The two essays that I considered my best work and included in the portfolio were “Pop Art and Society” and Reefer Madness – A Reflection of Society’s Attitudes”. “Reefer Madness” is Essay 4 and best illustrates my improvement during this class as writer. In order to best understand my progress, I compared this essay with my first essay on prescription drugs. “Prescription Drugs” failed to stay focused on the dangerous of prescription drug advertisement. In “Reefer Madness”, I used your previous comments on this first essay concerning how an essay should support the thesis statement to develop stronger, supporting paragraphs for the thesis. Though “Pop Art” is my second essay, but I believe it is a stronger essay than Essay 3 on “Superheroes”. …show more content…
One improvement I made over previous essays was moving the thesis sentence to the beginning of the introduction paragraph. Moving the thesis to the beginning of the paragraph made it easier for readers to understand what the essay was about and the tone of the paper. During the revision, I corrected the mechanical writing problems, such as not italicizing movie titles. Rereading the paper, I found that I tended to write long, wordy, sentences. In my rewrite, I worked on improving the flow of my writing and tried to avoid awkward sounding phases. As in previous papers, one of my ongoing errors is using the word you. During the revising process, I discovered a factual error. The original essay stated the Mexican Revolution ended in 1910. The Mexican Revolution started, not ended, in 1910. The error was corrected during the revision. After reading, and hearing the essay read, I decided the essay needed a stronger conclusion. I expanded the conclusion to provide a better summary of the paper and also to better explain how “Reefer Madness” could still be relevant for today’s audiences. I would rate this paper as being high effective. The thesis statement on how “Reefer Madness” reflected society was strongly supported by research. The essay showed how the beliefs in the movie were still part of today’s …show more content…
Due to the subject of Pop Art being a broad topic, I focus mainly on how America’s consumer culture influenced and shaped the movement. The paragraph explaining the continuing influence of Pop Art in areas such as fashion, art, and even music video, helped make the essay relevant for readers. Overall, the essay had a number of grammatical errors (especially comma usage) and a more in depth explanation of what caused America’s consumerism. A more complete summary of the paper’s revisions follows.
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For over seventy years, marijuana has been a growing problem in our society. Due to all of the controversy over this drug, there have been countless battles fought concerning marijuana's capabilities. In the 1930's, a moral panic surfaced with regard to the use of marijuana. The movie Reefer Madness is a perfect example of how the media stereotyped and distorted this new drug in order to construct it as a social problem, convincing society that this narcotic was single handedly destroying humanity.
But the fight for a better life won't stop just because you aren't ready. What we're doing is not something you decide to do when you feel like it. Whether you're ready or not, this struggle will go on.” Pg. 159. The drug issue is relevant in the world today because kids, especially teens, use it as a way to escape the reality they are living in. Some use it to have fun but others to forget of what they are living in and to relieve the “stress” they might have. Reading fiction can teach students the harm and danger of certain things, like drugs. It can show what it does and how it can affect you in the future and even though it may take away the hurt you are feeling, it will only come back when that feeling is gone.“When you win we win but when you go down you go down alone” Pg. 159. The author shows by this quote how not everyone is willing to go down when you go down, but only succeed when you do. This is relevant in the world because when you are doing good everyone want to be surrounded by you, but once you fail no one is there to help you. This relates to the thesis because it can teach students the harm drugs can cause when using them for a temporary
She uses many logical appeals to charm the readers’ sense of reasoning by relating some of the key points in her story to the average college student. She includes valid appeals like “Since in essence, this life was impossible, Alex began taking Adderall to make it possible” (para. 1), or “Alex recalled one week during his junior year when he had four term papers due” (para. 3). Margaret provides a lot of examples from Alex as to why students should be taking these drugs. They are becoming more and more widespread because school has only continued to get more difficult for incoming generations. The stress and despair is wrecking the hope of our society, making them feel as if they are only drowning in work every day of the week. More so, these just lead to damage amongst the minds of the college student, which is very negative to our society. They feel the need to take Adderall to better themselves academically and to help their state of mind. The image that society is illustrating by taking these drugs is that one cannot do anything on their own, that they need some kind of substance to help them. Talbot successfully displays the negative impact on students by providing these quotes and stories that degrade the character of any scholar. Margaret accurately describes the harmful effects of the use of Adderall by providing so many logical appeals that any student could relate to. Any of these appeals provided have the ability to convince her audience that neuroenhancing drugs only cause negative effects as opposed to being beneficial. Talbot seems to have a good background of knowledge on the subject. After all, people wouldn’t be reading her article if she didn’t seem
As a result of the war, America felt a new patriotism. As the wealth of the country increased the people were inclined to celebrate their success. They also celebrated having a much easier life than in comparison to the hardship and compromises of the war years. This was evident in the products that were designed to save Americans time and effort. There was advertising particularly aimed at women in the home household products. The consumerist beliefs were perpetuated by the mass media, radio, television, cinema and print media. Household objects and celebrities faces were the way to sell these products. Art became visible to greater sections of the population and to lower classes. Because of its positioning, images were seen in conjunction with advertising and printed on clothing and acce...
