Moments in Time

It's almost the end of the first week of school. I feel really good to be in my second year of college. So many Freshman feeling lost and wondering where to go and where to eat. So far my classes are easy and the teachers are cool. I have my Psychology professor who was told that he sound like Ben Stein from the Clear Eye commercial. The whole auditorium started laughing. That was very funny. Imagine listening to him for three days a week. Yikes! I'm totally ready for the weekend and being able to relax and just get some rest from all the ripping and running I've done this week. Believe, I think it is just getting started. Hopefully this will be a good semester and I can ace it all with grades of excellency.

I spent like $600 on books this semester. Agree with me that you may have spent not have spent that much on books outside of college. Though the lines were long, they moved pretty quickly. Well, at least the line I was in. And that the end of the semester the campus bookstore will be seeing by face as I return them all for some money back. In Oral Communication class we have to watch Obama's speech and critique/analyze it for class next week. I really don't want to watch it, but I am sure that I can also find it on YouTube this weekend. That's apart of homework that I have among others. [update: I ended up watching his speech so that I could have been easier for me to critique. Sometimes situations end up where we are tired of hearing about it or ready to move on and it gets tiring. So I'm anxious to get everything over with and for him to win president. I am not really big into politics, but I believe things turn out according to the majority]. I guess this is my week's update on the first of week of being back in school.

Synchroblogging: College Style!

What such an amount of people that are signing up. I was not expecting so many; however it is good to see people are interested in synchroblogging. The first session is September 14-19, 2008. The topic is: This Really Bugs Me. You can go and run with the topic. There's nothing stopping you from freely writing. This should be a good topic whether serious or funny, it should be all fun! I'm sure there is something or someone that bugs the heck out of you. You may have more than one person or little pet-peeve, but whatever it is we want to hear. Be sure to keep everything at the appropriate level. This is an advance note about the first topic. Also, you can be reminded by e-mail or on your comment section of your blog. For future reference, any questions or comments or suggestions for topics, feel free to contact me in any form.

Q&A

Q: What date will our titles (and post URLs) be due?
A: The date to titles and to post URLs will be due Thursday, September 18 via e-mail at kloliver11 [at] gmail dot] com.
Q: What day and time should we all schedule our posts?
A: For now there isn't an exact day and time to schedule the posts. With this being said, for now there is really not day and time you should schedule your posts at the moment. However you should schedule the posts are any chosen day from your normal posting on any chosen day of the week. Afterwards, you should submit your title and URLs.

Calling all bloggers to participate in a event of Synchroblogging: College Style! It's similar to those blog carnivals that you may have seen throughout the blogosphere. Though this is set up for those who are students in college that blog, Synchroblogging: College Style is open for those who are students that actually blog, bloggers who write about university and college in general. Whether you are in college or not, you are invited to participate. You don't have to be a student blogger, but as long as it relates to college on any level you would like. There's no limit to anyone that can join in on the fun. The first session is scheduled to take place in mid-September.

Guidelines:

• Each blogger will write on the same topic that will be given each month. (Supposedly at the same time, same day). However, you are given a week's period to write a post on the given topic.
• In each post, the blogger will provide links to other participants. They will let you readers know everyone else that is participating in the Synchroblogging. This is to help you get more hints. There will be a main list of all the participants listed each month here that will allow you to make it easier to find the others.
• Though this is for college bloggers, those who aren't in college yet or write about college in general, you may join in with us.

Now ask yourself what do I get out of this Synchroblogging? I'll answer that for you! You will gain more hints on your blog, more readers, discover other bloggers of the same niche or another background, more comments and just the fact of having fun and doing something different.

If you would like to participate, have any questions or anything else, feel free to e-mail, leave a comment, or even IM me.

I believe that it is a good effort for anyone who, especially college students, to reflect back on previous writing assignments to find the minor and major mistakes in order to enhance their skills. I remember taking English 1010 Composition class for Freshman and we had to write a letter that demonstrated Student Learning Outcomes. Each student had to write an evaluation in a letter form with specific instructions. (I forgot how it happened, but from my class, my letter was chosen to be read from the pool of others written from my classmates). After I have survived different assignments from a year's writing assignment, all the skills I gained from the course will be very helpful in the future. Rather you are in college or still in high school, you should be able to sit and think how you will approach the different types of writing assignments that are given to you by your instructors.

Sometimes after we realize what we have learned from different course, especially those of English, we can use them in every ability possible. With everything said, I would like to my letter to sum of the purpose or point of this me writing this post.

November 3, 2007

Dear Portfolio Evaluator:

This semester I have demonstrated the Learning Outcomes for this English course that helped me developed a foundation of improving and developing reading and writing skills to a higher level.

Analyzing and critiquing a writer's essay is something that is usually done on a simple basis. For example, in high school I remember reading novels in the eleventh grade where the teacher wanted us to think about the purpose that the writer was trying to send to the readers, or the class would have to write an essay about the novel using a rubric. In this English course, I have demonstrated the goal of analyzing an author's essay and discovering the purpose of his or her rhetorical choices. In the essay the "Fourth of July," I have discovered the purpose of why the author uses a word several times and why the author uses an ironic title to talk about her vacation. To help me understand the text I was reading, I highlighted certain words to be used as context in different sections of the essay so that I could dissect everything to find the author's message. After noticing different colors of highlighters, style, and choice of words, tone, and all other elements used in Audre Lorde's essay just popped out of the book. This method really helped me to meet the ability to analyze a writer's essay.

