THON Facebook group

Melissa – family hour + final four, club sport involvement

Jane – accomplishments 2014, individual involvement/branch

Amanda –  greek life involvement, canvasing/donation boxes/thonvelopes

Connor L – survival guide (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), canning

Connor – how it got started/ evolution, organizations and committees

Haley – canning, pep rally, line dance

Option 3 Skills

Melissa and Amanda

• Learning skills more important than developing a theme?
  • Exploration is more important, should be more emphasis on skills. Need to be able to take these classes earlier-like English 202 or CAS 100.
  • Skills important for your job should be covered by your major. Gen Eds should cover general skills that everyone should have. Major should teach you most of your skills that you need to focus on independently
  • Everyone should know how to write.  Know the basics (from English 15), learn a lot of different way to write which is a good way to start and then writing should be further developed within your specific major.
  • Professional email writing? Should this be a focus? Want to look professional- should be a skill covered in a class like English 15
  • Mash CAS 100 and English 15 into one class – good idea
  • What else is important besides writing and speaking? What other skills are important?
    • General math
    • How to work with different programs (Example – Excel) – technology class for each major just to get familiarized with these programs that you may need to use later on – Powerpoint, prezi, etc
    • Are people already competent in how to use excel? Some say yes, some would say no. Generally know how to use it but they don’t know how much the program can actually do
    • Art majors – something
    • Does this take away freedom of Gen Eds?
      • Yes, but only taking it away because its important
      • Already kind of forced to take these classes – wouldn’t change much
      • More useful and interested because the classes will actually help them- learn skills they will actually have to use rather than taking something like Astro where you probably don’t care as much about the material.
      • “Recitation” could be held by grad students and TA’s? For extra help- or have these classes in very small numbers of students (~30) so that you can get individual attention and attendance would be more likely
      • Badges??
        • Not really sure how we feel about it
        • Just a way to recognize student achievement
        • Can’t be overly subjective – what quantifies a superior essay?
        • Going to vary on every class
        • Comparing yourself to the entire student body which is very difficult especially because every professor teaches differently and grades more or less harshly
        • Participate in workshops as part of a class requirement – resume, interviews, etc

-Personal experiences with this issue?

I have a real problem with general education courses right now. Not so much the chemistry or physics or math courses, but more the courses I have no interest in. Currently, I’m taking Linguistics as a general social and behavioral science class. Honestly, I take nothing from it. I attend class and write the papers and follow the notes, but I have no interest in really grasping the material. I’d rather be focusing on the courses geared toward my major (veterinary and biomedical science). For next semester, I have to pick more general art or humanities courses that I already know will just take up time I could’ve spent studying for something else.

-What concerns you the most about this issue?

My concern with this issue is that it really effects some people’s GPA. They spend their time studying for these gen ed courses that they have no interest in which makes them less successful in the classes that actually matter to them. Or they just don’t spend any time on the gen ed course and that also drops their GPA.

(thesis) – By utilizing commonplaces, ethos, and logos, the Eminem and Chrysler ad …

It is commonly known that the ones who go through struggle often appreciate the quality of success more than most. Detroit possess a reputation of a city that has gone through hell which drove the community to discover the results of hard work. The advertisement Chrysler created reveals the journey of rags to riches, using Eminem as a hometown example.

1. After looking at the three sample papers, which introduction paragraph do you think identified the ad’s context and commonplaces the best? Explain why in a few sentences.

Olympic Moms really drew me in just from the opening paragraph. The introduction was strong and gave a strong idea about what the ad was about and where they were going to take the reader through their paper. It was very well written and made me want to continue reading about the commercial. I also appreciated their thesis statement. It was clear, concise, and summed up the whole introduction nicely.

2. Which paper’s organization did you like the best? What strategy did the writer use to develop different topics for the paragraphs? Explain in a few sentences.

I liked the organization of the Eminem and Chrysler paper. The author organized it a little differently than the other papers and followed their own path. The paper developed really nicely and got all of the points across clearly even with the different organization. The other papers seemed to list the topics they were going to discuss and then discussed them in that strict order.

3. Which paper captured your interest the most? Why do you think that is? Explain in few sentences.

The Olympic Moms paper captured my interest the most. I definitely think this was because of the introduction. The opening paragraph makes or breaks a paper for me and this author did really well. They had a nice voice and experimented with structure and punctuation while getting their points across clearly. It was easy to follow and well written. It also felt fairly relatable at some points which made it hold my interest more.

4. Now, turn to your own paper draft. Write a sentence or two about the context(s) and commonplace ideas you are going to identify in the opening paragraph.

The commonplace my ad focuses on is the desire to help the less fortunate. I plan to make this a very strong point in the opening so that I can really elaborate on the commonplace and pathos later in the paper.

5. Now, let’s craft a few thesis statements. Try this formula for your own paper topic:

“By/Through [using these specific tactics], [this ad] [analytical verb that answers does what?] [in order to do what?].”

Attempt 1: By the use of commonplaces, rhetorical devices, and a strong pathos argument, the TOMS advertisement entices the general public into buying their shoes in order to benefit those in need.