Veil of Fears Analysis

Genre: This was written to persuade the reader. The writer of this wants us to follow along with him and agree with him. He shows us things that, as humans, we tend to disagree with. By doing this, he is trying to persuade us to follow what he is saying.

Purpose: He wants to inform of us of what the veil is all about. Most people are ignorant to why women wear these veils in the Middle East; thus, people make assumptions that are not true. Because of this, he wants to tell the true meaning of the veil. He doesn’t believe that the veil that women wear is not bad. It is tradition and customary for them to wear it, so he tries to convince us to accept it.

View of the World: Throughout the story, Kurtz talks about family. He writes “ life in the Muslim Middle East has long revolved around family and tribe” (230).  People all over can connect to what family means. This is good to write about because the majority of people won’t be offended by mentioning family and won’t feel isolated while reading.

Tools used: Kurtz is very careful to pick his words. He doesn’t pick any words that could isolate anyone that is reading. His purpose is to persuade, so if he were to isolate a group, his purpose for writing this is lost. He also doesn’t use harsh language or assume his readers are stupid. He really just wants us, as readers, to hear him out and think of the veil in a different way. 

Over view of my personal narrative

Well, I am glad my personal narrative is over now. Overall I think it went pretty well. I still had some trouble with the ending and I am not sure if it came out cheesy or not, but I think the majority of it was pretty good. I also found it hard to leave some detail out. I wanted to tell the story just how I saw it, but personal narratives don't work that way. I had to give just the important information that would let my readers see what I was experiencing, but not too much where they get bored or lost in it. I think I did a good job of not giving extra information, but still using figurative language and my voice in this paper. Overall, I didn’t think that the assignment as a whole was too difficult. I like how we broke it down in segments and had the first two pages due earlier. It helped me not to procrastinate and get it done when I needed to. Also, the peer edits where nice because I had to have everything written up by then and than I got some feed back on what people thought I could do to improve my paper. The peer edits also made it easy to find the errors in my paper I usually pass over. In the end, I am pleased about how the assignment turned out and hopefully I get the grade I want on it. Writing is worth 70% of our grade!

Blog #4

My personal narrative is going good so far, but isn’t close to being done. It won’t be hard for me to finish it up though. The story I am telling is long, so it is easy to put in detail and extend it to the needed length. However, my story happened thirteen years ago, so some details are hard to remember. I probably need to call my parents and get the missing parts from them. The only problem I might have is finishing my paper strongly. I could probably find some nice weak ending and just say that my experience helped me to learn blank, blank and blank; but I know I should probably find a really strong ending so I get the grade I want. One other problem that I am probably going to have to spend the most time on is making sure that my paper flows and there aren’t too many errors. No matter how many times I read what I have, I always find some new error. It is really annoying because I just don’t see them even though I keep reading it. I should probably have my brother or friends read it though, because reading other people’s papers tends to help out more. They are usually better at telling you what made sense and what didn’t. Sometime I know what I am trying to say but say it weird so other people have no idea what I am saying. You might see this in what I just wrote. J

How to Argue Effectively Narrative

How to Argue Effectively by Dave Barry is a great piece of art. I found it to be extremely funny and also very helpful. I really think I might follow some of his ideas. I particularly liked his idea of comparing the person you are arguing with to Adolf Hitler. I think I might use this in the near future. Overall, the whole paper was written beautifully and very cleverly. My brother took speech and debate in high school and did very well in it. He was ranked as top in the nation for speech and debate, and reading this reminded me a lot of how he argues. He will bring up random statistics that I’m not even sure are true and if I ask where he got it, he wouldn’t respond to my question. Another part I liked in the paper that reminded me of my brother is when Barry tells the reader to use Latin abbreviations. My brother doesn’t do Latin abbreviations, but he will use words that people don’t really know in order to confuse the person he is talking to. He also sounds so sure of himself as he says something that people automatically agree with him even though he might not be correct. Being a twin with him, and around him often, I know he isn’t always correct however, everyone always thinks he is. Overall, this personal narrative really grabbed my attention and I was even able to connect to what the author was saying. 

Response Paper to Personal Narratives

My favorite narrative I read was “My Father’s Sketchbook” by Jessie Hawkes. I personally enjoyed this piece because it was well written and was a good story. I could feel the author’s feelings in her words she writes. I got a good idea of what a personal narrative is by this piece too. One of my personal favorite parts of her story is when she first finds her dad’s statement that he “is sad” (96). I really could see what she was going through at this time and could kind of relate to the way she was feeling. I have always looked up to my dad and when I was young he was invincible and would play around with me. We would have little arm wrestling matches and do other father son games. It is my guess that he also let me win these games. I remember playing a game of Pig with my dad. Pig is a basketball game where if you make a shot, the other person has to make the same shot. If they don’t, then they receive a letter. One time while playing, I accused him of not trying. He claimed he was, but I wasn’t completely sure if he was.  I can relate to this girl when she realized that her dad let her come close to winning these arm wrestling matches. Overall, I really enjoyed this personal narrative and could relate to many parts of her stories and learned how I should structure mine.

My favorite quote I found in this particular piece was at the end of her personal narrative. When she was hugging her father, she said her fathers hug was as if he was saying, “ there is sadness in this part of the journey too. There is sadness and there are mistakes, but more importantly, there is joy. And love. And growing” (98).  I liked this quote because I can relate to this statement. I am going through the same part of life that she I going through and I agree that it is hard, but there are a lot of rewards that come along with it. 

Me in 100 Words

My name is Kevin Nielsen. I do track for BYU. I was second in the nation for the decathlon for my age group. I have high jumped 6’10. I enjoy all sports and not just track. I broke my leg when I was four jumping of a hope chest and when I was five, had a rusty nail go into my eye. I now have two different colored eyes because of the accident. One is blue one is green. I love to eat meat and I prefer warm weather to cold. I am a twin and have five total siblings.