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I have a general question that maybe some one can answer for me. I could have sworn i heard the proffessor say we do not have to submit the INTRO and CONCLUSION onto the splatter site, we just have to bring in a hard copy to class. However the directions on the assignment sheet state we do have to post it to splatter. SO can anyone answer which one it is. It would be greatly appreciated. THANK YOU
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Roberto Kobik
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Roberto Kobik
I am doing this weeks journal on a portion of chapter eight called, “Be Confident, Not a Know-It-All” by Michael McGuire. I will start by saying I liked this article. There is a lot to learn within it. I will also say that I am guilty of undermining my own authority at times. However I undermine my own authority more when I speak then I do in my writing. I noticed why I do this; it is exactly the reason McGuire states in the passage. McGuire states, “you want to create a safety net for yourself.”(180) I realized he is correct because frequently when speaking I catch myself undermining my authority just in case if I am wrong I can then later say do not blame me it was just a thought. However in my papers I frequently use “I think.” I do this for a different reason; I do this to state my opinions so that the reader knows this is not an actual fact it is just my opinion. That is just the way I learned to write and it has carried on with me through high school until now. I never knew how much those few words could affect ones credibility. I had learned this semester about many things and authority was one of them. After learning about credibility and authority I now try to avoid sayings that undermine my authority. I have never been really arrogant in writing. Sometimes during speaking I notice I can be a little arrogant, but while writing I only state facts that I know are true and use phrases like “in my opinion, or I think” when I want to state something from my perspective. I think it is okay to use those phrases in your writing once in a while when expressing an opinion. However I do agree with Professor McGuire, the over use of these phrases undermines ones authority and makes readers question the writers credibility. This is not good because you want to be convincing especially in writing like this where you are trying to convince the audience to take action.
Michael McGuire. “Be Confident, Not a Know-It-All.” Why White Rice?: Thinking through Writing. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Pub., 2010. Print. -
Roberto Kobik
Thanks professor that actually helps a lot. I had to read your post twice just to make sure im not reading what i want to hear lol.
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Roberto Kobik
For this weeks journal I decided to read a piece by Taylor Mali called, “Totally like whatever, you know?” After watching the short video clip of him performing a gig I decided to read the work as well because I liked the delivery he gave at the show he performed. I thought his piece was comical. I think it is very accurate to what society actually sounds like when they speak. I remember high school had the most counts for amount like was said. It is more popular with the youth culture though as from my judgment I think they do this more frequently than the older generation. His piece was funny and had a point as well, sort of a lesson to be learned. But I think his speech was also more intended for the younger audiences anyways. I say that because he uses certain words like uncool, and what ever. Those are more intended to humor the younger people that grew up when cool was everything. I also think the ending was pretty good to because it had random humor and a message was made. The sentence was “Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker, it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY. You have to speak with it, too (Mali). Of course I think the humor you take out of this whole piece is different when you read it than when you watch it. When you read it there are pieces of it that are funny but when you hear it you hear the tone and emotion.
Mali, Taylor. “Totally like whatever, you know?” WWR: 54 April 17 -
Roberto Kobik
Forest Patrol
The Group
I Roberto and two other students attending Moraine Valley Community College went on a small mission to benefit the world. The other two students that were working together with me on this project are Michelle and Jackie. We figure that we as a group have a number of things in common with one another. One of those things in common is the fact that we discovered that we mostly care about the environment we live in. This is because we think the environment is a very important aspect to the survival of the human race. In order to sustain life on this planet for our many future generations to come we need the environment and its resources. Everything from the plants covering the area to the animal inhabitants matters to our society. Since we established this common ground we decided to heavily focus on environment. This made me feel good that we came to a quick conclusion and generally had the same thoughts on the subject. I think that is what makes a group successful in many ways is the ability to work together and be able to agree and disagree with one another while thinking critically. This is also why I had a lot of confidence in my group before we even started our mission. I felt as if we have established a quality team that most importantly, gets along with each other.
The Organization
Although there are numerous organizations that help the environment in many ways, it was time to pick one. We decided to look at what some of the organizations had to offer and started to get an idea of what is being done by whom. Then we stumbled across an organization that helps sustain our natural forests by a number of ways. This organization is known as The Forest Preserve District of Cook County. They are in a way a small organization, and I say this because they only focus on the forests in Cook County rather than some other organizations you see which are state wide or even nation wide. The County of Cook is rather large and with that being said, there are also a lot of forest preserves in this county as well. This organization focuses on every aspect of the forest. They do a number of things like replanting, species relocation, and maintaining the forests in Cook County. The organization is also composed of many volunteers. For example, one of the people we met up with was a proud volunteer. Her name is Diana Krug and she has been a volunteer since the year 2005. That shows a lot of character in this good person. It takes a lot of dedication to volunteer for over five years. I feel that the organization is partially defined by the types of people that involved in that organization. So therefor I had asked Diana a few questions about herself and her line of work. It turns out that Diana used to do advertising but stopped because she had a strong love and passion for the forest. This is why she spends most of her time now in the forest benefitting the world one step at a time. She is not the only person that feels that way, in fact my best guess is that all of the regulars at The Forest Preserve District of Cook County are passionate about nature. That is one good aspect, and the other is that Diana and Joe Neumann were both also very enthusiastic about their work. This made it fun to partner with these people and shoot for an impact on the world.
The Works
We, as in my group went to Pallok woods, one of the many forest preserves in that area. We went to meet with Joe and Diana from The Forest Preserve District of Cook County to assist them in benefiting the forest. When we had arrived there early in the morning I honestly did not know what to expect. There was a small parking lot inside of a huge forest. When we pulled up there was only one other car parked and there were some people visible in the distance. I had walked up to them and found out that they are in fact Joe and Diana. So our group was introduced to the organization workers and right after that we hiked deeper into the woods. At this point I still had no idea of what to expect, since there are just so many things that can be done to help the environment. Joe told us that today we will be picking European mustard plant. Now the first thing that struck my head was why. So we asked and Joe said we are picking this plant because this forest has many species of plants that are rare or distinct to the area and this European mustard plant prevents other plants from growing around it. This plant was maybe knee high at the most and was a long green stem with little white flowers only on the top. It was fairly easy to identify as well. So basically we are trying to get rid of the mustard plant so that way the native plants which get rarer every day can grow back and hopefully sustain for generations to come. When picking the mustard plants we had to grab them from the stem so that they would not grow back again. After we had picked a handful we just left all the plants and roots on logs. Now that I reflect on this, one question I wish I had asked is why are we leaving the pulled plants on logs, rather than throwing them out or something along those lines? Anyways, we simply just pulled these plants and had left them on logs as we moved deep into the forest where they became more abundant. But this simple task has proven to be more difficult than everyone expected.
The Hardships
So pulling plants sounded really easy, but we were completely mistaken. There were a number of things we had to be careful around. One thing was poison ivy which Joe taught us how to identify. This is a weird reddish purple sort of color with three leaves coming off the stems. We had to avoid this so that way we do not get severe burns or rashes. Another hardship was the ticks. This was probably the hardest part for the girls as they were completely spooked by them. They are little red and black bugs that almost look like baby spiders. Now the fact that they are bugs is not why I think they were a hardship. However the fact that they carry many diseases such as lime disease and they also burrow in your skin is why these bugs were a precaution. There were actually a bunch of them on us but it did not bother me much because there was not really much I could do. The biggest hardship for me was not stepping on other plants. We are trying to get rid of only the mustard plants not the others that share the forest with it. So therefor we had to watch our step. The reason this was so hard for me is because there was just so many of them. I mean come on it’s a forest there are plants everywhere, we would have to hover or levitate if we did not want to cause damage to other species of plants. Those were basically the three main hardships we had to endure during our mission.
Summary of Service
So basically Me Michelle and Jackie decided that the environment matters to all of us. Because this matters to all of us and also affects all of us, we decided to attempt to benefit the environment. We worked closely with a group called The Forest Preserve District of Cook County. We met up with Joe and Diana from this organization and went on a mission to benefit the forest. We pulled European mustard plant from the forest because this plant has a characteristic that prevents other plants from growing near it. This is not good because these forests have some plants that are less popular or rare. So therefor we are clearing the forest allowing the other plants to have room to bloom and spread. We endured some hardships but what matters is that we had got the job done and had a good time while doing so.-
Amber Bey
I think the organization of your paper is on point. I immediately noticed the title and headings of each subject. This is the first thing that the paper is graded on so it was good that you took the time to make sure these little things were added. I think you have a great sense of how to write a good paper.
Besides that, I ultimately noticed that our groups had the exact same idea. I thought this was a coincidence since there are so many different topics to choose from. We definitely thought that anything that had to do with nature would result in relatively easy, fun volunteer work especially because of the fact that we love nature. It would give us a chance to get out and get some fresh air and help the environment as well. It seemed like you guys had a pretty easy time finding an organization to work with, so you guys did not have any troubles with organizing the project? I would like to hear about your struggles that came along with the organization, if there were any. I say this because our group struggled trying to get a set date in order to volunteer. It seems like you guys picked an organization and had no problems setting dates and times. I think you could have added more description to and feeling to this also in order to give the reader more sensory detail. It is great that you added facts about one of the main volunteers to get another point of view on the situation, but I think you could have added more about the interview. You could have written about your feelings about her and her actions and maybe even more about what she had to say.
