All I Asking for is my Body Part III

There is a very strong meaning behind this title. I think that Kiyoshi and Tosh feel trapped because of their parents' debt. Throughout this part of the book Tosh is rebelling his parents because he felt that he should not have to do the back breaking plantation work in order to pay his parents' debt, which wasn't being paid by what he was earning. Tosh was getting frustrated because he was only making barely enough money for him and his family to live off of, and was not making any money to pay off the debt.

I think that the meaning behind this title is that Kiyoshi and Tosh wanted to be freed from their parents' debt. All they wanted was their bodies. I think that this means that all they wanted was to be able to control their life. They wanted to be able to attend school and start a life of their own with a special person and start their own family. They did not want to have the burden of their family debt. At the end of the story Kiyoshi was able to pay off his parents' debt, which freed him and his other siblings to start their own life and start a family with some one.

All I asking for Part II

I think that Kiyoshi felt that Obaban was his mother's substitute because when his mother was sick Obaban came to visit her. After her visit his mother got better, but then Obaban got sick and died. He felt that Obaban took his mother's sickness and died from it because his mother still had children that she had to take care of and Obaban did not and had lived a long healthy life.

The Japanese believed in a superstition called Bachi, which, according to Murayama, was a punishment that a person got when they did something bad and got away with it. The thing about bachi was that the punishment did not necessarily have to happen to the person that did the wrongdoing. It could fall on anyone in that person's family. Obaban had told Kiyoshi that his mother could be suffering from someone else's bachi, but if she found another substitute to take the bachi she would get better. That is why when Kiyoshi's mother got better after Obaban came to visit and then Obaban died he felt that she was his mother's substitute.

Writing Topic Chapter 10

This chapter is about adding words to sentences that are needed. The chapter starts out by saying that you should not omit (leave out) words that are necessary for grammatical or logical completeness. According to the chapter, "in compound structures, words are often omitted for economy." It gives an example of this which is "Tom is a man who means what he says and [who] says what he means. The chapter says that these omissions are acceptable as long as the omitted words are common to both parts of the compound structure." If the shorter version of the compound structure is not grammatically correct than the word must be put back in. An example that is given of this is: Some of the regulars are acquaintances whom we see at work or [who] live in our community. The word who must be put back into the sentence because whom... live in our community is not grammatically correct.The word "that" should be added to a sentence if there is a possibility that the sentence could be misread. An exapmle of this is "Looking out the family room window, Sarah saw (that) her favorite tree, which she had climbed so often as a child, was gone." The word "that" needs to be put in after "saw" because Sarah did not see her favorite tree. She saw that the tree was gone.

This chapter also states that words may need to be added to make comparisons logical and complete. An example given of this is "The forests of North America are much more extensive than (those of) Europe." The words those of need to be added to the sentence because forests need to be compared to other forests, not the country where the other forests are located. The word "other" must sometime be added to the sentence to make the comparison logical. "Jupiter is larger than any other planet in our solar system." Other needed to be added to this sentence because Jupiter cannot be larger than itself. The word "as" must also be inserted into sentences to make a comparison grammatically correct. "The city of Lowell is as old (as), if not older than, the city of Lawrence." The last thing this chapter states about comparisons is that they should be complete enough so that the reader can understand what is being compared. Saying "Brand X is less salty is incomplete because you do not know what Brand X is being compared to. Saying "Brand X is less salty than Brand Y" shows what you are comparing Brand X to.

The last thing that this chapter talks about is adding the articles a, and, and the to a sentence where it is necessary from grammatical completeness. A lot of times these article are omitted in things like recipes or other instructions that are meant to be followed while they are being read, but these omissions are not inappropriate for almost all other forms of writing. The last thing that is stated in this chapter about adding articles is that it is not always needed to repeat articles with paired items, but it is necessary to have the articles included in the sentence if one of the items requires a and the other requires an.

I pretty much already add these words to senteces when they are necessary. I chose this chapter to hopefully help out all of you, my classmates, but I will continue to make sure that I add words to sentences when they are necessary.

All I Asking for is My Body Part One

A plantation is a large farm or estate where crops such as sugar cane, coffee, tobacco, and cotton are grown for sale. Sugar cane was one of the most common crops grown in Hawaiian plantations. The plantation owners in Hawaii imported the workers for the plantations from other countries. Chinese were the first ethnicity that was imported to Hawaii to work on the plantations. Japanese were imported next, followed by Koreans and Filipinos.

The living conditions of plantation workers were horrible. The plantation workers had to do backbreaking work for very long hours. There houses were very primitive. The wages that they earned for their backbreaking work on the plantation was minimal. The plantation foremen had been reported to be physically abusive to the workers. Plantation work usually consisted of planting, hoeing, and carrying sugar cane. The plantation workers' living quarters were divided by ethnicity; Japanese in one section, Filipino in another section, etc. The plantation workers bought their food and other supplies from plantation stores. If they could not afford what they needed the stores would give them a credit. This caused a lot of plantation workers to get into heavy debt because their wages were so minimal that they could not afford to pay off these debts.

Essay 3 workshop

Every movie that is based on a book deviates from the book in some ways. Sometimes it is easy to tell the differences between the two and sometimes it is hard. After watching Smoke Signals and reading This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona, I was able to detect some major differences, as I know that all of you were able to. These differences were fairly major and they changed the way that I felt about different things in the story and the movie. The story was good, but I felt that it left out a good deal of detail that were very important to the plot of the story.

The first main difference that I noticed between the movie and the story was the fire that killed Thomas's parents. The story did not even mention the fire, let alone the fact the Thomas's parents had died in that fire. The mentioning of the fire in the movie was very important. It eventually tied into s possibility of why Victor's father had left the reservation. The story did not elaborate on why Victor's father left the reservation. All it stated was that he left. This led me to believe that Arnold was a dead beat father. I mean how could you just leave your son like that? I did not think very highly of Victor's father after reading the story.

