Summer Fowler Contemporary Literacy

       Music is the sounds that bring us comfort, and joy or help us express what we can not say. For Wes Moore, in The Other Wes Moore, hip-hop music became an influential and helpful resource. Hip-hop was up and coming, and for a boy from the inner city of Baltimore, it was very influential. Wes loved that hip-hop was about the world around him, and how much he could relate to it. Wes also told his mother he was a DJ when he started selling drugs. Although it was a lie, Wes admired the DJs in his area. He admired their money and their way of life. For Wes, hip-hop music was a very important part of his life.      Music is also an extremely important part of my life. I feel that it calms me and helps me reflect on my day or my life. On the train to class every morning, helps me set the mood. Sometimes I'll put on Rihanna or Doja Cat (despite her controversy) to give me energy and hype me up for the day. However, most days I play some sort of indie r...

The book The Other Wes Moore, written by Wes Moore, features many important relationships. These relationships allow us to gain insight into characters as well as learn lessons. One important relationship in the book is between Tony and the other Wes Moore. These two are brothers with a large age gap and different fathers. Their relationship is strong, as Tony teaches Wes how to stay safe in their uncertain neighborhood. However Tony also tries to teach Wes to stay away from the same mistakes Tony has made. Tony is in the drug game in Baltimore, he spends his days prowling the streets and selling drugs to people. This gives him a lot of money and resources, which Wes enveys. However because this situation is unsafe and sketchy, Tony really tries to keep Wes away from it. Wes understands that the drug game is not something you want to be involved in, but he also wants to have the resources and street credit the game gives. He ultimately ends up getting involved. This is despite Tony...

Expectations or environment? Which makes us who we are? This is one of the prevailing questions in the book,  The Other Wes Moore,  written by Wes Moore. This book is about two men from the same neighborhood with very similar pasts who have grown up to have drastically different futures. The author, Wes Moore is an accomplished politician and Rhode Scholar, in contrast, the other Wes Moore is spending his life in jail without parole due to a bank robbery gone wrong. These men had very similar environments as they grew up in the same neighborhood in Baltimore. However, the expectations placed on these men were drastically different.  The environment that one is born into is a very important factor in one's future, things like money and where you live are all conditions that affect your environment. However, we also have the power to change our environment. It is by no means easy but we can move and work hard. The environment we are born into is just one of the environments...

  Is college worth its high price tag? This question is extremely prevalent in our society considering it is hard to find a higher education for less than $40,000-$60,000 or more per year. At the same time, the college has been stressed as an utmost importance for my whole life. I know I am not the only one, but my parents always said that I would go to college to study something. My parents are very open people so I am now studying dance, but it was never a secret to me that I would go to college to get a good job. I know that in the early 2000s the price of college was significantly less, making this expectation easier to obtain. But now with the job market and the price of schools, we are questioning whether it is a smart choice to spend so much on education if your after-school prospects are not that much better.  In the readings and documentary, nobody was saying that college is a waste, or that secondary education is a bad thing or unworthy or price. Instead, the sources...

  Is fast food the new tobacco? Well, first we must look at the properties of fast food and the properties of tobacco. Fast food is technically fuel for our body, and eating fast food is better than no food at all. Even though fast food is not good for you, it can provide comfort, convenience, and sometimes much-needed calories. Tobacco on the other hand is a substance, it has cultural significance, but it does not offer anything to you. Also, tobacco is highly addictive and has proven to cause more harm than good. You could argue the same about fast food, however, people need to eat to live. If all you can eat is fast food, then at least you are alive. People do not need to consume tobacco to live. Both tobacco and fast food cause harm to our bodies and the earth. But fast food does have some use as it is food. I do not believe that fast food is the new tobacco. Fast food and obesity is definitely an issue that Americans and people all over the world face, however, it is not nearl...

  Is pop culture good for us to consume? Pop culture is the spread of trends and information through media. Currently, we are living in a world where pop culture is coming at us at astronomical rates. With social media, the spread of information has rapidly accelerated. This makes pop culture as a whole more prevalent but also more diluted. There is no longer one movie, song, or style that is the main thing anymore. In the past, Star Wars, skinny jeans, and songs like The Gangnam Style were things everyone was aware of and following. Now there is not a consistent style, song, or movie that everyone is following or aware of. Phil Miller’s Ted Talk, Pop Culter is Dead! argues that this influx of information and things that are popular takes the power of pop clutter away. Saying that pop culture is no longer relevant. He makes this claim by saying that the extreme amounts of media make it so nothing is popular. In other words, Miller claims that pop clutter does not exist because not...