TOW #10- " Choose to be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier."

This festive article caught my eye as I was searching this week for something to read.  Arthur C. Brooks writes about how to be grateful during the Thanksgiving season, and during everyday life.  Brooks is a writer, a professor at Syracuse, and most importantly, a grateful man.  In his text, "Choose to be Grateful.  It Will Make You Happier." he uses scientific studies and personal anecdotes in order to convince his audience that forcing the feeling of gratefulness will create true feelings of gratefulness and positivity in your life.  Brooks uses scientific studies to aid him in his argument that forcing a feeling of happiness will make the feeling become real.  He reminds his audience that faking the feeling does not make you a fraud at all, and it will help you be more appreciative of things in your life.  "For example, researchers in one 2003 study randomly assigned one group of study participants to keep a short weekly list of the things they were grateful for, while other groups listed hassles or neutral events. Ten weeks later, the first group enjoyed significantly greater life satisfaction than the others."  (Brooks par. 8)  The author uses examples like these throughout his article in order to show how this forced feeling works.  The brain will recognize the bad or good feelings and people will naturally become happier or sadder.  Through the incorporation of scientific studies, Brooks strengthens his argument and adds some credibility.  He also uses anecdotes to increase credibility and show how he has used this mantra to help himself.  He talks about an email he received from a reader of his book who didn't agree with his thoughts a few years back.  Brooks expresses that his "dominant thought wasn’t resentment. It was, “He read my book!” And so I wrote him back — rebutting a few of his points, but mostly just expressing gratitude for his time and attention." (par. 15)  Through Brooks anecdote, he shows how expressing gratefulness can make someone happier even in a situation such as this one.  Even when someone was arguing with him, calling him a fraud, and refuting what he wrote in a book, Brooks stayed positive.  He then shares the effects of his gracious feelings when he writes, "I felt good writing it, and his near-immediate response came with a warm and friendly tone." (par. 15)   By expressing the positive effects of his decision on his reaction to this reader, the author can show the audience why gracious feelings are better than feelings of anger or resentment and can produce a mutual feeling of happiness for both parties involved.  Brooks successfully convinces his audience that feelings of gratefulness, even if they are forced, can improve your overall quality of life.  This is definitely something to keep in mind this holiday season!

TOW #9- The Truth about Applying to 'Reach' Colleges

Kat Cohen, a college admissions counselor, wrote an article for the Huffington Post entitled "The Truth about Applying to 'Reach' Colleges".  A a college admissions counselor, Cohen has extensive knowledge on the process of admissions of schools.  This article reveals things that high school students may not have realized about their reach schools.  In Cohen's article she uses denotation and rhetorical questions in order to help high school students understand how to appropriately choose and apply to their reach schools when applying to colleges.  One of her main points in the article was that many students don't understand the meaning behind a reach school.  A lot of kids will apply to schools that are too unrealistically out of reach.  Cohen writes, "A reach college, by definition, is a school where the applicant's academic profile is not as strong as the middle 50 percent of students who are typically admitted." (par. 4)  She then gives an example of someone with a 2.7 GPA applying to Yale and the unlikeliness of his acceptance.  By defining reach college first, she is able to clearly justify why this student should not apply to a school like Yale.  She proves that if you are too far below the middle group of accepted students, the college is not truly a reach school.  When explaining which reach schools to pick to apply to, Cohen uses rhetorical questioning to show that she understands the views of students, but refutes their process of thinking.  She writes, " A school's selectivity can make it seem more attractive than it otherwise would. After all, who wouldn't want to say they made it into a college that's hard to gain admission to?" (par. 6)  Cohen understands that students would love to be able to say that they were accepted into colleges like Yale, however, it may not be the best school for them to apply to.  She argues that even if a name brand school is within your reach school range, there are so many more factors to consider when applying to your reach colleges.  Cohen successfully accomplishes her purpose through the use of these rhetorical devices to help high school students when they are applying to their reach schools.

IRB Intro #2- Unbroken

This marking period I will be reading the book "Unbroken" written by Laura Hillenbrand.  This book is a biography of Louis Zamperini who was an Olympic track star in 1936.  He served in the US Army Air Force as a Lieutenant and went through unbelievably difficult obstacles throughout the years he spent in World War II.  I heard about this book through friends and it has been something I've wanted to read for a while.  I hope to finish this book and gain a new appreciation for my life as well as get some inspiration from Zamperini's story.  I'm excited to start reading!!

TOW #8- IRB: Freakonomics

Freakonomics does exactly what it promises: Makes the reader ask questions.  After reading this book, everyday norms have become situations to analyze and experiment with to find trends in the human population.  Studying human behavior doesn't only apply to the world of economics, although it is an important part of the study.  Knowing the trends of human behavior can just give you a better understanding of the way the world works, and why people do what they do. The authors of this book use statistics and anecdotes as well as rhetorical questions to get readers to think about trends of the everyday world differently.  A very interesting chapter of this book pertained to baby names and the implications of a child's name.  First, to prove to the audience that names did have an effect on a child's life, the authors shared an anecdote about a child named Loser and his brother named Winner.  The authors write, "Loser Lane did in fact succeed.  He went to prep school on a scholarship, graduated from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, and joined the New York Police Department, where he made detective, and eventually, sergeant... The most noteworthy achievement of Winner Lane, now in his mid forties, is the sheer length of his criminal record: near three dozen arrests for burglary, domestic violence, trespassing, resisting arrest, and other mayhem." (Dubner, Levitt 212)  Clearly, the names don't correlate exactly as they should, however the anecdotes in this chapter support the fact that the names given to children have an impact on their lives.  The use of lists of most popular names in different socioeconomic groups of different decades later help the authors to prove this same idea.  The names given to children can reflect their economic status, parents education level, or their likelihood of succeeding in their professional lives.  Another way that the authors accomplish their purpose is through the use of rhetorical questions.  The authors tell an anecdote about a girl named Temptress who landed in Albany County Family Court in New York.  She was charged with ungovernable behavior, including bringing men into the home when her mom wasn't home.  The surprising correlation between her name and the charges caught the eye of Dubner and Levitt.  They write, "Was Temptress actually 'living out her name,' as Judge Duggan saw it?  Or would she have wound up in trouble even if her mother had called her Chastity?" (Dubner, Levitt 183) By using rhetorical questions, the authors provoke thought in the direction they want the readers to be thinking.  It shapes the train of thought throughout the chapter so the readers are guided in the same direction of the authors' thoughts.  Also, by provoking thought about this case, they accomplish their purpose because readers may start to question things like this in other patterns that they come across in their lives.  Using anecdotes and rhetorical questions, Levitt and Dubner are able to successfully encourage readers to think and ask questions about patterns they find in the world in order to make sense of the way people act and think.