Smoke Signals brought a reasoning for Arnold's leaving the reservation. After I watched the movie, I sympathized with Arnold. He held in all of his guilt until he could not any more. After hearing what Arnold went through with accidentally starting the fire that killed Thomas's parents it makes you wonder. Did other residents of the reservation know that he had started the fire? If so, were they making his guilt worse by bringing the subject up or calling him a murderer? I could not help but wonder if Arnold had not killed Thomas's parents in that fire would he have turned out to be such an alcoholic, and would he have left the reservation? We will never know because the movie did not show if this was happening. The information about the fire changed my view on Arnold. After watching the movie I no longer thought he was a dead beat. There had to be some powerful reason that was keeping him from returning to his son.

In This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona Victor and Thomas had had some problems with their relationship in the past, but they seemed to be on better terms while they were on the trip. This differs from the relationship that they had had in Smoke Signals. In the movie Victor seemed to be extremely annoyed with every aspect of Thomas, the way he dressed, the way he acted his stories, et cetera. To Victor, Thomas was not acting like an Indian should. Victor believed that an Indian should act tough, not tell stories all the time. Victor even tried to teach Thomas how to act like a real Indian. In the story Victor did not seem like he was annoyed with the way Thomas acted. They were even laughing together. When I read the story I got the impression that Victor did not associate with Thomas on the reservation because every one else thought that he was weird, but he liked Thomas. When watching the movie I got the impression that Thomas angered and irritated Victor.

The introduction of Suzie in Smoke Signals was a major deviation between the story and the movie. It was such a major difference because she was the person that caused Victor, and me for that matter, to have a different perspective on Arnold. The story sort of made the assumption that Arnold was some body that was selfish and did not care about his wife and son. Suzie made that all change with the way that she talked about him and described how much he talked about Victor and regretted ever leaving the reservation and his family.

Suzie made Victor think about how he felt about his father. She actually made Victor start to forgive Arnold for leaving him. Being able to work through some of these problems made Victor a better person. You could see this when Victor and Thomas were driving back to the reservation. Victor seemed to have more patience with Thomas. He seemed to be less angry for the most part. The scene in Smoke Signals was a perfect example of how knowing that his father did love him and had wanted to return to him started making him a better person because he ran the many miles to get help. Would he have done this if he was still angry Victor?

Another some what small difference between the movie and the story was that in the movie Victor and Thomas took the bus to Phoenix, but in the story they flew in an airplane. This was not a big difference, but it ties into another difference. While they were on the bus Victor tried to teach Thomas how to be what he considered a real Indian. He tried to teach Thomas to be tough instead of always telling stories. This scene shows that Victor and Thomas had two completely different views on how an Indian should dress and act. They also ran into two guys in this scene that had taken their seats. When they confronted the guys they did not move. The guys made Victor and Thomas move to other seats. I think that this scene kind of shows that when this movie took place in a time when Indians were looked down at and were not treated equally like they are nowadays.

One difference between the movie and the story was when Victor and Thomas were driving back to the reservation. The story says that they did not come across any sign of life in Nevada, not even water. When they did finally find something that was living they ended up running it over and killing it. In Smoke Signals this scene did not happen. Instead they got into an car accident with some guy that was intoxicated. Victor ran like 20 miles to get help for the other people in the accident. I do not really know what the significance of this difference is, but the scene in Smoke Signals showed that Victor was not really a hostile person any more and was thinking of others.

There were a lot of differences between this movie and story. A lot of them were big and changed the meaning of things. These differences are a classic example of what happens when a story or book gets turned into a movie. Stories are changed and elaborated on during the editing and production process of making the movie to make it so that the movie is more interesting. Sometimes I think that if this was not done I would probably not want to watch the movie or enjoy the movie. This story and movie is an example of that. I read the story before I watched the movie. After reading the story I was not really excited about this movie. I thought that it was going to be lacking anything that was going to be interesting and that it would be somewhat confusing with the flashbacks. I was thoroughly surprised when I watched the movie. The producers and editors had added so many details that the story had left out. The movie clarified the confusion that I had had about the story.

This is What it Means to Say Pheonix, Arizona Blog

I think that I would have to say that I was much more impressed with the film "Smoke Signals" than I was the story. I felt that the story was very good, but it left out a lot of detail that the movie was able to pick up on. The movie was able to incorporate some great details that the story left out that made the story ten times better. One of the biggest details that was left out of the story was the introduction of Susie and how she helped Victor realize that his father did love him and had wanted to return to him. The story completely left out the reason why his father was in Pheonix. It also left out most of the details of the journey that Thomas and Victor had getting to Pheonix and back. This is a big part of the movie.

Another thing that it left out was how close Thomas and Victor had become after the journey. It left out the part of Victor giving Thomas some of his father's ashes and how Victor had driven to the bridge in Washington to dump his father's ashes into the river. I also found it very hard to follow the story because of the constant flashbacks in time. It was easy to follow them in the movie because you could actually see them happening. When reading the flashbacks at first it confused me and then everytime I would have to tell myself Ok this is another flashback.

Chapter 19 summary

According to Diana Hacker, "a sentence fragment is a word group that pretends to be a sentence." Sentence fragments are easier to detect when they appear out of context than when they appear next to related sentences. A complete sentence must contain at least one full clause. Basically, a complete sentence must have a subject and a verb. If the sentence begins with a subordinate clause like And or Because it is more than likely going to be a fragment. There are two main ways that you can repair a fragment sentence. One is to pull the fragment into a nearby sentence. The other is to turn the fragment into a sentence.

"Subordinate clauses function within sentences as adjectives, as adverbs, or as nouns. They cannot stand alone." Sometimes you can turn a subordinate clause into a sentence. You can do this easily by replacing the opening word or words of the subordinate clause. Phrases can also function in sentences as adjectives, adverbs, or nouns, just like subordinate clauses. Most times fragmented phrases can be pulled into nearby sentences, but when they cannot you can turn that phrase into a sentence. The easiest way to fix a fragment of any kind is to either pull it into a nearby sentence or reword it so that it becomes its own sentence. There is an exception to fragments. Sometimes they are used deliberately to create an effect. They can be used for emphasis, to answer a question, as a transition, exclamations, and in advertising.

In my own writing it is hard for me to uses this information because I am pretty good about not having fragment sentences in my writing. I will, however, use this information to help out my classmates when I comment on their writing. I have noticed a few classmates using fragment sentences. I will use this information to give them tips on how to fix those fragments.

