Robo-Readers

                Although much advancement has occurred in the field of automatic grading of student essays, there are simply too many issues with the program to use it on a wide scale. With our current technology, a robot can’t think. They can’t feel the emotion that a paper evokes as a part of an argument, nor appreciate the truth.

                Eliminating the human element in grading papers has come an extraordinary way. In A Win for the Robo-Readers, the author quotes a study by the Hewlett Foundation. They said that in a study of 22,000 short essays, the computer scores were comparable to that of human scores. This was an incredible accomplishment; however, it is important to realize that these were essays written to be graded by a human reader, not a machine. According to Michael Winerip in Facing a Robo-Grader? Just Keep Obfruscating Mellifluously, the system has too many flaws. Les Perelman, a director of writing at MIT says that test prep can easily fool the system. When teachers and students learn the preferences of the machine, writing will be transformed into something mechanical. Instead of improving the writing of students everywhere, the Robo-Reader has the potential to seriously harm the English Language.

                One of the most troublesome flaws is the inability of a machine to “be human.” Scoring no longer is based on a solid argument, but according to the official website of the inventing company, it relies on a “content analysis based on vocabulary measures” as well as a series of grammatical test. This all sounds great in theory, but when dealing with rhetorical strategies that stray at all from the “proper use of the English Language,” the Robo-Reader utterly fails. Some of the greatest authors of all time utilize fragments and short paragraphs to solidify and emphasize their points, but with these new computer programs, these are automatically wrong. According to Michael Winerip in an interview by Melissa Block, the substance of the argument is not important as long as the computer thinks you are arguing well. He says “You could say that the war of 1812 started in 1945” and as long as this “fact” is incorporated into a well-structured argument, “there are all kinds of things you could say that have little or nothing to do with reality that could receive a high score.”

                This in itself is a major flaw in the program, but by viewing the so called “feedback” given by the computer, the hole is ripped even wider. The computer is looking for a specified length and a few specific terms to give a grade, but in reality, this is just a small part of writing. A solid argument can be incorporated in a much shorter or longer paper than the machine deems satisfactory.  By trying to grade papers this way, machines are pushing us not to think even more. Standardized tests and grading are no way to learn, instead, we must push creativity and outside the box thought: two things that machines are incapable of understanding.

                Although the thought of letting machines grade papers is tempting, it is simply idealistic. There are too many flaws in the way that they grade and could hurt the English Language as a whole. Nothing can replace humans in a job that requires high level, creative thought.

Maps Tell Everything!

America Septentrio Nalis

1)      The first thing that is very noticeable about this map in the amount of detail around the coasts. Around the coasts, there is a lot of care taken in the drawing of the ports, capes, as well as the inland rivers. This makes sense because shipping was the key reason for wanting a map like this. Therefore, the most useful information would be how to navigate around the coast in order to find key trading areas and port cities. Where the East Coast seems to be drawn fairly accurately, the West Coast is full of mistakes. The peninsula of California is an entirely separate island and it is clear that there hasn’t been much exploration of the middle and western parts of North America. The middle of the U.S. is completely barren with mountains springing up much too far to the East. There are also many pictures of different animals in the West. At the top of the map there is a drawing of some natives.

2)      This map tells a story in many ways. The fact that the East is so detailed when the central part of the United States is not shows how the Americas were settled. The colonies started on the East coast so as the map shows, much more information was known about this area of the country. The wild animals drawn in the middle of the map show how the explorers felt about the “Wild” West. The Appalachians were the frontier and beyond that, there was a foreign world filled with natives and wild animals. Finally, the way the natives are drawn tells a story in itself. There are shown as barbarians. They are hardly clothed and seem to be ready for a war. This shows that they were seen as violent savages who only wanted to kill. They were looked down upon which is clearly identified by how they were drawn.

3)      Not only do maps show how the people felt, they also acted as a sort of propaganda tool to convince people that the colonization efforts should continue. They portrayed natives as savages in order to both separate themselves from the natives and also defend their actions. Maps both help define the culture of the explorers and shape it into the future says Babb: “Maps foreshadowed visually the ways in which English narrative prose would claim land through words and as such are a fitting prelude to an analysis of accounts of exploration and their relationship to constructions of whiteness.” She is essentially saying that the maps represent a feeling of early white supremacy.

