For my beauty Article, I chose to use a national geographic article about the enigma of beauty. It uses actual people during real conversation to get an idea of what the average person deems beautiful, and then it dissects the response and constructively tells the people what their standards of beauty really mean. I like how the article admits people are born differently and people can be judgmental about it, but those who don’t instantly deny their feelings often find love.
For my podcasts, I chose Peters and Me and Alex’s. I like how peter took a different approach and tried to convey beauty using something material, like a math proof. I think I can get some great thoughts out of it about the understanding of beauty, and maybe explore it a bit further. I used my own podcast because it was exactly what I was looking for when given the third paper prompt, and my interviewee gave very good and original responses to my questions. Each presentation did not exactly change my mind on the subject of beauty, but they did a very good job of expanding my understanding. Here’s Peters link: https://pfox1.uneportfolio.org/
Mark Boslough understands perfectly how science should be treated in modern day. There should be a scientific method that is rigid but open to all and well funded. He says “Unfortunately, even after the successes of 20th-century science, there are a lot of people who still don’t like (or don’t understand) the scientific method. Science is now under attack from many directions.” I think this is important because in an age of social and artistic change, we need to keep going in the same direction with science. Yo Yo Ma’s article directly contradicts this by saying that science is more plastic than originally thought, and we can use multiple subjects such as art to further our understanding. I think if Yo Yo MA had his ideas in the world, the scientific method would die out, even though science was doing fine without him.
While focusing on the arts or sciences alone can produce limits for yourself where there should be none, balancing the dichotomy is nearly impossible. Yo Yo Ma says there should be more of a balance by incorporating the arts into our science, but what does he know? Having no outside sources of actual evidence to back up his assertions, Ma basically just goes on a tangent about his life to try to convince a gullible reader to pick up an instrument. I understand where he is coming from; I also believe that people need to be more well rounded. But to plunge our ridiculous common core standards further away from a proper education by mandating that every child study the arts is just wrong. How many scientists balance their career by wasting time with performing arts? Would Einstein’s theory of relativity be more refined if he picked up a Ukulele every day? While the left brain/right brain theory towards psychology has been pretty much debunked, most people agree there are different personality types that are virtually incompatible with each other. By making children who might be good at sciences perform art, you’re limiting their time and brain power with distractions of music and performance that they will never be passionate about. STEAM will work for some students in the middle of the spectrum, but students who are either artists or scientists will suffer.
1. The article written by Yo-Yo Ma was originally published in an online news blog the “World Post.” Yo-Yo Ma, a cellist and songwriter, started performing when he was five years old. He won seventeen Grammy’s and he has produced more than ninety albums. He also graduated from Juilliard School and Harvard University.
2. Yo-Yo Ma wanted the people reading to understand the importance of art. He also was addressing how art teaches us some way to connect people together. He states, “We are all addressing the same issues with different names attached to them. STEAM will help us get there by resolving the problem.” He is saying how one day he desires people do things because they enjoy them, not because it was a command.
3. Yo Yo Ma is arguing for arts to become a core concept in a student’s learning experience. He feels that the arts are essential to student growth and development.
Words:
lascivious: “inclined to lustfulness.” When discussing culture, Yo Yo Ma includes an idea about the dance movement, “the sarabande,”
Invigorate: “to give life and energy to”
Ma used this word to explain how globalization can help spread new traditions.
Bandwidth: This is the range of frequencies within a given band
The changes I have made consist of putting in more quotes from the text, and looking at Little Seagull: This includes adding narrative, cause and effect writing, contrasts, and more descriptive writing. I feel like my revisions added more of a factual basis to my points and improved the grade of the essay according to the rubric. I will continue to make edits in the same way.
Reading Shitty First Drafts was a reassuring experience. While I’m not as ashamed of my first drafts as she was, I often feel the same way as her, and too often I find my fingers just moving to form words without having a real direction. But this is why we have drafts. I like her friends depiction of drafts as starting with a mess and ending with a dental cleaning of a draft. I do however think that three drafts aren’t always needed. Sometimes I can overthink my writing and it turns out worse. My revision strategy will consist of not trying so hard to incorporate my own experiences and focus on the texts more, adding more textual evidence and quotes. I tried to personalize this first draft too much, which isn’t always a bad thing, but I recognize that I have to follow the material more.
Through the peer editing, I found some things I did right, but also what I did wrong. This includes me not putting a proper amount of quotations in my essay to back up my points more. I mainly used my insight and text to world examples without directly referencing the material that much.
After brainstorming the similarities and differences between the Essay and the TED talk, I made a few good conclusions and points that will help me write my essay. I have decided to argue why art in any form is important in society. I didn’t realize until I thought about it is that both authors had very good grievances with art, and I believe that they could even find common ground in it all.
In Titus Kaphar’s TED talk, he approaches racism in a way that relates to all people. He recognizes that we as a society see the world through many different lenses, but we tend to focus on those with prestige instead of the people with a history just as rich, but haven’t had the same luxuries as others. Titus moves the audience with very convincing words about both his experience with his child and everyone’s experience with our very nature. He moves the talk into a demonstration where he covers up all of the high class white people with paint. My first reaction was sadness, for I resented the fact that things like this need to be done in order to make us “shift our lens” to the subject matter that needed to be seen. But the meaning behind it was, in fact, beautiful. The paint is mixed with linseed oil, which becomes transparent over time. This allows us to look at different parts of the painting before eventually coming back to the full picture, our artistic minds all the better for it. If this style of painting can be perfected and utilized in art galleries all over the world, then I believe that it will change the way not only artists, but the entire world will look at history. Titus Kaphar teaches us an important lesson that I have also written about in previous works; It’s important to look at the whole picture, for in an ever changing world, we can always notice and understand more than meets the eye.
My first thought when required to make an online portfolio was that it clearly wasn’t my cup of tea. I tend to be more conservative about technology, and doing my work and establishing more of a presence online is not exactly something I am excited about. That being said, I understand and appreciate the pros of having this system, and in time, I will get used to it and have more and more fun with my classmates through this system. Looking at the other people in this class, I love the enthusiasm and the various pictures of their animals. I especially like Jamie’s chickens because chickens are adorable and I’ve always wanted some.
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