Author: James Messner

I believe that the documentary was extremely well done. From a visual standpoint, the cinematography was very well coordinated.  The shots were clean and concise while providing an accurate representation of what life is like for these people. The documentary used a shock and awe approach to bring awareness to this problem facing American kids, and did so successfully. On top of a well filmed picture, they also had a series of visual aids (graphs and tables) that helped them convey their point. The infographics and other animations scattered throughout the movie were effectively used to show the severity of the situation. The producers used research from the CDC and other government agencies to display first give the facts on the issue, and then accompanied them with stark comparisons (such as calorie intake of the normal individual juxtaposed to that of Rosie) to emphasize their point.

The film was well organized in that it followed a storyline, rationalizing each point previously made in the following sections. The would present a statistic and then provide an example of the situation the statistic was taken from (I.E., x out of x kids goes hungry, like Rosie here…). This question and answer style of presentation is effective in convincing the viewer that the presenter knows exactly the scope of the issue and is hinting that they are soon going to propose a solution. In a way, it keeps the viewer interested and coming back for more.

• Looked at Wall Street Journal pieces
  • Took note on:
    • Author’s background
    • Authors perspective (From article)
      • Nonprofit x 2
      • Nutritionist
      • Food writer/journalist
      • Academic/policymaker
    • Contribution to the conversation
    • How the author counters ideas
  • Concentrate on argument
    • “Who are we naming and are we doing so respectfully”
      • Not offending those we are opposing in the argument (Keeping it respectful/correct)
    • When conversing on an issue, focus on “Effective engagement,” No ridiculous “you’re just stupid” answers/comments
  • Research
  • Use variety of search engines (library database, library itself, etc.)
    • Tools:
      • Different search engines
      • Check bibliographies
      • “lmk searching”
        • link:url
      • Annotated bib should be 6-8 sources

• Try and set up site service by this week
• Articles
  • Author’s names not always attached
    • Sometimes we have to guess
    • Normally there is an organization listed
  • Google information on author
• Paper
  • “Say more about less” – Don’t over do it
  • 2 sources
  • Reflective piece – use 1^st person (you can use “I”)
  • Consider endgame when starting, consider how research writing works through close analysis of pieces
  • Use all examples (can be positive or negative analysis of texts)
  • Rhetorical analysis – a paragraph or two
  • Quoting sources –
    • Direct quote (parenthetical citation: author,

paragraph/page #)

• Talking about a source just name the source, no citation necessary

• MLA – Make a works cited page
• APA – Whatever APA does I did MLA in high school so idk (references page maybe?) [Yes, APA calls this References, KSO]
• Make claims evident – what you learned about research writing through these examples
• Make paper “readable”

• DUE WEDNESDAY

[We did some other stuff, too, remember–students had time to begin commenting on their prior posts to develop ideas about rhetorical situation, etc. And Karen posted information about how to make use of ideas from Harris’s Chapter 1–those are in a comment on this post]

Speaking to the article I shared titled “What is poverty?”, the article was written by a student at Michigan State (Go green) from what appears to be a POV stance. The author uses powerful imagery through very detailed descriptions in order to depict a lifestyle that would be considered less that desirable. The article appears to have been published in 1971 and the forward states that it is a personal account so the name of that author isn’t to be shared. That being said there is a name at the top so therefore I am confused. The audience really is everybody because the text isn’t very hard to understand or seem to be targeted to w specific audience. It’s a narrative piece designed to bring attention to the hardships of poverty and expose the difficulty of acquiring basic resources for survival. There doesn’t appear to be research done per say because it would appear that the author needed no sources to convey her point.

To touch on my second piece, it is an article providing information on the top 10 cities in the US with the highest poverty rates. It contains 10 sections that provides census data and a small photo snapshot of the city in question. Each summary boasts a before and after introduction, showing what was and what is and gives reason to the economic decline. The article uses research based primarily on government data and population statistics. The article reads in a “descending” order, providing stats for the #1 poorest place in the US (Flint MI) including average household income, percent population below the poverty level, and average employment rates. They then get slightly better as we go down the list all the way to #10 at Rochester NY. We see an increasing trend in income and employment as the article nears the end. This is not to say that at the end of the list the situation is good, it’s just not rock bottom. This article uses an effective format to draw readers in because it’s interesting data and it portrays it’s info in small, easily readable chunks (as opposed to a full narrative on the city which most readers would deem too long to sit down and read the entire thing). Each neighborhood profile provides links to spreadsheets and charts from the US Census Bureau that offers a full statistical breakdown of the city.

http://www.areavibes.com/library/top-10-highest-poverty-rates/

https://msu.edu/~jdowell/135/JGParker.html

http://www.epi.org/publication/bp370-native-americans-jobs

-Mental health is a much less considered viewpoint of public health. Socioeconomic status (poor at that) is a large determinant of overall wellbeing. In looking at the Native American populations, we can deduce that lesser education is a main cause for poverty (and the wage gap among other things). Interesting thing about the wage gap, many blame race and gender for the wage gap. You hear little about the discrimination of Native Americans in terms of employment, and I had a difficult time locating any information of the sort that didn’t predate 1900.

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2015/10/how_the_flint_water_crisis_eme.html#30

This article is from a publication that operates downtown where I live. It is a good step-by-step breakdown of the Flint water crisis and how it came to be. The interesting thing is that the events leading up to it seemed like a good idea. The switch to the new pipeline could save the struggling city of Flint “up to 19 million dollars over 8 years. Detroit hears of the plan to switch from their water and cuts Flint off, forcing Flint to use their old pipes until the new pipe is finished in 3 years.