In this last blog post I am going to talk about the process of this class and how it helped me learn and grow. I had professor Mangini for English 100 also and my first thought when I found out we would have to post publicly online I was like no I don’t want to do that because I like keeping things private but I decided to try it out. After writing a few blogs I really enjoyed it. I liked the way the class was set up and what we wrote so I decided to take him again for Comp. II. In class the process is more keep improving your writing not just typing a draft handing it in and getting a grade he actually wants you to improve your writing and do as many drafts as you want. Also the things we would read and talk about all lead back to the same thing. They are more interesting and real life topics rather than the general research or writing. You had a lot of space to do something you wanted to write about. I loved this class because it made me want to improve my writing and made me enjoy going to class and doing my blogs. I think for me in my perspective I have improved my writing skills a lot since taking his class and probably have learned more in these two classes then all of high school. I would recommend if you need to take english 100 or 112 take this one.
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The second game we did in class was we had to put together a chapter of a memoir titled The Art of Memoir by Mary Carr. It was cut into pieces and in groups we had to piece it together by reading it and trying to figure out what order it went in. I believe our group was the first to finish. Here is a photo of the chapter we put together.
In class we had a game show with three different activities to complete in our groups. The first one was take four categories and put the slips of paper underneath of them that belong there. For example one of the categories was Genres/sub genres so you would put reflective writing, memoir, and creative nonfiction under it. Here is images of the completed product.
12) Formal Assignment #2. A Reflection. [Categories: Reflection]: Please complete the following:
In this blog post I am going to talk about my process in writing my research paper, Should the U.S. Follow Finland Education System. For this paper I worked alone. This was a good approach because I could sit down and concentrate. The rhetorical mode I used for my paper is argumentative and the genre is argumentative research paper. I wrote this paper in a few days. Well I did the into in school and then after school I went home organized all my research material and highlighted the information I was going to use. I then sat there for five hours and worked on it and got a pretty good amount done. A few days after that I did the same thing and then finished it in school when I had my break. This was a good approach for me. I wrote this paper at home on my kitchen table and in the library at school. My second draft I wrote in class and also in the library at school. This was also a good approach for me. I chose this topic because when I was watching the movie Where to Invade Next and they were talking about this I found myself saying and kinda yelling at myself oh yeah I so agree, why doesn’t my school do this. Or this is unfair we need this in U.S schools. I think it was a good choice. It felt good to write this argument because I felt strongly about it and I found a lot of information that was useful. 11) Formal Assignment #1. A Reflection [Categories: Reflection]: Please complete the following:
In this blog my process of writing my first formal assignment and whether my approaches were good choice or bad. For my first formal assignment I choose the genre of a Fan-Fiction narrative. It is fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, book, etc. In class we read a story called A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor. I used this story to make a Fan Fiction Narrative out of it. In my writing a use a type of writing called Reflective Writing. Here is draft #1 of my fan fiction called Who Really is the Misfit? To compose my fanfiction narrative I worked alone. I think this was a good approach because if I have anyone else around me or even the TV on I get distracted. Although I did hand my drafts in for revision so I guess I didn't work completely alone. The rhetorical mode I am using for this writing is narration. The genre is fanfiction. I wrote this draft over a course of a week. On tuesdays and thursdays I have a two and a half hour break between classes so I would work on it then in the school library so I had no distractions and I had to actually sit there and do it. I think this was a good approach. I wrote this paper in the library and at home. In the library I believe was a good choice because it really made me sit down and focus on it. At home is where I had to finish it. I don’t think this was a good approach because there are so many things yo get distracted by at home. I chose to write about this chosen topic because one I love fanfiction. I love how you can make it into anything you want. I always find myself making up stories in my head and I actually got to write one down for my class for once. I have only probably read two whole actual books, besides kid books in my lifetime. One was a fanfiction that actually became published. It also makes it easier to imagine what these characters in the book are really like or look like because they are usually based off of real people. I chose to write a fanfiction about A Good Man is Hard to Find, but mostly the Misfit because I read it and I was like I can actually maybe make this into something. Instead of them killing the family I could make the house actually there and trap them into it and have the Misfit have this whole backstory was my first thought. This Misfit also reminded me of a character on the CW show riverdale which is based on the Archie Comic books. The show and the story are both kinda dark so I made this into a fanfiction of the mixture of the two. I actually had a lot of fun writing it and figuring out how I was going to tell this story. During writing this story I had so many ideas I had to write them all down. Now I still have ideas how I can change it or add some stuff for major plot twists. I love the complexity of characters and how they all have a past and a story to tell. 10) Annotated Bibliography [Categories: Where to Invade Next, Research Paper]: Please complete the following:
Source # 1: Title: Where to Invade Next Produced and directed by: Michael Moore Release date: December 23rd 2015 Summary: Where to invade next is a documentary starring and produced and directed by Michael Moore. Michael Moore goes to or “invades” other countries as he says to take their ideas back to the United States. The countries he visits are Italy, France, Finland, Slovenia, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Tunisia, and Iceland. Some places he visits are the work place, schools, colleges and prisons. The subjects covered are worker benefits, school lunches, early education, college education, worker inclusion, decriminalized drugs, low recidivism, women's health care, and women's inclusion and leadership role in society. Evaluation of the text: I thought it was a very insightful film and brings up a lot of things that are major issues. Also how we are called the best country in the world so why don’t we have the best education system or more paid vacation days. Relevance to research paper: It is relevant because this is the piece we are taking our research questions from and the reason we're writing this. The topic I choose for my paper was should the American educational system follow Finland’s educational system? In the film they talk a lot about this such as the standardized tests, no homework, less school hours, and the happiness and well being of the students. Source # 2 Library database source: Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea. Author: Hani Morgan Copyright date: Mar/April 2016 Morgan, Hani. "Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea." Clearing House, vol. 89, no. 2, Mar/Apr 2016, pp. 67-72. