Andrew Pugliese's Blog: Blog Response 5: Disney Songs

When evaluating the song of a villain from a Disney film, I look at a few key components to determine if the son song was a successful part of the movie. Above all else I compare the songs to other villain songs that I think to be good in other Disney movies. I enjoy Scar's song "Prepared" from the Lion King. I enjoy how the evil from his character is shown as he describes his diabolical plan. The environment also conveys a very malicious message. In the little Mermaid, Ursala's song, "Poor Unfortunate Soul," there are several things that also make this a classic Disney villain song. Her placement in the cave makers her seem even more evil as she twists and turns in the and darker and duller environment, There is also a lot of dialog in the song, it is slow and methodical. The tension continues to build and build as she fiddles around with potions and creatures of the cave. The explicit trickery also makes the audience almost want to stand up and yell at Ariel for making the deal with the devil. It is beyond obvious that Ursula is evil and the audience knows what will happen next but drawing out the scene through the slow moving song makes it more of an experience than a scene where the antagonist gains the upper hand. Similarly in The Princess and the Frog, there is a good amount of dialog in the song, slowly building to the climax towards the end of the scene. In this case the setting is in a creepy ally and instead of playing with a morbid cave, the villain uses card tricks and other spectacles to fool the protagonist. Again it is very obvious that the protagonist will be fooled but the result is not as important as the delivery. I believe that both of these villain songs are successful displays of the evil natures of both of the characters. When the scene ends it is very easy for a viewer to say, "Wow, that person (or octopus or lion) is definitely a bad guy." I am never looking for a subtle exchange of wits in my Disney movies. I want to be a kid and watch the bad guy be almost impossibly evil. These songs successfully go over the top in making evil a very cool thing. In all three aforementioned movies I like how there is a similar theme between the protagonists and antagonists. In all three films the protagonist is much younger and is taken advantage of by a smarter deceptive counterpart. These young heroes misplace their trust and end up being hurt by there elders. It is an interesting theme to have in children's movies because I have to wonder what the purpose of that is. Although I never was able to make the connection as a child I wonder how much that theme subconsciously stuck with me. Especially with the Lion King there is a familial tie between the good and the bad guy. Is Disney trying to tell kids that no adults should be trusted? And maybe more importantly maybe their parents can not be trusted. I do not think that this is Disney's intended message but the patterns can not be ignored. Maybe Disney has good reason to warn young children about the cruelty of the adult world. I cannot think of any child Disney villain that Disney has ever used. This probably because it is not plausible for a child to be so evil. When parents watch these movies there should be commentary and lessons that they learn too. Maybe they are not always right and maybe they should not be the bad guys all the time.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Blog Response #11

When beginning my search I first started out using a google search. I used searches such as "illegal aliens in public schools" and "child immigration law." I came across several websites, most of which were blogs that I wanted to avoid but I found several good websites as well. The other search engine I used was the library's. This was more complex to use and I did not find any sources that I want to use at the moment but I will go back and continue searching in the opposing arguments section. http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1981/1981_80_1538/ The first source is one that easily summarizes some of history of my topic. There was a U.S. Supreme Court Case that has dealt with this issue. The case Plyler v. Doe came before the Supreme Court dealing with a Texas state law that wanted to ban illegal immigrants from public schools. The court ruled against this law in a 5-4 vote. I believe I will use this as a counter source because it goes against my persuasion. http://www.cairco.org/edu/eduacation/html This is the website for an organization that wants to reform laws regarding illegal children in schools. This website provides a lot of statistics and backs their claims with them. I will use this source in support of my argument because they make fundamentally sound points that I agree with. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2547004 This article analyzes Proposition 187 in California which was voted on in 1994. Proposition 187 called to verify the legal status of anyone seeking public education. Voters voted in favor of prop 187 because of the economic burden it could take off of tax payers. This is a fundamental point in my persuasion of my audience.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Blog Response #10