I noticed that you talked about your initial feelings while volunteering. This is something that most of these kinds of papers require, which is why it was a proper thing to do. I also thought that it was smart of you to ask yourself questions while doing the work. The only thing that is wrong with that is the fact that you did not get the last question answered by anyone. You could have asked the volunteers you were working with. This would have clued in the reader to what was going on. Besides that I think the work section to your paper was very informative.
I noticed that you had a section headed hardships. I think it was smart to write about the difficulties of volunteering, but I think it would have been even better if you were to write about the fun part of it as well. It couldn’t have all been terrible. I’m sure you and your group were not regretting the experience, right? I think this section adds a lot more description and feeling to your experience, but it is kind of daunting to read about. I would have been horrified if I had bugs on me, so I give you guys props. I am sorry you had to go through such a scary situation.
I believe that you can definitely add a little more to your final draft of this paper, but otherwise I thought it was enjoyable to read. -
Anahi Perez
First off I really enjoyed your title, it sounded like you did some serious work at the forest with your group. It was nice that you included your group members names, it give off better detailed information. You provided enough information to conclude that your group got along pretty good, and you were in a group with people that shared the same interests as yourself. Would you want to do this all over again with the same people?
I have a huge interest in the environment as well. Global warming and what not is a huge importance right now, especially yesterday being Earth Day. I think your serivce project will attract a large group of people. It was good that you included the people who you came into contact for the volunteer service. It doesn’t just provide deep detail, but it also provides a form of contact information if somebody else was interested in volunteering at the Forest Preserve.
When you started to write about when you came into contact with Joe and Diana, I had a couple questions. How was the weather? The more details in your paper the better the reader could visualize your experience. Were you provided any type of supplies to help you pull the mustard plants in an easier way? Did Diana or Joe provide any background information on the service that they have been doing for the past years? As you were helping remove the European Mustard Plants was they a numerous amount or was it once in a while that you seen one? Was your group together the whole time or were you separated into groups?
It was pretty interesting how you included that there was ticks around your work area. That for many people I think would had been a problem. I personally would not had done your service. Before you came to an agreement to work with the Forest Preserve was there any other places that you were thinking about to have your service project? For the forest preserve did you have to sign an application? I know many organizations have different procedures, that is why I am a bit curious to find out. Your group seemed to have no trouble finding an organization to work with. You mentioned that you forgot to ask why the plants were left on the logs, maybe you could talk to one of the volunteers again and maybe add the conversation to your paper.
Out of your experience with your group members it seemed like you all worked great as a team and everything fell into the right place. This was a very interesting paper. It not only provided a way that I could help out the forest one day, but it also taught me about the natural environment. This experience at the forest is something that involves many surroundings. I feel as if you could have added so much more detail to make the reader visualize what exactly you were doing. Overall good start!
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Alejandro Morales
I like the way you divided your paragraph into sections and you have them labeled specifically. The group. Very good job in explaining the people in your group and why you think you guys make a good group. You talk about your common goals and what you guys all wanted to achieve from the very beginning in this project. I really like how you explained why the environment means so much to you. Everything you said is completely true and I’m glad you are devoted and dedicated to making a change. Along with your other group members too. I really enjoyed reading how you said that you had a lot of confidence in your team before even starting the project. You then right after say that you have established a quality team that most importantly gets along with each other. That is obviously extremely important and it really shows how you feel about your team.
The organization paragraph is great. You explain things in great detail. You talk about the organization and specifically what they do. As specific as saying that they replant, relocate species, and maintain the forests in Cook County. Another great thing was you talked about how they only focus on forest in Cook County. Although Cook County is very large and there are many forests, they focus just on those which in return makes it easier for you guys to achieve your goal for making an impact on this world.
In the works paragraph you should talk about where the Pallok Woods are located. Another thing you should do is talk about how the Pallok Woods looked, or smelled, or even if you got a funny taste in your mouth or anything. Forest perseveres have all types of different things going on, but they all are so different. Talk about the ride there and what was going on in your mind as you were getting closer and closer to the preserve. You do talk about what you did very well though. You explain in detail what you did and you even explained the reasoning for why you guys had to do this job.
I like your hardship title. That is an interesting headline. You talk about three main hardships and one being poison ivy. Did anybody touch it or rub onto it and not even realize it until after? The ticks part is gross. I think the most disgusting thing about them is how they burrow into your skin. Imagine bringing that thing home. That would suck. I thought at first you were going to say there was only a few, then you said they were all over the place! I completely understand the hardship of not stepping on other plants. I did my service at the Little Red School House and we did invasive plant species removal and it was so hard to not step on the plants that you are trying to preserve.
Nice summary as well. You bring everything that you talked about into a few short sentences. Very good first draft and best of luck with the service if you continue with this. -
Armando Cortez
I like how you had your paper organized into different little paragraphs that way others can read it better. It was soemwhat of an interesting topic to me ; I’m being honest so don’t penalize me for that. But it was though interesting and i like how you were able to explain throughout your paper with detail on how everything was calculated and how or what you guys were thinking or doing next, I thought was pretty good. I know for a fact that when i have to do papers especially with this one I struggled with to be quiet honest. I didn’t seperate what I was talking about in sections I just simply wrote non stop through out the whole paper. So you can see my struggles and that’s just a little because my group and I are barely going to volunteer at our organization and the project is due next week so it’s really stressing or it has been stressing for us so far. But anyway i though your paper was good with the detail about the environment in the forests. It was nice how you were able to talk about the forests here in cook county, so that was good maybe for future references maybe you can also got outside the box and talk about other forests as well; that’s just some advice if you want to take it or not. Anyways it’s good how you were able to add in your paper not only the good things but also some of the hardships that everyone I’m assuming has encounterd. I know for our project we have encountered hardships since the beginning and it’s not easy trying to find a palce where your sure you can volunteer at that place. i know for us we have had to change like three times our project because we weren’t going to be able to volunteer which is what is recommended of you to do. So now you see the nervousness and stress we have gone through up until this point. Overall it was a nice summary of your guys expereince and one that was enjoyable to read and kind of get a glimpse of the day to day challenges you guys encountered as well as the similarities that you mentioned that you and and some of your partners had. It really impressed me how you were able to take everything that you and your group went through in this project and basically put in short paragraphs almost like short sentences so that was pretty good. But it was agood first draft for the most part, nice work and good luck with the rest of your project hopefully it turns out alright; if it’s the one you’ll continue to work on. It seems like you and your group are doing well and are getting everything right on so that’s nice to see but not only of that but I was alos able to learn a little more about the environment in terms of the forest and everything, just as aheads up maybe if could add just a little more detail it would be better and help out your paper more and also help visualize what you guys are going through; but it’s good overall.
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Roberto Kobik
For this weeks journal, I really had nothing to write about. So like usual whenever this happens I just write about the most recent. So this week I will be writing about “Ruptura: Acknowledging the Lost Subject of the Service Learning Story,” by: Tracy Hamler Carrick, Margaret Himley, and Tobi Jacobi. Now after reading this I now kind of understand why our professor assigns service learning as the main method of teaching his class. It is a simple and effective way to first act, and then let your mind soak in what you have done. Then process the events you have experienced and while thinking critically you then tie emotions and thoughts in with what you have experienced. The final steps are to effectively be able to put this whole collage of words and feelings on paper in an effective manner. I now understand the idea of service learning but I personally think that it would be easier to write about something everyone would show interest in. So by this I mean instead of doing service which does get you to think and feel, I think some other activity would be more effective. Personally I think students learn better when they are interested in the topic or if the learning method is fun. So rather than volunteer work, I think if students did something else they would have more to write about and would be affected in a greater way. But maybe we do service learning to experience this “ruptura” that is being discussed throughout this article. I was thinking a lot about this word and its significance when reading this piece. I think this has a lot to do with this course. Also I noticed a lot of the reading we do in this course makes you think about certain aspects of things that would not have thought about otherwise. Sometimes when reading the assigned work I understand the professor more and what he is trying to achieve. I also always question if its effective or not, but I guess I will find the ultimate answer to that question at the end of the course when I can review what I have experienced and process what I have learned.
