My Personal Choice

For my personal choice, I chose a discussion board assignment for the community unit. The prompt for this assignment was:

     “Post a two paragraph discussion in which you present what you see as Brook’s perspective on one of the assumptions. Be sure to provide text evidence (quotes, examples) to support your conclusion. In addition, since the paper assignment focuses on concrete and specific detail, share examples of what you see as effective illustration on Brook’s part to persuade or engage you.”

I chose this piece because I feel that it was a strong representation of voice and audience awareness as well as critical thing skills. I also chose this piece to give an insight as to what assignments I encountered during this course. There were many discussion board posts required and I feel that I conquered this one best.

A place where I showed strong audience awareness was when I wrote about consumerism and competition. I feel that these are all very strong points that are relative to all audiences.

     “The ideal that we all must keep up with the Jones' and one-up our neighbors creates a negative spin on community acceptance. Americans feel that they need to be "consumerist, wasteful, complacent, materialistic and self-absorbed," (188) in order to be accepted.”

I also stated that I feel this piece highlighted critical thinking skills as well. One place that showed strong critical thinking skills was when I analyzed David Brooks’ essay.

     “Everyone has a place in a community, which is why we all flock to them.”He has come to be surrounded by regular, friendly people," (187-8). Most everyone desires to be surrounded by those whom are happy and friendly. Communities allow us to be surrounded by those people and accept and appreciate others for wanting to be a part of them.”

I really enjoyed this assignment for many reasons. David Brooks is a very humorous writer. Brooks brought a new light to our wasteful and consumerist society with the right amount of humor and analysis. This assignment allowed me to look deeper into the purpose of communities and explore many of the assumptions that are thought when we say “community.” I hope you all enjoy my personal choice piece entitled “Communities Accept Us for Who We Are.”