Commentary # 3

Hello Tiana Kentera, after reading your paper, I feel that it was clear, organized, and soundly developed, a few bumps with spelling here and there. I feel that your essay was clear because you thesis was clear and you immediately identify that you believe that the government should stop trying to justify torture by calling it a different name like water boarding or enhanced torture.

                I do feel that your criteria’s matched your arguments and you provided compelling evidence to support your thesis.  I like how you gave examples of Guantanamo Bay and the torturous ways the prisoners have to suffer by their superior officers. On your second paragraph you begin to describe what waterboarding is and you wrote “tying the prisoner or soldier to a board and wrapping towels around their face and dunking them in water,” I think you need to change the part of dunking them in water because the prisoners or soldiers don’t get dunked, the person who is water boarding adds the water to the towel. The criteria that especially hit me and that can persuade an audience to agree with you. What you can add to your argument is that you need to argue more on your criteria about Abu Ghraib prison, if the Americans in the pictures suffered the consequences of their actions. Another thing that I think you need to add in your introduction is that you just wrote Abu Ghraib but did not add prison to it, cause your audience might think it’s a person, like myself did not know it was a prison until the third page. I see that in your argument you are weight that torture is morally wrong and you give good examples but what can make your argument stronger is that you can add information on how torture is physical and psychological which can be permanent, because you only briefly mention it.  Another thing is that you can restructure your quotes so it would not seem like you are cherry picking or placing them randomly, that way your audience would not counter argue you.  You can also expand if John Yoo had any consequences to his misconduct. Besides that your argument is good, your paragraphs are good in length. You have a good conclusion that can easily be a transition to your proposal argument hopefully this helps you in your final draft coming up.  Good luck!

Vivisection by C.S. Lewis

Part 1:
1. Do animals "really have souls"?
2. If vivisection becomes illegal, how can we replace vivisection? 
3. Are human above animals?
Part 2:
2. Do animals "really have souls"?

 C.S Lewis writes about vivisection in his book “God in the Dock”, a controversial topic, he mentions that the Christian defender and Latin countries practice vivisection because they believe animals “have no souls” (225). Lewis questions that how can one say that animals do not have a conscious if they act like if they have one. This piece made me think of my animals, when they would act suspicious and then I would see that they had gone to the bathroom in the house, afterwards they have a shame look on their face after they see ones reaction. I for one do believe animals have a conscious and genuine emotion, because of the experiences I have had with my dogs. I do believe dogs have general emotion because when I am feeling upset my dogs comfort me vice versa when they go to the vet.

Later on, Lewis explains that if animals do not have souls they are not recompensed in their other life because “they have no moral responsibilities and are not immortal.’’ (225) I for one do believe that animals do have souls.  I believe this because I have three dogs and each one protects me in their own way not because they have to but they want to: my toy poodle Chiquita protects me against everyone including my mother when she tries to wake me up, my pit-bull Chonchies protects me against people she feels are threatening my safety, and lastly Shih Tzu Chowder she is a calm one and only barks at strangers that knock at my door.

Not everyone feels this way about animals, in Mexico I would see dead dogs on the road or people throwing things or kick at them to get away, and people would say that it was no big deal they are just dogs. Never the less I do believe dogs have souls.  

Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell

Part 1:
1. Do you think that Orwell looked lie a fool for killing the elephant?
2. Do ones views towards us affect our decisions?
3. Why do older men have different view for killing the elephant than younger men?
Part 2:
2. Does ones actions affect a person's reputation?

