Student______Josue Charleron______English 1000C Essay Number___3______

ESSAY COVERSHEET

Instructions: For each essay, complete a coversheet after you have written a discovery draft and then submit the coversheet with all subsequent drafts of the essay, revising the coversheet as needed if your approach to the essay changes. You may write on the back of this sheet if you need more room.

1.In a word or phrase, describe your topic. ______Music______

2.In a word or phrase, give your working title. ______Kanye West Music Love it or hate it______

3.Complete the following sentence that tells why you are an insider on this subject; that is, what qualifies you to write on this subject.?

I am an insider on this subject because I enjoy listening to music and I annalze all of the parts of it.

4.In two to four sentences complete the following, which should describe your target audience in specific terms: class, gender, race, age, educational level, geographical location and the like.

My target readers are my peers and my professor. It is also those who enjoy music as much as I do.

I have chosen this specific audience because I feel that it was a hot topic during the end of two thousand seven.

5.Complete the following statements that indicate (a) the purpose that you want to achieve in writing this essay for this specific audience and (b) the response you expect from this audience.

My purpose in writing this essay is to inform the reader about Kanye West’s Album

I hope my audience will respond by purchasing the album and listening to it

6.Complete the following sentence to indicate what value your essay holds for its readers.

My readers will benefit from reading this essay by knowing my opinion of the album.

  1. In a word or phrase, identify the role you are playing as the author of this essay: Are you writing in your role as a university student, new parent, concerned citizen, dedicated worker, or what? I am playing the role as a university student who is interested in music.

8.In a complete sentence, state your thesis. Be sure that this statement is the same thesis that appears in your essay. . Kanye West displays his many talents in this album with many unique abilities, however with every ying there is a yang.

Essay 3: Draft 1 Progress Report

(Please write your answers on the lines below the questions)

Your Name ______Josue Charleron______Number of words of draft ____1004____

TOPIC & THESIS: What is the object you are evaluating?

-Graduation Album

What are the standards of value you using to make your evaluation? List here. Are these stated directly or indirectly in the draft? Explain.

-My standards are criticism of and praises of the album. I hope to evaluate the album thoroughly.

What is your over arching judgment of the object?

- My judgment is that the subject is constructive and serves a purpose for its audience.

Is your thesis sufficiently complex to indicate the mixed feelings you may have toward the object?

- Yes

What is your thesis?

- Kanye West has gained a lot of support with his latest album such as BET Awards for it and a Grammy nomination. However some people may find flaws and other issues that may have gotten negative feedback.

Did you state it explicitly in the draft? (You are not required to). Why did or didn’t you put it in the draft?

-Yes because it is my main point

PURPOSE: Other than fulfilling the requirements of the assignment, what is your primary purpose in writing this essay? What do you want your readers to believe as a result of reading your essay?

-I want my reader to understand the positives and negatives about my subject. I also want to inform the reader of some of the things that makes this my subject successful.

AUDIENCE: You must choose a specific publication that you are writing for. What is it? Why this publication?

- School

List three ways that you have used language that would appeal to a general audience and not an audience of college students.

- I used collegiate vocabulary, specific individuals and was informative. Also I was sensitive to others that don’t really understand my topic.

DEVELOPMENT: What kinds of evidence are you using to support your judgment? Examples? Comparisons with other subjects of the same type? Expert opinions? Other?

- I am using opinions from other writers and basic information about music.

What source(s) will you list on your Works Cited page?

-Internet source

-Music source

ORGANIZATION: ? Does your opening paragraph introduce, describe, and summarize the subject you are evaluating? Is there sufficient information for your reader who doesn’t know your subject?

-Yes my opening paragraph introduces describes and summarize the subject well

- Yes there is sufficient information

On a separate sheet of paper, outline your draft. Does your outline present an argument in support of your thesis claim that follows the reasons proof pattern? Explain.

Yes every paragraphs relates back to the thesis.

Examine your draft for transitions for each new developing paragraph. What do you need to do to make your transitions stronger?

Make last sentence of the previous paragraph more in relationship with the next paragraph.

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT: What are you most pleased with in this draft? Be specific.

I am most pleased with all of the information that I provided

List any problems you are having with this draft and write down any questions you have about the assignment or your work.

Kanye West’s latest Album that was released in October 2007 was one of his most successful musical works that he has made. It was extremely successful and it went platinum in sales. The album “Graduation” was in an unofficial competition with Curtis Jackson’s , known as Fifty Cent, album “Curtis”. Both of these albums were released on the same date and there was competition between them which obviously was who would sell the most copies. The conclusion of that was that Kanye West’s Album “Graduation” sold more copies that Jackson’s“Curtis”. The Album name has stayed consistent with Kanye’s two previous Album names’ themes. The album names in chronological order from when Kanye started are College Drop Out, Late Registration and Graduation. All three album names have had something to do with College and similar issues. I feel that this gives Kanye and his work a signature or a style to how he portrays it. He also additions this kind of mindset to his music and this also allows the reader to relate to his music.Kanye West has gained a lot of support with his latest album such as BET Awards for it and a Grammy nomination. Kanye West displays his many talents in this album with many unique abilities, however with every ying there is a yang.