Smoke Signals Dialogue

The movie started out with a family struggle. Thomas' family, except for his grandmother, died in a movie. Thomas was a baby, so that eased the struggle a little bit because he did not have as strong as a bond as say an 8 year old would have with their parents. It was probably still a struggle for him growing up. He probably watched all of the other children on the reservation growing up with their parents, but he did not have them. Victor had a lot of struggles with his family, mostly his father. His father was a drunk and Victor did not like that. I think that it caused his relationship with his father to be somewhat strained. A scene that really shows this was when Victor said that no body was his favorite at the party and then the next day Victor was throwing alcohol bottles at his father's truck. Victor's father left shortly after that. I think that Victor felt that his father abandoned him and did not love him. It was sad that Victor did not find out until after his father passed away that his father did care about and loved him and wanted to return to him at the reservation.

Culture struggles are apparent when Thomas and Victor leave the reservation to go get Victor's father. You can see it when Victor and Thomas are first getting onto the bus. The bus driver was white. He gives Victor and Thomas some what of a dirty look when they are boarding the bus. This kind of shows stereotypes. The bus driver thought that they were dirty because they were indians. This is shown again when Victor and Thomas get back on the bus after a pit stop. Two white men had taken their seats. The men did not give up their seats to Victor and Thomas, probably because they were indians. I bet if they had been white they would have let them have their seats back. I think that the two white men could tell Victor and Thomas what to do because they were indians. It is sad, but you still see some of these stereotypes prevalent still today.

Chapter 48 Summary

When writing an argumentative academic paper, you need to evaluate all of your arguments. You want to make sure that your arguments are reasonable and not fallacies. There are several different types of fallacies. Fallacies are false or mistaken ideas. Generalizations are a very common type of fallacy that writers use. There are two major types of generalizations. One is a hasty generalization. A hasty generalization is "a conclusion based on insufficient or unrepresentative evidence". The other major type of generalization is stereotyping. Stereotyping is a hasty generalization that is made about a group.  Another type of fallacy is drawing a false analogy. A false analogy is when someone has "assumed that because two things are alike in one respect, they must be alike in others."

Cause and effect is a complex process, so a lot of writers will over simplify it. A lot of writers will "assume that because one event follows another, the first is the cause of the second." This fallacy is known as post hoc, which means "after this, therefore because of this. Another fallacy is the either or fallacy. This is when writers set up a false choice between their preferred option and and one that is clearly unsatisfactory. When writers use this fallacy they suggest that there is only two options when there is in fact more. It is unfair to the readers. Another fallocy is making assumptions. "An assumption is a claim that is taken to be true - without the need of proof." The main problem with assumptions is when there is an argument with a missing claim.

Another thing that you need to do when you are writing an argumentative paper is distinguish between legitimate and unfair emotional appeals. Emotional appeals can be very effective, but you need to make sure that you are being fair. A lot of unfair emotional appeals use biased language. "Attacking the persons who hold a belief rather than refuting their argument is called an ad hominem." Bandwagon appeal is when you claim that an idea should be accepted because a lot of people are in favor. One way to build credibility is to address opposing arguments fairly. A lot of writers will do a lot to win an argument including ignoring opposing views altogether or misrepresenting such views and attacking their proponents.

One thing that a lot of writers do to win an argument is deliberately misrepresent the view of their opponents. One way they do this is by setting up a "straw man", which is a character that is so weak that they are easily knocked down. "The straw man fallacy consists of an oversimplification or outright distortion of opposing views." A lot of writers will quote the words and views of others that hold opposing views. This can be a good idea because it can assure some level of fairness and accuracy, but the fairness and accuracy can be an illusion. This happens when a source is misrepresented because it is quoted out of context. A fair writer would explain the context to their readers. "Sometimes writers deliberately distort a source through the device of ellipsis dots. Ellipsis dots tell readers that words have been omitted from the original source. When those words are crucial to an author's meaning, omitting them is obviously unfair."

When I write an argumentative paper, I will try my best to make it fair. I will try my best to avoid the use of these fallacies. I know that it is human nature to use fallacies, but I will try my hardest to write the fairest argumentative paper. I will make sure that I do not misrepresent opposing views.

Happy Endinds, Obituary, and Oompah Loompa Dialogue

I think that Mr. harvey had his students' best interest at mind, but I feel that he was going about it the wrong way. Telling the students that they were horrible would probably not get his students to learn Standard English any quicker. In fact, I think that it would actually make them not want to learn it. I agree with him that the students do need to learn Standard English to have better lives in adulthood. I feel that the students would get stuck in mediocre jobs if they spoke pidgin.

I think that Mr. Harvey was very rude to his students. He had good intentions, but I do not feel that he was a good teacher. You need to be kind to get children to listen to you. If you are rude or belittleing the students will have more of a tendency to rebel against the teacher and loathe being im the class with them. If the children are praised for what they were doing right they would be more likely to listen to the teacher and take in and actually learn what the teacher is teaching.

Chapter 47 Summary

Chapter 48 discusses how to write a good argument paper. The goal of writing reasonable arguments is to "explain your understanding of the truth about a subject or to propose the best solution available." The purpose of a reasonable argument paper is to convince readers to rethink their opinions by providing them with new information that makes them question their viewpoint. You do not want to be to aggressive or too passive when stating your position on the topic that you are arguing. You want to "create an assertive tone by acknowledging different opinions and supporting your view with specific evidence."

Diana Hacker offers some very valuable tips for how to write a reasonable argument. The first tip she writes about tells you that you should examine the issue's social and intellectual contexts. She states that if you are not informed about the social or intellectual contexts of your issue you will be at a serious disadvantage for trying to argue your point because most of readers know the social and intellectual contexts of your issue. If you do not know them then you will appear to be ill-informed on your issue, which will make your argument not as trustworthy.The next tip that Diana states is that you should view the audience of your paper as a panel of jurors. This is a great tip. It will help you figure out what points are strong enough to support your argument and which ones are not. Another tip is to anticipate objections and counter opposing arguments. The last tip Diana writes about is that you should build common ground. Basically, this means that you should show your readers that do no initially agree with you that you share their concerns.

