Final Blog.

Final blog
Writing 1122 has helped my writing in a few different ways. First off I learned a lot about the writing process and the importance of all of the steps, when they are done thoroughly. I also learned how to help other people edit and revise their papers from different points of view, which helps a lot; at least it did for me. Some of the best editing and revisions that helped and I received was actually from other students in the class. Another great help was Professor’s input on rough drafts and the letters he wrote us. Those definitely helped me with my direction of my papers and where he wanted to see me go with it, or what he wanted to see out of the essay.
I also learned about Ethos, Pathos and Logos, however, we mainly talked about ethos and pathos in class. I definitely can point both of them out in sections of writing now, and be aware of what the writer is wanting the reader to get out of reading his or her piece. I can say that, for me, appeals to Pathos are the most easily to acknowledge in the reading, because it is an appeal to me, as the reader, and trying to get my emotions involved. This, as a reader, can tell if the writer is a good writer by analyzing the appeal, and seeing if it makes them feel like the writer wants to. Now, it is definitely easier for me to critique and analyze an article or writing piece.

Proposed

“September 11th, 2001. What comes to mind is terrorism and a horrific event that sent our country into a war. What most people do not think about is the problems that it caused for many, if not all, of the states to lose funding for education. Oregon was among those states, and was affected greatly. In recent years, Oregon, the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon in particular, has been greatly affected by a deficit in funding; causing budget cuts in sports programs, learning programs, and spending money. Not only has the Rogue Valley had these problems, but it has also experiences cuts in class time, school closures, and even closures of the public libraries for months at a time.”
This was the intro to my proposal for public good paper. My paper, obviously was about the lack of funding and budget cuts in Oregon after September 11th and the beginning of the war in Iraq. I chose this because it was close to home and there needs to be something done about it, or else the future of the students of Oregon are in huge trouble. People need to see what is happening to the education system around the nation, specifically the Rogue Valley in Oregon, and they need to start thinking about ways to solve the problem. My proposals were create a sales tax, to have our state senators propose a bill, or a ride along to have our timber money put back in Oregon, where it belongs, and call for another land bond measure for a tax levy to raise property tax slightly, and have that go directly to the library funds and school funds. However those are only a couple ways to fix the problems, if only people started acting on these, than we can minimize the problems.

Spanish papers

I just finished a six-page paper, in Spanish. This was probably the hardest paper I have had to write in the history of my Spanish-speaking career. I have written two or three page papers in Spanish before, but never six, nor have I ever had to write a research paper in Spanish or researched anything in Spanish. This was a great learning experience for me, because I had to reach back into my mind a re-learn how to write a research paper because it was in Spanish, and it was like I had never written one before, it was odd, I felt like a seventh grader again, learning how to put a research paper together again.
It was not the structure or how to write necessarily, but all of the steps to take in order to put it together. Normally, in English research papers, I have do so many that I can sit on the computer with a few books next to me and when I need a quote, I can skim pages until I find the best quote. I could not really do that in Spanish, because it took me so long to comprehend and translate each sentence or quote that I had to mark pages or write note cards with what I wanted to use, then I had to outline what I wanted in each paragraph and do the whole routine again, something I had not done in forever. But, I did get it done and it turned out to be a good paper and I am very proud of it, and what I learned.

Rhetorical Questions

Our last assignment in this Writing class was the Rhetorical Analysis of one or a couple Opinion article writers from the Denver Post newspaper. We had a few options we could choose from for our analysis and I chose to use three articles from David Harsanyi and rhetorically analyze them in his appeals to ethos, pathos and logos. However, I chose to focus more on his ethos and pathos than anything else. I analyzed three of his articles, “A stronghold on the GOP”, “Democrats don’t want their elders to be deciders”, and “Conservatives vs. McCain” for a couple reasons, the first is because they are all related on politics and if you read a few political articles from a writer, you can eventually tell how they feel on certain topics, which relates to their ethos. The other reason, is because after reading a couple articles, the reader can really tell if the writer has the authority or credibility to be writing on the topic. A couple of my paragraphs went something like this:
“This proves that Harsanyi has done research on the topic, because of the knowledge of McCain’s stance on issues and the bills he has supported, which adds to his credibility. Not only that, but this also shows that Senator McCain is a more moderate candidate because he calls himself a conservative, but stands for bills that most conservatives do not.”
And that’s just to get an idea, but I learned so much about appeals in this assignment. Things like how writers appeal to pathos and ethos, or how you can read into finding out about an authors ethos or even telling whether they are a credible writer or not.

Espanol

So, last quarter I took a Spanish composition and conversation class. It’s my 6th year of Spanish and I have written papers and stuff before but not as in detail as I did in that class. The professor, Paula, was very positive and helped a lot with the writing aspect fo the class. We had to write at least a page every week to improve our Spanish writing and we had three five page papers due by the end of the quarter.
I would like to think that my writing styles stay the same in both English and Spanish, however I know that Spanish composed differently, so, I am sure that my style is differed slightly from one to the other. My vocabulary improved a lot when I wrote more in Spanish and it also helped my English writing because can think about things differently in different ways not only the way we can read it in English I can think about how I would write it in Spanish and possibly write it out that way.
It has actually been great now being able to write in two different languages, I think its great being bilingual. I also like to think that writing and learning to write in a different language helps out in my native language English.

