Class Announcements :

• Thursday November 6 will be our library session . We will meet in front of the library, entrance found on the fourth floor. Brief orientation on library uses, and resources.
• Think and brainstorm some ideas for research project that’s coming up . You can relate it to career interest etc.
• First Draft of essay #2 is also due tomorrow ! Don’t forget to bring in 4 printed copies. Peer review will be Tuesday.
• Professor Belli will be available during her office hours to meet with individuals to discuss essay 2 and get some feedback.
• Midterm grades were also handed out , refer to rubric for blogs & how they are graded.
• If your thinking about withdrawing from English or HUS speak to professor Belli , this decision has a lot of implications.

Getting Started On Your Essay :

• If you’re having trouble getting started on your essay, refer to your blogs and ideas you’ve already written about. This is Fair Game !
• Read through blogs posted.
• Think about our class discussion.

Class Discussion :

• The class started talking about the app – T2 Mood tracker. An app that asks you to asses yourself daily, and rate yourself on certain areas.
• You have to critique yourself
• The vision of this app was believed to be “to show you whats wrong with”, but app doesn’t offer suggestions or “tells you what to do” to change behaviors.
• The idea is to change what were doing , based off results produced.
• Rhonda Byrnes : Self help, positive thinker. She believes that we just need to think that good things will happen, and they will just sort of appear or happen with no real efforts made.
• Faults with this app were noticed by classmates
• The issue of temporary came up, Your answers  really depend on your current mood at the time your answering ?
• Another App looked at was Headspace
• Questions were raised of apps being pure nonsense ? Do apps for feelings really work ? Is there really a need for them ?
• Professor Belli suggested a “believing game” when looking at apps. Even if we dont agree with the functions or visions of apps, we must look at them with an open mind, and make criticism without pre- judging.
• After all many copies of Rhonda Byrnes “The Secret” were sold and believed by many
• Visions talked about by governors, government are believed by voters.
• Bringing it back to essay 2, we have to be careful on the tone we portray in our essay. Trying to make it as formal as possible.
• When looking at apps thinking of Audience, Definition, & Value
• Think about the about page of Apps, Consider the language.
• Many of us were surprised to hear that the T2 Mood Tracker was originally made for ex-military. So they could track their moods and get help if they seemed to have problems.
• We have to understand certain things like the intentions of the apps, in order to be able to really analyze.
• The last app talked about was Emotion sense. Where 4 quadrants were involved. And you pin point where you feel you land on the radius. More people felt less annoyed with this app in comparison to the previous ones.
• The issue of privacy came up with this one, because of the app’s about page. able to invisibly see information on your phone.
• Many felt this was an invasion of privacy and kind of scary.
• While others said that now a days nothing is really private. Most things on your phone are already available to the public. There is no real privacy.
• One must be careful before downloading anything , suggested to read terms and agreements,legal.
• Do these apps provide false advertising was another important question.
• How much of ourselves can be revealed in data ?
• Some argued that Data t a certain extent worked
• while other said these apps were just annoying.
• So engage yourself in the Apps, Ask yourself questions and be critical !

Vocabulary

asses- evaluate

objective – unbiased, able to report same thing

Subjective – bias , different things may be reported

Track – keep notes/ noticing

In class on Tuesday we went in our groups and were doing peer review. Just a few reminders when you are reviewing your essay that is due NEXT WEEK TUESDAY :

– it is okay for you to use own experiences but it doesn’t have to be your own, you can use your own analysis with others as well. Just don’t research nothing.

– Stay in 2nd person to keep the reader engaged and you can talk in 1st person when you are talking about yourself.

– When you turn in the essay make sure you email it in the correct format and bring a printed copy to class.

– Don’t do any quick editing, revise your essay and take the comments from your classmates into consideration and make changes. Its okay to think beyond your own thoughts and start from the body paragraphs and then fix the intro and/or conclusion.

– Remember that this is an argumentative essay so try not to summarize.

And bring in the readings that were required to be read for the past class sessions and be ready for the writing workshop on Thursday.

In class today we discussed that we will be moving to essay mode more formal structured essay. With that doing more writing workshops.

We talked about Due dates Getting our first draft in on thurs their will be peer review which group members will read and give you feed back on your essay.

Final draft will include free write written in class, drafts and final essay all together including your COVER LETTER.