Carrick Tracy, Himley Margaret, Jacobi Tobi. “Ruptura” Language and Learning Across the Discipline 4.3 (2000). Pg 56-74. http://www.splatter.writing101.net April 11, 2012. -
Roberto Kobik
For this week’s journal I read “Why Dracula Sucks” by Troy Swanson. This article was basically about how to spice up your writing. Now after reading this article, I only partially agree for technical reasons. Troy states, “I don’t think there are boring topics, only boring writers.” I think this is partially true for a few reasons. I do agree that it is the writer that makes it fun and interesting. I too have read many scripts or articles on boring topics and they were not that bad. They were only half decent because of the humor. The only reason I somewhat disagree with Troy’s statement is because a lot of the effort also has to come from the reader. The reader is the one that has to use their creative mind to make sense off everything and think critically about it. There have been times in class where we were all reading the same thing and a lot of people would find some paragraphs humorous and others did not understand why. Then later we found out that they were not thinking in depth with the writing and didn’t understand what the author was humoring. I think both the reader and the writer have to make equal contributions so that the writing is not boring. It also really helps to know your audience because that way you know or may have an idea of what they may find interesting, shocking, or humorous. I am currently learning how to become familiar with your audience; although it sounds like an easy process it is a lot harder than I thought. I also liked this piece of writing because the author was energetic throughout the article. I find topics easier to read when they are written in a more energetic manner, rather than just a bunch of facts. I cannot stand reading something that sounds like it belongs in a science text book or encyclopedia. This is why when I write I also use some of my methods to “spice” it up.
Swanson, Troy. “Why Dracula Sucks.” Why White Rice? Kendall Hunt Pub, 2010. 182-183. Print. -
Roberto Kobik
So for this weeks journal I did not read anything interesting out of class. So because of that I decided to do my journal entry on a section in chapter six called “Writing is Limitless.” In this piece author Basima Ismail speaks about many different things to do with writing. The author says that traditional writing and creative writing are in fact the same thing. What I understood from this is that all writing is creative writing. I agree with this because in a way one uses their creativity for all writing they do; whether they create a catchy hook or an epic concluding sentence the creative side of the mind is at work. I can also strongly relate to the next paragraph about traditional school writing. I was taught to write the same way in school as well. I noticed that every time I wrote the bare minimum. I was a really weak writer in my earlier years until I got toward my last year in high school where essays became more frequent and there were no limits to how much can be written. I remember writing my term paper for one of my English classes; the directions asked for at least nine pages but for some reason I could not stop writing. I wrote a total of thirteen pages and received the best grade I have ever gotten on an essay. After that day I have actually started liking writing, it used to be a hassle for me but one you learn how to dig deep into your thoughts writing can even be fun. I think maybe I didn’t like writing because I had this teacher in grade school for three years; she made us hand write papers. I didn’t mind writing by hand when I was a little kid but there was one thing that made me dislike writing. If we even had one single spelling error or even a little bit of smeared ink we had to re write the whole entire paper. After I got in touch with my creative side my writing became a lot better.
Ismail, Basima. “Writing Is Limitless.” Kendall Hunt Publishing Company. WWR? Chapter 6. pgs 138-139. Print. -
Roberto Kobik
This week I did not read anything interesting on my own time. However I found Elie Wiesel’s “The Perils of Indifference” actually quite interesting so I will do this weeks journal on a fragment of his work. I found reading his piece interesting because he wrote it well; meaning that it had good flow and made me constantly think throughout his piece. I understand what he is saying about indifference but I did have to read the piece twice to understand that. The reason that I really liked this piece is because it made me think of how the world would be like if everyone was indifferent. I thought about this after reading the last sentence where Elie states, “Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.” That sentence made me imagine how the world would be like if we saw each other as “abstracts.” At first I thought no one would really care about others in the long run anymore because they are “just there.” I think the world would also be a bad place at the same time because our differences are what set us apart and make us our own individual. Would there be love and hate if everyone was indifferent? If you think about it you fall in love with someone because of who they are; same thing goes with hate. So if we had no differences there would be no one to love or hate. It also made me think of many other aspects as well. Like if we were indifferent would that mean everyone would be friends? Also the whole beginning of the second paragraph made me think. Elie states “It is so much easier to look away from our victims.” After reading that I thought about the fact that we do as people tend to stay out of others scenarios. But if everyone were the same than everyone would know the value of other’s lives and their own lives to them. If that were the case than we would not turn from victims, we would help each other because we are in a sense “one.” I also think that crime would either be really low rates or not exist because we know how important certain aspects are to ourselves and others.
Wiesel, Elie. “The Perils of Indifference” 2012. -
Roberto Kobik
REFLECTING ON FMSC
ACRITICAL REFLECTION OF SERVICE
There are many are many imperfections and problems in this world that effect every individual inhabiting this planet. There are also many organizations that offer volunteer work to help fix these imperfections and problems. The thing about volunteer work that draws people away is the fact that you have to accomplish a task and not get paid for it. This is why few people dedicate their time to do volunteer work. It takes a good deed loving individual to do such volunteer work on a regular basis; I am defiantly not one of those people.
Just like every paper we write in this class, honesty is asked for. So I’m going to be very honest and say that I can not stand volunteer work. I would never go volunteer anywhere at leisure. The only volunteer work I have done has been either because of school or speeding tickets. This class requires students do volunteer work throughout the semester; this paper is based on the first required service event. The event that I practically forcefully attended was located in Aurora. The organization is called Feed My Starving Children also known as the FMSC. They are a Christian organization that focus on helping feed starving people in less sustainable or less developed countries. They particularly focus on feeding children because everyone is entitled to a chance at life. They distribute specially formulated meals to countries such as Africa, Haiti and many more. These meals consist of four main ingredients. The first is rice because it is a culturally accepted food and is a good filler because it expands in your stomach helping you feel less hungry. Another ingredient is soybeans which are nutritious and have protein. The third ingredient is chicken which has the most protein and has other beneficial vitamins. The final ingredient is vegetables because they also have a lot of vitamins. This meal is made by volunteer workers and sent out to the countries in need.
I took a day off of work to go to this event which made me kind of upset because I need the money. While driving to this event I was already thinking of how lame these next few hours are going to be because I dread volunteer work. I arrived at the facility and had entered inside following the rest of the class. Throughout the presentation I still had the same mindset that I had before, however there were a few facts that grabbed my attention. When I do stuff that I do not really want to do I turn into a sort of zombie mode and zone out a lot which seems to happen at all of the volunteer work I have done. However this time for some reason during the presentation at Feed My Starving Children I had decided to actually put effort into this today. Maybe I decided to try because the facts made it seem like I would be making a huge difference. Whatever the reason was I am glad I actually tried for once.
When we entered inside the food loading area I kind of got excited for some reason to do this volunteer work. Maybe that is because everyone else that had attended had a really positive mind set which was contagious. So after choosing groups and being split up, I decided to be pallet loader and ingredient refill person. I figured I would be most productive at that task because I do something similar for a living. After we had started the clock and begun packing the food my attitude has slowly changed to a positive one and I began to work faster and faster. I started off at a normal pace but because of my attitude I picked up the pace and made it a little competition for myself. At that moment I still did not know the impact I would be making in someone’s life. The over all environment had a positive vibe because all of the people there were trying to make a difference and also having fun at the same time. It was about half way through the three hours we were there when I noticed how obnoxious the yellow paint was however I think the color of the room did affect me in some way. The bright color I think helped create a mellow working environment for the people and also kind of a cheery environment. I started having fun packing boxes when I noticed how many we had packed in that short amount of time. Noticing how much we have accomplished in one hour made me want to work even harder hoping to achieve a decent size pallet.
Over all I think my mood got better the more time I had spent at Feed My Starving Children volunteering. Also I think it is nice that so many people with so many differences can get together for two hours and focus on one common goal. I had noticed that everyone else was having fun the whole time too; I think everyone’s mood worked like mine and got better with time. To me I think the climax of the trip would be toward the end after everyone had already become friends in a sense and were enjoying themselves the most. When the announcer announced that we have a few minutes left everyone was going the whole extra mile to input as much work as possible before our session ends. That was the second best part about the whole trip to me.
After we had finished I had felt relieved that it was finally over. I was looking forward to finding out exactly how much we packed because I am a naturally curious person. Then we went from the packing room to the presentation room again where we got to try a sample of the food we just made. The sample tasted pretty bad but I am glad it packs enough nutrients to help people out of starvation. The best part of the whole trip was when we finally got to know how much food we packed and how big of a difference we made. This was the best part to me because I then had realized how big of a difference my two hours of packing had done. Our group made enough food to feed about nineteen kids for a year. Out group was about the same size to technically speaking every person in that group saved one live that day. This was the most outstanding part to me because I had realized that my two hours had cost me a few dollars but I had saved someone’s life by providing food to them for a year. That’s when I felt really good about myself inside, honestly I kind of felt like a saint because I had done a great deed that I would not normally do. That to me was the highlight of my trip and also the highlight of all my volunteer work events. The other events were not as positive impact to the world. So the feeling upon completion was not as rewarding as the Feed My Starving Children event.
In conclusion, I volunteered two hours of my time at Feed My Starving Children. I had gone to the event with a negative mindset and came out with a positive one. I did enjoy some parts of the trip and there were also other parts of the trip that surprised me. Over all I felt great after completing the service because I had made a huge difference in someone’s life that really needed it. Although I still think I won’t volunteer anywhere in the future unless I am forced to. That is just my personal choice but if I do manage to get “into” these service events than that opinion might also change.-
Amber Bey
I can relate to this paper right off the bat because I was not ultimately excited to be volunteering. I have never volunteered, but I had a feeling it would not be too fun. Although we volunteered at different places, we had very similar feelings. I volunteered at share your souls, and I was dreading the work, not even knowing what kind of work they would have me do. My thoughts quickly changed after the project was over though.
