Process Folder

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Final Portfolio

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Process Letter and Peer evaluation

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Graduation Album Review

Essay 3: Draft 1 Progress Report

(Please write your answers on the lines below the questions)

Your Name ______________Josue Charleron_____________ Number of words of draft ____1800____

TOPIC & THESIS: What is the object you are evaluating?

-Graduation Album

What are the standards of value you using to make your evaluation? List here. Are these stated directly or indirectly in the draft? Explain.

-My standards are criticism of and praises of the album. I hope to evaluate the album thoroughly.

What is your over arching judgment of the object?

- My judgment is that the subject is constructive and serves a purpose for its audience.

Is your thesis sufficiently complex to indicate the mixed feelings you may have toward the object?

- Yes

What is your thesis?

- Kanye West has gained a lot of support with his latest album such as BET Awards for it and a Grammy nomination. However some people may find flaws and other issues that may have gotten negative feedback.

Did you state it explicitly in the draft? (You are not required to). Why did or didn’t you put it in the draft?

-Yes because it is my main point

PURPOSE: Other than fulfilling the requirements of the assignment, what is your primary purpose in writing this essay? What do you want your readers to believe as a result of reading your essay?

-I want my reader to understand the positives and negatives about my subject. I also want to inform the reader of some of the things that makes this my subject successful.

AUDIENCE: You must choose a specific publication that you are writing for. What is it? Why this publication?

- School

List three ways that you have used language that would appeal to a general audience and not an audience of college students.

- I used collegiate vocabulary, specific individuals and was informative. Also I was sensitive to others that don’t really understand my topic.

DEVELOPMENT: What kinds of evidence are you using to support your judgment? Examples? Comparisons with other subjects of the same type? Expert opinions? Other?

- I am using opinions from other writers and basic information about music.

What source(s) will you list on your Works Cited page?

-Internet source

-Music source

ORGANIZATION: ? Does your opening paragraph introduce, describe, and summarize the subject you are evaluating? Is there sufficient information for your reader who doesn’t know your subject?

-Yes my opening paragraph introduces describes and summarize the subject well

- Yes there is sufficient information

On a separate sheet of paper, outline your draft. Does your outline present an argument in support of your thesis claim that follows the reasons proof pattern? Explain.

Yes every paragraphs relates back to the thesis.

Examine your draft for transitions for each new developing paragraph. What do you need to do to make your transitions stronger?

Make last sentence of the previous paragraph more in relationship with the next paragraph.

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT: What are you most pleased with in this draft? Be specific.

I am most pleased with all of the information that I provided

List any problems you are having with this draft and write down any questions you have about the assignment or your work.

Kanye West’s latest Album that was released in October 2007 was one of his most successful musical works that he has made. It was extremely successful and it went platinum in sales and won a Grammy for best Musical Album in 2007. One of the main reasons why the album went platinum and won a Grammy was because of all the hype it received. The album “Graduation” was in an unofficial competition with Curtis Jackson’s, also known as Fifty Cent, album “Curtis”. Both of these albums were released on the same date and there was competition between them which obviously was who would sell the most copies. For almost a month before the release of the Albums, both artists fired comments back and forth about each other. According to “ The Source “ magazine, Jackson stated, “ I will retire if Kanye West sold more albums then me. My last album sold more copies than his last two albums so it is unheard of to think that he can beat me”. The conclusion of that was that Kanye West’s Album “Graduation” sold more copies that Jackson’s “Curtis”. The Album name has stayed consistent with Kanye’s two previous Album names’ themes. The album names in chronological order from when Kanye started are College Drop Out, Late Registration and Graduation. All three album names have had something to do with college and similar issues. I feel that this gives Kanye and his work a signature or a style to how he portrays it. He also additions this kind of mindset to his music and this also allows the reader to relate to his music. Kanye West has gained a lot of support with his latest album such as BET Awards for it and a Grammy nomination. Kanye West displays his many talents in this album with many unique abilities, however with every ying there is a yang.

