Bo’s BGSU Blog

The article “Lest We Think the Revolution Is a Revolution: Images of Technology and the Nature of change” and Harry Potter and the technology of Magic” draw some similar comparisons in the message the authors are trying to present. Both of these articles relate to technology and how it shapes the world around us. In Harry Potter it talks about consumer technology and how it affects young children and adults. In the Revolution article the author writes about technology helps Americans make their lives better as well as other countries who America gives aid to. Both of these essays are organized in the same manner. The essays are broken into two halves the first half of Harry Potter the author shows some negative flaws to Harry Potter and consumer technology and the second half is showing support for the Harry Potter. In the Revolution essay it the first half it shows how Technology plays a major role in the life of Americans and how technology is uses to aid foreign countries. In the second half the author shows how technology can be dangerous. Selfe writes, “how to increase our own cultural profits at the expense of others, how to take more effective advantage of need and difference whenever we identify them, and how to reduce the cultures of other people to inexcusable simplifications” (790). Selfe then describes ways in which people take advantage of technology to benefit them. This can be compared to “Harry Potter and the technology of Magic” when it elaborates on the negatives affects of Harry Potter on commodity culture. The technology involved in Harry Potter persuades young children to beg their parents to buy them Harry Potter accessories and books. These are both two examples of how the essays reflect negative to technology. These articles each have support for technology as well which are Americans help foreign countries through technology and how Harry Potter gets young children involved in reading which is good for kids to be doing.

For essay one the critique I have some revisions that I need to make. In this essay I need to revise some of my sentence structure and word use to make the reader have a more clear and better understanding as to what it is I’m writing about. I also want to add some more to my conclusion as well as make by CA and R more effective.  I really like the process of peer review. Not only does it help me by seeing the comments my classmates make but i also learn alot from reviewing other essays. In my peer review I realized that my sentence structure may be unclear sometimes and I can be a bit repetitive at times. I plan to take the material i learn from peer review and be able to transfer that into the “real world” when I’m older. i beleive that communicating and being able to write effectively is essential to being succesful in the “real world”. And what I’m learning now through the writing process and peer review I will carry one with me not only in future classes but in my professional life as well.

            Some real world circumstance that I used when making a decision happened to be one of the biggest decisions of my life. That decision was where I was going to attend college. Choosing a college can be ones biggest decision and definitely identifying certain criteria of universities had a lot to do with making my decision. The decision I made was to attend BGSU. I evaluated it on 3 criteria, Unique, purpose, and specialization. I chose BG because it met the criteria that I was looking for. It is unique it its small college atmosphere town. It serves a good purpose for me and it is relatively close to my house, it has the program I’m interested in which is business. And it is specialized in business which is the program I’m in. I can also relate my evaluation of this “real world circumstance” to essay 1 as well. In essay one I will evaluate the criteria of unique, thesis, and genre. These three criteria are almost identical to the three in my “real life” example. Uniqueness can be interpreted the same in both contexts, with the school being unique with its atmosphere and the text having unique stories and organization. Thesis and purpose are closely related. The thesis is the reason for essays that I look at when evaluating texts and purpose is why I chose the school I wanted to attend. And genre and specialization are also to be interpreted in the same way. Specialization is an important criterion on what school I wanted to attend and genre is a criterion I evaluate when I evaluate a text. All in all with evaluating criteria on decisions we make in everyday life, it should make it that much easier to write essay one because we use this process quite often in the “real world”.

“Harry Potter and the Technology of Magic” is an article written by Elizabeth Teare in the textbook Inquiry to Readers. Elizabeth’s thesis is, “I will argue that the stories the book tell, as well as the stories we’re telling about them, enact both our fantasies and our fears of children’s literature and publishing in the context of twenty-first-century commercial and technological culture” (802). Throughout this essay Teare argues in support of the Potter series as well as against them. She gives the perspectives of different critics of the book. She draws a line between the positive ness this book has among children and the negative effect it has on our culture. She shows how this book has been marketed all over U.S and Britain and how technology such as movies, games, and the internet have made Harry Potter boom throughout the country.

In English 112 I expect to rise my writing skills to yet a higher level, as I did in English 111. In English 111 I learned how to properly organize an essay with topic sentences which connected to my main points which I would then connect to my thesis. I learned to use proper source introduction, and to make my audience clear to the reader. In 112 I expect to expand even more with my writing. I want to learn a more variety of ways to set up my essays. In 111 our essays for the most part followed the same format. I want to learn new and more exciting ways to set up my essays so they aren’t always the same. Not only do I want to be a better writer once I am done with this course, but I also want to be a better reader. After reading the first two chapters in our textbook I am getting the vibe that being able to read and analyze essays will be essential to being successful in this course. I want to be able to read and annotate essays through strong critical thinking skills. I then want to be able to respond to a reader’s strengths and weaknesses as well as raise objections and show support for what I am reading in other student’s essays. I also want to become a better proofreader. I want to be able to help my self out and self edit my essays so I don’t have as many mistakes before I submit my first rough draft. I think that the better I do on my rough drafts through peer review and self editing it will greatly benefit me to passing my essays. I expect to be successful at organization, audience awareness, and having strong main points which I tie into my thesis. I want to continue to work on proofreading, self editing, and a variety of ways to set up my essays. My expectations from my instructor are for her to be there to help guide me through the three essays. I expect that I can go to her when I need help and that she will get me on the right track and give me a good understanding of what exactly it is that she wants me to do in my papers. I also know that it will never be a problem getting a hold of Mrs. Rzizcnek. She makes it very easy to contact her through email, Facebook, IM, and conferencing. I am really looking forward to this course because I believe what I learn here I will carry on with me for the rest of my college years and through my profession. I believe that being able to write effectively also helps with communicating with others effectively and in order to be successful in society I will need to be well rounded in both areas.

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