I think that Feed My Starving Children would be a great volunteer project as well as share your souls, because it is another organization focused on unprivileged children. I think that the food that they serve these children sounds wonderful. It does not sound cheap or innutritious, which is a plus. Sometimes those who do not have money to pay for food get food that can potentially be harmful to their bodies in the long run, so the fact that they are receiving nutritious food is great. Another thing that stood out to me is the fact that you decided to actually put effort into the project because of your initial attitude towards the project. I’m impressed that you turned the experience into something positive. I was also able to turn my attitude around once I arrived at share your souls and began helping. A positive environment makes a big difference in many situations. Volunteering is definitely one of these situations. If the people around you are cheery and enthusiastic, then it is easier to have the same attitude. I think that it helped me a lot to work with people that actually seemed like they were eager to help others. It is good to know that there are people out there that are so willing to help others. It makes the world seem like a much better place. It is also interesting that the room color made a difference in your mood. I think this is a great addition to your paper because it shows your attentiveness. It also demonstrates how environment changes a person’s attitude in certain situation, which ties into the rest of the paper.
It is awesome that you thought one of the best parts of the project was the bonding factor because I also wrote that in my paper. I thought the fact that everyone was becoming closer was great. It really helped to get more work done faster and easier. When people are able to work together things get done so much more efficiently. I am still amazed on how many people you guys were able to feed. I’m sure you felt great about yourselves because I know I would. I think it is good that you were extremely honest throughout your paper. It shows your true feelings throughout the service project which is the main purpose of the paper. I think you could have added a little bit more detail about the environment of the area you were working in. Besides that, I thought this paper was definitely on point. -
Armando Cortez
Peer review 4
I thought this was something I really can relate to for the most part because you talke about not really wanting to do volunteer work at all. I myself for the most part when it comes down of having to volunteer, I usually don’t feel like doing it either even though it’s something that will help the community. I can remember myself in the same type of mind set when walking in to share your souls. But it’s really the fact that you know your going to help out and make a difference to someone’s life or not necessarily someone but a whole community is what makes you able to go through with it. I guess it also depends on the people that surround you when your doing the work because they’re doing the same work your doing if someone is not putting their effort into it and your around that person chances are that you won’t put the effort into anything your doing either. So I thought that point of your paper was truthful and something many people can relate too. And overall i also agree with you when you said that once you start getting the hang of what your doing and you’re enjoying yourself at the same when it’s time to end or close to, you do try and get as much more done. It’s a feeling that I guess is wierd but that’s the thing at the end of the day you enjoy it and it pays off too in the end because you start off with not wanting to do the work but as soon as you get in their you feel comfortable and you want to continue doing more because your enjoying it. Especially when at the end of the day it talks about how many lives you save in a day is what really gets to your heart like you it was the food but for me was the fact that many people in the world don’t have shoes and being able to help out with that is really heart warming and heart felt as well. In relation to your paper I though it was pretty good you went through the whole experience of being able to go from not liking it to really enjoying what you did. It also brings to truth that when you work in groups it helps make the work more fun and you still get done doing the work efficiently. It’s always crazy when your comfortable doing your work together and having fun then all of a sudden they how many minutes and you look at the clock and say ,”Man that went by fast” it truly is on how much your enjoying what your doing because imagine yourself walking in their and not having any feeling of doing the work your going to have along day for you thinking it’s going by slow and you’ll hate it even more at the end. But you just got enjoy it like you did midway during your voulunteer work. In essence I didn’t see really any grammar errors for the most part your paper was interesting to read because it delt with truth for most people including myself and it really is someting alot can relate to. It amazed me on how many people you guys were able to feed. But anyways I thought the paper was right on, nice work.
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Roberto Kobik
So this week the newspaper did not have anything really eye catching so I am doing my journal on the reading I have done in “Why White Rice?” I have read chapter seven and the main point of this chapter is plagiarism. It explains what it is and how it can happen. I think that plagiarism is a serious issue but in my opinion the penalty is a little exaggerated. I do agree that other peoples work should be cited. It is not easy to structure a good piece of writing and takes a lot of time and dedication; I would be upset if someone took my ideas or copied what I said word for word because it took a lot of hard work to put it together. It is hard to achieve clever word play and it would be aggravating if an author for example found out someone else is using their work and not giving them credit. I do think plagiarism is serious and I understand how it would feel if someone got their work plagiarized. Some people just do not know how serious plagiarism is to society and especially the person who is getting plagiarized. I compare plagiarism to people taking credit for other work you did. Say at my grocery store I did eight pallets by myself and made the whole store look great while the other guy slacked. Imagine how mad I would be after putting in all that work to find out my boss thanked the other guy and he did not mention that it was me who did all of that work. Well writers who have their work plagiarized feel the same way, so remember always give credit to the author. That is what this chapter got me to think about. Reading this made me think about how authors really feel by forming a hypothetical situation in my head that I can relate to.
— Troy Swanson, “Why White Rice? Thinking Through Writting” Chapter 7 “Mash it up…gracefully using sources” PGS. 163-174. Kendall Hunt. -
Roberto Kobik
Letter To The Editor “Voices To Be Heard”
No community is the perfect community; we all have problematic areas or concerns. There are many current issues going on today in the world we live in, many issues which are national and in particular, local. Many occupants of the community are concerned about issues such as economy and community budgets; whether it is school budgets that taxes from our neighborhoods pay for, or local events such as increased pollution or crime. The problem that exists is many people in the community living with these stresses often go unheard. Many people want change and want to better their life and the community in which they occupy. Many of these people do not know how to act or bring change to the issues they have because they are uncertain of where to go or whom to talk to. People need to be informed about the many meetings that are held in their community on a regular basis. These meetings are where people can get their voices heard on the concerns they may have. Your voice can be heard by community/village officials. I have personally attended a handful of these meetings in my communities and others around it, and I have come to notice that there are few participants who voluntarily come in to bring forth their issues. I believe that the public is uneducated on local gatherings and also on how an individual’s voice may be heard. In one of the meetings I have participated in there were actually a large amount of people involved. They brought forth issues such as broken sewers causing heavy flooding during rain, to issues such as increased amount of littering going on in public places. These are all things that affect the whole community and as a society we need to help each other in order to sustain our environment and benefit our neighbors. We all want a safer, cleaner, healthier environment in our community and in order to achieve this we all need to work together. We should bring forth any issues or suggestions to benefit the community by participating in these local events. For more information on meeting locations and times you can visit your local police station or town hall. Good does not happen by itself so do your part and act for a better world.
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Amber Bey
I think this is a very interesting topic to address. I agree with you about most of the subjects discussed in your letter. There are so many issues within communities that most people do not even hear about. If people were informed about more issues, then maybe there would be more resolutions. More community concerns could also be resolved if there were more meetings with more people to attend the meetings. I think this issue is something that can easily be resolved around the towns of America, so it was a smart issue to address to a newspaper editor.
There are a ton of issues within a community, yet only a few go to town meetings to give feedback on solutions to problems. There could be problems ranging from too many potholes to too much garbage on the street, but what good will complaining be if nobody is there to hear it. Even though there are town officials at the meeting, such as the mayor, people could still benefit if there were more spectators. This could help push for faster and more helpful solutions to problems if more than one person has the same issue.
When I went to a town meeting for government class, I was so surprised at the amount of people that attended. I walked in thinking that the entire meeting hall would be packed and there were maybe twenty people there. I was there to observe, but most of the people were there because they wanted to address an issue to the mayor. The only problem was that the majority of the people only had complaints about issues that affected themselves personally. For example one of the women complained about a pothole in front of her house. Since people tend to want to complain more when they have a personal issue, I believe that advertising town meetings would bring in more problems that could affect an entire community. This could bring in problems like recycling and garbage issues. Since I did my letter on recycling in my community, I can understand where you are coming from. I have never seen any form of recycling bin in my town, and I believe that recycling is important for our ecosystem. Things like recycling will not only affect a town, but also our planet as a whole. If people were informed about places where they were able to discuss issues like recycling, then maybe there would be more efforts in trying to find solutions to these problems.
I noticed that your letter was very well written. Your opening sentence was attention capturing and significant to the paper. You stated some great points thought out the paper, which will catch the attention of the editor. I thought it was smart that you decided to add your personal experience into the letter as well. I did not notice any kind of extreme errors or grammar mistakes, which is always a plus. I did notice you missed a few commas in the fourth and sixth line from the bottom of your paper. There should be commas before the and’s. Besides that I think your letter is great.
