STEM has it owns uniqueness behind it and for no reason should it convert into STEAM. As art enables a student to have a diverse outlook on how they interpret information in a school environment. Whereas math, science, technology, and engineering does not allow for this diverse thinking for it only allows an individual to think one way and only one way. Yo-Yo Mama in his reading expresses, “The values behind arts integration-collaboration, flexible thinking, and disciplined imagination- lead to the capacity to innovate”. If Art and STEAM were to combine together than you would solely lose these concepts and the diversity of one’s thinking will diminish to nothing. Even thought Yo-Yo mama think that art and STEAM should come together than you would lose these major concepts that art displays and then his argument would be very conversational to himself. Although, he argued the importance of art he wants to combine these two ideas together as one. Yet, those around him acknowledge that these two groups are separated for a reason and that these two group would be better off separate. Being separate it would provide an empathetic component to the students if they were kept separate from one another.

1) What is the surrounding context for this essay? Where and when was it first published? Who wrote the essay, and what do you notice about the author’s bio?

The surrounding context of this essay has to do with where, when and who wrote this passage. This essay was published by the World Post, an online website and was written in January of 2014. Where the essay was first introduced was during the World Economic Forum in Davios, Switerzland. This essay was written by Yo-Yo Ma and one thing that I noticed was how many Grammy awards he had won at such a young age, five years old.

2) What is the imposed context? What circumstances surround your personal reading experience? What is your purpose for reading this text?

The imposed context is the purpose for the reading. The purpose of this essay is to incorporate art into a science and have them balance one another. My personal experience with this reading is that it is my first time ever reading about it and hearing of Yo-Yo Mama. The purpose of reading this text was for homework. Our homework for this reading was to annotate and answer the following questions about this essay.

3) Describe the intentional context. What is the rhetorical situation? What is the scope? What is the “so what?”

The intentional context has to do with the rhetorical situation and the scope are the musicians. Yo-Yo Mama believes that art should primarily become involved in children’s education. He also thought education should shift away for STEM and focus more on the equilibrium of global culture. The importance of art helps us humans, dig deeper and helps us engage in discovering who we are as an individual. Like the idea of STEM, it prevents us from looking farther down and creates a barrier from finding ourselves as individuals.

Finally, please choose three unfamiliar words or references to look up. Define or explain these terms in your blog and how Ma uses them in his argument.

Bolster means to support or strengthen, to prop up. Yo-Yo Mama, uses this to explain the support of our new consciousness and how the support could provide us with new energy for creativity within our society.

Bandwidth: range of frequencies within a given band, used for transmitting a signal or can be defined as the mental capacity to deal with a situation. Mama uses this word as describing the ability to understand how the ‘edge effect’ works and how to visually imagine this kind of effect happening in the world nowadays.

Virtuosos: a person who is highly skilled in music or other artistic pursuits. In this essay, Mama uses this terminology to explain how the different global cultures contribute their knowledge to the world but also, other forms of expression.

#1:  As artist feeds off of one another to get a different perspective and grow as a painter.  Within this, the Effective Altruism states, “It doesn’t matter who does something-what matters is that it gets done. And though artists often pride themselves on the uniqueness of their individuality, it doesn’t follow that they have something unique to offer to society”(3, Southan). No matter what an artist creates, I personally think that every art canvas targets a specific grouping in life’s category. It doesn’t matter that the art impact society as a whole. It slowly begins within a small group of individuals and then it progresses onto a bigger group.

Revision #1: The Effective Altruism, a group of individuals who believe that art is not okay in the society we live in today. They believe that art has no relevance and can not contribute to real-world suffering. In short, the Effective Altriums expresses, “It doesn’t matter who does something-what matters is that it gets done. And though artists often pride themselves on the uniqueness of their individuality, it doesn’t follow that they have something unique to offer to society”(3, Southan). In all the Effective Altruism believes that uniqueness of an artist is a rare thing to discover in art and that someone has already created something. Therefore, there is no more room for improvement but one’s own work to display to societies.

#2: Even though there are negative things about artwork and artist all around the world Southan, tries to help individuals see beyond these problems. Southan explains, “But there are plenty of people drawn to the media and the arts who care about making the world better”(5, Southan) it does not matter whether you like art or disagree if art is important. Art is like propaganda to society is grabs certain groups from certain standing and helps rally them in for a cause.

Revision #2: Art has many beneficial aspects to itself. This form of visual representation has the media in all surrounding countries expressing their own thoughts and ideas about real-world issues. Southan himself states, “But there are plenty of people drawn to the media and the arts who care about making the world better”(5, Southan) Art is like propaganda to society is grabs certain groups from certain standing and helps rally them in for a cause to improve the quality of one’s lifestyle.

Before Intro Body ⇑

After edits to Intro Body ⇑

Before edits to Conclusion ⇑

After edits to Conclusion ⇑

The areas of focus that I chose to make changes was my introduction and conclusion paragraphs. After reading my edits from my peers I chose these two bodies because they either needed more support or to break it down into simpler terms. My introduction body paragraph was way too long and hard to follow from what my peers wrote to me. So with this, I decided to cut back on my information that I was had and focus more on my thesis. For example, I had too much information regarding the EA’s so I took that out and focused solely on what I thought art meant to me. Also, from the reading of the little seagull, focusing on the main point of what I was trying to express helped me fix not only my introduction but my conclusion as well.

On the other hand, was my conclusion. I needed to spice it up and add a call to action from my peer edits. After making my edits, I chose to add a question to grab the readers attention and then at the end of it make them think what does art really mean to them as a reader. With the help of the little seagull on the page 28-29, it helped me a lot of what I needed to have in my conclusion. My changes came from reading this section in the book because it enables myself to spice up certain areas of my conclusion.

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.