Shootings

In Professor Sweeney’s English class we talked about an article we read in the New Yorker entitled “Shootings” by Adam Gopnik. This article was about the “Gun Law” in America and one of the examples they used was the Virginia Tech shooting. After the deadly shooting at Virginia Tech police officers were cleaning up the dead bodies from around the campus. All they could hear was the ringing cell phones of the students who were killed. We can only imagine the feelings running through the police officers because they knew who was on the other side of the phones. They knew it was families trying to make sure their children were ok. However after no answer the families knew that the child was one of those unfortunate students who were killed. Then the big question came up. Why was an obviously disturbed student with a history of a mental illness allowed to purchase a gun whose intention was to kill? Yes, this probably could’ve been prevented if America had stricter gun laws. However I don’t know what side I agree with because guns don’t kill people but people kill people. So even if all the guns were gone would that stop us from killing? Probably not, I was told that hurt people hurt people. So there is no doubt in my mind that it was something hurting in that person that killed all those Virginia Tech students. This article brought up my question. Could the horrific shooting that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School been prevented by the same way the Virginia Tech shooting could have been prevented ? 

Topic Selection

                  In Professor Sweeney class we picked topics for our second paper "Crime and Punishment" We filled up the board with a lot of subtopics. I find this very helpful. I usually have a hard time picking topics of such a broad topic. Doing this in class exposes me to ideas I would've never thought about. It also gives me the opportunity to hear everyone's opinion. It makes  my paper easier to write because of the debates we have in class, gives me the 2 sides to write about in my argumentative research paper. So I think that this is a very helpful tool, and we should continue to use it.

Topic Discussion

On February 6, 2013 in Professor Sweeney class we had a discussion on the topic we picked for our first paper which was about “Pop Culture”. I felt it was a waste of time. I really wasn't feeling to well due to a major tooth ache so I really didn't participate verbally, but I wrote some of my ideas in my notebook. I don’t think the idea of discussing topics was a waste of time but, the topics we gave. Yes we named stuff like popular television shows and other current items. However what about those topics can we write about? Professor Sweeney was trying to get us to realize like topics aren't just one word. I also think we weren't listening because after Professor Sweeney said “What about these topics?” we kept naming television shows and celebrities. So basically we named a bunch of words. But some topics I was thinking about in my head was “Head and brain damage on football players.”, “Does fast food commercials help influence obesity?”, and “Does Violent video games have some mental effect on people that produce massacres?” These are some of the topics I thought about writing about. So times we have a class were we do discussion on topics I think we should do it right. 

Library Tour

On February 1, 2013 Professor Sweeney's class met in the library for a tour of the library. At first I thought that it would be boring because a library is just a room to store books. However the tour turned out to be very informative. I use to have trouble figuring out what’s real and what is not on the internet. From the tour I was taught the “C.R.A.P.P” (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose) method. Using this helpful method will help me determine what is ok to believe from the internet. I had never been upstairs in RBC’s Library. It was not like downstairs. It is so quiet up there I can hear a pen drop. Upstairs in the library has many cool features such as moving selves (That I was picked to push the button for, which is a very cool thing), and Student study rooms for if we need space to do a group activity outside of class we can get the key from the desk and reserve the room for 2 hours. Another thing I found convenient was the ability to download e-books from my own laptop which saves a lot of time and eliminates the due date problem because after the e-book is due it will just simply delete itself from your computer. You also could use a button from Google to preview the first few pages and tables of content from the book. I think that is helpful because, you can see if that is actually a book you would consider using. For citations it’s a helpful handout on the RBC library page that will give you the basics on how to cite papers in MLA format. Inter-library Loan is also a helpful thing. There is a link called “WorldCat” and that will show you books you might want that RBC doesn't have. However RBC can get books from any other college in Virginia for me to use. I found this library tour to be very interesting and I think everybody should take advantage of it. It is very helpful!