Final Multimodal Profile Essay

The Rockettes dance team is a precision dance team that is known worldwide.The moment someone hears the word “Rockettes” they think of a few things: kick lines, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, glamour, and dance. What they don’t normally think of is sweat, ice baths, heavy costuming, and long days. When I sat down with three former Rockettes, I gained a new perspective on the Rockettes.

For one, all of their costumes are very heavy. One dancer told me that whenever the choreography allowed her to turn to the back she would try to blow the sweat off of her face so that it wouldn’t drip into her eyes. The three Rockettes were all enthusiastic about this aspect of their former job. When asked what the hottest costume is, they all answered the bears from the nutcracker portion. Have you seen the Rockettes Toy Soldier dance? That costume is tremendously heavy, and while they wait in line to fall, they can not move a muscle, so sweat drips drop by drop down their face and they cannot do anything about it. All three agreed that the entire time they are on stage, they are dripping from head to toe in sweat. They always wondered if the audience could see this? They went to a show after they were done once and learned that the audience can not see the dancers drenched in sweat.

Another aspect of the Rockettes life that is not as known, is the heavy use of ice baths. If you have never taken an ice bath before, you probably think that one would be extremely painful, but for the Rockettes, it is the only thing that keeps them going from rehearsal to rehearsal and show to show. Ice baths are done on a very regular basis for the Rockettes. It keeps their muscles from getting sore so that they can perform at their very best. There is never space for not their very best in rehearsals or during shows.

Being a Rockette, is a job. Yes, they do get paid for what they do. One of the dancers I spoke to counted all of the kicks she did in one show, and calculated that she gets paid seventy five cents for each kick. Now that may not sound like a lot, but they all agreed that it is worth it. The job itself they told me is one of the most difficult jobs in so many ways. You must stay professional at all times. You must know all choreography at all times, and if you are what is known as a “switch” you must be able to do the choreography of every dancer for each dance number. You must also keep your body healthy and working to its highest potential. The Rockettes normally have rehearsals six days a week, Monday through Saturday, twelve hours a day. The basic day for a Rockette is get up and have breakfast, get to rehearsal as early as you can to warm yourself up, this means up to hours early, rehearse and learn choreography for 12 hours, go home, look over your switch book if you are a switch, take an ice bath, eat dinner and go to sleep as soon as you possibly can. Then get up and do it all over again. This all sounds like a lot, and would someone  really want to do this day in and day out? Yes! All three former Rockettes that I had the opportunity to speak with said that they would not have changed any of this. It is the experience of a life time. The one former Rockette that I work with who is my director, was a Rockette for 12 years, which is longer than most girls.

A funny story that my director told me was that once, they were dancing with huge wooden candy canes and as a different dancer was executing the choreography, the giant candy cane slipped out of her hands and went flying into the audience. Leaving aside the humor though, that dancer would have walked off not knowing if she still had a job. The Rockettes are held to a very high standard. A Rockette must be completely focused at all times. The thing that I hear the former Rockette I work with say all the time, over and over and over again is “You do NOT want to be the dancer that did an extra kick in the kick line!!!” Their lines have to be perfectly straight, and they must be together at every second. They have to work as a team and concentrate at every moment, otherwise the magic that we all know and love would not be there.

Multimodal Profile Essay Draft

The Rockettes…Reindeer

The Rockettes is a precision dance company that is known world wide. The moment someone hears the word “Rockettes” they think of a few things: kick lines, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, glamour, and dance. What they don’t normally think of is sweat, ice baths, heavy costuming, and long days. When I sat down with three former Rockettes, I gained a new perspective on the Rockettes. For one, all of their costumes are heavy. One dancer told me that whenever she the choreography allowed her to turn to the back she would try to blow the sweat off of her face so that it wouldn’t drip into her eyes. The three Rockettes all were enthusiastic about this aspect of their former job. Have you seen the Rockettes Toy Soldier dance? That costume is tremendously heavy, and while they wait in line to fall, they can not move a muscle, so sweat drips drop by drop down their face and they cannot do anything about it. They all agreed that the entire time that they are on stage, they are dripping from head to to in sweat, and always wondered if the audience could see this? They went to a show after they were done once and learned that the audience can not see the dancers drenched in sweat. When asked what the hottest costume is, they all answered the bears from the nutcracker portion.

Another aspect of the Rockettes life that is not as known, is the heavy use of ice baths. If you have never taken an ice bath before, you probably think that one would be extremely painful, but for the Rockettes, it is the only thing that keeps them going from rehearsal to rehearsal and show to show. Ice baths are done on a very regular basis for the Rockettes. It keeps their muscles from getting sore so that they can perform at their very best. There is no space for not their very best.

