1. Opening Scene
I plan on opening up with a scene from the dorm about kids stuffed into one room. Then I will get into the atmosphere of the underage drinking in the dorms and show what is going on as well as what is being said.
2. Illustrative quote that will conclude your scene
“Pre-game is a must for parties, and it’s easiest just to do it here in our dorm.” Showing a girls standpoint but speaking for all other people.
3. Nut Graph: This is where you have to tell me what you are writing about, why it's interesting, and why I should care.
I am writing about underage drinking in the dorms. I am doing this due to its prevalence throughout the campus. I am also doing this because from the legality standpoint it is violating the students contract and also laws in the united states.
4. Background: Give your issue/subject context. Let me know how this issue started.
This repeating incident has occurred due to the atmosphere of being in college. Many students drink in college drink “According to a national survey on college drinking, more than 40 percent of today's college students engage in binge drinking. Twenty percent of students binge drink three or more times in a given two-week period. More than half of students who use alcohol said they drink to get drunk”
5. Supporting Information 1: quotes? data? anecdote? what is your point and how does it relate to the issue?
“Eight to 10 percent of the population in those freshman dorms is 21 years of age or older,”---The legality of the kids in the dorms is shown here. Most of the kids in the dorms are under 21 and it therefore illegal due to law.
“You like it?, I’m going to try to put this around a beer can this weekend so it looks like a Pepsi.”-The way kids get around it.
6. Supporting Information 2: quotes? data? anecdote? what is your point and how does it relate to the issue?
After hearing this I asked if he keeps alcohol in his room and he replied, “Is that even a question.”, he then pulled out a handle and 2 cases hidden in a storage container under his bed. This showed how many kids have alcohol concealed in their dorms.
7. Supporting Information 3: quotes? data? anecdote? what is your point and how does it relate to the issue?
Going to take a quote from residence life about the prevalence of it and what is done about it. Interview coming later in the week.
8. Conclusion: Wrap-up your story. What would you like your audience to consider as a result of reading this piece? What relevant future issue could you point to?
Although underage drinking is illegal nothing can really be done, more than what already is being done. In my mind as well as many others kids should be more qualified of knowing how to drink rather than not at all because it will always happen, especially at college campuses. So, being more knowledgeable will promote safety when participating in the illegal activities, since they cannot be stopped.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Underage Drinking
Next to Redifer Commons (South Halls) is a great place to stay especially being a freshman. Whether it be due to placement near the downtown area, being near the frats, being attached to the commons, or just because the dorms are much larger than the freshman dorms of East Halls. The overall security is also fairly high here, due to the placement I believe, as shown by residents not being able to enter without their card key even if the RA is at the door, at that specific time. Once you have entered the building and proceed up the stairs, you will pass the first and second floors painted with “girly” fixtures for the wall colors and immediately know where you are. If that is not enough these two floors usually smell like perfume and other flowery scents because of the various fragrances they like to spray. Sometimes these floors smell a bit different though, depending on the day and time of day/night. These floors can smell somewhat like rubbing alcohol, due to the girls famous hard liquor “pre-games”, and this causes a great deal of noise.
You can then continue up the stairs and find darker and more masculine colors found on the walls as well as a different scent, either the smell of a normal building or the masculine smell of teenage boys. These hallways’ smell can also change depending on the day and what time of day/night it is. Sometimes before going out the boys on these floors like to drink beer and/or liquor before going out but the beer seems to overpower any other scent if the dorm doors are opened. Although in the case of both of these floors drinking on certain occasions , the presence of alcohol in the building as a whole is not allowed due to the majority of people living in these dorms being under 21.
After knowing this rule and experiencing everything that goes on a couple times, I decided to do some investigating. So I decided to go around asking the people on different floors about the underage drinking going on. Although I received interviews no one wanted their name to be shared, either because they drink themselves or because they didn’t want to seem as if they were “ratting out” the other residents in the building. I then started to interview people within the confines of my building.
The first girl I interviewed about drinking in her dorm decided to let me in on one of her “secrets” and said, “ Although the RA’s can search our rooms they can never find out what are in our water bottles”. In the same interview she also said, “Pre-game is a must for parties, and it’s easiest just to do it here in our dorm.” I found this intriguing and decided to interview some of the males in my building. When going up to the third floor dorms I entered one of my friends room and found a Pepsi can with the top cut off, I then asked him why it was cut off. He then replied, “You like it?, I’m going to try to put this around a beer can this weekend so it looks like a Pepsi.” I assumed this was in case anyone walked in while he was drinking and I thought it was quite ingenious. After hearing this I asked if he keeps alcohol in his room and he replied, “Is that even a question.”, he then pulled out a handle and 2 cases hidden in a storage container under his bed.
