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‘Work in Progress’ Category

  1. WIP #6 Advocacy Website Critique

    March 28, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    The website I came across is for an organization that collects donations to fund animal testing in labs and keep medical research going. Speaking of Research aims to “stand up for science” and get others on board to increase awareness and fund further animal testing. This organization is the sister organization of Pro-test, which was shut down, and was created by a college student at Oxford University who decided to speak out to everyone who became opposed to the idea of animal testing. the website has many different sections to read to get a better understanding of what animal research can contribute to and even has a whole page on what types of animal experiments were carried out that have advanced medical research. I do not support this cause because I don’t believe medical research should be tested on animals. There has to be other and better ways of demonstrating advances in medical research than on animals.  The website talks all about how the animals are nothing but protected from harm and only hire skilled workers to work with the animals, but in my opinion I think that these animals are being harmed just by the testing that’s being done on them. There is a section on the website that states their animal research beliefs, basically stating animals don’t have the right to vote or the right to an education like people do, so why would these rights apply to animals? I completely disagree with this logic. Animals are living things and should be able to fulfill the lives they were given just as we are. Maybe they don’t have the right to vote, but they should definitely be guaranteed the right to live.

    http://speakingofresearch.com/

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | 2 Comments

  2. WIP #5 Persuasive Essay Topic

    March 19, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    I have decided to focus on the topic of the death penalty for my persuasive essay. It will be a question of value as I will try to persuade the reader that the death penalty is wrong and should be abolished for a number of reasons. The first point I will use to support abolishing the death penalty are the expenses necessary to carry it out. Sentencing a person to death costs more than life imprisonment without parole by having to go through more trials with more jurors needed and other experts that need to be hired to make the decision of whether the defendant either lives or is sentenced to death. This money is just costing more for taxpayers. Another key point for the abolition of capital punishment is that it isn’t necessarily a deterrent of crime. There is no evidence showing that national crime rates have gone down significantly since the death penalty has been enacted. Wasn’t that a big part of the point in passing the penalty in the first place? If it’s not making a difference, then what’s the point in keeping it around. The last point I will be making towards the repealing of the death penalty is the risk of accusing and sentencing an innocent person to death. There are a number of reasons the conviction of a person can go wrong, such as eyewitness errors, false confessions, etc. Since the advent of DNA, there have been a number of people in prison exonerated after years spent in prison, while the whole time they were innocent and wrongly convicted of a crime. Many families of the victims of murder have stated that they are against capital punishment as well, and that taking another life doesn’t bring them closure. There are major problems with the death penalty and that is why it should be abolished.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | 3 Comments

  3. WIP #4 Outside articles for in-class deliberation

    February 19, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    http://www.sierraclub.org/sustainable_consumption/tilford.asp

    The article I found for the deliberation today is one that talks about the consumption of resources in our society today. It’s called Why Consumption Matters and discusses first how consumption now is different than it was during the industrial revolution and even from over sixty years ago saying, “Since 1950 alone, the world’s people have consumed more goods and services than the combined total of all humans who ever walked the planet before us.” It goes on to say that through this over consumption of resources is really hurting our earth and the life forms living on the planet. Between the number of people living on this planet, how much each person consumes and the technology that has been created, the world’s consumption has increased and these factors are contributing to the environmental problem in the long run. Thinking in the long run is a problem with most of the world, too, since most people are just concerned with the here and now, what could benefit them right now and not about what could benefit them in the future. This article goes into discussing the costs of consumption and much more about the concern for our planet’s resources. This article really hit on and backed up some of the key points in the sustainable energy packet we read, as well as the issues we talked about in class today.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | 1 Comment

  4. WIP #3 Online Deliberation Topic

    February 13, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/06/opinion/walsh-family-leave/index.html?npt=NP1

    I’m sticking with the news story I wrote about in my other work in progress blog post last week. The news site that I chose to use for my online deliberation is CNN. My article comes from the opinion section of the site and focuses on giving workers paid work leave instead of unpaid leave. Companies have been faced with the consequences of losing employees because of unpaid leave and is obviously becoming a larger problem. Unpaid leave not only hurts the workers, but also can hurt the company since, like I mentioned before, the workers will eventually leave for good and find somewhere else to go that may offer the paid leave that they need. Some people have urgent matters to attend to and need to leave for work for personal reasons, such as the author of the CNN article. Others feel that, on the employer side of the situation, why would they want to keep paying someone who has to take off for an extended period of time. So on he comment blog there are people that are expressing both sides of the debate and it has been interesting to see where the conversation goes after certain comments have been made.