The Rockettes, is a job. Yes, they do get paid for what they do. One of the dancers I spoke to counted all of the kicks she did in one show, and calculated that she gets paid seventy five cents for each one. Now that may not sound like a lot, but they all agreed that it is worth it. The job itself they told me is one of the most difficult job in so many ways. You must stay professional at all times. You must know all choreography at all times, and if you are what is known as a “switch” you must be able to do the choreography of every dancer for each dance number, and you must keep your body healthy and working to its highest potential. The Rockettes normally have rehearsals six days a week, Monday through Saturday, twelve hours a day. The basic day of a Rockette is get up and have breakfast, get to rehearsal as early as you can to warm yourself up, this means up to hours early, rehearse and learn choreography for 12 hours, go home, look over your switch book if you are a switch, take an ice bath, eat dinner and go to sleep as soon as you possibly can. Then, get up and do it all over again. This all sounds like a lot, and would someone  really want to do this day in and day out? Yes! All three former Rockettes that I had the opportunity to speak with said that they would not have changed anything. It is the experience of a life time. The one former Rockette that I work with, was a Rockette for 12 years, which is longer than most girls.

A funny story that a former Rockette told me was that once, they were dancing with huge wooden candy canes and as a different dancer was executing the choreography, the giant candy cane slipped out of her hands and went flying into the audience. Leaving aside the humor though, that dancer would have walked off not knowing if she still had a job. The Rockettes are held to a very high standard. A Rockette must be completely focused at all times. The thing that I hear the former Rockette I work with say all the time, over and over and over again is “You do NOT want to be the dancer that did an extra kick in the kick line!!!” Their lines have to be perfectly straight, and they must be together at every second. They have to work as a team and concentrate at every moment, otherwise the magic that we all know and love would not be there.

“Johnny Depp: Unlikely Superstar” by Sean Smith

Smith’s opening sentence “Fatherhood has  a way of changing people, even iconoclasts”(861), really drew me in as the reader. When I read the title, I did not expect a first sentence like this. Usually, when we think about a Superstar, we don’t think of parenthood. Smith approaches Johnny Depp’s life from not a celebrity angle, but a father angle, which is unexpected. When we hear about Johnny Depp, we are usually hearing about what movie he is going to be in next, or what movie he was in just came out, not about the father Johnny Depp. Depp tells Smith that he loves acting, but does not appreciate the risks and hazards that come with being an actor(Smith 861).  Smith explains how Depp’s daughter changed Depp’s view on life and overall attitude

Smith goes on to talk about how actors are more than just actors. “They’re more than actors. They’re brands”(862). When you think of a specific actor, specific characteristics come to mind. But, when you think of Depp you think of multiple different characteristics. Smith says that Depp is unpredictable(862).

This angle that Smith took caused me and the reader to be more interested in reading Johnny Depp’s profile. He didn’t take it from a simple, this is a celebrity and this is the movies he has been in, but he dove out and found an angle that everyone hasn’t heard already, and showed how Johnny Depp is different.

“Drawn to a Larger Scale” by Alex Williams

Drawn to a Larger  Scale by Alex Williams, is about Scott Campbell, and how his “career” took off. The title “Drawn to a Larger Scale,” really does fit the profile on Scott Campbell because he goes from working out of a small tattoo studio called Saved Tattoo in New York, to working in group shows, a solo show at OHWOW, and eventually his own show in New York (Williams 863-865). Williams starts the profile on Scott Williams with a question, “How did a 32-year-old college dropout from the bayou of Louisiana, with no formal training in art – well, to be frank, no training at all – end up with a one-man show in a New York gallery and a client list that includes Robert Downey Jr. and Orlando Bloom?”(Williams 863). This question really drew me in as a reader. I wasn’t exactly sure what the piece was going to be about, but I wanted to find out where that question came from. Williams uses some vivid details to keep the readers attention and show the reader what it was that Scott Campbell was doing. For example Williams says “One day an impatient Australian came in and commissioned a small bird in flight on his left forearm”(863). As the reader I can sense the atmosphere, due to the words “an impatient Australian,” and I can picture the tattoo itself, and where it was on the clients body. I think that the author does an excellent job of telling Scott Campbell’s story without starting from when he was a kid and taking the reader through his life in order.

