Last Blog/Final Reflection (#15)

Of the four goals (revise my papers better, use more educational/college vocabulary, not to make common mistakes and to not repeat myself) I had in the beginning of the semester, I believed that I somewhat achieved them. With revising my papers better, I say I have somewhat achieved it because I still don't find mistakes in my papers when I revise that my professor and tutor finds, but I have began looking at things in my papers that needs to be reworded or that doesn't belong in my paper. With the usage of more educational/college vocabulary, I haven't achieved that goal. I still use common vocabulary in my papers to express my ideas. I do look up synonyms for some of my words if I use a particular word many times in my papers, but that's all. I don't use college vocabulary on my own. With not to make common mistakes, I somewhat again achieved it because I do see my mistakes when I revise my papers most of the time, but still, I do sometimes have fragments and/or run-on sentences in my papers. With my last goal, I haven't achieved it because I still do find myself repeating myself a lot in my papers. My professor has commented that some of the items in my papers are repetitive and I do need to change that.

I wouldn't change in anyway my goals because my goals all relate to college level writing. Each of my goals are items that many people who can do college level writing have a good grasp on, while I don't. When I get into higher level classes, I need to make sure that I have a good grasp on these because my professors think that all students know these and if I don't know them, I will not do as well as I should be in those classes. So no, I wouldn't change my goals because my goals relate to me getting better at college level writing and in some form or another, also relate to college level writing as well.

I really don't have an outline on how I am going to continue growing as a writer, but I do know the first step in that outline, which is to take writing II in the fall. I am going to start my journey with Writing II because it is a class that helps you with writing a research paper, which I know in the future I will be ask to write for some of my classes. Also with what I want to do with my life, I know I will need to be able to write a research paper. The strengths I want to continue working on are my organization skill, improving my rhetorical knowledge, and improving my strength in writing argument papers. I want to continue working on my strengths because I know that everyone can use more help even on the things that they are  good in. I want to make sure that my strengths don't become worse and that I will never have to worry about these affecting my papers. The weaknesses I want to work on are sentence structure and grammar. I need to work on these two items because they are my weakest aspects with writing. These two aspects also make me to get lower grades on my papers than I should because my papers are always filled with great ideas, is organize very well and they flow as well, but with my sentence structure and grammar, my paragraphs become confusing to my audience and I also repeat myself, which undermines my organizational skill and ideas.

Revision plans

For my portfolio, I decided to revise my argument analysis paper. The strengths of my argument analysis paper were that I had a lot of good ideas and different views on the argument I was analyzing and my paper was organized in a way that wasn't confusing to my audience. The weaknesses of my argument analysis paper were that I didn't have a strong thesis, which made me be general in some areas of my paper and not connect back to my thesis and I lacked focus in parts of my paper as well, which as a reason, I became repetitive.

To effectively revise my essay, the first thing I am going to do is strengthen my thesis so that it includes everything that I am going to talk about in my essay. With my thesis being stronger, I am going to better focusing my ideas and views around my thesis and make sure that all of my ideas connect back to my thesis. I will also ask myself after working on my thesis if everything that I have in my paper is necessity for it and if not, I would delete it. In addition, I will pay attention to see if the way I have organize my paper is the best way to organize it or if I should change it.

I will also make sure that all of my ideas relate to the analysis of the argument I am doing. I will delete the ideas that don't relate at all as well as deleting the sentences that are repetitive. I will delete the sentences that are repetitive because they make my paper longer than it is needed and why should I repeat stuff when it isn't needed. With that I have a lot of good ideas in my paper, I will also see if there are any more ideas that I come add to my paper which will either support my claim against the argument I am analyzing or ideas that the author didn't think about. Lastly, I will add more quotes and evidence from the article so that what I am trying to say is stated clearer to my audience and it will make my paper be focus more on to my thesis as well.

