Month: September 2018

After reading “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott, I found that I could relate to what she had to say about a first draft. One thing that I could relate to was the pulling of teeth. The first draft was just to write your idea’s down on the paper. It does not matter if the text was correct or anything but it was definitely difficult in starting this process. I can relate to this idea because I have a hard time starting off. Trying to begin this process is difficult for me because I feel like whatever I wrote is wrong and invalid regarding the purpose of the essay. However, one thing I did not agree with totally was her ‘Child Draft’. The child draft just seems to be to scattered and all over the place. I am a writer who needs some form of a structure when writing my essay. So then with this, I would not agree that the first draft should be a ‘child’s draft’ it should have more relevance regarding the topic.

Revision Plan: My goal in fixing my first draft is to make sure my grammar is correct and has the proper punctuation. Next, would fix the order of my body paragraphs so that, my essay flows more thoroughly. Also, with the peer edits that I got from my group, I need to add more analysis points to help the reader understand my quotations and connect them back to my thesis. My biggest trouble that I have is throwing my quotes in without introducing it. So then, with the peer editing and the help of the little seagull book, I will go back and fix the area’s that need to be corrected and produce a better second rough draft.

My personal thought regarding peer editing was how useful it was. I was able to see how everyone writes in their own way and interpret their own thoughts. It also, helped me understand what I was missing and can add to my paper as well. Editing one another’s paper is beneficial to myself because I was able to help my fellow peers advance in their work and help them in area’s that need it in their essay. Overall, peer evaluation can help myself as a reader learn more about other’s writing but also, my own and how I can improve my thought’s as a whole.

How does art affect you as individual in life? Why does art grab your attention when you look at it? With this idea, art has the ability of enabling the human mind to think beyond reasonable measures. It allows, humans to view things in a different perspective in life but also, to be creative. After reading Rhy Southan’s essay, “Is Art a Waste of Time,” the Effective Altruism disagreed that art had any true values. The Effective Altruism portrays art as a waste of time and money for it does not change real life issues going on in the world. As the EA’s express, “The thing you most enjoy isn’t the most moral thing to do,” even though you may love to draw and paint beautiful canvas the EA’s do not care. They care for the well being of society and whether you can make a greater impact. So then, with this my TED talk I chose to read challenges the EA’s outlook on art. “How Painting Can Transform Communities” by Dre Urhahn and Jeroen Koolhaas these two men travel around the world in search to express what the true meaning of art is and how it can impact a greater community. Art, is a visual language where each painting someone creates has a meaning behind. It is important to understand that each and every canvas these men paint has a purpose, this purpose is to change the world and how societies function as a whole. Overall, I think that it is OK to make art because it helps challenge the world in thinking what really goes on in different communities but, other surrounding countries. It then helps to bring a broken community together and slowly creates this everlasting bond that is unbreakable all due to the importance of art.

Personally, I do no think art is a waste of time for it comes in many different shapes, sizes and literal meanings. Being displayed in many shapes and sizes art has the ability to leave an impact on anyone who choses to look at one’s artwork. The TED talk that I chose was “How painting can transforms communities,” this talk helps to leave a major impact on the communities views of favela.  Art is like a language its hard to learn and understand but without art the world would be mute. As art speaks a million different languages and even though you are not familiar with the based language you can connect with the objects in your own way. With this idea that art speaks a million different language it is important to see how it affects everyone in this world today even when there first language is not english.

After the brainstorming activity, I separated my paper out into two categories. One being my TED talk that I chose and the other Is it okay to make art? Once I started my brainstorming and began taking my notes I came to realization there are some similarities. The connection that I made with both of these writing is that is art really doing good for people. Dre Urhahn and Jeroen Koolhas wanted to transform art and to show people there is good to come from this. Also, the EA’s in Southan’s essay primarily focused on is art doing good for people and spreading the good for other who need it. Comparing both of these articles helped me see a bigger picture and helped me make more connections based on my readings. Overall, I thought this brainstorming activity was very beneficial and useful.

The TED talk that I chose was “How Painting Can Transform Communities” by Dre Urhahn and Jeroen Koolhas. Both of these men had an image of what favela were like and what the people were like too. With this these two men travelled around the world recreating giant murals on buildings in Rio to make a statement. This project helped both men express the different perspective of art and what art can portray to the community.

