Jordan Haider English 2010
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- Problem Analysis How the teams are ranked
- How teams are chosen for the bowl games
- Negative effects of the system
- My Solution
- Looking Back
Haider Jordan Haider English 2010 December 16, 2010
For this class I studied and wrote mainly about bullying and its effects but I also wrote a proposal for a new college football playoff system. I was able to explore different writing genres and how to best write each one. While writing these documents I found that I struggled with the same problems over and over again. There were two big problems, the first problem that I encountered is that I don’t use proper headings to make the papers easy to navigate and read through. The second problem that I seemed to struggle with was my MLA format. When writing a paper of any genre it is very important to use heading and subheadings. When you use headings it helps the reader stay focused on what’s being discussed. It also helps the reader quickly navigate through your paper, like if they need to go back and re-read something. Headings will help so that if you are looking for a certain point you won’t have to read through the whole paper again, you can just read the headings. Headings will also help you when writing the paper to keep everything in chronological order. With headings and subheadings you will be able to effectively organize your thoughts and keep everything in order. When you successfully use headings and sub headings it helps you write and it helps the reader read. Both things are very important when writing any kind of paper. My second struggle was with the correct kind of citing. MLA format looks the most professional in my opinion as well as the most effective. MLA format helps you inform the reader of your sources so they know that you aren’t just making up facts and quotes. Not only does it show who gave the fact, it shows the reader exactly where to locate the information if they want to look for themselves. This is a very effective way of giving credit where it is due and avoiding plagiarism. Using the internet it is too easy to copy and paste information and claim that it is your own. Using MLA format is a sure way to unsure that you give all credit that is due. In writing these documents I have learned just how important writing formats and genres are. I was always just concerned about meeting the requirements and being done writing, but now I think of the reader and what it would be like trying to read my papers and this really helps me write. Writing to the correct audience is very important, and it was something that I had never thought about before. I feel confident that I can effectively write multiple styles of papers to multiple audiences. Jordan Haider English 2010 Proposal December 16, 2010 Why the BCS Needs to Go College football is enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people across the United States. The sport is played September through December with a post season in January. The teams play one game a week and have a couple weeks without a game. The way that the teams are ranked is by a system called the BCS (the Bowl Championship Series). The BCS runs team’s stats and other information through a computer to determine their national ranking. Theoretically this is a good system; however, almost every year two teams go undefeated and don’t ever get the chance to play each other. This causes a huge controversy because one team gets crowned national champions while the other team is awarded second place. This happened to the University of Utah in 2008.
The teams are ranked in a very complex way. The BCS developed a system using stats, and two polls. The first poll is the USA Today Coaches Poll. This compiles votes from every head coach in the division as to which teams they think are the top 25. The second poll that the BCS uses is the Harris Interactive poll. This poll uses former coaches, reporters, and former athletes picked at random to vote on who the top 25 teams are (Katers). These two polls are combined with the team stats that are run through six different computers. The computers use mathematical formulas to determine who the best 25 teams are. How teams are chosen for the bowl games Some official rules from the BCS that I would like to focus on are; 1. The top two teams in the final BCS Standings shall play in the National Championship Game. 2. The champions of the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, and Southeastern conferences will have automatic berths in one of the participating bowls through the 2013 regular season. 3. The champion of Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, or the Western Athletic Conference will earn an automatic berth in a BCS bowl game if either: A. Such team is ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS Standings, or, B. Such team is ranked in the top 16 of the final BCS Standings and its ranking in the final BCS Standings is higher than that of a champion of a conference that has an annual automatic berth in one of the BCS bowls. (Hancock) Now, schools that are near us, such as Utah State, University of Utah, and BYU belong to the Mountain West Conference and the Western Athletic Conference meaning that it is more difficult to get into the bowl games than a school in another conference. This point can be explained by looking at rule number 3 above. This is caused by the BCS system that is in place. Negative effects of the system In 2008 the University of Utah went