In George Orwell's case, i believe so. In his the essay “Shooting an Elephant,” he talks about his experience of killing an elephant. He talks about an experience he encountered when he was a young police officer stationed in Moulmein, Burma. He expresses how he was treated unfairly while playing in the football field and insulted by a distance because Burmese had resentment towards the British. One day an elephant had escaped from where he was chained and went on a rampage. The elephant had destroyed a hut, a cow, a fruit stand and ate all the fruit, a van, and killed a man. People were frightened and called for him; he grabbed his gun and went to find the elephant. When he spotted the elephant, the elephant was calm and eating by the paddy fields. When the people saw Orwell with his gun, they began to change their attitudes to excitement. He says that “they had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes,” describes that they were excited because they thought he was going to kill it, so they can eat it. He explains that he merely brought the gun to protect himself just in case the elephant decided to get mad again, but in reality he did not want to shoot the elephant. He says that if he did not shoot the elephant it would make him look bad and weak. I think that he fell into peer pressure by the villagers to kill the elephant; he knew that they wanted him to kill the elephant. I feel that by not killing the elephant either that they people would treat him more unfairly or insult him even more. In the other hand if he did kill the elephant he would gain respect and people would be a little nicer. 

Commentary # 2: Tiana Kentera

After reading your paper, I feel that it was clear, organized, and soundly developed. The first thing I noticed is that your paper needs a title which is fine because it was not mentioned until Tuesday, maybe you can write a title and add a colon then write “Rhetorical Critique on What’s so Bad about Hate.” You clearly state your position thesis and your position in the first paragraph, which you agree with Sullivan. You have really good transitional statements and topic sentences in all your paragraphs. You did a great job summarizing Sullivan’s article throughout your essay. You had good examples of ethos and pathos, but you could probably expand it a little more. In your essay I gave the success of your appeal to ethos a nine out of ten. I gave your ethos this score because I can see the ethical appeal to what Sullivan’s and you believe. Maybe you can expand on how the hate crimes debate sparked in the country. I liked how you used the correct quotations that help support position and you clearly illustrate how you quote’s and opinion fits into your ethos. I evaluated the success of your pathos and gave it a nine out of ten. I gave your pathos this score because I can see the emotions that people feel towards the horrific crimes. I liked the quotes, the explanations of the author, and your opinion to help support your stance of the rhetorical critique.  A thing you can also do is instead of mentioning ethos and pathos in the same paragraph you could separate the two into a paragraph of their own. I believe that you can persuade a neutral audience to agree the effectiveness of the authors claim with your examples of ethos and pathos. The thing you have to keep an eye out for is your logos. I evaluated the success of your logos and gave it a seven out of ten. The reason I gave you this score is because I felt that you could expanded more on your logos to make it a successful argument. You could maybe add a quote, so you could illustrate how logos can fit smoothly. I feel that you made a good choice by not adding the appeal of kairos. I feel this way because after reading your essay, kairos does not seem necessary. Well I hope this helps you with your revision. Good Luck!

A Smaill Place by Jamaica Kincaid

Part 1:
1. Does Kincaid describe what the natives feel about tourist fairly?
2. Do the natives of Antigua dislike all tourist or just Europeans?
3. Does it help to bring a another countries influence and  to another without affecting the other?
Part 2:
  1. Does Kincaid describe what the natives feel about tourist fairly?

In the piece called “A small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, she talks about how native perceive tourist. She explains that if you were a tourist you are seen as “ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze at this and taste that” and that the natives cannot stand you and they judge the things that you do. It is harsh but to me this is true because I have experienced these things on my travels, similar to Kincaid's. She talks about arriving to Antigua and her journey to the hotel. When she encounters the taxi driver and the driver tells her the amount of what the ride would cost her, he added that the amount would be with U.S currency trying to rip her off. When I read this it reminded me of when I entered a grocery store with my cousin in Mexico and when I left the store my cousin, who is from Mexico, told me that I had just been ripped off and I got mad at my cousin for not telling me before I paid but I went back to get my exact change back. When I went to Mexico in January I was in a small town walking to my family’s bakery with my aunt and as Kincaid puts it I began to feel like I was being judged because as I passed people they would give me an  unpleasant look. While I was in the bakery there was a group of girls staring at me while they giggled which made me uncomfortable because I had done nothing wrong or had anything on my face. Kincaid says that the reasons why the natives do things like that is because they are envious because you have the ability and means to get away from “your own banality and boredom," but those particular experiences did not damper my mood as much nor did I let it ruin my trip.