Analyzing Arguments

• I analyzed the article "Should the Obama Generation Drop out". In the essay, the writer used a different approach at appealing to his audience and connecting with them. The writer called his audience "stupid" and "dumb" and he called himself "stupid" and "dumb" as well. By doing this, the writer thought that he would connect with his audience because he is saying that all of us are too dumb for college. This in the end weakens his argument because his target audience are college students, employers and politicians, people who have already completed college or are going to, so calling them stupid wouldn't help you with your cause. This taught me how I try to connect to my audience and appeal to them can affect how they can look at me and how I can push them away if I don't use the right approach. Because of this, I will be conscious of choosing how I will appeal to and connect with my target audience.
• Another thing I saw from analyzing the article was how the writer used evidence to support his ideas. The writer used few facts to support his ideas and made most of his evidence base on the conclusions he had made about his audience. However, the way the writer used his evidence crushed his argument by making him seem like he didn't really knew what he was talking about and he seemed like he didn't really care about what he was writing about. This taught me how I need a balance of both emotional and plausible evidence to support my ideas and make skeptical readers to agree with me or to change their views on my topic. I will make sure to have personal experience appeal, emotional appeal and plausible evidence to backup my ideas and to let my audience know that I know what I am talking about as well.
• Lastly, the writer of the article that I analyzed used a formal/serious tone in an attempt to build a connection with his readers and to let them know that he is knowledge about the topic he is writing about. The tone he used also gives off that he is serious about what he is writing about and that he wants to change people's minds on how liberal art education show be views as. This tone does help the writer to make his ideas get across his audience, but at the end, it goes against how he appeal to his audience and the few facts he uses in his article. So his tone, appeal and lack of facts goes against each other, which as a result, makes his ideas and argument weak and the writer doesn't seem credible. This taught me that my tone needs to be match the way I want to connect with my audience and my appeal as well. I will make sure that everything I do in my paper connects with each other and that my readers view me as a credible writer and as a person who is knowledge about what he is writing about.

Evidence (Ethos,Pathos, Logos)

Thesis: Most college students should have a job while in college because they become more independent and learn important skills they will need in the future.

• My strongest evidence is the claim of that college students who have a job while taking classes learn important skills like time-management and social skills because once a student has a job and have school, they need to balance their time to make sure they can complete their assignments, have time to study for exams and still be free to work as well. This is strong evidence because everyone knows that most students, especially college students don't have the time management skill they need for school. Most students like to goof off and procrastinate on their schoolwork and once they have a job, they won't have the amount of free time as they did before and they will be force to complete their assignments earlier and not to procrastinate as much. Lastly, once they have a job, students will begin developing social skill like talking to someone, working in a group and listen to directions because they will need to be able to work in a group, listen to their manager and need to be able to talk to a customer. These social skills can be transfer to college life and in school in general because in school, students will be working in group, will need to talk to their professors properly and students will need to be able to follow directions. Because this is my strongest evidence, I will probably mention it in the beginning of my paper and reinforce it through my paper.
  
• My weakest evidence is my rebuttal to that college students who have a job while taking classes will be more focus on making money rather than on their grades and classes. I will argue that it is true that students will feel like they are making a lot of money, but the money they are making now doesn't equal to the amount of money they could be making with a college education. This is my weakest evidence because I feel like it doesn't support my argument as well as I would like it to. Also college students, who are my target audience, love it when they have money because they can buy stuff that they want and they can be independent of asking their parents for money.What I would do to strengthen my rebuttal is that I would mention my own personal experience with having a job while in high school to gain trust with my audience. Also I could find another rebuttal to support my claim and my first rebuttal to make it stronger. Lastly, I would try to show how this counterargument is only successful if you are looking at students in general, but I am not. I am saying that there are some students who wouldn't be able to work and be in school, while they are other that can like myself.

Patterns of Error

1) I need to be more concise: In my writing, I tend to be more wordy than is necessity to complete a writing assignment, in particular,  I tend to repeat some of my ideas throughout my writing, which causes my papers to be longer than needed. By wordy, I mean that I typically use more words and sentences to explain my ideas than is needed and this has an effect on the readers by that they get confuse on what I trying to saying in my paper. Also I tend to repeat myself a lot in my papers, which also confuses the readers and doesn't allow my paper to flow. I know this is very difficult for me to pay attention to and to fix because I do this a lot in my papers, but when I do revisions on my papers, I need to pay closer attention to what I am saying in my papers so as to make sure I am not repeating myself and I am not using more words to explain my ideas than is needed.

