Writing Wrap Up

            Since the beginning of the year, I think my ideas in my writing have improved for the most part. Not only that, but my word choice and sentence structure has as well. With my word choice, I’m not repeating the same words, and I’m using more descriptive words in my writing. My ideas in my paper have improved. They have progressively become more developed with each paper I write.

At the same time, my ideas could use improvement by intertwining my ideas in my papers instead of stating it at the end of the essay.  I could work on improving my organization and support. My papers seem to have some of the information out of order, making it confusing to read, with little support along with it.

The feedback was mostly accurate for what I knew about my writing. I knew my papers hadn’t always strived when it came to organization. It seems when I want to add something, I don’t know exactly where to put it, and end up putting it where it makes the essay confusing. The feedback that I didn’t think was very accurate was about conventions. I had always thought that was what was strongest in my papers.

            In the literacy narrative essay, I thought the conventions would be the strongest, when it turns out it was one of the weakest, along with my organization. Dr. D commented, “This paper does not show a lot of attention to organization.” Looking back at my paper, I realize all the mistakes and how she was right. It made me think about improvements I needed to make in future papers.

            My poor organization skills had also seemed to come up in my Profile paper. In this paper, my ideas weren’t so strong.  She told me, “You went from not having meaning to having hidden meaning that is revealed at the end.” After this, my ideas had started to improve, but she pointed out that I needed to work on it a little bit.

            In my literary analysis, I noticed my organization still hadn’t changed, which did frustrate me for quite some time. My word choice had not improved here either. In this paper, I also got the tense of the paper wrong. I wrote it in past tense, instead of literary present tense. My voice in the paper had been very informal. I wasn’t supposed to use contractions, but did anyway.

            In my Global Issues Paper. My organization skills had improved very little. But it’s a step up. The order and transitions was stronger than my source integration. Like Dr. D said, “Work particularly on integrating sources.”

Common Errors list:

1.     Pronoun/antecedent agreement

o   Ex: As she was passing them out, she would say our name.

A pronoun and an antecedent must match in number. Instead of “name” it should say “names.”

2.     Improper semicolon use

o   Ex: I had already done the flip; it was too late.

Instead of the colon, I could’ve used a comma.

3.     Improper tense

o   In my literary analysis, the whole paper is in the wrong tense.

4.     Informal language

o   Ex: It’s the reason everything in the story happened.

Instead of using “it’s” use the more formal “it is”

5.     Weak paragraph transitions

o   Ex: In an empty lot, it’s easy to spot an object just laying there, especially a gun.

After a paragraph, it should have a stronger to introduce a new paragraph. 

Outside Reading

Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
150 minutes - 104 pages

Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging

This week, I decided to jump back into Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. I like some of the ideas in this book. It shows how all people are insecure at some point in their life, and that you're not the only one who feels that way. It also shows how there is always someone out there who will like you for you. It shows how everyone is created differently, and that's what makes us come together. 

In this book, I've also noticed some of the language used. Since it is told from a teenage girls point of view, there is going to be a lot of slang. A lot of this is british slang; it's a good thing there is a dictionary in the back for these terms, or I'd be totally lost. For example, I would have never guessed that "nappy" meant a diaper.

"All This and Heaven Too" by Florence + the Machine

In this song, there are a lot of poetic techniques used. For example, the first line she says,
"And the heart is hard to translate,
it has a language of its own,
it talks and tongues and quiet sighs and prayers and proclamations,
in the grand days of great men and the smallest of gestures,
in short shallow gasps."
In these lines, she personifies her heart as if it were its own person with a personality. She also uses a lot of consonance in the same line. She uses the t, pr, and g sound. It puts emphasis on what she is saying, and makes you pay attention to sound. She is using symbolism here. She is saying that the heart is hard to understand, and that we don't always know what it wants, so it's hard to understand what love is at times.

In the chorus, there is more consonance. For example,
"But with all my education,
I can't seem to commend it,
and the words are all escaping me,
and coming back all damaged."
In these lines, she constantly repeats the c sound, giving it a certain sound and repeated rhythm. She also personifies the words, like they are actually leaving her body, and becoming damaged. This gives the poem a bit more personality, and more symbolism. She is symbolizing how she doesn't really understand how love works when she writes it down, and how it can't be taught, it just comes naturally. How it is a strong feeling that would make her want to give all the heavens just for the one she loves.

One of the most common patterns used in this song was consonance throughout the whole song. There were consonance in almost every line of the song.

13 Reasons Why

This week, I read Thirteen Reasons Why. In this book, a girl named Hannah has committed suicide. Before she dies, she makes cassette tapes for 13 different people to tell them why they are the reason she died. The story is told from Clay's point of view, who is one of the people who receives the tapes.

After reading this book, I will admit, I actually got a little depressed. I will warn you this book is very sad since it is about suicide. It also makes me think how life is precious, and how sometimes people don't realize when they're actually hurting someone. It relates to me because there have been times where I have been made fun of, and so has everybody else.

Author: Jay Asher
Reading Time:
3/26 - 30 min - 29 pages
3/27 - 30 min - 31 pages
3/28 - 30 min - 27 pages
3/29 - 30 min - 30 pages
3/30 - 30 min - 31 pages

"Fifth Grade Autobiography" by Rita Dove

"Fifth Grade Autobiography" by Rita Dove

I was four in this photograph fishing

with my grandparents at a lake in Michigan.

My brother squats in poison ivy. 

His davy Crockett cap

sits squared on his head so the raccoon tail                    5

flounces down the back of his sailor suit.

My grandfather sits to the far right 

in a folding chair,

and I know his left hand is on

the tobacco in his pants pocket                                     10

because I used to wrap it for him

every Christmas. Grandmother's hips

bulge from the brush, she's leaning

into the ice chest, sun through the trees

printing her dress with soft                                           15

luminous paws.

I am staring jealously at my brother;

the day before he rode his first horse, alone.

I was strapped in a basket

behind my grandfather.                                                20

He smelled of lemons. He's died-

but I remember his hands. 

      This week, I analyzed the poem called "Fifth Grade Autobiography" by Rita Dove. I chose this poem because to me, it seemed like the author would talk about their childhood and the great memories in it. I also thought that it would have reminded her of an actual fifth grade biography. It also reminded me of the many memoirs we had to do in middle school of some good or bad memories. 

     In this poem, the author likes to use enjambents in her poem. In almost every other line, there is a break between sentences. I think the author does this for emphasis on the sentence. It helps the author have a certain rhythm to the poem. It breaks it up to show the different scenes of the poem. This shows how she thinks of her memories of her family.

    Something I noticed is that she talks a lot about her family in this poem. She talks about her brother, her grandmother, and her grandfather. It seems that she never talks about her parents though. She talks about her greatest memories with her family as the simplest ones. I also noticed that she liked to talk about clothing and textures a lot. Whenever she describes her family, she always describes them with some sort of object. 

     The author also talks a lot about body parts. She talks about the hat sitting on top of her brother's head, her grandmother's hips bulging, and her grandfather's hands. She seems to personify the parts of their body as though they were not attached to the body.