Sentence-Level Error – “Control sentence-level error (grammar, punctuation, spelling)”(Brod).

I can and have formatted and made very good sentences when I have the brain power to do so. But I have learned a lot in this English class about making my voice more active rather than being to passive. As well as making my voice more of my voice over paraphrasing or quoting someone else’s ideas and experiences. This is something I still need to work on but have gotten better at throughout this semester. 

this work sample above is from my first essay in this English class. if you notice the “such as__ ” in purple that is a comment from my professor about adding more to the sentence to make it help with my essay. I’ve been writing more compete sentences since like in my last essay.

My sentences this short snip from my last essay, shows how I have been able to expand my ideas in a more active voice in my essays. these sentences are complete sentences with almost no commas.

In my second essay when going back and rereading the comments left by my professor which are in pink font words. I needed to add more to my sentences to help with an active voice rather then just being very passive. You can see that I have come a long way. Base level sentences is still something I need to work on but I have improved a lot since the start of this class.

Document Work MLA – “Document their work using appropriate conventions (MLA)”(Bord) 

I think that I have learned to use the correct way to document and cite sources. I have figured out and learned to integrate quotes and give credit to where credit is due while using the integrating quotes methods we have been shown and taught. I have learned to properly format and find where to academically format in the MLA style.

In my final essay I properly format the heading, and I format it correctly according to the MLA style.

This sample is from my first essay in this class. I clearly wasn’t sure about the proper in-text citation form for this essay. Until I learned from this class about how to do it.

Another example of this is my final essay Works Cited page. It is in alphabetical order and the second line of each citation is indented. I introduced quotes my stating the article they come from and then the author as well. While transitioning into the quote from the text they wrote. I think that this is an important set of information to have for anyone who is writing any paper that utilizes other sources because credit most defiantly should be given to where it is deserved.

Peer Review- “Be able to critique their own and others’ work by emphasizing global revision early in the writing process and local revision later in the process.” (Brod). 

I think that throughout this course I have been able to get better at critiquing others’ work by leaving good and positive but unpacked and needed peer review comments. In high school I used to be a bit more harsher in really focusing on how my peers could change to become better at their work. I did much more hunting and searching but only for more of the local revision type needs. I feel like through this class it’s more of a global revision type needs that I’ve helped some of peers with. But by picking through their essays I’ve noticed “hey maybe I realize I don’t have a naysayer in my own essay” And then It opens my eyes to my own work and puts me in a “peer review frame of mind”. 

Work Sample #1: This is from my last Peer-Review I did in class. It is the end comment I left a peer. 

You can see that I left two major pieces of the essay that I believed could help my peer make his point and argument so much better!

Work Sample #2

These two comments are ones I left my peer about his thesis and intro paragraph.

Work Sample #3:

Peer review also helped me a lot to make my points much more in depth and make more sense to my reader.

I think that peer review helped me with making my ideas and arguments more meaningful and connected.

Word Count: 215

Annotations & Reading Response-  “Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.” (Brod). 

I think over the course of this class in the reading response area. I have started to read more closely, and have more thoughts of my own concise, and deep thoughts. I think that being able to read other peoples work and our own critically and come to our own conclusions are very important, because if we didn’t think for ourselves then where would we get as a society. Writing a reading response also helps me learn what I am writing about and to think it through by summarizing what I thought about it and how I can utilize it in my writing.  Like when I was reading responses for my second essay in my English composition 110 course. 

I had to analyze two articles written about empathy, one by David Foster-Wallace who gave a commencement speech called “This is Water ” about awareness and even though he does not name it, but empathy. The other reading is called “Is Empathy Overrated?” and it is by Paul Bloom, a psychiatrist from Connecticut. He talks about how empathy isn’t good and that it has possible dangers that are harmful to the public. Honestly, if I hadn’t written out what I thought in a reading response; my high school self would have had a lot of issues introducing those two articles, and what it was about to you (the reader).  But some real physical evidence of critical reading and writing in a response would be from one of the reading response questions for DFW assignment. 