2) I need to organize my ideas better: As stated before, my papers sometimes aren't organize as well as I want them to be. This is because I either repeat my ideas several times in my paper or that I didn't put key important ideas in the beginning of my paper and the non-important ideas at the end. By repeating, I mean that I repeat ideas I have stated before in other body paragraphs in paragraphs that don't relate to them, which confuses the readers by that there are multiple ideas in one paragraph. Also, sometimes I don't organize my paper the best way. I state the less important ideas first and the more important last or I don't put the most important idea right in the middle of my paper and the readers wouldn't understand what I am trying to say. To fix this, I need to make sure that the most important ideas are place right in the middle of my paper and my ideas goes from most important to less important. Also I need to pay attention to what I am writing in my paragraphs so that I am not repeating myself.

3) I need to work on basic writing skills: By this, I mean sentence structures, noun-adjective match, fragment or run-on sentence and others. By my final draft, these problems are mostly fixed, but still there are some that I don't see that make it to my final draft. I typically don't have fragments in my paper, but I do sometimes have run-on or comma splices. I also mixes up the noun-adjective relationship. I sometimes use singular adjective for plural nouns or vice versa. The effects of this is that the readers will become confuse because they don't know who I am talking about. They also will think that I am not a good writer because I have fragments, run-on or comma splices in my paper and that I can't do revisions on my paper. The solution to this is again paying more attention to what I am writing. Using Microsoft word, I won't have problems with fragments and noun-adjective relationship because they are flagged. I just need to review basic writing skills in general because I feel that is my biggest problem when I write in general and  if I don't have the basic writing skills down, I will always have problems when I write.

Peer Review

The effectiveness of the peer review we do in class is decent. In these sessions, the reviewers of my papers have given me ways of how to fix my paper, what are the strengths of my paper and its weakness. I have gotten feedback on everything from my papers. These sessions have helped me see the mistakes I don't see when I do my own revision on my paper. Lastly, these sessions have made me see that no matter how good or bad you think your writing or draft is, there is always something that is good and something that needs help. The only way I see that the peer review we do in the class can be improve is by if we could have two reviewers for our people because everyone pay attention to different things.

My strengths as a peer reviewer is that I always can see what the writer of the paper I am looking over is trying to do in their paper. I can see another point of view that the writer can talk about in their paper if they want to. I can see the best way of organizing someone's paper and I can see the small mistakes that someone can make in their own paper that I sometimes can't see in my own paper. Also I can spot run-on and fragment sentences.

My weaknesses as a peer reviewer is sometimes I put too much into something, that I over-think what the writer is trying to show or say in their paper. Also sometimes I am not as tough as I should be when I review someone's paper and lastly, when I am reviewing a paper, I sometimes talk to the writer about random stuff and don't fully pay attention to the person's paper.

My ideal peer review process is that I write my paper first before any one looks over it. After I have written a first draft, I do my only edits and after I finish the errors that I have seen in my paper, then someone can look over it. At this point, I would like at least two people to review my paper because the more people who can look over my paper, the better my paper can be because everyone pays attention to different things. After I fix the mistakes the reviewers have spotted, we should have another peer review session with different people to see how better or worse our papers have become. This is my ideal peer review process.

With the review process we have used so far in our class, I do find it helpful to have a peer review session in the early stages of the writing process because then you have time to make sure the way you are going with the paper is correct and you don't have to worry about wasting more time on the essay by way of redoing the whole thing compare to just changing a few sentences, paragraphs or the way the paper is organized. I find it better to have small groups because then you don't have a lot of people of telling you stuff and you can allow your reviewer more time to look over your paper. Large groups are good when you are first starting the writing process because then you can see how everyone is perceiving the essay prompt. I feel the amount of time we spend on peer review session is decent, but I would like another day or two so that everyone can have another peer review session with another student because I feel the more eyes you have looking over your paper, the better your paper can be.

Communication is Power (#9)

I know many people will write about whatever they want for this blog assignment, but I won't. I am not going to write about something, I am going to write a poem to show my topic. If we have the freedom to write about anything this time, we should also have the freedom to choose the way we write our blog as well.  So here i go.

