Weekly Reflection 4

08.01 - 08.04
This is the second to last week of summer classes. This week we had to create a syllogism. Syllogisms are pretty confusing and hard to write but it is good for an argument essay to make the essay more effective. We constructed an argumentative paper and the professor gave us options for a topic. We could either disagree or agree on our topic but we had to have 2-3 articles to prove our arguments. We had two writing workshop days to write our drafts and individually we had to talk to the professor about our topics and to see where we were at with the paper. The most interesting thing I’ve learned this week is “Love”. The reading “On Love” really defined what love is and it was truly an amazing story. The way the author portrays the story was interesting because she starts off with her marriage and then writes about her life after her marriage in ten years. Also my favorite part of the week was when we watched Marina Abramovic performance. I felt like art can be shown in many ways and Marina portrayed that in a unique way. At the end, she cried when she seen her ex husband. That shows that they had a great relationship and they truly loved each other.

Reading Journal | "The Death of the Moth" Virginia Woolf

The story "The Death of the Moth" Woolf uses many types of modes but the most effective mode she uses is Description. Woolf utilizes extremely specific words instead of using vague descriptions. Woolf begins her essay with a general description. It begins when Woolf describes the day of the moth and the narrator surroundings, using very vivid description of imagery. The narrator is watching the moth as it attempts to the leave the room by the closed window. She states "Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings..." Also throughout the story, she pays close attention to every detail of the moth and the detail of the moth's movements. During the description of the moth, she writes, "Nevertheless, the present specimen, with his narrow hay-coloured wings, fringed with a tassel of the same colour, seemed to be content with life." Woolf expresses throughout the text how the death of the moth made her wonder about and question the moth’s death. After the death of the moth, Woolf expressed her curiousness of how death can overpower a person and take full control of a situation.

Weekly Reflection 3

07.25 - 07.28
As this summer classes comes to a close this assignment provides an excellent opportunity to write about the things we’ve learned most about this week. This is the third week of english composition 1301 and there are two more weeks of summer school left. This week we were given a group writing assignment on causes and effects. As a group, we got to choose our topics and my group topic was about the causes and effects of Stress. We also presented a powerpoint on our topics. On friday, we learned about Aristotelian Argument. The goal as a writer is to convince the audience of something this includes using strategies to persuade the audience to adopt your side of the issue. Using this technique, helps the readers to attempt to persuade the reader to a particular view. This includes logos, ethos, and pathos.

Reading Journal | “Last Rites for Indian Dead" Suzan S. Harjo

In the shorty story, Last Rites for Indian Dead, Harjo argues that her ancestors should not be treated the way that they are like being put up for display and being sold to private collectors. She fights for her rights throughout this piece using ethos and pathos. As I was reading the short story, ethos was easily spotted. In the first paragraph, Harjo starts off by saying, "What if museums, universities, and the government agencies could put your dead relatives on display or keep them in boxes to be cut up and otherwise studied?" This is a perfect example of ethos. She is trying to draw sympathy with that horrifying sentence. Harjo uses ethos to make an argument that what was happening to the Native Americans was not fair. Harjo also uses ethos effectively to create credibility and character for herself to make it her seem more appealing to the readers. Harjo also uses pathos in her writing. At the end of her writing she offers a solution for Congress to act and the outcome she provided was, "Let us bury our dead and remove this shameful past from America's future." She uses this solution to provide a valid reason to solve the problem that appeals to the reader's emotions.

Reading Journal | "The Chinatown Idea" Eric Liu

1. The most successful strategy of Liu's narration is when he uses strong sensory details. As the writer writes about New York's Chinatown, his visits to see his mother, and her experience coming to America, he describes those details of the many scenes he experiences in great depth. By writing about a scene's impact on all five senses and using countless of specific visuals, Liu is able to paint a picture of a scene so distinctly that the reader feel that he or she is actually there. The most important vivid description in the piece was his depiction of Chinatown. "Red-and-gold lanterns, swinging, wild neon lettering. Gangsters in black sedans. Roast birds hanging by their necks behind grimy windows. The waft of vented grease and burnt incense and garbage." Liu's description is not only effective, it is also important to the piece as a whole, as it gives the reader perspective of what Po-Po experienced when she first came New York.

2. Liu uses intense sensory details because he wants to allow the readers to personally experience whatever he is trying to describe, reminding them of his own experiences. These vivid, sensory details is more likely to engage and affect the reader's. Liu is very descriptive while setting the scene for the different memories he takes us through. “Chinatown is presumed authentic: the food, the people, the way of life. This what real Chinese-ness is supposed to be.” Throughout the rest of the story he backs this statement with personal individuals stories. He describes what exactly happened, how he felt, and how others reacted. By doing so, this technique gives the reader a vivid setting, basically taking the readers to the actual scene and making the reader feel connected to the writer. Overall, Liu uses thick description very effectively in his "The Chinatown Idea" as it makes the work feel more personal and real.

3. The word he uses like “incongruous”, “emporium”, and “fortified” are all examples of formal words. I think Liu uses formal dictions to create and convey a typical mood and atmosphere to the readers. A writer’s choice of words and Liu’s selection of graphic words not only affects the reader’s attitude but also conveys the writer’s feelings toward the literary work.

Reading Journal | "On Keeping a Notebook" Joan Didion

1. In reading Joan Didion’s “On Keeping a notebook”, I was surprised by how enjoyable the essay was. I used to think that diaries, notebooks, and journals were kept by people who thought it was just for fun or people who didn’t have anything better to do with their time. I realized that there are many different reasons why someone would want to document certain events in their life. As for Didion, she wanted to document her life so she could keep in touch with the person that she was at different points in her life. Didion reflects on moments in her life and says, "It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about." She used her notebook to record things she saw around her that she felt that was important to her. People these days don't use a diary or a notebook but instead it is replaced by technology such as computers and phones that could be used for social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat.

2. Throughout the short story, I can feel a connection to Didion. Although, I do not write in a journal each day, but I do partake in updating my social media accounts such as posting a status on Facebook. I use these social networks on a daily throughout the day. It is something I can do when I am bored and it is entertainment for me. I feel like this could be considered my journal. I think if you participate in any type of social media, you're basically keeping a diary of your life experiences. This type of self-expression is just a different way to articulate your feelings.

3. I feel like the many unanswerable questions strengthens her work by leaving the reader very confused with not knowing her next move. In a way, it helps us dig more deeper to find out what she is getting into because in most cases you really do not know what is about to happen but in a way it makes you want to read more and it makes the story more interesting. It leaves the reader kind of confused with a mysterious thought. In the conclusion, the author mentions in the last few paragraphs that notes are to help oneself keep in touch with everything in the past and the present. I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about.

Weekly Reflection 2

07.18 - 07.21
This is now the second week of English Composition 1301. We were taught new learning materials such as describing music but also things we had already learned through previous years. This week, we were taught the difference between paraphrasing and plagiarism. Paraphrasing is expressing the same message in different words while plagiarizing is expressing the same message in the same words by directly copying information from any source word for word without giving them credit. I gained a lot of knowledge on how to accurately write MLA style papers with citations. It helped me learn how to cite quotations properly and how to use quotations in the text of my writing. After the quote, we put the page number where get got the quote from and then put parentheses around the page number. I also learned that signal phrases provide clear signals to prepare the readers for the quotation. Using signal phrases blends the quote into the sentence, making it easy to be read smoothly and that is why it is important to have a signal phrase before a quote or after a quote.