The ability to comprehend the essays which we had to write about was a learning outcome that I felt I met. Taking the quizzes over different essays after reading them helped me with comprehending a college-level text because I found out what I needed to know and what I already knew that could help me understand the essays. To help meet this reading outcome, I believe that my Reader Response essay was something I enjoyed writing since I actually got to be objective and disagree with what the author in one way or another. My essay response to the essay "Real Men Don't: Anti-Male Bias in English" helped me to comprehend the author's purpose of writing the essay. In other words, the dialogue journal with quotes helped me to get a general idea of what I will use for rebuttal. Once I wrote the essay, I reread it to discover the writer's message and what he was trying to tell the audience. The peer review groups allowed another student to evaluate my essay for certain standards. Since the student gave a critique and understood what I was saying in my essay, I concluded that I comprehended the writer's essay through effective method.

From this first-year course, I have demonstrated the skill of thinking of my own ideas and responses and ideas of other authors to quote, summarize, and synthesize their work to respond to their works to prove a point. In my essay, about whether or not to make English the official language in the United States, I used several quotes from the selections to prove my point that I was for the government to make English official. I have never written a synthesis essay until it was explained and assigned to me by my teacher. As a prewriting activity, I read every essay from the book twice and highlighted quotes that were similar to each other among the group of essays discussed. I can use my work as evidence because throughout the essay, there are several quotes to help me develop an idea of explaining my point in forming disagreement with the topic given. Taking ten minutes to read and respond to a reason by using a quote also helped me to complete this learning skill.

Using the writing process has helped me develop and construct essays. Participating in peer review groups allowed me to see what my classmates thought of my writing and if they were able to comprehend what I had written throughout this course. Being able to see what my classmates thought of my ideas and using supporting quotes helped me to revise and edit sentences that contradicted myself or might be unclear. The strategies given to help proofread were used in the case of correcting grammar, spelling mistakes, and other errors allowed me to see what I need to improve in those different areas of writing. I have demonstrated the ability to organize an essay to prove a point, explain an authors purpose, and organize ideas to form an essay to respond to a selection.

I have been familiar with using MLA and incorporating it into essays from high school writing. The ability to continue using MLA is very important that allows me to get better familiar with it on the college level. In ever core essay, I have correctly used MLA to use quotes as a foundation and source to explain formulated ideas. As evidence, I have shown my ability to write a works cited page with the synthesis essay. Cross-reference is another method that I have learned to use versus the regular way of documenting a resource.

The learning outcomes that I developed and have shown as evidence helped me to evaluate my own writing skills. I think I have done a good job in this course.

Sincerely,

Kelvin

The following writing piece is a response from the article "Let's Not Get Out the Vote" by Robert Coulson. It is archived in the November 1955 issue of Harper's Magazine.

After reading this essay, the idea that comes to mind is that Robert Coulson encouraging people to vote and how a certain amount of people feel about marking a candidate’s name on the ballot. I think the speaker is probably a writer that has been published throughout his life and probably is an editor or a publication writer. From reading the essay, there are no context clues that are meant to be read between the line that signifies if the write is apart of a political party or group. The writer does not really tell us if he is apart of a political party. I can assume if Coulson may not be because he does not actually states anything about it in the essay; however, it can be assumed that he may not be with a political group. Does it matter if we vote? If you did a poll of that question, probably majority of those who are care and really into politics will say yes whereas those who really are confused, lost, or dang on right do not care, will simply vote no.

Coulson grabbed my attention by saying that we should be able to vote wisely and form some sort of opinion about the candidate who is running in the race to be voted a chairperson or a position in a group. Once we form that opinion we should be able to go to the voting booth and mark the candidate’s name without changing our minds at the last minute. There is no certain audience the writer is talking to since this is just about voting and persuading everyone to vote. Perhaps Coulson is talking to the non-voters since the people who do vote make it a “duty, it ceases to be a privilege.”

Though this article was written in 1955, there seems to be not much of a difference in the way people thought about voting than they feel about voting now. In one point of the essay he mentions that people are persuaded to go out and vote. By this being said I mean that often we hear other people around us that will want us to go vote and tell us why it is important for everyone, especially the youth to vote. However, by just telling people to vote, they first have to get familiar with those candidates who are running and why they want to grab the position that is up for bids. The phrase “vote this time or your vote may be gone forever” ties with similar phrases that you hear on TV, political rallies, schools, and even family members. To make it very known that some people feel pressured to vote leads them not to vote since they may not know everything about a presidential candidate or they are fretting to decided which person will get their vote. Though everyone is encourage to vote, not all will vote because they may not care about who because president or have sense enough to vote. The public awareness and pressure of 1955 and today really do not show much of a change.

I find voting important since it is an activity that involves us learning more about the important documents of the United States. I’m not engaged with all the politics and the educational influence of it; however, the person who becomes the next president does matter. The laws, bills, and amendments that will be set forth will matter to use in the long run. When the presidents make a law, I believe it will affect every citizen depending on whom it is being mandated towards a certain age group. If a person does not like what the outcome is like, then he or she should not get mad because their vote did not count since the person did not vote whether they agree or this agree with the new law or amendment. To support that some people do not because they do not, I think that not everyone remembers in American Government the process on how the president is elected or how the your votes get counted in the concept of the electoral college.

If we do not understand how important it is to vote or the voting process entirely, questions should be asked to someone that knows and could help us. Some people are registered to vote, but they do not take the time out to vote. Being this said, they should form an opinion and think twice based on what they know about a person before voting. Going along with the title, let’s not take out the vote, but keep the vote for someone who actually deserves the job and high rank of president or another position in other organizations. Everyone has a chance to vote. Our vote is our voice on paper.