What’s your response to Mr. Harvey?

Mr. Harvey is a dedicated and strict English teacher. He always gives author and her class mate hard time by asking them to speak in English which most of them were unable to do. He wants his student to speak Standard English instead of Pidgin English which the students were accustomed to. Most of his students’ English was not standard because English used to be their second language and as English being second language to me too, I can tell that it was difficult to learn.

Mr. Harvey’s regular speech in which he says “No one will want to give you a job. You sound uneducated. You will be looked upon…….you will only be hurting yourselves,” (10) was very motivating. For me this is the paragraph where I decide the character of Mr. Harvey. Students are as it is difficult to handle and more difficult when they are not willing to learn something. Meanwhile, most of the students become uninterested towards things that are tough to learn. Therefore, Mr. Harvey uses a tough love for his students by being strict and ridiculing the students. However his intention was good, he just want his student to become little more dedicated to education so that they can have a bright future.

Sometime he gets really mean like the time he tells “Cut the crap. Stop playing these goddamn plantation games.”(13) Here I think he is being little stereotypic by judging the students by their parents occupations in the past. However the bottom line is Mr. Harvery is a good person who does care about his student’s future. Deep down inside author agree with the speech Mr. Harvey use to give every time about how education is important in our lives. At last we can say that it must have been the words of Mr. Harvey that made author to focus on her English so finally she was able to become writer.

Chapter 48: Evaluating Arguments

To evaluate arguments we have to first distinguish between reasonable and fallacious argumentative tactics by avoiding generalization and false analogies. Generalization means judging the whole matter form a small sample or being stereotypes. Analogy means pointing the similarities of two different matters which are different. Even though it is a difficult task, we have to trace the cause and effect of the argument. Whenever there are many solutions to the problem we have to point it out. While making assumption we have to be sure and reasonable. Deductive reasoning is the last step of the argument where conclusion is presented according to the argument. This conclusion is structured in three parts called syllogism which are major premise for generalized cases, minor premise for specific case and conclusion for stepping form generalized to specific cases.

Most of the time emotional appeals are misused, so we need to distinguish between legitimate and unfair emotional appeals. People use inappropriate emotional appeals just to gain the sympathy of an audience and it is not a proper use of emotion.

It is our common habit that we ignore or do not agree with the opponent’s arguments. Sometime opposing views are informative and reasonable; we should not ignore those type of information in fact we have to use it in our argument.  It is not just about winning; we have to be fair too. In our writing we have to describe other’s views and quote it.

After reading this chapter I have realized that opponent’s view should also be regarded. Before I use to feel that opponent’s views are suppose to be debated not accepted but now I figure out that they can be used in our argument and we have to quote it. I will also distinguish between reasonable and fallacious tactics and try to use reasonable tactic.

Chapter 47: Constructing Reasonable Arguments

This chapter shows us the ways to build reasonable arguments. Argument is the debatable issue which might be agreed or disagreed by the reasonable people. While constructing reasonable argument we should not just try to win the argument, our goal should be presenting the fact about the subject or at least the best solution to for the problem without being aggressive. Argument should neither be aggressive nor should it be passive.

We should always conduct some research regarding our argument before debating because most of the readers will be aware of the social and intellectual context of the subject. We should always regard our audience as the panel of jurors who on disagreement could produce variety of opinions of their own. We should never assume that our audience knows and agree with our agreements. We should always state our position at introduction and establish credibility and to establish credibility we should present thesis sentence. Thesis sentence shows our position in debate and tells the audience why they should consider our argument. Main purpose of the argument is to persuade the audience towards our opinion. So, in order to persuade, we should add persuasive lines to support thesis statement. Evidence to the argument is the most important part to persuade the audience. Facts, Statics, examples and illustration, expert opinion are some of the evidence we can use. Beside the one who agree with us there are also people who disagrees with our arguments. For them we should anticipate objection and counter oppose argument. We have to do our best to explain the argument to our opposition. Counter opposing is not the only option to convince our argument. While counter opposing we have to show the common ground to opposition. We have to show that their concerns are ours too.

