Reading Response: How the Schools Shortchange Boys

In his article, “How the Schools Shortchange Boys,” Gerry Garibaldi shows the difficulties that boys face in a school that has turned into a more feminized environment. Garibaldi uses one of his students named Brandon as an example to support his topic. He goes over why this student is in special education class and tells why the student is having difficulty due to the female teachers he has had. He also shows how the student has improved from when the teachers he has had before were not trying as hard to push him as he needed.

I think that this article was more like a story than an informative article. It had some facts but was only used as a real life example of a student’s story. It was a good article but some of the word choices I don’t think should have been used. They may be able to be used in an offensive way if taken in the wrong way. “Teachers love them.” Garibaldi says about girls, “God loves them” (Paragraph 12). The use may have been intended to be more centered to promote girls but the use of God, I think was a bad choice.

Work Cited

Garibaldi, Gerry. “How the Schools Shortchange Boys.” The Longman Reader (2010): 536-40. Print. 

Reading Response: How to Say Nothing in 500 Words

Paul Roberts’, “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words,” is about how to make an essay more full of meaningful words and less about just using empty words to fill the word count. At the beginning Roberts uses a scenario starts off what the article is about and shows the everyday example of just trying to fill a word count instead of trying to make focused ideas. The article shows a bad example that is short and not full of ideas at all. After, Roberts then shows the fuller and extremely well supported essay about the same subject. The article then goes on to explain how you can be able to avoid all the mistakes from the first article by using techniques that will help to develop a lot more full ideas. Roberts just puts most of his article under headings and not really having much of a conclusion.

            I agree with the statements in the article but there is some things that I would change. Roberts did a good thing by using a good verses bad example of an essay to prove what to do and not to do when writing an essay. The article was strong in the beginning and middle but it didn’t have a good conclusion. In fact it didn’t have a conclusion at all, just another supporting body part. Other than that it was a good informative article with vary good supporting, structured body.

Work Cited

Roberts, Paul. “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words.” The Longman Reader (2010): 316-27. Print. 

Reading Response: Propaganda Techniques in Today's Advertising

            In her article, “Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising,” Ann McClintock informs her audience about how propaganda has found ways to make even the brightest of people become more and more influenced by flashy ads and subliminal messages. At the beginning of her article, McClintock says that we are being brainwashed and seduced. We are inviting in the advertisements and willingly becoming victimized, notes McClintock (245). She then goes on to explain all the categories that propaganda terms fall into and giving examples of each one in detail. She explains name calling, glittering generalities, transfer, testimonial, plain folks, card stacking, and bandwagon. The end of the article explains why these things work and why it is so important that we catch these things. McClintock concludes with saying that not all propaganda is for buying products. Some propaganda is used to make people volunteer and not to drink and drive.

            I agree with almost everything that was said in this article. It was well written and well supported. The article came in strong with shocking words that caught attention like “seduced,” “victimized,” and “brainwashed.” Although the article seemed like it was just naming off popular propaganda techniques, it showed it had more to the categories with extensive examples and definitions. The article even ended strong with how propaganda works stating examples. Using all these things McClintock has made her article more solid and harder to make any bad reviews about it.

Work Cited

McClintock, Ann. “Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising.” The Longman Reader (2010): 245-                         50. Print. 

Reading Response: In Praise of the "F" Word

Marry Sherry’s “In Praise of the “F” Word,” shows a different side of the word failure. She tells of her being a remedial teacher for students that have gotten a diploma from high school but have not learned anything from the class they took. They just barely passed their classes enough to squeeze by with low grades so they could graduate. “Tens of thousands of 18-year-olds will graduate this year,” says Sherry, “and be handed meaningless diplomas.” (515). She goes on in the story saying how she was having trouble with her son failing his senior year of high school at a parent teacher conference. Her son’s grades were declining because the student liked to joke around in class. The teacher said that she was going to fail him if he kept on this track. Once the teacher said that, Sherry became flustered. She then saw that the teacher was right to have that attitude towards her son. Once they got home Sherry told her son that his teacher was going to flunk him and that’s all that was said. His grades soon after improved. She goes on to finish her article by saying that teacher should not just pass off students and they should instead flunk them for not mastering the work they are given. Any way of passing them cheats them of that.

            I think that when Sherry said that people should be flunked for not passing classes on their own, that she is both right and wrong. It is good that we should be harder on students and that some should be flunked for not doing work or just not caring about the work at all, but this is not true all the time. Some students can’t help that they are not as strong in one subject as another student and do more poorly on require classes that they need to graduate. Sherry wrote vary strongly when she used her own account on her son failing and at the beginning when she was talking about her underdeveloped adult students. She didn’t do so well in telling how we can change the way things are. She did at the end when she was using the hypothetical student’s names but not so much form her example to that point.

Work Cited

Sherry, Marry. “In Praise of the “F” Word.” The Longman Reader (2010): 515-17. Print.