Who said language equals power?

For the matter of fact,

Who said proper English equals power?

In this world, we all each have our own dilate, our own slang.

We each have our own accent.

Who said we need to speak and write proper English?

I can see how that view became,

But why?

Yes, if we all speak and write in the same language,

We can all communicate with each other,

But we communicate with one another before proper English,

Before any language.

We spoke by using our bodies, our faces, our expressions.

We could have communicated how we are feeling just by how we smile.

So who said proper English equals power?

I do agree that language equals power,

I disagree that we all need to speak and write proper English to have power.

We shouldn’t be afraid to speak, to express ourselves,

By way of any language we have.

So speak,

Tell people what is on your mind,

Show who you really are.

Don’t be afraid of people making fun of you

For how you speak or write.

Don’t go back to your shell,

For it is the people who do speak and write proper English that should be afraid.

They know that if we can communicate,

With our broken English,

With our simple English,

With our ethnic accent,

That we will then have power,

For proper English doesn’t equal power.

Even language doesn’t equal power.

What truly equals power is communication.

And that,

Is true power.

So let’s go out and show the world who really has the power.

College Drop Out

The argument that Charles Murray is stating in his article is that having a bachelor degree shouldn’t be a job qualification. He first started with president Obama’s two ideas for improving post-secondary education by expanding the use of community colleges and tuition tax credits. Then he suggests a battle cry for president Obama on education. The battle cry is “ it’s what you can do that should count when you apply for a job, not where you learned to do it.” Mr. Murray ‘s argument is that he feels that having a bachelor degree shouldn’t be a job qualification, for that many youths don’t have the intellectual ability to do college-level work they need to do in college. He stated that 10% to 20% of all 18 year olds can absorb the material in their parents’ old college textbooks. He also states that many college students don’t want to success in rigorous liberal arts or are too dumb to get through college. That a century ago, these students would have gone to work right after high school, but now need to have additional skills and treat college as vocational training, not a journey of learning. As Charles Murray continues his article, he talks about how colleges have adapted to the new time by expanding the range of courses and other oriented majors, but we still keep the bachelor degree as the measure of job preparedness, as the smallest requirement to get a job even for a job that doesn’t require a bachelor. He says discarding the bachelor degree wont be hard. The solution would be to use certification tests to provide evidence that someone has the skills needed for a job or to show work samples of a person’s work. The benefits of getting rid of the bachelor degree as a job qualification are huge for both employers and job applicants. Certifications would tell employers more about the applicants and many people can get the right job for them without going back to school for a degree. Also having certifications exams would even the playing field for everyone. Everyone would now be depended on their skills and not their degree(s). So in conclusion, the best way to summarize Charles Murray’s article is the battle cry he stated in the beginning, “It’s what you can do that should count when you apply for a job, not where you learned to do it.”

The reason why I chose the article I did is because the title caught my attention. I wanted to know why the author called the article Should the Obama Generation Drop Out? I wanted to read all of the articles but this article got my attention the most compare to the other two. I knew that the author was going to talk about education, specify about college education, but I didn't know what exactly he was going to talk about. I wanted to know why he was thinking that my generation and the generation after me should drop out of college. I wanted to know what exactly he was going to talk about for that I am right now in college, debating on where I should end my academic career and if I should go get a Phd.  I don't think that this article will have any affect on me but, who knows. It could later on in life after I get my bachelor.  Lastly, I also didn't know what Obama view on education was and this article gave me some insight on his views. So that is why I chose the article that I did.

My view on Writing 101 (so far)

• In the beginning of this class, we were asked to talk about the reason(s) on why we took writing 101. I had two reasons, one being that this course is a requirement at NEIU and the second is that I need to better my writing skills in the fields of revisions, vocabulary/word choice, common mistakes and not repeating myself. Seven weeks into the semester, I feel that I have made some progress in some of my goals. I believe that I have improve my skill at reediting my paper without another person pointing out mistakes and not doing common mistakes. I feel like that I haven't improve the vocabulary/word choice in my essays and that I don't repeat myself in my papers. I feel this way by that in my first essay, I found many mistakes in my rough draft by myself and these two problems go with each other as well. I feel the way I do about the other two goals because they are dependent on me and me alone. I need to find/use other words to express the same meaning I am looking for and I need to pay attention to what I am writing because I typically repeat items in areas that I don't need to or to help me get on track with my paper but forget to delete it.

