What this class has meant to me up to now? It has been a challenging experience since I am not a native English writer, but in my inner side, I believe that I am improving my grammar structure and my vocabulary excel as well. Therefore, I feel confident in the class with Mr. Smith as a professor. We have done 2 essays, 2 objective summaries, and the CAT-W sample test this last Tuesday.
On Hype, the article is about how advertisement is affecting our mind as the primary mental pollutant on these days. This article was very difficult for me to work out, as it was the first essay of the class and I was not ready for it. I read it more than 10 times to get a clear view of the author’s statement, then I moved on to start writing the essay and as I read some other classmates paperwork, I felt more prepared to write. I connected to the passage by reflecting the author’s point of view to my personal experience, and I remembered when I was a child all my overweight issues with candies and how it is still affecting me, that is why I totally agree to the passage and the author point of view.
On the CAT-W practice, it was a little awkward because was the same format for the actual exam, that made me nervous and I might make some mistakes on the exam. I will try to be less anxious when I face the real exam. My Topic was; how advertisement in elementary school is affecting our under 12 children health, the consequences of junk food advertised in schools is increasing the unhealthy condition of children, as they are becoming obesity and gaining other ills as diabetes. I am not sure if I passed the exam but I believe I did my best.
On the Allegory of the Cave, It was complicated to first summarize the passage, and then the essay format was harder, because of the philosophy content of the passage, it made me thought a lot about my own reality, and the way my life has changed since I had memories of myself and my family, all the lies told to me and their outcomes. At the end of the essay, I felt relieve in some way, I could take a bad experience out of me and project it to the essay, a deep breath continued after I was done with the essay and followed by a strong exhale. A comment about the essay was made by a classmate, more than less she likes the essay, obviously no one wants to criticize mistakes, errors, misspellings or failure in structure sentences but in my opinion, that is why we are in this class, to learn from mistakes.
In my conclusion up to now for the class, I believe that I have improved, but I still need to develop more ideas for my paragraph sentences, and connect them to the thesis. This is where I get lost on the essay. My conclusions are not strong yet; they sound weak and out of place, as if they were not part of the essays. Overall, I need to work harder to pass the CAT-W which is the target.
Hi Henry:
ReplyDeleteBelow you will find my response for this blog series. This is not a grade, nor is it intended to be read as an evaluation of your performance in this class so far. The evaluation of the blog series may be found in Blackboard in the gradebook for this class and the grade is derived from a totally different method as described in the syllabus. What you will see below is a response to your overall writing as of this blog series. The categories are from the CAT-W evaluation rubric (what the evaluator’s use). The comments below are intended to be both descriptive (what I see) and prescriptive (what you need to work on). I will be speaking with you personally about your current strengths and weakness during class. Please feel free to ask as many questions as you like about the following in class, during office hours, or in our FB groups.
Critical Response to Writing Task and Text: For this category, I look to see if you summarized effectively thereby demonstrating that you understood the reading/text, that you are actively engaging with the ideas of the text and responding in some way to them. For this category, you are fine but could still use some improvement.
Development of Writer’s Ideas: This category responds to how well you use reasons to support your claim, how well you use evidence to support your reasons, and how well the reasons work together as a whole. For this category you need more work, particularly in your use of detail?
Structure of the Response: Is it an argument essay? Does it work well as a whole? This category is concerned with the overall structure of your writing--can I see that you had a plan and executed it well.
Sentences, Word Choice, Grammar, Usage, Mechanics: Is your writing clear and easy to read? That is what this category is all about. What issues need to be addressed now to improve the overall effect of your writing?
Overall: From this blog series I can see that you have the basics down from the first few weeks. You are summarizing the texts, identifying main ideas, responding to them, and you are writing “essays” when asked. Now we will work on argument format for essays and development. You are exactly where you need to be at this point in the class. Keep up the good work! This is a very strong beginning!