really rough draft

Kristen Ott

Composition: pop Culture paper

Professor Thomas

29 October 2012

A soft side of Miranda; as shown in The House That Built Me

            “Up those stairs in that little back bedroom is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar,” as Miranda Lambert sings these words you can take yourself back on that emotional journey to your childhood. Miranda Lamberts song, “The House that built me,” shows the importance of home and your childhood. Throughout the song you automatically place yourself in that time in your life and imagine the days and the home of your childhood. Having an image of home can be directly connected with who you grow up to be. This song is the perfect way to back up the saying “home is where the heart is.” Miranda’s song uses strong images, her relative past, and an important structure to get a message to her listeners.

            As you listen to the song Miranda creates a variety of images in your mind.  She uses strong words and imagery to evoke emotion and make it easier for the audience to relate to her song. She uses things like handprints on the front porch and the live oak in the front yard to show how every part of that house has memories and has affected her life in one way or another. Using so much imagery lets the audience picture things similar to those that took place in their own childhood and get more involved in the words. Having such strong imagery aids in making the song stronger by allowing the audience to feel as if they are part of the song or the scene and also influences inferential thinking.

            Just as portrayed by the images, this song has a very strong emotional pull. The first time Miranda heard this song it was on a CD being pitched to Blake. It came on and she immediately started to cry. She knew it was special the very first moment she heard it she said. Living in a little farmhouse as a young child connected Lambert to this song. Miranda lived in the same house all the way up to when she turned 14; her connection to this song is undeniable. Just as the song says, “And nail by nail and board by board Daddy gave life to mama's dream,” Miranda’s dad fixed up the house piece by piece as she grew up. To this day Miranda’s parents live right down the street from that same exact house. Having this background made the song so much closer to the heart for her and created the emotional aspect for the recording.

            The structure of “the house that built me” adds to the emotional value of this song. Throughout the song the course repeats several times making a point to explain over and over again the need to come back home to find the person you were. In Miranda’s song she uses her home figure and her identity. She talks about going back one more time just to take back the memories. In the song she portrays her home as becoming her self image in the future. “I thought if I could touch this place of feeling This brokenness inside me might start healing Out here it's like I'm someone else I thought that maybe I could find myself” and “You leave home, you move on And you do the best you can I got lost in this whole world And forgot who I am,” these two parts of the song exemplifies how much her home has shaped who she is now and without she lost herself and the only way to get back is to remember the “home” that’s made her who she is.

            After listening to this song and looking deeply into it I got out of it is the importance of home as a child. All aspects of this song show the struggle of child homelessness. Child Homelessness in amongst one of the largest social issues today. Children without homes suffer largely in the long run. Some children can’t even picture all of the images in Miranda’s song like the bedroom and the front porch. Homeless children are lacking all of these memories that she says formed her future.  Many homeless children grow up with no education and have a more chance of acting out as they grow up. Having a childhood home is very important not only for shaping the minds and morals of children but also it encases memories and sentimental value for the future.  

 

song idea for essay three

I have always loved to listen to country music since I was a little girl. For the most part, every country song has some type of message in it. For my song I choose the House that built me by Miranda Lambert. Miranda has an amazing voice and always includes some social problem or input on something throughout her songs. This certain song talks about the impact her home as a child has on who she is now. I think this is a good song to write about because there’s many ways I can interrupt her message. I plan on connecting it to homeless children in today’s world and the impact that may have on their future and who they grow up to be. In the song Miranda talks about her old house and needing to walk through it one last time because she forgot who she really is. She uses the house as a metaphor for who she is or wants to be and since she feels like she lost herself she needs to go back to find the person she is. Using the home figure has a strong emotional effect because when most people think about home they think about family and their childhood. All the components of home mold the person you become in the future. I feel like taking apart this song and unfolding the social issue she refers to will make a great paper and show how strong the impact of her song actually is.

