Evaluation of blogging

Chayse Adams

Eng 100-20

December 10, 2010

Evaluation of blogging

Because of English 100 my reading skills have improved due to all of the short stories from the Introduction to College Writing book that you have assigned this the semester. My reading comprehension skills have also improved as well. I believe it is because of how you made us analyze each story and look for deeper meanings and other interpretations of each story. My actual typing abilities have improved due to the fact that we do almost all if not all of our assignments on computers in this class. Which typing is a skill that I will need to be building up for every college class I will have, so it is a very good plus that just came without having to actually try. My writing abilities such as being able to put my thoughts down on paper, or computer, have drastically changed for the better as well. Everything we have done forces you to do critical thinking and being able to write the words in an understandable way to express my thoughts more clearly.

                I think of the blogs as a kind of journal that we are forced to keep. I don’t necessarily enjoy writing them but I don’t really mind it either. Also, there are benefits in keeping the blogs in the since that they are a reference if you want to go back and remind yourself of the main points and focus of a story it you choose to write about it later. You can use parts of your actual blogs in some of your papers so you can save time if you’ve already expressed thoughts or ideas about it once already. The blogs are a hassle sometimes, but I would rather do them and make use of them every now and then than not  blogging and end up running around in the dark about a paper, so I think they are very useful.

Questions for Reflection and Writing, Question #1 (pg. 232-236)

Chayse Adams

English 100-20

11-30-2010

Questions for Reflection and Writing, Question #1

Richard Rodriguez, The Lonely, Good Company of Books (pg. 232-236)

            My relationship with books is not very strong. For the longest dime I actually despised books. I did not enjoy reading and I was very slow at it, so it took me forever to read anything, which did not help. I couldn’t figure out why in the world anyone would ever want to waste their time reading when they could be outside playing or hanging out with friends or chasing girls. The point is there is so many things for a person to do, so why would they, like Richard Rodriguez says, feel alone to their thoughts like you are talking to yourself all alone in a completely empty room. At least that is how I felt about reading throughout elementary and high school.

            Although my idea and perception of books has changed a little, I still do not have much to do with books or any reading for that matter, unless it is specifically for school or something else of importance to me. My favorite books to read, if I had to, would be war stories and old westerns, like cowboys and stuff. Although I was forced to pick a book from a list in one of my classes to read for an assignment, my all time favorite book would have to be With the Old Breed, E.B. Sledge. I have never enjoyed a book so much as that one. It really just drew my attention in and kept me interested for what was about to happen next. That was a rare and mysterious feeling for me, I did enjoy it, but I don’t think I’ll be reading a bunch of more books to find one that gives me the same feeling. I might buy it sometime though, I saw it at Target about two weeks ago and just about bought it because I wouldn’t mind reading it again sometime.

Homework for Nov. 19th Please accept late

Chayse Adams

Eng: 100-20

My Experiences with Reading and Writing

Before this course I thought I was a decent writer, and that I could manage college English classes, I soon realized that it might be that I had the right founding blocks for becoming a decent writer. I am defiantly not a decent writer, yet. It became abundantly clear that my writing skills would be pushed. They continue to be pushed harder and harder every week, but at a manageable pace, if you stick to what you are supposed to be doing and staying focused.

I started to be unsure that I would be able to cope with the ever increasing work load that my professors continued to pile on. Then I dug my way through it until I could see some light again and began to relax a bit. I have just now returned back to school from Fall Break, It was very pleasant and not shockingly, went by too fast. I took it pretty easy over the break, enjoying myself as much as possible. I just recently realized that was a huge mistake! I have fallen behind, procrastinated long enough that I have a few weeks to achieve what I need to get done, however, I feel I waited too long and now it’s going to be hell digging myself out of this hole. In case you were wandering, it was not worth all that free time because now I’m really regretting every second of it I spent doing anything else other than school work.

My Struggle

When I first made the transformation from high school to college English I noticed i was going to be in for a ride. We were expected to write a blog every day of class that was atleast 250 words long and that was the easyest part! It was tough and I did struggle for awhile, but over time my writing skills and abillity to push out 250 words increased and it became easyer every time. Then things got harder; the task papers were longer and the blogs more and more difficult but so far i have met what my instructor has demanded of me, pushing me to do more and better. It has been a struggle but I have rose to the challenge and will continue to push my self.