The Album “Graduation” has had great success because it has many songs that appeal to various audiences. Kanye West has a special talent when making his music to appeal to people who follow various genres and types of music. Many of his songs such as “Bittersweet” and“I Wonder” contain beats and words of soul music. When a person listens to these two songs they feel the emotion and the theme of the song. Kanye West is considered one of the best rappers in “Hip Hop” right now and he has various songs on his Album “Graduation” that supports this feat. The songs like “Good Life”, “Stronger”, “Cant Tell Me Nothing” and “Flashing Lights” are all popular hit singles that he released in two thousand seven and two thousand eight. Each of them topped the charts in the radio stations and on television shows on BET and MTV. Similar to Kanye’s previous albums, he included songs about special events in his life. This is unique because there aren’t many rap artists or albums that can do that consistently. One song in particular in the album speaks about a controversy with MTV. Kanye raps about how MTV deceived him and invited him to the MTV awards and didn’t give him an award. This was a sign of disrespect and degradation to an artist of his caliber. He made the song “Stronger” and he raps about how anything than hurts only makes him stronger and better. He feels what MTV did to him was a downfall and that it makes him a better rapper and more important than MTV. What makes him so good is that he can tell a story with his lyrics without even mentioning specific names or events. This was similar to a song in his first album, “College Drop Out”, called “Through the Wire”. He makes this song about himself after getting into an accident and breaking his jaw. His jaw was wired shut and he still made a hit song, rapping on the track with wires in his mouth. This expresses a lot of similarities in his style of music and these qualities are the reasons why people enjoy his music. Another song that expresses that same theme is “Big Brother”. Kanye West talks about his the experience he had when he was beginning his career. I praised Jay Z because he discovered Kanye as a producer and soon he became a hip hop artist. The Album “Graduation” has many legitimate qualities to why it was one the best selling albums in two thousand seven.

There are many things that show the versatility for the Album “ Graduation” and one in particular is the people who featured in the album. Pop sings such as John Mayer, Dwele, and others have sung in the backrounds and the beats of a song. Rap Artists such as Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne and T Pain have also featured in some of his songs. This is another way how the album has appealed to many people and showed its versatility and ability to relate to all kinds of audiences.

Many other artists have worked with Kanye West on their albums resulting in similar styles of music to “Graduation”. Kanye West is a producer as well as an Hip Hop artist. He started off by producing and he was noticed when he produced Jay Z’s Album, “The Blueprint” in the late nineties. Recently Kanye West has worked with Common, also a successful Hip Hop artist, on his latest Album “Finding Forever”. This album was successful and produced a couple hit singles like “ The People” and “ I want You”. This resulted in a couple BET awards last year. These two songs have similar backgrounds, themes and beats to the Kanye’s latest album. Kanye West also aided Alicia Keys who also released he latest Album that was a success. The Album she released, “ As I am” was extremely successful and wonderfully made.

There a lot of positives in Kanye’s Album graduation but there are some areas that critics or others may criticize the Album. One of the main things would have to do with the topic of sampling. Sampling is a technique that is used by many producers and artists in order to gain a catchy beet in order to appeal to their audience. This has been done since the beginning of Hip Hop and in music in general. Sampling is when an individual takes a song or a piece of a song and use it in their music. Recent copyright laws stated that if someone samples music from some other song they must pay loyalties to the original maker or unless they are in trouble.More than half of Kanye West songs contain samples from other music. This may be an issue for some people because they may say his success wasn’t genuine in this album. One song in particular was a hit single that won BET’s best video of the year award. “Stronger” was a hit single and named the best video in two thousand seven. This song was sampled from the song “ Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” by Daft Punk. The songs have the similar beets and chorus except Kanye added more beets and drums to make it. Another song that he does this is the song is “I wonder” which is sampled from the song “ My Song” by Labi Striffe. Another song is “Good Life” which was sampled from the popular pop singer, Micheal Jackson’s song “ Pretty Young Thing”. Kanye also has a long record of sampling songs for other artists like “The Game”. The hit song “Wouldn’t get far” was sampled from Created Source’s song “I’d find you anywhere”. Many other songs were sampled by Kanye and I found a lot of them by Kevin Nottingham a hip hop critic.

In conclusion I believe that Kanye West’s latest album was the best out of all of his other creations. He is very sensitive and creative about his songs and his style is revered by many. The way he makes his music and his lyrics is one of the reasons why many people enjoy his entertainment. He is one of the best right now and is liable to be considered the best ever in my opinion. I believe that the culture of hip hop is dying and he is one of the few that is keeping it alive. Go and listen or purchase the album and you will see what I am talking about.