a billion times in this book and where it gets its title. The templates introduce an opinion of the majority and then leaves a space for the writer to introduce their differing opinion.
This technique is very useful when trying to think of a powerful thesis statement. If the writer is following the “they say, I say” technique throughout his or her writing, it would definitely relate back to the thesis statement and allow the whole piece to flow very smoothly.
These templates do not include any quotes, however, because that, in my opinion, would not be a powerful thesis statement at all, and constantly quoting throughout the whole writing piece is not a bad thing, but it can lead to over using quotes that do not necessarily fit and are just placed there to use up words. This would contradict the writer’s authority.
Journal 9: Reflection on Revision
With this favorite meal essay, I spent most of my time revising the descriptive language that was essential for this piece to be proficient. I had a hard time describing certain smells and testes for example so I really did spent the majority of my time editing these parts. If I could change anything, I would have spent more time describing how my grandmother looks like more. I did include that my grandmother had squinted, bright-blue eyes, but a little bit more description would have been more helpful. This drafting process is different from past processes because it was much more extensive. I have never edited three other people’s papers on google docs before and that actually taught me a lot. Usually with other processes in high-school, we would hand in a rough draft, and then the final draft soon after. My approach with this whole process fit into the criteria for this class because I followed instructions as best as I could, and with editing other’s papers, I received great advice from three other people to try and help benefit my writing even more.
Journal 10: Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing”
I noticed throughout this story, food was introduced whenever comfort was needed. The story starts off with Ann making a trip to the bakery to order a cake for her son, Scotty’s, birthday. There was then, a tragic event that happened that really did change everything. Scotty was hit by a car on his birthday and the man that hit him, drove off. This was considered a hit-and-run.
The story then moves to the hospital where Scotty is in a “deep sleep.” The doctor called it this because he did not want to scare Ann and Howard by calling it a coma. Howard tells Ann many times throughout this story to go and get some food. This, was thought to comfort her and stop her from worrying and drawing conclusions, in Howard’s mind.
Ann later on goes home to freshen up and get her mind off of things. She has a cup of tea. The tea was included in the story to calm her. While drinking it, she receives a phone call from the man that hit Scotty with his car. This is a continuing occurrence throughout the story, and cause Ann to be very distraught.
Scotty, is later declared dead. The doctor expresses his apologies and described what happened to Scotty to be “one-in-a-million.” After calling all of her relatives and giving them the bad news, Ann receives another phone call from the same man that hit Scotty. She figures out that it was the baker that made her uncomfortable at the bakery when ordering Scotty’s cake.
Howard and Ann travel to the bakery and get very angry with the baker. The baker expresses how he is very bitter because he was always a baker, and never led an interesting life. He then continues to do a very poor job at apologizing. He offers some rolls for Ann and Howard to eat in order to say that he is sorry and in order to make them feel the nourishment they need.
Journal 11: “They Say, I Say” The Art of Summarizing
The whole concept of empathy, or “stepping in someone else’s shoes” was touched upon in this chapter. I feel as though with these journals our class has mostly talked about stuff that we didn’t learn in high-school, but in my sophomore year english class, we read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and learned a lot about the concept of empathy. With summarizing, this chapter said the reader should not be able to tell whether you agree or disagree with what you as the writer are summarizing. I thought that was interesting.
The whole idea of it being important to have a balance between the “they say, I say” concept and understanding another’s view point is also interesting. This is probably something I, myself, have to work on with being a proficient writer. Another thing I have to work on is balancing out summarizing and then switching to the text’s opinion, and then clearly switching gears to my viewpoint.
I thought it was interesting how the book included verbs writers can use to make a claim and to express he/she’s agreement with the subject. The verbs for making a claim are generally more broad, while the verbs used in the template for expressing agreement are more set in stone and clear. There are also verbs included for questioning or disagreeing and for making recommendations. The verbs for disagreeing tend to be more harsh and the verbs for making a recommendation tend to be more thoughtfully phrased.