An artistic achievement that can demonstrate that the United States is in its Golden Age is its very influential fast growing entertainment business, a business very important to the U.S. economic activity. The U.S. entertainment has been popular around the world globalizing U.S. pop culture and the U.S. entrainment business economy. This globalization is a result of new innovations, that the U.S. itself developed, that allows film, music, and television, to spread worldwide. Because the U.S. is generally first to have such innovations the entertainment is commonly considered better quality thus appealing to the masses of people. Other factors that lead to the huge success of its entertainment business include their methods of distribution, which is through large and powerful foreign companies, and their large English-speaking market potential. High market ability and general international appeal of the U.S. entertainment business has put the U.S. in a “Golden ...
Many of the mistakes I would have deemed inconsequential in the past resembles glaring flaws now. The introduction and conclusion paragraphs were where the most work was done. In the introduction, I inserted a hook and blended the paragraph together. I accomplished this by adding transition words and changing the tense to fit the rest of the essay. In the conclusion, I completely started over. The original was bland, boring, and just plain repetitive. In the revised version, I outlined the essay, restated the thesis, and ended by suggestion other applications.
Pop culture in the 1950s and 1960s began to spread and infest the nation from front to back through radio shows, books and magazines, television programs, and even motion pictures. Whether it is culture in terms of political affairs, clothing or the latest musical sensations, the United States has always played the dominant role when it came to who knows what is best, first. Some cases of Americanizati...
Epstein, Dan. 20th Century Pop Culture: The Early Years to 1949. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001. Print.
-Eco, Umberto, “Lowbrow Highbrow, Highbrow Lowbrow” in Pop Art: The Critical Dialogue, ed. Carol Anne Mashun (Ann Arbor & London: UMI Research Press, 1989)
American economy in 1950s grew by 37%. During this period of time, a heightened economy led Americans to continuously spend more on consumer goods. The formation of Pop Art effectively influenced the greatest consumer economy of the world. The further development of materialism is due to an art movement during this time. The changes in art, especially in the development of modern art, led to the expanding negative impact of materialism in America. Andy Warhol, the leading figure of Pop art culture, portrayed consumerism through his art. Pop art shown in advertisements and comic books helped to create a new definition of materialism. Materialism is now defined as: “a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values” (“Materialism”). Andy Warhol and his artworks were catalysts for the materialistic culture that characterizes contemporary society and continues to influence the world today.
In the first essay DON’T EAT BEFORE READING THIS Bourdain wrote humorously, comparing his kitchen staff to “The Wild Bunch”, which was a group of old western outlaws. SANDRA BLAND AND OR VUNRABLE BODIES is far from humorous, Roxane Gay wrote about a serious modern day issue for an African American. WHY WE CRAVE HORROR MOVIES by Stephen King was composed to explain that our insanity drives us towards terrifying motion pictures. Finally, Marlon James sequentially structured FROM JAMAICA TO MINESOTA TO MYSELF to reveal the discovery of himself. Even though the four essays I have chosen are different topics and styles of writing, they all passionately wrote about a subject that is dear to them. Overall my attitude about the essays. The assignment was a learning experience that has changed dreadful thoughts to an open mind breaking a piece down to find a true meaning, through figurative
Essay 1: WRITE A COHERENT ESSAY IN WHICH YOU ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE USE OF BLACK ICONIC IMAGES (AND OTHER ETHNIC IMAGES) TO SELL PRODUCTS AS THE ECONOMY OF MASS CONSUMPTION EXPANDED IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO INCLUDE IMAGES IN YOUR PAPER! During the 19th and 20th century, America –mostly white collar, middle class Americans- saw a great increase in salaries and a huge rise in mass production which paved the way for the modern American consumerism which we know today. The advertising scene saw a dramatic boost during that period and tried to latch on to this growing pool of emerging consumers. Although only limited to print, advertising during this pivotal period showed panache and reflected American society and popular culture.
.... The movements boldness and bring colors, and the willingness to be different, made this movement stand out from other movements. The pop art movement wanted to have a statement be made to the public, and the movement truly did.
In this essay my thesis statement was “Kilbourne makes her argument by saying “Sex in advertising is pornography graphic because it dehumanizes and objectified people, especially women, and because it fetishizes products, imbues them with an erotic charge which dooms us to disappointment since products never can fulfill out sexual desires or meet out emotional needs” (“Kilbourne Reading” 1). After writing this thesis statement I was able to provide a good argument that flowed well in the essay. Comparing this essay to the other ones, I would say that this essay was great because first I had got an A on this essay and second is that provided good examples by using sources to back up my claim that I had made in the essay. Looking back to this essay I would choose this essay because it best fit my style of writing and it is a great example I can use for future
Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change” (John Podhoretz). It encompasses the advertisements we see on T.V, the clothes we wear, the music we listen too, and it’s the reason Leonardo DiCaprio has not won an Oscar yet. It defines and dictates the desires and fears of the mainstream members of society; and it is so ingrained into our lives that it has become as natural as breathing. Moreover, adults never even bat an eyelash at all the pop culture and advertising that surrounds them since it has become just another part of everyday life. Pop culture is still somewhat seen as entertainment enjoyed by the lower class members of society; but pop culture standards change over time. A notable example of this is the sixteenth century author, William Shakespeare, since his works were considered pop culture, entertainment that could be enjoyed by everyone, but now they are considered literary classics. While pop culture encompasses most aspects of our lives, its influence is most obvious through each generations reaction to media,