TOW #29: Documentary Rhetorical Analysis-"Queen of Versailles"

David Siegel, his wife, Jackie, and their kids lived a life of luxury due to David’s fortune from owning the largest timeshare company in the world.  However, the downturn of the economy caused their opulent lifestyle to end and a life of uncertainty to begin.  The documentary, “Queen of Versailles,” shows the Siegel family struggle to learn how to live a life of poverty after their money is lost, all the while having their dream home, Versailles, become stripped away from them as well.  Through the voices of David and Jackie, the general audience gets a clear visual of how the American dream of climbing up the social ladder can both be achieved and taken away.  In order to to demonstrate what a lack of humbleness does to someone and to show the real-life struggles of people during the recent depression, “Queen of Versailles” uses symbolism and depressing stories.

Three symbols used in the documentary are a chair, music, and fireworks.  At the beginning of the documentary, before the Siegels lose their money, David is being interviewed sitting on an ornate throne.  The throne represents the money, power, and greed that David has and exudes.  Later, at the end of the documentary after the money was lost, David is seen getting interviewed in a common chair instead of a lavish throne, thus demonstrating how he has been humbled by his experience(s) and how he no longer can be equivalent to a king, especially the king of Versailles.  Another symbol used was the change in the type of music.  At the beginning of the documentary when all was good with the Siegels, the music was somewhat cheerful, demonstrating that there were no problems for the family.  However, after the Siegel family’s luck spiraled, the music began to change.  Instead of happier tunes, the music became very gloomy in order to show how depressing the situation was.  Yet, the music would also start to become more cheerful whenever there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel.  Therefore, the music represents the effects of being too greedy and what happens when one is not humble.  A third symbol is the fireworks at the end of the documentary.  Fireworks normally are used for happy occasions but I feel that that is not the case here.  I believe that the fireworks show the crash and burn of David Siegel’s business as well as the shortfalls of the American dream.  

In order to show the effects of the economic downturn, the documentary shows interviews of both the Siegels and humble people, thus appealing to pathos.  The interviews of the Siegels after they faced hardship are used to show a humbling experience.  Before, the Siegels had interviews where they seemed very arrogant and domineering.  However, as the family goes deeper and deeper into debt and  cries and complains about their issues, their problems, the audience gets moved to feel bad for them.  The audience feels even worse for the people who never had obtained wealth, such as Jackie’s friend, Tina, who lost her house and the Siegel’s nanny who struggles to make money for her family back home.  Seeing these interviews of the how bad people struggle in order to fulfill the American dream causes the Audience to be humbled and hopefully realize that life could be worse than it is.

“Queen of Versailles” showed how even when people believe they are on the top of the world, they can always be toppled.  Yet, it also showed how even though people can fall, they are never out of the running to rise again.  

The Versailles Mansion

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/david-siegel-unfinished-mansion-75-million-westgate-resorts-tiger-woods-37835.html

TOW #28: Reflection

Although I have complained throughout the school year that I hated doing TOWs every single Sunday, which I will now be forced to say about Tuesdays, I will admit that I did benefit from my weekly works at the end of the day.  At first, I thought that the TOWs were going to be a serious assignment that would be graded harshly, but then I learned that that was untrue.  As a result, the TOWs simply became a tedious exercise that I felt did not help me at all in the AP English.  They weren’t being graded, they weren’t being critiqued, and they were never looked at in class. Therefore, they seemed to be a waste of time.  However, I did want to improve my writing so there were times when I had a free schedule where I put more effort into my responses.  Looking back at those TOWs, I can see how the influence of the course shaped those particular works to be better than the rest.  However, it was really the grading that forced me to work harder and truly benefit from the assignment.  When I knew that I was getting points for my TOWs, I worked especially hard to complete them with a higher standard, even the ones that I was pretty sure weren’t going to be graded.  Just the threat of having my class grade dip caused me to apply what I had learned in class in order to make my writing better.  As a result, of my distaste for the TOW assignments, the desire to do better, and threat of grading, my TOWs changed throughout the year.

Looking back through my TOWs there were a few noticeable changes, all of which are positive.  However, nothing has been mastered and everything can still be improved upon because there is always room for improvement.  The first aspect of my writing that I noticed had changed was the organization.  Back in September, I had a simple structure for opening my TOWs, I would maybe give a sentence or two of background information and then talk about the credibility of the author or open the other way around.  I would then answer most of my assigned points in the next few sentences just to get them out of the way.  Then, the rhetorical devices used by the author(s) would get analyzed.  This same structure continued on for months and has even continued until this very month.  However, I now might add a few extra sentences and space the assigned points out so that the TOWs seem less rushed and more coherent.  Coherency is the next aspect of my writing that I noticed had changed over the duration of the year.  At the beginning of the year, it seemed as if I was just stringing random sentences together that had little to no connection(s).  There were minimal transitions which caused my TOWs to seem as if I was just listing pieces of a summary instead of analyzing evidence for rhetorical devices.  Now, I use more transitions and evidence to prove my points, causing my writing to be elevated to a higher level.  Besides more evidence and coherency, my writing would not be elevated if my introductions and conclusions didn’t improve somewhat.  Although neither my introductions or conclusions are perfect, they have definitely gotten better since the beginning of the year.  My introductions now sound more profound and my conclusions are usually at least two sentences in length instead of one.  However, if they are only one, it’s because my evidence has improved so much that I couldn’t write more without going over the word limit.  Anyway, the one aspect of my writing that I noticed has not really progressed is my thesis statement(s).  For the majority of my thesis statements, the structure generally stayed the same and never improved.  Out of everything that I still need to work on, my thesis statements are my number one priority.

In conclusion, I feel as though my TOWs may not necessarily reflect how much my writing has grown as a result of AP English, but they did help me reflect on my strengths and weaknesses.  The reflection that was caused by looking over my TOWs helped me constantly readjust inside of the classroom in order to better succeed.  Therefore, even though I don’t really like writing TOWs, I will admit that they were very beneficial to me.

TOW #27: "Land a Summer Internship as a High School Student" by Delece Smith-Barrow

Everyday high school students here something about college talked about in the hallways.  They know that their future is coming soon and that responsibility is looming over their heads.  They also know that regardless of how sick of school they might be, college is still the answer for them.  Therefore, they want to beat out the competition to get into good schools.  One way to do that according to Delece Smith-Barrow, an author for U.S. News, a credible source since its an acclaimed agency, is for high school students to get internships.  Barrow’s purpose is to show her audience of high school students and their parents that having an internship in high school is beneficial.  Although her purpose does get targeted by her use of quotes from expert Lauren Berger, I feel that her purpose is not accomplished since the essay does not seem very focused.  

Barrow initially starts her essay off by saying how beneficial high school internships are because they provide an advantage for kids to get into better colleges and get jobs.  However, she then uses Berger as an expert to talk more about the how of getting an internship rather than why internships for high schoolers are so great.  For example, a quote from Berger says,”They're more willing to look outside of the box”.  The they’re she’s referring to are smaller companies, locations that she deems are more likely to hire high school students instead of college students.  This is irrelevant to the purpose of saying why high school internships are important; the quote is more interested with showing how to get internships.  Anyway, it is not really until the end where Berger says that “You're doing this internship to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your career” that the importance of high school internships is mentioned again.  

Therefore, although Smith-Barrow’s purpose may have been hit on, it was not hit over the head.  As a result, her purpose was not completely accomplished.  To get her purpose better accomplished, Smith-Barrow should have used more statistics from other sources.

High Schoolers are Interested in Internships Too

https://mhsseniorinternship.wikispaces.com/