However, Christmas is not the thing I am excited most about the holiday break, I am really looking forward to going home and hunting coyotes in the snow. Coyote hunting is one of my favorite hobbies and I hardly get to do it while I am in college. It is something that is very relaxing and therapeutic for me which I desperately need after all the frustration of finals week.

Another thing I wanted to try to do over the holiday break was to go to Boulder, CO to visit a good friend from high school. Becuase he lives so far away, we often only get to visit him once or twice per year. I look forward to this trip because he is a starter on Colorado’s basketball team and we get good seats for free.

The final reason I am excited for break is simply to get a new start. The first semester of college was pretty wild and at the beginning it was hard to keep up. But as a grew comfortable with my surroundings I began to suceed a little more at a time. Now I feel as though my grades will dramatically improve after the semester break.

One of my goals was to try out track. I feel like I put effort into giving it a try before I decided to concentrate solely on school. I participated in practice and worked as hard as I could. I mainly wanted to try it because I did not want to have any regrets. I do not have any regrets to this day because I feel as though my current goals are much more important than participating in sports.

One of my academic goals for the semester was to improve my writing skills and habits. I believe that I have accomplished this goal becuase I have a much greater understanding of what it takes to write a good paper. I have drastically changed my entire paper writing procedure and because of this I feel as though I am a more successful communicator.

My most important goal, however, was to be a good person. It is easy to get caught up in yourself when you become a small fish in a big pond at the snap of a finger. I believe I have maintained my integrity and have been a good person. This was my most important goal for this semester because it is important to me that I am viewed as a good person.

This course has taught me a lot about what kind of writer I am and how I can improve on my writing strategies. One of the main things that I have changed about myself as a writer is that I have learned that I am able to do much better work when I do not procrastinate. I learned this semester that if I start working on something as soon as the information is fresh in my brain and I am excited about the material I do a much better job with the project and also decrease my over all stress level.

This course has also taught me that in order to write a complete paper, you need to make multiple drafts with each reviewed by a peer or instructor. Multi drafting was a hard concept for me to get used to because my past writing habits were to sit down, write the paper, and never even give it a second look before I handed it in. By requiring us to make numerous drafts and pre-writes, this course showed me that I do much better work when I take time and really work hard on it. The days of staying up all night writing a paper are over for me. I have learned to manage my time and set a personal writing schedule, which caused me both to write better papers and drastically decrease my stress and anxiety over paper writing. This class helped me to realize my full potential as a communicator.

     A. Attention Getter

     B. General outline of the papers main topic.

     C. Thesis statement: Through all of these techniques, Disney World is able to produce a visual spectacle that skews histories and cultures making them acceptable to its general audience while telling narratives of glorious futures allowing Disney to be the happiest place on Earth.

II. How Disneyworld creates the feeling of entering a whole new world.

     A. How the park is isolated from Orlando.

     B. How Disneyworld isolates itself from reality.

     C. How the park appears to run and maintain itself.

     D. How the architecture of the park creates a fantasy world.

III. Disneyworld and the glorification of American history.

     A. How Disneyworld glorifies the 1880s through Main Street USA.

     B.  How the park distorts American History through the Hall of Presidents in order to further promote Americanism.

     C. How Disneyworld shows America through a certain light in order to promote patriotism in the park’s visitors.

IV. How Disney markets products for large corporations.

     A. How the Epcot Center is sponsored by different companies.

     B. GE and the Carousel of Progress

     C. AT&T and Spaceship Earth

     D. Why companies market themselves through Disneyworld.

V. How Disneyworld skews the views of different countries around the world

     A. How Disneyworld romanticizes different cultures.

     B. How Disneyworld uses the fascination with different cultures in order to sell goods.

VI. How Disneyworld skews gender representation.

     A. How Disney tampers with popular culture by promoting physical features over personality.

     B. How the park influences little girls about what they look like, how they are supposed to act, and what their role is in society.