In the introduction of your paper you need to establish your credibility and state your position on your argument. You establish credibility by showing your readers that you know about and understand what you are writing about. The next thing that you need to do is back up your thesis with persuasive lines of argument. You also need to support the claims in your paper with evidence. There are lots of types of evidence that you can use. One of the most common forms of evidence is using facts and statistics. Facts and statistics are very strong sources of evidence because they have been verified. Citing expert opinion can also be a strong type of evidence that you can use. Using examples and illustrations cannot really prove a point by themselves, but they can be rather strong when used in combination with other forms of evidence.

I plan to use these tips next time I have to construct a reasonable argument. Of course I will be using evidence to support my position on the argument. I will definitely research the topic that I am arguing so that I make sure that I am well-informed on the topic. The more that I show that I a well-informed the more likely my readers will consider my point of view.

Essay Workshop 2

“I am very proud of you, Michelle.” Those words echo through my mind even though they were said to me by my father six years ago. It was an amazing day for me. My father was holding my daughter for the first time just a day after she was born. It took 17 years of my life for him to finally say those words to me. Just like Sarah Vowell in “Shooting Dad”, my father and I did not have a very close relationship until I got older and matured.

My father and I were very different people when I was growing up. He was a computer programmer. He would spend hours a day developing new programs for his computer and playing games that I thought were stupid and confused me. He would spend hours cooped up in his tiny little office in our house. I remember thinking that he was insane for staying in that room from the time that he got home from work until dinnertime. After dinner he would go right back in that room and continue working on his complicated projects.

I was a little girl with lots of energy. I could not understand how anybody could sit in a little tiny room with barely any light and no noise except for the tapping of the keys as he hit them and the clicking of the mouse. I wanted to spend all of my time running around in the park that was down the street from my house. Soccer and gymnastics also helped me run off energy so that I could focus on my homework later in the day.

Soccer was a major part of our family. My sister played on a travel soccer team, and after she got into high school, she played on her school team. Almost every weekend from August until October she would have a soccer tournament that we would have to drive to. We would spend the whole weekend there. When I was younger I did not mind being dragged to these tournaments, but eventually I started to loathe them. They took away my time to play with my friends and do whatever I wanted to do. I also did not get a lot of attention during these tournaments because my parents were so focused on the games that my sister was playing in. I remember being able to just run around the parks that the tournaments were held in with no parent supervision.

I also partook in soccer. To my dad though, it was not good enough for him. I did not play on a travel team or my high school team. I attended the travel team tryouts, but my heart was not in it so I never made the team. I did not like travel teams because I did not play soccer for the competition, but for the fun of being able to run around and kick the soccer ball. This lack of interest in competitive soccer seemed to anger my father.

During my soccer games for the local recreational league my dad would yell at me throughout the entire game that I was not trying hard enough or was doing the play wrong. Eventually I stopped enjoying my father being at my games. I dreaded the games that my father would be there. There were even times that I had to skip my own games to attend my sister's tournaments. This made me very irritated.

When I was in ninth grade my father started getting displeased with the fact that I was not yet on a competitive team. He ended up giving me an ultimatum. If I did not make either a travel team or my high school's team I would no longer be able to play soccer. This infuriated me immensely. Why couldn't my father understand that I played for the fun of the game and not for the competition? Per my father's request I attended the tryouts for both the local travel team and my high school team. I believe that because my heart was not fully into the tryouts I did not make the teams. My dad held true to the word of his ultimatum. My parents stopped paying for me to play on the local recreational team, so I stopped playing soccer.

After being forced to stop playing a sport that brought me so much enjoyment when I was on the soccer field, my relationship with my father suffered a great deal. I was extremely angry with him for taking away my ability to participate in a sport that was one of my greatest passions. I started to rebel against him. I stopped listening to what he told me. Instead, I did the complete opposite of what he told me to do. Back talking to him became a daily activity for me. I guess in my mind I decided that since he made me miserable by taking soccer away from me, I would make him miserable.

These behaviors of mine lasted probably about 3 years until I became pregnant with my first daughter and went to a rehabilitation center. During my treatment at the center I matured a lot. I learned to forgive people that may have hurt me and make amends to those that I may have hurt. On my first visit to my parents house I decided to have a talk with my dad. In this talk I apologized to him for my past actions. I explained to him that his decision to take soccer away from me angered me, and that anger caused me to act out against him.

My father acknowledged that he was wrong to try to force me into competitive soccer just because my sister was into it. He apologized for not realizing how much playing soccer meant to me. On this visit my dad took me out to the movies and to dinner. We started to mend our relationship after years of rough times. Every time that I came to visit their house, or my parents came to visit me in the rehabilitation center, my dad would take me out to do something special with just him. During this father-daughter time we would have long talks about things that we enjoyed. We came to realize that we had quite a bit in common.

The next time I saw my father was when my daughter was born. They drove down the day after she was born. We spent several hours together as a family, my mom, my dad, and me. At some point my mother left my dad and I alone in the hospital room. My dad was holding his first granddaughter. He looked over at me and told me that I did a good job bringing her into the world. He then told me that he admired me for not letting the fact that I was having a child at 17 get in the way of graduating high school a year before I was supposed to. He also told me that he was very happy that I started attending classes at the local junior college despite the fact that I was having my baby two weeks into the semester.

“I am very proud of you, Michelle.” I waited 17 years to hear those words come out of my father's mouth. When they finally did an overwhelming feeling of happiness and joy washed through my entire body. It took 17 years, but my father and I finally had a meaningful and close relationship. I think that Sarah kind of felt this way the day that she shot the cannon with her father. I believe that when Sarah had asked to go with her father to shoot the cannon he felt a sense of pride. Just like my dad did when I graduated high school and was attending junior college at 17 with a new baby.

Insufficiency of Honesty

Carter's first example was that of a husband confessing to his wife on his death bed that 35 years earlier he had been unfaithful to his wife. He gave this example to show that honesty can be "fake honesty- or it is honest but irrevelevant and perhaps even immoral." What he meant by that is that a person may be being honest, but it is too little too late. Being honest at this point causes more harm to other people than good. People try to use this "honesty" to make themselves feel better, but do not think about the harm that it can cause other people.

