Student Blog
Research Paper Process Reflection5/8/2018 The focus of this blog post is to reflect back on my research paper and my process. I will answer a series of questions on the subject to give more context on my writing technique.
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Where to Invade Next? An Argument5/7/2018 The main point of this blog post is to establish an argument I want to base my Research paper on. The argument will revolve around the documentary “Where to Invade Next” by Michael Moore. I’m going to pick three different topics from the documentary to base my paper off of.
· Topic: The Educational System in America and Finland · Research Question: How can America restore its educational system and try to rival Finland’s? · Argument: America could start with banning private schools so that all children have to attend public schools. They could also move away from the standardized test, and move to teaching and just learning a subject. · Topic: America should have paid Vacation like Italy · Research Question: Why doesn’t America have more paid vacation like Italy? · Argument: America should offer more paid vacation so that its citizens aren’t so overworked and stressed. We should also have paid maternity leave for expecting mothers since every other country in the world offers it except America and Papa New Guinea. · Topic: America should remember its dark past like Germany · Research Question: What would change in America if we all were more educated on our actual past? · Argument: If we all remember slavery and how we kicked the Indians out of their home to build ours maybe we would as a country be less arrogant and judgmental. In this blog post I will be summarizing a documentary by Michael Moore, called “Where To Invade Next”. In the documentary Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore travels to different countries that have a specific ideal that America would benefit from adapting to. All of these ideals you come to find out have American origins, although along the path to where we are now, we strayed away from said ideals. Michael visits countries such as Italy, Finland, France, Slovenia, Germany, Tunisia, and Portugal. Each one having a certain trait that was stolen from America along the line at some point. His points and facts are very provoking and make you think what it actually means to be American. Take Finland for example, they have the world’s greatest educational system. Their students have the highest IQ in the entire world, and they have a third of the amount of time in school as America. The whole entire country has a ban on homework, and it is illegal to open up a private school anywhere in the country. This means that all children no matter their economic status have to attend the same public school. This way parents that are wealthier have to play more of a part in keeping up the public school system, if they want their kids to get better education. The documentary is a must watch for any American who is blind to other opportunities throughout the world. Mr. Moore made a statement in ethos by coming off as a casual type guy yet stating straight facts. He made himself look as if he was an average middle class American guy. He even talked to the president of Slovenia in just some casual clothes like it was nothing. Could you imagine if someone talked 1 on 1 with president Trump in nothing but average clothes from like Walmart? It absolutely would not fly, and he would not be so humble if it did happen. In the movie he demonstrated logos by making all of his points from straight facts. He went to the actual countries and talked to locals, industry leaders, teachers, and government officials. It wasn’t just his opinions narrated over shots of those countries. He also delves into pathos by just shocking you with the truth of the fact that America is not the greatest country in the world. Some Americans are very confident that we have the world’s best of everything, when sadly that isn’t true anymore. The Telos of the whole documentary although is to wake up Americans of the harsh truth that is we need to change this countries ideals. The Kairos of the film is the action we need to take as Americans to change our country for the better. The focus of this blog post is to reflect back on my writing of my Life Choice Memoir. To look back at the rhetorical modes I used and my overall tone or mood the story has. It will give you some more context into how I went about writing this paper, and what I plan on doing with it in the future.
Reflective Writing Video Life Choice Memoir Web Page Provide thoughtful answers to these questions:
Life Choice: To Tell The Truth?5/4/2018 What You Don’t Know (Lulu Wang) is a writing and a podcast about a women Lulu and her terminal grandmother who had lung cancer. The main body of the story deals with the decision she and her family had to make about her grandmother’s condition. Now I will answer to questions that deal directly to the overall narrative of the story.
