In the research paper “This is Your Brain in Meltdown” (2012), written by Arnsten, Carolyn M, Sinha state that how stress can affect the function of human brain and when it is occurred. According to their research stress is occurred when hypothalamus, an evolutionary ancient structure lodged at the base of the brain reacts to stress by triggering the secretion of a wave of hormones from the pituitary and adrenal glands. In order to examine the problem of stress they did the research on the medical school students that took a five hour entrance exam.

    I support the idea of their research because from our point of view as the time given for the exam become longer, the students are confusing and thinking over, their brain become crowded; that means they miss the question easily. This research emphasize how stress disorder the function of the brain and how we can void it as well as what cause it. I learnt from this research paper how stress disorder the brain function and how we can recover or regain from it.

    Since prefrontal context is the control center of the brain and it is sensitive to stress, we have to give a great attention and keep it from chemical events that affect and weaken it. The prefrontal area houses the neutral circuitry for abstract thought and allows us to concentrate and stay on the task, while storing information in the mental sketch pad for working memory (161). Neutral circuits responsible for conscious self-control are highly vulnerable to even mild stress. When they shut down, primal impulse go unchecked and mental paralysis sets in (160).

Tiffany Hendrickson -Talking in Color

March 18, 2015

The Power of Sound Using Your Voice

            In the reading from my Connections book English 1101, Talking in Color: Collision of Culture by Tiffany Hendrickson (2013) an informative essay, Tiffany Hendrickson speaks on how she was judged by the sound of her voice, how the sound her voice isolated her from the white race, and the steps that she took to overcome her obstacles of communication between two cultures. Tiffany goes on to tell how she learns to appreciate the unique sound of her voice, being white and sounding black.  The author writes on how she used code switching, changing the tone of her voice in order to fit into relate to the race of people she was around at the time.

https://youtu.be/YaDQ1vIuvZI

Tiffany Hendrickson starts by telling how she was raised in the ghetto around the African American culture. She states that she was raised by her deaf mother and she picked up most of her linguistic sound from her community.  As a child growing up, all of her friends were African American. Tiffany speaks on how she would see the middle class white kids across from her bus stop going to the Catholic High Schools and would wonder why she wasn’t going to their school.  As she reflects back on her childhood, she expresses her pain and hurt of being isolated from the “white world” because of her voice. She goes on to tell how she would be ridiculed by whites and told often, “You sound like a black girl!”  After going to college and majoring in communications, Tiffany Hendrickson wants to help whites and others understand her speech and eliminate the ideology that her speech and others with speech like her are inferior within today’s society.

Finally, Tiffany Hendrickson highlights her inability to communicate with her parents due to her father’s 4^th grade education and her mother being deaf.  She emphasizes that the relationship between the color of your skin and sound of your voice will forever remain a mystery to her.  She acknowledges that people use different voices or sounds dependent upon their setting.  This is called Code-switching and for Tiffany Hendrickson this is a way of life and she does it on purpose.  She writes in her owns that she has lived in a white world with a black voice and though the journey she faced was difficult and harsh it is still cherished.  She ends by stating that not only does she value her journey in live with her black voice, but she also values, most of all, the power of her voice.

https://youtu.be/3zDHSLDY0Q8

 

 

 

       How it feels to be Falsely Accused

      In this personal essay “How it feels to be Falsely Accused” (2014) by Josh Green, the author talks about Clarence Harrison. Harrison was a victim of false imprisonment for over seventeen years until being released in 2004 due to DNA evidence. During the time of his sentence, Harrison wrote various letters to different organizations for help. But he convicted of rape, robbery and kidnapping without any acceptable evidences for seventeen years, nine months and twenty-six days in prison.

    This personal essay teaches how people is convicted without acceptable evidence and the victim they are not responsible. Such kinds of problem happens due to wrong decision making by judiciary or law enforcement.  Harrison served seventeen years in prison by the crime he is not responsible. If you do the crime; you do the time but if you are not responsible for the crime you should have to free.

