TOW #6: "Getting In" by Malcom Gladwell

     Author Malcom Gladwell, growing up in Ontario, Canada, never fully understood the elite and exclusive natures commonly paired with American Ivy League schools. Back in Canada, all it took to get into the school you wanted was to rank the schools in your province based on order of preference and then to fill out a two-page form consisting of your activities and interests. There were no SAT scores, recommendations, or college essays to worry about. Gladwell juxtaposes the college admissions in his homeland with those in the United States, highlighting how everything is much more competitive and selective in particularly American Ivy League schools. He focuses primarily on Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, which are some of the most revered and renowned schools in the world. Gladwell tackles this topic with a scientific approach, just like in his books Outliers, Blink, and The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.
     This scientific approach facilitated the use of data and statistics to support Gladwell's argument. He starts off his essay writing about the history of Harvard's admissions expectations, stating that in 1905, Harvard would accept virtually any academically gifted high school senior who could afford the school. However, things changed in 1922, when the school's Jewish population made up over 20 percent of the entire freshman class. Harvard's admissions history showed that a high concentration of a certain group in the school meant for a more selective means of choosing what students were accepted and what were not. Gladwell's purpose in writing this essay was to bring attention to the "high class" air to Ivy Leagues and analyze the social sciences behind it. Although this essay is meant for anyone, it could particularly appeal to an audience of high school students because it exploits the false ritz and glamor the world puts on upscale, highly selective schools.

TOW #5: "A Cupboard of My Own" by Catherine O'Flynn

     Catherine O'Flynn's short story, "A Cupboard of My Own" is about a young girl who had always felt as if she was on the other side of everything. In the middle of the story, the narrator even muses, "...Some children grow up feeling themselves to be the center of the universe, but...even in my own house, I was a very tiny, late-arriving drop in the vast ocean of other people’s lives and their shoes. She starts out the story by saying she was an accidental sixth child, and by the time she was 9 years old all of her older siblings lived elsewhere, leaving their childhood memories in the form of toys and stuffed animals behind. The girl is then excited to find a cupboard of her own—somewhere where she can preserve all of the memories she will one day leave behind, the most popular being a rag doll that was given the name "Marsha." To her surprise, she comes home one day to see that her cupboard and all that it held is gone. Catherine O'Flynn wrote this story in order to epitomize the innocence and fragility of childhood.
     O'Flynn establishes credibility in this story because she wrote it about her own childhood, so she can properly identify and illustrate the thoughts that were going through the young girl's head. The nostalgic tone she uses throughout the story supports her purpose; it points out the sense of defeat the narrator had when she realized all of her treasured items were gone. O'Flynn also emphasizes how valuable the toys were to the little girl, who acted like the toys were people: "In years to come I'd sit on my stool in the corner, eat my fish fingers and try to lose myself in Cheeky Weekly, but my thoughts would often turn to Marsha and the others entombed just a few inches behind me. I imagined them lying in the dark, hearing muffled voices from the other side." Anyone who reads The New York Times would be able to come across this story, but O'Flynn's intended audience is any adult who understands and misses the true essence of childhood.

A Doll's Sanctuary

(Picture source/article: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/a-cupboard-of-my-own/?ref=opinion)

TOW #4: "The Key to Smarter Kids: Talk to Them" by Annie Murphy Paul

     Annie Murphy Paul, a journalist, author, and speaker, wrote the editorial "The Key to Smarter Kids" in order to inform her audience about something she is an expert on: how we best learn things, and how we can get others to best learn things. Published in Time Magazine, this article touches on the subject of young kids and how their parents influence not only their social behaviors, but also their mental abilities. Paul's writing seems to target parents of young children because throughout the article, she frequently restates her argument that parent involvement is crucial in a child's educational life.
     When less-affluent parents have children, they tend to focus their conversations with their kids less on schoolwork. Paul supports this fact with information given to her by many psychologists and researchers on the topic. In addition to ethos and logos, Paul also appeals to pathos by writing about kids, since the educational values of children is a concern that many parents have. In addition, she states that parents do not need to buy expensive instructional tools for their children to succeed. In fact, all they need is communication. This opens doors to an even wider audience; it shows that parents who are not willing to spend a lot of money can help their children thrive, too. Paul does achieve her purpose of arguing that parent involvement is crucial in a child's educational life because she supports her argument with lots of information based off of her research. In addition, she is clearly skilled in that area of research because she has written many books on the topic of education in youths, so her writing immediately pulls in her audience.

