Journal Two, Shirt Memoir

David Giffels' "Shirt-Worthy" is a story of how a father finally felt like he earned his Ramone's T-shirt. He tells us that to be "worthy" of wearing a Ramone's shirt you were obligated to attend concerts and actually buy one there. The shirt needed to be worn out, maybe faded, and more or less dirty with your own blood, sweat, and tears. This was the only way to not be a poser, someone who does or wears something just to fit in and be cool, as we would call them today. Giffels didn't feel worthy of having a Ramone's shirt even though he attended some concert's. He said, "it felt to easy," or something along those lines. When he buys his son the t-shirt putting aside his past values to be a father figure and his son rips it on a fence he finally feels that he has earned his own Ramone's shirt. Back then it was harder for someone to pull of a t-shirt like that. If you had a band shirt people knew you attended concerts. Nowadays anyone can have whatever shirt they want. You can say, "hey man I love the Ramone's too," and the person may respond with a thank you and actually know not one song by that band. What I feel he is trying to get at is that it is too easy for kids today to get whatever they want. They might not form memories with something such as a t-shirt because they just went to the mall and bought it instead of living it. Earning gives an object meaning.
This story is relevant to our time because it shows us how hard people used to need to work to get what they wanted. Nobody could be a poser because they had to earn that t-shirt. Giffels is speaking to whoever remembers a time when something you wanted wasn't as available as they are today, or even possibly to a kid these days who has the same morals about earning their belongings. The point of Giffels' writing is to address those people who don't care about the meaning of objects and just have them because they look cool or want to fit in.
The author is particularly strong with dialogue. I hope to use dialogue to get my point across and reach the readers emotions like David Giffels. Ethically on the other hand he is reaching his audience saying that he knew he wasn't worthy of the shirt and didn't buy one anyway. He wanted to earn it himself. The logical part of this narrative is how he put his past values aside to get his son what he wanted. Using ethos, pathos, and logos David Giffels addressed the exigence with a message that fit his meaning.

Journal One

Let's just say my past experiences with writing and an English class in general have been uneventful. In all honesty writing is my weakest subject and this may be the major influencing reason why today I dread writing. Needless to say throughout my primary school life the only writing I did was required. From research papers to persuasive essays, I have found it difficult to put my thoughts into words like such an author as Frederick Douglass. My vocabulary is mildly broad, but on occasion I don't know the context certain words should be used making my writing, not always, but sometimes, hard to understand. Another problem I have had in the past with my writing is that my sentence structures (or just structure because it is singular) do not vary. Throughout high school I was criticized because my thoughts usually came out on paper as simple as subject and verb. Don't get me wrong these sentences had complete thoughts but I had never used such writing tricks as similes, metaphors, personification, alliteration, and others to make my writing much more interesting.

Now, I have realized how big of a part rhetoric plays in my everyday life. The first step is identifying the problem at hand. What is the point of your writing, speech, or presentation? It is also important to use the correct way of communication when presenting your information. And depending on the purpose of your communication the way in which you would explain may be completely different. For instance, when you watch any television show there are not just words scrolling down the screen to be read until the next commercial. That would be absurd. One needs to present their information by whichever means necessary to have the most effect on the reader. So when watching television the point is to use visuals to get the point across. You also need to examine what your audience likes. If your girlfriend is mad at you for some reason and she loves music you may write her an apologetic song to get the most effect out of what you have to say.

I had never been a fan of reading from as far back as I can remember. Actually I didn't even like bed time stories as a child. During my childhood if I needed to read a book for school I would end up on page ten from page one not remembering what I had just read because my mind went off on a tangent. Then came high school and my thirst for knowledge grew and grew. In my second year I was given a book to read called Forgotten Fire. Buy it right now! This was the first book in my entire life that I read from cover to cover. I couldn't put it down. The way the author, Adam Bagdasarian, expressed his feelings really got to me. This book was phenomenal and the start of my reading career. I am not an avid reader these days but none the less if I find a good book nothing, and I mean nothing, can pull me away.