Op-ed

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1030-lopez-occupy-20111030,0,4348313.column

This article responds to the protestors in LA protesting the fact that in their opinion CEOs and other heads of business make too much money. The interesting part of this article is that the author has the same opinion as the people who are protesting; however, he believes they aren’t really accomplishing anything with their occupying style protest. He believes they are all talk and no action, which rings true when you try to interview them. There is very little long term planning going on and there hardly seems to be a goal.

This op-ed piece is effective mostly because of the author. It is from someone who agrees with the protestors. It isn’t a whiney politician saying go home; it is a person who should by the protestors’ theory be out protesting. He also effectively uses a call to action. He calls on the people of the occupying movement to actually do something. Instead of “having a giant slumber party,” actually accomplish something for your cause or stop complaining. He also uses a repetition of questions at the end of paragraphs to address the protestors. He wants answers to these questions which he knows the protestors will not be able to give; therefore, he helps his argument that the occupiers have little purpose in their actions.

Sound and Fury

After watching Sound and Fury, I find myself supporting the idea of cochlear implants. It is difficult for me to not be biased on this issue because I live in the hearing world and could not imagine life without sound. I am not a part of the deaf community and do not understand the discourses involved in deaf culture.

This being said, if it was my child I would want to give them all the opportunities possible. Even the deaf people in the movie talked about how life could be difficult at times. Their struggles, which are preventable, would be unbearably difficult to allow my child to suffer from. With the advancements in technology in the last few decades, the power of hearing is within anyone’s grasp. I would not prevent my child from hearing the sounds of the world and learn how to communicate with others how everyone else does. This will allow the child to have the most friends, get the best education, and live the best life possible.

Fear

Drowning I can deal with. Jumping off a cliff? No big deal. Death isn’t that big of a deal, what really scares me is being buried alive. Trapped in some mighty cavern or a little foxhole with tons of dirt above your head, gasping for air, with no hope of escape. I claw at the ceiling of earth above me, but to no avail. This is a slow death. One of suffocation and peril, it is drawn out allowing plenty of time to realize what’s happening. I am not sure where this fear began. Possibly a CSI episode a few seasons ago when one of the main characters was buried alive did it. Ants crawled all over him and gnawed at his body, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. I don’t fear going into caves or basement or anything like that. It’s only the thought of being trapped underground knowing you are going to die.

Won't Get Fooled Again

            The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” defines our generation in a political and economic way. Over the past decade America has fallen victim to one scheme after another. First off we Had been led to believe that we can spend as much money as we want with no consequence. Even our government believed this and some still do. We continue to spend ridiculous amounts of money harming our economy and our very way of life.

            Even the recession was caused by this feeling. People, spurred on by banks, purchased houses that they couldn’t afford. This went on for a while with no problems, but when the housing bubble popped our economy was doomed. We had been led into a trap of our own devices. Greed and a feeling of near invincibility pushed us to a point of self-destruction. And what did we do to react to this disaster? We went and spent more and more money we did not have. The chorus of the song is “Won’t get fooled again” and this is the lesson we must learn from recent events. We have to stop giving in to political devices and greed if we want to be successful. They sing, “And the morals that they worship will be gone/ And the men who spurred us on/ Sit in judgment of all wrong.” This again represents the tone of our nation.

A Whole Lot of Talk, but Where's the Action?

Many of the presidents through the history of the United States have used wording that helps enforce the values of our great country. They used the words such as nation, world, and people to group all of us together in a united sense. It strikes me that by the words that are used the most throughout the speeches are more playing on emotions and less about substance. They are speeches not about an issue or what is actually going to happen during a presidency, but more an almost robotic speech about how our nation is great and how we will move forward together.

Obama’s inaugural speech also played with the same emotions. It was a general speech to move the nation forward and did not cover specific issues. His speech was about hope and looking forward to the future no matter what it might hold.

There were two speeches from the past that struck me as different from the rest. Ronald Reagan in his first term address and Abraham Lincoln spoke about the issues, instead of about nothing. They were unique from the rest of the presidents in that way. Most presidents talk about the same thing, but in times of great hardship, a real plan helps more than shallow reassurances.