Journal 12: Jessica Mitford’s “The American Way of Death Revisited”
In this article, Mitford explains the embalming process in detail and questions the ethics of the whole thing in general. She describes how it is pretty expensive. All the different chemicals that go into embalming are pretty harsh and excessive since the person is already deceased. Dressing the person and doing their hair and makeup each has its own price tag to it.
Another point that relates to Mitford’s argument is that the embalming process should not be necessary. If I had passed, I personally would not want someone messing with my appearance. She explains the lip-placement process, which is something I have never heard or thought of. Morticians go through the effort of messing with a person’s lips in order to lighten their expressions if there is an open casket.
Mitford also claims that there is no law that requires embalming to occur. So why do we do it? Who knows. Tradition has its way of continuing things that don’t necessarily need to be. I would prefer to be cremated personally, but to each their own. If someone wants to spend their money on the embalming process in order to honor their passed away relative, there is nothing stopping them.
Journal 13: Mapping Thoughts – Jessica Mitford
Mitford claim: The funeral and embalming process is expensive. A man would have to work two full fourty-hour weeks in order to pay for a funeral service and the embalming process.
I would have to agree with this claim made by Mitford. In my opinion, this is unnecessary. It might sound a little insensitive since a funeral is supposed to honor someone’s life, but I would not want my loved ones spending that much money on someone who has passed.
Mitford claim: The embalming process is extensive.
Before reading this article, I had no idea how much really does go into making a dead body look and smell presentable for showing at the funeral or at the wake. From emptying out the whole body, to dressing, to hair and makeup etc., it seems like a lot of effort to put into a dead body. Even though that sounds incredibly insensitive, it is true. Therefore, I would have to agree with Mitford’s claim.
Mitford claim: The embalming process disrupts the peaceful corpse and messes with the dead body too much.
I agree with Mitford’s claim. I feel as though I would find it really strange and uncomfortable looking down on an embalmer pouring chemicals into my dead body and dressing me and doing my makeup. Seems creepy right?
Mitford claim: When a person has passed away, the embalming process must happen before all cellular death occurs. Once all the blood is drained from the body, that is when all the life is extinct. Therefore, technically, an embalmer is working on a body that isn’t fully dead.
I agree with this statement, and actually find it really weird to think about. Where is there time for the family to grieve if the dead body is taken away within an hour after death and embalming happens instantly? I understand that there is little to no chance that the person is actually alive but it is still very creepy to think about and if I were an embalmer, I do not think I would have a very pleasant time.
Journal 14: “Dealing with the Living/Dead”
If I were involved in the death process of a family member, I would feel very destroyed and depressed. I would be in denial and would feel as though the stuff I was going through with this passed away loved one was just a dream or not real. I would not know how to cope with such trauma and would need support from friends and family. I honestly don’t know if I would be able to push the button that sent my loved one off to his/her “final destination” in the witness cremation method because I have luckily never dealt with the death of someone extremely close to me. In order to be able to reach the point where I could push the button, I would have to come to full closure, and I don’t think that would happen right after my loved one had passed.
Doughty feels as though cremation is the way to go rather than embalming because a lot of harsh chemicals are involved in the embalming process and she believes it is unethical and unnecessary. Witness cremation, in her and my opinion, allows the family members to take care of the body on their own, in a way. It allows family members of the passed away loved one to set them free and off to a better place.
My opinion of these practices we have covered in class has changed quite a bit I would say, after getting an inside look. For example, and as ignorant as this sounds, I had no idea that all the blood was drained from a dead body. This is very disturbing in my mind. However, I did know that the embalming process was pretty expensive. In terms of fast food, I actually spent the last two years of my life working at a Dairy Queen restaurant. Dairy Queen is viewed as unhealthy still, but not as unhealthy as McDonalds or Burger King. I always knew that fast food was prepackaged and unhealthy, however, I never realized that a form of lighter fluid was sprayed on the chicken nuggets at McDonalds. This makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it, but I am an American and a broke college student, and will honestly probably make a trip to McDonalds within the next month. Caitlyn Doughty’s interview educated me a lot. I have never heard of the witness cremation method, but after hearing about it, it seems very empowering. Something that did not surprise me when listening to this podcast was that harsh chemicals were used on the dead bodies in the embalming process, only because I had already read Jessica Mitford’s piece.