WordPress Discussion Leader: “What’s the Matter with Kids Today” by Amy Goldwasser

While reading the classes blog posts on “What’s the matter with Kids Today” by Amy Goldwasser, I found two major themes throughout them:

1. Now thinking about the internet in a new way, and appreciating the internet, learning from it:

Carrie:

“Goldwasser share that ‘The internet has turned teenagers into honest documentarians of their own lives'(667). I have never thought of the internet like that but honestly this article made me appreciate the internet more.”

Kaylyn:

“‘The internet has turned teenagers into honest documentarians of their own lives -reporters embedded in their homes, their schools, their own heads'(667). The internet is relied on to educate teens about other teens. Therefore nothing is wrong with kids today except the fact that the internet has a huge impact on their lives.

Liz M:

I never considered my Facebook posts, tweets, instagram uploads and tumblr rants as documentation of my life but that is the perfect definition of what I do with my time on the internet. This article really made me appreciate how lucky I am to have the internet.”

Mike:

“I think that the internet is a great source of information and learning, while also connecting people world wide.”

Spencer:

“The article says how children are not actually growing dumber from the exposure to internet but in fact growing smarter about certain aspects of the world around them. As stated in the article ‘…they can watch Dr. King deliver it on demand– and eight in ten knew what To Kill a Mockingbird is about.” this shows that kids can willingly and readily learn about anything they desire. It is simply up to the child to seek out the knowledge they want to know.”

2. The internet is a new thing to people not in our generation:

Cody:

“Goldwasser writes, ‘When the world worked in hard copy, no parent or teacher ever begrudged teenagers who disappeared into their rooms to write letters to friends –or a movie review, or an editorial for the school paper on the first president they’ll vote for'(667). This sentence really backs up her idea that teenagers continue to read and write each day, but they now do it in a different way. However, people tend to put down the way teenagers read and write today because it is on a computer and not a hard copy like it used to be.”

Mike:

“She also goes on to say that adults may be so against this change because any change is not favored and it is new for their generation.”…”I agree with her points in that the internet has evolved a new way of education for the kids growing up in todays society but also that face-to-face conversation and old-fashioned learning is still a vital tool for success.”

Carrie:

“I also see the point that some older adults may just be afraid of the internet because it still is so new to them as where our generation has grown up with it. But none the  less our generations pursuit of knowledge through the internet should be encouraged and I think this article does a great way of explaining why.”

Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways did this article make you look at the internet and technology different?
2. What is Amy Goldwasser’s main argument?

“Whats the Matter with Kids Today?”

In Goldwasser’s article What’s the Matter with Kids Today? Goldwasser talks about how the internet has affected the teenagers today and their parents and other adults see it. Goldwasser says that parents are worried that children are on the Internet too much and don’t know as much as they should. A Common Core study showed that only 1 in 4 students actually know how Adolf Hitler effected world history(Goldwasser 668). This was surprising to me though. This was such a major event, how could 25% of the teenagers not know that?

Goldwasser tries to make the point that it doesn’t matter whether teens are voluntarily reading or not, because she thinks that they are. She argues that they are reading voluntarily all the time while on the internet. I would argue that this kind of reading is different then what other mean by voluntarily reading, and that they are referring to reading a book, rather than their friends tweet or Facebook status.

Goldwasser also argues that teens know how to communicate better because of the internet. Yes, they are always talking to people while on the internet, but do they know how to hold a conversation with people face to face? It is much different just typing a message to someone when you don’t actually see them, then actually looking them in the eye and carrying on a conversation. I find it much different talking to someone in person and keeping the conversation going then just messaging someone back and forth through the internet, and Goldwasser doesn’t address this.

“The Rise of iPads in the Classroom” by Sarah Watson

In Sarah Watson’s essay The Rise of iPads in the Classroom, Watson talks about how beneficial iPads can be for special education students in the classroom. She talks about how it can help them with communicate and in subjects such as writing and reading. I enjoyed reading this essay as I too want to become an early childhood teacher/special education teacher and am very interested in newer ways to help the students. Last year when I interned in a Pre-K classroom, they used iPads and this really helped many students. Sometimes the students would just play fun games that went with the current theme, but other times they would play games that helped them learn their letters and the sounds the letters make.

I found Watson’s essay to be very organized and easy to read. She first explained what the iPad was, and what older technology it was up against, and then what applications can be used on the iPad to specifically help the students. The iPad makes it easy for teachers to help the individual student uniquely(Watson 60). Watson states that “The applications create the ability for students with disabilities to focus on one portion at a time rather than getting distracted especially for students who have visual perceptual difficulties, reading disabilities and/or attention issues”(Watson 61). I think that iPads can be beneficial for both students with disabilities and students without.

