TOW #30: Letter To APELC Student

Dear New APELC Student,

Junior year is one of the hardest years in high school. Along with taking a challenging course like this one, it makes the year even harder. But I'm not here to discourage you, in fact I'm glad I took this  course because not only has it improved my writing skills but it has also broadened my perspective a little bit. This course really changed my outlook on what a hard class should be like. Before 11th grade, I was somewhat of a lazy student who just sat back in honors English and easily got good grades. The change from that to this year is huge and although I struggled in the beginning I was able to fully understand what kind of effort it took to be in this class.
         My main piece of advice in order to do well in this class is to keep up with the work. It's so easy to get behind especially with all the other work from other classes. Said from experience, procrastination will do you no good in this class. I am one of the biggest procrastinators and to be honest I wish I paid more attention to the time that I devoted to my writing. For take home essays, you need to give yourself enough time to re read, proof read, and have others look at your essay. However, if you are able to stay on track and are going into see the teachers with questions or anything you need help on, you will do well. And by well I don't mean getting an A because in an AP course like Language and Composition that is very difficult. If you do get a B in this class don't be upset because it means you worked pretty hard and if you do happen to get an A that's even better. Honestly even a C isn't the end of the world, the class is a lot of work and there are many important things you will learn from it. If you want to get a good grade overall for the year make sure that you try your hardest from the beginning because every essay and assignment counts in the end.
          The AP english teachers are very hard graders and although the grade you get on your first essay may be daunting, that's what makes this class such a valuable course because it pushes us as students. This course is meant to challenge us and make an impact on the skills that we have acquired so far. At first glance this course might seem like just a lot of unnecessary work but I am honestly telling you that all of it has helped me improve greatly throughout the year. This is reflected in the scores that I received towards the end of the year compared to my scores from early in the year. When I look back now, this year flew by so fast and it's crazy to think that I've learned and accomplished so much and that it's actually over. Don't dread the course, look forward to it because before you know it, it's going to be over. Enjoy it as much as you can!

Good Luck,
Jahnobi Das

TOW #28: Reflection

By looking at my TOWs from different points of the year, I notice a lot of progression in the structure of my writing and analysis. The firsts TOWs that I wrote followed the guidelines very closely and blatantly states each of the things that the TOWs required and didn't do much beyond that. But in my later ones I noticed that I stopped doing that and organized them into mini analysis essays and put all the information in a way that fit better as a whole. I think that the repetitiveness of the TOWs allowed me to master analyzing the purpose of the text that the author intended. When i first wrote them it took me a little bit to figure out what the author wanted the audience to see but by analyzing the rhetorical devices and the tone and development of the text, I was able to find it easier. The more texts I read throughout the year, the faster I was able to find the purpose. Although I've become good at this aspect of the TOWs, one thing I still have to improve on is the use of more rhetorical devices. When looking at my three TOWs that I chose, I noticed a similar pattern of basic devices like irony, tone, and pathos. It may be because I never took that much time to learn more devices that was in the packet from the beginning of the year. I can definitely improve this if I look at more and more devices and learn a lot more of them than I know now. I think that pulling all of this together, overall I benefitted from these assignments because it helped a lot when it came to the exam. By doing TOWs every Sunday, my skills with analyzing purpose and rhetorical devices greatly improved. I was also benefitted because my skills as a write got better because I began to put more time and effort into the assignments. With gaining these skills and constantly reading new text, my knowledge through non fiction text also got better because I was introduced to new experiences and pieces of writing.

TOW #27: SPCA Ad

Obviously, most of the ads, if not all, of SPCA's ads appeal to pathos. The image of the puppy, kitten, or another desperate animal is the forefront of the advertisement, pulling the viewer in to only get a closer look at how sad or hopeless the animal must be. While some of it may be a hyperbole, it works. Something else that is essential to these ads is the strong diction. For example, in this ad, it uses "barbaric cruelty" when describing dog fighting. I think that definitely supports the ad in the sense that people would want to save the puppy from whatever "cruelty" it's encountering. These ads definitely place a more emotional connection and even a more human connection to the animals. Many would start to feel bad for a dog in a picture. Something that also caught my eye was "as little as 60 cents" in reference to the donation that can be made to the organization. I think when using the words "as little as", it makes it seem like much less of a donation. Many people may feel obligated to donate MORE than that initial 60 cents, bringing in more money for the ASPCA. On the bottom of the ad, it states, "make a monthly gift". The word "gift" is definitely used cleverly here, because it's more of a donation, but they're trying to make the point that the donation is a "gift" to the animals.
       Overall, I think this advertisement is extremely effective. The mere color scheme adds to the sad, hopeless theme that the ad tries to convey. I think audience is definitely a factor here as well. People with dogs, in my opinion, would be more likely to have feelings toward the animal on the ad, while people without any relation to pets wouldn't have as much of an emotional connection. I definitely think that the ASPCA ads do an extremely great job of connecting to their audience because even though I don't own a pet, I still sympathize for the ones in the commercial.  While also attempting to get people to donate to a cause they are also benefitting the life of animals. 

