Cameron Capachietti's Site – Page 2 – “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.”

Learning Outcome #5

Outcome 5: Document their work using appropriate conventions (MLA)

When it comes to writing formatting and citations are one of the most important skills for you to start to get familiar with and understand. Formatting and citations are something you will be using throughout the rest of your college career, and most times Professors will require different formats depending on what you are writing. In this case, in English 110 we mainly used MLA format for our essays throughout the year. I’ve used MLA format the most in my life and have become very familiar with it. Formatting and citations aren’t just for you but they are used to give proper recognition for their words, that aren’t yours. This comes in forms such as quotations marks, in text citations, as well as properly using the authors names in your writing. As we all know, improperly or failing to cite words that aren’t yours come with serious consequences. At the beginning of this class I was a little rusty using MLA citations because in highschool we would just use a citation generator and not write it ourselves, so this set me back a bit when It came to writing them myself. Later on in the semester I began to understand what goes where in the situation and eventually was able to cite an article or paper without looking at guides to help create a citation, I began to know what information to look for when it came to citations. In my first essay, as seen in Figure 1 and 2, my citations were very minimal and just met the requirements but then looking at my third essay, as seen in Figure 3and 4, I started to use more citation sources and incorporate them better into my writing.

**FIGURE 1**: *“Todays Social Media’s Influences on Human Relationships”*

**FIGURE 2:** “*Todays Social Media’s Influences on Human Relationships”*

**FIGURE 3:** “*History put into Perspective”*

**FIGURE 4: “***History put into Perspective”*

Learning Outcome #4

Outcome 4: Be able to critique their own and others’ work by emphasizing global revision early in the writing process and local revision later in the process.

When It comes to writing and finalizing an essay the last step before final touches is peer reviews, and this can be from fellow classmates and even your Professor. In my opinion peer review is the most helpful part of my writing journey, it allows me to make the corrections that I don’t normally see myself at first as well as allowing my writing to grow. Peer review allows my writing to grow because by reading what my fellow classmates and Professor has written allows me to see new perspectives and what I’ve written and gives me a chance to expand my claims and ideas. What I like most about peer editing is that it’s not just about fixing and correcting others’ work but it also gives you a chance to support and give positive feedback on sections you believe work. We have done a lot of work with peer review in English 110, with multiple classmates, sometimes even two classmates would incorporate their comments.

When I first started to learn how to peer review it was as simple as correcting grammatical errors but then I have learned over time that it’s so much more. It has allowed me to see that peer reviews is a tool not only to help you but use for support, ideas, extensions, and so much more. When I was peer reviewing for our final essay in English 110, I made sure I provided quality feedback on their work to make sure they were able to clearly see what needed to be fixed or what’s good. In this specific essay I gave feedback alot on where there was room for extensions, as well as places where I believed what they provided was good. During the process of peer reviewing their essay I used certain symbols that mean different things allowing it to be clear and organized, these symbols included “?” for parts where I had questions as well as using “+” to places where I could see some xpantion on the ideas. In the end, I believe the most important peer review you can recieve is the evaluation of your thesis, this allows the reader and the author to understand what the whole essay is based on , so in that case helpful advice on how to make a thesis more clear is always good.

**FIGURE 1**: *“Jasmine Manteiga 3rd Essay”*

**FIGURE 2:** “*Jasmine Manteiga 3rd Essay”*

**FIGURE 3:** *” Jasmine Manteiga 3rd Essay”*

Learning Outcome #3

Outcome 3: Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.

In my opinion, active reading is one of the most important factors that go into the prewriting stage, Active Reading allows you to fully grasp the text before making any conclusions and claims, this is something I believe I’m really good at after learning what to look for in the text. I struggled with this a bit in highschool for reasons I never knew what I should be looking for , I never retained the information I just read but after learning how to actively read and annotate it has allowed me to learn on a whole different level. After making my annotations, It always allows me to go back into the reading and look at the most important parts and see what exactly I need to know in more of an efficient pattern. We worked a lot with active reading and annotations this year in regards to many different styles of text and one of my favorites that we annotated, and even later wrote an essay on, was the essay “This is Water ” by David Foster. At first this was a very challenging piece to read and understand because I thought there were a lot of underlying meanings throughout the speech, but It was a great speech to be able to annotate and pull out the most important parts Wallace was giving. Some of the really intresting underlying meanings that I was able to annotate is about life purposes such as living life on a deafult setting, on choice and thinking, and even on our awareness and conciousness (as seen in Figures 5-7). When I annotated this I used the annotations tools of understanding, questioning, relating, challenging or extending, and rhetorical tools to understand the text better as seen in Figures 1-4.

