Going into my first semester of college ever, I was super nervous and didn’t know how I would survive. I thought I would be late all the time because I'm pretty notorious for being late for everything, but I managed to make it to class every week at least 10 minutes early and that's impressive for me. Being in ENG 100 made my first semester a little easier to get by and definitely gave me the tips I need for future classes. I can honestly say I learned more in ENG 100 than in high school. I learned what TPS (Topic, Position, and Support) is when writing a paper along with a Source Sandwich (don’t forget to introduce, quotation and explain kids). I also learned what it’s like to work together and be a team. I met amazing people and if it weren't for my professor, I don’t know that I would be talking to any of them. Creating a website and making it so my personality shows through my blog post was something I really enjoyed the most. I'm not a fan being assigned to read anything, I tend to not even care and just hope for the best. Although that was high school Jen. 22-year-old Jen enjoyed almost every article and short story we had to write a blog post on. My Name is Margaret, What You Don't Know, and Hills Like White Elephants really grabbed my attention when going more into the story and evaluating what the story is actually trying to represent. Had I been in high school, these blog post would be bull shitted the whole way through. My professor really gave me a different perspective on how to look at a story, paper, or article and really give it a good looking into to feel the author's purpose. Writing processes are a big deal in our class, having free write and reading about different processes that several authors have, I took all of that "advice" and tried to put it in affect with how I wrote and revised my papers and blog posts. According to Professor Mangini, you can write any paper "sexy". He's taught me some of the best "ice breakers" that I hope one day I can use with my kids when I become a teacher. I walked into this class with really low confidence that I would be like I was in high school, thankfully my class mates were awesome, my professor is the man, and some days were a little more difficult than others trying to make it through. I couldn’t be more proud of myself that I didn’t cave and drop out because things got a little rocky. I stayed. I couldn’t be more ready to take on the rest of my college career.
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Over the course of the passed 2 or 3 weeks, we've starting our MLA Research papers and how to go about writing them. How to begin, the right questions to ask, going over strategies in class along with watching a video on reflective writing. Learning about how to write to a MLA Research paper has really helped in figuring out how to go about making this paper a strong argument to show my point of view on the American Prison System. In my post this week, I'll be sharing my process and it was the right way to go about writing the project. Who did you work with to compose your research paper? Was this a good approach? I had another topic for my MLA Research paper and had a rough time trying to get started. My professor suggested picking another topic I felt more passionate about, so Professor Mangini helped in my beginning process of my paper. It definitely was a good approach. I felt discouraged when I had picked my first topic. Feeling frustrated and not really knowing what to do, Professor Mangini's ideas and models really helped out. What rhetorical mode and genre are you using? Argumentation is the rhetorical mode and Research paper is the genre. When did you write this project? Good approach? I began to write my paper after work and at night. It definitely was not a good approach so I'm trying to find other ways to go about it because I am definitely not finding myself to be on task. Where did you write this project? Good approach? I wrote in my living room or in my bedroom. These 2 two are where I've been finding the most comfort lately depending on my mood. I like to be in a comfortable atmosphere so being at home for sure helps. Why did you choose to write about your chosen topic? Good choice? I've had my own personal experiences with someone who was once close with my family. I do believe it's a good approach because committing a crime is a serious deal and in some cases, second chances are an okay thing. Other times? I don’t believe criminals deserve much sympathy. How did it feel to write this argument ("during, after, and since")? Do you have any "if only" moments that can help you revise the draft? I was confident at first. After writing 2 or 3 paragraphs, I got super irritated with an imaginary person telling me that my opinion was wrong so I did have to take tiny breaks in between to settle myself down. How will you revise your argument? Using the TPS model, I learned in class and using the source sandwich on the class website, have been really helpful strategies in getting started and I will continue to use them to help revise. I'm starting to get more eager about writing my MLA Research paper now than when the assignment was first given. Moore, Michael, Where To Invade Next 2015