    I think this particular article is interesting since it pertains to all of our lives in that right now, although we’re not working at a job that will be our career in the long run (hopefully), our parents are affected by this. Which then means so are we college students since we rely on our parents’ money still, for the most part, at this point in our lives. The deliberation taking place on the comment thread is interesting because, as I said, it is discussing both sides of the argument, so both sides of the employee and the employer are being portrayed. I will be looking forward to see how the comment thread progresses in the future.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | No Comments

  5. WIP #2 Online Deliberation

    February 6, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/06/opinion/walsh-family-leave/index.html?npt=NP1

    The online deliberation I chose to follow is a story on CNN called “Extend family leave to all workers.” This article discusses the issue of unpaid work leave. Basically, how many people that need to take time off of work for personal reasons can’t due to unpaid work leave, which in the end can end up hurting the family or the company when the employee doesn’t come back to work because of the fact that there’s no paid work leave. Only in two states is there paid work leave, California and New Jersey and in both of these states paid work leave has shown a positive effect. Also, other countries compared to the United States, not only have longer vacation time, but have paid work leave and has the same positive effect on their economies. According to the article, “one study found that 94% of leave-takers who received full pay returned to the same employer, compared to 76% of those with no pay.” So paid leave will help keep the employees businesses have rather than losing them due to unpaid leave.

    The comments written in response to this article are some that are agreeing with this idea that more companies, and states in general, should give there workers paid leave. These commentors are deliberating how paid leave will help the economy and have positive effects on the country if we follow in the footsteps of California and New Jersey. Others ask how this will be helping the economy, not understanding what this paid leave will eventually accomplish. To me, it sounds like granting paid leave to workers will improve the economy and show some positive effect for our country. I will follow up on the comments and observe how the people commenting deliberate about this topic. I’m interested to see where the conversation leads.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | No Comments

  6. CI #1

    January 23, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    Women have been fighting this battle for a while now. The battle of being considered equal by their male counterparts in the workplace. Women have been able to get to closer to this ultimate goal rising up in business, but there is still that male dominance in many high end companies. I don’t think this stigma society has created will go away anytime soon, but I think America has gotten a little closer. There are obviously many controversies towards this topic. A woman’s work is inside the home, men should be the breadwinners in the family, and many others.

    Women have always been the primary caretaker of their children, but they have also done their jobs outside the home too. Until about the 1950’s when the “ideal” family was introduced, women did work outside the home and help their spouse earn a living. During the 1950’s, family became the most important thing and women were suddenly looked at as workers in the home. Taking care of the household and the children as well as their husband was their only job, while the men went outside the home and worked all day. This worked for a little while and women didn’t mind it either, until the second world war came along. The men went off to fight in the war and had to leave their jobs behind. This gave women the opportunity to replace the men in their jobs and now work outside the home. Women began to like this new sense of work outside of the household and being able to earn their own money to support their families while their husbands were away. Once the men came back though, the women were pretty much forced to give up their jobs to the men returning and go back to the home.

    Today, there are many women that have walked in the footsteps of the 1950’s women, a housewife taking care of the home and everything in it. On the other hand, many others have taken the opportunity to find work outside the home and become quite successful. These women have shown other women, and also men, that women are capable of doing just as a good a job as men are and can rise up in the workplace to become as successful as they want to if they work hard to achieve it.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | 3 Comments

  7. WIP #1

    January 16, 2013 by Taylor Kantner

    For my WIP blog throughout this semester I have decided to focus on women in the workplace. I just took a Women’s Studies class last semester and although women in the workforce was a short section of the class it’s something I would like to learn more about. We learned how there are more male dominant jobs and that women usually don’t get paid as much as the men do. These differences that affect both the men and the women working are what interest me in the subject. I want to look into all the controversies that are associated with this topic and also look at women working internationally. I would like to learn if women working in other countries is any different from how it is here in the U.S. with the many stereotypes and if men and women earn equal wages and work the same jobs or if it’s similar to the United States.  I also want to shine a light on the many successful women in business around the world who have worked hard and earned their acclaim as successful working women.  There are many women that have worked hard and have achieved high esteem for their work in their field. So it definitely is possible to be an honored working woman. I want to blog about women in the workplace, but also learn something each time I do blog. Like I said, I am interested in this topic and I hope to get everyone else that’s reading it interested as well.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | No Comments

  8. WIP #6 Sources for Paradigm Shift paper

    October 25, 2012 by Taylor Kantner

    “History of Drama.” History of Drama. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. <http://litera1no4.tripod.com/dramahistory.html>

    This first website I found goes through the evolution of theater all the way back from ancient times up until around the late 1900’s. I think this website is really beneficial because it highlights two very important types of drama that came about in the 19th century, expressionist and contemporary. Both of these dramas changed theater performances and the thoughts of playwrights themselves since both involved thinking outside of the box. I do think this source is reliable since it goes through the transformation of theater beginning with ancient drama and covers quite a wide span of theater evolution.