· Did you agree with the family’s choice to deceive Wang’s grandmother? This is a tricky question because reading this I want to absolutely disagree with their decision to lie to the grandmother. Although thinking on it more I realize what would I do if it was my Grandmother in this same situation? She would be heartbroken and try to do everything in her power to live the best she could, and maybe when she did pass she would pass peacefully. That is a big maybe though don’t you think? Them lying to her ensured that she would go on living how she would in peace and not traumatized by the fact that you know your own end is coming swiftly. I think it’s not in my place to either agree nor disagree with their choice. If it was me although, it would be one of the hardest decisions of my entire life. Everyone dies at some point and as you grow older you know that your time is coming, but to find out you have cancer is a big realization. It can change a person mentally and emotionally. If they had told her about her illness she may have been in denial or could have accepted it and thanked them for letting her know her demise would come sooner than expected. If I were in the grandmothers position I of course would want to know I was harboring a terminal illness. How do they know she wasn’t in pain, or that she wasn’t suffering? There are way too many if’s and maybe’s to go off of in the scenario of not telling someone the truth in this situation. · When have you made an important choice to tell someone a difficult truth or you made an important choice to tell a lie that had a major impact on you and/or someone else? I’ll never forget the time I lied to my parents about smoking cigarettes. I started at 14 because I always hung around older people since I was more mature than people my age. One day my mom came home while I was taking a nap and I had left a pack of newports on my dresser. She saw them and confronted me on it. I swore on my life up and down that they were a friend’s and they had just left them over here and that I hate cigarettes. She believed me, and I continued on smoking every night when my parents fell asleep. I became addicted and always was trying to find an excuse to leave the house for a drive or to just go for a walk down the block for a smoke. I became dependent on them as a way to relieve my stress and heartbreak of a 2 year long relationship that ended in heartbreak on my part. For years and years I lied and hid the fact I was heavily addicted to cigarettes from my parents. Until one day I was playing basketball and started hacking up a lung and almost passed out from lightheadedness. 2 months after that I came clean to my parents, and continued smoking. After 5 years of off and on addiction I finally quit early 2018, and I haven’t felt better in years. Hills Like White Elephants2/17/2018 Introduction
This blog post goes over some key points to the short story Hills Like White Elephants. I will answer two major plot point type questions while also providing some of my own personal experiences. Write a 200-word argument that responds to these questions: Does she stay in her relationship with the man? This story is very ambiguous with its plot, and it takes a lot of second thought to truly find the meaning behind some of the points. I feel like in the physical sense she is definitely still in a relationship with this man, she carries his child and has not broken up with him. This baby will bind them together until it is either born or aborted. In the emotional sense although I feel like the women is definitely shaken in her belief that things will go right after the fact or even now. A pregnancy is a very big thing for a couple, and an unexpected one is an even bigger hurdle or step whichever you decide it is. The women I feel like is thinking to herself if this man loves me then whether I have baby or not should not matter. While this may be true, something as big as a child can change someone and make them reconsider who they are and what they’re doing. I believe they’re still together although probably will not be for very much longer. Write a 200-word narrative that illustrates a response to this question: When have you made an important choice to stay in a relationship or leave a relationship -- OR -- stay or leave a difficult situation? I encourage you to write a scene that shows the moment. Consider using dialogue. When I think about staying or leaving a certain relationship I instantly think of a situation that literally happened the other day. Me and my current girlfriend Haley had a falling out and she took off her promise ring and threw it at me and told me she never wanted to see me again. I knew that I had two choices in this situation. Either go after her and try to make amends or move on and just let it all fall apart. For me it wasn’t a hard decision, I grabbed my keys and headed for her work right away. Stopped at Wegmans and got her some flowers and her favorite kind of cookie and left for the hardest step, the confrontation. Rest assured we ended up working things out, and things are a little hard now but we’re working towards a better tomorrow with each other. I think this is a very defining moment, because it’s these types of situations where relationships either make or break. I know where I stand with my feelings for her, and she knows where she stands for her feelings for me. We love each other, and both have a very successful future ahead of us, together. My Name Is Margaret2/2/2018
My Proust Questionaire1/25/2018 The Proust Questionaire
Writing Process Quote Collage1/25/2018 This blog is a sample of quotes from authors that have a very good sense of writing process. These quotes all hold some type of connection to me in some way. To follow it up I included 3 quotes from myself to sum up my viewpoint of the writing process. Here are the 3 links to the websites I acquired these author’s thoughts.
1. https://www.heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/0600/web%20sample_murray.pdf 2. http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/11/20/daily-routines-writers/ 3. http://engl210-picetti.wikispaces.umb.edu/file/view/Lamott_Bird+by+Bird.pdf 12 Quotes on The Writing Process: Teach Writing as a Process Not a Product “Another meaning of essential would imply that we, as editors, have been able to review all of his published and unpublished work and pull out the work that was truly enduring.” (Don Murray) “There is always magic in this for me, and wonder because I do not know what I am going to say until it is said.” (Don Murray) “There is the freedom of order there needs to be no structure. There is the generatively, one item leading to another. There is the illusion of control things to do, crossed out as they are done. There is in this work the paradox of control, a process of writing open to surprise, confined by, surrounded by, the forms that emphasize control.” (Don Murray) The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers “I never listen to music when I’m working. I haven’t that kind of attentiveness, and I wouldn’t like it at all.” (E.B. White) “Pray to Jesus to preserve my sanity and my energy so I can help my family: that being my paralyzed mother, and my wife, and the ever-present kitties. Okay?” (Jack Kerouac) “Starting tomorrow — if not today: I will get up every morning no later than eight. (Can break this rule once a week.)” (Susan Sontag) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” (E. L. Doctorow) “All I have to do is write down as much as I can see through a one inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.” (Lamott Bird) “The idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.” (Lamott Bird) Larry Barnett’s Quotes for the Writing Process “Great writing cannot be thought it has to be felt, and hence flowed straight from the subconscious truthful mind.” “When I write it has to be completely silent. Absent of sound, just my pen, paper, and mind.” “Writing comes to me like a river in a flood or a drought. Once the rain begins, there is no stopping the complexities of my thought. Once the harsh rays beam down, I could not write a word without gasping for relief.” AuthorLarry John-Damon Barnett Jr Archives
May 2018
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