The most Important annotations styles I like to use when active reading are the annotations where you extend on an idea or even the ability to ask questions through out the text. Asking questions and extending on what is written helps me form my own opinions as well as the ability to fully grasp the concepts of the piece, it allows my mind to start rolling so when Its time to reflect on the piece. Making annotations while active reading also plays into the process of my writing because it allows me to form claims around my questions and ideas, and turn them into paragraphs, while at the same time analysing and connecting them into my writing. I enjoy using the provided guidelines of annotations so I get a base knowledge of what I need to know , but then I usually like to go off and sometimes add some personal notes such as asking why something happened, or just what ever pops in my head first just to get my thoughts flowing.

**FIGURES 5-7:** “This is Water” – underlying meanings
(https://www.sloww.co/this-is-water-david-foster-wallace/)

Learning Outcome #2

Outcome 2: Be able to integrate their ideas with others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources.

When it comes to text engagement I believe that it plays many roles in making your writing stronger. The roles text engagements play in writing can be something as small as bringing up an idea or transition to something as big as taking multiple authors and connecting them. When I first came into this english class I didn’t really know how to write correctly as some might say, my highschool wasn’t very essay based. So when I had to connect two authors and put them into conversation with each other it wasn’t the easiest for me, and as seen in my first essay it wasn’t the best. I then started to learn how to correctly put authors’ ideas and concepts into one claim and connect them both by adding quotes and unpacking them to prove the connection. This process for me usually was finding a claim from both authors that stood out to me that relates to what i’m writing about and then I would brainstorm on how these two quotes play their way into the topic, once I established that I would set them up into a barclay paragraph and explain. Or even if the topics didn’t connect, they complicated each other. I would do the same. In my first essay I portrayed a good use of the authors ideas and evidence and pushed it further then what the author once said, sort of like complicating it but still making the connection, as seen in Figure 1. I wanted to look into my second essay and see what I gave in there, and I found a good section where I took the authors ideas and evidence and then incorporated myself into that conversation, as seen in FIgure 2.

Throughout this English 110 class we worked a lot with summaries and paraphrases when doing are essays. I tended not to use these techniques in my work before this class, only because I didn’t know much about how to use them. My work was most to quote heavy and didn’t look professional, after learning how to use these techniques correctly it allows my work to have correct citations as well as giving my work more of a professional look. I wanted to provide a section of my essay that shows where I have learned and noticed that I could provide a summary or a paraphrase in the introduction rather then being vague, as seen in Figure 3.

**FIGURE 1:** *“Todays Social Media Influences on Human Relationships”*

**FIGURE 2:** *“Empathy, Perception, and the Power of Thought”*

**FIGURE 3:** *“Today Social Media Influences on Human Relationships”*

Learning Outcome #1

Objective 1: Demonstrate the ability to approach writing as a recursive process that requires substantial revision of drafts for content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision).

Throughout my freshman year of english class it has allowed me to learn that there isn’t a certain way to do things when It comes to writing. I have learned that writing comes with many steps and one of the most important steps is the revision process. Before coming to college writing to me was just as simple as gathering ideas, writing the essay and occasionally having someone read over my writing once. It’s crazy to me that I thought that was efficient and led my work to be finalized so fast. Now that my eyes have opened to the multiple steps , including reading, outlines, rough drafts, and detailed peer comments form both classmates and my professor. It has allowed me to improve on my writing and given me the chance to be more of an efficient writer.

When writing my first draft I found that I lacked a lot of my own opinions and voice as well as connection between the authors we were provided. So after learning deeper into the writing processes for future essays I worked on adding my own opinions and voice more and more throughout the essay, rather than having the essay be so author and quote heavy. An example from an essay I did this year where I added my own personal voice was in my final essay as seen in Figure 1. Through each essay I wrote for this class I started to utilize more and more tools provided to me to revise my essays because I noticed I became more comfortable applying them. When looking at my first or second essay in comparison to my final essay there are some noticeable differences, and I believe you can see the self confidence grow greater in each essay. Coming from a High School that did not assign much essays and not having much practice with them it stunted my writing abilities greatly, but now I can say after passing in my final essay that I have grown as a writer from doing 1 essay every 6 months to now being able to write an efficient professional essay when given. The part of revision that I focused most on during my final essay was working on strengthening the connection between authors when I put text into conversation with each other, which I even struggled with at the beginning this year. An example where I was able to portray a strong connection between authors was in my final essay as seen in Figures 2 and 3.

