WELCOME

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversation Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! I encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!


--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Kia commercial

In the 2010 Kia Soul Hamster Commercial it really draws you in with a bunch of personified hamsters that act all gangster. If the commercial just talked about the car it would bore most people but instead it draws you in with pleasant music and images that get you excited and imaginative. The hamsters seem like just the right animal to be driving the Kia Soul because they are small and docile just like the compact car. The reason that they are portrayed as hip-hop hamsters is because it interests most people from maybe 8 to 20 years old, and if you don’t like hip-hop then the commercial will probably be peculiar enough to grab your attention anyways. The Hamsters are singing a hip-hop song throughout the entire commercial where they repeatedly say, “you can go with this or you could go with that”. The reason they say this is because they represent someone cool in society while they drive their Kia Soul and the other hamsters like the two that crash their cardboard box are an example of someone not as cool. So the cool hip-hop hamsters keep telling you, “you could go with this or you could go with that”. So you’re going to want to go with this Kia instead of going with that other car. Throughout the whole commercial the hamsters that are driving the Kia Soul are the cool people on the block and turn everyone’s heads because of their awesome style. Everyone else driving toasters, wash machines, and cardboard boxes are just out of style. Even though this scene seems fictional it relates to our everyday lives of wanting to be cool, popular or noticed. We all want the newest coolest car, electronics, clothes, and what have you, and the hip-hop hamsters have it all and Kia uses them to make you buy their car.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 23, 2011 at 12:21 PM

    The Style of the presentation contributes in such a fashion that lends itself to sterotypes and more up to date trends within this generation. The main influence throughout this commercial is the hiphop music in the background which is very popular to the young generation. The ad is geared towards the younger generation with the style of the Kia Soul and the gas mileage along the $14,000 price tag wins the deal.

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  2. mswrayFebruary 23, 2011 at 12:31 PM

    The ad hopes the viewer will surrender to the theory that all people are created equal therefore can afford kia souls. The lowe price tag starting at 14K tying in with the fact that it takes place in a hypothetical hamster ghetto. The gaps between myth and actual reality are even the lower class (tending to be more self conscious) can afford a cheap ride that still supports the "cool look" persona.

    The people this ad represents is the lower class or poor people to even high class; high class being the ones looking down on the rest. The kia soul stands out and is the "car to have."

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