Based off the “Entering the Conversation” introduction written by Gerald Graff & Cathy Birkenstein, their whole outlook/idea of the author using a certain format for writing their thoughts and also gravitating the reader by making certain points where, even if it is an opinion or statement that may seem foreign to the reader, they are your thoughts and not just sentences formed to cater to the one reading. As in pages 5-6, using the template had students skeptical due to it potentially impacting their creativity, but the template is just a base of how you’re going to go about your writing. It’s similar to artists who use auto-tune in a sense. Yes, it helps improve the sound of the artist, but also the artist is the one who needs to be molding it into a work of art and perfecting it. At the end, it’s your work and how you put it into play.

“The power to look” and “How art can help you analyze” give great points of how in our own perspectives, we see things very black and white. Our analytical and interpretations of paintings, or situations can tend to be small when in fact a lot more could lie beneath the surface. For example, in “The power to look” a cop/doctor looking at the painting of a train going through a fireplace will be just that. But what else is it? What compelled the artist to draw that? It gives a broader view to the audience and it makes you think it’s more than what the eye sees.