FIGURE 1: “*History put into Perspective”*

FIGURE 2: “*History put into Perspective”*

Essay #3 Self-Reflection

Cameron Capachietti

My final thesis of my third essay was “Both essays have altered my perception of racism of the present and the past, due to the fact of bigger events like injustice due to the color of someone’s skin to something smaller like strong stares”. The reason why I added more specific components into my thesis was to bring up events that I would later agknowledge later into my essay. The function of my thesis was to prove to the reader that anyone’s perceptions or views can be changed no matter how stuck in their ways someone is.
Some strong aspects of my final essay was that I got to incorporate all the edits and final thoughts that I have learned over the other two essays I wrote in this class into a stronger essay. One specific aspect is that I used a lot of my own opinion and voice into this essay, but also I learned how to correctly put the authors’ essays into conversation with each other smoothly and correctly, which is something I struggled with when I first started this class. The part of my essay that I believe was strong and has shown these aspects is the last paragraph before my conclusion because I incorporated all the authors we have used from past essays and put them all into conversation with racism and with Cadogan and Biss.
Global revision was an important part in writing my final essay. The biggest global revision tool thatI tried to improve on was allowing my voice to come through in my writing and making it stronger than before, rather than just relying on the author’s words. Another revision I worked on in this essay was not having my essay be so quote heavy , meaning I explained the quotes I used more in depth and unpacked them. One of the most helpful tools that helped me fix these issues was the feedback from my peers and professor allowing their opinion as my audience to show me where these things could be fixed. This was helpful because I didn’t recognize these issues in their places when I was writing.
An important “quote sandwich” that I believe I wrote comparing the two essasy from Biss and Cadogan was when I sated “As we all know most of the time history can be pretty ugly even to the point of disgust. Biss writes “the bodies of the men lynched from telephone poles are silhouetted against the sky. Sometimes two men to a pole, hanging above the buildings of a town. Sometimes three. They hang like flags in still air” (Bliss 2009). This quote proves that we should all acknowledge and see the ugly truth from the past and grow from it. It’s important for us to learn from the past and recognize what went wrong so history doesn’t repeat itself in today’s society. This event leads to something more present with the clothes you wear, some people’s mindsets are stuck in the past and need to change it drastically. Through the experiences from Cadogan we heard that “No parents had told me how to behave when I was stopped by the police, how to be as polite and cooperative as possible, no matter what they said or did to me” (Cadogan 2016). Cadogans statement suggests that we’re doing something wrong, when a parent has to talk to their young child on how to act around police presence when all the other white kids don’t have to, is the real form of hate. This quote is important because it shows how careful someone of color has to tiptoe through their lives, in fear of being killed and even the fear of making a mistake and the consequences being 10 times harsher than someone who isnt of color”. I think this quote sandwich was strong because it transitions from both essays smoothly with a strong unpacking of the connection between both quotes.
After finishing both my final third essay and looking at my first essay I wrote in English class I have noticed many differences in my writing not only grammatically but technique as well. One of the most noticable differences I noticed was my ability to incorporate my own opinion and voice into my essay without holding back and being afraid of what my readers would think of it. On the other hand, I have never really been able to connect authors’ pieces correctly, especially when putting them into conversation with each other and I believe I have officially learned how to somewhat correctly make that connection strong and clear.

Connecting the Parts

When listening to Foster Wallace’s speech what stood out to me was when he emphasized consciousness and that shift, on a personal level it allowed me to really think through my own life. In this case, in making my decision on whether Wallace’s theories would work in my life there was a lot to consider. After fully grasping his theories he provides I would say I’d adopt them and incorporate them into my life as a college student. My own view is that what Wallace insists are life theories are in fact part of reality, or at least some part of reality. I’d agree that Foster Wallace’s posits are enough of reality to have in regards to day to day life because almost everyone experiences something of what he talks about. Wallace later states in his speech “If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options” (Wallace 2005). This quote from Wallace then transitions the audience into choosing what we think, rather than being told. To me choosing what you think is an important part of being independent or owning your own voice, but there is an extent to that because as all college students eventually experience there’s a time when you need some help on what to think. In Wallace’s commencement speech he states “ Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what to think” (Wallace 2005). In my case, this would impact me for the better especially consciousness wise. This shift in consciousness to me would impact my reality, but in a good way. It would allow me to see things more clearly and see the real world in a way of opportunity and pathways rather than an already set one road path.