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Armando Cortez
Peer review 3
First off I got to say that it was pretty interesting of what you talked about. I agree on the fact that there are current issues that should be adrressed like you said there is way too mcuh litering going in the world today that i myself am quite shocked. I sometimes am surprised when you do walk into meetings and there is just so many people there trying to get involved but only a few do anything about a problem. That’s why i strongly agree that more people should try and get involved so that they really start paying attention and realize that we wnat a more helthier environment and better place to live in. it all starts with change and this one way to start, the only thing is sometimes we struggle on how to start which shouldn’t be that hard but we get lazy and don’t really look at the strong aspect of it all. We generally only take it for granted when it comes down to letting your voice be heard, and it shouldn’t be that way but unfortunatley with how things are being done now a days it is. Maybe if people knew where some of these places were located so that they can let their voice be heard, then I think more people would try and hopefully get involved. I think that’s how it is now a days they have to have people literally telling you where certain places are located so you can go there, otherwise if it was up to their own will they would never go at all. That for me is the sad thing because like you mentioned in your paper there are far more problems in today’s environment besides litering and it’s something that should be of concern to all of us because were the ones living in the environment and it’s going to affect us whether we like it or not. There is a moment where i was down in brookfield one time and saw how every house had a recycling bin next to the garbage bin. I automatically thought of why would they not have a recycling bin over where I live, it was something that really stuck me at that moment in point and really took it into affect of how some places do care and do something about it but others like where i live don’t take that type of action and it’s because of the lack of unity from us not speaking up for what is right and making this enivronment a much healthier place to live in. In esence I think your paper was great and it really brought forth alot of me to talk about, didn’t really see grammar mistakes but overall it was a great letter one that can grab alot of support because it is our environment and we should start caring more than we already do, seeing as to how much is being done in our environment it speaks more louder than words itself.
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Roberto Kobik
As I just started up my internet browser a few moments ago I had read an eye catching title that was in the current news section of the Chicago Tribune. The title is Boy, 15, shot dead in Marquette Park neighborhood. First of all that is sad that there are people out there in this world that have such low morals and self value to do that. I read into the article and also discovered that this even happened not but an hour ago. Early police reports stated that the teen was wounded multiple times, including in the neck and chest. They also reported that the shooting was reported in the 2700 block of west Lithuanian Place Court. The boy also died at 10:30 upon arrival to the hospital. That is tragic to read about and makes me question the safety of some of our neighborhoods. That was a really young kid probably a sophmore in high school which got his life taken away in minutes. Unfortunately they did not have a report yet of why the boy got shot and by whom. Police are now investigating this incident and hopefully catch the person who committed such a large crime. There should be more police in neighborhoods or at least neighborhood watch to be alert and act properly to the presented circumstances. Installation of police cameras would help in some way too, although a lot of people ignore the fact that they are there and continue braking the law. There should be a report mention during some news hour, im curios to see what law enforcement and other officials discover.
Lee, William. The Chicago Tribune. 02/28/12 “Boy, 15, shot dead in Marquette Park neighborhood” Web Feb 29. 2012 -
Roberto Kobik
I guess when you copy and paste from word to this site it does not register bullet points?
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Roberto Kobik
Elevator speech outline.
Everybody in the world needs to eat and with that everyone in the world should also have food available to them. So why is 1/7 of our wold population starving everyday?So what is going on?
The world consists of over 7 billion people yet over 925 million people are starving.
Some countries have a bad economy with inflated prices especially on food.
Other countries just do not have the resources because of they geographical area they live in.So what can the more fortunate do to help?
We can do several of the many options e have to help others around the world.
We can donate money to organizations so that they have the funds to produce and distribute food.
We ourselves can also go volunteer at an organization to help in the production or distribution it self.
We can also help spread the word so others will be aware and possibly willing to help.Where to go or who to contact.
There are many organizations In the Us. One is Feed My Starving Children and can be contacted by their website FMSC.org the rest of their contact information can be found on their website.
Another is the Catholic Relief Services which can also be contacted through website at CRS.org -
Roberto Kobik
The Grumble Around The World
1.) Overview of the Issue
Food is a necessity to stay alive and every living organism needs this for their survival. Everyone loves to eat, and every day while we eat our meals we do not realize how many thousands of people are not fortunate enough to have a decent portion daily. Although we have more than enough food in the world to feed everyone, many starve and live scarcely as they slowly wither away toward their death. Each year we throw away enough food scraps to fill a whole football stadium (Feed My Starving Children). So why are there people still in great need of food? Is it fair for an innocent child to be born into poverty and have to suffer with the fight for food and life? Although many people only care about themselves and could care less about the issue, we should all think about dedicating some time to helping those in greater need. In the year twenty-ten, over 925 million people world wide suffered through hunger (World Hunger Education Service). The world population is more than triple that. So if every person put in one day of volunteer time a year world hunger would be solved. I volunteered two hours of my time at Feed My Starving Children and fed one child for a year. That is an amazing thing considering how little time I spent to greatly better another’s life. If everyone also put in their efforts at least once a year we would have plenty of food to send to less fortunate countries and people.
2.) Background Research
So why exactly are some people in different countries starving? There are many reasons which bring poverty and starvation to certain areas. One reason that some people are starving is simply their geographic location. Some people live in tropical areas where there are at least many consumable plants and animals. While others may live in a dry area with very little vegetation. This is a huge factor because this determines the amount of food produced in the area. Another thing that affects people greatly is the economy. If a country is having an economic crisis there is less of everything going around. This can lead to shortages and depression such situations. Economy also determines how much money is worth over all. If the economy is terrible and prices are inflamed, people earning small wages will have a difficult time in feeding their family. Another major factor is population. Take China for example, they are heavily overpopulated which means a lot of lower class people are at the bottom of the food chain and live scarcely. Quite literally almost everything affects the amount of food circulating through the area. Even things a small as locusts can overpopulate and eat a lot of growing crops causing a food shortage. A more recent thing to relate to is the nuclear reactor overheating and causing a meltdown in Japan. The areas near the reactors can be unsafe to grow crops or receive a clean water source. Children are the future of this world, and children are also the most malnourished beings. Their malnourishment can cause them to have around 160 days of illness a year World Hunger Education Service). Can you imagine being sick for half a year because you can not receive sufficient nutrition daily. Malnutrition contributes to about half of the eleven million children that die each year(World Hunger Education Service). There are 7 billion people in the world, therefor with an estimated 925 million hungry people in the world, 13.1 percent of the population, or nearly 1 in 7 people are hungry(World Hunger Education Service). Now although in a way everyone is struggling to get by in this world such as lower and middle class people, there are people even less fortunate than us that would be grateful for the possessions we have and the food we are capable of getting. So now put yourself in those starving peoples shoes; wouldn’t you want somebody to help? There are so many organizations which help those who are in need, however the only way they can succeed at their goals are if we the more fortunate people help.
3.) The Current Situation and Challenges
Although starvation is a world wide issue and there are still continuous cases all over the world, The most heard about is Africa. Starvation in Africa has been going on for many years now and is currently rapidly growing. It is estimated that currently around one million people in Africa die of starvation a year. Majority of which are children because they require more nutrition than adults to function. Nutrition they simply do not have. Many economies throughout the world are going down the drain raising prices to a point where people just can not afford the necessities to live. Or for example Haiti is still recovering from the earthquake in 2010. There are many people still struggling to regain the shelter and life necessities they used to have. The Food we packed at Feed My Starving Children was shipped to Haiti to help those still in need. Poverty is everywhere and in every country and one could do many things on their own or with an organization to help hose currently in need.
4.) What is Being Done
So what exactly is being done to help these people in different countries? There are a number of credible not for profit organizations that do a number of things for the ones in need. Since I have already participated with Feed My Starving Children, I will explain their method as it is similar to other organizations. Each organization develops a meal which is cheap to produce, and effective in nourishing. The Feed My Starving Children organization uses a specially formulated food which their scientists have developed in a lab to give the starving nutrients they need to survive. They created a meal that costs twenty four cents to produce. This is good because since the cost is low they are able to produce more food. They started with rice which is a culturally accepted food meaning most countries and cultures have meals pertaining of rice. Rice is good filler to making you feel less hungry than you are. Into that rice they add chicken which is a good source of protein and nutrients. They then also add soy beans another good source of protein. Afterwards they add vegetables, which have vitamins necessary to survive. The meal in general has over twenty different vitamins and was created to sustain life with a small portion. So in other words Feed My Starving Children has created an efficient source of food which is cheap to produce. Designed to stabilize a starving individual in around one month. Another organization is the CRS. This is known more commonly as the Catholic Relief Services. This service offers food but in addition offers more to help these individuals. This organization focuses on promoting human development in other countries by responding to emergencies and by helping fight diseases and poverty. This group also focuses on other things like helping create a water transportation system using pipelines. As you can see different groups offer different things some offer more than others depending on size and funds they have. The CRS is a good group for general things as they try to help out with everything. However, it is not about how much the group offers, it is about how effective the group is. So even though Feed My Starving Children only provides food sources to others it is still an amazing group and fun to work with. Ninety-three percent of donations go toward the less fortunate. This group effectively produces food strictly by volunteers who offered to invest their time to benefit another person’s life. They rely on good hearted people to help make their efforts possible in hope of a brighter future for the hungry.
5.) How Can You Get Involved? How Can You Help?
