Usefullness of Blogging

In the begining of the semester, I hated to blog. I thought it was a waste of my time and I didn't understand the reasoning behind it. After awhile though I realized that it really helped me out. I was able to address any of my concerns, talk about class activities, and form some of my thesis statements for my papers. It has been a way to interact with my teacher also. She is able to talk to me through it and vice versa. That way, the student and the teacher keeps in contact throughout the semester and not only in class. I would definately recommend blogging for other classes. Students will find it very helpful and some will see it as a way to relieve their stressors that are affecting their writing.

Tuesday's Editing

As we started off editing our literacy naratives with a partner, I found it highly benefiical. I think I found it so good because I had to read it aloud. I noticed that I had a lot of emotion and everything from that day came back to me. It really helped me to see my strengths and weaknesses in the paper. My partner gave me lots of feedback and really helped me out about my confidence in the paper. I didn't like how we edited our proposal papers as much. I find it hard for myself to read what I have wrote because of course I like the paper how it is and don't like to criticize it. In the end, I did find some mistakes and now know what to do. Hopefully, the comments on my RBAA paper will help me too. I liked this way. I finished writing my review over my classmates paper and I just hope that I get as much help as I gave him. They were different styles of editing and I liked that. It is nice to have a little bit of variety!

As the end of the semester arises

As we got told today, we only have 4 days of class left. I am totally freaked out. I have been revising a lot of my papers, but I just don't find them good enough to go into my final portfolio. I am nervous that as the weeks come closer, I won't have time to make the papers as good as I want them to be and I will get a bad grade on my portfolio. This weekend, my homework is working on revising all of my papers. I have really learned a lot throughout this class, so hopefully I can revise easier than I have been able to in the begining of the semester.
On a side note, I really enjoyed the peer editing today. For some reason, it was really beneficial for me to meet with someone doing the same paper as me. She was able to really help me with more ideas and saw what I was missing in my paper.

The Literacy Analysis Outline for 1st draft

I found that this outline was highly beneficial for me. I wrote down all of my information in the parts and from there on got to just type it all up. I had a lot of trouble though thinking my points for the body of my paper. I felt like all of my points kind of went together and that I was sometimes repetitive. Although, I really liked this knew system. Before, we didn't really have an outline so we had to just wing out rough draft. I feel that when I do that my ideas are scrambled and not put logically together. For me, this was a very beneficial outline to use.

Thesis

In "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charloote Perkins Gilman shows how women in the 1900s weren't understood and therefore were thrown into a deep mental state that leads them to insanity.

Literary Analysis Thesis

My thesis is coming from "The Yellow Wallpaper" and I am analyzing the wallpaper.

In Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," the despriction of the wallpaper reflects not only Jane's mental state, but many other people in society and how easy it is to compare one's life to that of a non-humanistic object.

Reading critically

In class on Thursday, I really found analzing and re-reading the stories together helped me a lot. I have a tendency to read and not comprehend very well because I read too fast. I do however read and always highlight while reading. I found that really saves me a step. If I really would look at the literal meanings of words I would find a different meaning to every paper we have read in class. Although, I am afraid to do it on my own. I think I did pretty well on my own this weekend. It was so easy in class when others contributed their ideas to help me form my own, but doing it on my own is going to be a little tricky. I am just afraid that I am going to miss something. When I re-read the stories I tried to focus really hard and hopefully my analysis's were right. Learning to read critically will hopefully help me do better on my quizzes in class and also in my future classes.

Symbolism

The White Heron
color white= symbolizes non-sinful, true, and love. The girl never told the guy where the white heron ever was because she was a true person and felt that the heron deserved to live. Along with that, I feel that the white heron was a symbol of love. Sylvia didn't have many people in her life, but her grandmother that was in her life meant everything to her. She loved spending time with her and thought she was a fantastic lady.
The old cow= symbolizes how much Sylvia didn't have friends and that her only friends were her grandmother and the animals that are around her farm. She enjoys spending time with the cow because it feels like someone that she can relate to- someone always wandering about by itself, just like her.

The Yellow Wallpaper
Color yellow= symbolizes uglyness. Obviously the wife thought that the walls were ugly being yellow, but also it could be how she feels about herself. She doesn't feel pretty and is afraid of what others think of her.
Spot of holes in the Wallpaper= the flaws in the wallpaper are actually the flaws she has. She is a crazy woman that is trapped from her husband and always needs to have help. It is like each time she sees a different kind of thing wrong with the wallpaper, she is actually seeing another thing wrong with herself.
Her cousins= symbolizes the life she wished she had. She wishes she could go to see them and be a normal person again.
Her baby= symbolizes post partum depression, reason for why she is so depressed and not acting normal.

