Critical Thinking and Writing

Although words like “reflection” and “revision” may evoke frustration for writers and students like me who aren’t perfectionist and like to call the first draft the final draft, reflecting and revising work is a good way re-formulate ideas to better communicate a point in a more effective way.   

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In my last post, I turned my 2,600 work paper into a 820 word blog… frightening. To transform my paper to a blog, I had to use what works online. To do so, I had to discard some aspects that made it a successful paper…

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…This was difficult for me because what I needed to cut were well formulated sentences and paragraphs that I pined over to perfectly transcribe my ideas to the reader. The parts that made my paper “good” hindered my blog from being successful because of the different rhetoric that the online world calls for.

After getting over my hesitation to discard my beautiful sentences that just don’t work in the format of a blog, I was able to convey a similar message that was suitable for the new context. This online version became successful because I still was able to communicate my ideas, but in a different way. The blog was a new vehicle for me to get my point across.

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In all of our years of schooling, we’ve been taught to loyally rely on models like the five paragraph essay. In contrast, the blog is a great way to add creativity to work and convey ideas with more freedom and less constraints and rules. This new freedom provided by the blog is something that was hard to dive into because it is simply foreign to me.

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In addition of using different ways to get my ideas to the readers, the rhetoric and main points had to be changed significantly so my blog didn’t act like an essay that was copy and pasted online.

In order to have a blog that “works’, I think that it is most important to shed the essay image while still holding to the integrity of my ideas– but in an appropriate context of a blog.

To be successful, the transition of my paper to blog needed to incorporate…

• Shorter paragraphs
• A clear focus
• Approachability
• Multimedia
• Hyperlinks
• Casual punctuation and language

Although my nice long sentences were beautiful, they would feel completely out of place in a blog.

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I wanted the readers to feel welcomed to read my blog as if they were entering a casual conversation at a coffee shop while still keeping interesting content. When I transformed my paper into a much more casual format that was better suited for the context of a blog, I had to balance making it casual to where readers can feel invited but not dumbing it down too much to where it became boring.

Saying what I wanted to say in a new way is something that I was never tasked with before. I suppose that finding balance of what “works” to read the readers of my blog is something that will come with practice, like the papers that I’ve been writing for years.

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As my readers are welcomed to my blog in a more casual way, I think that the online nature of blogs provides more opportunities to become part of “the conversation”. Through links and connecting other blogs there is naturally more access to a variety of discussions and perspectives online rather than in a paper which is a huge advantage that blogs provide. Incorporating hyperlinks was something that I was sure to include.  

I also wanted my blog to be very accessible to readers. Understanding the audience is a very important aspect of blogs because they should aimed towards a wider audience than a paper in hopes to continue and spark more conversation. The point of a blog is so that entering the conversation is much more of a reality opportunity because of the interactions that the online community can facilitate is much greater than that of a paper.

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In order to transform my paper a successful blog, I had to change the rhetoric to fit the expectations of a “blog viewer”. Basically, I had to change how I was getting across my point through a few different techniques that are unique to blogs. Although I am accustomed to the more formal ways to try to get a well articulated argument to readers through a more formalized essay, I think that a blog has the ability to convey equally valuable ideas to viewers. Blogs also provide a space for personality and opinion that are not often permitted in formal writing. 

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In my next post I will embark further into the uncharted territory of blogging one step at a time… until next time!!

Americans are putting faith in a dream that is no longer attainable in the America that we know today. The American Dream that was once attainable by everyone allowed for a prosperous life in the United States. The economy allowed for the average Joe to get a job out of high school that payed enough to become successful in society’s standards, but times have changed.

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I call for the attention of my fellow Americans because today we have to struggle to accomplish more to reach the same level of achievement and security that Americans could easily get 70 years ago– effectively making the belief in the American Dream misleading.

Why is such an attractive and valued belief such a cause for concern?             The ability to have a secure job that payed enough for a factory worker to own a home and provide for a family is over. The promise of making it to the middle class is no longer as common than it once was but still so many believe it to be realistic. What is to blame are middle class aspirations in a lower class reality. But why are so many people stuck reminiscing the ease of the past?

Who else to blame besides the government?…

The shrinking of the middle class is not a failure of capitalism. It’s a failure of government. Capitalism has been doing exactly what it was designed to do: concentrating wealth in the ownership class, while providing the mass of workers with just enough wages to feed, house and clothe themselves – EDWARD MCCLELLAND

 

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We can look back at the days when a high school diploma promised many Americans a future that could enable most to reach happiness through success. Those days of the past  before the rich began to perpetuate their wealth as many American began to fall into the lower class because of the effects of capitalism.

The fact that the rich earn enough money to save money allows them to make investments that other people simply cannot afford. And investments — whether stones, land, corporate stock or education — tend to bring a positive return- David Leonhart 

Leonhart’s assertion basically claims that since wealthy people will remain wealthy because  they are able to make investments that others cannot in our economy.

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There is still a way to reach the middle class, but it is not the method that the American Dream employs. The way to a securing a job and owning a home is through getting an education but there is a catch. The problem that arises in regards to education is created because of the inability for everyone to become sufficiently educated, therefore contradicting the part in the American Dream that promises anyone can make it.

first law of inequality: education. When a society becomes more educated, many of its less-wealthy citizens quickly acquire an ephemeral but nonetheless crucial form of capital — knowledge — that can bring enormous returns. David Leonhart

This is alarming to me because the promise land that the U.S. is portrayed to be is false. Even more frustrating, we readily accept a belief that is no longer applicable to this time in America. Instead, goals should be redirected to something that can actually be accomplished within today’s economy and educational systems.

Source Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961

The paradox arises in the need for higher education to make it to the middle class. Education is an investment that isn’t feasible like getting a high school diploma; therefore, I believe that the American dream of reaching the middle class is outdated and replaced with the reality that achievement in today’s infrastructure is difficult.

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Having it all can’t be done by anyone anymore and because of that, those in the lower class that want to grow up and enjoy what the American Dream has to offer must work very hard to get there. This reality should replace the American Dream so citizens of the United States aren’t given the impression that an easy, comfortable life is capable here, but rather success is achievable through hard work and education.

A more realistic portrayal of what this nation has to offer the up and coming aspiring middle-classers would be to erase the American Dream from the American ideologies and rewrite one possibly titled, “The American Dream in the 21st Century”.

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“The American Dream in the 21st Century” could be written as a guide to achieve the stability and success associated with the middle class and incorporate the challenging route to get there. Although less appealing than the American Dream, the revision is realistic in today’s version of the United States. 

My proposed revision of the American dream certainly isn’t as encouraging as the old one, but I believe Americans deserve be given realistic expectations to make it to the middle class opposed to putting faith in the past.

For more…

Check out this link for an artist, Francoise Gaujour, for a visual interpretation of the nostalgia surrounding the American Dream.

My name is Lily Schreder and I am a freshman at Santa Clara University. I was born in Chico, California then moved to Redding, California when I was ten. Later on, attended high school in Sun Valley, Idaho then returned to California for college. My hobbies include hiking and enjoying summertime. 

Source: makeagif

My major is undecided, but I am exploring where I would like to take my education through the courses that I am taking. One of them being the Critical Thinking and Writing (the class that this blog is for). 

Source: MegaMamute