• I don't feel like there is any specific aspects of the class that has been particularly helpful for me as a writer. We haven't done a lot of writing in the class other than our essays to see if there is any aspects that is helpful for the students. I can say that when we went over the rules of comma splices, run-on sentences and how to write better sentences, it did help students understand why or how we make the mistakes we do. So if this is an aspect of the class that has been helpful at least for me, then the aspect of reviewing the common mistake has been helpful for me as a writer.

• If there is anything that I would change about the class is that I would like the professor to go over the format of the particular essays that we are going to write about in class. I had trouble writing my rough draft of the ad analysis paper because I didn't know the format of it. I used my textbook to gain ideas on how to write my paper but still, it didn't help me. I am the type of person who needs an outline for when I write a paper. Also I would change the fact that we don't have a lot of homework that can help students better their writing skill. If this class is suppose to help students better their writing skill, this class as of right now, isn't doing that. Those are the two most important things I would change about the class.

• My writing process has changed since the beginning of the semester. Before this class, my process has always started off with me writing an outline of my essay and the specific ideas I would talk about in my essay. Since the beginning of the semester, I have had trouble writing an outline for my essays and now I just write down what comes to mind, so that my mind can focus on the idea of the essay. other than this, my writing process is still the same. I keep on writing until I feel like I am done and then I fix some grammar and spelling mistakes. Next day, I do some major reedits to my paper and then I do a second draft. After the second draft, I would go my writing tutor and see what I can make better in my essay, what are the best aspects of my essay and to see if I did everything my professor wants me to do. After seeing my tutor, I make the edits that my tutor told me to do. By the time the essay is done, I have written at least four drafts of the paper.

• Overall, I do think that my writing has improved. I feel like I do focus on what I am trying to write about and if my audience will understand what I am trying to talk about. I also now pay attention to the word choice I use in my paper and that if I use any vivid description, I need to make sure it isn't cliched or overdramatic. Also, I have reach some of my goals that I have set out for this class and the ones I haven't reach, I just need more help and hopefully by the end of the semester, I will reach all of my goals. Another thing is that I now know that I can write a paper without having an outline of it done beforehand, but I would like to have an outline done beforehand because it helps me keep my though on track and not go off topic. 

Rhetorical Situations

• Purpose: The differences between the purpose of a literacy narrative and an ad analysis paper are that in a literacy narrative paper, you are either sharing a past memory or a learning experience and the significance of the event and how it has affected you. The purpose of an ad analysis is to analyze an ad and to either demonstrate that you understand the ad, to persuade readers that the ad shows a certain point or use the ad as a way to make some other point like how women were viewed in the 1920s and now or how views have changed throughout time. 

The only similarity between the two types of papers is that you have to let the readers of your paper know why you are doing what you are doing for the paper.

• Audience: The differences between the audience of the two papers is that for a literacy narrative paper, you need to know if your audience would have had similar experiences like yours, would the stories be similar, how much explaining of things do you need for your audience, would your audience get the meaning/significance of the memory and how much about your own personal life are you willing to share. For an ad analysis, you need to know if your audience has ever read or seen the ad you are analyzing or know of the ad you are analyzing and how much detail you need to put in your paper like do you need to put the whole ad or a pic of the ad in your paper or just pieces of it. 

The similarity between the two is that you need to decide on the amount of detail you need to put in your paper either on the amount of personal detail from your life to the amount of detail from your ad.

• Tone: The tone of a literacy narrative paper can be affectionate, neutral, critical, sincere, serious, humorously detached, self-critical, self-effacing, anything you want. It is your paper. You can have a serious tone paper but make some funny comments in between. As long as the tone matches what you want the paper to have, that the tone matches the meaning behind the paper, you can have any tone you want. The tone of an ad analysis paper can be critical, serious, self-critical, neutral, etc. The tone for this type of paper in someway has to be critical because you are analyzing a paper in great detail, in such a way that other people don't think of it. 