The Album “Graduation” has had great success because it has many songs that appeal to various audiences. Kanye West has a special talent when making his music to appeal to people who follow various genres and types of music. Many of his songs such as “Bittersweet” and “I Wonder” contain beats and words of soul music. In bittersweet the chorus has a soulful beat and soulful words. They chorus plays “ Bittersweet your going to be the death of me, I don’t love you, but I need you, I love you and hate you at the very same time. “ I wonder” also has the same type of qualities Bittersweet has. When a person listens to these two songs they feel the emotion and the theme of the song. Kanye West is considered one of the best rappers in “Hip Hop” right now and he has various songs on his Album “Graduation” that supports this feat. The songs like “Good Life”, “Stronger”, “Cant Tell Me Nothing” and “Flashing Lights” are all popular hit singles that he released in two thousand seven and two thousand eight. Each of them topped the charts in the radio stations and on television shows on BET and MTV. Similar to Kanye’s previous albums, he included songs about special events in his life. This is unique because there aren’t many rap artists or albums that can do that consistently. One song in particular called “Stronger” in the album speaks about a controversy with MTV. What makes him so good with this is that he can tell a story with his lyrics without even mentioning specific names or events. The some of the lines tells the story about the conflict with MTV: “That that don’t kill me can only make me stronger”. “You should bow in the presence of greatness; because that right now has forsaken us; You should be honored by my lateness” Kanye raps about how MTV deceived him and invited him to the MTV awards and didn’t give him an award. This was a sign of disrespect and degradation to an artist of his caliber.. He feels what MTV did to him was a downfall and that it makes him “better, faster and stronger”. This was similar to a song in his first album, “College Drop Out”, called “Through the Wire”. He makes this song about himself after getting into an accident and breaking his jaw. His jaw was wired shut and he still made a hit song, rapping on the track with wires in his mouth. In the beginning of the song he sings, “ I drink a juice for breakfast and an ensure for desert, no pancakes for breakfast ill just sip the cizer ( Syrup)”, while mumbling a bit to show how he cant open his mouth that much. Also in the chorus beginning he says “Im sorry if this is unclear to yall they got my mouth wired shut for I don’t know how many weeks”. This expresses a lot of similarities in his style of music and these qualities are the reasons why people enjoy his music. According to Ryan Cannest of Rap USA magazine he says “ Kanye made this song so the world can feel his pain”. Another song that expresses that same theme is “Big Brother”. Kanye West talks about his the experience he had when he was beginning his career. He praised Jay Z because he discovered Kanye as a producer and soon he became a hip hop artist. He raps in his song saying “At least all these beats I did at least let him hear it… He got me out my momma crib now he helping me get my momma a crib”. This shows how Jay Z propelled Kanye’s Career and life The Album “Graduation” has many legitimate qualities to why it was one the best selling albums in two thousand seven.

There are many things that show the versatility for the Album “ Graduation” and one in particular is the people who featured in the album. Pop sings such as John Mayer, Dwele, and others have sung in the backgrounds and the beats of a song. They were a backbone to Rap Artists such as Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne and T Pain have also featured in some of his songs. This is another way how the album has appealed to many people and showed its versatility and ability to relate to all kinds of audiences.

Many other artists have worked with Kanye West on their albums resulting in similar styles of music to “Graduation”. Kanye West is a producer as well as an Hip Hop artist. He started off by producing and he was noticed when he produced Jay Z’s Album, “The Blueprint” in the late nineties. Recently Kanye West has worked with Common, also a successful Hip Hop artist, on his latest Album “Finding Forever”. This album was successful and produced a couple hit singles like “ The People” and “ I want You”. This resulted in a couple BET awards last year. These two songs have similar backgrounds, themes and beats to the Kanye’s latest album. Kanye West also aided Alicia Keys who also released he latest Album that was a success. The Album she released, “ As I am” was extremely successful and wonderfully made.

There a lot of positives in Kanye’s Album graduation but there are some areas that critics or others may criticize the Album. One of the main things would have to do with the topic of sampling. Sampling is a technique that is used by many producers and artists in order to gain a catchy beet in order to appeal to their audience. This has been done since the beginning of Hip Hop and in music in general. Sampling is when an individual takes a song or a piece of a song and use it in their music. Recent copyright laws stated that if someone samples music from some other song they must pay loyalties to the original maker or unless they are in trouble. More than half of Kanye West songs contain samples from other music. This may be an issue for some people because they may say his success wasn’t genuine in this album. One song in particular was a hit single that won BET’s best video of the year award. “Stronger” was a hit single and named the best video in two thousand seven. This song was sampled from the song “ Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk. The songs have the similar beets and chorus except Kanye added more beats and melodies to make it. Another song that he does this is the song is “I wonder” which is sampled from the song “ My Song” by Labi Striffe. Another song is “Good Life” which was sampled from the popular pop singer, Micheal Jackson’s song “ Pretty Young Thing”. Kanye also has a long record of sampling songs for other artists like “The Game”. The hit song “Wouldn’t get far” was sampled from Created Source’s song “I’d find you anywhere”. Many other songs were sampled by Kanye and I found a lot of them by Kevin Nottingham a hip hop critic.