 In this previous quote from my homework I’ve shown that I have put aside the time and mental and critical effort to think of my own ideas that wouldn’t have become my own analysis if I hadn’t deeply read the articles presented. The reading responses assignment helped me organize my own thoughts that I had started while reading. Making sure I wouldn’t lose them in my line of thought.

We also did annotations in this course, which honestly I don’t see how it helped me, I think the reading response was much more effective. The annotations just confused me. I need to see the whole picture to understand something rather than highlighting little pieces as I go.

Work Sample #2 Annotations of “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott

I remember having a more difficult time with this response because I only remembered what I had highlighted and not smaller details because my eyes were drawn to the blue highlights. Annotation just confuses me because it doesn’t make me think as deep. I must finish reading first, and then just start writing it out a response. I won’t go back unless I need a quote or some source material. This is because it will confuse me. I think that the reading responses helped me with active reading more something I’ve been working on much longer than the average learner. I think annotations confuses me because of my learning disability, and the way I’ve been taught to work with it has been to read, and then respond. Rather than highlighting and annotating as I go through. I can’t think though it when I stop or interrupt my brain while it is reading and thinking the articles through.

Word Count: 526

Integrating Voices- “Be able to integrate their ideas with others using summary, paraphrase, quotation, analysis, and synthesis of relevant sources.”(Brod). Integrating Sources into my writing used to be just straight up factual information that I got from a website, and cited it. I didn’t really go into detail as “unpacking” my own ideas as much or even making connections that helped with what I was discussing in whatever paper at the time. I never really included “I think” statements. I think that through this course I have learned to connect my ideas and my theses. I didn’t know how to introduce quotes besides saying “In this quote” and then dropping the quote. Or wrapping up my conclusion. I also think this course is the first where I have used my own ideas and my own experiences as evidence. Before I felt like my voice wasn’t a source, which it is. 

Work Sample Essay #1: 

This is an example of what I used to put for my writing by using my old strategy of “In this quote” method which really is repetitive. It doesn’t help make a point which you can drive further home in introducing and apply a source to your work. My own experience after wasn’t as in detail and just is there to support the quote not make the argument deeper. Like with my 3rd essay It is much more integrated into my thesis and my ideas are more expanded.

Work Sample Essay #3:

My quote introduction is more of a smooth pull into the quote rather than just dropping it, and not explaining or helping connect it better in the beginning.

Work Sample Personal Voice:

In this part of my 3rd essay I bring in a lot more than just a few sentences agreeing with the last source I used, I bring in a deeper and relating personal experience to help my essay have some personal meaning to it. And then at the end I bring my thesis ideas and tight it back, it is the part that isn’t highlighted green. I think that throughout this course I have started formalizing and finishing bring in my own voice and the voices of other people that help show my point. I think that this course helped me with the structure and the idea that my own voice has its own merit of a source. which is critical in writing.

Word Count: 369

Revision: “Demonstrate the ability to approach writing as a recursive process that requires substantial revision of drafts for content, organization, and clarity (global revision), as well as editing and proofreading (local revision).“(Brod).

Revision is an important learning outcome because instead of just writing a piece of writing and then ignoring what you wrote and submitting it as is. This doesn’t craft the writing piece in ways that you can get the most and informative information from the piece. Without revising your writing will become very messy and not make sense to other people or even yourself after reading it. You might want to add some more points as well after revising it.  Two key types of revision are Global revision and Local revision. Global revision’s main focus is on the big picture and connecting the ideas, by identifying the thesis and fully unpack analysis of the idea. Making your paragraphs organized and then Local revision is looking at smaller details like word phrasing, word choice. Through Active and Passive voices in your writing. I revise by looking through and making sure all of the pieces fit together and sound well, that’s what I did in High School at least. But now I’ve also add more ideas or more unpacking into my essays as well. I mostly make sure my essay flows well, and connects well. I do tend to focus more on Local revision.  Like in this quote from my work in the assignment “Connecting the Parts”. “I see that I rely a lot on words like, according, here, when, through, though, it, how, which. In this paragraph and quote introductions. I have a very blunt and repetitive writing style that doesn’t different with my repeated words or phrases. I think the revision really helped solidify what I am thinking, and ties the quotes together. This gets my point across better with the transitions and makes my writing style more unique and less repetitive. 