ENG 100-20 Task 3-Response to Blog, Mary Sherry’s, “In Praise of the F Word” (pg .215-216)

Chayse J. Adams

ENG: 100-20

10-28-2010

Response to Blog, Mary Sherry’s, “In Praise of the F Word” (pg .215-216)

Like in Mary Sherry’s, “In Praise of the F Word”, I too agree that the fear of flunking can be very motivational in school, and should be actually enforced in our public schools. Mary says that threatening to flunk students used to be a very effective was to motivate students to try harder and put out some effort because they knew that their teachers would actually do it if need be. Anymore the threat of flunking a student doesn’t hold much authority in a classroom because the students believe that their teachers wouldn’t do that to them and for the most part, they’re rite. No matter the case or circumstances, teachers not flunking students who do not deserve to pass aren’t doing those students any favors, they are actually crippling them. When they advance they will not have the needed knowledge to succeed, forcing the next teacher to make a decision of flunking or passing the student.

I always had enough motivation in my classes to complete all my work and learn the necessary information, but when my senior year rolled around and I had to take personal finance first semester and government second semester and that was the only way I could fit them in my schedule and if I failed one or the other I didn’t get to graduate, I was on them books like glue! The real threat of not graduating with all my friends and walking across the stage with my buddies a proud young man was terrifying! I probably would have done fine even if it didn’t matter, but the fact that it did, drove me to be the best student I possibly could have in those classes. I took it so much more seriously. We had a really fun teacher, who really cared and was just an inspiring and motivational teacher. He was so funny and we all loved him. He somehow managed to get everyone involved every class period, no matter how boring the topic, but he was one of those guys that when it came down to it, he would, and then like magic, it would rub on to us, and we got down to business! If all my classes and teachers could do that I would probably be able to become the president of the U.S. but being realistic, if all my teachers would enforce the Fail policy if a student didn’t deserve to proceed to the next level, would suck, but really be an effective tool to motivate students to get their heads in the game and really take classes seriously. This policy, just as a side note, would probably help solve a lot of other problems in classrooms such as tardiness, truancy, horseplay, and the list would probably go on and on due to the fact that students would have to focus on their work and school much harder and they would lack the time and want to do drugs and form gangs and fight and other things that cripple the development of many young students in our schools these days.

Analysis on “Save Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools” by Jonathan Kozol (57-67).

Kozol states that children from the poorer schools will never be able to get into the “magnet” schools. The biggest problem the children face is themselves, they are not dumb and see the statistics and know that they will never get in because of who they are and where they come from. I can’t imagine how discouraging it must be to those students who feel they don’t have a chance. The parents also play a role in getting their children admitted to the magnet schools. My parents are well educated people and if I had the opportunity to get into one of the magnet schools if I lived in the areas Kozol discusses, my parents could be educated enough to help teach and prepare me to get into those magnet schools, which is exactly what is happening while the less educated parents of children from the lower income areas were likely dropouts and cannot even read well enough to help their children do better to get better opportunities than they, the parents, had. It seems to me that the quality of the education received in these areas is like a never ending vicious circle, the upper class parents help their children, and their children receive opportunities and become the upper class, then they do as their parents did for them and the circle continues to leave the lower class behind and the students continue to dropout, and when they become parents, they are not well enough educated to help their children, and so the circle continues for them as well.

Response to Blog, Analysis of One Aspect discussed in Kozol’s “Savage Inequalities” (pg. 40-53)

Chayse Adams

ENG: 100-20

10-26-2010

Response to Blog, Analysis of One Aspect discussed in

Kozol’s “Savage Inequalities” (pg. 40-53)

            One aspect that particularly caught my attention and interest was where Kozol talked about the kinder garden classrooms. 3,000 infants from the Chicago neighborhoods are delivered with brain damage or other neurological impairments; however upon walking into one of the kinder garden classrooms, one wouldn’t have noticed a thing wrong with any of the children. They acted like normal kids when their teacher was trying to settle them down for nap time.

            Their classroom was not filled with any books, art work, and works of their writing or anything the students had done. The walls were blank except for a few posters of the seasons and zoo animals donated by some a few companies. The small bookcases and cubbies were painted brightly and colorful as you might expect of any kindergarten classroom but was still rather cheerless.

            The statistics about what will happen to this seemingly normal class is very depressing. The high school they will attend has an 18% graduation rate. If the neighborhood statistics of this class hold true, 14 of the 23 will have dropped out of school by their junior year. 14 years after kindergarten, 4 of the students will be going to college, and 18 years from now 1 of them will graduate from college, but 3 of the 12 boys in that class will already have spent time in prison. As Kozol believes, I agree that it is very depressing and sad to see kids in our own country suffer all over our country like this in our public schools and we as citizens of the U.S. donate loads of money to Africa and other places around the world. It would be so much more beneficial for our society if that money was devoted to solving our crisis of public schools here in the States. The return in such investments would be very great as well.