Also according to John Pareles of the New York Times, “Kanye’s past albums were about community pride, thoughts of family, questions of purpose and accountability. But now that he’s “major” (as he exulted on his 2005 album “Late Registration”), with a worldwide audience awaiting his album, Mr. West’s horizons are shrinking. This time it’s all about him.” This is true because in Kanye’s first album he had a songs like “Family Business” and “Jesus Walks”. These songs spoke about unique issues that other rappers don’t. This is one of the reasons why he had so many fans because he is extremely unique. According to Hale Andreas, “His soulful and eclectic production, knack of artistic expression and overblown yet misunderstood ego have created the monster known as Mr. West”. Now that he has fame there are many people say he may shy away from what made him famous.

In conclusion I believe that Kanye West’s latest album was the best out of all of his other creations. He is very sensitive and creative about his songs and his style is revered by many. The way he makes his music and his lyrics is one of the reasons why many people enjoy his entertainment. He is one of the best right now and is liable to be considered the best ever in my opinion. I believe that the culture of hip hop is dying and he is one of the few that is keeping it alive. Go and listen or purchase the album and you will see what I am talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdGvPsQXQrw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQScd1ziHlw

Yankee week

During the week the Yankees have faired pretty well with their offense finally kicking back into gear. Overall their pitching has done very well. On Sunday Wang faced C.C Sabathia last year’s C.Y Young winner. This could have arguably gone to Chein Ming Wang. It was a pitchers duel between the both of them and Wang won the battle. He pitched very well allowing only four hits through seven innings. He also struck out nine in the seven innings and walked only one. This is significant because Wang is noted to be a ground ball pitcher because he has that great Turbo sinker. He used a variety of pitchers on Sunday to keep the hitters off balance and honest at the plate. He used his sinker, slider, splitter, and change up to keep the hitters guessing. Some of the reporters say that he must have had the vision of last years ALCS where the hitters were just sitting on his sinker and only tried to hit that. He knew he had to mix it up.

The other Yankee pitchers pitched pretty well especially the young pitchers called generation tray. Phil Hughes pitched decent for two innings but then the game got rained out so he didn’t finish his start. Ian Kennedy allowed only three runs in six innings in his last start. The only blemish was Andy Pettitie who didn’t really pitch very well in his last start allowing six runs in five innings of work. The bullpen was very good. Mariano Rivera was a big surprise because he already has seven saves. He also has not allowed any earned runs in about ten innings of work this year. Last year he didn’t get his first save until May 31 and he struggled mightily during the year.

The Yankee offense has also come to life during this week, hitting very well with runners in scoring position. They have done the job in that department where they struggled during the year. Also Jason Giambi who has been struggling has been hitting very well during this week. He has five homeruns on the season and three during the week. He has upped his percentage to one seventy where it was just one eleven this year in the beginning. Jonny Damon and all the others has picked up the slack hitting well and getting on base.

The Yankees also have had a series of injuries that may affect them. Alex Rodriguez came back from a quad injury and has struggled a bit being the Designated hitter and stuff. Jorge Posada can be out for a while because of a shoulder injury. He will see the doctor today and he may have to go on the disabled list. Finally Brian Brunney a good bullpen guy has pitched his last pitch this season with a foot injury.

The Yankees are now one game over five hundred for the season. It may be early in the season but in my eyes this is very significant. It is significant because during the year the Yankees have gone on many road trips without getting any days off. This can affect a team physiologically. They get in late and play in foreign cities. The Yankees are very fortunate with what they accomplished and all their feats being only two games out of first place.

peer review draft

123. Charleron

New York Recession

This article which is titles, History Hints a Recession Would Hit City Hard” basically speaks about the economic crisis that the nation is in. This article specifically spoke about the city and its history with recessions. The federal officials are still debating if the country would go into a full blown American recession and there are many signs that impose it will. Although the city’s economy has not really experienced a huge down fall there are many warning signs of a recession. First, big investment banks continue to report losses on securities tied to mortgages in the city; this would lead to many job losses in Wall street. After this there will be a massive loss in jobs that will cripple the city and its economy. The conclusion of this will be an avalanche of negative economical issues for New York City. This is a big deal to many federal officials.