After reading Bloom’s essay It has allowed me to see a different perspective on empathy itself, it’s given me a chance to see the benefits or consequences of empathy. In my opinion, empathy is used quite often in life and I could even say I portray it very often in my day to day life. Now understanding that I may be someone who has too much empathy, Bloom has allowed me to see that issue and how it can alter my relationships as well as my life as a whole. In that case, I would say that I agree with the statements given by Bloom. The overall tone he gives to the readers is something powerful and allows the readers to see how the way we use empathy isn’t always the best way and how most of the time we don’t even realize. A powerful statement given by Bloom said “Empathy is a spotlight with a narrow focus; it shines brightly on those we love and gets dim for those who are different or strange” (Bloom 2017). This quote from Bloom is something that everyone can relate to, everyone at some point in their life whether they like to admit or not has shown this action of dimming their empathy for someone you see as different. Bloom’s claims about empathy and intelligence connect to Wallace’s theories because they both use the underlying dark style of speech to get their claims across to the reader, it allows it to be personal and direct. Furthermore , Bloom’s claims connect to Wallace’s because Bloom talks about empathy and how it uses emotions to cause unfair and overall bad decisions, he spoke about the emotional or psychological aspects of this. As well as Wallace, he spoke about the psychological barrier we have of living in a “default setting” and the decisions that come along with that.

#2.) Even though I’m not that tech savvy, and couldn’t figure out how to underline a sentence I still found some important repetition, transition words, and pointing terms. Some important ones included things such as “in this case” or even “on the other hand”. Some pointing terms I noticed in my essay was a lot of “this” , I didn’t seem to utilize the terms “those” or “these” as much as I could of. In my experience, I feel like I rely on transition words the most since I notice them the most throughout my essays. I think if I utilized these writing tools in my essays more it would improve the way it flows or just even for better structure.

Biss Reading Response

Cameron Capachietti

3/29/20

In Biss’ essay she started off by writing about the invention of the telephone and how telephone poles became a problem within the community, to the horrific act of killing African Americans. She swerves from these topics , one to another, quite smoothly. She allowed the reader to see the connection between telephone poles and African Americans, she painted the picture. She allowed the reader to see the connection of how the community rejected and despised the telephone poles being built on their sidewalks, as well as the racism going on with African Americans. They were both seen as a bad thing during this time so the connection seen between them was very prominent, to the point of even killing African Americans on telephone poles. This swerve and connection between these two topics induces shock into the reader because most people wouldn’t expect this transition. Even though both topics seem to be disconnected at first they just seem so connected at the same time if you think about it.
When Biss states “The children’s game of telephone depends on the fact that a message passed quietly from one ear to another to another will get distorted at some point along the line”, we all think of the game telephone that we played as a kid. That is the obvious answer when you think of childhood games that relate, but on the other hand this can relate to a childhood “game” of rumors. Kids grow up with things being said left and right and their first instinct is to inform their friends about what they heard. The idea of rumors is hinted at in the statement from Bliss but not exactly said, this allows the reader to think of their own perspective on what she is saying.
A symbol in writing can be many things, symbolism is the ability to use words to paint an abstract idea. Symbolism is great to portray a certain mood or emotion when writing. On the other hand, metaphors in writing are more of an implied comparison, like when you compare two things that are normal to connect or relate to each other. In Biss’s piece the idea of the telephone poles are both a symbol and a metaphor. The telephone poles are a symbol because they portray something “bad” but also “good” , but they are also a metaphor because the author compares them to the murders of African American humans.
After doing some research on Biss I found some interesting things. I found that she is a cacasion female who has been known to write about this type of stuff. After finding these things out about her It doesn’t technically change my perception of the essay because just because she’s not African American doesn’t mean that her connections and points aren’t valid. She obviously doesn’t have first hand experience with racism but she did grow up in Illinois and Iowa, which is known to have had racism in the past, so she could have seen it. In that case, i believe she has a right to write about this type of deep concept because just because she hasn’t experienced this type of attack doesn’t mean she hasn’t seen it with her own eyes.
The last sentence in this essay was a strong form of imagery. It had shown that after all this hell with the connection between telephone poles and the murders of Afican American’s had a bright outcome. It aloud the reader to see even after all the history and past with telephone poles and murders there still was a beautiful outcome. Today we have telephone poles and we see them as a great thing rather than a horrific part of history.

