Assignment #15- Final Reflection

Looking back at my previous bloggs I have noticed a big change in my writting. I do feel as I have acomplished my goals for this semester however, I am well aware that I still have a long way to go. I have noticed alot of improvement in my writting. For starters I am more concise with my writting, I say more by writting less. I have also noticed that my grammar and especially my punctuation skills have improved greatly. I use to write many run-on sentences, now I pause in between with commas and complete my sentences with a period. Before I would have one long sentence with many ideas joined together with commas, slowly I am breaking away from that habit. I learned to improve my writting through peer review. I also learend about the rethorical situations found in writing such as audience, genre and stance. Lastly, in this class I learned to appeal to audience through ethos, pathos and logos.  This semester went by quickly but I feel as if I learned alot and I enjoyed it. 

Assignment #14- Planning for Revisions

I have chossen to revise my litteracy narrative, because it is the first essay I wrote for this class and I want to see how my English skills have improved over the semester.  The strengths of my essay are that I organized my essay with an intro, a body and a conclusion. I feel like the weaknesses in my literacy nerrative are my grammar as well as my thesis and I don't think I catch my readers attention.

To revise my essay I am going to try to tell the story in a different way. I am going to begin by brainstorming for new and different ideas. I am going to re-write my essay and then I am going to visit the writing center after meeting with the proffessor then I am going to do a one on one peer review.

I am hoping to find another way to tell the story in a more interesting way. I don't think I caught my readers attention. My story I felt was boring and didn't make my reader want to continue readding, as if  the reader was thinking so what? The only thing that I can do is appeal to my audience using humor or emotional appeal.

Assignment #13- Analyzing and Writing Arguments

I analyzed the essay Should The Obama Generation Drop Out.  The writer used a judgmental tone to argue that today's generation does not care about academics, are not top students and do not have the money to afford a four year university. The writer makes a strong argument and provides concrete evidence; however, he makes his audience question their intelligence this causes a great flaw in his essay. In making his audience question their own intelligence the writer ultimately fails to appeal to his audience-who would be wealthy educated people who have already obtained an education. The writer is ultimately making two arguments, his second argument is that employers should consider hiring people with certifications not just people with B.A degrees. This taught me that a trustworthy tone is important, my word choice is also important because it is the ultimate factor that plays into whether.

Thinking Critically About Evidence

Thesis: The federal government should not have the right to censor websites such as youtube.com or wikipedia.com. Censoring these websites would indicate that the federal government has the ability to exploit their power to benefit corporations instead of the majority of American citizens. Many Americans would consider the censorship of these websites to be oppressive.

• The strongest piece of evidence that I came across is a logical. In my thesis I argued that I the government would be exploiting their power by censoring websites such as Wikipedia.com or youtube.com to benefit industries, especially the music industry. This is my most compelling piece of evidence because the government is considering a law to censor these websites, not to regulate what the public watches but because musicians and record labels are losing money. In this essay I can logically appeal to the audience by arguing that the government looks out for industries instead of looking out for the people, because they are overlooking how people benefit from websites such as youtube ans wikipedia.

• The weakest piece of evidence that I could of brought about in my essay is the idea that if the government can pass a law the controls what citizens do online, what can't they pass a law about? There are many countries that  have passed a law that regulate what the public watches in line. This is a form of oppression to people because the government is dictating the way people live their lives. This is my weakest piece of evidence simply because I need more back up information to make my evidence credible. 

Assignment #11- Patterns of Error

• I tend to write run-on sentences in my writing. I have always had a problem mastering the proper punctuation to avoid run-on sentences. This causes my writing to seem infective and it tends to confuse the reader and at times lose their interest. In order to avoid writing run-on sentences I will read them out loud to myself in order to figure out if a comma or a period is necessary.

•  In my writing I often repeat what I have mentioned  in a previous paragraph. I am not a redundant writer;however, I am a repetitive writer. This becomes a problem because it makes my writing much longer than it has to be and re-states information that I have already stated. I can only make an attempt to catch these mistakes myself or rely on my peer reviewers to catch them in my early drafts. 

•  I don't always specify who or what I am talking about, for example:'' The Advertisement is appalling to the public.'' I did not mention which advertisement or specify who the public was. This causes readers to become confused do to lack of information. In order to avoid this mistake, I need to keep my audience in mind and assume they don't have much knowledge about the subject at hand. Lastly I think this issue can be avoided if I spend more time considering rhetorical devices when I jot down ideas for my rough draft.