When I write, I like to speak directly at the reader. I do not necessarily hide that, whatever my message is, is written to a large group of people. I want the reader to feel as though he/she and I are simply having a conversation. I try to use words and phrases that I would use as if I am speaking rather than writing. Many writers write and talk in very different ways but I want attempt to close the gap and make the language more realistic. My narrative essay was a great place for me to exercise this technique because talking directly through the reader is necessary. I used phrases such as "For those of you who do not know..." This is something that would most likely be heard, not read. I believe my writing also has an interesting informal quality to it which is directly related to how I make it as though I am talking. Usually when I am speaking it is not the most formal occasion in the world so I do not see why I should change that in my writing for most occasions. I prefer to read an informal text. It lets me relax as I am reading. When I am reading formal writing, I immediately begin to question what the purpose of that is and I am less likely to trust the words on the page. An example of my informal language can be found in my evaluation essay. "The formula of the movie however is straight out of the 1980's textbook. We start with the dorky kid and the smoking hot babe. Oh and of course the dork has an equally dorky friend." Use of words like "Oh" and the phrase "straight out of," is something that you would tend to hear in an informal conversation. I like to incorporate that into my writing so the reader can relate to the text and not be turned off by an unnatural way of conveying the same point.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Blog Response #9

College Football Playoff Plan: Author Dan Wetzel
There are simply too many qualified teams to have one game for the national championship. There is a lack of excitement at the end of a great football seasons. The bowl game match ups are sometimes interesting but still are not backed by meaning. Smaller teams like TCU never get a chance to prove themselves against the established great programs. Even the majority of the players want a playoff.

Pros, cons of a college football playoff:
Having a playoff is a more fair way of deciding a national champion. Having a playoff system would generate a lot more money than the current bowl system does. Cons include that the playoff system would possibly take away from an exciting regular season. The playoffs would be around the weeks leading up to and including finals, taking academic time away from the athletes. Also the bowl system spreads the wealth more with so many teams getting a chance to have a successful postseason.

BCS Flaws: By Alex Groberman
Looking to the NCAA basketball system exposes the flaws of the BCS. Football creates no electricity for its postseason. Even though defenders of the BCS state that the current system makes every game count, there is more emphasis on particular games. People will still care about the regular season because there are such few games, giving each one meaning. A playoff system will end the controversy once and for all.

Many of the articles I am looking at are providing similar views with minor differences in talking points. Most of the articles strongly support changing to some type of playoff system. It is much harder to search for articles that support the current system. Most of these articles do not talk much about what the actual new system would look like. The points made are more about just why a change should be made.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Blog Response #7

Unfortunately I was sick this entire weekend and could not experience State Patty's Day up close and personal. My evaluation is based on things that I have heard from friends and I guess some assumptions that I am making. First of all, walking back from my last class Friday evening, I remember seeing a line of cars looking for parking at every parking deck on campus. I was definitely surprised by the non student turnout. It was hard to tell if these people were friends of students from different schools or if they were alumni. The sight of so many people walking around East Halls asking for directions to different dorms disturbed me. Get your own school is a thought that ran through my mind a lot on Friday night. As far as Saturday goes I was never downtown and could not see the action or any parties for myself. But from what I have heard and from seeing some pictures posted on facebook I could tell that there a lot of people out bright and early to get their drink on. I have no problem with people drinking and having a good time and I did not hear of and major incident where a fight broke out or someone going to the hospital. But I am not naive, I know that just because I did not hear of these things it does not mean they did not happen. With so many people participating it is hard to avoid the negatives of drinking and partying. I know that my good friends had a great State Patty's Day and therefore it is hard for me to give it a negative critique but my gut tells me that when I see this many people roaming the streets it is best to leave the alcohol out of the equation. Maybe I am just bitter because I did not get to share in the fun but I do not think that the volume of people is a good thing. I originally thought State Patty's Day would be a good thing as I thought it was made by Penn State students for Penn State students but I quickly learned that this is not the case. It is hard feel the school spirit if you yell out WE ARE... and more the half the people cannot respond.