Today we did two free write in class which was about your reflection on the essay written in class how we felt writing and during it, strengths/weaknesses. Our second free write was about essay 1 – pre-draft/1st draft/assignment instructions/expectations/guidelines.

Than as a class we talked about our reflections for the first free write. Peers mentioned feeling… Stuck, indecisive on a question to pick to write about, how to answer all questions in prompt, annoyed, nervous, stressed etc.

The second free write peers wrote rhetorical questions to try and write the thesis paragraph, the flow of how to go with the thesis paragraph, and stuck on what to write. Also confused on what claims were which is arguments making a claim in each paragraph could be the topic sentences.

Things to know about the essay 

pre-draft today

first draft thurs

argumentative essay 3-4 pages

4 copies brought to class

email 1st draft to professor Belli

Can choose one text or related text to talk about

Essay should be about Happiness/well-being. But not just happiness in general.

COVER LETTER NEEDED FOR FIRST DRAFT AND FINAL DRAFT!!! 

Vocabulary:

1. High-stakes: really important to perform excellently on all categories.
2. Low-stakes: important, however with less pressure on performing excellently on all categories.
3. Revise: to go over something with the aim of making it better, changing it, and re-thinking it.
4. Superficial: on the surface.
5. Recursive: a revision process in writing.
6. Scaffolding: building in steps.
7. Indignation: righteous anger.

Reminders:

• Latenesses and absences. ( no more then 10% of absences, meaning only 3 are allowed, and 2 latenesses counts as 1 absence)
• If not done already, read al other classmate posts.

Formal Writing: 

In formal essays, you have to think about all the issues, not only the content and your ideas, but also the structure of your writing. So, you really have to work on having an argument, having a really good introduction, having really well-formed paragraphs, with topic sentences, using evidence, and quotes, and siting correctly, having work sited page at the sentence level, and having no errors, no spelling mistakes, using words correctly, and having your sentences vary. It is important because they are going to be held to a higher standard, in terms of the sort of quality of the writing itself.

In class, we did free-writing about 3 things:

1. What is our writing process.
2. What are the emotions we have when writing or having to write about something. (Reflection)
3. What is the ideal way of writing.

Prof. Belli said that when writing, the 3R should be applied which are Revision, Recursive, and Reflection.

• Revision process is really important because a large part of your grade for the course and essays are going to be built on the quality and thoughtfulness of you revision.
• Reflection is really important because in each essay done for this class, a page long, single-spaced reflection letter to Prof. Belli will be attached to it. It will consist of the revisions made, the reasons why they were made, what’s good about them, and the struggles encountered.

Writing Process: (What we students do or think)

What is our writing process?

• Brainstorm.
• Go straight to it, meaning just start writing.
• Analyze the topic.
• Research.
• Ignore the assignment.
• Procrastinate.
• Make an outline.
• Free-writing.
•  Tell someone.

What are the emotions we feel?

• Anxiety
• Stress
• Over thinking
• Anger
• Overwhelmed
• Empty
• Stuck
• Boredom
• Rebellion
• Indignation
• Fear

Ideal Process of Writing:

1. Analyze the topic and assignment.
2. Make a really rich outline that include an introduction, (hook, explanation of topic, and thesis statement), at least 3 paragraphs, (main ideas, proof/evidence, concluding sentence), argument against your idea if it applies, and a conclusion, restating your ideas.
3. Write freely as much as possible about your topic and what you want to include in your essay.
4. Go through all paragraphs and edit it to make it better.
5. Peer edit your own work.
6. Have a person or more give you feedback on your paper. (Prof. or classmates)
7. Reflect about it.

Homework: read the article “What Suffering Does” by David Brooks given in class, make an reversed outline, look up vocabulary, and prepare for tomorrow’s class.

I tried and I hope I covered everything that was done.

Vocabulary

Ethics: moral code on what we should and shouldn’t do.

Norms: standards of society.

Explicit: direct.

Disparate: (adj) different.

Allusion: (noun) make a reference to something else.

Delusion: believing in things that don’t have basis in reality.

Illusion: seeing something is not there.

Elude: to evade, escape.

Patriotism: to love and support your country.

Collective: (adj) together.

Counter intuitive: is not what you expect.

Content: Satisfied.

Authoritarian: favoring authority.

Dogmatic: to think what you do is the right thing.

Intolerant: can’t stand other’s beliefs or views.