I would have to say that I definitely agree with Carter's reasoning. He provided a perfect example. Yes, the husband was honest with his wife before he died. He harbored a lot of bad feelings and guilt throughout the years for keeping this secret from his wife. I think the husband was selfish to drop this bomb on his wife just before he died. He wanted to clear his conscience before his passing, but in doing this he caused a great deal of hurt and pain to his wife. He ruined the image that she had had of her husband as a loving and loyal man. This could possibly cause her to harbor ill feelings towards him, even if she forgives him. It can also cause her to have problems trusting people down the road.

I actually have a personal experience with this type of thing. My 3 year olds father passed away when she was 10 months old. Before he died, he told me that he had not been faithful to me the year and a half that we had been together. It broke my heart. I thought that he had been faithful to me. Him telling me that brought up a huge amount of mixed feelings. I was glad that he did tell me, but I was very angry and hurt that he was unfaithful to me. I know that I shouldn't because he is no longer alive, but I find myself harboring ill feelings towards him. It gets really hard sometimes because we had common friends. It is hard when they talk about missing him, but all I can think about is what he did to me. I have to try to put those feelings aside when I am around those friends so that I do not upset them. It will be hard when my daughter is old enough to be told what happened to her father. I will have to try to keep these ill feelings that I have towards her father from showing so that she does not have a bad image of her father because he did love her very much. So, I definitely agree with Carter that people should not be selfish, and need to think about how their actions and words will affect other people.

Topic Summary for Writing About Literature

A good thesis for an argument paper needs to be debatable. It should be written in a way that gives your position on the topic that you are writing and should leave room to be argued by other people that have a different position on that topic. The thesis statement should not have too little information. Your thesis statement should not be a summary of the topic. You need to state a position so that you can support it in the rest of your paper.

I plan to use this information to write better thesis statements. I will make sure that I do no just write a summary as a thesis. I will make sure that my thesis statements have my position on the topic, and that the rest of my paper stays focused to the thesis and supports it.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 explains some great ways to build effective paragraphs. It also describes the different types of paragraphs that you can write. The first thing that Diana  Hacker says that you should do to build an effective paragraph is to focus on a main point. What she means by this is that each paragraph should be about one topic, so that your readers do not get confused by your paragraphs jumping around. One way to make sure that your paragraphs stay focused is to use a topic sentence, and then have the following sentences support that topic sentence. A good way to make sure that your paragraphs flow is to use transitional sentences. These sentences can ease the transition between two topics in two different paragraphs. Sometimes, without the use of transitional sentences, the essay or paper does not flow together, which makes it very hard for readers to read and understand. Any sentences in a paragraph that do not support the main point should be removed from the paragraph to avoid confusion. You should avoid using a lot of small paragraphs because they do not give enough information and support to be convincing.

There are lots of different types of paragraphs that you can write. The different types that Diana describes are: examples and illustrations, narration, description, process, comparison and contrast, analogy, cause and effect, classification and division, and definition. According to Diana, "examples are appropriate whenever the reader might be tempted to ask, 'For example?'." Illustrations are more detailed examples. Narration tells a story that is usualy a personal experience. A description paragraph describes a person, place, or thing with such detail that it paints a picture for the readers. Process paragraphs is usually written in chronological order. They are used mainly to describe how to do things. Say if you were writing a paragraph about how to tie your shoes, you would want to use a process paragraph so that each step was written in the right order. Comparison and contrast paragraphs can be written in two ways. The two subjects that you are comparing or contrasting can be written one at a time, or they can be written together, comparing or contrasting one aspect at a time. Diana states, "Analogies draw comparisons between items that appear to have little in common." Analogies are used often in arguing a subject. Cause and effect paragraphs can be written in two separate ways, just like comparison and contrast paragraphs. They can either be written with the effect as the topic sentence with the causes following in the body of the paragraph, or they can have the cause be written first and, as the paragraph progresses, move to talking about the effects of that cause.Diana defines classification as "the grouping of items into categories according to some consistent principle." She defines division as taking one item and dividing it into parts. "A definition puts a word or concept into a general class and then provides enough detail to distinguish it from others in the same class."

I would like to work on incorporating the tips that Diana gave in this chapter into my future work. I am going to work on making sure that my paragraphs stay on topic. I want to make sure that each of my paragraphs talk about one thing. I do not want them to jump around. I also definitely want to incorporate useing transitions into my future work. I have somewhat struggled with using transitions. I want to learn to use transitions better so that my papers flow and my readers do not get confused by my different paragraphs jumping topics.

Shooting Dad

I think that what accounts for the narrator's struggles with her dad is the fact that he is a gunsmith, and she does not like guns. Her dad's life was all about guns, and she could not stand guns. They also had different political views which probably got in the way of their relationship a little bit. It can be hard to get along when you believe in totally different things. Her dad loved guns and she loved art. I believe that she may have felt that her dad liked her twin sister better than her because her sister loved guns like her dad. I think that she may have felt that her dad maybe thought a little less of her because she was not into guns like her sister, and had different political views as him.

As she got older and matured more, they were able to put aside their differences and become closer together. I can really relate to this. My dad and I did not get along when I was growing up. We had different views on life. I was very active, where my dad liked to sit on the couch and watch television. He did take an interest into my sports activities, mainly soccer. It was nice to a point. I did not really like the way that he got involved in my soccer. Instead of supporting me, since I played for fun not the competition so much, he would yell at me from the sideline things that I was doing wrong. As I got older and matured more, and stopped playing soccer due to asthma and injuries, we started to get along better. Now we get along great. You could not tell that we had struggled to have a good relationship when I was a child.