    “History of Theatre.” History of Theatre. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. <http://www.glencoe.com/theatre/Timeline/timeline_content.html>

    This website has a complete timeline of theater throughout the centuries. It has information about people, places, topics, and media in theater. It has a lot of helpful information going through the 20th century, pretty much year by year describing different events in theatrical history. I really think this timeline will be of use to me when carefully going through the 20th century to currently and for me to be able to find specific examples regarding just how theater changed from year to year.

    “Theatre History: American Theatre History.” Theatre History: American Theatre History. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2012. <http://webhost.bridgew.edu/adirks/ald/courses/hist/hist_Amer.htm>

    I particularly like this website because it goes through the major events that happen in American theater that have made it what it is today. I like that it points out certain movements and time periods, such as postwar, and how events in history have affected theater. I’ll be using the part with the new century of theater and the different events that take place throughout the 1900’s that influenced performances, as well as the movements that took place. This website seems like it has a lot of useful information that will be beneficial to my paper.

    “The Feminist Spectator.” : “Women in Theatre: Issues for the 21st Century”. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://feministspectator.blogspot.com/2009/09/women-in-theatre-issues-for-21st.html>

    I think this could be a subtopic in my paper, women in theater. This is an interesting perspective on theater and how women work in theater in particular. In the old days, men were the only ones allowed to perform in plays, so they would play the male roles, as well as the female. Now females are able to be a part of the performance and have an equal part in the acting process. So I think analyzing this part of theater could be beneficial to my paper and a good subtopic.

    “Theater Evolution.” The Expressionist Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. <http://www.theexpressionist.com/2009/07/16/aug-featuretheater-evolution/>

    I like how this website describes and provides pictures of how the look of the theater has changed throughout the years. It really gives the perspective of what the different stages of theater developed and I think this could be another good subtopic under the main one. The look and layout of theaters has changed throughout history and this website does a pretty good job in showing and describing just how this has happened. I think this is one of the more interesting sides to the evolution of theater, along with the changing costumes.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | 2 Comments

  9. WIP #5 – Focus for Paradigm Shift

    October 17, 2012 by Taylor Kantner

    I’m not too sure yet, but the focus I think I’m going with for my paradigm shift paper is the evolution of theater within the past century. Theater is one of my favorite things. I love being on stage and watching performances from the audience. It’s something that I thoroughly enjoy and would love to learn more about. So through this paper, I hope to learn how it has come to be the theater it is today. I also think this topic would be pretty interesting for others that don’t necessarily have the love I do for theater. Everyone loves a good show and it’s always interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes.

    In the past century, theater has gone through a couple changes. One started in the early 1900s and is known as expressionist drama, including ensemble and absurdist theater. This type of theater focused on more frightening and more violent aspects to create a kind of nightmare onstage. Then as time went on after World War I and through the rest of the 20th century contemporary drama emerged. During the 60s and 70s expressing ideas through language was how most playwrights chose to write their plays.

    I think it’s really interesting how theater has evolved over time, especially since it’s something I love to be involved with. I’m pretty excited, as well, to research the evolution of theater over the past century and learn more about how its changed. I still don’t know a lot about it, only from looking at one source, a website called history of drama, but I don’t doubt I’ll be able to find much more information on the topic. I only wonder how much more it’ll change in the future.

    Category Uncategorized, Work in Progress | Tags: | 3 Comments

  10. WIP #4 – Writing Reflection

    October 15, 2012 by Taylor Kantner

    I was actually pretty surprised to find that writing this essay wasn’t as difficult as I though it was going to be. After finding my artifact for the paper it was just figuring out what I wanted to focus on and how to present it throughout the paper. I knew we had to talk about logos, ethos and pathos, so I chose to split my three body paragraphs into those three topics respectively. At that point, I just had to analyze the song further in depth and organize my paper in such a way that it hit on all three: logos, ethos, and pathos.

    The hardest part for me was probably coming up with a thesis and just starting the paper in general. I’ve never been too great at theses anyway and in high school my teacher would always help me revise it. Now that I had to create it and revise it too, it was a little more challenging. Despite that, I think it came out very well and I feel pretty good about it.

    As I worked through my paper, I kept going over the lyrics in the song and realized that I could add some examples to the each body paragraph that would just further enhance my analysis even more. So as  I was  writing, I would end up going back and forth between paragraphs adding in more lyric quotes and more analysis, which I think gives the reader a greater understanding of my analysis of the song.

    Category Work in Progress | Tags: | 2 Comments

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