undefeated through the regular season. They were granted access into the Fiesta Bowl to play against Alabama, while Florida and Oklahoma played for the national title. Utah ended up beating Alabama by a convincing margin, remaining undefeated. Florida defeated Oklahoma making Florida remain unbeaten as well. You would think that the two remaining unbeaten teams would play each other to decide the better of the two. But the BCS system is not set up for this to happen, causing huge controversy with millions of football fans. Utah was especially upset because they didn’t get a shot to prove themselves against Florida and become national champions. This is not some freak thing that’s only happened once. It has happened multiple times but still the BCS system stands. The reason that it stands is because all other methods have bigger flaws than the BCS. There could be a playoff bracket like in other sports but being able to only have one game a week with over 200 teams would drag the season out far too long. In 2009 there were three undefeated teams at the end of the regular season, two of which didn’t get to play for the national championship. When the BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock was asked about it he had this to say, “They had a great season and they're to be congratulated. They're undefeated but not everybody can play (Berkes)." Yes they can. My Solution The plan that I think would work is combining the idea of the BCS with the idea of a playoff bracket. I think that the teams should play like normal and be ranked using the polls but only for a certain number of weeks into the season. By this time teams have had a good enough opportunity to prove themselves. They should be given a final ranking and divided into playoff brackets mid way through the season. Teams should be able to line up their schedule however they please for the first half of the season, and then be divided up into playoffs by how well they did in the first half of the season. Benefits This would keep things interesting because teams would want to schedule good teams because they want recognition for beating them but they would also want to schedule not so good teams so they can have a good record. This would give the not so good teams an opportunity to make a name for themselves by pulling off an upset. This would keep things interesting while giving every team a fair chance at the national title. Conclusion If teams really are the best in the country they will be able to prove that through the playoffs. All teams will be treated equally this way no matter which conference they belong to. If college football implements a playoff system it will make things better for the teams that aren’t in the BCS conferences. The BCS has cheated the Cinderella story teams for too long. I know that every system has its weaknesses but this system would be far better than the system that is in place now. Work Cited Hancock, Bill. “BCS Explained.” Collegefootballpoll. Ed. Collegefootballpoll staff. 30 Aug. 2010. 14 Nov. 2010. Katers, Nichloas. “How Does the BCS Work.” Ehow. 22 Nov. 2009. 14 Nov. 2010
Berkes, Howard. “Anti BCS Campaign Gets Nasty Political Flavor.” Npr. 4 Jan. 2010 14 Nov. 2010. Jordan Haider English 2010 Review
December 16, 2010 “Bullying: No Escape” Anderson Hays Vanderbilt Cooper has been a news reporter his whole life. He has worked at ABC and CNN covering some of the biggest stories in the nation. Cooper has taken an interest in bullying problems and reports and does specials on them often. I watched one bullying special that aired recently that I found very interesting and informative. The special is called, “Bullying: No Escape”. It aired on October 8th 2010. Now I think that the title of the name is very cool. “No Escape” meaning there is no escape to bullying, we have to learn how to deal with it and solve it, there’s no way around it. It also means that a poor little kid getting bullied has no escape either. The kid can run away, but that would only put off the inevitable danger until the next day at school. He could tell an adult but there is the risk he would get called a snitch and get bullied even worse. No matter what way you look at it, bullying can’t be escaped. In this special Cooper is joined by many guests including Dr. Phil. Cooper calls bullying an “epidemic” in schools across America. He makes the point that bullying doesn’t happen while the principal is watching, or while the teacher is there. Instead kids wait and bully when nobody is around. For this reason he argues that we need to educate students about what bullying is and what to do when they witness it. Cooper says, “That a student watching an act of bullying without reporting it is as guilty as the bullies themselves”. This is a very interesting point that he brings up. The fact that bullies wait till nobody is watching is very true. No bully wants to get caught for bullying. But no kid wants to get caught tattling on a bully either. I think that schools should have a number that kids can call to anonymously report things. This would help because the kids would be able to help stop bullying without putting themselves in harm’s way. It would also help install fear in the bullies because if they know that kids will call and report things, then they won’t want to do anything that could get them reported. “Kids need to learn how to help each other out to make the schools a safer place for everyone.” says cooper. CNN took a poll to see just exactly what children do when they see a fight. 
