Formal Review for English 100

English 100 has helped me this semester to really establish some really good writing habits and techniques that I never developed when I was younger. Either I wasn’t ready to become a good writer or my English teachers weren’t very good at explaining how to develop writing skills.

Even though I was apprehensive at first about blogging, the blogs ended up being a very useful tool for me in writing my tasks. The blogs helped me develop and organize my thoughts during the life of a task, especially during tasks three and four. Once I got use to doing the blogs, I found myself enjoying them. The blog allowed me to write freely about the passages and essays that were assigned.

As far as changes to the class structure, I wouldn’t change anything. The curriculum of the class was good in developing my writing skills. Before this class, I was a typical writer. Majority of my writing was done in the corporate environment, constructing emails and putting together training manuals. I never had to analysis or summaries an essay, or write creatively about my reading and writing experiences.

I’m glad that I chose to take this class. It opened my eyes to what type of writer I can be. I am looking forward to my next step in my writing process, next semester. This will be the first time in my academic career that I’m looking forward to an English class

Self Evaluation Task Three

The thesis of my paper is:

• Unlike thousands of children in the inner cities schools of Kansas City and Chicago, I had a great environment to get an education and participate in activities that wouldn’t cost me my life.

The main points in my paper are:

• The difference in the amount of money allocated toward each student in the two locations of the schools.
• How the inequality, between the two locations (suburban and inner city), is driven by the property taxes of the homes and local businesses, the need for public services and the non-profit / tax-free institutions in the cities.
• Students of the suburban schools don’t realize the advantages they have over those students in the inner city schools, because of the difference in the fund distribution
• What affect the parents have on the education their children get, whether it’s the inner city or the suburban schools

On this project, the peer evaluation wasn’t very helpful; since I took so long writing this paper and I mainly relied on your comments.

The most helpful information I received in the classroom was having open discussions about the essays we were assigned to read, during the process of this task.

I wrote two rough drafts, one with just my comparisons and the other including all the components for this task.  I started writing this paper during the weekend before the rough draft was due. I went through the steps of writing an outline for this paper. I’ve found when I’m short on time writing out an outline gives me good direction.

There were a couple things I liked about this paper; one being, this is the last task for this semester. Two, it was nice to see how I’ve grown as a writer though this semester.

Response to Rodriguez

My relationship with books has changed as I’ve gotten older. As a kid, I didn’t enjoy reading at all. Similar to Rodriguez, my parents never read books for pleasure. They read strictly for informative reasons. Therefore, reading was never really pushed upon me as a kid. It wasn’t until about 5 years ago, I started developing an interest for books and taking the time to read them. Most of the books I read at that time were motivational books about losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Here recently, I’m finding myself reading books for entertaining purposes too. I’ve read the entire Twilight series, which is shocking for a guy to do; especially a guy that hardly read as a kid. I do see myself reading more in the future, not just for academic reasons, but for my personal satisfaction and interests. I’m planning to write a book sometime soon, about the struggles of being an overweight person and learning to maintain a healthy lifestyle. In order to do that, I think reading more books will help to increase my vocabulary and my writing skills. Reading is just like anything else, you get better by doing it more often. I don’t see myself going to the extreme like Rodriguez, checking out the max number of books at the local library, but I do see myself reading more challenging and intellectual books. The only struggle I have with reading is the speed in which I read. I’ve never been a fast reader and I get frustrated easily, when a passage takes longer than I think it should. I’m hoping over time that changes and reading becomes easier for me.           

Literacy Autobiography Blog

As I reflect upon my current educational experiences, I realize life has taught me more than what I expected it too. I’m getting better grades, in subjects that I struggled with while in high school, English being one of those classes. I struggled in high school with English because reading wasn’t one of my favorite things to do. I was more into sports and video games. I managed to get C’s and B’s in English without really trying too. I would read the books and do the reports because I had too, not because I wanted to read the books.

I find myself reading books now because I want to expand my mind and increase my knowledge. When I read now, I’m able to clear my mind and focus on what I’m reading, instead of thinking it is boring and wanting to do other things.

With this being my second college experience, I knew what to expect to some degree. However there is a huge difference between my two college experiences. My first experience was attending a trade school in the Kansas City area, studying drafting. Elective courses weren’t required, so I didn’t have to work on my reading and writing skills or any other core classes. The things I’ve learned in the past few months, I’m hoping will help me to be a better reader and writer, for future classes and career projects. I’ve gained insight into my literacy struggles that I’ve never been aware of, until now. Before this semester started, I thought my grammatical skills weren’t too bad, I was wrong. My skills have progressed in ways I never thought they would and I couldn’t be more proud of myself, than I am now.      

Experiences with Reading and Writing

Before this class I didn’t know what to expect. I had been out of the academic environment for 13 years. The only post high school learning environment I had been in, was a technical school I attended in 2002-03, studying in Computer Aided Drafting, which had nothing to do with developing my reading and writing skills. I was hoping this wasn’t going to be a class that we would have to read a book a week and do a report, similar to what I did in high school, I’m glad it isn’t. I was a little apprehensive at that beginning of this course because reading and writing weren’t my strong subjects in high school. Being a Non-Traditional student, my life experiences have paid off more than I ever thought they would. Apparently, being in a business environment on a daily basis and communicating professionally, I developed the skills I needed to be successful in this course. Over the past 8 weeks, I’ve developed my reading and writing skills that are going to benefit me for the rest of my life. Reading and writing are the two subjects that I struggled with as a teenager, during high school. That’s why I’m proud of the progress I’ve made during this course and I’m looking forward to improving my skills even more. The skills I’ve learned during this course have inspired me to finish a book that I started writing several years ago.        

Analysis Response to Baker's Essay

In the essay, "School vs. Education", Russell Baker explores the idea that children start learning the aspects of life at an early age and that the formal education process is for "telling testers what they want to hear." I somewhat agree with Baker; I do agree that children learn things at an early age from the people around them. I disagree with the way Baker views formal education. In my opinion, formal education is a twelve year process that develops essential life skills that a child will use forever. A child can't learn to read and write from the environment around them, there as to be some scholastic development.

Response to Kozol

The one aspect I would like to focus my thoughts on is, Mrs. Corla Hawkins. I believe Kozol choose to talk about her for several reasons. One of those reasons and the most important one being that there is hope, hope for those students that are thrust into an environment of neglect and disadvantage. Some of the other reasons are; Kozol wants us (the readers) to understand that there are always going to be good and bad teachers in every school system, no matter inner city or suburban. As much as we would love to hear about all the bad teachers in the disadvantaged school systems, we need to hear about the good ones as well. Another reason would be that Kozol wants us to make the most out of our situation, no matter what it might be. Mrs. Hawkins did just that, she provided an environment of joy, love and learning in an environment of decay and destruction. Granted, majority of the students Mrs. Hawkins had in her class may never go to high school and even college; they may end up as gang members, criminals and in worst cases a victim to the violence in the community, she wants them to enjoy life and believe that they can be greater than those around them think they can be. In my opinion, Mrs. Hawkins is prime example of what any teacher should strive to be, no matter inner city or suburban schools.  She’s dedicated her time, money and life to provide a better place for those around her, not just the students; that are not so fortunate. When she lays her head down at night, she knows she is making a difference and given 100% of herself to making this spinning mud ball a better place.