Intermediate College Composition

Assignment

Here are a few more considerations as you think through your Issue Proposals.  First, this is what the format should look like:

• Paragraph 1: Introduce the issue as you know it.  The last sentence should be your claim, posed as an open-ended question.  This question is arguably the most important part of the assignment.
• Paragraph 2: Describe why you find the issue compelling.  In general, you should assume you need to avoid using the first person (I, me, my, we, us, our) or the second person (you, your) in any essay.  For this paragraph (and the next), you may use first person.
• Paragraph 3: Describe what you already know about your topic and what you need to learn still.

Make sure the proposal has complete sentences and that each paragraph is at least five solid sentences in length.  However, we won’t cover the details about formatting until it is time for your first full essay, the Exploratory.  But feel free to get a head start on studying your format if you’d like.

Remember some important factors in choosing a topic.  It must be debatable, with clear positions (ultimately, three or more).  It must be something being debated now.  But it must have been around long enough for you to find source material using our resources.  This includes our book collection (or collections at libraries near you), including books you can acquire through Interlibrary Loan.  It can also include our databases (articles from JSTOR or our EBSCO databases; dissertations or theses at ProQuest; scholarly reference works through Credo Literati).  You should look to minimize website sources—read closely: you will only be allowed one purely web-based source for each essay you write!  (Sources from our databases also exist in print, so they do not count as web sources.)  If your topic is too new or too narrow, you might have a hard time finding scholarly sources.

And again, while you are allowed to do bigger or more controversial topics, I want to reiterate that it is often in your best interest at this point to avoid them.  In particular, if you don’t think of writing or research as “your thing,” if you’ve struggled with courses like this in the past, taking on a big, emotionally-charged issue will very likely create more problems for you than it solves.  Consider being a bit more offbeat, with debatable topics that are more specific to a discipline and less intense.

And remember that you must treat all sides fairly.  Whatever position you choose, you must be able to read, understand, and articulate the best arguments from the opposing side(s), to use the academic Golden Rule and extend to your skeptical audience the same courtesy you would want them to extend to you in a debate.  Think of how you feel when you are reading something you disagree with, and then realize that those feelings are what your opponents feel.  Your goal is not to “win” the argument—it is (with the boundaries of ethics) to persuade someone who disagrees with you to agree, or at least (a more realistic goal) to come closer to considering your position.  Real argument takes charitability, care, thoroughness, and patience.  When I read your papers to grade them, I will be reading them the way an intelligent skeptic would read them (regardless of my own personal perspectives on any issue).

Dr. Reiter

My Work

     The social scene has devolved from its standards in the late 1990s like the sinking of the Titanic; no one seems to have an answer, but everyone is hiding a lot of hate and their own view of and feelings in the past.  The world culminated to a lot in "the 21st century;" people were often jealous of certain eras, like people born in the late 1950s and what it was like in the 1980s in comparison to the 1990s and onward indefinitely.  People usually, however, at the time, treated the past with a "gay abandon" and claimed the future was cooler; the problem is that for some reason there is competition to be the best and different from others so that not everyone can feel their best, and people who are set as liking the future over the past rejoin the crowd, when it's too late somehow and when nicer people are remembering what their parents and grandparents taught them was of important value, completely innocent and requiring some effort and "perspiration."  Basically, today, people are hypnotized with things in front of them to where they always react on an impulse and make things worse and blame others for their problems and put them down, to build themselves up socially, making it look like bad people have it together and good people don't, therefore meaning bad people are really accepted and good people are turned down as changed, like you can't trust what's most important physically and mentally.  How can we solve a solvable issue without people thrusting their bodies into the situation like it's hopeless for them and that's all that makes them feel better and better, stopping others from getting things?