As you can see over 50% of children don’t try and stop it, this is a problem. This is why he says we have to get students to change how they react to bullying and violence. If kids look out for each other then schools would be safer and more enjoyable for everyone. Cooper then had this to say, “No child should be scared in school. No child should be harassed on-line at home. No parent should have to bury their child because he or she took their own life because other kids made it hell.” After saying this Cooper introduced the names of four students who committed suicide as a direct result of bullying. One of the student’s mom and sister were there to tell the tragic story of their son and brother. Cooper then introduced a student who had been bullied and a former bully. They have a discussion about what exactly happened in all their cases to give first hand examples of bullying. They talked about what could have been prevented in all the situations. This segment was an awesome one because it was very sobering to have the parents of kids who took their own lives talking with a former bully. It makes you never want to see anything this sad happen in real life. I felt so bad for the bully because he was all regrets. This made me think twice about ever being mean to people, what good could come from it? Next Cooper covered cyber bullying. Justin Patchin from the Cyber Bullying Research Center joined the discussion to talk about what exactly cyber bullying is and ways to prevent it. Basically cyber bulling is the use of technology to intimidate or harass someone. This is one of the most common forms of bullying in schools today with the use of cell phones and social networking websites. In the last segment cooper asks, “Who is ultimately responsible for bullying?” Is it the schools, the parents, or the bullies themselves? It is all of our responsibilities to stop bullying. There isn’t a simple cure to this “Epidemic” so we are all going to have to work together. Instead of focusing on who’s responsible for the bullying that has happened, let’s focus on whose responsibility it is to prevent all bulling in the future, and the person responsible for that is everyone including you. I highly recommend this special to anyone with children. It goes into details of bullying from both sides, the bully and the victim. This will help parents look out for signs of their child bullying or getting bullied. This special really opened my eyes and kept me interested the whole time. It was very sobering and very informative. Work Cited Karger, Dave. May 23, 2006. "Booking himself”. ew.com. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1196770,00.html. Dec 8 2010-12-08 Cooper, Anderson. October 8, 2010 “Bullying: No Escape” allthingsandersoncooper.com Jordan Haider English 2010 Commentary December 16, 2010 Stopping the Violence Bullying in schools is a major problem all over the world. We can all agree that physical violence is one of the worst forms of bullying. When this type of bullying occurs in the school it always ends badly. We can look at the horrific Columbine shooting for an example of how badly things can get. To attempt to put a stop to physical violence some schools have installed metal detectors to prevent knives and guns to get into school. Some people are trying to get all schools to install metal detectors. Metal detectors in schools are an okay idea in some schools but not in all schools. In areas where knife crime is high, it would be a good idea to go ahead and install metal detectors on behalf of everyone’s safety.(Trump) But in most schools there is a better alternative. A good portion of violent bullying doesn’t happen inside the school at all, rather on the way to or from school. In those cases metal detectors would solve a thing. Had Columbine had metal detectors, it wouldn’t have changed the situation at all. The two boys posted up with their guns in the parking lot that overlooked the cafeteria shooting people leaving the cafeteria.(Rosenberg) This is another case in which metal detectors wouldn’t have helped one bit. Bullying has to get escalated very far to lead to a shooting or a stabbing. That being said schools should focus more on preventing bullying at all; this would be the best way to insure that violent crimes don’t get committed. If schools had better bullying identification programs and the faculty had better training this would be the best solution. When I was in high school I don’t remember any of the faculty even so much as mention bullying. I think that since bullying is kind of a gray area a lot of teachers and schools just choose not to deal with it until problems occur. This is never a good idea because of how bad things can get. People argue that teaching the faculty about the signs of bullying will cost money and take up valuable time. Well bullying awareness classes will surely cost a lot less than metal detectors being installed at all the doors. And as far as time is concerned, metal detectors would slow everything down every single day. We’ve all seen the ridiculous security lines at the airport and I can only imagine how long it would take to get hundreds of students through every day. However in areas with high knife crime and violence rates I think that metal detectors would be a necessary sacrifice. In conclusion, schools need to really step up and put forth effort to stop this epidemic of bullying. There isn’t just one single solution like metal detectors that will solve our problems. The solution has got to come from everyone working together. Bullying is a very serious problem that can physically and mentally cripple a human being, this being said it is well worth everyone trying their hardest to put a stop to it. Work Cited Rosenberg, Jennifer. “Columbine Massacre.” History 1900s.com 3 May 1999. 