The Man Who Killed the SAT Essay

Inside our neat little tweet stream, there is a particular article that is both intriguing and disturbing. This article is about the SAT standardized test that is used mainly to negotiate college admissions. As a quick summary, in 2005 the SAT introduced a new portion of the test that was a 25-minute speed writing assignment. After studying the results of some of the tests and looking at what was actually written down, MIT writing professor Les Perelman found a strong correlation between the amount of words written down and the score of the test. The more words used, the higher the grade. Using complex words and quotes also helped improve the grades, even if they were used completely incorrectly. In the end, the speed writing portion of the test is now optional, although Perelman is still advocating for the diminishing of the use of the five paragraph formatted essay, which includes an intro, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.


While this may not seem like a big deal. the SAT (and any other standardized test) is very controversial and there is a reason for that. It is hard to prove the reliability of these test scores as an indicator of future success. To be sure, the higher one's test score is the better college they are likely to go to and therefore the better education they are likely to receive. And when one has a good education, they are more likely to get a good job. Some arguments against that would be the outside factors that influence one's test score. For example, funding to high schools. If the high schools don't have enough money, then the education they provide is considerably lacking. Therefore, it stands to reason that the students would get a worse grade on the SAT. As a side note, if they use the test scores from the SAT to determine how much funding they should give the schools, then it creates this sort of "catch 22". The students do poorly because the school doesn't have enough money, and the school doesn't have enough money because the students do poorly. It's very sad, if you ask me.


To note Perelman's comments on the well known 5 paragraph essay, I would have to agree with him. As a society, we push this on our students as the only form of writing until late high school and college. It does not, however, prepare us for high school or college. While these nice, structured, and simply formatted essays are easy to grade, they do not represent life fairly. As Perelman states, "You need to train students that the universe doesn't nicely divide. Everything is not three different things." That sums up the argument pretty nicely. We are not preparing our future generations to be creative thinkers and experienced writers by only showing them one way to write because it is easily graded.


http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/03/13/the-man-who-killed-sat-essay/L9v3dbPXewKq8oAvOUqONM/story.html?event=event25

The Process

Whilst looking for articles relating to my topic, Sexism in Advertising, I am finding that it is very difficult to find articles that fit my needs. First of all, using Google Scholar, many promising articles require my subscription to their websites to view the entirety of the text. Even using one of the library databases, many articles are not within the last 10-15 years, and if they are they are only 100 or so words. Many are more like rants than scholarly articles. I will continue my search for the right texts. I think I will just settle for Google searching them all like I did for the first one.

Sexism in Advertising

I have decided to focus on sexism in advertising as it plays out against women and men. While at first this does not seem like a "slacktivism" related topic, I beg you to reconsider. Ads appear everywhere now, not just magazines and commercials on TV. Ads are present on Facebook, Twitter, all over social media and just the internet in general. Many of these ads portray women with a standard of beauty unattainable by most, or often times as objects to tickle men's fancy. These ads have all sorts of unquantifiable effects on people, and not just on women either. Self-esteem, self abuse, gender role confusion, and the list goes on. How many people have to starve themselves before we realize that being skinny isn't the only way to be pretty? How much money do we need to spend on cosmetic surgery before we realize that you don't need big boobs to look good? Besides a constant pressure to appeal to others, there is this dissatisfaction with your life that can never be resolved until you meet the standard that the markets are giving you. And what better way to meet that standard than to buy their products? "Satisfied customers are not as profitable as dissatisfied customers," (Marketing Madness). The advertising companies know what they're doing, and they're doing it to make money. They don't care how many people are affected, how many are hurt, sick, preyed on... It's just another dollar. 

So, in conclusion, I plan on taking this as far as it will take me. It's not fair to us that we should feel this way, and I sure as hell don't want my kids feeling this way. Therefore, besides the fact that ads are ever-present in our lives, slacktivism can be a method for the "curing" of this cultural phenomenon. 

http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/CS/Marketing%20Madness.pdf

Microtheme

Alex Alumbaugh

Dr. Kyburz

9/28/15

Social Media as an Emotional Outlet

Often times on Facebook I will see someone venting through status updates. They will talk about problems going on in their lives and usually end with how they are getting through it. What are the consequences of using Facebook and other social media as a tool to get your emotions out?

One possible consequence is people may think that you are “needy” or overly dramatic. They may see your posts as a cry for attention rather than a means of expression. Or, more importantly, a possible cry for help. You may be seeking advice, but only get negative feedback, which could bring your self esteem down even more and perpetuate the slump you are already in.