The similarity between the two is that both papers can have a critical tone but there are critical in different ways. In the narrative paper, you are critical about your memory and its effects on you while in the analysis paper, you are critical on how the ad was made, how it gets people's attention and you have to read between the lines or images in the ad.

• Genre: The genre of literacy narratives includes everything I have said before. It includes the different purposes, the different things a writer can do for his/her audience, and have any tone the writer wants. The genre of literacy narratives have key features. These features are: a well-told story, have vivid detail in it and have some indication of the narrative's significance. 

For the ad analysis genre, the key features are: the paper includes a summary of the text and/or a picture of the text, the papers are attention to the context, there is a clear interpretation or judgement in the paper and there is reasonable support for your conclusions. Also the genre includes everything else that I talked about before with the audience, purpose and tone.

The different rhetorical situation can affect your choices you make when writing your paper by way of how you start your paper, how you end it, how much detail you put into it, even your topic that you are writing about. Everything you do for writing a paper can be changed depending on what you choose for the different rhetorical situations and what you want to do for them as well. Rhetorical situations have a lot of influence on people's papers.

What Makes a Good ad?

Purpose: the purpose of the ad is get more women to use Swiffer Dust & Shine with Febreze. If you use Swiffer Dust & Shine to clean your house, your house will shine and be the envy of your friends and your house will smell nice as well. That if you use Swiffer, you will love to clean your house again because your house will shine and smell good. You can see this by that the woman looks happy with her big white smile, that cleaning her house isn't a challenge now, that she can do two things at one time.

Audience: Just by looking at this ad, you can tell that the audience for this ad is women because it is typically the woman or housewife that cleans the house. There are some men that do clean the house but it is typically the woman in a relationship that cleans the house and if she does this, she is a housewife. So the ad is made for married women who are housewife and who clean up the house. There isn't a lot of text in the ad but with the amount it does have, the company use specify words to grab the attention of their audience.

Genre: This ad is like all of the other house cleaning ad in the world. These ads try to grab the attention of housewives and tell them that Swiffer or Lemon pledge is the produce a woman should use to clean their house. All of these ads show a woman using a product and how that using this product, it makes cleaning the house easier and better. Also these types of ads also try to separate their products from the competition, to make women choose their products because it does two jobs at once, your house will be the envy of your friends, etc. There is typically no difference between house cleaning ads.

Tone: Due to the ad having very little text, the advertisers wanted their product to show why it is the best in the business. They show why their product is good. They don't tell why their product is good with text or stats. That house cleaning might be a chore but if you have the right product, it wouldn't be. It could be fun cleaning your house. The advertisers try to make cleaning one's house fun.

The Effects of Revising a Paper

The specific difference between my rough draft and what will be my final draft is that my final draft flows much better compare to my rough draft. My rough draft did somewhat of its job. It told a story and allow the readers of it to paint a picture through the words I used, but at several points, it didn't flow. At these points, the readers would have to reread the sentences to make sure they got my point correctly. My rough draft was a little bit messy at these points and the sentences didn't paint the correct picture I wanted the readers to have as well. My final draft will flow much better, will hopefully be non-messy and paint the correct pictures for the readers.

Where I made or going to make major revisions in my paper is with the content, focus, sentence structure, organization, and word choice. I made revisions in these areas and not in others because these were the areas where I could have made better decisions before and they needed a little bit more help as well. With organization and sentence structure, I moved sentences around to where they could fit better or I removed sentences that weren't important or needed for my paper. Also I used different lengths for my sentences as well. I added more content/detail to areas where the readers would need more and remove some in areas where the readers didn't as much. With word choice, I replace passive verbs and words with active or descriptive verbs and words. Lastly, I changed the focus of my conclusion and paragraph about the project so they could fit better with my paper and to be less messy.

After revising my paper, I was able to identify my own pattern of errors, but I was also able to identify my errors before writing this paper. As a writer, I know that I use passive verbs when I should have used active verbs. I sometimes don't like using commas in my sentence which then makes those sentences into run-on sentences. Also I make small grammar errors that I can't see until someone else points them out for me. Lastly, I either repeat stuff or add "fluff"to my papers which makes them longer than is need. Also "fluff" is stuff that is either non-important or isn't need in the paper.