This chapter was really interesting. I lack the skill of argument. Before starting argument I will first find the evidence and fact about the subject. Then I will develop thesis statement using persuasive lines. I will collect all the data that will be helpful to support as well as counter argue the subject. If possible I will also use facts, statistic, and example to get the attention. Finally I will try to find common ground with the opposition and try to convince my argument.

a. Choose one of the examples Carter provides. Do you agree with Carter's reasoning?

Example presented by Stephen L. Carter about telling everything we know in the essay “The Insufficiency of Honesty”, seems really interesting to me. Carter’s definition of integrity consists of: discerning what is right and what is wrong; acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost; and saying open­ly that you are acting on your understanding of right and wrong. (1) Among all, acting on detected right thing and forgoing the consequences seems like the true test of integrity. 

In her example, she tells that a man unfaithful to his wife all his life; confessing her at her deathbed is not considered to be an honest person. He had already lost his integrity when he decides to hide the matter. Here he is worried about the consequences but at the end of his wife’s life he had nothing to be worried as she was about to die. Judging from the cover he is telling truth but the blind spot of truth has always been there, his entire life. I do agree with Carter that he was just trying to ease his burden by telling truth at the moment when there was no risk. If he would have wanted to keep his integrity to himself, he would have told the truth thirty-five years ago, not worrying about the consequences because there are consequences for everything.   

Do you relate to one of the characters? How? Why?

After every holiday, whenever I had to return to hostel, I had some kind of agitation; it may perhaps be the grief of leaving home or can it possibly be the sorrow of being apart from my mother. I feel the same kind of gloomy situation author Chang-rae Lee use to experience when he had to leave his mother in the essay “Coming Home Again”. I also feel the same kind of bliss Lee use to feel while returning home again. I remember home as a place where ever my mother is. Intimacy with my mother always makes me feel frail and miss her a lot. Like Lee the relationship with my mother is very cherish and I do believe that she is the one who makes the house, a home.  

In traditional fashion, she was the house accountant, the maid, the launderer, the disciplinarian, the drive, the secretary, and of course the cook. (125) Author’s description about his mother exactly matches with how I want to describe my mother. I can tell that author was very close to his mother from the way he describes her, her food, her habit and how he use to hang around her. When he is describing the moments with her mother he seemed to use very gentle word and the word itself is blooming with the pleasantness. I like to relate myself to the author because I have same kind of affection toward my mother. Whenever I try to describe my mother I would prefer the way Lee uses,………………….She is the one who taught me to walk, she is the one who taught to talk and disciplined me and when I was young enough she did taught me to cook.

Most of my life, I spend it in a boarding school. I only used to see my parents in every two months. Now in my adulthood I wished that I would have spent more time with my parents. My childhood passed without even getting close to my parents and without their guidance. Only when I was in ninth grade my mother began to realize that she is missing the important part of her life, that is being with me and taking care of me. So, she decided to take me out of boarding school. I loved to spend time with my mother in the kitchen. I used to sit on the kitchen table and do my assignments while, she used to cook food for us. Whenever she takes a break from cooking she used to put her hand on my head and used to ask how far I had completed my assignment and sometime use to correct it if there was any mistake. Her warm damp hand over my head always used makes me feel like I am home safe and sound. The smell of garlic and spices from her hand was always pleasant.

Though there were only three members in my family, my mom used to make us feel like big family by cooking all those varieties of dishes. She always used to cook the food I like even though I did not have any particular preference for food. I use to enjoy whatever food she cooks. My dad was the only one who used to complain her food. At that time I did not know any good way to show dad how important each and every dishes she cook was. 

In Asian culture children are mostly close to their mother. So, they develop some kind of fondness towards them. I was fond of my mother too. I use to follow her wherever she goes and help her in shopping and cooking. I tried to copy her dish but could not bring the same taste and color as her foods. Even while I am here, I call her and ask for recipes, I am not able to bring the same taste. I always miss while cooking. Even though I follow the exact recipe the food never had same taste. At that time I thought that I did not follow the recipe exactly, but at the end I figure out that it was not the food that was delicious, it was her love towards her family and passion of cooking for family made the food delicious.