Disney World

Trevor Gustafson
A reading response to Disney World

Susan Willis is the type of person who is willing to disregard facts in order to make a point. She leaves behind logic in place of ranting. The Cambridge dictionary defines ranting as: a long, angry and confused speech. This would definitely describe Susan Willis’s Disney World.
First off, Susan Willis leaves out many necessary examples. She talks about how awful it is that there is no spontaneity at Disney world, but gives extremely few examples of what spontaneity should look like. I would definitely have liked to have known what the author thinks spontaneity is. Another writing sin the author makes is to stretch the truth to the point of practically lying. One of her many truth stretchers was when she claimed that people only save picture perfect photos. She says they delete the ones of the child’s ice cream covered face. I don’t think anyone would do that. There are plenty of pictures I have kept of an item which may not have been the main attraction of the trip, but was definitely a picture we would look back on in years and laugh at. When my cousin-in-law had her first baby, Meadow, they took lots of cute naked pictures of Meadow crawling around. These were far from picture perfect moments. In years to come Meadow will feel like chocking her parents for taking those photos, yet they will be a fun reminder to mom and dad of the times with the baby.
The third writing sin that Susan Willis commits is an offbeat, out of place, and totally unnecessary mention of politics. It seams that she hates Bush and Reagan enough to somehow push criticism of them into her essay. Why would you want to offend half of your readers over a point that practically doesn’t fit into your essay? The author’s last and possibly greatest sin is her lack of knowledge about what she is really talking about. Is it her dislike for conformity, or her hatred of corporations? She attempts to tie these things together, but fails miserably. Her off the wall mentioning’s of politics and corporations tells me that maybe she should have written about one or the other of these things instead of trying to bring them into an essay on Disney World.
Why is ranting a writing sin? It is the lack of coherent argument. I would say that Disney World is supposed to be a persuasive paper. What is the purpose of a persuasive paper? It is obviously to persuade [wow imagine that]. The Webster’s Standard Dictionary’s definition of persuade is: to convince by reason... Now if we abandon reason, persuasion becomes much harder, even impossible. When we rant, we quite often skip over necessary facts, and stretch truth to fit our means. In doing this, we loose our credibility with our readers.
As I contemplate my distain for this essay, I am convicted to analyze myself. Am I any different than Susan Willis? Do I rant and rave in place of coherent factual writing? Do I leave out necessary examples? Do I stretch the truth and even lie to make a point? I know that lying is wrong, but does my brain say that lying in an essay is okay? Does the outcome of proving a point justify the means? I know that it doesn’t, but do I practice this knowledge? Do I through in off beat topics such as politics and religion where they don’t belong? Am I sure that my topic is the one that I am really interested in?
I realize that in this reading response I have most definitely ranted. What an incredible hypocrite I am, ranting about disliking ranting. Is all my writing this way? I certainly hope not, but this essay has warned me against the dangers of ranting. Isn’t it amazing how you can learn from something you hate? If you can analyze the things you hate, you can then analyze yourself and discover that many of the things you despise are true of yourself. Now that I realize how easy it is to rant, I can be careful not to rant in my future writings.