TOW #26: Why College Football Should Be Banned

Buzz Bissenger claims that college football steers away the students from what they are supposed to be doing at college, which is learning. He says, "in more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything to do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics."  He also makes the argument that the only people who benefit from college football are the alumni and the coaches that make absurd amounts of money. The students don't benefit at all. Even the players don't benefit because they're being "exploited by a system in which they don't receive a dime of compensation". Bissinger even begins to trash talk the concept of the game of football alone, and says that it causes injuries that don't need to happen, including sever head trauma. 
      Bissenger was able to help his stance through the example about the university in Baltimore, Maryland. He claims that the school cut 8 varsity sports to create a leaner athletic budget, so that crumbling basketball and football programs would get money, and track and swimming wouldn't. He then went on to explain just how much money the school spent on football, and the numbers were very surprising. A little statistic like that can change the whole meaning of the article, which was effective in my opinion. 
        However, although his arguments were valid in some points, surprisingly, I didn't find his article very effective. This being because the way he crafted the article was extremely sloppy. He would make one little argument and only support it with a sentence or two and then rush to his next argument. This didn't allow his main arguments to stick out to the audience nor did it solidify his argument.  The essay overall brought up good points, however each point was rushed and the audience was not able to have a clear handle on what Bissenger was arguing. 

TOW #25: Even Gifted Students Can't Keep Up

In the past few decades, American education has slowly fallen behind other nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, and Japan. The New York Times Editorial Board attributes this to the lack of attention given to gifted students. The Editorial Board of The New York Times has a wide range of expertise among 19 contributors, in fields from immigration to science, to education. This article was co written mostly by Brent Staples, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology and has been on the board since 1990. They article argue that the young minds, the board argues, are the future of the nation, the driving force behind innovation and scientific progress. Throughout the article, statistics support their claim of fact that the US in behind other countries. Instead of simply identifying the problem, however, they offer some recommendations on amending curriculum and government funding to better support advanced students.

This article seems to be directed towards those involved in education. Specifically, it appears to be aimed towards politicians who have say over issues regarding the funding of schools, and those in charge of schools or districts who have say in curriculum. Since this piece was originally published in the New York Times newspaper, it is very likely that many subscribers, a portion of whom are involved in education, read it. Furthermore, since this paper is nationally read, there is a good chance that it has been received by educators and politicians across the country.

This exposure is key to this article’s purpose, which is to persuade those in power to reform the United States education system to better compete with foreign nations in accelerated learning. The reform that the article asks for will most likely take a while to become reality, so while technically the authors didn’t achieve their purpose, they may someday once their recommendations are actually applied to the country. 

TOW #24: Visual Text

Drinking and driving has been a huge issue in America for many years. Due to the amount of car accidents that driving while on the influence of alcohol can cause, many car companies and other organizations have created advertisements to help discourage drunk driving among the American population. These advertisements typically have a strong appeal to pathos and a demonstration of the consequence of drunk driving. This advertisement is no exception and certainly creates a strong message against it.
       This ad uses a statistic paired with shocking imagery to show that drinking and driving is an unacceptable behavior because of the damage it brings to the quality of life of people. The statistic that this advertisement uses is that every forty-eight seconds, another person if affected by a drunk driver and becomes handicapped. That is a lot of people to become handicapped and it shows that it is unacceptable to have so many people be handicapped.  With this irrefutable evidence, this advertisement not only appeals to pathos, but also logos. Someone looking at this advertisement logically will know that drunk driving must stop because it happens to often. In addition to statistics, the advertisement also uses a imagery to show Americans that drinking and driving is wrong. The image that this advertisement uses is a handicapped parking spot. By itself the image is not very shocking, but paired with the words that a drunk driver "makes another person eligible to park here" creates shock value. The image of the handicapped parking spot makes the viewer see will happen to someone if they are hit by a car caused by a drunk driver. 
        By combining an appeal to logos and pathos through statistics that pair well with the image, this advertisement successfully achieves its purpose of making people aware of the consequences of drunk driving. By stressing how often it happens, it is very effective and makes the audience really think about the effects of drinking and driving. 

TOW #23: Why People Don’t Donate Their Kidneys by Sally Satel

Modern technology has enabled us to fix many of the ailments that had previously been a death sentence. Organ transplants are a prime example of the strides the field of medicine has made, but there is still a large number of people in need of an organ. In an article entitled “Why People Don’t Donate Their Kidneys”, Sally Satel explains the growing problem with finding donors, and offers a solution to solve it. She opens by explaining how requiring a purely altruistic donation is not enough to meet the growing demand of kidneys, citing statistics and referencing federal law. Because this was published in the New York Times, Satel’s audience is probably made up of educated adults, who would expect specific evidence to support a claim. 
      The author then proceeds to lay out her solution, which involves giving third parties the chance to provide benefits for donors. During the argument portion of this article, Satel addresses a counterargument that the law prohibits this, saying that lawmakers are not sure of exactly what the law states. She substantiates this claim by quoting The 2007 Department of Justice memo, which states that the bill in question “does not suggest any Member of Congress understood the bill as addressing non-monetary or otherwise non-commercial transfers.” Finally, Satel supports her argument by referencing Al- Gore’s call for a similar change. 
      Through her well-structured article that provided both an informative overview of the subject and a coherent plan to fix it, Satel was able to effectively argue for a change in organ donation. Because of the New York Times’ national reputation, there is a good chance that Satel will reach many people, some of whom are lawmakers capable of sparking an interest in addressing this issue in Congress. As for the rest of her audience, her sound argument will hopefully persuade some to take action, either through contacting their state representatives, or donating an organ themselves.