Communication is a Virtue

(Picture source/article: http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/01/the-key-to-smarter-kids-talk-to-them/)

TOW #3: "Dreamland" by David K. Randall (Part 1)

     Dreamland by David K. Randall is a non-fiction book about the science of sleep, and it was written in order to shed light on the ambiguity of that particular topic. The author immediately establishes ethos when he begins writing the book; he enlightens the reader by recounting his previous issues with sleep. He states that he had sleepwalking issues, and when he went to the doctor, he found himself very unsatisfied with the amount of information he got back about his predicament. Randall also appeals to pathos and logos in the book by informing his readers about the history of sleep. This appeals to logos because he includes factual anecdotes about what different cultures thought of sleep, he goes into detail about what benefits or non-benefits come out of sleeping in certain ways, and so on. He appeals to pathos by constantly tying in that sleeping in a certain way is special to humans; he takes his wide range of an audience and brings them together with this simple idea.
     David K. Randall is a senior reporter for Reuters as well as a professor at New York University. He has also written for the New York Times, New York magazine, Forbes, and the Associated Press. Dreamland is his first published book. Randall seems to have written his book for any science enthusiasts. He brings up that sleep is a science many people do not know much about, so it makes the topic even more intriguing for curious people. His book may also help those involved with the science of sleep better understand issues like his because he brings a personal touch to the information. Randall achieves his purpose of introducing the science of sleep to his readers because he establishes how he himself became interested, he includes factual information, and he involves his audience by choosing a topic that everyone can relate to.

TOW #2: "It Can Wait" Commercial (Visual Text)

   With the introduction of new technologies, texting and driving has recently become a more prominent issue in society. Whenever I watch TV, I always come across very serious commercials regarding the issue. The commercials' goals are to keep their audience from making the same mistakes that others did and to tell them to never text and drive. AT&T, a popular telephone service provider, is the sponsor of these videos, establishing ethos because the company is so well-known. Also, since AT&T is the speaker of these commercials, the people who work in the company know how to appeal to their audience—anyone watching TV—because they know a ton about something everyone values: technology. The particular ad that I want to highlight is one with a man named Chandler speaking about how he was once texting and driving and ended up getting in an accident and killing three children. To make matters worse, the ad states that Chandler's text read, "i love you."
   AT&T's anti-texting and driving commercials are effective because they appeal to their audience's emotions and logic. The fact that the commercial stated that Chandler killed three children makes the audience feel a little of what Chandler was feeling when he did it. Also, they included that he was texting "i love you" to illustrate that he is just a normal person, like everyone else watching the commercial. Another aspect of the commercial that appealed to the audience is that Chandler was talking about the event and giving his own perspective: at the end of the ad he says, "There's never a day that I wake up and I don't think about it."

It Can Wait

Watch the commercial here: http://www.itcanwait.com/videos/wrong-turn/

TOW #1: "Overpopulation Is Not the Problem" by Erle C. Ellis

     “Overpopulation Is Not the Problem” by Erle C. Ellis is a piece of op-ed writing featured in The New York Times. This editorial is about the common mentality that the earth will someday be unable to support all life on it. However, instead of backing up this argument, Ellis uses logos by validating the counterpoint that earth will be able to sustain all life with the help of technologies created by humans. Ellis, an associate professor of geography and environmental systems in Baltimore County and a visiting associate professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, uses ethos to demonstrate his credibility. He mentions in the article that he is trained as a biologist, so he knows the mathematics of population growth. In addition, he has gotten lots of information from his research on the ecology of agriculture in China.

   This op-ed was created in response to the anxiety many scientists have about the future; it takes a frequent worry-causing prediction and fully refutes it. Ellis’s purpose, to give his readers a new perspective on the fate of the future, was achieved because he used rhetorical devices associated with logos and ethos. Logos was used to back up his points and disprove others’ points, and ethos was used in order to establish a sense of shared values between the author and the audience. In this case, the shared values are the destiny of the earth and the life it supports. In addition, ethos was also utilized to show Ellis’s credibility on the subject. This article is meant for any audience interested in the science of the earth. Furthermore, Ellis intended for his audience to be anyone reading The New York Times and wrote his article based on the aforementioned values that are shared between most of the people living on earth.

IRB Post MP1

     Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall is an informational book that delves deep into an area of study many do not know much about—sleep! Randall, a senior reporter at Reuters and an assistant professor at New York University, started researching the science when he realized he had a huge sleepwalking problem. Since there was not much on the subject, he decided to do some fact-finding himself. The book consists of information on the connections made between sleeping and diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and obesity. Dreamland also includes the history, myths, and the answers to questions many might have about the nightly activity of sleeping.
     I chose this book to be my Independent Reading Book because I, like Randall, am very interested in the science of sleep. I would like to learn how past civilizations had treated sleep and if it was as valuable (or invaluable) as it is to people today. In addition, I have wondered many times if I myself have a sleeping issue, since I tend to wake up multiple times in the middle of the night for no reason. I hope to get lots of new information through this book as well as some answers for the questions I have about sleep.