“Holistic Approaches To Combatting Depression” by Kelli Lovdahl

I was very interested in reading “Holistic Approaches To Combatting Depression” by Kelli Lovdahl because in the last four or five years I have had some people that are very close to me that battled with mild and severe depression. I definitely agree that there are ways to “combat” depression naturally rather than medically. Lovdahl says that one thing that can help is “distracting one from whatever is worrying and clogging their mind and instead bringing their focus to a place that is ‘here and now'”(48). I have found that this can really help people who are mildly depressed, but beyond that needs a different approach.

I really liked how Lovdahl finished her essay by saying “The journey of healing depression can be thought of as a beautiful process, bringing light back into a person’s life as they begin to truly understand their mind and their body -and listen to it”(51). I think that it doesn’t look like a beautiful process until mid way through the process. As I have seen it, the beginning can be quite ugly while the person struggles, struggling to decide if it is a change that they want to make, struggling when it doesn’t all work right away, or struggling to understand their mind or body at all. Once the journey gets on its way though, it is a beautiful process for family and friends to watch as their close friend or family member heals, and finds themselves once again.

Research Paper Practice & MLA Practice

Research Paper Practice:

In the article Watching TV Makes You Smarter by Steven Johnson, Johnson makes the argument that watching TV actually makes you smarter. Johnson says that while you are watching TV “you have to pay attention, make inferences, [and] track shifting social relationships”(279) The author shows different graphs that illustrate how a person has to follow characters and plot while watching an episode of a TV show(Johnson 284).

The authors of Social Networking Sites and Cognitive Abilities: Do They Make You Smarter? did an experiment on if using social networking sites have an impact on a students cognitive abilities. After taking tests and surveys, they came to the conclusion that Facebook users scored higher than non-facebook users, on the “standardized tests of verbal ability, working memory, and academic attainment”(10).

When Thinking about television and social networking sites, the question arises if television and/or social networking sites make you smarter. In his article, Steven Johnson argues that watching TV can indeed make you smarter. From his perspective one must “pay attention, make inferences, [and] track shifting relationships”(Johnson 279), while watching TV. While the four authors of Social Networking Sites and Cognitive Abilities:Do They Make You Smarter? argue that using social networking sites increase your cognitive abilities. Their view comes from the test that they administered, mentioned above.

My own view on this controversial topic is that neither of these things, social networking sites not television, makes a person smarter. While I see Johnson’s point that one must track characters and fill information in while watching an episode of a modern TV show, I think that people aren’t trying to get smarter while watching a show, they are relaxing and simply hanging out. People are also trying to simply relax when they go on a social networking site such as Facebook. For example, when I get home from school, I like to go onto social networking sites to shut off my brain for awhile and relax. Thus, why I continue to think that neither actually makes you smarter. This issue is important because both activities are activities that the majority of people do at least once a day.

MLA Practice:

1) My article argues that social networking sites make you smarter and supports this by giving “standardized tests of verbal ability, working memory, and academic attainment”(10). This is important to quote because it tells exactly what they did to come up with their information.

2) Parents are beginning to worry about the amount children are on social networking sites impacting their success academically (10). This is important to paraphrase because the reader doesn’t need to know the exact words but does need to know the information.

3) The authors took 103 high school students to test from ages 15 years 4 months, and 17 years 9 months. None of these students had educational difficulties and themselves or their parents gave consent(12). This is important to summarize because the reader should know who was tested but it doesn’t need to be said like the authors said it exactly or even closely.

“Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids” by Grant Penrod

In the article Anti-Intellectualism: Why We Hate the Smart Kids by Grant Penrod, the author talks about how sad it is that people dislike the intellectual kids versus the kids that aren’t as smart. I agree with the author that it is sad. Some people assume that just because someone has all A’s means that they don’t have a social life, or can’t be popular. Penrod states that factors that contribute to this are “social stereotypes, public examples, and monetary obsession” (755). The fact that interested me the most in this article was the influence that public examples have on this issue. Many celebrities and important people that society looks up to didn’t finish high school, or didn’t do well in high school. I think that this plays a big role in anti-intellectualism. It makes people think that maybe you don’t need to be smart to be successful, when really that isn’t always true. Yes, there are some people that are very successful that aren’t as educated, but there are also people that are very well educated that worked hard and became successful through their hard work, which I think is more rewarding in the end. Another thing I found very interesting was the statistic that Penrod put in his article from Ethan Bronner that says “in the survey…74.9 percent of freshmen chose being well off as an essential goal while only 40.8 percent” chose “developing a philosophy” as their goal. This was interesting to me because when I think about it, I think that someone that has a philosophy, morals, and an education, will most likely end up working hard and becoming successful and in return well off.