So how exactly can you help this issue of world hunger? There are many things you can do to help those in need, however it all depends on how much time you want to put in. All volunteer work is appreciated and there are plenty of ways to do your part. If you are interested in helping I would say the first thing to do is research the groups you are interested in and decide which one speaks to you the most. After you make the decision on which group to help you should then decide how you are able to help. For example, you can donate money to the group so the organization has funds to continue helping others in need. Another way to help is to volunteer. You can sacrifice a couple of your hours to do the volunteer work the group has to offer to the public. For example our Moraine Valley group volunteered to pack food. In addition to the two main ways of helping, there is one more. You can also help spread the word and notify friends, family, and strangers about the benefits a certain organization has t offer. In the hopes of recruiting other individuals to also fight for a cause. To contact the following two organizations one may visit their homepage by searching FMSC.org or CRS.org. All of their information is on their sites and you can also read more about the organization to help you decide which to pick. Or why not do them both? The following is direct information to these organizations.A.) FMSC (Feed My Starving Children)
555 Exchange Court 1072 National Parkway
Aurora, IL Schaumburg, IL
(630) 851-0404 (847) 519-9614B.) CRS (Catholic Relief Services)
888-277-7575
Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Eastern Time
877-435-7277
After hours and weekends
Catholic Relief Services
228 W. Lexington St.
Baltimore, Maryland 21201-3413
6.) To Learn More
Would you like to learn more about the information discussed? Here are some other links that discuss this topic. All of which are credible sources mainly for information purposes however I found one website that would be helpful to someone who is not sure what organization to side with. It also has a list of more organizations which is nice cause if you don’t know the name it could be tricky to find.The first source I will discuss is the gateway to other service opportunities. It is called “We Can End Hunger.” The reason I had picked this as one additional source is because it is very helpful if you are looking for service opportunities. This site is in a way an information/add site because it lists a bunch of credible organizations that help in the fight for hunger. It also gives a brief description of each and a link if you would like to follow up and do more research on the particular organization. It has a huge list of different organizations and some of them cover even more than just hunger. The authors of this site are known as Virginia Community Action Partnership or the (VACAP). Jim Schuyler has been Executive Director of VACAP since December 2005. He focuses on making the community a better place to be and also helps with issues such as world hunger. On this site there are tons of links to organizations such as Food Research and Action Center, Feeding America, Share our strength (SOS), World Hunger Year (WHY) and many more. The intended audiences for this site are people who are looking to do service and are not sure what to do or whom to go to. The reason this website is different than the other ones is because rather than just giving information it also gives you ways or places to help get your volunteer work started. However on the downside, although it has a lot of links the amount of information it has about hunger is less than those that strictly focus on the hunger issue.
The next source that can be useful to those looking to further their research is International Food Policy Research Institute. This website has a lot of information on it from Global hunger index to how we can improve the world. It starts off by talking about the global hunger index in 1990 and states the countries most in need. Africa is at the top of that list followed by a few more countries. As you read through the paragraphs you will discover how we as a society can improve the worlds global hunger index. It also speaks about children and how the need the most nutrition to survive, especially between the ages of one and two. This is more of a factual website that is interesting to read through to get a better idea of what is going on in the world. The website also lets you look at specific countries issues to get a better idea of what is going on. The intended audience is the general public as there really is no specific group these authors are trying to reach out to. As far as authorities go there is eleven authors and I am not really certain of their certifications because they are all foreign. The source however does look credible and provides a good amount of information.
The last and final source I had selected is called the World Food Programme. As soon as you enter this site it boldly informs you who this site is intended for. It says that due to many questions from students, teachers, researchers, journalists, and authors asking many questions they have created a database of information just for them. The source looks credible and because it has a lot of information, and because it was created by a number of authors that work with this company. It lists many facts about global hunger which are very interesting. It goes into depth about what is hunger and what causes it. What is malnutrition and more topics you can choose from. It also has a spot where you can learn about this organization and the things they do to benefit the world. They are like a relief task force ready to be deployed on emergencies for example like the Haiti incident. This source out of all is probably the best source information wise because it goes into great depth about all the topics. The way this website is set up is that you learn about the issue and its importance and then you learn about the organization and what they do. Over all it is a credible site with quality information.
Works Cited
• “World Hunger Notes Homepage.” World Hunger Notes Homepage. 2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. .
• “About Catholic Relief Services.” Catholic Relief Services. 2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. .
• “Who We Are.” Feed My Starving Children. 2012. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. .
• Egger, Robert. “5 Myths About Hunger in America.” Washington Post. 21 Nov 2010: B.2. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Feb 2012.
• Pugh, Tony. “Rise in U.S. Hunger Slows, but Remains High.” McClatchy Newspapers. 15 Nov 2010: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 21 Feb 2012.
• “World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide.” Hunger Stats. 2012. Web. 22 Feb. 2012. .
• VonGrebmer, Klaus, Marie T. Ruel, Purnima Menon, Bella Nestorova, Tolulope Olofinbiyi, Heidi Fritschel, Yisehac Yohannes, Constanze VonOppeln, Olive Towey, Kate Golden, and Jennfer Thompson. “Publications.” 2010 Global Hunger Index. International Food Policy Research Institute, 2010. Web. 22 Feb. 2012. .
• Ackerman, Kenneth. WeCanEndHunger.org, Nov 13, 2009. Web. 22 Feb. 2012 http://www.wecanendhunger.org/viewprogram.cfm?pid=274-
Kristina Marynczak
Your paper is really good because I, as the reader, understand your point of view and feel the concern you want to address. You throw in interesting and attention grabbing statistics like, “It is estimated that currently around one million people in Africa die of starvation a year.” That really had me think since that is only one country. Most Americans know of the issue of starvation since many areas in the world have a lot of poverty so for it to be brought to the attention of the hard core reasons and to focus on children should grab the reader. Your paper contains “facts” so it makes the paper worth believing since they are from credible sources. You cover more than the basics which keeps your paper less boring. The title you chose also is simple but attention grabbing as well. You appear to use a lot of sources so you can tell you definitely did your research. There are no confusing sentences due to word over or punctuation that confuse me, just reread your paper to correct the minimal punctuation mistakes. Your words are down-to-earth and professional at the same time making the paper for any audience. (Which is great because college kids to elderly people whom are retired may want to help) You seem to keep the best interest for the reader when you discuss how to get involved or what we can do to help out. I somewhat get the feeling of you being the concerned person among this issue which is great since the paper needs to be about something we care about. The attitude toward me as a reader doesn’t make you look self-centered but just enough information to make sure there is no biases created. The structure of your paper is well organized. Every part (beginning, body, and end) have enough supporting information and in a good format. My only suggestion is to change up the beginning a little bit to make it more intriguing, specifically the overview about the issue. For example, “Food is a necessity to stay alive and every living organism needs this for their survival. Everyone loves to eat, and every day while we eat our meals we do not realize how many thousands of people are not fortunate enough to have a decent portion daily.” it’s interesting and leads to getting my attention but I think you can improve it just a little. I see the main message as being that there is more than just starving people in other countries. The most important people who benefit from being helped is children since ( as I agree with you) they are our future generation. There are many ways to get involved and some I could of never guessed without reading your paper. The most helpful one is the website that will help me look up multiple organizations to find the perfect one to match what I’m looking for before volunteering. You can always add in your paper that simple things like donating to food drives in schools or churches as a simple reminder to the reader. But overall I think your paper sends a good message and need little critiquing.
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Amber Bey
I think this is a sad but necessary issue to write about. It is upsetting that there are so many people starving and people continue to throw away good food. It is awesome that you were able to save a child’s life by volunteering for a short amount of time. I never thought that volunteering for such a short amount of time could help so immensely. It is amazing that world hunger would not be an issue if everyone would volunteer.
Your background research on the issue gives a great insight on the factors that cause starvation in countries. It seems like there are an endless amount of factors that can cause starvation, but these are the broadest influences. Countries which suffer from economic crisis should not have to suffer further from starvation. This needs to be addressed by those who are able to help.
It is awful to know that there are so many children starving in the world. Children should not have to suffer right when they are born into this world; it is unfair. People that have an endless amount of food or money to buy necessities take things like this for granted. They do not realize that people are being born into this world with absolutely no food. People are also starving because of natural disasters, which are nobody’s fault. These people do not only have to live without a home and necessities, they are living without the proper food and nutrition. I think you made some good points in your current situation paragraph, yet you could have added more quotes and information.
It is a great thing that there are so many people out there that care about others. These organizations are a wonderful thing for society. More people should have the qualities of volunteers. The world would be a much better place. It is great that you got to experience the feeling of being able to save someone’s life. These organizations are the only hope that one day starvation will be terminated. I think it is interesting that there are organizations that create different ways for deprived countries to obtain food and water. Any form of organization to stop hunger is great, but it is especially amazing that these organizations go the extra mile to make such a huge difference. I think that it was great that you explained how these organizations all do different things in order to help the hungry. It gave a good insight on how there are many ways in which people are willing to assist.