Some facts I found include:
“Eight to 10 percent of the population in those freshman dorms is 21 years of age or older,”-Collegian
(talking about the ages in certain dorms)
“We also need to talk about raising the floor so that the minimal sanction for the lowest-level violations related to alcohol might be a more severe one than what we now have in place,” –Collegian
(talking about cracking down harder on alcohol infractions)
According to a national survey on college drinking, more than 40 percent of today's college students engage in binge drinking. Twenty percent of students binge drink three or more times in a given two-week period. More than half of students who use alcohol said they drink to get drunk.- http://president.psu.edu/testimony/articles/underage.html
(from the president of PSU talking about students drinking)
An Alcohol Intervention Program, delivered by peer counselors and an addiction specialist from our counseling center, is the first line of education and treatment for those referred for violations of liquor laws on- and off-campus. Last year, nearly 900 students were referred to the program.- http://president.psu.edu/testimony/articles/underage.html
(from the president of PSU talking about the program students were referred to)
Future Areas To Investigate:
After seeing a few of the ways residents disguise and hide their alcohol in their dorm I would like to investigate other ways in which they get around the no drinking in the dorms.
I would also like to see if its common for students to get caught drinking in the dorms.
You can then continue up the stairs and find darker and more masculine colors found on the walls as well as a different scent, either the smell of a normal building or the masculine smell of teenage boys. These hallways’ smell can also change depending on the day and what time of day/night it is. Sometimes before going out the boys on these floors like to drink beer and/or liquor before going out but the beer seems to overpower any other scent if the dorm doors are opened. Although in the case of both of these floors drinking on certain occasions , the presence of alcohol in the building as a whole is not allowed due to the majority of people living in these dorms being under 21.
After knowing this rule and experiencing everything that goes on a couple times, I decided to do some investigating. So I decided to go around asking the people on different floors about the underage drinking going on. Although I received interviews no one wanted their name to be shared, either because they drink themselves or because they didn’t want to seem as if they were “ratting out” the other residents in the building. I then started to interview people within the confines of my building.
The first girl I interviewed about drinking in her dorm decided to let me in on one of her “secrets” and said, “ Although the RA’s can search our rooms they can never find out what are in our water bottles”. In the same interview she also said, “Pre-game is a must for parties, and it’s easiest just to do it here in our dorm.” I found this intriguing and decided to interview some of the males in my building. When going up to the third floor dorms I entered one of my friends room and found a Pepsi can with the top cut off, I then asked him why it was cut off. He then replied, “You like it?, I’m going to try to put this around a beer can this weekend so it looks like a Pepsi.” I assumed this was in case anyone walked in while he was drinking and I thought it was quite ingenious. After hearing this I asked if he keeps alcohol in his room and he replied, “Is that even a question.”, he then pulled out a handle and 2 cases hidden in a storage container under his bed.
Some facts I found include:
“Eight to 10 percent of the population in those freshman dorms is 21 years of age or older,”-Collegian
(talking about the ages in certain dorms)
“We also need to talk about raising the floor so that the minimal sanction for the lowest-level violations related to alcohol might be a more severe one than what we now have in place,” –Collegian
(talking about cracking down harder on alcohol infractions)
According to a national survey on college drinking, more than 40 percent of today's college students engage in binge drinking. Twenty percent of students binge drink three or more times in a given two-week period. More than half of students who use alcohol said they drink to get drunk.- http://president.psu.edu/testimony/articles/underage.html
(from the president of PSU talking about students drinking)
An Alcohol Intervention Program, delivered by peer counselors and an addiction specialist from our counseling center, is the first line of education and treatment for those referred for violations of liquor laws on- and off-campus. Last year, nearly 900 students were referred to the program.- http://president.psu.edu/testimony/articles/underage.html
(from the president of PSU talking about the program students were referred to)
Future Areas To Investigate:
After seeing a few of the ways residents disguise and hide their alcohol in their dorm I would like to investigate other ways in which they get around the no drinking in the dorms.
I would also like to see if its common for students to get caught drinking in the dorms.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
# 1 Party School (Blog 4)
In many colleges today drinking is a problem ,but also a big part of college life. The large amount of drinking taking place directly correlates to the amount of partying going on at every college. With my fellow colleagues and I, attending a very large party school we see this all around us and it has become a part of our own lives even if we do not drink ourselves. In fact Penn State made it to number one and this caused a great amount of controversy. This controversy came from parents giving second thought to having their kids attend this fine establishment, all the way to the old alumni being partially proud of this “accomplishment”.
This controversy even caused multiple reporters to interview all types of people up at our great campus about the problem of this binge drinking and partying. They saw great opportunity to get this interview due to the popularity of the incidence of being the number one party school. Even the president of Penn State was quoted on what he thought about the whole thing. Although the way he put it, it wasn’t that negative of a placement to be number one party school because he does not want the college experience to be dull, but he wished they were not number one.