Another reason the city is in a scare is because the city has gone through many recessions and they have not faired well from them. The long history displays to the federal officials that if they fall into a recession now there isn’t really a lot of positives for the city. There are many that were extremely critical and I will display the ones I feel were the most disastrous. In 1973 the countries inflation rate rose and this caused turmoil in the city with the rise of standard of living. The unemployment rate and crime rate rose in the city during that time and that is a problem in the city. This will cause unrest for the people and it will be very hard to overcome. Another recession that I feel was critical was the recession after the September 11^th terrorist attacks. In two thousand three the city went into a brief recession after the terror attacks that crippled the city. The city was in a recession for about 15 weeks after the attack and this was hard times for the city.

In my opinion the city will go into a deep recession because of many reasons. First the cost of gas is rising close to four dollars per gallon. This can cripple a city because the cost of living in New York is already high. This would only make a city worse. The next reason is because the American dollar is extremely inflated and it is less than Canada’s dollar. These are all calling signs of a economic collapse in my opinion. Also the presidential race will play a part in the economy and the American people should chose someone with experience so they can pull the nation out of the recession.

Discovery Draft Unit 3

Worked hard on paper but not completely comlete

CHarleron.123

Yankee week

During this week the Yankees have been struggling a lot. They have lost more games that they won and yesterday they snapped a three game losing streak. This is bad for a Yankee team that expects great things for this year and tries to pursue a twenty eight word championship. They are extremely talented with all-star caliber player up and down their lineup. They shouldn’t be struggling offensively and defensively. The have shown their struggles especially this week. They have three players who are hitting below two hundred which is terrible at the major league level. Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano and Jonny Damon has struggled as of late showing how terrible they have been. These players are critical on offense and are doing bad. Also the Yankees are batting fewer than one fifty with runners in scoring position which means they aren’t producing runs. The Yankees only had one good game offensively and it was against the Red sox but they still lost didn’t do well overall this week. The Yankee pitching this week was terrible. Every starter except Andy Pettite didn’t go past the fourth inning and the era is up over eight. They struggled mightily and most of them seem of. Mike Mussina is getting killed by Manny Ramirez as he has homebred on him 3 times with eight runs batted in against Mussina. The bullpen has been aliright in a positive note.

A story that has been around the Yankee organization is the story about Hank Steinburner’s comments about Joba Chamberlain being a starter. He feels that it would be better for him and the organization if he started. Honestly that is true but there will be a big gap in the bullpen. The Yankees would lose a set up man and have to settle for ineffective people in their bullpen. Chamberlain does a great job as a set up man and the Yankees will have trouble with that. Recently Hank has backed off his comments and knows what is going on.

INvetion activity

After a long and critical invention activity and a long thinking process I feel that I should write a view about the Phantom of the opera. The invention activity was extremely helpful in showing me how to develop this next paper. This has shown me that there are many things that I can do with this assignment. I tried to pick the most interesting and unique topic as possible. I had a feeling that most people wouldn’t chose a topic like that because they might not have a great passion for an opera. I don’t either but this opera that I went to was really intriguing. The invention also showed me how I can develop this by seeing it again and researching information by going on the internet or reading stuff. This was helpful and is really good I am happy I did the invention activity.

My thought process going into this paper was that I was going to write about an event that has happened or a movie I saw and review it. I thought that would be the easiest but I felt that I wouldn’t evaluate the topic well enough. I wanted to do it on the recent movie vantage point because almost everyone saw that movie. It would be good because I would express my views so others can understand what I feel about it and what my thought process is. In addition I was also going to do a review about the spring concert coming up on Saturday. I didn’t do it because it is taking to long and there are many people who are going there and that will get great feedback. I was going to make it really interesting because they were popular artists going to the concert. The reason why I didn’t do that is because the concert is on Saturday while the discovery draft for this paper is due on Thursday. Obviously I wouldn’t have time to finish. So I took the initiative to think about my paper and I feel that the Phantom of the Opera is the best way to go because they there are many people who saw it because it is a popular opera. Most of the people I asked say that they saw it. Also it is a St. John’s University requirement to take the discover New York course. In this course it is also a requirement to go to an play in New York and they did

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