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00098655.2016.1156628. Summary: In the twenty-first century, the use of standardized tests as the primary means to evaluate schools and teachers in the United States has contributed to severe dilemmas, including misleading information on what students know, lower-level instruction, cheating, less collaboration, unfair treatment of teachers, and biased teaching. This article provides reasons for the increased use in high-stakes testing and detail on the problems it causes. Also included are possible solutions to alleviate the concerns associated with high-stakes testing. Evaluation: I think this is a really good article it has a lot of really good stuff to say about the problem of standardized tests. Relevance: I think this is a really good article because it’s actually a relevant topic with schools using to determine standardized tests on how smart you are or the schools students are and to decide what schools get more money which is not fair. Source # 3 Library database: Perspectives from Finland: Educational Voices Author: Kaija Teikari Publication date: June 2016 Teikari, Kaija. "Perspectives from Finland: Educational Voices." Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, vol. 82, no. 4, June 2016, pp. 1-6. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.libdb.dccc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=118195323&site=ehost-live. Summary: The article explores on the idea of equal educational opportunities during the post-World War II political and social developments in Finland. It examines the unequal access of the Finnish to education in towns and municipalities. It also cites the educational system of the Finnish schools under the rule of the municipal social sector. Evaluation: This takes a good take on how their education became what it is today and how it works. Relevance: It’s relevant because it talks about the general info on Finland education. Source # 4: How the Finnish school system outshines U.S. education Author: Stephen Tung Publication date: January 20th 2012 Tung, Stephen. “How the Finnish school system outshines U.S. education.” Stanford University, 20 Jan. 2012, news.stanford.edu/news/2012/january/finnish-schools-reform-012012.html. Summary: This article basically talks about how drastically different Finland and the United States education system is. It also talks about how Finland education system once at the bottom and how it rose to the top. Evaluation: This is a good article to compare and contrast the two education systems. Relevance: This is a huge part of my research paper. On how different the two education systems are. Source # 5 Do our kids have too much homework? Author: Marian Wilde Publication date: July 1st 2016 Summary: In this article the writer asks some parents their opinion on if their kids get to much homework. They say they are just so overwhelmed and stressed out. It’s also not just students but they say teachers nowadays assign these almost college-level projects. Evaluation: This is good article because it gives some real life examples. Relevance: It’s relevant because I can use this to put examples in my paper to show why that U.S. schools should have less homework. Source # 6 Review: ‘Where to Invade Next,’ Michael Moore’s Latest Documentary Author: Stephen Holden Publication date: December 22nd 2015 Summary: This New York Times article just gives the basic information on the Where to Invade Next movie and pretty much a summary and review. Evaluation: It gives me and the audience the basic information we would need. Relevance: I used some of it in my intro to my paper to summarize the movie a bit. 9) Writing About Where to Invade Next. An Argument. [Categories: Where to Invade Next, Research Paper, Argument]: Introduction:
Topic #1: Paid vacation days
Research question: Why in some other countries do employees get twice as much paid vacation then the united states. Argument: You could argue that the people of Italy of the longest life expectancy in the world because they have less stress and get more time off. Also you can talk about how the bosses don’t mind letting them have the time off but in America it’s a big deal. Topic # 2: School lunches Research Question: Why aren't there good healthy school lunches in schools when we try and teach kids to eat healthy. Argument: You could talk about how obesity in this country is growing and this doesn't help. Also it's not even that. Lot's of kids and young adults have serious health problems with all this processed food. Topic # 3: Education Research Question: Finland has the number one education in the world, yet has no standard test, barely no multiple choice questions, and has only maybe 5 minutes of homework. So why are they number one when we (America) do the tests and homework to try and be better? Argument: Research on the standardized tests and why we do them. Also search why homework helps or doesn’t help students. In class we are watching the documentary called Where to Invade Next for our research paper we are going to be writing. In the documentary Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore stars in, directed, and wrote this film. In this documentary he visits different countries to “take their ideas” as he says it. He sits down and talks to different people such as teachers, workers, regular people, and even presidents or leaders of them countries. The countries he visited were Italy, France, Finland, Slovenia, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Tunisia, and Iceland. In Italy Moore visits a factory where he discusses with the owner and various workers about labor rights and their workers well-being such as paid vacations, and paternity leave. Next in France he visits schools where he talks with the students and teachers about the school meals and how they have a real chef, the schools meet with dietitians, and they only drink water. They also talked about sex education. In Finland he discussed also with schools I think specifically a high school that they barely have homework and the teachers want the kids to go and have fun and have more family time. Also they don’t have standardized tests yet there the #1 education in the world. They also don’t believe in tuition for say a private school. In Slovenia he talked about how everyone goes to college for free. Next in Germany he visits two factories and business parks where he talks with various workers about the country's labor rights and work life balance. In Portugal he talks with some people and three city policemen also about the country's May Day holiday for the workers, the lenient drug policy of Portugal, and the abolition of the county's death penalty. In Norway he discusses Norway’s humane prison system. In Tunisia meets with women activists to discuss the evolution of women's rights in the country. Lastly in Iceland he discusses the theme of women in power, speaking with the world's first democratically elected female president of Iceland.
Here I am going to put a image of the web I created before writing my story. It's not really a traditional web but it's my way of writing a web and trying to get all my thoughts together. I also did this to make sure I didn't forget what I wanted to write as I was writing because I do that sometimes and my thoughts get all scrambled together.
7) Writing About Our Course Stories [Categories: Life Choice, Course Reading, Re-Genre]: Please complete the following:
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