12/6/2017 0 Comments Student Choice: The LotteryIn this blog post, I will be discussing my thoughts and feelings about a short story we read in my English Composition 100 class called “The Lottery.” This short story overwhelmed me with thoughts and feelings that I will be sharing with you, and you may even agree with my thoughts and feelings too.
In the short story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, a village meets up once a year and conducts an annual lottery. All the men who live in the village choose a piece of paper from a hat. The man who draws the paper with the dot on it has to draw once again, this time with only his family. After his family all draws a piece of paper, the family member who picks the paper with the dot on it gets stoned to death by everyone in the village. For more information about this short story, you can visit this blog post. After reading this story, I was confused and horrified. I was confused because when I thought of a “lottery,” I imagined something good happening to people. For example, if someone tells you they won the lottery, they most likely just won a whole lot of money, which is definitely a good thing! I did not imagine a village drawing paper to determine someone’s death. I was horrified because I could not imagine real people stoning one of their acquaintances to death from picking a piece of paper. Doing that act is simply inhumane and cruel. I remember thinking “What kind of monster would come up with such a lottery?” After thinking about this “lottery,” I realized these horrible events happen right here in America. There are bombings, shootings, murders, and more horrid events that happen in this country. Although these awful events are not annually planned, they are planned by one person or by multiple people. Thinking about how people in this world would do this to another human being makes me scared to leave my house sometimes. A victim from these events could have never known they would be a victim from these horrible events. So you never know when something bad like bombings or shootings could happen to you. I’ll admit I am very afraid of death. I ask myself what is going to happen to me when I die, where would I go, and am I just gone forever? Though this is somewhat of a hard topic to talk about for me, talking about shootings and killings makes me accept death more. If I avoid this subject, I am never going to accept it which is not good for my mental health, physical health, and my overall health. Accepting that death will come for me some day will ensure that I will live a better and fulfilling life. I want to make the most out of my life before I die, and I think a lot of people do as well. Reading this article may have made me feel horrified, but it also got me to start thinking about death. Thinking about something that makes me uncomfortable makes me grow in the sense that I have to accept this will happen to me. I hope that one day, after talking and experiencing situations regarding death, I will fully accept death and let go of not knowing the unknown.
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In this blog post, I will be reflecting on my Life-Choice memoir assignment I wrote for my English Composition 100 course. I have been working on this essay off and on for about 2 months, and I will be sharing my process of writing it from my first draft until my last draft.
After receiving the assignment and reading this assignment sheet, I wrote my first draft. My first draft seemed to be more telling instead of showing. My teacher, Sabatino Mangini, specifically said to start the paper by jumping into a scene. When I looked back at my original essay, I did not jump right into a scene. I started the essay with “A high stakes life choice that I have made was…” This was exactly how not to start my life choice essay. After realizing my essay was not written how it was supposed to be, I started the essay again and pictured myself back in the first scene I wanted to include in my essay. I started describing everything I saw, felt, and thought. After describing as much as I thought I could, I added some ideas from my first draft and ended up with my second draft. One of the requirements for this assignment was to have one thousand to one thousand and five hundred words. When I looked at the word count of my second draft, I had two thousand four hundred and twenty two words. The word could was way over the required amount. When I talked to Dr. Mangini about my essay, he gave me a challenge to complete: eliminate seven hundred words from my second essay. This made me nervous. I was not sure if I would even be able to eliminate this many words without erasing parts that were important to the story. However, I was still up for the challenge. I went home that night and started eliminating words. First, I started eliminating the bonus “P.S” part at the end because it was not needed to tell my story. Then I started going through my essay from the beginning to the end. I started eliminating sentences that were not needed to enforce the point I was making. Then I went through the essay again and tried crunching words and phrases together to lessen the word count. After doing all of this, I only eliminated around four hundred and fifty words. I still needed around two hundred and fifty more to get rid of. This is when I started taking out descriptive parts of the essay that I wanted to try and leave in. After taking these wanted phrases out, I eliminated six hundred and eighty four words. I figured I pretty much reached the goal of my teachers challenge; therefore, making my third draft. After reviewing my third draft, I found I did not like this draft as much as my second draft. I feel like I took too many details out of the essay making the essay not as descriptive. However, I did like the challenge of eliminating a large quantity of words and seeing how that could improve my essay or not. Looking at the big picture, the process I took to get to my third draft was a little painful; however, it was well worth the pain because I feel that I have improved my essay substantially. I realized that going back into my essay and revising my first draft improved my writing skills and improved my essay overall. 