SELF REFLECTION

Unitil after I took English 1020 class I could not clearly put myself in a specific cathegory of writers. My skill in writing was not necessarily sharp outside of essays for my history major class.
Taking English 1020 gave me the knowledge of the various and different areas of writing which I did not know before. And it also gave me the chance to critically think of issues from different perspectives.

My writing has changed significantly since the first day of class. I started out as a highly conservative person with strong and entrenched views about society, politics and culture. I was more inclined to write about the injustices of society and the resulting difficulties visited upon people. I would most likely write about a serious issue with a conservative view than I would write about a prank, like in my fifteenth post.

One of the challenges I enjoyed in this exercise as a writer was that, the class challlenged me to get outside of my specific shell of writing serious issues and to writing about things that are fun. In doing so, for instance, in some of the free writes, I was able to truly realize that “all play and no work make science a boring subject”. Perhaps the challenge lay in the fact that I still had to be efficient in depicting fun things as I do in serious issues like Darfur.

In spite of the fact that I considered this a challenge, it has opened up an avenue for me to write more by veering off traditional issues like correcting the perception of people about Africa or educating people on unversal solidarity embeded in the tenets Islam. I would like to write more on issues that center around society in a much less serious tone. I am inclined to believe that this would prove how good of a writer I could be. My thought on this is that if I can write about different categories of writing effieciently, then I may have truly mastered the art of writing. This does not imply that I would like to alter my style but it will help spread my horizon in writing.

My experiences with writing in general was enhacnce especially with the development of ideas. Short notebook writing in the class helped me brainstorm ideas I did not know could be developed in few second and actually write or expand on them. I came to the understanding that the central theme in writing rests is being able to develop the ideas you want to write on and deftly deliberate on them. I used this method very easily in my posting about Africa titled “The Other Africa you do not know” which centred on the mainstream media's perception of what Africa looks like. I was able to elucidate the ideas that Africa goes beyond being a huge jungle where children run around in the nude and women bare-chested.

As a writer, I have hardly had the chance for other people to look at my work and critically analyse it(I mean my work) for improvements through suggestions. The peer review method used in English 1020 gave me the first opportunity to look at the work of others and offer meaningful suggestions on how they can improve upon what they write. It provided a contructive platform on which I critically analyse other works which I did not do before.

One of the things I have come to accept as a writer is that, a third eye on your work is always good. It gives you the chance to make corrections and improve the key concepts necessary to make a particular piece of writing good. For example in my reflective essay I wrote on a visit to London in the April of 2007. My description of the airport at first was not very vivid and it took a peer review for me to add a few more points to bring the entire decription of the airport together.

This was in fact a vast improvement on what I had written before in another essay on observation. In my observation essay I interviewed a pyschologist at a shelter in which I enquired on the activities of a shelter for abused women. My desription of the atmosphere and surrounding in which the interview was conducted was clear but I would have added different things to it.

As a writer I began with much less skill and knowledge of the different categories of writing but at the end of this class I have vastly improved both my critical reading and writing skill. A comparison of my first and last blogs attest to this fact.

THE OTHER SIDE OF AFFIRAMATIVE ACTION

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Affirmative Action is not a healthy policy for educational delivery system where competition is key to academic excellence.
In this cartoon by Jim Huber two students of two different racial orientations are depicted walking down the street from a SAT college qualification test. One of the students is black and the other white. The white student is lamenting on how difficult the test was but the black student is saying that he was assured that he will make it or qualify because he made sure he indicated his ethnicity.

This cartoon a narrative indicated by the SAT building in the background and the fact that the students took the test. The conversation between the two boys was that the test was difficult but the black boy was saying that he does not have any fears he is confident that he aced it because he check out his ethnicity.

This is also about the University of Michigan’s admission policy and the Supreme Court decision that affected affirmative action in admission policies.In 2005 the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision to uphold the a law that allowed University of Michigan which is a public university to make special provision to admit black or minority students in order to achieve a certain level of diversity on campus.

On the botton right hand corner of this cartoon is the placard that indicates the Supreme Court decision and its connection to affirmative action.

This is where ethos is used by the use of Supreme Court which is a very popular symbol of law in the United States. The Supreme Court increases the persuasive resonance of the affirmative action law through the law that was upheld.Without any doubt the cultural resonance in the Supreme Court being the ultimate decider in matters of law indicated by the placard at the bottom left corner of the image.