     This issue is important because one of the most important things, love and "intimacy," are at risk.  I know, first, I am willing to go through life about my business, but I keep being bothered about things people don't want me to earn that relate to things I need, want, and desire, "love;" I still feel like a child and feel that older people are like older siblings to me and I feel people want to fell that.  People I know insist things are okay so that later they blame me for their unhappiness because I thought it was okay and that there was no way to help! plus, older people get involved and hurt me for it, just to give the other people what they want before they bother me more, though they are flawed as people themselves.  I have gone through my life lacking satisfaction in intimacy from friends, parental figures, younger children, etc. etc., but other people seem so sedated they can't even focus on their homework or get anything of any worth out of it, "so they say," though in the end they have more comfortable lives and I'm the "starving artist" of music and of the other things I do in the arts.  Posterity will not benefit when it's time for us to have babies and form relationships like families etc... if we do not get it together, but people are just jealous because it's not their kids they see now; our kids will be messed up if we don't get it together, and we accomplish that we feel they are very important like our predecessors did us because in this case us being parented by parental figures we love is just something on the side of this part of life.  Marriage is not forever but "'til death do us part" and having children is until 18 years after the start!

     Something everyone knows is that problems lie in the family and they say if a person their age gets love and affection from an older adult who is not their parent that their parents should be hurt because they didn't use them until their soul was sucked out, as opposed to leaving some for friends, etc. etc.  It's strange because a lot of older people can like a nice young person, and people, the becomingly jealous peers, only go for some people, people who are easy to take advantage of socially, emotionally, personality-wise, and in other ways, maybe for the valid and ignored topic of mixed race, which is interesting to some only when convenient.  Basically, the problem is that people learn to typecast people and notice when the best gets the best and all come out and say that their life was unfair and suddenly admit things they are and aren't just because they didn't get immediate gratification, despite whatever moral work they think they've done.  So, people like to take out their problems on others first only to be more "comfortable" later, including in situations of affection; pretty much, they're allowed to fight and tease people for thinking they are better than they think and for not being perfect simply as a tool.  So, are feelings of guilt avoidable these days or is it all test and not a reality for one person to love another, for whatever pre-existing reason, like because of other people, who "have it out" for people with better and more accomplished lives?


*I can find things to research, like the culture of the 1960s, for example, to use it as an appeal factor.  I can find other important things, like the classical arts, and use it as a tool or hub for attention in people's subconscious.  I'm not sure how to find the answer, but I can try.

General Psychology

Assignment

• Ask a probing question.
• Share an insight from having read your colleague's posting.
• Offer and support an opinion.
• Validate an idea with your own experience.
• Expand on your colleague's posting.

Student's Post

Brandon Leigh Allbritton

The Adolescent stage of lifespan development occurs generally begins in the early teen years and extends into early, and in some cases, mid 20's. It is at this stage that an adolescent begins to develop their sense of self identity based upon the social roles apparent to them. This can be a very confusing process of trying to learn who they truly are. Most teens attempt to solve this dilemma by adopting the roles they feel most natural to them based upon the things they associate or observe in those closest to them such as parents or peers. 

In the textbook on pg.203, the author lists 4 distinct peer groups often found in middle age to high school age kids, jocks, preps, geeks, goths. I can't say that I would have necessarily lumped myself into any one of those groups, though I have always found myself to have a pretty adaptive personality, and could relate to or fit in to relatively any group for the most part. However, I grew up in the rural midwest and for my high school years, I often identified most with the more "country" crowd. 

However, as I've since come to know Christ, I have come to realize that our identity shouldn't be found or pursued in social or peer groups, or modeled after parents, but in Christ. We are made in the image of God, and as when we are born again, we are being conformed in to the image of Christ, and thus our identity should be found in Him. I believe that we should help our adolescent children understand this as early as possible. I don't believe that it is a natural and innocent occurrence to seek one's identity in the image of other flawed human beings or in social groups who identify one way or another, but is a result of the fallenness of sinful man. In discipling our children we should make it our aim from as early on in their lives as possible to teach them who they are according to God and His word. 