What led me to the revisions that I made in my paper was me rereading my own paper and having my development writing professor and TRIO writing tutor look over my paper. My former professor helped me to make the revisions I did because she knows how I write and knows my weakness. She lead me to the changes to the word choice in my paper, the change in content, organization and sentence structure. My TRIO writing tutor helped me to make my revisions by pointing out minimum grammar and sentence structure errors that I didn't see and by telling me areas where I could have made better decisions either by word choice, content or showing the significance of my essay by way of foreshadow. Rereading my paper to myself didn't help me as much as someone else reading my paper but I did see some minimum errors I had in my paper.

The strongest aspect in my paper is that I do tell a story and give vivid description. I start my paper right in action. If someone read my paper, that person can follow the story from beginning to end. Also I give vivid description on the difficulty a poetry project gave me and how it helped me to become the writer I am right now and how it helped me to express my feelings. I also give vivid description into how I felt about the project and how I felt with life and the hardships I have dealt with in my life. The weakest aspect in my paper is my conclusion. The conclusion is my weakest aspect because I don't know how to end my paper. I want my conclusion to show and not tell the significance of how a poetry project has affected me and my life but it seems like I am telling it and not showing it. My tutor told me to use poetry in my conclusion to show the significance but I don't know. Hopefully by the time this paper is due, I will find out how to end my paper and make my conclusion do what I want it to do.

What is a "good" paper?

• Word choice/Vocabulary - There is a major difference between the word choice of an A paper and a C paper. In a C or average paper, the word choice that the writer uses will be very simple with a few college level words or vocabulary. The paper would be seem either like a high school student wrote the paper or that the person just used Microsoft thesaurus option and changed some of his/her words to make it seems like they have a higher vocabulary or word choice. In contrast an A paper or an excellent paper, the writer will almost always will use college level words or vocabulary. You can see the writer has a well expanded vocabulary and knows the meanings of those words and when/how to use them. Also word choice also have an effect of the description in the essay but I will talk about that in the next quality.
• Vivid description - Another difference between an A paper and a C paper is the kind of description the writer uses. In a C paper, the writer will use simple words that won't recreate the image, situation or event the writer wants the reader to imagine. An example of the description used in the C paper is "I ran to the front door and as I got to the door, I got tired." The words that the writer uses wont have the effect that the writer was looking for. Compare to an A paper, the writer of the A paper will have a vivid description of the image, situation or event they want to recreate for the reader. An example of the description for the same sentence is "I rushed to the front door, sweating running down my face and to my neck and when I got to the door, I was out of breath like if I ran for miles." The word choice that the writer of a C paper won't have the vivid description compare to an A paper.
• Clarity of the essay - One of the biggest difference between the average paper (C paper) and an excellent paper (A paper) is the clarity of the paper. An average paper will typically be clear and will flow from paragraph to paragraph but there will be points in the paper where the writer goes off topic. When the writer goes off topic, it makes the paper more confusing and less unclear for the reader about what the writer is talking about. Compare to an excellent paper, the writer never goes off topic. The reader will understand what the writer is talking about. The paper will flow from paragraph to paragraph.

Between these three qualities, the easiest for me is having vivid description in my papers. When I am going to describe something, I always use words that paint the picture that I want my readers to see. Without the writer helping the reader to pain a picture, the reader will paint a different picture than what the writer wanted the reader to have. I also think about my word choice for when I am going to paint a picture for my readers as well so that is why having vivid description in my papers is the easiest quality for me.

The hardest quality is making sure that my papers are clear for my readers. In all of the papers I have ever written, I always repeat many things I have already talked about before hand which makes my papers confusing for my professors and longer than what they should be. I always try to make sure that I don't repeat myself but no matter how hard I try, I always repeat myself  and I also sometimes get off topic as well because I repeat myself. I don't see myself repeating until my tutor or professor points it out for me. So because of this and other reason, making my papers clear for my readers is the hardest quality for me.