Thinking Critically About Peer Review

The  peer review we do in class is effective in the sense that we get input in our writing from more than one person before getting a chance to look it over ourselves.  One way I think peer review can be improved is by having three separate one on one  sessions with a peer reviewer instead of having one session with three or four, it would just help keep ideas organized.  My strengths in peer review is my ability to communicate ideas, as well as my ability to help people expand on their own ideas.  I would say that my weakness in peer review is my ability to catch grammatical errors.  I would enjoy peer review if we get the chance to our writing review by someone else, before we turn in our final.  I find that for me peer review is more effective when I am working in smaller groups. I do feel like the time we spend on peer review is fine; however, I feel like the process would be more effective if  we had feed back on different occasions at different times.

Free Write

Coming into NEIU I wasn't sure if I was going to like it; but, now after a semester and a half I wouldn't have it any other way. The thing that I find the most intriguing about being in NEIU is the fact that you can find diverse people from all parts of the world, I have enjoyed watching the skating crew hang out in front of the Student Union performing tricks. The campus itself is an awesome hangout place, especially in the early beginning of the fall semester. When the weather is good, it is great seeing everyone hang out around campus just waiting for their next class to come around.  College though awesome it is not perfect, I wish the university provided housing for students who have to commute. I hear so many complaints from students who commute and it takes them over two hours to arrive at the campus. I was honestly thinking about transferring after I completed my general ed. requirements but know, I kind of don’t want to leave.

             I always say that “I didn’t choose to attend NEIU, NEIU chose me.” Originally I was planning to attend the University of Cincinnati; however, I didn’t receive the necessary amount of financial aid to attend. The cheapest alternative I could think of was Northeastern, it was convenient. I didn’t like the idea, far less the university itself. After settling down, meeting some people and taking some classes, I decided I wanted to stay. Now all I want is to find a cheap apartment in Albany Park to be part of the community.

Thinking About Arguments

In Should The Obama Generation Drop Out Charles Murray talks about the flaws found in the Obama education plan . He brings to the attention of the public the fact that many student in America graduate lacking the skills necessary for the proper college education. Murray goes on to argue that in today's society students who graduate from High-school go on to technical college to pursue a vocational education in their field of study; whereas, older generations have pursued an all around education, enrolling in classes that were irrelevant to the career they were pursuing. Murray claims that if you test  the vast majority of Americans (including himself) in the more rigorous subjects, they would most likely fail.  Murray mentions that he does not have a problem with liberal education; however, Murray does not believe that the only qualification for the Obama generation to get a well to do job  should be just a degree, and students should strive for more.

I chose to write about this article because I believe the American Education is not doing its job when it comes to preparing today's generation. I believe there is an issue growing especially in elementary and high schools that Americans are refusing to acknowledge. Education is a topic that I have a personal interest in because I want to be a teacher, which is another reason why I decided that I should write my argument analysis on this article.

Reflecting on Progress

Being this far into the semester I have noticed a big improvement in my writing skills, my writing process has really developed. I have noticed that my introductory paragraphs are a lot shorter and get straight to the point. The good thing is that I have not only developed better writing skills in my English class but also, these skills have become a second nature for the rest of my classes, especially my History of Europe class.

             Peer review has really helped my writing grow, its good to get input for my writing as a whole instead of just getting input for my grammar. In high school my teachers emphasized grammar and spelling but through peer review my fellow classmates help me in coming up with better word choices and organizing my ideas better. Also by looking at the way other people's writing I get a better idea of how to develop my own writing.

            Before I came to this class I was really bad with punctuations, I wrote lots of run on sentences and my writing was poorly organized. Now half way into the semester I have a better understanding of how to use punctuations, in particular the semi colon and transitional words, which is what I had a hard time with in my writing. When I came into this class I thought that because I could speak English well that meant that my writing was fine and all I had to worry about was grammar and spelling. Attending this class I became aware of the fact that just because I can say something does not mean that it will sound the same when I write it down and/ or read it.  Through this course I have learned that good writing takes a long process and a long period of  time, not to mention it takes collaboration with other people.