Blog Response 5: Disney Songs

When evaluating the song of a villain from a Disney film, I look at a few key components to determine if the song was a successful part of the movie. Above all else I compare the songs to other villain songs that I think to be good in other Disney movies. I enjoy Scar's song "Prepared" from the Lion King. I enjoy how the evil from his character is shown as he describes diabolical things. The environment also conveys a very malicious message. In the Little Mermaid, Ursula's song, "Poor Unfortunate Soul," there are several things that also make this a classic Disney villain song. Her placement in the cave makes her seem even more evil as she twists and turns in the darker and duller environment. There is also a lot of dialog in the song, it is slow and methodical. The tension continues to build and build as she fiddles around with potions and creatures of the cave. The explicit trickery also makes the audience almost want to stand up and yell at Ariel for making the deal. It is beyond obvious that Ursula is evil and the audience knows what will happen next but drawing out the scene through the slow moving song makes it more of an experience than just a scene where the antagonist gains the upper hand. Similarly in The Princess and the Frog, there is a good amount of dialog in the song, slowly building to the climax towards the end of the scene. In this case the setting is in an alley and instead of playing with a morbid cave; the villain uses cards tricks and other spectacles to fool the good guy. Again it is very obvious that the protagonist will be fooled but the result is not as important as the delivery. I believe that both of these villain songs are successful displays of the evil natures of the characters. When the scene ends it is very easy for a viewer to say, "Wow, that person (or octopus) is definitely a bad guy." I am never looking for a subtle exchange of wits in my Disney movies. I want to be a kid and watch the bad guy be almost impossibly evil. These songs succesfully go over the top in making evil a very cool thing.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Blog Response #4

Institution:
The action of instituting or establishing; setting on the foot or in operation; foundation; ordainment; the fact of being instituted.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/15/against-gay-marriage

In this article, the author with conservative values discusses the reasons he thinks marriage should be reserved only for heterosexual couples. He believes that allowing homosexuals the right to marry would ruin the "institution of marriage." The author goes into the history of heterosexual marriage and how it is a unifying force between men and women who may otherwise oppose each other. The author uses the word institution to cover a huge amount of people. It is not tangible and technicaly it is possible for anyone join. He argues that it is divine insitution as well, as it is a union made before God.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/educational-institutions-succeeding-despite-because-of-weak-economy/
In this article the author analyzes the success of colleges and universities as a business during the recession. She brings up the argument that schools are succeeding because of the bad economy. The author refers to colleges as higher education institutions.

I have to agree with the definition of the institution put forth in the second article. Colleges and universities are more tangible ideas. They have a location and serve a more explicit purpose. Marriage is more of a tradition than an institution. It is a social norm for many societies mainly because of what society or religion says is correct and functional. Since I consider marriage to be an invetion derived from societal values, I consider it to be available to anyone. Since I do not think there should be any exclusion I do not think it should be considered an institution. We would never say that being a human being is an institution. Colleges and universities are much more exclusive and serve direct purposes; to learn more and acquire specific skills. This fits the definition of institution much better.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Blog Response #3

Writing a narrative is much harder than I expected. I am much more used to writing an analysis of a novel or a poem. Writing a narrative is unfamiliar territory for me as I have only done it once or twice in high school. The narrative is very different because I as the writer have complete control of the story. I am not reacting to a story; I am part of the story. It is difficult to determine what needs to be added and what can be left out. The use of I is not too hard to master. I use the first person as often as I would when verbally retelling a story. The trick is figuring out what style to use. How often do I address the audience? The use of "you" is a much more interesting idea to tackle. Also questions such as digressions and humor come into play. I want to stay true to how I would verbally tell a story, which would include mild humor and brief breaks from the story. It is hard to determine what is good for the flow of the story and what gets too far away from the point. It is also a challenge for me to work with dialogue. I find it is a challenge to the flow of the narrative uninterrupted when including speech from multiple characters, The use of characters is another problem. After reading my first draft, I could tell that I was too dominating in the story. My other characters did not appear enough in the story. It is a challenge to get all of my thoughts across while giving enough stage time for the other people in history. It is truly a daunting task to take every thought and emotion and action in a particular setting and put it on paper.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Blog Response #2