Topics for Literacy Narrative (blog assignment #2)

One of my topic that I can write about for my literacy narrative is my poetry project I did in seventh grade. For my poetry project, I had to write five different types of poems relating to a feeling. The feeling I chose was love. This project was significant because since that day, I love writing poetry. Poetry has become a hobby of mine and in the future, I hope that I can get a book publish fill with my poems. Also this is was the first time where I got into writing.

I could write an effective literacy narrative on this topic because this was the first moment where I got into writing and into poetry. It spark my interest in learning the different ways of expressing one own feelings and my interest into the different ways of writing poetry. It was very significant to me and who I became today. The cons of this topic as my literacy narrative is that I don't remember a lot of detail information from when I did the project except for the different types of poems I wrote and my process for the project and I need to convey how this project lead me to loving poetry, writing poetry and help me become who I am today.

Another topic is the final paper I wrote for multicultural literature class. For this paper, I had to compare and contrast any two books that I read for the class. The books I chose were The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. In my paper, I explain how these books had similar meanings behind them, express similar messages and were written for the same reason, but are about two different cultures and were written from two different authors, This paper showed me that no matter where you are from and who you are, we are all the same. We all feel the same feelings and there is no difference between us if we don't look at religion, culture, skin color or ideas. We are all human beings.

This topic could be a effective literacy narrative because this was the first educational writing where I enjoy writing the paper. This assignment showed me that I can write a educational essay if I choose the right topic to write about. Before this, I didn't enjoy writing at all because I never had a topic that I liked or a topic that related to me. With this topic, I feel like people can relate to me because we all have dealt with disliking to write for a reason or another but at the end, almost everyone likes to write. The only con with this topic is that I need to talk about the process I took with my paper and explain why I enjoyed writing this paper.

Other than the two previous topics, I could use the time when I started reading the American Chillers series novels. When I was young, I didn't read a lot. I only read in class or for homework. I didn't spend majority of my time reading novels. There was no novels that peak my interest until I started reading the American Chillers series. The genre for this series is fiction, but can be put into sci-fi as well due to the novels had sci-fi characteristics. From that point on, I started to read much more. Every time I read, I was reading either a fiction or sci-fi novel. From reading the American Chillers series, I began to read outside of school. To this day, my favorite genre of books are fiction and sci-fi because I love science and I believe in things that at this point don't exist or are myths.

The pros for this being my topic for my literacy narrative is that it tells how fiction and sci-fi became my favorite genres for novels, how I went a child who didn't like to read to someone who loves to read (when I have a novel that peaks my interest and/or when I have free time) and how I overcame the obstacle of not loving to read novels. Also this topic is relatable to everyone because everyone who reads novels have a reason why they read and everyone has their own favorite genre(s). The cons are that the story might not be interesting to people because some people don't want to read an essay about why someone loves to read books and I don't know how I can make this essay vivid and descriptive for my audience unless I talk about the first American Chiller novel I read and give quotes from the novel. This topic to me would be boring for my audience because if I can't make it vivid and descriptive, the essay would be about why I love to read now and what pushed me down this path, which wouldn't be enjoyable to my audience.

Blog Assignment #1

There are two reasons why I am taking Writing 101. The first is because Writing 101 is a requirement at NEIU for all students to complete this course. The reason why NEIU is asking all of their students to complete this course because in college and in everyday life, we are going to read no matter what. We are going to do research papers, essays, blogs, poems, writing emails or even write a novel. With writing, we all need to know the rules of writing and how to write a well educated and professional writing document. That is the reason why I believe NEIU makes Writing 101 a requirement for all of their students.

The other reason why I am taking this course is because I need to improve my writing skill. Throughout my whole education career, my professors have all told me that I have excellent ideas for my papers, I have great organizing skill and my paper always flow from paragraph to paragraph. What I need to work is knowing how to revision my papers better, how to use more educational/college vocabulary in my papers, to not make common mistakes with my sentences and to make sure that I don't repeat items in my essays. So hopefully by the end of this course, I will have improve with the writing skills that I need help with and maybe improve the writing skills I already have a good grasp with. This is my personal reason for taking Writing 101 as well as that Writing 101 is a requirement at NEIU.