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.