Considering Rhetorical Situations

            The purpose in writing a literacy narrative was to tell a story that had a connection between myself and my literature skills. The purpose in writing an ad analysis is to break apart a commercial advertisement to analyze it's purpose, technique and intended audience. The audience for my literacy narrative was my teacher, my classmates and myself; whereas for my ad analysis the audience will be more general. My literacy narrative was of a story telling genre, in an ad analysis the genre would be a somewhat of an analytical report. I am planing to take a informative tone for my ad analysis and I am as  well as a formal tone, as I did with my literacy narrative. My purpose will definitely have an effect on the way I write my paper because I want to inform my audience in my ad analysis, but I also want to entertain my audience; ultimately this means that I have to find away to work some comedy into my analytical essay.

Analyzing an Advertisement

Purpose: By placing the words ''Life is good'' in big font lettering and a girl holding a Bud Light beer bottle the advertisement argues that if you want to have a fun good life you should drink Bud Light.

Audience: The image of an attractive girl in the advertisement appeals to men. The girl in the advertisement is attractive and seems to be happy. One can get the impression form the advertisement that the girl is a party girl of some sorts. The advertisement tells men that drinking Bud Light will lead them to hook up with girls like the one shown above.

Genre: This ad like many other drinking advertisements urges people to drink, especially young people to drink. Many beer ads depict people having fun at parties and men attracting women, they also depict beer as a fun, refreshing beverage that only cool people drink.

Tone: The "HOT'' Girl, the large text and the blue background give this advertisement a  seductive, inviting and smooth tone.

Thinking Critically About Revisions

     When I first came up with a literacy narrative I did not expect to have so many grammatical errors, and I did not expect I would have to make so many corrections. I honestly thought I would have to make some changes here and there and turn it in. My final draft however is two pages longer than my first draft. The person who reviewed my essay suggested that I add more detail to my essay, so that I can paint better a picture in the reader's head. While I was sharing my story out loud with my peer I was catching my grammar errors and misspellings, I was embarrassed. This guided me to re-read my paper again on my own time and make revisions to my grammar.

     After revising my essay I was able to pin point my weaknesses. I have always had trouble with my grammar but I was never able to catch it on my own. By reading my paper out loud I became aware of where my paper needed a pause or a period at the end of the sentence. By reading my paper out loud I also became aware that my conclusion lacked a closing statement, I had just made a reference to the begging of my essay and nothing else. 

     Lastly, I feel as if the weakest aspect of my essay will be the ability to relate to the reader. I am aware that although there are people in college that come form high schools with bad reputations, not everyone does. I am not sure if I provided enough description or detail in my story to paint a picture in the reader's head. Throughout the essay I explain how one teacher in High school was able to help me embrace literature and helped me develop certain skills to think critically. My essay does a good job of describing the transitions from a kid who took literature for granted to a kid who later would use it to develop a different perspective in life.

Effective Paper

• Rhetoric - An effective essay uses words in the correct way to make sure the message conveyed is directed the correct way. An average written essay uses simple words to make a statement or uses big complex words the wrong way. A good essay uses rhetoric to appeal to your audience using devices such as; Metaphors, Alliteration, Similes and Hyperbole.  An average essay will not be affective if it lacks rhetorical devices because it will give the reader a harder time relating to the stance or argument the writer is trying to make.
• Transitions  - A well written essay makes a transition from one paragraph to another, a transition is made by setting up the end of one paragraph to lead the reader into the next paragraph. If the writer tells the story of his life, he might want to do this by braking the story in sections; childhood, teen years, adulthood and elderly years. In doing so the writer might want to end one paragraph talking about his teenage years by writing about his 21st birthday, and so on. A C' written paper with no transitions lacks organization and will confuse the reader and lose focus on the topic itself. 

• Stance - An A' kind of essay will have a clear stance or argument, meaning that the writer will have picked a side and stuck to it. Especially when writing a persuasive essay the writer wants to make sure the reader knows what the writer is trying to convince. If the writer is trying to convince his audience that school uniforms are important for the safety of kids in High-school, he or she can not argue that school uniforms do not allow kids to express their unique style, that would contradict his main argument. A well written paper needs a stance to make the writer sound confident on his topic, if there is no stance the writer will jump from idea to idea without direction. 

