Month: September 2025

1. In Paul Bloom’s piece “Is Empathy Overrated?”, he discussed 3 main views of empathy. Empathy is a way to encourage others to treat people as if others suffering was their own. Bloom’s first point states “Empathy distorts our moral judgment in pretty much the same way that prejudice does” (Bloom 2). Empathy is like a spotlight, in our lives, this spotlight only shines on the people we know and care for. We might empathize with one person more than the other based on our own opinion. Which takes away the purpose because empathy is supposed to be an act of kindness, not a choice based on what you do or don’t like. Which is Bloom’s second take on empathy. Bloom states “Empathy is a spotlight with a narrow focus; it shines brightly on those we love and gets dim for those who are different or strange” (Bloom 2). It’s easiest to empathize with these people because we have a closer connection with them. We also tend to empathize with people we share similarities with, Bloom himself writes “Intelectually, a white American might believe that a black person matters just as much as a white person, but he or she will typically find it a lot easier to empathize with the plight of the latter than the former” (Bloom 2). This explains that people typically find it easier to empathize with someone they share similar traits with or have more in common with. 

Bloom’s final point is that “What really matters for kindness may be self-control, intelligence and a more diffuse compassion” (Bloom 3). This section of the article dives into the reality of empathy in today’s world versus what it really should be. The first example Bloom discussed was a vaccine that made one girl really sick. Most people would want to act upon this, but if they took away the vaccine, 12 other children would die. While you can feel for the one girl and her family, it generally has to be statistics over opinion, or right versus wrong. A similar situation talked about is on page 4, Willie Horton was a convicted murder who was released on furlough, he ended up re-offending, harming society. This swayed people’s opinions because they blamed the government for this faulty mistake in which there is no one to blame. This caused governor Michael Dukakis’s attempt to run for president to fail, although the mistake is no one’s fault. While you can empathize with the victims of Hortons cases, you can’t eliminate the faulty cases in the system when it is overall protecting society. Overall this means you can feel for others, but you can’t necessarily act upon it. Therefore you have to give what the person you are emphasizing for wants, whether that be space or support.

2. I agree with blooms points, he does well at describing the reality of empathy in today’s world. The biggest take away is that you should be empathetic for anyone going through anything negative, but it’s just not possible, which is why we focus on our close groups. We also focus on what gets coverage on the news, instead of what doesn’t get coverage but might be the same situation. The world almost uses empathy as a way to sway people’s opinions. We also sometimes feel for others more or less based on the severity of the situation versus someone else’s. While I don’t think empathy is necessarily over rated, I think that it is over used to where the definition of empathy is society is a blur. 

3. Right away in the article, Bloom questions the reader, “Does empathy make the world a better place”? (Bloom 1) The answer to these questions is based on the reader’s definition of empathy, and how they use empathy. I view empathy as showing others you care, which to me would be asking what they need in their situation. Bloom challenged my thoughts when he wrote “Its far easier to empathize with those who are close to us, those who are similar to us, and those we see as more attractive or vulnerable and less scary”.(Bloom 2) This made me realize that I truly do only empathize with my close friends and family, and I wouldn’t feel the same for a stranger. But I might feel for someone who I look up to, but that is an example of something you can’t act upon because you aren’t close with that person. Bloom makes a good point when he talks about how someone’s actions might be helpful short term for someone but can lead to greater suffering in the future, or the other way around where suffering now might be better for someone’s future. An example Bloom used of the second idea would be making your kids do their homework, they are unhappy now but it will benefit them in the future. 

4. “The real problem is that we don’t have enough empathy for other people.” (Bloom 3) 

I both support and challenge this idea because I agree that there isn’t enough true empathy in the world, kindness alone expresses empathy to others which there isn’t enough of. But how do we spread more empathy towards the people we don’t know? How would we feel for someone we don’t have any relation or connection with? I think if empathy were more true and less of a way to get attention or make people feel bad for each other I would agree, but empathy being misused makes me believe it is over rated. 

Annotating has always stressed me out. I’ve never understood why we reiterate words that someone has already said clearly. Especially in high school, we would be told to annotate a piece and we would be graded on our annotations. The annotations are supposed to give me personally a better understanding of the writing, but somehow my annotations were wrong. We are told the teacher isn’t looking for anything specific, but to summarize, practice paraphrasing, and add our source, but when my paper would get handed back I’d get a poor grade. My first impression of this writing class was nervous, there was a lot of reading and annotating, and things that didn’t seem to work for me in the past. 

During the first five weeks of writing, I experimented with new active reading strategies that improved my skills. I’ve grown to realize that different strategies work better for me. At first I didn’t feel confident annotating “The Hawk.” I read, highlighted, and took notes on what felt important. I later used the class discussion to get a better understanding. Those annotations weren’t helpful enough to understand why I highlighted the sentence. I would have to stop and read to remember. For our next writing assignment we got an annotation guide, which I’m familiar with from high school.  I read through Konnikova’s piece “The Limits of Friendships” the first time without the guide and did my own annotations, but when I read it again with the guide I found other meanings in the reading and furthered my understanding. An example of this strategy working for me I find on the last paragraph of page 3. I used (E) meaning extending, and brought out more of the writer’s ideas. After this piece I feel a lot more confident with annotating and understanding writing, and knowing that the notes I take aren’t right or wrong based on certain expectations. These annotations also helped make my reading responses more in depth, which I feel confident in but know there are areas to improve. 

We also learned about source integration in many different ways. While I am familiar with all of this, we didn’t practice enough in high school for me to be confident in it. I had the most past experience with summary although I also feel that is the area I have most improved. We use summary and quote in almost all of our reading responses. Paraphrasing is something I didn’t learn much about in the past, but I still feel I haven’t worked with this enough to have a better understanding. Quoting is the area I see I could improve most, I struggle with introducing quotes in a way that makes sense. although the “They Say I Say” text provides templates that have helped.

The peer review process we learned and practiced was helpful as a way to view my own ideas from a different perspective. Having someone else read and annotate my piece gives me a better understanding on how specific or not specific I am. For example, at the beginning of my writing I was very specific and explained scenarios where others might relate to. I said, “The annotations are supposed to give me a better understanding of the writing, but somehow my annotations were wrong.” This example from my high school experience is specific because it gives the reader something to relate to, which I got positive feedback on in my peer review. Later in my writing I got a lot of feedback to be more specific, for example, I talked about the brief annotation guide we used to guide our reading, but I didn’t state any specific examples of the annotation styles. The feedback I received from peer review is helpful in my revision process because it gives me an idea of what areas I need to clarify and be more specific, with examples. 

When peer reviewing someone else’s work, I sometimes remember things I forgot on my own work, or get ideas of areas I can improve. The biggest challenge I face when practicing peer review is finding areas the writer can improve, other than being more specific, most things don’t stick out that might need to be changed.