   Actually, such kinds of issue is not happened only on Harrison. It is a day to day issue at everywhere. Even in developed countries such problem is extremely expanded by incarcerated people, imperfect judiciary, wrong decision making without acceptable evidences and improper information’s.

Cantice & Gaiza, Threads of Similarity

 

February 18, 2015

Threads of Similarity

                In the reading from my Connections book English 1101, Your English My English by Cantice Green and Gaiza Lawson (2014) a narrative essay, the authors’ collectively discussed their experiences  of speaking in other dialogues, the similarities of the different cultures, and the different language that enhanced their lives.  The authors write of learning two distinct languages, Spanish and English,  and how the languages help them to communicate with others of their past and even today.  Cantice Green and Gaiza Lawson writes to show how they acquired their different languages in order to help others overcome the barrier between cultures.  They speak of the desire to learn another language other than  that of their native tongue.

Cantince Greene speaks on where she was raised in South Phoenix, an area mostly populated with Spanish speaking individuals, and where she first desired to study the Spanish language.  As the ambassador of the high school class, she emphasized the importance of linguistics.  Cantice Green goes on to inform us of how the different dialogues came to past from the bible.  She speaks on how different cultures she encountered in her life shared different but yet similar lifestyles.  Cantice found as teenagers being around other cultures, they all like to dance all night and listen to pop music and singing out loud to the music on the radio.

Gazia Lawson tell a story of coming from a small country call Togo in West Africa.  In Africa this is where each country has different tribes, and each tribe speaks a different language within their community.   He writes of how his continent has a colonial language which is French and English, this is where they all can understand each other across Africa. Gazia Lawson said that learning a different language for him was a difficult task, but with determination any one can succeed.  He expressed, by him learning the English language, it helped him communicate his emotions, his feelings and his thoughts.  English helped Gazia Lawson to express his views on religion, his tradition , and how the political environment works in Africa compared to the United States.  Learning the English language helped him to educate others on the lifestyles of his African people.

The two Authors believe that learning a new diverse language is a great benefit that would allow doors of opportunities to open by helping inform, educate and assist other cultures understand each other.

Richard Wright

February 19, 2015

           

The Eye Opening Readings of Richard Wright

            In this mind changing personal essay by Richard Wright (1945) from Connections Book, English 1101, Richard Wright explains that how trips to the library became eye opening experience for him, changed his way of thinking, and allowed him to want a better life for himself.   Richard Wright expressed an era of time when a black individual was treated less than human and reading was prohibited by blacks.  He writes about how he would have to degrade himself in order to remain humble after gaining knowledge from the books he read.   Richard Wright wrote this essay to inform: black males like himself, white males with hate of other races, and the younger generations of future times that reading is power. 

            Richard Wright provides an informative essay which describes the early 19th Century era when black the Jim Crow laws in the south was highly expressed.  The senseless killing of blacks, slavery, and lynching’s were at an all time high.  The essay explains how Richard Wright acquired the desire to read by reading an article in the news paper of H I Mencken, a white author, hated by other whites.  He wanted to know how a white man could be hated as much by other whites as a black man.  This was the flame which sparked a burning desire to read; he had to read H I Mencken book.  With his job giving him access to the library and sizing up his coworkers, he acquired a library card from a co-worker, by using the co-worker’s wife name, and began checking out books to read.  The words of HI Mencken was gas to the fire, Richard Wright had never read such style, clear, clean and fighting with words.  He stated that these words were used like a weapon.  His eyes was seeing more clearly now within the world he lived.  The more he read, the more obsessed he became to want to read more books.  He knew he had to change his living environment or die.

