The black philosopher’s idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing and in his business prosperities. – Mark Twain from Corn-Pone Opinions

Twain is arguing that nobody is actually being his or herself because everyone goes with the crowd and that if a person actually stands up for what they believe in they often lose everything.

I agree with this statement because our society today has many things that we consider “politically correct” For someone to stand up against something that is seen as politically incorrect that person will be looked down upon by many and it significantly affects the persons ethos and credibility. There is a always a bigger fish and if that big fish doesn’t agree with your values then your going to get screwed over. However, if a person does take a stand and the bigger fish is impressed and agrees with you then chances are that this person will prosper and be more successful, but at the same time it is impossible to please everyone and where one person is impressed another may be disgusted. Overall, people will always end up losing something if they stand up for what they believe in. It may be reputation, a career, money, or friends. We live in America. There is so much diversity and variety that there are many different opinions about different things out there. In one group of acquaintances that a person may have there will always be controversy and argument about any subject and if that person takes a stand on a certain position although one person may be impressed another person’s opinion of you just went down. All in all we live in a world with many controversial subjects and not everyone is going to agree on one thing so the crowd will never be happy.

2. Denby’s description of a female in the first paragraph differ from the description of the male in the second paragraph in that he describes the female as socially intimidating while the male is physically intimadating. Together they are unstoppable!

3. Denby makes several tone changes. For example in paragraph three he accomplishes a more serious tone when discussing Columbine where many lives were lost due to the social ladder. He also accomplishes another shift at the begginning of paragraph seven where he shifts from talking about the actions and appearance of high schoolers to their feelings and emotions. 

4. Denby just finished talking about something very serious that grasped the attention of the audience. This pause adds more meaning and gets the readers attention. After appealing to pathos he starts making his argument.

5. It answers the question by giving examples of high school reality and high school fantasy and how they reflect each other. He argues that high school movies is high school reality exaggerated.

6. He uses ethos and supports his argument by giving accurate examples of movies that apply to the argument he is trying to make.

7. Denbys central argument is that teen movies although accurate exaggerate the reality of high school life. His secondary arguments are all the things he believes are top on a teenagers priorities.

9. Denby suggests that the main character is typically someone with all the problems and usually is the hero of the story.

10. He supports this argument by giving examples of other movies that turn out a little bit like Columbine turned out and that these boys probably related more to these movies that the others.

11. THat some movies are making fun of the typical sterotype that movies often times put on high schoolers.

12. A likely audience is students and parents and teachers because students can relate to what he is saying and parents see these cliques and attitudesthat go on at school

The main claim Walter Kirn makes in his article, “The Autumn of the Multitaskers,” is that people multitasking to save time is very ineffective and damaging in the long run.

Section 1: The main claim in the first section is that the growth in technology has contributed greatly in the growth of multitasking

Section 2: The main claim in the second section is that eventually all the multitasking people do will catch up to them. Kirn argues that multitasking doesn’t actually do the job but just kind of cleans it up a bit and throws it to the side for later.

Section 3: The main claim in the third section is that the invention of computers and the world wide web only rocketed the progress of multitasking and made it even more common in our society.

Section 4: The main claim in the fourth section is that although multitasking seems fast and effective, it is actually damaging for the processing of the brain in the long run.

Section 5: The main claim in the fifth section is that the brain works like a CPU and that people are always coming up with new ways to multitask but eventually it will backfire.

Section 6: The main claim in the sixth section is that our culture is so adapted to multitasking that ironically its acutally almost difficult to find something simple.

Section 7: The main claim in the seventh section is that multitasking can be damaging to not only the person doing it but many times it can have great negative affects on other people as well. Multitasking can put people in life or death situations

Section 8: The main claim of section 8 is that multitasking can also be financially damaging.

Section 9: The main claim of section 9 is that multitasking is just a gateway to distraction. Multitasking in itself is an issue of focus but sometimes it keads to just flat out tangents that can be damaging to a person’s progress.

    The general argument made Susan Jacoby by in How Dumb can we get is that people today pay more attention to entertainment rather than intellectualism and education. She writes, “Dumbness has been steadily defined as going downward for several decades.” Here Jacoby is saying that it isn’t just entertainment today, such as internet and flatscreens. As entertainment grows intellectualism falls. In conclusion Jacoby beleives that as time goes on many people lose their intellectual edge.

    In my view, Jacoby is right to an extent. I think that entertainment today does have a big part in distracting people from intellectualism. More specifically, I think it is about the person not the distractions. For example, when I was a kid I watched TV and played video games like crazy and today I am in two AP classes and high math getting pretty good grades. I am not trying to sound conceited but I think I am pretty darn smart. I beleive that it is all about a person’s priorities. If a student sits and watches TV all day  before doing homework and procastinates than that is not the TV’s fault, that is the student’s fault.  Although one could argue that if the TV wasn’t there than there wouldn’t be a problem, but if it wasn’t the TV it would be something else. Therefore I conclude that although entertainment can distract people from education and learning I believe that a person’s priorities is the real problem.