Intro/Conclusion Analysis

Introduction:

After reading both essays, “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace and “Is Empathy Overrated?” by Paul Bloom, I can honestly say i’ve been affected by both. “This is Water” was a commencement speech given by Wallace where he went into detail about how us humans go through life in a “default setting”, as well as going into his beliefs on college education. On the other hand “ Is Empathy Overrated”, Bloom argues that empathy is a powerful tool with many pathways off it, but if used wrong can cloud our morals. To me empathy is the ability to understand and fully process someone else’s feelings and thoughts and arrange them in a way you can correlate a response. David Foster Wallace’s theories have an important message to them especially for college students currently, If I was to make changes to my life I would encourage his theories on the default setting, choice and thinking, and awareness. These conclusions, which Wallace endorses in “This is Water”, adds weight to my argument that there is more than one road in life, meaning that there is not a set path that you are expected to take, you shouldn’t settle for the first one you find. Life is a concept that is seen in today’s society as something with a bunch of rules and how you should follow those steps to be successful in life. I believe these rules and steps given are very mainstream, there’s way too many doors to unlock.

I believe the strengths of my introduction paragraph from my second essay include things such as structure as well as adding a good amount of my own voice throughout the paragraph. Some weaknesses I could point out would include going a little deeper into my claims rather than having them so vague. Some things that I improved in this section was adding more detail to what I’ve said as well as connecting the pieces together more thoroughly. I believe my thesis is pretty strong due to the fact that it is noticeable in my writing as well as allowing my voice to come through .

Conclusion:

Both pieces by David Foster Wallace and Pual Bloom have left me with a different perspective on life then I did before. The perspectives that Wallace has allowed my eyes to open to is being able to see the different sides of life and how our decisions play a role into being able to claimit. It has given me a chance to realize the ways life can be functioned and processed rather than green-lighting it through. David Foster Wallace’s theories have an important message to them especially for college students currently, If I was to make changes to my life I would encourage his theories on the default setting, choice and thinking, and awareness. There’s two sides to everything spoken in both pieces and I see both sides but overall I’d stand with what David Foster Wallace says about life itself. I agree with some of the things provided by Bloom to an extent because I still believe there is room in life where empathy plays an important role, rather than having empathy seen as something bad all the time. In the end, I support the idea of fixing your own life and making it yours in any way possible, life is precious and it shouldn’t be something seen as a set storyline with no change, but as something that has a breakable barrier for growth.

In my opinion, I believe my thesis statement connects and returns quite nicely into my conclusion. I believe I incorporate it into the paragraph in a different way and in a different format than when I first started it. My conclusions always could use some work, so I’d say my conclusion is a little rushed. I definitely could’ve added a little more to this paragraph, allowing myself to extend out a little more.

Cadogan Reading Response

Cameron Capachietti

3/24/20

After reading “Walking While Black” it has left me baffled in ways I didn’t know where possible. This piece was a very powerful and strong fight to show how the world is and how it needs to change. My initial reaction was to be filled with empathy, as we learned from Pual Bloom and his points on empathy and how they come with consequences. This is the correct time and place to give someone empathy especially in a situation where there’s nothing being done wrong or it’s out of their control. This piece not only connects to the African American audience reading but it connects globally, this epidemic is something that has been an ongoing issue for as long as most of us can remember. Once I finished reading the whole essay there was a bunch or sections in his writing that stuck out to me the most, the author said “I could be invisible in Jamaica in a way I can’t be invisible in the United States’ ‘ . This is one of my favorite statements from the writing because it is short and simple but has such a powerful and deep meaning behind it, it allows the reader to really understand the issue. Another section I seem to be intrigued at is when the author talked about how he believed the streets in Jamaica were so much more dangerous than the streets of New Orleans, and then later on describes how his views changed once he realized it was because of the color of his skin. The author described that “New Orleans suddenly felt more dangerous than Jamaica. The sidewalk was a minefield, and every hesitation and self-censored compensation reduced my dignity”. My final reaction to this essay is that I enjoyed how strong the author’s voice was throughout the whole entire essay. In class, we have learned how to incorporate our own voice into our writing and now after reading this piece I see how powerful your voice can be.