Work Sample 1: This is from one of our assignments called Connecting the Parts

Revised :Furthermore Bloom talks about how we only empathize with people and experiences that we like and anything different and strange to us isn’t worthy of our empathy. According to Bloom, “But for us mortals, empathy really is a spotlight. It’s a spotlight that has a narrow focus, one that shines most brightly on those we love and gets dim for those who are strange or different or frightening.” (Bloom). I think he is false in this because in a story we read at the beginning of the semester called “Unfollow” by Adrian Chen, which is about how a follower and family member of the Westboro Baptist church, stopped believing in the hate speech and propaganda being spread that she grew up with through interaction over Twitter with people. Megan Phelps-Roper was in charge of the churches Twitter account and was spreading its horrible homophobic beliefs when she encountered forms of friendship with people who majorly didn’t agree with what she believed. This quote shows how she forms friendships and shows lots of empathy towards people who she knows are different from her in beliefs and opinions. Conversely in this quote Chen talks about how Phelps-Roper actually didn’t have a narrow spotlight like in contrast Bloom suggests while Chen says that she did start having a bond and empathy towards people who are different.  “Other Twitter users were fascinated by the dissonance between Westboro’s loathsome reputation and the goofy, pop-culture-obsessed millennial who Phelps-Roper seemed to be on Twitter. “I remember just thinking, How can somebody who appreciates good music believe so many hateful things?” Graham Hughes said. In November, 2009, Hughes, then a college student in British Columbia, interviewed Phelps-Roper for a religious-studies class. Afterward, they corresponded frequently on Twitter. When Hughes was hospitalized with a brain infection, Phelps-Roper showed him more concern than many of his real-life friends. “I knew there was a genuine connection between us,” he said. As Phelps-Roper continued to tweet, she developed relationships with more people like Hughes. There was a Jewish marketing consultant in Brooklyn who abhorred Westboro’s tactics but supported the church’s right to express its views. There was a young Australian guy who tweeted political jokes that she and her younger sister Grace found hilarious. “It was like I was becoming part of a community,” Phelps-Roper said. By following her opponents’ feeds, she absorbed their thoughts on the world, learned what food they ate, and saw photographs of their babies. “I was beginning to see them as human,” she said. When she read about an earthquake that struck off Canada’s Pacific coast, she sent a concerned tweet to Graham Hughes: “Isn’t this close to you’ ”(Chen, 20). As a result of Phelps-Roper’s own personal experience of showing empathy towards someone who she knows doesn’t agree with her shows that though her spotlight may seem narrow it isn’t. Yet she was seeing them as human, and she was concerned and showing empathy towards them; which unfortunately during the time something she was being taught to hate. Although Megan Phelps-Roper choses to be aware of these people who thought differently, and were strange to her. She chooses to care and show empathy towards them; like with Huges how she was concerned for him when he got sick and when an earthquake happened near him she showed concern and empathy towards those situations regardless of their own independent and very different beliefs.  
Not Revised: Here Bloom talks about how we only empathize with people and experiences that we like and anything different and strange to us isn’t worthy of our empathy. According to Bloom, “But for us mortals, empathy really is a spotlight. It’s a spotlight that has a narrow focus, one that shines most brightly on those we love and gets dim for those who are strange or different or frightening.” (Bloom). I think he is false in this because in a story we read at the beginning of the semester called “Unfollow” by Adrian Chen, which is about how a follower, and family member of the Westboro Baptist church, stopped believing in the hate speech and propaganda being spread that she grew up with through interaction over Twitter with people. Megan Phelps-Roper was incharge of the churches Twitter account and was spreading its horrible homophobic beliefs when she encountered forms of friendship with people who majorly didn’t agree with what she believed. In this quote shows how she forms friendships and shows lots of empathy towards people who she knows are different from her in beliefs and opinions “Other Twitter users were fascinated by the dissonance between Westboro’s loathsome reputation and the goofy, pop-culture-obsessed millennial who Phelps-Roper seemed to be on Twitter. “I remember just thinking, How can somebody who appreciates good music believe so many hateful things?” Graham Hughes said. In November, 2009, Hughes, then a college student in British Columbia, interviewed Phelps-Roper for a religious-studies class. Afterward, they corresponded frequently on Twitter. When Hughes was hospitalized with a brain infection, Phelps-Roper showed him more concern than many of his real-life friends. “I knew there was a genuine connection between us,” he said. As Phelps-Roper continued to tweet, she developed relationships with more people like Hughes. There was a Jewish marketing consultant in Brooklyn who abhorred Westboro’s tactics but supported the church’s right to express its views. There was a young Australian guy who tweeted political jokes that she and her younger sister Grace found hilarious. “It was like I was becoming part of a community,” Phelps-Roper said. By following her opponents’ feeds, she absorbed their thoughts on the world, learned what food they ate, and saw photographs of their babies. “I was beginning to see them as human,” she said. When she read about an earthquake that struck off Canada’s Pacific coast, she sent a concerned tweet to Graham Hughes: “Isn’t this close to you’ ”(Chen, 20). Through Phelps-Roper’s own personal experience of showing empathy towards someone who she knows doesn’t agree with her shows that though her spotlight may seem narrow it isn’t, she was seeing them as human and she was concerned and showing empathy towards them; which unfortunately during the time something she was being taught to hate. But Megan Phelps-Roper choses to be aware of these people who thought differently, and were strange to her. She chooses to care and show empathy towards them; like with Huges how she was concerned for him when he got sick and when an earthquake happened near him she showed concern and empathy towards those situations regardless of their own independent and very different beliefs. “

