Thursday, January 29, 2015

Email Etiquette

THE GOOD:

Subject: class on Feb 16th
Dear Professor Walts,
I will not be able to attend class on Monday, February 16th because of family issues. It is quite important that I go to this meeting. I am able to meet before hand on Friday, February 13th or simply just go to your 10 am class on Monday. Let me know what you think is best!

Thank you so much!

Patrycia Puszkarski



THE BAD:

Subject: empty
Hey! Just letting you know that I'm missing class Feb 16th! Hope that's cooL!

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Passage-Based Focused Freewrite for MLK's "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

"You may well ask, "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue."
(1st page, 5 paragraph in "Letters from Birmingham City Jail"

What really strikes me from this passage is the way MLK talks about his procedure on how to get a reaction out of the people. He's saying that you cannot simply negotiate. You have to create some tension so that they understand that there is a problem to even begin with. Without this tension, the whites have the benefit of not knowing what is going on. When I read this, I realized how much thought had to be put into this. His thought process has been used for numerous other issues in history. The reason that people do protests nowadays is to create the this "tension" that MLK is talking about.

MLK had to have realized that there was something done wrong consistently in the past; so much so, that there was little to no change or outcome. He had to change the way they attack the problem. According to this passage, MLK assumes that most people think that the best way to get a reaction is to go straight to negotiation. This is why I believe and assume MLK was the one to brain storm this whole new idea of protest and changing ideas internationally.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Sentence Styles


1. Simple: "They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity." (from the Declaration of Independence)

2. Compound: "In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only be repeated injury." (from the Declaration of Independence)

3. Complex: "To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world" (from the Declaration of Independence)

4. Complex/Compound: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." (from the Declaration of Independence)