Getting involved in volunteering and donating to help the hungry is the only way world hunger will decline. It is great to know that there are so many organizations in which you can join and volunteer. There seems like an endless amount of ways anyone can help. Even doing the slightest things helps more than one would think. Donating a little bit of time and money is something that can save the lives of so many. People might seem like there is nothing for them to do, but in your essay you explained that there is an abundance of things that anyone can do in order to help. I thought this was greatly thought out and I like how you tied in your own personal experience with volunteering. The only thing I would recommend is that you add more to the current situation.
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Roberto Kobik
Earlier this week I was reading a polish magazine out of boredom and stumbled across a very disturbing issue. However I cannot remember exactly where I put the magazine so unfortunately I do not have exact information I still wanted to discuss the topic because it is crazy. Somewhere in California a teacher has been secretly molesting children for a few years. Although I’m sure we’ve all heard cases like this before, this one had a twist to it. Not only was the teacher tricking the kids telling them that it was some sort of class activity/game, he was also doing other disturbing things in the class room. I was shocked to read that he frequently fed these children a special “pudding” which was his semen. Some people in this world are just messed up and do ridiculous stuff to get excitement. I was just surprised it went unnoticed for that long. It also said that he had numerous fines after he went to court and has to pay 4,000 a month for the next few years. I think that that is still too small of a punishment for such a dirty crime. People that do stuff like that which demoralizes others and takes away their dignity should be punished to a further extent. Those kids will be scarred for life knowing the things that man did to them. The man was said to be in his sixties and preferred girls over boys however he swung both ways. That is the most disturbing article I had read in a long time.
Dont have it ATM… Have to find article that i read. -
Roberto Kobik
This week I had opened “Why White Rice” to a random page for my journal topic. I had opened the book to “Risky Business Indeed Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone,” by Michael McGuire. I know this was assigned reading but its the first page I turned to so I decided to roll with it. In a way McGuire compares jumping out of a airplane for a skydiving trip to giving a presentation on a paper in front of his class mates. Jumping out of a plane sounds pretty scary whether you are the adventurous type or not. Even though that sounds frightening a presentation on ones writing can be more frightening especially if one does not have full confidence in their paper. I have never jumped out of a plane but I have done pretty daring stunts back when I used to skateboard and BMX. I also have presented my fair share of papers through out my years. I can relate to McGuire’s experience because I have had times where a presentation on a paper was scarier than crazy stunts and stuff. When writing one takes risks by stating their own opinions and thoughts. These are interpreted and judged by the audience and it can be frightening when giving a very personal presentation because sometimes one will worry what others will think of them. I have gotten past that fear because prior to all of my upcoming speeches I tell myself my speech is fine and what do I care about what others have to say anyways. That state of min helps me deliver better speeches.
McGuire ,Michael. “ Risky Business Indeed Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone.” Why White Rice? Dubuque: Kendall Hunt, 2010. 25-26. Print.-
Shannon Ratzel
correction: annotated bibliographies only have to be 200 words long. sorry
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Shannon Ratzel
and you need three to five. i think i was pissed off already when i read it so i freaked out lol my bad
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Roberto Kobik
After reading “Village Voice” by Peter Hessler I had learned a few new things. In the reading it talks about Rajeev Goyal who is a person which went to great lengths to benefit the world. Rajeev was helping the Peace Corps to benefit people less fortunate than many of us are today. It stated that that Rajeev was able to increase the budget for the Peace Corps by persuading and influencing other authorities. Some of the people he was able to persuade are members in congress which had helped with the funding. Also I was shocked to hear Jay-z and Beyonce are playing a role in helping this organization. This shows that there are some people that care in this world. Rajeev spent a lot of time, hard work, and dedication the help the people of Nepal. In the end they also got the water pump to work which helped the country a lot. This reading shows how dedicated and generous of a person Rajeev Goyal is. Reading about this it reminds me of the service learning I did earlier today at Feed My Starving Children. Our Moraine Valley group which consisted of about twenty people packed enough food to feed nineteen children for a year. That is over six thousand meals that starving children will nourish off of to keep them alive. The food was a special nutrient packed meal designed to keep one healthy. This is similar to the reading because we also made a huge difference.
Hessler, Peter. ” A Reporter at Large, Village Voice, The Peace Corp’s Brightest Hope.” Online book the New Yorker. 2010.Last accesed February 7, 2012. pgs 101-109 splatter.writing101.net -
Roberto Kobik
FAIL lol….
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Roberto Kobik
After reading “Village Voice” by Peter Hessler I had learned a few new things. In the reading it talks about Rajeev Goyal who is a person which went to great lengths to benefit the world. Rajeev was helping the Peace Corps to benefit people less fortunate than many of us are today. It stated that that Rajeev was able to increase the budget for the Peace Corps by persuading and influencing other authorities. Some of the people he was able to persuade are members in congress which had helped with the funding. Also I was shocked to hear Jay-z and Beyonce are playing a role in helping this organization. This shows that there are some people that care in this world. Rajeev spent a lot of time, hard work, and dedication the help the people of Nepal. In the end they also got the water pump to work which helped the country a lot. This reading shows how dedicated and generous of a person Rajeev Goyal is. Reading about this it reminds me of the service learning I did earlier today at Feed My Starving Children. Our Moraine Valley group which consisted of about twenty people packed enough food to feed nineteen children for a year. That is over six thousand meals that starving children will nourish off of to keep them alive. The food was a special nutrient packed meal designed to keep one healthy. This is similar to the reading because we also made a huge difference.
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Roberto Kobik
The “Who should survive” was pretty simple to me. At first I approached the situation the wrong way and confused my own self. However after filling out the worksheet associated with this activity it helped me to think outside the box. Now I could just tell everyone which four people I picked to be sacrificed but that would not help others realize why I picked these individuals. In order to understand better one must first know which people I decided to let live and why.
To begin, I was thinking not of the survival of these people but the survival of the world as a whole. We are not sure how many survivors there are left in the world and what scale nuclear attack this was. Lets just say that these are the only people in the world who have survived and now the rebirth of the world lies on their shoulders. I looked at what uses these people had to each other and the uses they have after they leave the bunker to restart the human race. Apart from the knowledge some of these people posses their age and gender also plays a role in my decision making. I apologize if I offend anyone with this paper but come on people its a worksheet.
Lets start with the four people I chose to let go, the Lang family and Dr. Garcia. Lets face it Bobby is of no use to anyone and in order for him to survive he needs his mother to help counsel him. Although his mother could be of use to help people stay calm in the bunker the other peoples uses outweigh hers. The father Dr. Lang could make a good potential leader because of his basic knowledge on how a community runs, however he would not be able to function properly without the rest of his family. I noticed a lot of people did not think about this. If you kill one of the Lang family members they other members will not be able to function properly causing them to not work up to their full potential. This is why I decided to get rid of the whole family.
I also got rid of Dr. Garcia because even though he has more knowledge than the other doctor his age and health conditions somewhat outweigh his uses. No one knows when he might pass away but it looks like pretty soon. These are the four people I got rid of. Now as you can see this does not clarify my decisions, which is why I will also briefly describe why the others should survive.
Father Philip would make a great leader. This is because he is a priest and he has a lot of experience in public speaking. In addition to that he can bring order to the bunker with his political thinking. As stated he went to college, is active in civil rights movements and has liberal views. He can be very useful to the bunker by replacing Mrs. Langs use. He can be the “therapist for the people in the bunker because he has experience with confessions and talking to people.
Mrs. Clark and Mr. Young can work together causing them to be a good team. Clark is an electronics engineer which will be extremely useful once these people leave the bunker and attempt to rebuild society. While Young could help Clark by building whatever she designs. He can also help build mechanical things as he has knowledge in that. These two people would be in charge of the construction aspect of survival.
Of course a doctor is necessary to help keep people healthy and deliver a baby when necessary. Although Mr. Newton is in his least year of schooling he still possess valuable knowledge. Because of his age and health I chose him over Dr. Garcia because he has a longer period of potential use. The fact that he might be gay and possibly may dislike other races does not matter. If these people want to survive they will all have to work together to recreate human civilization.
The two children and any others that will be made in the future serve as learning minds. The doctor, engineer and mechanist will create academic journals of all their knowledge to be passed onto every kid old enough to learn. Of course math, English and other subjects would also be passed on to children as we want to preserve the knowledge these people know and use it to continue expanding the human race.
Now obviously these people need to reproduce to continue the human race. Which is why both genders are very important to have. Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Hernandez are useful in the production of children. Due to Mrs. Hernandez’s lack of knowledge her main use would be mating and caregiver to the children. Also when Mary white and Jean Hernandez reach that age they can be used for mating too; also they will have learned all the knowledge the people posses making their potential use very high.
Any other babies created will learn the knowledge passed on through the generations of survivors. Slowly rebuilding the human population until the world is populated how it once was. Now yes I do know it is against Father Philips beliefs to mate, but either he will get past that and help in the creation of society or he continue to follow his beliefs. Newton is probably gay so he wont want to reproduce but there is always the option of jerking it and inseminating one of the females. Which basically leaves one male out of the seven people to participate I the reproduction process. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind being the stud.