8 Nov 2010 http://history1900s.about.com/od/famouscrimesscandals/a/columbine.htm Trump, Ken. “School Metal Detectors.” Schoolsecurity.org 2008. 30 Nov 2010 Jordan Haider English 2010 Reflective Essay December 16, 2010 Looking Back While writing these papers I have learned a lot, I had always thought that I knew how to write well enough but now I learned how to write well in multiple genres. I had little to no experience with writing in different genres before taking this class. I’m glad that I now have improved my writing skills because they are so valuable to have. I learned how to adapt my writing styles to fit my audience and topic. I had started to write a profile about Anderson Cooper and by the time I written it I ended up writing mostly about his TV special. I was able to adapt and change the writing genre to a review and that was a really good choice. When talking about bullying it wasn’t a good idea to write a profile about a news reporter that just has done specials on it. A profile that would have fit the genre would have been one about a victim of bullying or a bully themselves, and explore their life journey through bullying. I also learned how to change the style of argument depending on the audience. The more you can adjust and adapt your paper to the audience, the better. Having your paper directed to your reader specifically will help you get your point across so much better. If you were writing a letter to your nephew in 6th grade you’d write it much different than you would write a letter to your boss. That is an example that I think of when I am trying to determine my style of writing, I put myself in the reader’s shoes and try to write TO them instead of AT them. This has helped me a lot in all of my writing processes. This course really helped me to write with a group. I have worked with groups plenty of times but this was the first time that I had to write in a group and collaborate with them. I really enjoyed this because I got some really good feedback from my peers that helped me write and to revise my papers. Knowing that people were going to be reading and reviewing my papers really helped me write them. I never really thought about the teacher having to read through them, I was just excited to have them done and didn’t care what they sounded like. This class helped me change my whole thought process of writing papers. I now care about the reader and how easy my paper will be to read. I don’t mean easy as in a short paper with short words, instead I mean easy to navigate through, easy to follow the point, easy to distinguish what’s being discussed, and easy to understand the whole idea of the paper. I have learned how to make all of those things easy and by the end of my papers I’m proud to have people read them. The things that I made major changes on in my papers was the use of headings and sub heading, the use of graphics, writing to specific audiences, and using the proper citing techniques. All of these things are very important when writing any kind of genre. The one that I think is one of the most important is using the proper citing methods. MLA format looks very neat and professional and it does a really good job of giving proper credit and the location of the information that you used. Like I said I got a lot of good feedback from my peers. They had a lot of really good insight and advice about things that I had never thought of. They helped me distinguish where to use headings and subheadings. They let me know where they got lost reading and let me know where to improve my structure. When making final drafts the peer reviews were a huge part in my editing process. I love getting opinions from others point of view, it helps me write more than anything. I also enjoyed reviewing others papers, it helped me get ideas for my own writing. I found lots of good and bad examples of writing. It was very helpful to have to read other’s papers to get a sense what kinds of things were good and what kinds of things to avoid when writing. When it came time to pick my papers for the final portfolio it was east to pick which three papers that I wanted to use. The proposal was required to that one was easy to pick, however I would have chosen it anyway because it is one of my favorite papers that I have written. I really enjoyed writing the review and I thought I did well on it so I included that one. And I also picked the commentary because I really liked getting to express purely my own opinion and let the reader know how I thought about a certain issue. I have really enjoyed writing all of these papers and doing the research. I liked the topic that we agreed on so that made it easy to research and write about. I really am looking forward to writing in the future now knowing how to write in different genres. I feel a lot more confident in my writing skills than I did at the beginning of the course. The things that I learned in this course are applicable in the real world. I am so happy that I have bettered my writing as it will continue to help me my whole life. 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