            Richard Wright’s thoughts, now after reading books, gaining knowledge and getting a better understanding of how the blacks were treated in the south opposed to the north, he had no other option but to impose his knowledge on his family and set plans to save money to pursue a better life in the northern states.                                                                                                 

 

           

 

 

 

Dorothy Allison - Context

                                                       

 

February 3, 2015            

                                           

                                                                  CONTEXT

                                                                   

This Rhetorical Reading Response  “Context” by Dorothy Allison, (1994) a personal essay from the Connections book describes how the author, Dorothy Allison, looks back at her past that shows the differences between privileged, rich, or financially stable people versus less fortunate or poor people.  She recalls more than 10 years ago when she decides to take her lover to meet her family.   Dorothy Allison reflects back on the long drive, the stops in different cities along the way in order to stall for time and her concerns of how her lover would react to such a diverse culture of people.  Dorothy Allison wants the readers to visualize her past and take a glance at how the Context of her life impacted her as a child and how being judged by her life style caused embarrassment.

She wrote this essay to show people that not everyone is the same and nor does everyone have the same struggles.  Dorothy’s intended audience is anybody that has been through pain and can relate to her story.  The use of the words “my lover” within the essay was used by Dorothy as reference to her significant other.  This story really gets you to use context clues when reading for better comprehension. Her word choice allows you to see her emotion that she was feeling when it came to her spouse meeting her family.

            In a time when people were so easily judgmental of each other, Dorothy Allison looks back over 10 years and beyond of her life.  She thought about how such things as  color of your skin, the types of different life styles you lived “gay or straight”, and the class of wealth you had “deprived or more privileged” caused you to be judged harshly by others.  Because of the uncertainties of what the outcome may bring to her relationship, she recalls the road trip to take her lover to meet her family and the stops along the way to stall for time.   Dorothy Allison remembers as a child being deprived and how her mean tempered step father was judged by the store owner who stared at her family as they browsed the store, with no intentions of buying anything.   Lastly, she reflects back on how she felt then and even to this day.

Mary Lamb - Connections

27 January 2015

In response to Reading and Writing Connections

           In Mary R. Lamb book, “Reading and Writing Connection” (2014): Academic Writing Begins with Reading, she compares the difference between  skim reading and slow reading; she states that skim reading is reading only the information you want, while slow reading is analyzing the information and identifying the writer`s motive.  In this section, she teaches you the different layouts, rhetorical strategies, writings styles and word choices in creating a good essay.  In order to capture the learner’s attention and give him the resources to write a perfect paper, the author uses different inserts from various authors such as John Beam “Effective Writing Begins with a Perception of a Problem”.  In addition, the section “Connecting to Genre” provides the reader or learner with the knowledge of fiction and non-fiction materials and explains the different types of papers written such as expository paper and argumentative paper.

We are intrigued by the way the author Mary Lamb gathers the data and compiles it from several sources so that the reader can learn with understanding.

 According to Mary Lamb, the third type of paragraph is critical thinking which comes after the Précis and the RRR or Rhetorical Reading Response.  She describes the styles of paragraph writing, the MLA and APA formats, creating a thesis, designing formats and reflecting on what you have wrote.  The thesis contains the main idea along with the topic sentences and three major topics that relates to the main idea.  The three major topics allow the essay to transition from one paragraph to the next.  The RRR, Rhetorical Reading Response, allows you to reflect on what you have read or written and revised.  The analytical paragraph is the meat and the gravy of the essay and captures the audience’s attention by providing your audience a good read.  Lastly, do not forget to include citations in your essay so that you may give credit where credit is due. 

 Mary Lamb captures her audience’s attention by not only her own instructions to writing a paragraph but the teaching of several authors who inspired her teachings.  She connects the different thoughts and ideas of other instructional writers such as Christina Haas, Linda Flower, Kenneth Bruffee, (84)(85) of “Connections Book”.  Mary Lamb allows the authors to enhance her teaching by describing topics such as:  Connecting to Genre through Reading” which discuss the different types of writing[JL1]   such as (text book, editorial, blog, novel, short story or even a poem” and Connecting to Writing through Reading(84) which allows you to engage in rhetorical reading for analyzing the context of what is being read.  Finally, she describes the different between fiction and non-fiction, purpose and context for the reader to learn the techniques of writing.