The man who makes the film travels to different parts of Europe to learn what they do different in their cities from what they learned in AMERICA! He starts in Italy to start off his "invasion" and learns that they get a 8 week paid vacation. In France, the school lunches are 5 star meals to teach kids about better nutrition. Some kids even hesitated to try a Coca Cola. Next stop in Finland, they have the highest education rates because all the kids don’t get homework and the teachers believe they need more time to be kids so they spend 3-4 hours in school. In Solvenia they give their college students free college education so they have to live in debt for getting a degree in their field of study. Ever wanted to know what it was to have a 36 hour work week and still get a scheduled break? Talk to Germany because they have all of that. He then travels to Norway to learn about the prison systems where the inmates live like they are free but have a shot at a second chance. Tunisia actually cares about what women have to say. Not saying that America doesn’t care about what women have to say but Tunisia has more women in their government to speak more not just women rights' but about other important matters as well as that. After all his travels, he realizes all of the ideas that Europe has was from America. I thought the whole film was very informative and well played out. Each topic last just as long as it needed too on the big issues we are dealing with here in America. He went with facts and asked all the right questions only to know make his jaw drop but also his audience. Michael Moore struck a topic for me that I feel very strongly about. The prison systems in Norway are extremely shocking to me with how they run their prisons. It honestly blows my mind that they let these inmates roam around like they didn’t lose their freedom. They only lost the chance of family visits. Source 2. Glazer, Sarah. "Sentencing Reform." CQ Researcher, 10 Jan. 2014, pp. 25-48, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2014011000. This source tells a story about a man who sold drugs and received a 55 year sentence for also having 2 illegal weapons. It goes deeper in the sentencing systems for our nation and helps the reader understand better how the sentencing process when given to the convicted. Just by reading it I gained a lot of knowledge about Law and Justice to help keep harmful individuals off the streets. I find this source to be extremely reliable in order to complete my assignment. Reading the information, not only gave me answers to some questions but helped me understand the Justice system better when going to trial to be given a sentence for how terrible the crime may have been. It will help my process in putting together a solid argument as why I believe our prison systems are just fine the way they are. Source 3. Katel, Peter. "Solitary Confinement." CQ Researcher, 14 Sept. 2012, pp. 765-88, library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2012091400 This source goes into detail on Solitary Confinement. It might be beneficial to an audience who don’t quite know the length that some prisons to go to when sending "sane" prisoners in solitary confinement for close to a decade at most times depending on the severity of the crime. This is a HUGE break for me in getting the information I need to learn more about what actually goes on inside the prisons and how the inmates are treated based on the crimes they commited. Source 4. Clemens, Dianne. "Prison: To Punish or Reform" Dec. 16, 2003 http://www.pbs.org/pov/whatiwant/prison-to-punish-or-reform/ This source has real people talk about their experiences about either being in jail and how some people have lost their loved ones to murder. The article is also going off a show that PBS aired. I find this source to be super helpful in my process to writing my assignment. Reading it had me completely focused on how I would to begin wiriting my MLA Research Paper. Source 5. White, Josh. "Talking with Evil: My interviews with a serial killer, rapist, and child molester." February 22, 2013 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/talking-with-evil-my-interviews-with-a-serial-killer-rapist-and-child-molester/2013/02/22/41d1f0bc-79e1-11e2-a044-676856536b40_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.738113756532 This man speaks with real criminals about their crimes. One is very remorseful, and the rest are just as sick and twisted in 2013 as they were when they committed their god-awful crimes. They speak about their crimes and their sentences. Josh White even asks them questions if the rolls were reversed to find any kind of heart in these cold souls serving almost life sentences. This source helps me prove a point in explaining that criminals do deserve a second chance at society when they are so mentally ill. In the article and the way to speak, it almost sounds like the last two inmates would do it again if they had the chance and one sees nothing wrong in the crime he committed. In class, we recently watched the documentary "Where to Invade Next". As good as the topics were in the documentary, these are the 3 I was drawn to the most. If you wish you read the summary, here is the link to "Where to Invade Next".