Rules for Writers Chapter 3

Chapter 3 focuses on revising your paper. It says to start revising a paper you should do the big revisions before revising each individual sentence. Reread your paper to make sure that every paragraph makes sense and fits together. It can be hard to catch things that need to be fixed in the paper when you read it in your head, so chapter 3 suggests that you read it out loud to yourself. In making big revisions you want to make sure that everything flows smoothly and makes sense. You also want to make sure that your paper accomplishes its purpose and supports the thesis. After you have completed the global revisions, you can then turn your attention to editing the sentences. This is when you focus on the effectiveness of your sentences and check for grammatical errors. After all of the revisions are done you then must proofread your essay. Proofreading means that you are slowly and methodically reading through your entire paper checking for any mistakes that you had possibly missed during the revisions.

I have never been very good with revising, editing, and proofreading my essays. I have a tendency to just write my paper and turn it in. I do not usually check for errors. I really need to work on this. I am going to start doing the revision process on my papers. I am going to try my best to revise, edit, and proofread my papers. I think that I am also going to have a friend of mine that is an English major read my essays and give me feedback on them before I turn them in. Sometimes it is hard to find mistakes in your own work, so having some one else read it.

"Coming Home Again"

The importance of food in this essay is that it was a means to bring the family together. They would all come sit at the table together and eat. It was a way for them to spend time together. His mother would even come and sit at the table when her health was failing. Even though she didn't really eat the food, she still joined the family at the table. This was time for them to have family "bonding" time. As the narrator said, "The point was simply to sit together and array ourselves like a family again." (p.123) They hadn't been all living in the home for quite some time, but him and his sister had moved back into their parents' home after his mother got diagnosed with stomach cancer. They knew that they did not have much time left with their mother, so they wanted to take advantage of the last little bit of time they had to act like a family.

I wish that my family had sat at the dinner table all together when I was growing up. We did sometimes, but it was never consistent. Most of the time my mom and dad would eat their dinner in front of the television in the family room, and my sister and I would eat our dinner in front of the television in the living room. Now that I have children of my own, I want to break these habits. We try to sit at the kitchen table for dinner every night. We have the television on in the other room, but my children are positioned at the table so that they cannot see it. We mainly leave the television on for background noise. As my children get older, I want to use this time to talk to them and find out how their day has gone.

Rules for Writers Chapter 2

This chapter discusses some important suggestions for writing a rough draft. It tells you to have all of your prewriting materials that you had done earlier when you start to write your rough draft. They will help you figure out what you are going to write about, but can also serve as motivation to keep you writing when it  seems to be getting hard. This chapter talks about the different parts of an essay that needs to be drafted. One interesting thing it said is that you do not have to start writing your rough draft with the introduction. I always thought that you had to start with your introduction. I kind of like thinking that I can start with the body because the introduction and conclusion have always been parts of papers that I struggled with.

This chapter also gives some great tips for developing an effective thesis statement. I like that it says to ask if you are able to successfully develop and support the thesis with the sources that you have available. The chapter gives some great examples of thesis statements that are good and ones that are not so good. For drafting the body of your paper, the book states that each paragraph should be about each different supporting point for your thesis. This makes it easier for the readers to follow along with. With the conclusion, you are basically summing up the main points of your essay. The readers probably understand what you were writing about and what the main points were. The conclusion is meant to really bring home what you want them to know. If you are writing a persuasive paper, you could use the conclusion as one last attempt to get your readers to take your side.

I really like the idea of starting the draft with the body instead of the introduction. I have always had a hard time with introductions. I wonder if starting with the body would help me write stronger introductions. I think that I am going to use this strategy for my next essay.

The Way We Lie

"The roots of many mental disorders can be traced back to the dismissal of reality."

This didn't really shock me or confuse me, but it really stood out to me. This fact is so true. I remember as a kid trying to get my parents to get me tested for ADHD because I was always losing things, forgetting to do things, forgetting to bring things with me, and was having a very hard time concentrating in class. My parents never did. They just said that I was making excuses for slacking off. They took my troubles with remembering things as just being a slacker and not really caring about my school. Instead of getting me the help that I really could have used, I would just get in trouble and grounded for things like losing my homework or procrastinating on assignments.

A year ago I got myself tested for ADHD. It turns out that I did have it. I wish my parents would have gotten me tested when I had asked them to. Maybe things would be a lot easier for me. I have struggled with schooling for years. I have gone in and out of the junior college. I would not be able to stay focused and would end up forgetting to do homework. I would fall behind and then drop classes after the drop date. I have struggled with my ADHD quite a bit. I do not want to take the medication route. I am attempting to retrain my mind. I am working on Behavior Modification Therapy. It has been helping so far. I am not forgetting things as much. I have some bad days though, where I forget a lot of the things that I need or need to do.

My parents still to this day say that I do not have ADHD. They say that I just need to stop forgetting to do my homework and need to focus better. My 3 year old is starting to show signs of ADHD. When I talk to my mother about it, all she says is that she is just being a 3 year old. That could be, but she is also a lot more active than other children her age. She is constantly on the move. She is starting to have behavior issues. My parents still dismiss a lot of things. I hope some day they can move on from their dismissal and accept that their may be something  mentally that was causing me to act out so much as a teenager.

Essay 1 Rough Draft

 

The feeling of accomplishment I had for myself that day was indescribable. I never thought that I would be walking across the stage graduating high school. It was a huge accomplishment for me. It was a great feeling knowing that my parents and other family members were proud of me for being able to walk across that stage and accept that little rolled up piece of paper that says that I did it. Graduating high school was a very proud moment for me. It showed me that no matter what happens in your life, if your put your mind to something then you can accomplish whatever it is you want to.

One reason that this accomplishment was so huge for me was because of the rough road I took to accomplishing it. At a young age I got involved with the wrong crowd, as many teenagers do. I got into drinking and drugs early. Doing these drugs made me make some bad decisions, especially when it came to my education. I did very well my first year of high school. During that year, I really started to hang out with the wrong crowd of people. By the end of the year I was really starting to not care about school. I was more into hanging out with my friends and doing drugs. A month into my sophomore year I dropped out of high school. I had ran away from home and got involved with the juvenile justice system. For a couple months, I was in and out of juvenile hall every couple of weeks. I spent a couple holidays and a birthday in juvenile hall.