There are also possible benefactors to using social media as an emotional outlet. One is that it could actually lead to you getting advice or help. Or, on a more personal level, it could reduce your levels of stress or increase your self esteem.

If we were to think more analytically about what we post on social media, it is possible that we could reduce the amount of cyberbullying that goes on and lead people to communicate more freely and openly with more speculative and qualified language. By increasing the understanding that social media is an effective tool for increasing one’s self esteem, more people may be less likely to judge based on a few posts about one’s struggles.

What I've Learned:

During this past week of College Writing II, I've learned a good amount. Mostly, I relearned and revisited content that I had acquired in previous classes. However, what I did learn will most likely prove to be invaluable as my writing experience continues.

To begin with the basics, I pretty much had to relearn MLA formatting. Seeing as my initials are APA, I prefer the American Psychological Association's formats. Jokes aside, my initial draft of the summary was formatted very incorrectly, and, using the guides and references posted on the course blog, I was able to fix my mistakes and correct the formatting errors.

Furthermore, throughout my summary I used the term "the viewers." While I did stay away from using words like "we" and "us," I thought it would be acceptable to talk about an audience while dealing with a film. Naturally, I was wrong.

While I did not have to learn everything about summary writing, I did revisit much of what I already know. However, I'm sure that in the week to come I will learn a little more by having my peers correct my mistakes.

Always a pleasure,

Alex Alumbaugh, Blog Extraordinaire

Dark Days Documentary

Watching documentaries has always been an in class sort of thing. In history class, especially, we would watch documentaries on all of the wars and empires, Rome and Greece and the like. My freshman year of college, however, I had an interesting class where we watched a few different kind of documentaries. It was called Cultural Diversity, and we watched documentaries on Native Americans, why Canadians speak the way they do, and so on. It was interesting to watch films that are about things other than war and disease, especially one as random as Canadian speech origins. I would argue that my favorite documentary was the one about the Native Americans. It was called Don't Get Sick After June. I thought it was an interesting viewpoint on the lives of Native Americans. The reason it is called Don't Get Sick After June is because after June is typically when all of their funding for hospitals runs out. So if you get sick, you're more or less on your own. 

Using the information gained from the documentaries watched can and most likely will aid in the writing and development of papers and other projects that calls upon the information given in the aforementioned documentaries. However, more often than not it is not that simple. While touching on things like social media, the documentaries can play an integral role as supportive evidence. Getting all of your information online versus using a mix of sources can play a big difference in the integrity of your work. Also, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, many documentaries that people have seen have been in history classes, about wars and the like. Oftentimes, in wars, there are revolutions, which is the central theme to this class. Therefore, having watched informative documentaries on revolutions can help gain an overall understanding of the class as a whole, as well as with individual projects and papers. 

After watching Dark Days by Marc Singer, I feel enlightened to a new meaning of family. The people living under the subway station in New York all have at least one thing in common: being homeless. Except they're not homeless, because they have all worked hard to create a home within the boundaries and limitations of the subway track. Many of them described their sort of fall into homelessness, whether it be from drug use or otherwise, and they all have faced hardships beyond the scopes of many. However, as the saying goes, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Some of them have been down there for months, some for as much as twenty years. Living in the dark, dank living conditions for twenty years is a hardship in itself, as well as picking through garbage for a living in order to find something worth selling. 

A sense of greater knowledge comes from watching this documentary. I now know more about the true definition of homelessness: that just because you are without a legal "home" does not mean that you don't have one. This film definitely changed my perspective on that subject, and that will translate into my writing because of that. Now I have a new viewpoint to bring up in papers and discussion, and higher level thinking questions to ask of others as well. 

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/82908402/

10:58-11:05 Henry says that houses stop you from being helpless, not from being homeless.

This is an important quote because it helps define homelessness further still, and because it is coming out of the mouth of a homeless person it accentuates the reality of it all. 

Slacktivism: Revisited

Now that I figured out how to post properly, here is what I wrote about for Wednesday!

Just from scrolling through Facebook I've seen many examples of slacktivism. There was a video of a police officer who took in, and cared for, two orphaned boys that he taught at a boxing gym. Later on, he adopted them. From the reposts I saw, it was showing support and spreading a wonderful story with just a few keystrokes. There was a link to a website explaining in detail the situation of a specific family, asking for donations for their ailing father. Sure, maybe I don't have the money to donate, but maybe by sharing and reposting, someone from my friends list or my friends friend list might see it and be able to donate. These are just a few examples of the countless seen, and after taking the time to understand the term I've found that I do feel good for participating in slacktivism. It's a low-key feeling, one that isn't gratified physically, but a good feeling all the same.