Blog Post #1

Part One: 

Summarizing is an essential skill, and contributes to your understanding of the content being summarized. If you can sit down, and summarize a piece of text, this leads to being able to fully discuss the content being presented to you, and participating in full discussions abut the content. The benefits I see from being able to think critically as a writer is a deeper and more exclusive understanding of the text. If the think deeper than just the surface of the text, it will not only allow you to present deeper points during discussion, but will also allow you to fully comprehend the points that other students present This leads to a more engaging discussion, and a more effective learning environment in the class in general. Thinking critically as a writer would also help you in society, allowing you to read a text like a newspaper or a magazine, and fully comprehend the text, and also be able to have a fully intellectual conversation about the text. For example, reading the article by Seth Davis about if “College Athletes Should Be Paid,” gave me a better understanding of a very significant situation that is currently going on, and thinking critically about it allowed me to be able to discuss it with my peers. Using different texts like tweets and blogs has completely changed my understanding of writing. Before this class I only viewed things like essays and books to be texts, because that’s what I was led to understand. Now that I’ve learned that texts are more than academic, I have taken a different look at everything in society today. I scroll through my twitter feed, and think critically about what other people have to say. I also apply this skill when I go out in the world, For example looking at billboards and signs I now can pull out the deeper meaning that the author of these forms of advertising actually is trying to present.

Part 2: 

             For P1 I am going to choose the article by Seth Davis called “Should College Athletes Be Paid? Why They Already Are.” In this article Seth Davis is discussing a controversial issue with college athletes today, where they believe they should be paid with cash, instead of through tuition and housing and board, because they feel like they are getting taken advantage of. Seth argues that all of this is already enough, they are going to school for free to play this sport, and that’s how these major Universities pay their athletes that make them literally millions of dollars. He even goes far enough to sarcastically state that he hopes his kids get “exploited” by one of the prestigious schools of America for their athletic talent. Seth also discusses the issue of college athletes receiving scholarships. He states that this would lead to the reason that these student athletes go to certain Universities. For example, he states that the athletes would be in the middle of a bidding war of Nike and Under Armour for them to go to either Maryland (Under Armour), or Oregon (Nike). Then in conclusion, Davis ends the article with discussing the issue of these student athletes receiving free education is enslavement, and he states that “If that’s the great watershed idea of our time, then we are living in a very dry world indeed