After starting to do the interviews and the reporting they saw very common things up here at State college such as public urination, throwing trash, and stealing (even stop signs). After seeing some of these incidents the culprits were then quoted on what they have done or seen and everyone said it is quite common. Besides these incidents they interviews a wide range of residents from family home in State, to the freshmen in the dorms, to the fraternity brothers, as well as a range of grades of students.
They found out shortly after that even people no longer involved with Penn State directly are still part of the problem of drinking and partying largely due to the massive pride in the football team. Having the largest stadium in the US is quite the icon for the tailgaters to cheer for their Lions. Alumni coming back had their judgment recorded on the issue saying that if drinking is banned they would be upset and possibly even stop the funding that they still give to Penn State.
Everyone created their own opinion about Penn State being number one in partying and placed more judgment after hearing this investigative report. From what I have seen up here thus far, I think it represents the school fairly closely, with the exception of stealing signs (I still have not seen this). Personally I liked the stories that were being recorded and thought they were comical because they were the truth. I think that just a few interviews would have sufficed for the actual report because hearing a great deal of them gets just a little dull. If they had more stories rather than interviews I think it might have been more powerful and yet much more entertaining. This report was still very enlightening to the public about how it seems drinking and partying is just a normal part of college life.
This controversy even caused multiple reporters to interview all types of people up at our great campus about the problem of this binge drinking and partying. They saw great opportunity to get this interview due to the popularity of the incidence of being the number one party school. Even the president of Penn State was quoted on what he thought about the whole thing. Although the way he put it, it wasn’t that negative of a placement to be number one party school because he does not want the college experience to be dull, but he wished they were not number one.
After starting to do the interviews and the reporting they saw very common things up here at State college such as public urination, throwing trash, and stealing (even stop signs). After seeing some of these incidents the culprits were then quoted on what they have done or seen and everyone said it is quite common. Besides these incidents they interviews a wide range of residents from family home in State, to the freshmen in the dorms, to the fraternity brothers, as well as a range of grades of students.
They found out shortly after that even people no longer involved with Penn State directly are still part of the problem of drinking and partying largely due to the massive pride in the football team. Having the largest stadium in the US is quite the icon for the tailgaters to cheer for their Lions. Alumni coming back had their judgment recorded on the issue saying that if drinking is banned they would be upset and possibly even stop the funding that they still give to Penn State.
Everyone created their own opinion about Penn State being number one in partying and placed more judgment after hearing this investigative report. From what I have seen up here thus far, I think it represents the school fairly closely, with the exception of stealing signs (I still have not seen this). Personally I liked the stories that were being recorded and thought they were comical because they were the truth. I think that just a few interviews would have sufficed for the actual report because hearing a great deal of them gets just a little dull. If they had more stories rather than interviews I think it might have been more powerful and yet much more entertaining. This report was still very enlightening to the public about how it seems drinking and partying is just a normal part of college life.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Blog 3
Every writer starts writing with a first draft, either after brainstorming or an outline, but they always put all their ideas together on paper in the form of a first draft. Even instances where writing is not the first draft, such as when reporters record still count as a first draft. They think about their ideas after listening to it and then plot them down for whoever they are reporting to whether it is a paper, magazine, or even the news. In the reading she tells how all first drafts are not done well and although this is bad this is how you can change your ideas and make it better for the second draft. This relates to my own writing exactly because my first draft had a great deal of mistakes even in the first paragraph. This reading made me realize not to fret about this because it is a quite normal thing. I used to get upset when I got my paper picked apart for the first draft and would sometimes even just give up. This was perhaps because when I was younger we would get graded on our first draft as well and since I am not very good at grammar this would lower my grade and I would get very upset. Now since I have a professional writer telling me it is a quite normal thing I will use the criticism and corrections to help me more that get me down in this paper and even papers to come.
Although it is normal I did not accept this normalcy and edited my paper. I went through the paper crossing things out left and right, re-writing sentences, and changing ideas as Miss Lamott did in her piece of writing. After editing the paper myself I felt better about the paper but I felt that it could still use some work. To fix this, I had a peer review my paper which improved it even more. Both of these combined efforts improved my paper a great deal. Following this I took the peer criticism on the separate sheet for peer review and did even more work on my paper. First, I made the flow from paragraph to paragraph much better through transitions. Then, I concentrated on making my paper much stronger by adding new ideas, and also backed up my ideas already stated within my paper. Also I decided to put more sensory imagery so the reader could feel more in the moment then it recently was. With the sensory imagery part I decided to use comparisons to make visuals even that much easier. After reading this I believe I will become a much better writer because I know now not to get down on myself about problem with the first draft.
