Ryan: Blogging for a grade.

Op/eds seem to appeal to specific audiences but not to others Journalists are supposed to be objective when reporting the news to the public…supposed to be. Based on where we get our news, it can come with a bias. Many news broadcasts these days tend to be sensationalized , giving us outrageous headlines and pundits that persuade our opinions this way and that way. Forming our own opinion can be difficult when this happens, but with so much happening around us, some of us might welcome a strong opinion. Op/ed columns cut out our need to filter the biased from the unbiased and lets the reader agree or disagree with the opinion of an author that already knows or has researched a given topic.   The public that has a strong ability to analyze and interpret information and value free and independent thought may not feel attracted to what Op/eds have to offer. These people may prefer news to be as straight to the point and unbiased as possible. An author’s opinions i...

James Paul Gee     My entire life has felt like one big fake. As a child of divorced and remarried parents, I may have developed two personalities. Linguistics researcher James Paul Gee ,  claims that personalities are Discourses; “Discourses are the ways of being in the world” , ways in which we combine our body language and clothing with words in order to convey certain “values, beliefs, [and] attitudes” that makeup identities we present (Gee, "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics", 6). Gee wrote, “ a primary Discourse constitutes our original…identity [and] becomes a “carrier” or “foundation” for [other] Discourses acquired later in life” (Gee, "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics", 8), which makes me feel like I may have formed two early Discourses; one to engage with my mother’s household and one for my father’s. I am not sure if this is true, but I think that being in two distinct environments during the developmental years of a child might cause this...