After a brief talk on how to improve our class notes by Professor Belli, we first talked about what we discussed in our Human Services class on wednesday. Anna proceeded to explain that we talked about scenarios when we use our human services ethics in order to deal with clients. Followed by this, Professor Belli asked the class if we started to see connections between our human services class and english. Arlene mentioned that we are learning how we can make others and ourselves happy. Furthermore, Marie asked an interesting question “ how do you know your soul is happy?” which Professor Belli responded by making a connection to Socrates who thinks that soul and body are separate. Therefore, there are different means on how to make your soul happy, contrasted to Maslow’s belief in basic needs for happiness of the body.

When the previous discussion finished we continued to talk about the Mayoral Victory speech of Bill De Blasio. Kelsey mentioned that De Blasio uses pathos when he talks about the tragedy of 9/11 in minute 9:15. He uses this tragedy in order to show the public that he has sympathy for the community and the city. Continuously, Professor Belli explained that pathos can be manipulative because they strike the emotions of people.

Moreover, we talked about “The tale of two cities” that De Blasio was referring to. By this statement, De Blasio was referring to the fact that there are a big group of poor people and a small group of rich ones. He mentions that he doesn’t want anyone to be left behind. Hence, Jacob made an inference from De Blasio’s speech: people should stop thinking about themselves and instead unify the community. Therefore, we concluded that De Blasio was promoting patriotism to the audience.

Furthermore, we went back in the video where De Blasio’s daughter Chiara speaks before his father. We concluded that she was using ethos when she spoke because she was appealing to the character of his father. Her words can be considered extremely credible due to the fact that she is De Blasio’s daughter. Since she talks from first experience, the audience can believe that what De Blasio is promising will be true. After this, Professor Belli showed us one more example where De Blasio uses ethos through his son Dante for his campaign. It was a commercial where Dante appears as a 15 year old boy who lives in Brooklyn, this video focused in appealing to De Blasio’s character by mentioning his goals for the community. Hence, Dante’s skin color, age, and place where he appears to live appeal to the audience De Blasio is targeting: the credibility of the commercial is very high.

Followed by this, we continued to talk about Joe Lhota’s speech. Brandon mentioned the difference of how De Blasio and Lhota talk about the Stop & Frisk program. De Blasio wants it to be removed due to the racial profiling that has been occurring, and Lhota wants to keep supporting it because it has supposedly decreased the crime rate by 75%. We wrapped up the discussion about the speeches and proceeded to talk a little about the article “ Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals” by Arthur C. Brooks. We started to talk about how the article is counter intuitive because it mentions that conservatives are happier than liberals. The conclusion of this statement is because conservatives who are married and religious tend to be more happy according to statistics. Moreover, the class concluded that since conservatives are narrow minded it keeps them happier or at least content because they don’t wonder about many other possibilities or perspectives there are in life.

There is NO homework. Except, to review the article and be prepared for next class. However, Professor Belli said to keep an eye on the homework schedule this week just in case.

I hope this is not too much to read, I tried to make it as simple as possible… if anyone has any questions don’t hesitate to ask me through message in openlab ! 🙂

Economy= money$$

-de blasio is the mayor of new york

-primary elections happen before officail electoion/when 2 o more candidates are chosen.

-the dominate 2 parties are..demoratic and republican

-de blasio won for the democratic party and lhota won for the republican party but in the end it was de blasio who won it all!

-when writing an analysis you have to think about argumentative, using claims and evidence.

-new on openlab(learning community happiness archive) idea from sara ahmed.

happiness is effected by society.

VOCABULARY

consituents-means supporters

summary-over review of what was said

analysis-developing your own idea/ making your own argument

argumentative-claim/prove something related to the topic(persuasive or thesis)

marginalze(verb)-to make something marginal(adj) they dont share in the same priveledges as other people

For Example

-disabilties

-immigrants

-women

-homosexual

normativ(adj)-typical or acting inan exceptable manner

normal(adj) norms(noun)

abnormal-act in a way that is not normal

stigma-labled in a bad way

connotation-the association of a word

dennotation-dictionary defintion

statu quo-the way things are

attend-to pay attention

archive-delt with/save it

tangent-not directically

saturated-full

cohere-to bring together

HOW WE THINK ABOUT HAPPINESS MAKES UP HOW THE WORLD IS!!