My Reaction

Toyland, Joyland...

So, you started out like a baby giggling and playing around into adolescence, and then you opened up to more giving ways.  However, Late Boomers never seem to have grown up, for real.  Everyone wants love from Late Boomers, even older people.  It's gotten to the point used as a social tool that it's caused me dysfunctionality.  So, my question is if you were more like a kid before adolescence or 18? and your opening up was a time when you feel you lost or passed youth and enjoyed other things, like focusing on how to get attention?  I know a lot of people call my interests in things "just" "sex" I feel, secretly sending that message to me.  People need to replace that with "love."

I think you seem to be normal, like I a proud to be normal.  You don't have weird problems.  I don't feel I know you that well, though, even in what I'd think by reading your writing.  You seem shy to admit it, like you're still a child.

In my experience, I should have posted this in my post too, I started out just trying to understand things and become who I want, like it seems Audrey Hepburn.  I didn't become who I wanted until later.

You seem very religious and smart.  It seems like your opinion supports popular opinion.  I guess you just want to be a good citizen.  Did you ever believe that people are all deserving and some just have problems you may have later?  I also like a fight in me, I believe that [omitted] who have problems socially around you … that I blame the adults.  I also relate to young people really and have things against them, too.

General Psychology

Assignment

"According to psychological theorist, Erik Erikson, cognitive, social and moral development continues well beyond childhood throughout the entire lifespan.  Adolescence is a particularly crucial stage in the development of a sense of "self" or a personal identity.  Adolescents often struggle with questions like: Who am I? What do I like? What group do I belong with?

In this forum, explain Erikson's adolescent stage of lifespan development (Identity vs Identity diffusion). How would you describe the primary task of this stage?  Adolescent development plays out predominantly during middle and high school years, but can also stretch through the early college years.  Explore your own adolescent development by discussing any cliques or crowds (textbook) that you DID or DID NOT identify with in your middle/high school experience.  Do you consider yourself to still be exploring your permanent sense of personal identity?  How does this stage relate to the pressure some students feel during the freshman year of college to choose a major?" 

My Response

It's never too late to play … the piano.

Identity diffusion is when you have developed without a sense of identity.  This can mean physically, psychologically, psychiatrically, etc.

Identity is important at adolescence because you finalize yourself then.  For example, if you want to be a violinist, you should have started violin before, at least I hear if you want it easier, but it's competitive.

In middle school, we were embarrassed to sum up our friends.  Mine were blonde haired, blue eyed, more from Up North, though not technically all of them.  We were supposed to be friends more than making a scene as a clique or even admitted as friends.  Maybe, we weren't really friends, then.

In high school, I attended 4 different schools but was at a public high school for my first 3 years.  I didn't know where I wanted to go.  I met some people a grade older who seemed more respectful than my generation, class of 2004 born in 1985/1986.  They seemed like intuitive freaks and were casual but kind of artsy even.  They knew the 1st "Harry Potter" movie was all that mattered and we got tickets in advance and they didn't care about the sequels.  It totally changed my life, more than "Pirates of the Caribbean," which I did not know about coming out until I was 21 when I watched it or a little in advance.

At age 32, I am still developing, but I might be insensitive to some things forever.  For example, I found I wanted to mainly do violin, but I don't know if it's because I was a music major or because I like an orchestra from Germany because it has a violinist I like in it.

People must go through a lot chosing to enter the fields of communications and writing, science and engineering, or maybe something like the arts they did growing up.  I think the most pressure is violin.  You have to have started young.  A lot of people resort to guitar, and prestigious schools or conservatories for classical music are adding on contemporary majors.

To add to that, I wanted to say that I noticed people grow up anticipating love from parental figures, which is the stage I'm at and I don't know what comes next because I do a lot of mature things like that already.  I mean, I can focus on my life without worrying about it, but a lot of people bother me about it.