     C. How Disney portrays men as big strong caretakers of defenseless women.

     D. How Disney promotes the idolization of the “perfect man and woman.”

VII. Disney’s employees as characters

     A. How the costumes are designed in order to allow the employee to stay in character.

     B. How the park controls the actions of their in character employees by stationing them in certain areas.

     C. How the park monitors guests and employees.

VIII. How Disney polices the image of their park.

     A. How the park controls what pictures are taken of the park.

     B. How Disney controls the media outlook on the park.

    C. Disney’s control of the guests outlook on the park.

IX. How Disney markets themselves to the park visitors.

X. Should Disney be viewed as bad?

In this paper the author points out how the Disneyworld theme park tricks visitors into thinking that Disneyworld is a magical and ideal world. He gives examples of how the park separates itself from reality, alters American history, markets its corporate sponsors, skews the views of other countries, and influences popular culture. The author points out how Disney and the Disneyworld theme park hides subliminal messages in order to make its visitors and viewers feel a certain way.

The first canon is invention. Invention is the generation of your ideas about a particular topic. Your invention allows you to take a stand on this topic and base your arguments around this idea.

Arrangement is the second canon and is defined as the ordering and laying out of ideas effectively to your audience. Arranging your ideas effectively is key in creating an effective argument. The book goes over six different strategies of arrangement.

The third canon of rhetoric is style. Style is the development of the correct way to express your ideas and arguments. You need to use appropriate and effective words and images in order to propose an effective argument to your audience.

Memory is the fourth listed canon. Memory is the retaining of invented ideas and using supporting ideas in order to instill your arguments in your audience’s memory. Using this canon causes your audience to learn the material that you are arguing. 

The last canon of rhetoric is delivery. This canon involves presenting your idea and supporting ideas in a persuasive format. This canon is essential because is combines all of the techniques in order to convince the audience of your presentation.

The thing that interested me the most about this chapter is the different uses of images in order to persuade the audience, and how the same image can be combined with different text in order to portray a completely and sometimes even opposite idea. like the use of the helicopter in figure 3.1 in the two articles showcased in 3.11. The titles of the two different articles cause the picture to take on two completely contrasting meanings.

In Veni, Vidi, Vici, the author points out how the advertisements for Virginia Slim cigarettes creates a stereotype of desirable women. In these ads, she points out visual elements in each ad that specifically imply that women who smoke Virginia Slim cigarettes are tall, very slender, and beautiful. Throughout the ad the author focuses on this stereotype and shows how tobacco companies take advantage of the insecurities of young women and thier constant battle to be perfect due to societal stereotypes. By displaying beautiful women smoking Virginia Slims, this tobacco company directly attempts to influence society’s idea of a “perfect woman.” Tobacco companies have often used dishonest advertising to sell their product to a new audience. Just like the women from the Virginia Slims ad, men were stereotyped by the Marlboro Man. This rugged cowboy figure was always shown smoking Marlboro cigarettes. These ads made men feel like they needed to smoke cigarettes and be rugged in order to be considered a “real man.”

Tobacco has been influencing the United States since our county’s birth. Now; however, instead of having a positive economic effect, tobacco has a negative effect both on health and society.

My academic goals for this semester are to grasp the concepts of what I am taught and maintain a grade point average of three point four. As far as English itself goes, I would like to improve my writing strategy and habits. I hope that I will become a better writer as a whole. I also hope that I will get rid of my bad habits like procrastination, one drafting, and making petty gramatical errors.

My track goal for this semester is to stick it out. I want to give it my best before I decide whether I like it or not. I hope that I will be self motivated enough to keep going no matter how difficult it gets.

My goals as a person are to meet new people, make friends, and be a good friend. It is sometimes hard to meet people when you are a little fish in a huge pond. I hope to be outgoing enough that I will feel comfortable interacting with people whom I may not know.

I hope that I follow my coach’s model and become great at everything I do. Even though I may feel overwhelmed sometimes, I hope that I can tough it out and have a successful and gratifying college experience.