Topic: Prison Systems in America Research Question: Should all American prisoners, no matter their crimes, receive the same rehabilitation process? Argument: I'm a firm believer that if you did the crime, you do the time. Why should inmates get special treatment so to speak if they committed a crime as dumb as getting busted breaking into a home to committing murder? Depending on your mental status, you shouldn't have the privilege to take classes to have a new start when you get out. You committed a CRIME!!!!! You effected not only your life but the life of someone else's or someone's family. Sitting in a cell and getting a certain amount of time to see your family is the most those kinds of people should get. Some people won’t get time back with their loved one, or get back that money you stole from them. The only privilege they deserve is getting a 5 minute phone call home and 30 minute family visitation rights. Topic: Free College Education in America Research Question: Should America offer free college education for everybody? Argument: Free education for college students should be free. There are people out there with the potential to make so much of themselves and become the next Bill Gates. How can they though when students, who can or can just barely afford college, apply are basically signing to an agreement to be put debt? Not only would it help current students, but it gives underprivileged citizens a chance to become something of themselves. Our next president could be a homeless man or woman on the street but we wouldn’t know because unlike Solvenia, we don’t offer free college education. Topic: Nutrition classes in Elementary schools Research Question: Should America have a nutrition class in elementary school to help eliminate obesity? Argument: In elementary school, I had a nutrition class. I also received a healthy lunch from home or at school. I believe that a lot of obesity in America has to do with what goes on at home. Parents should encourage healthy eating instead feeding them junk 24/7 to get them out of your hair. I understand that eating disorders are a thing so I can’t really speak on that topic because I don’t have a lot knowledge on it. As kids grow into teenagers, they know by then that maybe they shouldn't be eating pizza from the freezer every night and as teenagers turn into adults, maybe eating take out every night wouldn’t result in a trip to the doctors to find out you have diabetes. So much can be done to eliminate the obesity level for kids of today to live a healthy and longer life. I've always loved documentaries. Even in high school when my teacher would tell the class that we were watching a video, everyone else would roll their while mine lit up like a Christmas tree. The documentary we watched in class this week, Where To Invade Next, Michael Moore travels to different countries to find out about their different life styles that leads them to be the happiest people on earth so to speak. The documentary was enlightening in comparison to how America does things around our neck of the woods. Watching the documentary, my jaw dropped to several of the topics that were being covered.
He visits Italy to start off his "invasion" and right off the bat he visits a couple that has traveled more the average American. Why? Michael interviews business owners and workers only to find out that they get eight weeks paid vacation. They are firm believers in stress sickness so they believe going on vacation and coming back to work fully relaxed is the source to a strong immune system. The next stop on his journey was France. The local schools are given a 5 star restaurant meal. They consider learning good nutrition and having excellent table manners will help in the long run to a successful future. During one of the scenes, Michael whips out a Coca-Cola because a vending machine was not in sight in the cafeteria. He offered a taste to one of the students and I couldn’t help but notice a few children in the background were almost hesitant to even try the carbonated substance. A little girl did take one for the team and try it. He also showed the kids a picture of what American school lunches looked like. In Michael Moore's words: "You know it's bad when the French pity you." In Finland, the kids education is way ahead everybody else in America. The schools in Finland believe giving homework SHOULD'NT be given!!!!! They go to school less and don’t have standardized testing. The teachers want the children to live a life that a child should. Climbing trees, hanging out with family, and going to school less. The max amount of hours children in Finland go to school is 20 hours. If given any homework, it would take them 10 minutes. On average, they spend 3 to 4 hours in a classroom. What about college? Free. Michael travels to Solvenia and talks about debt in America for a college student but the students in Solvenia didn’t even understand what being in debt meant! He spoke to 2 American students going to college in Solvenia because they couldn’t afford the University or even community college anymore!! For a regular American to get by, you need either a very well paid job or work 2-3 jobs. Germany, you work 36 hour work weeks. You could be living the dream making pencils and you still get a scheduled break!! It's against the law in Germany to contact any employee after hours or on vacation. Wouldn't that be nice here? He later traveled to Norway to learn about the prison systems. They give the inmates a chance to turn over a new leaf almost and have them take classes such as culinary, where here in the U.S. you just serve your time and you're lucky if you get a job when you get out the dog house. After traveling to these beautiful destinations, Moore finds that all of these ideas originally came from the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. God Bless America. This week we had to listen to a video on reflective writing. It basically described that a reflective writing piece should have little description and more about what happened. In my blog post this week, I will be explaining what I wrote about in my life memoir and how I'm still going about writing it to make it better.
This week's reading "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway, it opens on a scene of a couple at a train station in Barcelona, Spain. Just from reading the short story, the couple is agitated at one another for whatever reason, anything each other says to one another becomes another bickering argument between the two. If I had anything to say about this week's short story, it was definitely hard giving an opinion when I had no idea what exactly was going on.