Logos is used in the concepts being represented by making an illogical reasoning to why a black student should be admitted without being necesary qualified. The effects of affirmative action on admissions and college life are brought to bear by the silence following the comment of the black person. Effectively the response is left with the audience.In this image if a black person spoke to a white person after an interview that he does not worry about what he did because he mentioned his ethnicity is a cause for unease. The unease emanates from the reasons why this black person would be qualified regardless of his or her credentials and the question as to whether blacks are inherently less qualified and therefore require preferential treatment.

Out of this illogical nature of the cartoon comes out the argument of this image in which Jim Huber is saying that affirmative action is not all that affirmative. If anything is negative and that a black person should not be admitted to a university just because of his skin color. He puts across the argument that it does not make any sense to give preferential treatment based on color and the he is expressing his dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court decision in 2oo5 on University of Michigan and affirmative action. He does this by placing side by side his argument against affirmative action in the image with the Court ruling in the corner of the text.

There are clear cut definitions used in this cartoon in that the audience can tell that the building in the background in the SAT building for college test preparation. The two boys walking down what looks like a street are prospective college students.There is no clear image that suggest that they are college bound students but the only implicit indication is that, they took the SAT test which is normally taken by college bound students.

Their gender is obviously male and it does not speak much on itself but it runs against the of notion boys being college bound high school students. But the opposite is also true because there are colleges with more girls that boys which make the writer wonder why the cartoonist used boys instead of girls. The questions of affirmative action have to do with minorities and women are largely considered a minority group.

This could also be explained as some kind of indifference over affirmative action whether it affected women or blacks.

This image is in black and white but the cartoonist does a particularly good job in being able to paint a clearly defined picture and puts across the appropriate setting for the audience to understand what is really going on. The contrast of the colors used is very effective.

Pathos is used in this image by means of humor as a means of rhetoric to put across a message that is not necessarily funny. It achieves a very effective humor by the fact that the statement made by the black student is a response to what the white student was saying or complaining about. The other part of this is that it leaves much to be desired because it does not indicate one kind response this elicited out of the white student.

The cultural context of this cartoon is even more interesting because it is directed to a particular audience in this case the United States regarding college admissions and how the Supreme Court affected the decision of affirmative action through its ruling. In a racially diverse and sensitive nation like the United States the issues regarding race have always been at the forefront of social and cultural life. Everybody will relate to this cartoon and ask serious social and political questions which hitherto did not bother asking.

Do you disqualify a white person even if he or she has met the criteria better that his black counterpart? If this is done in the name of diversity where lies our ability as an educational institution to bring the best out of everybody regardless of their color. Why the white person should be denied his right to gain admission guaranteed by the constitution in the name of diverse learning environments. In this case affirmative action actually becomes discriminatory among groups of people like whites who are not beneficiaries(Maccia 29).

One of the most important features of higher education is to promote healthy learning among students and teacher alike. It is therefore not surprising to see that certain colleges have very rigid criteria for selecting students for admission. It is in the interest of academic advancement through free and rigorous intellectual exercise that this aim of excellence can be attained. What this means is that the best brains have to be attracted regardless of the color of the head that contains the brain. (Maccia 30).

The question of meeting quotas is not going anywhere, it is here to stay and the United States will keep dealing with this issue over and over again until racial differences are ironed out. How long this is going to take the writer has not idea but the racially sensitive nature of the United States today is a good sign that better days are ahead since we are exhuming the difficulty associated with racial dialogue and putting it out.

In the interest of the common good and fairness no person should be granted what he or she does not deserve whether white or black or brown person(Maccia 20). By the same token no one should be denied something they truly deserver because they have to give up their seats to meet some quota filled in by people who did not work hard to attain.

The argument of Affirmative Action rests with the fact that there will continue to be debate like on the Supreme Court in which issues keep being revisited but in the meantime the decision in University of Michigan is upheld. Macia and Huber both agree on one single concept that the debate goes on. While Macia agrees on each situation to be considered seperately in terms of affirmative action, Huber makes a sharp case against Affirmative Action.

The importance of this research lay in the fact that the social and political conversations associated with Affirmative Action can not be overlooked but needs to be looked at in more open debates.

Keeping the flames of the argument burning is what matters,that it is not a forgone conclusion about the correctness(moral) or otherwise(immoral) of Affirmative Action. Again the questions of preferencial treatment under the policy of Affirmative Action will continue to be looked at for a long time to come whether it is a part of a larger themes in mainstream society such as correcting wrong of a long history of discrimination against minorities or racial equality.

CITED SOURCES

Elizabeth Maccia, The Educational Researcher: Affirmative Action Plans Vol. 4 No.9(October 1975), pp 29-30