       Taking a stance is relatively easy for me, when preparing for the ACT my teacher advised  me to pick  the stance that would be easier for me to write about even if I don't agree with. I was always good at making argument and backing my arguments with evidence because I had a lot a practice doing this verbally. Using rhetorical devices would be the hardest thing for me to put into practice through my writing. In High school I had one teacher who taught us about rhetorical devices and he briefly taught us how to uses them, however I never had much practice afterwards. I have a hard time deciding what words to use to make my writing attract the attention of my audience, I want to make my style of writing to capture the attention of the my audience to the point where they don't want to let go.

Generating Ideas

My senior year in High school I wrote a paper on the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien which is my favorite book of all time. In my essay I argued that the fact that the Vietnam soldiers carried pictures of their loved ones signified the only thing that made them humane in times of war, also that the pictures the soldiers carried signified the love they carried for their family and friends. I also wrote about the frustrations that the soldiers encountered in the war; not knowing whom the enemy was and not fully understanding their purpose there as well as not being able to adapt to the climate and the environment they were fighting in.                                

I feel confident in  my ability to write a well organized essay on this subject because writing this essay helped me develop critical thinking and analytical skills. Writing this essay also made me feel  sympathetic towards the soldiers as I came to the conclusion that soldiers were unable to immerse back into American society due to lack of government aid programs or support. I can really talk about the Vietnam War because I like History and it is a subject I am familiar with however, I am unable to relate to these men because I didn’t fight in that war or any war for that matter. 

I would definitely want to write about the first time I was introduced to Shakespeare, I was in seventh grade and we read Romeo and Juliet. This is significant because it was the first time I had ever read anything so complex, after being able to read for so many years I came across something that I could understand. The language was barely able to paint a picture in my head,  I realized that there was way more out there that I had to be exposed to. Shakespeare laid the foundation that lead to enjoy many more works of classic literature by other great authors.

 In writing about Romeo & Juliet I would definitely have a problem processing the language, because it is written in an older version of English it is not an easy book  to understand. However I have had practice analyzing not only this text by Shakespeare but also Macbeth and A Midnight Summer's Dream. By writing about Romeo& Juliet I will have to do my best to make sure my audience understands what I am writing about without assuming that they have read and understood the text as I did. This story is too familiar to write about, however I have no expertise in understanding it and someone who reads what I write about might be more familiar with the story, catching a certain mistake that I make interpreting the text is a possibility I want to avoid.



My senior year in high school I wrote an essay on Maus, a Graphic Novel by Art Spiegelman. In my essay I argued that the main Character Vladek survived the holocaust not only because of his resilience and strong will but also because of his resourcefulness and  intelligence. Writing this essay as a final for my Modern Literature class was significant because it required me to make an argument and back it up with evidence from the text. This was always my weakness because my evidence sometimes contradicted my argument, and I believe that writing this essay helped me develop the skill of writing an essay arguing with facts and not just opinion.

 This book is possibly my favorite graphic novel of all time, It was the first one I ever read, I picked it up my Freshman year in high school and then again my senior year. Writing about this book lead me to have a better insight of what was  going on on in Europe before and during World War II, it also opened my eyes to the way the victim's lives were changed forever and how we see humanity today. I had to have a foundation of understanding of what was going on in the book that not everybody has, not everyone in my audience has a deep in depth understanding of why the Jews were being prosecuted in Europe, and in order for the readers to enjoy my paper I would have to clarify that first.

   

Why I am taking English 101 at NEIU

     I graduated from Gage Park High-School in the summer of 2011, however I had a feeling that Gage Park had not prepared me for my post secondary education. I was required to take four English classes in high school I took five, two of which were advanced placement. Out of those classes I feel as if only one class set high but reachable standard with a rigorous curriculum that would help me develop good reading and writing habit and that class I took my sophomore year. I am taking English 101 not only because it is required but also because I am hoping to enhance both my reading and writing skills. By taking English 101 I am hoping to improve my grammar and spelling skills as well as develop different techniques for writing and discovering my own style in writing.

    There is a creativity that comes with the ability to write, I hope that in taking English 101 I become more creative with my writing. Every great work of literature that I have come across has had a great amount of creativity in there writing weather it be The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien or The Iliad by Homer. These great authors expressed creativity through their writing and I expect to develop the same creativity, I would to write a piece that keeps people asking for more. I plan to major in Secondary Education and History with a minor in English. I think taking English 101 would set the foundation for the grammar and critical thinking skills that are essential in order to teach History and English to the future generation of high school students.