(carrona, Connecting the parts)

In this past work, I was mainly focusing on Local revision in order for my essay to have a more active voice and to have smaller details attended too. I only do Global revision when I am writing it out and it changes so much sometimes that I don’t have a before and after. Usually I don’t even Globally revise. I start with an outline and work from there and just solidify my ideas as I work.

My next pieces of evidence are my Thesis’s from my 1st and 3rd essays in this class. I think really helped me fully unpack what I was thinking and going to discuss, prove and note in my essays. Like in my 1st Essay.

Thesis Sample #1

 I only had one not very well thought out and clear thesis and then after using revision in my last essay my thesis transformed into an unpacked more and became more dense.

Thesis Sample #3

Notice that I’ve unpacked my thesis in more depth, and expanded a bit more about my ideas. By using more of what I want to talk about in my 3rd essay. This is an example of Global revision in my own work by helping give a big picture and making my thesis identifiable. I even give more context to introduce it as well. Revision has become more helpful and clearer through taking this English course I feel like I have a better plan to adjust my writing.

Word Count: 531

I think my writing voice in high school was more straight to the point and I didn’t know. How to back it with loaded sentences that helped with introducing authors or even sources I would just drop a quote and not solidly connect it to my thesis. I also never looked directly for a thesis in any of my work. I just wrote and never really worked or took a deeper thought on the structure of my writing. I think also I’ve been putting in a lot more personal experiences than I have in the past to help back up my claims this semester. I’ve also learned more structured writing than just the 5 paragraph essay type which is a classic but can only get your points so far because I feel like it limits my writing to only having three points when there are many different sides of arguing or talking about some topic such as empathy. Like the quote sandwich, Barclay and the naysayer have been more helpful than just detecting 3 paragraphs to put your points in and leave it as is. I think it helps stretch and utilize my voice so much better than a 5 paragraph essay that has 5-8 sentences each. 

Phoebe Carrona 

Professor Brod 

English Composition; H5

Essay #3

April 12th, 2023

(Insert Title)

I think that what it means to be an American can vary depending on who you ask. Our country is so widely spread and separated historically through different immigrants and slavery. I find that Americans are currently separated through our political beliefs and this strong racial division, and biases. In my own opinion if you live here, work here, are born here, come to be here then you are American. Other people like Jack and Bev Hooker in “Eating Jack Hooker’s Cow” by Micheal Paterniti believe you have to white to be American which is simply not true. He and Bev hold lots of hatred for anyone who is from different countries and cultures. They have hatred directed at Bout Sinhpraseut (Donna) from Laos and her family who escaped their home country in the middle of a war, and came to the USA. She owns and runs the motels across, and down the street from Jack Hooker’s motel. Which I personally don’t understand the hatred he feels at all, why you won’t be kind to someone who is just trying to gain some footing especially in the USA. We are a country of people who left their homes to have a brighter future from whatever political regime, geologically, famine, and by force. Kindness is most certainly needed a lot more in our American society to breach the division that has been shoved on to my generation by older ones. As Danusha Lameris talks about kindness in her poem “Small Kindnesses‘ ‘ which I think embodies what our country needs more of in its day to day life. Kindness does spread if you show someone that it’s safe to be kind to someone who to them is different. 