Journal 15: Reconsidering the Lobster
When re-reading “Consider the Lobster” and my first journal entry about the article, my thinking has changed in the aspect that we as Americans do a lot of unethical things that don’t necessarily have to be done. We do these things and don’t think twice about them because they have always been done this way in our culture, and when told they are unethical, we probably understand that, yet still do these things and try and justify our thinking and reasoning. This whole concept stood out to me a lot more in my second time reading this piece. I connected all the other pieces we have read in class to “Consider the Lobster” and now realize why we did these readings. Connecting concepts and ideas together really opened my eyes. An idea that is still unreachable is Wallace’s experience with this. I still wonder if he would take part in lobster cooking even though he has described how unethical it is.
Journal 16: “They Say, I Say” Planting a Naysayer in Your Text
The whole idea that providing what others may say that goes against your own opinion will enhance your credibility is very insightful. All views should be included in the writing to let the reader decide what he/she believes. This is also how to engage the reader which makes for great content.
On page 79, the author talks about that every piece of writing should be viewed as entering a conversation. I feel as though this is very true and one of the most effective ways to get the reader engaged. One way to do this is to ask questions in order for the reader to think about in what their mind is a logical answer.
On page 81, an example of this is shown in picture form. There is a picture of a writer getting worried that the reader will misinterpret a certain quote and then shows her resolving the problem by having a conversation with the reader that starts with: “You will probably object that I have misrepresent X’s work here”… This gives the reader the chance to decide what they believe and not feel as though they have the unpopular opinion since point viewpoints are presented.
Journal 17: “Animals Like Us” by: Hal Herzog
It was difficult to resolve the morality of this situation because she was making an effort to not eat animals except for fish. This can be viewed as more moral than eating meat but less moral than being vegan or eating a purely plant based diet. Judith Black considered herself a vegetarian because the only meat she ate was fish, and this was because in her opinion, fish were not animals. It was hard for Black to resolve this dilemma because after years and years after only eating fish meat, it had become routine for her. Her husband finally convinced her to give in.
Humans are the most advanced animals out there. We have the ability to think logically and speak. However, we are technically all considered animals. Humans usually are separated from animals like dogs and cats because we have the ability to do high-order tasks that they cannot do. We are superior to animals and use them as food. Both humans and animals, however, are both breathing and living organisms. We all have organs and the ability to hear and see. Going back to David Foster Wallace, his point was that it is immoral to boil lobsters alive while they scream until they are dead. If something was superior to humans, who knows what they would do to us. Then, we could take a step into animals’ shoes and know what it’s like to be mistreated like that.
There is agreement between Wallace and Herzog in the aspect that lobsters and fish (aquatic life) were separated from other animals. People in Wallace’s writing were said to have separated lobsters with other animals, as Judith Black did with fish. Wallace and Herzog both proved these people wrong. They do, however, conflict a little bit in the aspect that Herzog was questioning the twisted morality and Wallace was very set on the fact that the lobster preparation process is very unethical. “But now she faced a difficult decision: She could either quit eating fish, or stop thinking of herself as a vegetarian,” (Herzog). As you can see, Herzog includes that it is a difficult decision. If his opinion was set in stone, then it would have been an easy decision. “A detail so obvious that most recipes don’t even bother to mention that each lobster is supposed to be alive when you put it in the kettle,” (Wallace 502). Wallace on the other hand, is very clear that burning lobsters alive is a very unethical practice.
