Conversations Beyond the Classroom (Eng 100O): Adidas Originals Commercial 2010

Welcome!

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?

As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).

Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!

--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Adidas Originals Commercial 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-pZq_VHHo

This is an add for shoes and clothes obviously. It has lots of colorful bright imagery, depicting beautiful young adults hanging out, having fun and being active while wearing the Adidas cloths. There are no words spoken. The whole time a tastefully catchy song is playing. The singer is singing, "Why can't there be love?" Everyone is happy. They are biking and skating and playing, partying in the streets and taking over the dace club. One person is famous one is just a random kid but they are all having such a lovely life wearing Adidas. the add ends with the words "Celebrate Originality" printed across the screen.
It only takes a moment to see past the clothes to the fact that the add is appealing to our want to be loved and fashionable and in good shape. It feeds in to the idea that if we wear the right thing maybe we will be the center of attention and everyone will love us. Of corse we want to be the center of attention right? the ad is saying "wear Adidas clothes and you will have friends, fun, fame, and fashion. It's hard to catch at first but it's also promoting revolution. They are saying, "Adidas cloths are revolutionary and being revolutionary is awesome." People are lighting fires and climbing up on buildings, taking over the city. Look. It's all so fun and wonderful. Why can't there be love? The hippies already had a love revolution but why to be retro Adidas.
Here is a strange myth portrayed in the add, and in most adds that have to do with cars or things you wear. Arguably Adidas main message here is the myth that if you wear Adidas cloths you will be original. You will be original just like everyone else right? Why does that always work on us? We think originality equals loveability or recognition or both. The question is is this desire to be original coming from media or natural human tendencies?

1 comment:

DestinyMasseySeptember 30, 2010 at 2:24 PM
The ad hopes the viewer will surrender to thinking that wearing adidas will make your life better. The gaps between the myth and actual reality are, that it will give the feeling of being a celebrity and make your life great. What the commericial is trying to say is if you want to enhance your life then buy adidas.

Destiny, Armando, Marco
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Practice Introductory Post, Please!

Please Post an Introduction (for practice) by Monday, Sept. 22nd so that we can all be prepared for the first blog post assignment coming up next Thursday.

Here's what to do:

Once you've accepted the invitation to become a contributor to this blog, you will notice a "new post" tab at the top of our blog. Click on that and enter your text. (I suggest you first type in a MW doc and then copy and paste to our blog to minimize the risk of losing your work.) Then, post!

For your first post, please:

Write a brief informal introduction of yourself. Say whatever you’d like about yourself to us—your audience & collaborative learners. Check out Mary’s introduction if you need some ideas about what to say about yourself.