In the short story “Eating Jack Hooker’s Cow” by Micheal Paterniti; Dwayne Price is an example of someone who shows kindness to people who are different from him. He is an American man in his sixties and thinks his family doesn’t love no matter what he does but he still helps Bout whose American name is Donna. (Paterniti presents how he helps her by stating) This quote talks about how he helps her.  “So, on sunbaked days, with the stench of cow poo pressing down on the grain elevators and wood framed houses of Dodge City, he cruises with Donna in his big Continental, a perpetual cigarette in his mouth, pricing out property. She has some money of her own for a down payment; he shows her how it all works. She buys the Thunderbird and then, with the first six months of income from that, buys the Holiday. Both of them are dumps, but they haven’t met Donna yet. She knows how to clean”(Paterniti). He helped her figure out what to do to help her family live and more of an income in the USA. If he hadn’t been kind to help them they would still be recovering from when they got robbed. To go out of his way to help a family he probably barely knows, and just explains how owning, and managing property all work. This reminds me of the point of being aware of others in “This is Water” by DFW in his commencement speech. “But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer ”(DFW). Dwayne had a choice to be like Jack Hooker and hate Donna just because of superficial and racist reasons, and not help them. He doesn’t view them as different simply because they aren’t “white”. He shows them kindness regardless and gives them his advice and help to survive in an American society. I think Dywane was the first person to spread kindness to Donna and her family, and I think it’s really important to her and it taught her to value what he did for them and that not all people are bad and are trying to destroy her life and her family’s life. You can see this when Dwayne dies of cancer. 

Jack Hooker’s view is based of blind fear of his race and his familiarity becoming less because he is scared of change and probably because he isn’t adapting as well, but he isn’t becoming progressive because he is to blind and scared to change. But this quote in “Eating Jack Hookers’ Cow” shows the different racial separation and the fear that some uneducated and quite frankly scared, and selfish people have in the USA. “And Dodge City is losing its white majority—a quarter of the town is already Hispanic. And then you’ve got your Asiatics and blacks. Most all of them here for the slaughterhouse work, though they’re branching out, infiltrating everything. Especially the Asiatics. One day, they’ll have the country club, too, be up there playing eighteen like they were born to it. Scares you, scares Jack Hooker“ (Paterniti). He’s looking at it as an “us and them” or more accurately “us versus them”. This is a very nativist, and essentialist political, social viewpoint and racist. Which is so closed minded and very toxic. It also limits our society in all kinds of ways. It is like I don’t maybe go backwards to only having half the population being able to vote, not even half.  In another quote from Micheal Paterntit about Jack Hooker’s thoughts on this he says. “There are gangs and killings and kids sniffing gold spray paint—what’s called spooking. There’s a rumor that a pregnant woman will be shot soon, and she will have blond hair…Different people, these Mexicans and Asiatics—crawling all over your world, closing you in. And the Cambodians—you can’t help but wonder why they wander in front of your place all day long, eyeing you as they go.”(Paterniti). He’s scared of those that aren’t like him. Racial nativism is like saying “we only want white americans” anything else isn’t allowed. I remember when I was little we were going to my cousin’s wedding in Florida, and we drove though Alabama. For some reason we stopped at this general store in the middle of nowhere. I remember my mother and dad talking with the woman at the front desk. Who was dropping racial slurs left and right. I have never heard anything like the amount of hate speech that came out of her mouth. She reminds me of Jack Hooker. ENDING NOTE

barclay

1. In his essay, Paterniti uses “close 3rd” point of view as he describes each of the main characters. What is close 3rd, and how does his choice of point of view impact your understanding and impression of motel owners Jack and Bout, specifically?