Storytelling first became critically important to me in my high school English class in tenth grade. My assignment was to write a narrative about literally anything that I have done in my life that I would consider memorable and important to me. I chose to write about my experience working on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina in a Rita's Italian ice while living with my grandparents. That had to be one of the best summers of my life. Spending all day on the beach either selling ices, or relaxing in the sun, it did not get better than that. I would say that I was successful in getting my story out to my audience (each student had to read their memoir to the class). I do not say this just because I received a good grade for the assignment, but because I was confident that my classmates walked away with a good idea of what my summer in South Carolina was like. The most important part in getting my message across was my body language, my tone, and my overall oral delivery. It was important for me to show my audience through my voice as well as my writing what my experience was like. I was mobile, I did not just stand in front of the class like a statue. I paced back and forth, I used my hands, I fluctuated my voice, and I used pauses in my speech. As far as my writing went, I implemented voice into my paper as well. I wrote as if I was talking, it was not very formal but it was very effective. I removed myself from the narrative at certain parts to better explain a part of the story. For example I would introduce my boss, and then I would say out loud, "I have to stop the story here and tell you a little bit about my boss..." and then I would proceed to give a short profile of my boss and then go on with the story. Overall I think the approach I took, lead to a casual story that my classmates could connect to.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Blog Response #1

My most interesting experience in writing came in my junior year of high school in my AP English Language and Composition class. Unlike any English class that I have been a part of in the past, one of the goals of the class and the teacher, Dr. Wilson, was teaching the genre of nonficiton prose. In previous classes I almost exclusively dealt with fictional works, whether it be novels, novellas, poems or anything else that never really happened. The assignment I found most interesting had each student read a Supreme Court decision. After reading the decision and its dissentions, each student would have to write a paper summarizing the reasoning of the justices and then explain our own opinions on the case. My court case was Plyler v. Doe. The case asked the question whether it was constitutional or not for the child of an illegal immigrants to attend public school. I had to read the briefs of each side of the argument and then the final decision. Reading the decision was unlike any reading I had ever done. The writer was not concerned with presenting a story, that was the job of the lawyers. The job of the justices was to take the stories presented and decide what was right and what was constitutional. What was written down was essentially the reaction of the justices to these stories, opinion rather than facts and observations. Of course there was plenty of legal jargon and references to precedents but at the paper's heart it was an opinion. Unfortunately my opinion is not as valued as the justices' opinions are but I was still excited to put down my reactions on paper. It was exciting to respond to something in the real world, something that people care about enough to go to court for, something that affects the lives of real people. It was a nice break from writing about fictional characters and what the theme of the novel was.

Rhetoric and Composition: ENG 015 007: Introduce Yourself

I'm Andrew Pugliese, a student in English 015-007. I an a freshman here at Penn State, entering my second semester on campus. I am in the College of Engineering and hope to be a civil engineering major by next year. My interests range from sports to movies and TV to anything else that could keep my entertained. I grew up in Suffern, NY, a short trip from New York City. I am a huge Jets fan and a Mets fan as well. Life is not easy when you those are the teams you follow as you get used to being disappointed but you never know when things can turn around. At home I live with my mother and my brother who are interesting cast of characters themselves. In my house everyone is free to speak their mind without hesitation or regret. Nothing is taken too seriously and nothing is off limits. I enjoy discussing any sort of topic with someone as long as their is a disagreement. I find when people all agree nothing is accomplished and the conversation is dull. Controversy makes things more fun and gets people thinking more.