paper reflection

I wrote my paper on chapter two, The Swamp of Commitment. I’m not very good at writing papers, especially one that is more academically focused so while this paper was hard for me, I think I put in the time and met with Mrs. Thomas a few times to make sure my paper was still okay. My paper follows MLA format and is almost a full four pages. My summary includes the author, text, and title. I believe my thesis can be easily picked out and the topic of my paper is clear. Throughout my paper I did my best to focus in on analyzing rather than summarizing my chapter. I summarized in my introduction paragraph and from that point on I narrowed in on taking the part piece by piece and finding out if the authors achieved their goal of backing up there theory behind the sway. Many times in my paper I make reference to the text. I quote in the introduction paragraph and then point out phrases or words that relate to the topic of my certain paragraph later on in my paper. I indicate the parts I took from the text by quoting the page number after it. My conclusion sums up my paper and leaves the reader with my view on the way chapter two was written. I think all around my paper stays more on the analytical side and gets my thoughts across. After reading my paper you have a good idea of what chapter two is about and how effective it is for the reader.

final draft

Is being Committed always a positive

            Have you ever wondered what goes on in your head when you make those decision that later make you say, “Why did I act so stupidly?” The book Sway the Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman talks about several different sways that take part in your everyday life. In chapter two the authors focus on the sway of commitment combined with loss aversion. Throughout the chapter they list examples in which commitment acts on people and their decision making. “Loss aversion, on its own, is strong but when it converges with commitment the force becomes an even more powerful influence in shaping our thinking and decision making.”(39) Things like putting all your effort into a doomed relationship, and betting over 100 dollars for a twenty dollar bill are irrational decisions. Being committed to the situation makes you react in a different way based on the fear of altering what you are used to. In chapter two, The Swamp of Commitment, the authors explain the sway and their view with great impact through strong examples, powerful language, and linear structure.

            The purpose of this chapter is to show the reader and help you understand that commitment is not always a positive thing. In chapter two the author does a great job of showing you detailed and relevant examples of how commitment can affect you. In the book one of the first examples is about Steve Spurrier and the University of Florida’s football team. Rom and Ori go on to tell you that Steve made the gators successful by doing what the other coaches were too afraid to do, getting rid of the old “war of attrition” strategy and introducing a new “fun and gun” strategy. The gators beat many powerhouses all because there coaches were too committed to their way of playing the game rather than steering away from that and playing more aggressively. This example does a wonderful job backing up this sway. It is relevant and presents an interesting story that most people want to read about. This example is easy to understand and clearly shows a way commitment and loss aversion affects your average everyday person.

            They provide many examples in this chapter but the best one to back up their position on commitment is the last example with Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ had goals to form The Great Society and to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. These goals brought Johnson to the Vietnam War. Just a few years later Johnson was deep into the war and was realizing there was no way out. LBJ, being too committed to his intensions, would no back out. Instead of accepting defeat and trying to build his presidency back up he kept on fighting in what was clearly a lost cause. LBJs example is great for the reader. This example shows that commitment can happen to even the highest ranked people and there’s no way out once you’ve already committed so far. This example is also great because it is relatable to today’s society. Johnson’s situation can be applied in politics today. Obama is so committed to getting the deficit down and fixing our debt when in actuality he is making the debt almost three times worse. Instead of realizing what he’s doing isn’t working he is too committed and won’t stop and fix larger problems that he has now created. Just like commitment affected Lyndon B. Johnson at large, Obama is not only on the road to ruining his goals but most likely his presidency also because of his commitment to ill-fated hopes.

            The author uses strong language to heighten the reader’s belief in the sway of commitment. Using vivid words can aid the reader in following the text and getting a better feel for what is taking place in the story. Throughout the chapter words such as “victim,” (29) “locked in,” (31) “digging a deeper hole,” (35) and “window of opportunities” (28) evoke emotion in the reader. When the author refers to someone becoming a victim of commitment the reader connects that word to a strong emotion and involves them in the dreadfulness of the situation. On the other hand reading words like window of opportunities taps into the reader’s optimistic side and make the reader want to know more. The authors use this to their advantage because using words that are powerful bring out the emotion in the reader and cause them to be more connected to the text and more believing of the sway. While the loaded language creates the mood of the text, the format of the chapter adds to the all-around effectiveness.

