In-Class reflection Cameron Bazan

In-Class Reflection: Draft 1

 

            Throughout reading my peer’s essays I found some very interesting views towards Sedaris’s “Standing By”. What I found between the two essays that I have read was that Sedaris’s purpose for writing this essay goes beyond the airport it has to deal with the many people different views on each other and how judgmental and aggressive they can be.

What sets me apart from my peer’s is there experience in flying. I personally have not flown very much in the past few years as my peers say they are frequent flyers and can relate to Sedaris experiences in airports. I was also intrigued by how the writers really focused in on Sedaris’s examples he gave. In the first paper she focused on one quote per paragraph and gave support to back it up the main purpose.

When is created my essay I started off by making or taking the summary that I made of Standing by. I then created a purpose statement that allowed me to map out the rest of my paper in an organized fashion.  I based my purpose statement off of what I thought was important in his essay. For example, his purpose in writing, and why where some of the example in the essay; how do they fit in.

"My Weekend" Cameron Bazan

Assignment 4 choices Cameron Bazan

 

Sedaris made the choice of creating his story in an airport because it is a very heavily populated place. It also draws in many different cultures and people from all around the world. Drawing in people from all around the worlds means there are a lot of different opinions on each other’s culture, maybe what how they dress or what they say or even how they speak.  Sedaris used the airport to his advantage because it could be claimed as one of the most judgmental areas around the globe.

His choice of creating the setting in an airport was for him to give many example of how judgmental people are no matter where they are from. His purpose was to tell his readers to not judge a book by its cover. Using an airport you could say there are many different people each having their own “cover” and look past that and mind your own business if you don’t know how they are then they are not your problem.

Sedaris would have chosen to write this because he sees a lot of judgments that are negative towards other people. He made this very clear to his reader by picking some of the worst example/experiences he himself had had in an airport. He chose to choose the worst because if people can just look past other people flaws then people could get along and remove the negative judgments in society. Also if he would have picked his good experiences in airports then that would have weakened his support of his opinion.

 Using negative example/experiences in his story had a huge effect on his reader. He wanted to show them the worst so they could see how bad it is and maybe how they did not want to experience It themselves. You could say he wanted to show them the silver lining on the dark cloud. Although he never really said that he is against judgment he shows support that pushes it towards that fact that it is the problem with society. That people care to much about what other people think and not their own lives.

This choice relates to the date and place where Sedaris choose to have the story take place. He made it take place after the tragedy of the twin towers terrorist attack. He wanted the reader to make the connection that the attack could be connected to airports and that people are uneasy in airports after such a tragedy struck America. He wanted to show that people are uneasy and can make them act weird so. So their always a back ground story of why someone is acting or dressing the way that they are.

assignment 4 cameron bazan

 

Sedaris’s “Sanding By” was an essay written to show the real scenario of everyday life and what goes on beyond our own thoughts. Sedaris used Word choice example from his own life to gather audience and support his opinion about how airports make people go crazy. First of all Sedaris wanted to attract a certain kind of audience when he wrote this, which could be people that are frequent flyers or people who spend a lot of time standing around mass crowds. That being said he definitely had a motivation for writing this which could be his experience being around airports made him a very judgmental person about other people that are around him. Another motivation could have been his problems with airports and how they change good people into monsters.

Sedaris is writing this after 9/11 which was a huge devastation for Americans and left many of them on edge. Sedaris creates his story to take place in an airport which is now very uncomfortable for Americans and any passenger at that. Maybe this could be an explanation why airports turn people into monsters. Sedaris wanted readers to remember not all people are what they seem from the outside there may be some situation that makes them uncomfortable with their surroundings and would not allow them to be there self’s. So maybe his message could be to not judge a book by its cover.

It’s funny how Sedaris used a magazine as his medium because magazines can be found in waiting areas as in the airport for people to take their mind of the Couse that is going on around them. He could have used this as a message to his readers to tell them not to judge others and keep your mind out of others business.