Up to the Waist

I am writing in response to the letter to the editor How hard is it to identify graffiti tools, by Bill Gernannt, which is about the spray paint and graffiti problem in the Denver area. He wrote this letter in response to “Graffiti bill too broad,” Jan. 18 news story and talks about how Rep. Terrance Carroll is concerned about “profiling” teenagers with doing all the spray painting in the Denver area, which is very reasonable because not all teenagers are graffiti artists. However, Mr. Gernannt pretty much says that the Representative is full of BS and that it is all teenagers doing the vandalism, or art, depending on who is looking at it. Gernannt sees it as vandalism and that all teenagers should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and their parents should be charged a fine and required to clean up the vandalism at their own cost.
This is his scare tactic as appeal to pathos. But it just ticks me off because there are so many more people than just teenagers that are doing the graffitiing, what about the 20-some year old gang members, and what about the teenagers that don’t have parents, it is unjust and unfair, stereotypical and he needs to be told that what he just said is all of that and needs to be smacked for being a smart alec.

Tanking the Thighs

So, I’m sitting here in my dorm room reading the Denver Post and watching The Office, and enjoying myself. I have been reading the letters to the editor and remembering the one time my classmates and I wrote a letter to the editor in response to another person’s letter. It was in my AP Government class and our teacher brought in the editorial section of our local newspaper and read aloud a letter to the editor.
The letter was by an unsatisfied citizen saying that in no clause in the constitution does it give congress the power to make any laws they want, especially about the laws affecting us in Oregon. However, since we were all in AP Government and we had learned the constitution very well and knew that it was under the “Necessary and Proper” clause which allows congress to make all laws necessary and proper to protect the good of the welfare and the safety of the union.
What our class did in return is composed a letter, together, in return to the editor, addressing the author of the letter and in a formal style, somewhat made a fool of him for saying that, “no where in the constitution does it say that congress can form laws about whatever they want”. Every day in class we read the newspaper to see if our letter was printed and in fact, two or three weeks later our letter was printed in the newspaper. Unluckily, it was about two weeks before school ended so we could not see if the man responded to our letter, and I forgot to look in the papers, but it was really fun to write a letter in response to another letter to the editor.

Up to the Knees

So, the next assignment for our writing class is writing about a time of literacy for us, so I have decided to write about reading the novel “Kite Runner” by Khaled Houssini just because of how much I have used references to the book since I have read it.
While writing this essay and any other essay about the book I realized how much the book related to anything and everything in life. On the new SATs there is a required writing section that has two quotes and a question and the writer has to form a side of an argument for or against the statement and prove it using current events, literature, history, or personal experience. I ended up taking the SATs 3 times (not that my scores were very bad, just because I knew I could do better on them, which I did every time) and two of the three times I ended up incorporating the book into my essay. I also wrote about it on my AP literature test and in comparative book essays in my classes.
Writing this essay has actually made me realize how great the “Kite Runner” is and how amazing Khaled Houssini is at writing stories that make the characters become almost real people. It was also a special book for me because I read it with my mom and we could share it with each other and share our interpretations of the story. This book really did impact my life and this assignment helped me realize it.

The Ankle Depth

First off, just experimenting here, I don't really do the whole writing out thing, like a journal or anything for that matter, so anything that is in here may be pertained as dull, seeing as how i do not do this...ever. Anyway, off with the discussion of class:
So, we just got done reading the first half of Two or Three Things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison for out first year writing class, and it turned out to be surprisingly interesting despite my first thoughts. However, there were some parts that i did not agree with as well.
I enjoyed her style and voice in the writing, making it personal by the way she describes her family, and the fact that she puts photos of her family in the book makes it even more believable, even though they could be just some random photos ripped from another fake family photo album. She also has some great repetition with the two or three things I know for sure statements to transition at the end of a point.
However, I didn't like how she would say "I shouldn't be saying this" and then continue on, she should have just stated what she wanted to say and then leave it at that. And that is what i thought of the book so far.

Fresh Pow.

At the beginning of this year, I dreaded writing a three-page paper, even though I have written ten-page papers every year in high school. I always just thought it was just a lot of work to write so much on a little topic. But, since the beginning I have changed my outlook into saying, “ Thank God its only a three page paper”. Having written, now four long papers this last quarter, each over five pages, including the one in Spanish, it has become much easier for me to write longer papers. I have learned how to expand on my ideas, make more complex sentences, and make papers more fluid sounding.
Other things I learned are how to correct my papers and check them over to make sure they sound good, and help others correct their papers. We did many things in class and workshops that helped me adopt these abilities and make them better. First of all we did the writing workshops, where we worked with partners and wrote them letters about their papers and what they could do to make some better progress on them. This not only helped me learn about myself and my grading/critiquing abilities but it also helped me learn how to approach my papers and correct them in a different way. All in all, I learned a lot about my writing abilities this last quarter and I cannot wait for next quarter to work on more papers and have them be easier than before.