However, in this TED talk there are limits of trying to portray different perspective of arts to individuals. In this TED talk, the many issues of art was funding. Both of these artist did not have the funding to create these enormous canvas. When Dre Urhahn “received an unexpected phone call from Philadelphia Mural Arts Program,” he and his fellow worker had to think outside the box. Not having enough painters and money to help them with this canvas was a major issues. Local store owners, building owners and a dozen of men and women had to be hired to assist in this creation. This major issue slowly became minor as both of these men trained them to become painters. Another, limitation of art is how time consuming these projects were. For example, the North Philly canvas took almost two years to complete.

Although, there are limits in art, art has the power to overcome these minor limitations. In this TED Talk, favela were unwelcoming, dangerous and an ugly place. With the power of art on these buildings it helped the world to change their mind   and enforcing people to think in a different way. Another, power of art is grabbing people’s attention and forming a bond. Once these canvas were painted in the community of Philly everyone came together as one. Why is this? It is because everyone worked together as one to create this canvas thus, forming a bond and dedication to change the community as a whole. Personally, I think art enables to good to come out of people whether it colorful or dark an dreary everyone is able to connect on a personal level.

Annotating a written essay was nothing new to me. When I was in high school my teachers especially, english teachers made us student annotate. Personally, annotating has helped me as a reader to comprehend what the author is trying to express. I never thought about rereading a past passage that I once read. However, going back and rereading “Is it OK to make art?” by Rhy Southan I missed key information. After reading it for a second time the passage became less confusing to me and made more sense. I was able to understand Southan’s arguments and connections between certain topics. Going back and annotating the text I was able to understand what the EA’s main focus was and what the true meaning of art was to be. Another part that I found helpful was looking up new words that I was unsure of. For example, avant-garde I had no clue what the meaning behind it was so I went to dictionary.com https://www.dictionary.com/browse/avant-garde?s=t and found the definiton. Avant-garde is a group of advanced individuals in art, music or some visual work. With the discovery of this term and many other terms that I was unsure about dictionary. com helped explained the meaning of the word. Overall, going back and annotating southan’s essay for a second time was very useful and beneficial because I could fathom more information about the text the second time around.

After reading and annotating, “Is it OK to make art?” by Rhys Southan certain areas of his texts grabbed my attention. One part that especially stood out to me was the “disconcerting calculation, because even if you think you’ve been doing great work, your final score could be small or negative”.  Southan, is expressing even though you are to do the little things in life their impact is very little to the world. These small task make your inner self feel at peace, however, when the world is continuously going through these hardship no one cares to fix them. Everywhere, whether is be school, home or work individuals in these environments care not to put maximum effort in. Everyone, is just beating around the bush in hopes of an outstanding outcome or score that Southan references too.

Another section of Southan’s essay that I was able to connect with was how good deeds come in many forms. Not all deeds have to be major it’s whether you took the time in making a difference. Rhy Southan states, “Good deeds come in many forms, of course, and there are other ways of making a difference”. You do not have to be a famous artist, singer, or talk show host to donate to those who are less fortunate. Those who do not come from a lot of money still donate and the difference is they give from their heart not from the pockets full of money they have. A good deed can be building homes for those who have no place to stay, donating clothes or food to those who need it the most. Overall, I enjoyed reading Southan’s essay and how he touched upon topics that I was able to connect with in the end of my reading.

My first impression I had when I heard about blogging, was oh my!

I am not that good with technology or working any form of website so I got nervous. Being nervous, I thought to myself I may mess up here and there but I am okay with that. My senior year, we used a website called Weebly that was another form of a portfolio. I grew to like that website. Personally, I think Eportfolio has more options to express your feelings and what you are trying to portray to your viewers. This project does excite me because you can make your portfolio anything you want. I foresee some technology difficulties however, with the help of our teacher and the tech department support I think we will able to overcome any issues that arise. When looking through my classmates websites, I found Jonathan’s portfolio to be interesting https://jlaurie.uneportfolio.org/ . You can tell that his website is unique to himself and that his header image is represented by that. Another classmates, that stood out to me was Olivia’s website https://ocigna.uneportfolio.org/ her header image and quote was very joyful. As a viewer you could tell that she took her time with it and throughly thought out was she wanted her website to look like. I am very much looking forward to developing my website and becoming more familiar with it!

Here is the link to my finished portfolio: https://cmontanile.uneportfolio.org/

My favorite food to eat is Colombian food with my boyfriend