Although it is normal I did not accept this normalcy and edited my paper. I went through the paper crossing things out left and right, re-writing sentences, and changing ideas as Miss Lamott did in her piece of writing. After editing the paper myself I felt better about the paper but I felt that it could still use some work. To fix this, I had a peer review my paper which improved it even more. Both of these combined efforts improved my paper a great deal. Following this I took the peer criticism on the separate sheet for peer review and did even more work on my paper. First, I made the flow from paragraph to paragraph much better through transitions. Then, I concentrated on making my paper much stronger by adding new ideas, and also backed up my ideas already stated within my paper. Also I decided to put more sensory imagery so the reader could feel more in the moment then it recently was. With the sensory imagery part I decided to use comparisons to make visuals even that much easier. After reading this I believe I will become a much better writer because I know now not to get down on myself about problem with the first draft.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Blog 1
Throughout my life I have acquired common, as well as precise, social skills that overtime have been developed into my writing and rhetorical skills. Many things have molded them including television shows, Facebook, texting, media, as well as everyday life. As with every living being I have my strengths and weaknesses, and have proved more strengths then weaknesses by getting to the point I am in my life. Some of the strengths I have include: taking facts from research to make my point more powerful, as well as having a knack for persuasion. These are both things I excel in due to the usage of them in my everyday life. For instance, I am always trying to convince my friends to do or not do certain things and also always doing research whether it is for science or simply to figure out how to do something. One of my strengths, persuasion, relates to one of my favorite movies Inception, which the whole movie was based on convincing others to do things. Inception, although some things were unrealistic, helped me understand more of the psychological component of convincing people ideas through emotion. On the other hand my weaknesses include my grammatical errors and a rather minute vocabulary compared to some. Both of these things I would like to improve because I think it will help me greatly in the world to better back my point, or opinion. There are many ways I can improve my writing, including but not limited to; all of my daily conversations, texting, the internet, and most importantly this class. My daily life will help me improve because I am a very friendly and outgoing person and communicating is a great way to find out new words. Blogging can even help me by just reading some of the quotes people post and seeing how things are punctuated and also the different styles that people use to write. I think this class would help me the most out of all because it is an English class and although I am very lazy, I like to succeed. So if I am required to work and write papers I will and with time I believe my grammar and vocabulary will improve through peer review and constructive criticism. Although I may get down on myself a little now since I am not the best of writers I can just remember not to give up like one of my favorite songs, which is “Till I Collapse”, by my favorite music artist, Eminem. I can’t wait to see how my writing skills develop throughout this upcoming semester, with all of the different types of writing we will have to do, as well as writing in our personal journal. Hopefully my goals to become a much better writer will be achieved so it can help me move forward. I have many challenges left to overcome to get to my final goal of being an Orthodontist with my own practice and improved writing will help me get there.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eminem/tillicollapse.html - Till I Collapse Lyrics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception_%28film%29 - Inception
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eminem/tillicollapse.html - Till I Collapse Lyrics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception_%28film%29 - Inception
"My Addicted Son" Analysis
In our world today there are many things malevolent that go on, such as: robberies, gangs, violence, and even drug abuse. In an ever changing world all these things seem just to be getting worse and worse as time goes on. So, in relation to Sheff's memior for The New York Times Magazine, what he states is fact and not just a made up story. Although the story is personal and about his son almost all of the readers can feel his pain brought by his son's drug addiction. This is true due to actual experience with oneself, someone close, or even the dramatic stories we hear or see in everyday life. It seems that Sheff is trying to reach out to the broad category of people who will read his article, through the story of his son to better inform us about the dangers of drugs. From this it helps forewarn many people not to turn to this path and, if already against it, help others steer clear from that path.
Not only is he warning us about the dangers of drug use but, I also believe that he is trying to let us know what the victim and people close to the victim go through. He also tells us what can be done to help the victim, which is sometimes very limited, as shown in the article. Next he, informs us to realize what hardships the victim must go through while recovering. In my opinion I believe the author to be using a Pathos and Logos appeal to get the message to the audience. Ethos, by demonstrating the emotions he must be feeling to the audience through his hardships and using a Logos appeal through the facts he brings to the table about the low success rates of recovering and rehabilitation centers rates.
From this essay I think I will use some of the same rhetorical approaches that Sheff used, just for different topics. One thing that I will try to use is the Ethos appeal, because my audience is people who have gone through the same thing while he could not due to the audience of his memoir being so broad. I will definitely be using the two most successful appeals in my mind, which are Pathos and Logos because, I think that playing with someone’s emotions or showing data can help someone better understand where someone is coming from or better understand their ideas.
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