Women's conditions in the early 1900s

In the 20th century, there were many changes that affected women in a positive way. Some of the changes were polygamy ended, the state allowed women to vote, and guaranteed other equal rights (Murphy, 1). Technology dramatically changed women's lives, especially in urban areas (Murphy, 1). There was Electric service, indoor plumbing, central heating, and the small power motor that allowed the women to work outside of the home (Murphy, 1). "The growth of commercial laundries and expanding factory production of clothing, processed foods, and other household items relieved women of many tasks and created hundreds of jobs for them outside the home" (Murphy,1). On average, women earned $9 for a 6-day work week while men earned $17 for a week (Murphy, 1). Women typically worked from dawn till dusk during this time period (Lebergott, 1) In 1900 only a few families earned enough to enjoy such expensive luxuries as piped water, hot water, indoor toilets, electricity, and separate rooms for each child (Lebergott, 1). Looking at the information, women were treated less fairly than men and had to put up with poor working conditions, not many rights, and not a lot of respect. In a past movie I saw, it was about a woman who worked in the 1900s and she worked in a textile company and was treated very poorly by other men and even her boss. She was raped and many men tried to kill her because they didn't think she deserved to work with them, she should be back in house working.

Murphy. B. Miriam. "A Look at Working Women in the Early 20th Century." History Blazer, Nov. 1995.
Web. 1 Nov. 2010. http://historytogo.utah.gov/
Stanley Lebergott, "Wages and Working Conditions." The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. 1993. Library of Economics and Liberty. 1 Nov. 2010.  http://www.econlib.org/

Thursdays readings

Both of the stories we had to read for class today really interested me. The Most Dangerous Game was a story we had already done in my high school class. I still find it interesting how you can't trust everyone out there in this world. My favorite though to read was An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge. When the guy was dazing off about escaping and being with his family, he really had me fooled. I thought forsure that was what was happening. I was interested in that story the whole time and it made me want to read more. It gave me vivid pictures of what was going on and I followed it well, minus the part where he drifted off.

Omelay

To me, this story was quite confusing. In my opinion, what I took from it, was that we all try to portray ourselves to be happy people. But really, if we are being honest, there are many things that aren't perfect in our life and are happening. Most times, we tend to keep everything in until we just explode with emotions. I feel like the writer was trying to show us that if we keep everything in, no only will we never be happy, but those problems will never go away and we will always have "a kid in the basement." Our way of solving our problems is to forget about them, but not all things can just be forgotten. This was my opinion on the story, but I am interested to see how others interpreted it.

Research Paper

In all honesty, my research paper is not going so well. I have a real hard time finding information on my topic. I tried to find books about South Dakota's driving age, driving age, development of teens brains, and numerous of topics and I couldn't seem to find any, not even on the research places. I finally found two journals, one book, and three other informational works. I tried to ask for the librarians help to find more information but even she couldn't find anything. Most of my information is repetative and so it makes it really hard for me to get 1800 words. I also am not so sure if I am citing correctly. In high school, we lacked a lot of information on citing so I am not very good at it. Hopefully I can figure it all out and get a decent paper.

English 101

As for me, I really enjoy the semester so far. I hate doing some of the homework sometimes, but it all makes me a better writer in the end. I feel that I have improved tremendously since the end of my senior year. I don't feel I have improved on writing as much as I have in my confidence. I have always been very afraid to write because I am not confident and don't want people to judge my paper or think I can't write well. So, at the begining of the year, you noticed I wasn't confident in my writing but I feel I have improved over the time. I really like when we sit in a circle in class and then make up ideas and discuss them together. For instance, the other day we did small free-writes and then talked about them in class. I found it was very beneficial for me not only to help me open up, but I also obtained ideas from others. It really is my favorite thing! I enjoy coming to class everyday and I really hope my writing keeps improving.

Driving age being raised

In class, I decided this is my for sure research topic. There are so many things I can do with this paper. First of all, I know that in South Dakota the driving age is 14, but I have no idea why. So, I can learn while I write the paper which I feel will be very beneficial. Some questions I have to answer in my paper are: who put it so low, what are the rules with driving age at 14, why did they put it at age 14, how do we change it, how much does it cost to change, # of deaths in other states compared to ours, how much education before a license is given, causes, and statistics. I am going to try to prove that at age 14, kids's brains aren't developed and are still very immature which is never good when being behind the wheel. Going through 2 months of a driving class and taking a driving and written test just doesn't seem to prepare a child enough in my opinion. I will give the statistics about how many deaths have been caused by young teens compared to other states. The rate at which a female and males brain are developed. How could we change this law. There are many things for me to think about, but right now I have my topic, questions, and can start trying to find information for my paper.