Does she stay in her relationship with the man? It doesn’t sound like the woman was ever really going to leave him, they talk about being happy again and living their lives as if everything was okay. They honestly sound like a bickering couple arguing about something from the night before and it carried over into the next day, and anything that’s said to one another just becomes that little annoying argument that adds on to whatever the dilemma is for the couple. What does me drive me crazy and what made this a little difficult to answer is I cannot put two and two together to finding out what it is they are arguing about. She is getting an operation and this operation is going to make the couple okay again. Imagine probably having the answer sitting right in front of your face and I probably look incredibly stupid. When have you made an important choice to stay in a relationship or leave a relationship OR stay or leave a difficult situation? The difficult situation that I made the stupid decision to leave is when I was a freshman in high school, I was a couple months fresh (ha ha). Made the soccer team and befriended a girl who became a huge factor of how I eventually became the person I am today. We were on the soccer team together, had I believe one or two classes together and eventually became best friends. As young and dumb high schoolers, we drank in the woods around a fire, it was still warm out and we were embracing every moment we had left wearing sandals. Our group had gotten a bottle of watermelon vodka in which we were all passing around. As the night went on, we'd all hit our limit and my friend had a one sip more. She became unresponsive and her body was like Jell-O. The guys had carried her back to our one friend's house and laid her down, it was clear she had alcohol poisoning. I was scared for her and I was also scared about getting in trouble, in my 14-15 year old brain, she was taken care of, the ambulance was coming and the guys seemed to have things under control. I ended up going home that night and leaving her instead of being a friend and staying with her and owning up to getting in trouble. Feeling absolutely terrible about my decision, I called my mom while she was at work and told her about the events that had happened the night before, my friend was going to be fine but she was told about how I handled the situation. I was grounded for about two months after that. My friend and I didn’t talk for some time. We still played soccer together, and we spoke to each other when it seemed necessary. I can't tell you how long it actually was that we didn’t speak but it was a good amount of time. I think we started to finally talk again the end of our sophomore year, and had rekindled a little bit more our junior year and finally became close again our senior year. After years of a growing friendship, I can't imagine my life without her and after that one night still haunting me every now and again, I'm happy she forgave me and we've been best friends for almost 10 years now. In this week's assignment we had to listen to a podcast by LuLu Wang called "What You Don't Know". I'm not to sure how I felt about this week's podcast, but I definitely got insight on how other cultures handle their family dynamics. Their traditions and their way of doing things, I must say first the 5 minutes of this podcast, I was a little annoyed, I thought how anyone could do that to a loved one. Further on into the story, I understood a little bit more and know that everyone has their own ways of doing things.
Did you agree with the family's choice to deceive Wang's grandmother? It was tough to say at first, I lost my grandmother in August of 2016 to lung cancer. She was given till Christmas to live and passed away 6 weeks after diagnosis. I still remember my mom sitting me down and telling the awful news and telling me that Nan did not want treatments. It broke my heart and I was so angry at her. It took me a week or two to understand my Nan's perspective. I believed that Lulu's grandmother should've known in the first place because she had right to know what was going on with her body and how to take care of it, instead of getting lied to by her family. Hosting a wedding early to have everyone together would've been more sentimental and special if Nai Nai knew her situation instead of seeing her grandson cry waterfalls at his wedding and not because he just gotten married. I would want to spend as much time as I could with my loved one and not have to pretend everything was normal, so no, I did not agree at first, but I do respect that other cultures do things differently. When have you made an important choice to tell someone a difficult truth or you made an important choice to tell a lie that had a major impact on you and/or someone else? A friend of mine, we'll call her Chelsea, had left for bootcamp and she had a boyfriend that I wasn’t fond of, pretty much since they started dating. He was controlling and super shady all the time which throws up some huge red flags for me. I mentioned to her several times that I think he might not be a good guy. Of course, she tried to reassure me that he was truly a nice guy and to give him a chance. He had cheated on her before and she was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that he had "changed". A week after of Chelsea being gone, TRAINING to defend our country, Mitchell cheated on Chelsea again. A couple friends called me super early in the morning to tell me about what happened at the party the night before. I was clearly furious but had to be smart about how to go about the current situation. Chelsea had no communication to the world beings all technology was taken from her the moment she landed for her training. She looked like a fool without knowing she looked like one. Words were exchanged between Mitchell and I cause quite frankly, it was a long time coming. After a lot of thinking, I decided to wait till I knew Chelsea would be able to handle the information and not get off track. My one friend and I told about two weeks before she graduated. She was heartbroken for about 5 minutes and then called Mitchell "just to tell that he was single and he's a pig". I withheld information for almost seven and a half weeks and it totally killed me. In the reading, My Name is Margaret by: Maya Angelou, she speaks of a time in the 1920's where African Americans were servants to the rich. The reading is about young Maya at 10 years old and is a servant to high class white woman, Mrs. Cullinan. Young Maya is just starting her job with Mrs. Cullinan and doesn’t quite understand much yet about the world around her, but as she learns, she gets a feeling not everything is what it seems.