11/28/2017 0 Comments Research Paper ReflectionIn this blog post, i will be answering questions about my research paper. After watching Reflective Writing and going over notes in class (which can be found in this blog post), I will be making revisions to my Research Paper Draft #1. Before making any changes to the draft, i will answer these questions about my paper so far. Who did you work with to compose your research paper? Was this a good approach? I did not work with anyone to compose my research paper. I think this was a good approach because I was able to include all of my personal thoughts and write the research paper the way I wanted to. What rhetorical mode and genre are you using? The rhetorical mode I am using is Argumentation and the genre I am using is MLA Research Paper. When did you write this project? Good approach? I wrote this project on Friday November 17th and revised it on the 18th and the 21st. I think this was a good approach because I think I wrote the paper early enough so I had time to revise it and make corrections the best I could. Where did you write this project? Good approach? I wrote this project on my living room couch and revised it in my room. I think writing in both of these areas was a good approach because they were both quiet areas and I had no distractions around me. I was able to write all my thoughts down and get the paper done when I wanted to. Why did you choose to write about your chosen topic? Good choice? I chose to write about sex education in America because I think it is a growing problem. Michael Moore's movie Where to Invade Next inspired me to write about this topic. The pregnancy rate and the rate of STD’s are increasing in the country and I think America should try different approaches to lower those rates. This is a good choice because the more awareness is spread, the more consideration there could possibly be in school districts to make a change about sex education. 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? While I was writing my argument paper, I felt pretty good about it. Since I completed the annotated bibliography, I pretty much had all of the information I needed. I had to pick and choose what ideas and evidence would go where and how I would put together the whole paper. As I was writing, these pieces seemed to flow together and I had a good writing experience. After writing the paper, I felt pretty proud of it. I thought I had a strong viewpoint along with strong pieces of evidence. I knew I needed to go back and switch a few things; and after I did that, I was still proud of what I had put together. I also thought my paper was very organized. Ever since writing the paper, I still feel pretty good about it. We talked about how to make revisions in class, so I know I want to go back to my paper and do some touch ups. My one “if only” moment is if only I did my paper bit by bit. I sat down and wrote the whole paper in one sitting. I feel like if I wrote one paragraph about one idea at a time, I could have thought of more creative ideas and maybe how to flow the paper a little better. How will you revise your argument?
I will revise my argument by going and revising one idea at a time, taking a break, and then approaching the other ideas. This will keep me focused on one idea at a time which will hopefully help me think and write the best I can about that particular topic. I will also go back and define any terms that the reader may not know about. I also will make sure that the exigency in the introduction paragraph is clear to the reader. Next, i am going to make sure that i reference the author or the article in every sentence. Then, I am going to add a header to the top left corner of my paper along with the page number in the top right corner of each page. Following that, I am going to add a works cited page which provides all of the sites I used in my essay and all of the authors that wrote them. Lastly, I will revise my conclusion paragraph and make sure my thesis statement is not word for word from my introduction, will add a strong closer, and ensure that there is no new information given in this paragraph. 10/16/2017 1 Comment Life-Choice Memoir ReflectionThe focus of this blog post is a reflection for my first draft of my Life Choice Memoir that I am writing in my English class. This reflection will ask me questions about my writing process, my writing topic, and how to make my writing piece improve. I learned some tips to improve my writing from this reflective writing video.
9/5/2017 0 Comments Writing Process Quote Collage
The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers (Maria Popova) “When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write” (Popova). “I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours” (Popova). “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper” (Popova). Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott) “But I am suggesting that there may be a close friend – who will read your finished drafts and give you an honest critique, let you know what does and doesn’t work, give you some suggestions on things you might take out or things on which you need to elaborate, ways in which to make your piece stronger” (Lamott 9). “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first effort. You need to start somewhere” (Lamott 7) “But beginners are learning to play and they need encouragement to keep their hands moving across the page” (Lamott 13). Zen in the Art of Writing (Ray Bradbury) “In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are” (Bradbury 13). "You stumble into it, mostly. You don't know what you're doing, and suddenly, it's done. You don't set out to reform a certain kind of writing. It evolves out of your own life and night scares. Suddenly you look around and see that you have done something almost fresh" (Bradbury 14). Well, if you are a writer, or hope to be one, similar lists, dredged out of the lop side of your brain, might well help you discover you, even as I flopped around and finally found me" (Bradbury 19). Our Quotes: “The first draft will never be your final draft” “You need to find your inner self to present your best writing” “The beginning of the day will give you fresh set of thoughts” |
Julia ThorntonI am using this blog for my English course and beyond Archives
December 2017
CategoriesAll Life Choice Making Connections Memoir Proust Questionnaire Reflection Research Paper Student Choice Summary Where To Invade Next Writing Process |