Wolf hunting

A hunting season on wolves has been a big debate where I live. I know people that are for and against a hunting season on wolves. I have worked with people who agree with the proposed wolf season, and I have many friends who disagree with it. As a hunter I feel that wolves would make for a very challenging animal to hunt. Having worked on a cattle ranch, I know why people think that the wolf population needs to be controlled. Also I see why people think they need to be protected, especially since wolves were only recently reintroduced. The main disagreement is whether or not too many wolves will be killed. Another point that is disagreed over is whether or not wolves have had a chance to establish a stable population. This topic has been covered by national media sources, such as the New York Times. Also More local newspapers have numerous articles about this. The question that remains is whether or not a wolf hunting season can be effective at controlling the population while making sure wolves continue to have a stable population.

Wolf Hunting

I am writing about the legalization of wolf hunting. I grew up in Idaho where wolves were reintroduced and have been a huge controversy ever since. Many ranchers as well as others have tried to stop wolves being introduced, since their live stock is now at potential risk from the wolves. Enviromentalist on the other hand have been big supporters of reintroducing wolves, since they claim that it will help keep other animals, like deer, in check Recently there have been talks about a proposed wolf hunting season so some of the wolf packs can be kept in check. Ranchers and others are strong proponents for this season, whereas environmentalist and others argue against this season since wolves were only recently removed from the endangered species list. Both sides of this argument have written many articles about the pros and cons of this proposed season, so I think it will be fairly easy to find information. My question whether or not this season is viable and can be enacted by the government.

Ethnography

The subculture I decided to research, is the cutting horse subculture. This is a pretty distinct subculture and Fort Worth is considered the center of this subculture. The sport of cutting, as it is commonly called, involves a person on horse back “cutting” a cow from the herd and then trying prevent the cow from returning to the herd. Like a lot of subcultures, this one has people who say they are a part of it, then those people who actually belong. When competing, the competitors are required to wear a certain style of dress, which I have found a vast majority of these people will wear when not competing. To the casual observer, these people will look like your stereotypical cowboy. Certain words cutters, those who ride cutting horses, use that have either a different meaning or are altogether different than words used by people who do other rodeo events.
I have a few friends and my grandfather, who compete(d) in cutting and to them the belt buckles they have one hold a special significance to them. Every sport gives out trophies, and belt buckles are the trophies of cutters. The belt buckle cutters will wear represent their highest achievement in the sport. My friend Cole wears his Futurity finalist belt buckle because that is the best he has ever done, and he would have done better were it not for a minor mistake. To him that belt buckle symbolizes more than just doing well, it lets him know that he can do better. My grandfather displays his most important belt buckle by itself, whereas he keeps all his others lumped together in unimportant places around his house.
While money is a large motivation for the sport, the cutters do it for the love of riding horses. This love is more than just riding a horse, it is the competition involved with cutting that drives them. Two of my friends quit because of college, and as soon as both of them got on a horse again, they instantly decided to start up again.
This topic is interesting for me because I know people who do it, and more importantly when I was growing up my grandfather competed. Though I have never tried it, I have thought about cutting, especially since I have moved to Fort Worth.

Revising Solar Power rough draft

One of the recurring themes is the economic viability of solar power in the current market place. This is one of the main points of the paper since it is also the topic. Another recurring topic compares solar panels to wind power, since wind power is the other popular form of “green” energy. I was surprised with the theme of wind power because when I had started writing my paper I did not think about it. I should probably go into the pros and cons of wind power and how it affects the economic viability of solar power and then compare and contrast the two. There is little personal information in this essay mainly because I have not really dealt with using solar power. That being said I have done research for classes in high school and I have friends whose houses run off solar power.

researching

I did have to narrow down my topic to find relevant information. Solar energy is such a broad topic that finding information that pertains to a specific aspect of it makes it hard to find the information that you want. The best advice that I can give to other people using these web resources is to start with a very specific topic and become more broad if you do not find enough information.

I am going to write about solar power. Solar power is not a new technology, but is becoming increasingly popular with the “green” movement, and people’s growing concern with global warming. The scientific facts behind solar energy, and its positive and negative impacts on society, make it a promising topic. The politics involved with global warming though will affect what I find out about solar power. This topic raises a lot of questions, most importantly why isn’t solar power more widely used?
I want to research this topic because I find alternate energy to be an interesting field of science. I find it interesting mainly because of how innovative it is, and it looks at problem from a very different perspective. Also it is the “way of the future,” so it is important to know as much about it as possible.

Based on what the comments made by my reviewers, I plan to a few revisions. First I plan to clarify my essay so that it is clear what I am going to write about, especially at the end of the first paragraph. Both reviewers said that the end of the first paragraph was unclear so I will pay particular attention to that part of my paper. Secondly I will try to show more about where I am fishing so the reader has a better idea of the setting, so they can better visualize the whole story. Finally I need to make sure that my paper doesn’t jump from the past tense to the present tense and if it does, make sure that reader does not lose their sense of time.

My Dogs

My essay topic is about fishing with my dogs. I decided on this topic because I have a picture of both my dogs as the background. One of my dogs was killed by a car right before break so I have been thinking about her a lot and so I figured that I would write about some time I spent with my dog Abbie and my other dog Bear. Both of my dogs mean a lot to me and I haven’t ever written a paper about them so it will be a new and interesting paper topic. I always wondered why they liked to sit there and watch me fish since it is different than when I take them hunting. Overall I feel this would be a really good paper topic.