Did you agree with Margaret's choice to break the casserole dish and two green glass cups? I agree with Margaret on shattering the dish and breaking the glasses. Being a young girl in that day and age, the courage she had built to make a point that she was worth more and she deserved to be called by her given name is truly inspiring and I believe more women should understand self-worth no matter who or what the situation may be. This extraordinary young lady also left through the front door when the respectful door was the back door for servants back in the day. She makes a bold statement going through the front door which says to me "I'm just like everyone else, my skin is just a different color." She challenged the status quo, instead of following the rules. She fought for her right to party and decided to share her story with the rest of the world. When have you made an important choice to either resist or not resist oppression, challenge the status quo, or refuse to obey an authority figure? I had a friend for three and a half years, she was super friendly in the beginning and about after a year or so our friendship became toxic. She was a super controlling friend and always seemed to feed off putting me down, making me second guess myself, started to get angry when I didn’t always invite her places, always had to put me down to make her feel better about herself and always one up-ed me, almost like she was nervous that I was going to be better than her, just very manipulative. It got to the point I had only her as a friend and no life outside of our friendship. In every friendship, there is going to be arguments and disagreements, but the way our friendship was, it was always one sided. She would tell you how a friend should be but wouldn’t live up to her own expectations and being a friend in return. Thinking about it now, it just makes me laugh, over the summer I finally had enough of her and put my foot down. I had many big positive changes in my life getting ready to happen and the last thing I needed was to be told I was a "shitty friend", which I had been called by this same girl on several occasions, knowing that I would anything for any of my friends if they called me. If I didn’t or couldn’t do something or make it somewhere, the first thing I would be called was a "shitty friend." Having the strength and ability to completely remove someone, who not only felt like a sister to me but just wasn’t going to make the cut in my new year, was the hardest but best decision I made for myself. I am definitely back to my old super happy and positive self and I couldn’t be more relieved. Everything I wanted to do, that would become a battle when we were friends, I'm finally doing with the right support system instead of just someone who made me think I couldn’t do it. In class, we had to read three different articles on the daily routines of some of the most famous writers, pick our three favorite quotes from each article, and create three of our own. Putting this post together really gave me some insight on how to really get to the nitty gritty of writing a good piece.
Here I have included the articles we read:
I have put nine quotes from three different passages, while adding three of my own quotes. These nine quotes really stuck out to me because I feel like I really relate to the writers when they're explaining how they exactly do what they do to be so successful. Teach Writing as a Process Not Product By: Don Murray Quote 1: "He uses language to reveal the truth to himself so that he can tell it to others. It is an exciting, eventful, evolving process" - Murray 2 Quote 2: "How do you motivate your student to pass through this process, perhaps even pass through it again and again on the same piece of writing? First by shutting up." - Murray 3 Quote 3: "It is the responsibility of the student to explore his own world with his own language, to discover his own meaning" - Murray 4 Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life By: Annie Lamott Quote1: "First I try to breathe, because I'm either sitting there panting like a lapdog or I'm unintentionally making slow asthmatic death rattles. So I sit there for a minute, breathing slowly, quietly." - Lammot 3 Quote 2: "I also remember a story that I know I've told elsewhere but that over and over helps me to get a grip: thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." - Lammot 4 Quote 3: "In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really shitty first drafts" - Lammot 6 The Daily Routines of Great Writers By: Maria Popova Quote 1: "If I don’t have the hour, and start the next day with just some bad pages and nowhere to go, I’m in low spirits. Another thing I need to do, when I’m near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it. That’s one reason I go home to Sacramento to finish things. Somehow the book doesn’t leave you when you’re asleep right next to it. In Sacramento nobody cares if I appear or not. I can just get up and start typing." - Joan Didion Quote 2: "I do pushups and sit-ups all the time, and feel as though I am getting lean and sinewy, but maybe not." - Kurt Vonnegut Quote 3: "I write in spurts. I write when I have to because the pressure builds up and I feel enough confidence that something has matured in my head and I can write it down." - Susan Sontag My three quotes: Quote 1: I find myself looking at my cat a lot of the time for inspiration, so if you have a pet, take a gander. You may come up with something. Quote 2: Take a short break and listen to your favorite music artist. I find that music can help get you started if you just can't think of a good topic. Quote 3: Do some jumping jacks, maybe a few yoga poses if you are feeling tired. Grab some water, get the blood flowing and the mind going. |