Which Essay I Enjoyed the Most

I definitely enjoyed Mike Rose's essay the most of the three, and I believe that is mostly because I have been there myself to a certain extent. I was in a remedial English class once, and it was pretty rough. I was also in a marine biology class, that was the alternative to regular biology of chemistry. That class had a lot of loud sports players who had little to no interest in school whatsoever. The teacher was pretty quiet, and most of the time overwhelmed with the class. But eventually, he got used to the noise, and just taught over our voices. The information he was teaching us was actually very interesting, so we eventually learned to stay quiet, and almost everyone really enjoyed the class. If Mike Rose's teacher, Mr. Alvarez, had done that with his Spanish class, things may have turned out differently. Maybe the students would have realized that Spanish is an important thing to know, especially when you live in LA.

Comparing Malcolm X's, Franklin's, and Rose's Essays

The biggest difference to me with these essays is that Malcolm X and Benjamin Franklin wrote about a very specific part of their education, reading, and in Mike Rose's essay, he talked about how the environment in which he was educated affected him. I found Mike Rose's essay much more interesting, partly because I had experienced some of it myself, and I could relate much easier to Mike Rose's situation, than I could to Malcolm X's or Benjamin Franklin's. From what they wrote, it sounded like both Malcolm X and Benjamin Franklin were encouraged to read and to further educate themselves by most of the people in their lives. However, Mike Rose was struggling to find inspiration and a role model for his education.

Analyzing Ducks

Ducks are made up of many parts, and many systems, much like all other animals. They have a nervous system, a respiratory system, an endocrine system, and a digestive system. Ducks are birds, so they have wings, and they can fly. They have webbed feet, which are better for propelling themselves while they swim in water. Their feathers are very water resistant, which is what helps them float on top of the water. They also have a rounded bill, rather than the beak that some birds have. When ducks mature, they loose their baby feathers, called down feathers, which are used in clothing, and blankets and such. Ducks lay eggs.

How Cubing Can Help Your Writing

Cubing can be a very useful strategy, especially if you are having trouble getting started on a paper. It give you some easy questions to ask yourself about your topic, describe it, analyze it, compare it, apply it, associate it, and argue it. When you answer those questions about your topic, I would probably suggest using bullet points to make a list. That way you can easily incorporate ideas from each question into your paper, without having to take apart a paragraph. In our in class cubing exercise, our group examined texting. My part was the "describe it" portion. It was fairly easy to think of ways to describe texting, but I found that some of my points kind of invaded the other portions of the cubing assignment. This is why I would suggest making a list, rather than writing out paragraphs, because you are bound to have ideas overlapping, and that way you will be less likely to repeat yourself.

In Class Cubing Assignment - Describing Texting

Texting is a way of communication that has only been around for only about ten years. It is essentially an instant message that is sent between phones. You type a message with the keys on your phone, address it to someone in your contact list, and in a few seconds, they receive your worded message. Typically a text message contains only 140 characters, so text messages are usually brief. But if one message is not enough to get the amount of information across, then multiple messages may be sent. Text messages can also be used by companies to send out relevant information to their clients, such as the school alert text messages that Olympic College sends out.Text messages can also be used to send pictures, videos, or internet links.

Blog posts can be the ultimate rough draft for any project. You could potentially write a paper on a blog post, and then ask for editing advice, or technical writing advice from people around the world. It is a medium that needs no backspace or copy paste. You can effectively write out your paper, read it aloud to yourself, and then use notes and your blog post to write your paper. It's a kind of way to get more than you own input on the editing of your paper. Like the difference between a group project, and individual projects. Other people might see your words differently than you intended, and allowing them to be read in a blog post before the paper is due, could potentially save you some trouble in the end.

Mike Rose

I did once have a teacher that was like Mr. Montez, Mike Rose's Spanish 1 teacher. I'm not going to put his real name in here, so I'll call him Mr. White. Mr White was my marine biology teacher in high school. He was a really nice guy, and he had a genuine desire to teach us about marine biology. The problem was, he was intimidated by the students. Marine biology was an alternative science class to biology or chemistry, so it was filled with lots of loud kids from the sports teams, who didn't have much interest in school whatsoever, one of those students being myself. When he got the courage to settle us down, the class was very interesting, but almost every day, we would spend about 20 minutes talking after the class had started. Voc Ed and other remedial classes are a joke in my opinion. Every student is going to struggle with one class or another. It should be up to the school and the teachers to help such students when they struggle. I was in a remedial english class in middle school, and it was completely worthless. We would come to class every day, the teacher would tell us to write a story on a piece of paper, and then he would go read his book. He didn't give us any guidance, and if we ever asked for any help with our writing, he would tell us to talk to other students about it. I have struggled my entire life with writing, but in high school, I had a great teacher, who saw my struggling, and decided she would help. I met with her after school hours, and she would help me edit my writing. I wouldn't consider myself to be a great writer by any means, but I am significantly better at it now. I think Ken Harvey and myself kind of share that problem of being disoriented. Right now I am struggling with a decision. I have always wanted to be in the army, ever since I was a little kid. And now I am trying to figure out if I should quit school and join now, or if I should finish at least an AA, and then join. I know that I am going to join the army, the question is when. College can be disorienting because the options are almost limitless. I find it difficult to decide what I actually want to study in college. High school was more structured, you have to take this many math classes, this many english classes, and some foreign language. In college, you get to decide, and you get to study whatever you want to, and for me, that's pretty tough. My educational experience was very similar to Mike Rose's.