While in juvenile hall we had to attend school. Here I was introduced to a new way of school. The school worked in a different way than the traditional high school. For every hour of classwork done, the students would receive one credit towards that subject. Say I did an hour of science classwork. I would then get one credit towards the science requirement for graduating. I really seemed to do well with this form of achieving credits towards graduation. After leaving juvenile hall, I searched for another high school that had the same system for achieving high school credits.

I was able to find a school that was called a necessary small high school. It worked in the same way that the juvenile hall school did. I did very well at this school for the first couple of months, but unfortunately old habits got a hold of me again. There were other students in the school that used drugs, and eventually I started going out during our lunch time and breaks to use drugs with them. This really started to put a dent in my ability to focus on my schoolwork once again. Eventually I got so into the drugs and so lazy that I dropped out of the school.

At the very young age of 16 I found out that I was pregnant with my first daughter, who is now 6. Finding this out scared me a whole lot, but it also got me thinking. I needed to change my life. I could not bring a child into the world doing the things that I was doing. Three months after I found out that I was pregnant I was placed into a recovery group home that was specifically for pregnant teenagers. This program was able to get me to stop using drugs.

After arriving at the group home, I got enrolled into their charter school. I found out that they worked the same way that the juvenile hall school and necessary small high school worked, but with its own little twist to it. At this school, every chapter in the textbook that you completed counted as one credit towards graduation requirements. I really liked that idea. I had about 6 months before my daughter was due to be born. I decided that I wanted to graduate high school before she was born. I knew that it was going to be a lot of work because I knew that I had a lot of credits that needed to be completed in order to graduate that June, which was only three months away.

I buckled down and worked as hard as I could. There were nights that I stayed up until midnight or later getting as many chapters done in that time as I could. I managed to complete my whole junior year, senior year, and half of my sophomore year credits in a total of three months. Sometimes I wonder if I would have ever graduated from high school if I had stayed in a traditional high school. I liked being able to control when I could finish my high school credits.

I have found myself during my venture through the junior college looking back at that picture of me at my high school graduation. Playing my graduation in my head makes me focus on completing my college degree. Any time that I feel like I cannot complete my degree, I just look back at that picture. Sometimes I have to tell myself that if I can graduate high school after everything that happened during my teenage years and knowing that I was soon to become a single teenage parent, then I can complete my college degree. Even though I have more children now, I am no longer a single parent.

The main thing that I have learned through the experiences in my life is that you can accomplish anything that you want. The only thing that a person has to remember is that they need to stay positive and tell themselves that they can accomplish what they want. I have overcome many obstacles in my life and still have a few more to overcome to accomplish my goal of obtaining a college degree. I just need to remember that I can get my degree. Graduating high school despite what was going on in my life during that time has really motivated me to obtain my college degree.

Essay 1 Rough Draft

The feeling of accomplishment I had for myself that day was indescribable. I never thought that I would be walking across the stage graduating high school. It was a huge accomplishment for me. It was a great feeling knowing that my parents and other family members were proud of me for being able to walk across that stage and accept that little rolled up piece of paper that says that I did it. Graduating high school was a very proud moment for me. It showed me that no matter what happens in your life, if your put your mind to something then you can accomplish whatever it is you want to.

One reason that this accomplishment was so huge for me was because of the rough road I took to accomplishing it. At a young age I got involved with the wrong crowd, as many teenagers do. I got into drinking and drugs early. Doing these drugs made me make some bad decisions, especially when it came to my education. I did very well my first year of high school. During that year, I really started to hang out with the wrong crowd of people. By the end of the year I was really starting to not care about school. I was more into hanging out with my friends and doing drugs. A month into my sophomore year I dropped out of high school. I had ran away from home and got involved with the juvenile justice system. For a couple months, I was in and out of juvenile hall every couple of weeks. I spent a couple holidays and a birthday in juvenile hall.

While in juvenile hall we had to attend school. Here I was introduced to a new way of school. The school worked in a different way than the traditional high school. For every hour of classwork done, the students would receive one credit towards that subject. Say I did an hour of science classwork. I would then get one credit towards the science requirement for graduating. I really seemed to do well with this form of achieving credits towards graduation. After leaving juvenile hall, I searched for another high school that had the same system for achieving high school credits.

I was able to find a school that was called a necessary small high school. It worked in the same way that the juvenile hall school did. I did very well at this school for the first couple of months, but unfortunately old habits got a hold of me again. There were other students in the school that used drugs, and eventually I started going out during our lunch time and breaks to use drugs with them. This really started to put a dent in my ability to focus on my schoolwork once again. Eventually I got so into the drugs and so lazy that I dropped out of the school.

At the very young age of 16 I found out that I was pregnant with my first daughter, who is now 6. Finding this out scared me a whole lot, but it also got me thinking. I needed to change my life. I could not bring a child into the world doing the things that I was doing. Three months after I found out that I was pregnant I was placed into a recovery group home that was specifically for pregnant teenagers. This program was able to get me to stop using drugs.

After arriving at the group home, I got enrolled into their charter school. I found out that they worked the same way that the juvenile hall school and necessary small high school worked, but with its own little twist to it. At this school, every chapter in the textbook that you completed counted as one credit towards graduation requirements. I really liked that idea. I had about 6 months before my daughter was due to be born. I decided that I wanted to graduate high school before she was born. I knew that it was going to be a lot of work because I knew that I had a lot of credits that needed to be completed in order to graduate that June, which was only three months away.

I buckled down and worked as hard as I could. There were nights that I stayed up until midnight or later getting as many chapters done in that time as I could. I managed to complete my whole junior year, senior year, and half of my sophomore year credits in a total of three months. Sometimes I wonder if I would have ever graduated from high school if I had stayed in a traditional high school. I liked being able to control when I could finish my high school credits.

I have found myself during my venture through the junior college looking back at that picture of me at my high school graduation. Playing my graduation in my head makes me focus on completing my college degree. Any time that I feel like I cannot complete my degree, I just look back at that picture. Sometimes I have to tell myself that if I can graduate high school after everything that happened during my teenage years and knowing that I was soon to become a single teenage parent, then I can complete my college degree. Even though I have more children now, I am no longer a single parent.

