A Letter to yourself

Learning English through American Culture

English 1A was a very useful course for me in two different and important ways.  On one hand I learned more about the mechanics of writing a persuasive essay, and on the other hand the reading assignments made me aware of issues that I had not thought about before and they certainly are very important.

I learned several important points about the reading and writing processes.  Taking notes, underlining, and writing down thoughts and comments on each section of a reading selection helped me remember points and ideas that I could otherwise forget.   This type of reading process was especially helpful when the reading selection is an entire book like The Culture Jam or a long essay or research article.  During the writing process, I found that writing down or brainstorming the topic of each body paragraph of my essay was helpful.  Based on these main ideas, I went back and filled in the details and quotations for each paragraph.

              As a writer, I also learned several rules for improving the form and structure of my essays.  I learned to combine short sentences to make the essay flow better and add more information to explain the point I was making in my writing. I also learned that the conclusion should make the reader aware of why the essay they read was worthwhile.

On the paragraph level, I learned that the main point and topic should be placed close to the beginning of each body paragraph.  I also learned to link each paragraph back to the thesis statement to make the point of my writing clear and more understandable.  Although not as visible in shorter essays, this technique worked extremely well to pull together and clarify longer essays.  This was the most valuable rule of essay writing I learned so far, even after four years of turning in research papers in high school English classes.

On the sentence level, I learned to formulate clear sentences using active instead of passive verbs , use grammar constructs such as subordinate clauses and appositives, as well as a way to test whether or not “who”  or “whom” should be used in a sentence by reconstructing the sentence with the words “he” or “him”.  Although, I already used this type of grammar in my writing, doing the exercises allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of these constructs and realize how they are used to form clearer sentences that contain more information.

I learned several rules that improve reading and writing processes on the overall essay, paragraph, and sentence level.  Learning to link each paragraph back to the thesis statement was the most valuable rule of writing that I was not aware of before this class.

 

Everything I learned in the past quarter in English 1A will be useful in my future writing classes.   However, there is one reading assignment and several rules of writing that I find myself remembering almost every day.  The rule to end each paragraph with a link to the thesis statement is one I will definitely remember and use in future writing assignments.   In everyday speech, I often find myself deconstructing my own or someone else’s sentences to see if they are using the words “I” and “me” correctly.  In the future, I will know how to do the same to see if the words “who” and “whom” are used correctly. 

The book The Culture Jam was very provocative and the suggestion to discuss its contents with others was immensely useful.  I chose to discuss to it with considerably older acquaintances and it happened that their points of view was very different from that of Kalle Lasn.  The different ideas that I have now been exposed are very exciting and will be on my mind for a long time, maybe forever.

In English 1A class this past quarter I learned to think about popular culture and its effects on modern society.  I learned different ways of looking at and thinking about the pros and cons of modern technology, artifacts, and advertisements that populate our everyday lives. All the reading and writing assignments done for this class made me understand the deeper meanings behind many of these artifacts and how the media can influence these meanings. Jib Fowles essay, “Fifteen Basic Appeals”, which talked about the appeals advertisers use to draw the reader’s attention to their products, caught my interest and made me look at advertisements and everyday items like vehicles and sunglasses in a whole new way.  

After reading the assigned articles and writing the in-class and out-of-class essays, I learned that pop culture is part of society's everyday life and ordinary items like movies, clothes, and cars often carry hidden and deeper meanings. By reading Jib Fowles essay “Fifteen Basic Appeals” and writing the essay on Analyzing Advertisements, I learned that sellers try to appeal to consumers’ internal needs and desires.  I also learned that consumerism is a problem in the United States and that everyone needs to think about environmental responsibility in their life style choices. I learned that pop culture artifacts like the SUV may represent society's lifestyle, status, and environmental infrastructure.  Pop-culture is made up of many subcultures.  Often, society has many misconceptions about certain subcultures due to the way they are represented by the television media.  I also learned that every technology has its positive and negative effects on culture.  The Internet reduces social interaction between people in some ways but also facilitates it in other ways (like by email, Facebook and Skype).  At the same time it makes businesses more efficient and lessens air pollution by allowing people to work from home instead of commuting to the office.   Jib Fowles' essay, “Fifteen Basic Appeals” was, for me, most compelling and thought provoking.   After reading this essay, every time I look at a TV commercial or see a product advertised on a billboard I try to decipher which appeal the seller is using to get the public’s attention.

     I learned that in our society the media controls the quality and content of information we receive.  Therefore, people must be aware and think critically about the information presented on TV, the internet, and other news and advertising sources. Before forming an opinion about any subculture, a person should understand its true essence instead of forming a decision or a prejudice based on the way a subculture is portrayed on TV.  Positive benefits of some modern technologies may outweigh their negative side effects, however, people must make sure that they use technology to enrich their lives and not allow it to become a negative influence.  Before purchasing and driving a Hummer, people need to consider their environmental responsibility and the effect such conspicuous consumption has on our society instead of falling for the advertiser’s ploy of playing on their desire for aggression and dominance.  Fifteen appeals are used by advertisers to attract people’s attention to products.  In order to think critically about our environment and the information presented by today’s media, everyone should know which of the appeals a particular advertisement  is using and which of our emotions a particular product is trying to reach.

After reading Jib Fowles’ “Fifteen Basic Appeals”, an essay that made a big impression on me, I am now able to discern which emotional appeal the seller is using to my attention in every advertisement and TV commercial.

Reading Kalle Lasn’s The Culture Jam and the discussions I had with older acquaintances were very thought provoking for me.  Many complex and new issues were raised and arguments supporting different sides were proposed that I had not thought about before.  I will be thinking about them for a long time and this means that the course was a very valuable educational experience.