Pre-Writing

I have written many papers during my time in school, but I don't believe I have ever heard of "Pre-Writing". Not that I haven't actually done pre-writing, it would be fairly impossible to write a paper without it. I'm just saying that I don't think I have ever put conscious effort into the process of pre-writing. It is essentially a game plan for the paper, picking a topic, formulating points, gathering evidence, the steps before the first draft. I think that with this new knowledge of pre-writing, I will be able to compose much more efficient and well written first drafts for the papers in this class, as well as papers in classes that are in my future. I can think of one paper in particular where the time spent pre-writing was almost 10 times the amount of time I spent on the writing itself. In 8th grade, I had to write an essay about how Ford Motor Company started the assembly line, and how that helped their business shut out the majority of its competitors (back in the early 1900's at least). I spent weeks on the research, and the point development, and the overall structure of the paper. Then it only took me a day or so to actually write the thing. Even though I didn't know it, I was pre-writing. And I think putting conscious effort into this process will definitely help improve my writing as a whole.

Benjamin Franklin Reading

One thing I found especially interesting was that Benjamin Franklin did not get to settle on the first career that was lined up for him. He was moved around a lot as a boy, and his life changed many times, but he stayed true to what he enjoyed. Which was, like Malcolm X, reading. He learned how to work hard and be diligent from keeping up with his hobby or reading. The one aspect of Franklin's writing that I did not enjoy, were the words and style of his writing. It was hard for me to understand exactly what he was trying to get across after my first time reading it. That was probably only because that was just the way people talked and wrote back then. It was interesting for me to compare Franklin's and Malcolm X's different circumstances. They both read for the same reasons, they enjoyed it, they wanted to better themselves, and they were intrigued by the world that knowledge and reading opened up to them. Even though they were in completely different times and situations, they both kept up with their passions. I hope that if I am presented with circumstances that would make my passions more difficult to sustain, that I will have the strength to keep up with them, as Benjamin Franklin and Malcolm X did.

Malcolm X Reading

The excerpt we just read from The Autobiography of Malcolm X completely sums up what we are supposed to write about for our first Formal Paper. He writes about an educational experience that made an immeasurable influence on his life. He wrote about how while he was in prison, he started to read books. He would get a hold of as many books as he possibly could. There was a set number of books that each inmate could borrow at a time, and he would exceed that number as often as he could. He talks about how the prison system he was in had a major focus on the rehabilitation of their inmates, so they were very happy with Malcolm X, and other inmates like him, who used their time to better themselves. He talks about his motivation for his self-education being his lack of articulation in his letters, mainly to Elijah Muhammad, the founder of Islam, of which he had become a disciple while in prison. He also talks about how when the lights went out at night, he would sit by his cell door for the light, so he could keep reading, but he would have to pretend to be asleep when the guards went past. This is a perfect example of what our formal papers should be like.

Formal Paper #1 Understanding

For the 1st Formal Paper we are required to write in this English 101 class, we will be writing about an educational experience we have had. Not necessarily an experience in some kind of formal education, such as school, but an educational experience nonetheless. Something that has made some sort of an educational impact on our lives. Without giving too much thought I can think of multiple examples that I believe will be perfect for this assignment.   We are required to write about twelve hundred to fifteen hundred words for this first assignment. Even though this paper does not need to be written about an experience in our formal education, it does need to be a formally written paper. Meaning we are required to use MLA format for everything, and we will still be graded based upon the quality of our writing, and not necessarily the content. However, this does not mean that content will not be important, because the content is what will keep people intrigued about your writing.

Education Narratives Readings

So I found the article about programming very interesting, probably because that is something I enjoy doing myself. I enjoyed reading said article because of the content, yes, but also because the author had linked all of his work he talked about in the post, essentially acting as real tangible examples for his story. I believe a very important part of any paper, or project for that matter, are the examples you use to prove your points. The second article, about not using Google, was not as interesting to me, at least in terms of the content. Although the main idea I got from this article was pretty much the same as the first. He used examples, and facts, to back up his thoughts, but I think he used too many facts. There is such a thing as too much information. It was hard for me to keep up with his points because of all the price points and data that he put into his article. This is definitely something to be aware of when doing any sort of writing. Facts are good, as long as they don't overwhelm the rest of your writing. If they do, you may as well just write a fact sheet instead.

First Post

So this is my first day of English 101. Don't really know what to write, so, yeah.