I think his choice makes us look at the whole picture all the time rather than one side half the time and also it’s more like we are interacting and talking with the characters in the story rather than just reading about their actions. 

2. The dreaded question–what is this essay really about, in your own words? Frame one direct quote (using the quote sandwich method) to support your answer.

I think that this essay is really about multiple points of view and how people feel about a similar situation. And how people don’t realize that other people are going through the same thing just handling it differently and maybe with empathy and more of an open mind. Rather than clinging to old ideas and ways that aren’t healthy or needed or wanted anymore.like when Bout says. “That right, she says, shaking her head, slapping the counter. We all boat people here, isn’t that right?” She said we all are in the same situation and our ancestral wise had to come to the US on a boat to find a better life than what was in our ancestral lands. It’s people like Jack and Bev who have forgotten what it was like for their ancestors to build a new life in the US. 

3. What do you think Paterniti wants us, the reader, to think about once we finish his essay? Use two direct quotes to support your answer.

I think Paterniti wants us to see two very different views in America who are both having different mindsets with their struggles. Like Jack thinks this…”Their beauty fills Jack Hooker with a flicker of sadness. No such thing as the American Dream anymore, he says. You used to do business on your honor and good name. You could spend half a life building your good name, and the IRS takes it away. You know the story about the ten Indians? Then there were nine, eight, seven….There’s no American Dream left.” hes hopeless, but hes kinda put himself in that on his own. Where Bout isn’t. “That’s what keeps you up at night. Almost helps to have a job like this, behind the desk at the Thunderbird Motel. People coming and going. Late, a white man from Ohio stops in with his son. Driving America on summer vacation—New Orleans, Big Bend, all over. Stopped in next door at the Astro, but prices are a little higher over there, will take a room here. Donna likes talking, talks to them. Pots rumble outside the window. When it comes out that Donna’s from Laos, the man tells the story of some Cambodians in his Ohio town. The Tran family. Don’t speak English, but they came to Thanksgiving dinner. Before eating, someone stood up and told the story of the Pilgrims: how they came on the Mayflower, nine weeks at sea, arrived starving and homeless and learned to grow corn and pumpkin from the Indians. The story was translated for Mr. Tran, and when he heard it, he smiled and exclaimed delightedly, Ah, you’re boat people, too! When Donna hears this, she breaks out giggling, flashes a big smile. Seems as if a great weight has been momentarily lifted from her shoulders. That right, she says, shaking her head, slapping the counter. We all boat people here, isn’t that right?” She hears this story from a customer and she relates to it and him that we all are american. He wants us to be aware of this and to know that there are other less progressive views like jacks out there but he also wants us to know why people like jack feel that way.

4. What does it mean “to be American”? How do Jack and about support and/or challenge your definition of “American”?

It means to be American is to leave your “homeland” and start over. There’s different definitions of being an American from different americans. To be American is to change and be progressive. I think they both show the different stages and viewpoints of lots of Americans and how different Americans deal with stuff differently.  

5. How do the themes in “Eating Jack Hooker’s Cow” interact with themes in prior readings? Be specific.

It’s the opposite of the theme of all empathy and kindness at being needed that we have read about in other articles. He’s showing ugly hate at his world changing.  And it’s also showing the other side that’s going through his hate. It’s a different scale of looking at empathy. In this quote. “So go with Jack Hooker now. At sunset. Out into the empty parking lot of the Astro Motel. Look to either side, at your neighbors. They’re holding your money in their yellow fingers. They own a Jeep Grand Cherokee and an Acura Legend and three other cars, and you have only your old Buick. Can you feel something building? Can you feel what a man like Jack Hooker feels? Maybe the difference between you and a real man like Jack Hooker is that he will tell you what he hates; he will honor his hate and unleash it and understand that his hate will come back on him, understand that he, too, is hated. For a real man like Jack Hooker realizes that he hates and is hated.” All he sees is hate and jealously. He is racist and mean. Even the title of this story shows the theme of “mine” and taking. “Eating Jack Hooker’s Cow”.