Category Archives: Work in Progress

Recommendation Report Stance

Going into group discussion my mind was set on an exploration approach to GenEds. I have had great experience with my GenEds first semester and enjoyed the thought of being able to choose to take classes that actually seemed interesting to the student. The other two approaches seemed unnecessary and unappealing to me. The themes approach seemed too specific to one single topic, thus defeating the person of GenEds all together in my opinion, and the skills approach too bland, we have been forced to focus on the main skills (reading, writing and math) throughout our whole educational careers so why would we want  to do that in college while we actually have some freedom of what we can learn about?

Coming out of group discussion I had the same opinions for the most part, with the realization that skills are necessary to a healthy education and future in the job world so should be included somewhat in the GenEd curriculum. I learned that for the most part my classmates felt the same way as I did. They all have had good experiences with Gen Eds and believe that exploration is the most important part of the GenEd process. Everyone agreed that the themes approach was too limited to one subject and didn’t make much sense. What really helped shape my opinion was our discussion of the skills option. My group talked about how basic knowledge is good because it’s applicable to many careers and how within the broad category of skills there can be many different types of skills classes one could take. For example not just a skills class tailored to reading, writing or math. A skills class about finance and taxes would help college students learn about a real world task in a classroom setting, preparing them for the future. Skills classes could also be very broad like science or specific and connected to your major for example psych students need to know how to talk to people and might want to take a public speaking course or one that helps them learn to feel more comfortable talking with others. The more my group talked about the skills option the more it seemed necessary to include it in the GenEd curriculum at some level. What I will be proposing in my recommendation report is an option based primarily off of exploration (60%) with a good amount of skills based classes included (40%) to help prepare students for the real world and life after college.

Paper 3 Outline

I so far have come up with various ideas for my Paper 3. If I were to take the route of having to choose a topic about Penn State I would go ahead and argue on why there should be no limit to the number of A’s an english teacher can give to her class. This argument directly affects us students as we are all currently in English 15 and it would be interesting to argue our point.

Second I could rhetorically analyze a satiric work. I enjoy the Colbert Report a lot and found his interview with Caitlin Flanagan about fraternities to be hysterical.

Finally I could write about an article I read in the onion while doing our March 7 assignment. I have been reading all of the articles in the Washington Post relating to the disappearance of flight 730 and I found it very surprising that The Onion was willing to try and bring humor to such a situation. Although after reading The Onion’s article they did a great job of bringing to light the point that no one has any clue what actually happened to the plane.

Rhetorical Analysis Draft, Axe Peace: Make Love Not War

 Everyone knows the classic representation of a manly man: tall, handsome, muscular, dark hair, facial hair, etc. but there is more to it than just physical features. It includes the clothes he wears, how he stands, the look on his face, whether or not the man has a sense of power that one can see radiating from his body. When products are being sold to men the company selling them will usually use this classic representation to do so. Axe’s Make Love Not War Campaign is no different in this aspect. However in this specific advertisement the company takes a new approach in the way the man acts toward his significant other in a time of struggle (in this ad being war). Instead of having the man not care about his woman when there is something as grave as a war going on the man chooses to put his woman first and promote peace instead of violence.

            Axe’s Peace commercial defies the normal thinking about men during wartime. The ad has a strong emotional appeal involved with it, which draws the viewer into the story behind the commercial and hooks them in all together. The ad uses pathos in order to try and get the viewer to care about the people in the ad and make them believe in the slogan “Make Love Not War”. The ad opens up with eerie music that you would find in an important scene of a movie. This serves the purpose of setting the mood for the advertisement; it creates the feeling of a tense situation. The ad then shows clips of numerous wartime situations in which either a soldier or leader is in a tough situation. War is a very touchy subject that generates emotion through its mere mention. When the viewer is shown these strong men who are choosing to put down their weapons and fight for their loved ones instead of against the opposition it sends a very powerful message. For a man to promote peace and love this goes against the normal view that a man should always be tough and fighting but in this ad he is fighting for his woman instead of his country.

There is a lot of historical significance behind the ad that serves to add to the pathos. The different wartime situations in the advertisement can each be related to a real war that our country has had to face in the past hundred years or so. In the opening scene a Middle Eastern man is caring a very important looking briefcase followed by body guards, he flips it open and inside is a large red button which seems as if pressed will fire a large missile or something of that nature. This can be related to the war in Iraq where we believed the country was holding many weapons of mass destruction to be used against the United States. Another scenario played out in this ad is a helicopter landing in a jungle like environment. A man steps out of the helicopter over the noise of the blades cutting the wind holding a large assault rifle. He goes to meet an attractive Asian woman who has come to meet him in the middle of what looks to be her rice field. This can be related to the war in Vietnam where the United States invaded the country in helicopters with large assault rifles to fight, just as the ad has shown. The purpose of creating realistic situations that have historical significance is to bring emotion into the mix of the ad. These events were very real and many good men lost their lives to fight for their country in them.

Where the ad goes about things differently is where instead of having the man only worried about the war the man focuses on the woman. In the instance of the man climbing out of the helicopter with his assault rifle as he meets the Asian woman he throws his gun on the ground and embraces her with a very passionate kiss. Basically saying forget fighting, all I care about is you. The other example where the middle eastern man presses the large red button as he is sitting on a couch with what looks to be his wife or girlfriend instead of a large bomb or missile going off, the red button shoots fireworks into the air to create a romantic situation for a man and his wife. These two different scenarios reinforce the mission statement of the ad, “Make Love Not War” and defy the normal views of society and tell the viewer that even in a time of war your woman should always come first. This portion of the ad appeals to logos, it is saying that if you wear Axe Peace you will have the confidence to go against society norms and make bold moves to try and earn the love of the ones you truly care about.

 

Concluding Paragraph

 

Make Love Not War

After watching the Super Bowl i decided to change my advertisement and go with Axe’s Peace commercial. I found this ad interesting because of the different situations of war it displayed and how they relate to real life war situations that have happened in the past. In my analysis I will

1. Compare the ad’s war situations to real life historical war time                                   2. Discuss how the ad creates a mood of tension before bringing up the product     3. Talk about how Super Bowl ads do a good job of disguising their product until the very end of the ad                                                                                                                           4. How the ad actually sells the product

 

Paper 1 Possibilities

One idea I had for paper 1 was to do an Axe Body Wash commercial. The commercials done by Axe try and persuade teenagers and young men to buy their products so they can smell nice and get the ladies. In the specific commercial I am thinking of a young man puts on his Axe Body Wash and then is chased down the street by a pack of young, desirable, women. This ad appeals mainly to logos and ethos, playing on the emotions and logic that the ad brings. The emotion that the ad brings is humor which interests and hooks the viewer into the product. The ad then uses the logic that if one uses Axe Body Wash women will want them.

Another idea I had was the interracial Cheerios commercial. This ad was recently deemed controversial by many people over the internet because it used an interracial family in the advertisement. I believe that having an interracial family really brings a lot of ethos to the table. It shows that no matter who you are; black, white, male, female, young, old, everyone loves Cheerios. It also uses the classic Cheerios logos that if you eat Cheerios you will have a happy heart and lower cholesterol therefore helping one live healthy and for longer.