            Chapter two gives many different examples that appeal to everyone. I believe the linear structure of this chapter makes the examples stronger. Throughout the chapter the authors connect all the examples to each other. Doing this makes all the stories linger in your mind and shows that commitment acts in the same way in most situations. For example, early in the chapter they talk about college students bidding on a twenty dollar bill. In this example Rom and Ori talk about the stages you go through until you’re too far into the bidding that you realize you’re committed. Later in the chapter the example about LBJ is connected to the bidding story. They use the example of the “12 to 16 dollar stage” where you abandon the possibility of retreat. Setting it up so the examples add onto each other makes the text more believable. The structure of the chapter influences the way you look at the examples and the way they impact your thought on the author’s views. The authors start off with the football game example and ended it with the LBJ war story to show sway not only acts in a game scenario but also in real life situations where people’s lives are on the line. Using the linear structure to build each example off of each other gives the reader concrete evidence of how sway acts upon you.

In my opinion the authors put this text together well and get their point across. Chapter two is very organized and every aspect of it flows together and gives well thought out evidence to support their theory on the sway of commitment. They take you through several examples, whether it’s a short example or a detailed one, they paint the picture in your head and take you step by step of what happens to cause you to act in irrational ways when making choices. The language they use throughout the chapter adds emotion and gets you more invested in the text. The impact of this text is greatly influenced by the linear structure of all the examples. All three of these components support the author’s ideas on the sway of commitment and proves to the reader it has an effect on many peoples thought process. The Swamp of Commitment is very effective in taking the reader through different types of situations where commitment takes part in making choices and shows the reader it can act on anyone at any given time. It is important to be aware of how loss aversion and commitment can act together and set you on the path of irrational decisions because knowing about the sways can narrow your chances of being strongly effected every time. Chapter two proves to the reader that commitment is not always looked at in a positive light and can be a downfall when it becomes a negative force.

first two pages draft

Kristen Ott

Professor Thomas

Composition: literary summary and analysis

5 October, 2012

Chapter two

            Have you ever wondered what goes on in your head when you make those decision that later make you say, “Why did I act so stupidly?” The book Sway by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman talks about the irresistible pull of irrational behavior. In chapter two, the swamp of commitment, the authors focus on the sway commitment and also commitment combined with the first sway, loss aversion. Throughout the chapter they list examples in which commitment acts on people and their decision making. Loss aversion, on its own, is strong but when it converges with commitment the force becomes an even more powerful influence in shaping our thinking and decision making.(Ori and Rom Brafman page 39) Things like putting all your effort into a doomed relationship, and betting over 100 dollars for a twenty dollar bill are irrational decisions. Being committed to the situation makes you react in a different way based on the fear of altering what you are used to. In chapter two, the swamp of commitment, the authors explain the sway and their view with great impact through strong examples, powerful language, and a connection of all the examples.

            The purpose of this chapter is to show the reader and help you understand how the sway commitment works and the impact it has on your thinking process. In chapter two the author does a great job of showing you different examples of how commitment can affect you. In the book one of the first examples is about Steve Spurrier and the University of Florida’s football team. Rom and Ori go on to tell you that Steve made the gators successful by doing what the other coaches were too afraid to do, getting rid of the old “war of attrition” strategy and introducing a new “fun and gun” strategy. The gators beat many powerhouses all because there coaches were too committed to their way of playing the game rather than steering away from that and playing more aggressively. This example does a wonderful job how backing up this sway. This example is easy to understand and clearly shows a way commitment affects your average everyday person.

            They provide many examples in this chapter but the best one to back up their position on commitment is the last example with Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ had goals to form The Great Society and to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. These goals brought Johnson to the Vietnam War. Just a few years later Johnson was deep into the war and was realizing there was no way out. LBJ, being too committed to his intensions, would no back out. Instead of accepting defeat and trying to build his presidency back up he kept on fighting in what was clearly a lost cause. LBJs example is great for the reader. This example shows that commitment can happen to even the highest ranked people and there’s no way out once you’ve already committed so far. This example is also great because it is relatable to today’s society. Johnson’s situation can be applied in politics today. Obama is so committed to getting the deficit down and fixing our debt when in actuality he is making the debt almost three times worse. Instead of realizing what he’s doing isn’t working he is too committed and won’t stop and fix larger problems that he has now created. Just like commitment affected Lyndon B. Johnson at large, Obama is not only on the road to ruining his goals but most likely his presidency also because of his commitment to ill-fated hopes.