The main thing that I have learned through the experiences in my life is that you can accomplish anything that you want. The only thing that a person has to remember is that they need to stay positive and tell themselves that they can accomplish what they want. I have overcome many obstacles in my life and still have a few more to overcome to accomplish my goal of obtaining a college degree. I just need to remember that I can get my degree. Graduating high school despite what was going on in my life during that time has really motivated me to obtain my college degree.

Rules for Writers Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 discusses the writing process. It starts out by discussing ways to generate ideas for your writing assignment. For generating ideas, Diana Hacker says that you should start by assessing your writing situation. This means that you look at all of the aspects of your writing assignment. You need to locate the key elements of your writing assignment, which includes the subject of the assignment, sources of information that are available to you, the purpose of your assignment, the audience, and any constraints that the assignment has, such as length etc.

There are different ways to generate ideas. One way is to use a freewrite. You can also just talk to yourself or friends about the subject of your assignment. If your assignment is based on a reading, you can annotate the text and take notes. Write down questions that come into your head as you read. Then reread the text and try to answer the questions you had written. You can make a list of things that pertain to the subject of your assignment. You could use a technique called clustering. This means that you are showing relationships between the different ideas you have for your topic.

I plan to use the techniques in this chapter for my future writing assignments. I plan on doing a couple freewrites for each essay. I am also going to play with the technique of listing and clustering. I am also going to try to first write an informal outline after I generate some ideas.

The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me

Education is a means to save one's life because if you are educated you can do anything that you want. If you are uneducated, you are bound to struggle with life and just making ends meet. With an education you can have a career that means a lot to you and earns better money. Without an education you get stuck in minimum wage jobs and struggling your whole life just to put food on the table. I am obtaining my education so that I can get a better paying career.

Alexie is attempting to save the lives of the children that he helps by visiting the schools on reservations and educating the children. He remembers what it was like not being taught the things that he is teaching the children when he was in the reservation school system. He wants the children to learn everything that he had to teach himself. He feels that visiting their schools and teaching the children helps them become more educated, which will help them as adults, which in the end could save their lives.

Alexie saved his own life by not letting the stereotype that Indians are stupid get in the way of what he wanted to do. He educated himself so that he could achieve whatever he wanted to as an adult. Achieving his education made it so that he did not have to struggle as much as his parents had during his childhood.

Rules for Writers Ch. 46 Summary

This chapter in Rules for Writers states that a summary is to be written so that it is shown that you understand the main ideas in the author's writing. This chapter gives you some great tips on how to write a proper summary. Summaries need to be kept short, so picking out the points that are most important is crucial. This chapter talks about annotating (or actively reading) while you read the text. It also talks about outlining the key points of the text that you are reading.

Annotating means that you are actively reading. While you are reading you are writing down any questions or thoughts that come to your mind. When you find the thesis statement of the text that you are reading you should underline it. Then underline any thing in the text that supports the thesis. One thing that Rules for Writers states is that you should use a pencil to do your underlining instead of a highlighter. This is a good idea. You may underline something thinking that it is important, and then as you read on into the text, you find that it is not as important as you thought it was. With using a pencil, you can go back and make corrections to your annotating. You can erase stuff that you underlined. A good thing to do is answer any questions that you wrote down as you discover the answer during your reading.Writing a brief outline of the text that you are reading can help you write a summary. Find the thesis statement of the text that you are reading. Then find the main points of the text. An outline does not just follow the author's thoughts, but summarizes the articles main points.

Freewriting Exercises

Freewriting is a way to put thoughts down onto a paper without having to worry about editing. It is a way to help generate ideas for a paper or other writing assignment. Without having to worry about editing, it is easier for a person to get good ideas written down. The article did not really clearly define what a freewrite is, so I am taking little bits of things that I read. A freewrite is a means to generate ideas by just writing with a certain topic in your mind. Then, you can go back and look at the freewrite and pick out some really good ideas. Not having to worry about editing or making mistakes could make some really strong, good ideas to come out on the paper.
Freewrites are facilitate stronger writing because it gives the author a place to just get ideas down onto paper before having to worry about format and editing of the paper. It makes it so that you are almost "speaking" onto the paper. You do not have to worry about being wrong or not being able to think of what to write. As you keep writing in the freewrite, an idea may come into your head and you can write it down. One problem with writing essays is that our mind constantly edits the paper as we write. Freewrites are a way to teach our mind not to do the editing as we write the rough draft. It gives us an opportunity to just get ideas out onto the paper, and then go back and do the editing.
One thing that I found interesting about the reading was that it said that if you cannot think of something to write, just write that. You can repeat the same sentence or same word over and over. I did my freewrite for this week already. I have to say that it was actually kind of fun. I never had a moment during the freewrite that I could not come up with something to say. I was just writing whatever was on my mind. It was rather interesting to go into somewhat curious as to how I was going to be able to have something to write about for 10 mintues. I was surprised at how easy it was to think of something to write about.

Introduction

My name is Michelle Richardson. I am taking this class as a prerequisite for English 1A. I am studying to get my AA degree in Pharmacy Technician. I wanted to do ultrasound, but no school in the area has that program and I cannot relocate because of my children. I have lived in Santa Rosa since I was 8. I was born in Massachussettes. I moved to Virginia when I was to, and then moved to California when I was 8, when my grandpa fell very will to cirrohsis of the liver. I have 3 kids. My youngest baby was just born December 12th, which is why I chose to do all online classes this semester.

I hope to get a brush up on my English writing skills. I have not taken an English class since high school, which was over 6 years ago. My skills in writing essays ex cetera are very rusty. I am hoping that my essay skills will be fine tuned by the end of this class. Currently I work part time 3 days a week cleaning a friend's house. This leaves me plenty of time to focus on my school work. I like to try to pace myself when it comes to school work. With children it doesn't always happen. I plan on getting as much done at the beginning of the week as I can. I try to get my work done as early as possible. Sometimes my week can get ahead of me, so I try to do most of my assignments at the beginning of the week. I have been very successful the last two semesters doing online classes. I am keeping my school load lower than usual due to the new baby and retunring to work on February 1st. I feel very confident that I will do good this summer. I have my fiance to help watch my children while I do homework, and they will also be attending daycare to help me have some alone time to do homework.