Those are the brief reasons that influenced my decisions on who to pick to survive. Feel free to comment or whatever I’d love to hear someone elses perspective even though personally I think I nailed it right on the dot. But then again that is just my opinion.
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Kristina Marynczak
Yes, most of your opions are fair and very well planned. Except… they need a doctor to deliever a baby? The Doctor Garcia practice general medicine which doesn’t really fall into delievery of a baby. I feel the other man in medical school can maybe help see if the baby is healthy but as far as delievery any one of those people would probably be adequte. The information on his medical schooling was too vague. It might be possible he had went to medical school to be an anesthesiologist. But on a different note I absolutley love the desicion you made for Mrs. Hernandez’s role. I though i was the only person to see that she can be used to reproduce. Most classmates were saying she is useless and can’t do anything because of her backround and being a prostitue. One even mentioned she has STDs since shes a prostitue but shows how bias they were because it was stated she was in good health. STDs dont let one be healthy. Also she had a healthy baby so it proves more of a reason to make her the baby producer and caregiver.
In conclusion, you had good thinking on your part! :) (or at least in my opinion)
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Roberto Kobik
The first piece of literature I read was Dave Eggers, “What It Means When A Crowd In A Faraway Nation Takes A Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him From His Vehicle, and Then Mutilates Him In The Dust.” After reading this article I think Egger fells more compassionate for the soldier because he was fighting for a cause and lost his life doing something brave and good. When one reads national news it’s more frequent to see those types of incidents in our own country so one pays less attention to them. However I think national cases are just as important as losses in other countries. For example, when I saw that video of seven people beating up that Asian kid a couple weeks ago I felt bad for him. To me it does not really matter much where the tragedy happened but what happened to whom. Obviously not many people are going to get upset hearing about a drug addict overdosing as they would when hearing an innocent child got shot from a drive-by accidentally. Dave Eggers other piece, “Your Mother and I” in my opinion was one of the most boring piece of literature I have ever read, apart from the random sexual explanations which added some humor to the piece. The story did include many changes that have happened in the world the past couple of decades, which I found interesting. I just did not like the flow of the writer, it switched topics very often and included a lot of pointless information like the side dialogue between the father and child. I found that very annoying but at least the writing had some humor and exaggerations that livened it up a bit.
Eggers, Dave. “What It Means When A Crowd In A Faraway Nation Takes A Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him From His Vehicle And Then Mutilates Him In The Dust,” pgs 17-18. Splatter.writing101.net 2012 Eggers, Dave. “Your Mother and I.” pgs 115-123. Splatter.writing101.net 2012 -
Roberto Kobik
What do you believe?
Life, one of the most fascinating yet confusing things to understand. A commonly asked question; what is the purpose of life? Along with that question comes another; what does one live for? If life is so important to a person, what would that person die for. All of these questions are interrelated and personally tough to answer. I believe each individual has their own purpose to life, and with that, has their own reasoning to life and death.
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Armando Cortez
I got to say when reading your paper it was preety good. The only thing I would maybe tell you would be in order for you to not keep having these short paragraphs to take up space, maybe if you really stick to one paragraph at first and give it more detail I think that would be better. And also if you could take out “To Conclude” because I don’t think the y want you to be doing that in papers that you do or at least that’s what i was told from my Com 101 teacher not to use In conclusion and any thing close to that when your trying to end your paper. But overall, i’d say your grammar was preety good didn’t really see any while reading. I like your reason for dying becuase love is a strong emotion and one that can make you do unbelievable things. I could tell you first hand that it’s a great feeling, God has blessed with “her” I am truly thankful and yea what could I tell you; you do feel you could do anything for that speacial person in yourlife even death. So I do agree with you on that but then there is what you would kill for and yea it is not right to kill anyone and I think you should only kill for hunger. kill animals to eat and survive because that’s what they were brought on earth for well for example the cattle, pigs, and chickens. That type of killing but killing othere is not right and it would be considered a sin being a christian but that’s just me. In essence to the paper it was good and if you better paragraph and detail your paper; i think it could get better but overall it was good your introduction was nice and with what I suggested it could get better.
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Amber Bey
I thought it was very interesting how you went about answering the first question. It seemed like you took the question very literal, which was quite unique. I thought it was awesome because it is something that I would not have thought of in a million years. Emotions are the outcome of almost every happening in life, which is a great reason to want to live in order to be able to experience these various emotions. If we did not have emotions, life would be pointless. I also admired how you tied positive and negative emotions together by claiming that if one was unable to be experience then the other would never be experienced either. This was a clever, descriptive way of getting your point across.
The answer to your second question definitely made me think. It confused me how you claim that you have never felt love. I understand that you are referring to a specific kind of love in your essay, but what about love for your current family? I am somewhat confused on what would make a family that you are thinking of in the future different from the family members who are currently in your life. I think it is a wonderful thing that you are willing to be such a protective father and husband. That is definitely what the world needs. I think any man who is willing to make children should be willing to do whatever it takes to support them and keep them safe.
I love how you began answering the last question. I think it takes a real man to admit that he thinks fighting is the incorrect way of solving problems. We have voices for a reason. Although I do have faith in this theory, again I think it is great that you are willing to do anything to protect your family. I would definitely put my family’s life before anyone else’s. I thought it was funny how you go from saying you are against violence to saying you would kill someone slowly and painfully when it comes to harming your family, but I completely agree. I also thought it was great that you decided to kill for your country as well. This means that you have a lot of respect for those around you. You care about your society and those within it.
Your essay was well thought out. It was obvious that you thought a lot about your morals in life, which seems like a necessary to do before this particular essay. Some of the things about your family confused me a little, but overall I agree with your beliefs. I think that you have great motives. -
Alexander Roth
Reading your story I had trouble understanding your answers for the three questions. I understand that emotions are something you strongly appreciate but is it emotions themselves that motivate you to live every day? Or, is it the experiences that allowed you to feel these emotions that spark your drive? Either way you did an excellent job of portraying to the reader your passion on your feelings about emotions. I would like to know what importance emotion has particularly played in your life to have it being your motivation for living. Understandably, because of your intense fervor about emotions it would make sense that you would sacrifice yourself over a strong emotion like love. You admit that you have yet to experience love but you know that you would willingly die for a loved one, I find that extremely interesting that your faith is assuring that your idea of love is worth dying for. What about love is so satisfying that you would allow it to be your end? Besides those questions I thought your paper had excellent diction and utilized a large vocabulary. The voice of the essay was setting a tone of questioning and made the reader experience the same emotion you had possibly felt writing the essay. You gave well thought out details of your decisions and real life concrete examples so the reader could legitimately put themselves in the same position as you and have to think of their choices and how they would reason. You structured your essay extremely well. I never was lost reading the essay; the sentences all flowed smoothly effectively explaining your thought process. As a reader I saw the generative center for your writing to be about your emotions. The appreciation of emotion was motivation to live; your idea of love was intense enough that you would sacrifice your life for it and the safety of your loved ones; and you would kill to insure your safety, your loved ones safety, and for our country and your countrymen. I thought your reasons to kill were very legitimate reasons. While reading the example dealing with your wife’s possible rapist, you said you would kill him slowly. Although it was a bit graphic, it did display to the reader how passionate you felt about your wife’s safety and your willingness to preserve it. Overall, your paper was a very well thought out, well written document that effectively summarized your motivations and driving factors in your life. I hope my perspective will positively influence your work and I am willing to discuss your paper in greater detail if you would like.
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Roberto Kobik
I think being ecologically literate means being aware of how important natures resources are; and also playing some sort of role to benefit the community. The worlds future is determined by our actions and conservativeness. I think I am somewhat ecologically literate even though I do not do any volunteer work I still play a small role by not littering, sometimes picking up lose trash around neighborhood and also looking out for my neighbors. I think that if everyone played their small roles every day the impact on the community and the individual would be large. Other things like using public transportation, car pooling or walking can reduce the pollution level. I have noticed the past few years the seasons have been weird for example cold rainy summer and a decently warm winter this year with snow only falling a few times. I think this has something to do with all the pollution we are causing and I think its going to progressively get worse until people start doing their part. China for example is a country that has a massive pollution problem, as there is a lot of land fills and dirty air due to the high population number. Landfills also produce methane that is not healthy and can damage the ozone. This is why another thing people should do is recycle. I make sure to separate plastics and cardboard when recycling at my workplace because I feel that it also makes a small difference somewhere. To sum up I think that being ecologically literate is being concerned, aware, and helpful in this large world. Many small sacrifices and efforts can effect the planet and its inhabitants positively in great ways.
Capra, Fritjof “The Web of Life”
Shannon Ratzel, and 
Corey Thiesse are discussing. 
Armando Cortez, 
Alejandro Morales, 
Anahi Perez and one other person are discussing. 
Amber Bey are discussing. 
Kristina Marynczak are discussing. 
Alexander Roth, 
Corey Thiesse 9:31 pm on May 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
idk eitherrrrr
Shannon Ratzel 1:21 pm on May 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
just a hard copy