Extra Credit (all except four)

1. For this extra credit assignment, I went on www.freerice.com and donated around 1200 grains of rice by doing vocabulary exercises. I was given words and had to choose their correct meaning through multiple definition. I did this extra credit activity before I took the General GRE test and it definitely helped me practice for the verbal section of the test. I also found out that it was easier to break words into relations/words that I already knew, in order to find their correct meaning. I also enjoyed doing this exercise and have done it once every so often since then. I think others should try this out because it is fun and on a serious note, it helps a lot of people around the world, who are dealing with starvation-related issues.

2. For this extra credit assignment, I went on www.smithmag.net/sixwords/ and posted my six-word memoir. The link is given below the post. I basically related this to my personal memoir (project one) and I learnt how difficult it was to shorten my personal story to six words. However, it gave me the opportunity to think about my story as a whole and what it was actually about. I finally realized the underlying meaning behind my story and I think others should do this for the same reason. It really makes you think about your story and analyze it, especially when you have only six words to describe everything.

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/story.php?did=42371

3. I know we got a chance to hear some stories on www.npr.org (StoryCorps) during class and I heard one story that really touched me. It was about a family that had to move around during the Great Depression and how they had to leave everything behind. They soon lost all their remaining possessions on the road (too heavy, bartering for gas, etc) and lived in very desperate conditions for a while. It brought the family close together and gave them all hope for a brighter future, which they did eventually have. I come from a family-orientated background and this reminded me of my family back home, who I miss a lot, and all the tough times we faced together. I think others should listen to these stories because they will also be able to relate these stories back to themselves, in one way or the other, and this would help them connect to other people around the world who have shared the same experience.

4. For this extra credit assignment, I went on the Web of Language and read a story about McDonalds trying to get the word McJob out of the dictionary, where it was defined as “low-paying, requiring little skill, and providing little opportunity for advancement”. Many dictionaries refused to take this action because they define words without any judgmental reasons or prejudice. I learnt the power of words and how they can cause a big corporation, such as McDonalds, to have a fear for their reputation. This exercise also made me think how words can affect the behavior of people towards certain objects, such as the word couch potato. I think others should read such stories because it displays the power that any language has and also because some stories are just hilarious.

http://illinois.edu/blog/view?blogId=25&topicId=824&count=1&ACTION=VIEW_TOPIC_DIALOGS&skinId=286

5. For this extra credit assignment, I went to YouTube and watched the following two videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3XxOfjntFA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP2fBWrH46M

The first video made by a professor? (I think) at the University of Arizona (2005) and takes a very funny view at the different rhetoric that we studied in class (ethos, pathos and logos). Although this video had hand-puppets (hilarious!) and how to use rhetoric to emotionally blackmail your parents (amazinggg!), it was still very informative because I was able to relate it back to our discussions in the classroom. On the other hand, the second video also dealt with rhetoric but in a different manner. The video showed clips of famous movies (such as Men in Black, The Breakfast Club, Monty Python, etc) and asked how the different characters where using rhetoric when trying to persuade other people to ‘get’ their point (i.e. communication!!). For example, Will Smith looks like he used logos (plain old logic) to figure out that he needed to shoot the little girl because everyone else was just going about their business (not much pathos involved as you can see). From this video I learnt to use the information I got from the first video and the class discussions, and apply them to common movies that I on television all the time. I think others should see these videos because they help us relate to daily life situations (video one with the parents) and movies/media (second video) that we enjoy everyday. This exercise relates classroom teachings to real life!!

6. For this extra credit, I went to www.actsofkindness.org and read a story on how someone was given a gift by a stranger at a supermarket store, when they were young, and re-did the same act of kindness for a little girl in the future. This story to me was very inspiring because it showed me how an act of kindness towards someone, can be passed on forward to affect someone else entirely. I decided to help someone with their shopping bags the next time I went to a supermarket because someone helped my mom once, back home in the UAE. I think others should read these stories because even though they are simple in nature, they can portray a lot of kindness and are easily relatable to. These stories can also inspire people, like I was, to carry out a random act of kindness.

http://www.actsofkindness.org/node/476317

For Extra Credits 9 (Halloween) and 10 (Voting), I have already posted up blog entries for these during the term and they should be easily available through the contents tab on the upper right hand corner of this page.

For Extra Credits 12 and 13, I used up all my get-out-of-jail free cards and did not have perfect attendance, so I am doing all the extra credit assignments, in order to get the extra credit. I will be posting up the remaining 4 extra credits up within a day (7, 8, 11 and 14)