Writerly Roles

There are two major “writerly roles” that I use in my everyday life. The first one is the Facebook/text message writing in my every day life. While the other type is academic writing, consisting mainly of note taking and writing papers. While I do write letters, this is not an integral part of my “writerly role".
Facebook and text messaging serve several purposes. A Facebook messages are very informal and are not a way to communicate a pertinent message, especially since some of my friends check their Facebook wall once every few days. An example of this is when my sister sends a message saying, “hey I haven’t talked to you in a while, how are you?” That message means that she either she doesn’t care about talking to me or more likely she was busy and only had time to send a quick message, which I also occasionally do. Text messages are also like Facebook messages but more direct and urgent. When I text somebody it’s usually to ask a simple question with a simple answer, or it is not important enough to warrant a phone call. Text messages differ from Facebook messages in that I use Facebook solely for friends whereas I text both friends and family. When I text my mom or dad I do not use the abbreviations that are standard for my generation, since neither my mom nor my dad understand what “idk” means. An example of a text message I would send to one of my friends is “what r u doing?” whereas if I were to send that to my parents it would say what are you doing?” Even though my parents are smart enough to understand what the former says, I use the latter since they are a different audience than my friends. Text messages and Facebook are more appropriate for communicating with my friends and not my parents, which I would use a more formal writing style.
In school the two main forms of writing are notes and papers. While my notes are generally short hand, my papers tend to be more formal and contain more complex and coherent sentences. When taking notes, the teacher might say, “In 1865 the Civil War ended,” while I would write, “1865 civil war over.” Since they are my notes, I know what the teacher said and am just saving myself time. Even though the writing style is different from how I write papers, the context in which I am writing is in an academic setting. When I write a paper, I am taking my thoughts and formatting them for an audience instead of taking what someone says and formatting it to what I think. Using the same example as above, if I were to write a paper on the Civil War, I would say, “In 1865 Grant accepted Lee’s surrender, which signaled the end of the Civil War.” Since this is for an audience in which I have to sound intelligent, and so if I were to write just what I had in my notes, I would sound like an illiterate fool.
The type of writing style that I use is dependant on who my audience is, even if I am using the same medium to write. A text message to my mom will be written differently than a text message to one of my friends even though I am communicating through a text message. My audience is the deciding factor in my style of writing whether it is a Facebook message or a formally written paper.

Being a Better Writer

I believe that I can learn to write well through experience. I feel that if I just write my writing will improve over time, as long as I have someone to tell me what works and what doesn’t. I personally learn best by doing, and so for me to really learn how to write well I just need to write. Also reading a well written book, paper, or article helps me because I can use it as a guideline for my writing. Being able to see what a written paper is and then taking what I see and applying it to my writing really helps.
What I find really helpful becoming a better writer is the comments that teachers give back. This feed back is helpful because I not only have another person telling me what works, the person knows more about writing than I do. I have found meeting with my teacher about my writing is usually very informative and this lets me understand what I am doing wrong. In this respect the teacher acts like a coach, but instead of sports, he or she is coaching me in writing.
I also find it helpful to read articles and other people’s essays so I can see different writing styles that might benefit me but I would never try otherwise. Also reading books has helped me in my writing because it exposes me to a variety of writing styles and reading also helps me find out what makes a good and a bad sentence. Seeing different types of writing I find is a very good way to further my writing skills.

Why I am taking this course

I decided to take this course mainly because it is required by the school. That having been said, I do hope to improve my skills as a writer so I can better communicate with other people. Ben Hale, my senior year English teacher, told me that a well written letter can have a greater impact than verbal response, such as a letter of thanks which is more powerful than just thanking someone. Also as more and more communication is done through email, the ability to write a well written email becomes an ever more valuable skill.
For the most part I have found personal narratives to be one of my preferred essay topics in high school. This is because a personal narrative is about me and so I don’t have to double check to see if what I am saying is actually true because it’s about me. Also more informal types of writing, like saying what I thought about a movie, was something I enjoyed in high school because it allowed me to be opinionated, voice my thoughts, and use whatever voice I found suitable for the subject matter. I feel less pressured to write some witty complex sentence in these types of essays as I do when I write a formal five paragraph essay, though I would like to be able to write both types of essay with equal proficiency.
This semester I would like to improve my formal writing skills. I have the problem of sometimes being too broad in my body paragraphs so I would like to be able write a well focused paragraph that has substance to it. Lacking substance is why I believe my paragraphs in a formal essay can be deemed too broad. I feel, when writing, that the more details, however loosely connected, the better since I used to get points deducted for not including enough examples. Though I am beginning to overcome these writing “habits”.
My English teachers in my junior and senior years at boarding school really helped my essay writing knowledge come together into a better, more efficient form. Instead of assigning readings on the proper use of grammar and handing out a strict set of guidelines on how a paper should be written, they would just give me a paper topic and tell me to write a formal or informal paper and in a sense turn me loose to write. The feedback they gave in comments on the paper and in writing conferences where we met one on one let me know what worked and what didn’t so hopefully the next time I could avoid some of these mistakes later on. In those two years, my writing went from decent to good, in my opinion at least. Having someone tell you that one sentence is crap while another sentence that you wrote is good is a lot better I found than just being given an example of what good and bad sentence is. Overall I find that learning from my mistakes is sometimes most helpful way to improve my writing.
I understand and agree to the terms of the syllabus.