Research Paper

I very much enjoyed class today. I felt very confident and able to be open with the class for once. I very much liked the activity that we did to figure out what we should do our research paper over. Some of the topics I had to choose from were: racism, driving age raised, healthcare, cancer, divorce rate, smoking, and countries debt. The two I came down to were racism and the driving age being raised. I really wanted to do racism because my boyfriend is Korean and I see many steriotypes and labels that he gets. Today, no one sees who a person is anymore and just judges them. I also really like the driving age being raised as a topic because I have a lot of experience with that. I worked as a volunteer in the ER for a year and I saw so many young kids die, being brain dead, and critically injured all because they aren't mature enough to be behind the wheel. I decided on the driving age because I have more personal experience with it and I really would like to learn more about it. The class gave me some solid questions: why is the driving age so low in South Dakota, how many deaths have been caused by the young driving age, who put the driving age to 14, and how much would it cost to raise it. I believe I have a good solid background on this topic and will be able to write a great research paper.

Revision Strategy Presentations

In my opinion, the presentations went really well. All of the strategies that are in the Curious Writer have good points and should be used for every paper. I really liked going over them because some of the strategies I forget to do and when I forget to do them I don't write well. I was nervous to do the presentation, but I felt Isabel and I did a good job. Over all, I really liked the project. I like doing hands-on activities and interacting with other people. It was a nice change and I hope to take these revision strategies and put them in my papers.

Proposal Essay

Today in class we peer edited our proposal essays. I am so glad we did this because I knew that my paper had some bad things going on in it but it was really hard for me to see what is wrong for sure. So I liked getting feedback from others about what they think is hard to understand and give me advice. I found I need to make my paper flow more and not repeat myself so much.
A second thing that we had to do in class was a group exercise in the curious writer. It so far is really fun and gives me an opportunity to meet with other people in my class and get to know them in a different way. We are making a powerpoint and I really hope it is going to turn out well for us. I feel though that my group got some of the hardest things to make examples of. For one, we don't know how to do examples of how to loop a thesis statement. We think we know what to do but aren't for sure!

Exercise is a must

Thesis:Walking around your college campus, do you see people focusing on their external image?

1) Being in college you get pulled into many bad habits such as eating the wrong foods, not exercising, attending parties on a regular basis, and not staying informed with facts about nutrition.

2) In high school, it was a requirement to have a physical education or health class every year. College students should have the same requirements.

3) Everyone needs to know the effects of everything they put into their body, and if you don’t require us to take a class, we won’t.  

100 People who are Screwing up America

This was a rather different thing to read, compared to what I normally read. Some of it I was rather confused on mostly because I have been rather ignorant and not studied very much history or anything that has happened to America  in the past, so I was a little out of the loop on some of it. Other parts, I just can't believe people believe some of those things. There were a few things that really stood out in my mind. The first was the story of the mom who wouldn't let her daughter fly a flag in their window after 9-11. That is honestly terrible and I myself would like to go and talk to the mom because I just find her to be stupid. I also am ok with people speaking out on how they feel but some people are way to liberal and may need to research their topic before they say some of those things especially on tv or newspaper. It was a really good eye-opener for me because I have never seen any person or heard any of those comments. I learned a lot and it also got me wanting to debate!!

Peer Edit

In high school, I wasn't so sure of Peer editing. Sometimes I would get a person who didn't care about the project so they wouldn't care to read my paper and would give it back to me saying it was perfect and I don't need to change anything. I hate that. No paper is flawless and that is especially true for your first draft. My paper may be good sometimes, but there is mistakes and I will admit that. TOday, gettting my paper peer edited did a little help for me. My partner told me that my paper was very good so it boosted my confidence. She also said there were parts that I should look at to make it flow better; this was the hard part for me because she didn't tell me where she got confused or anything. It's hard for me to notice what is confusing because it all happened to me so I know what I am talking about. I will reread my paper and hopefully see where it is confusing for others. On a good note, I felt is overall pretty helpful to peer edit. It gave me practice and made me open up my eyes to some good things or bad things on others papers that I could work in to my own paper.

Goals

I have many goals and expectations for myself for the future. I aspire to become a Physician's Assistant and get my bachelor's and masters degree. With that, I hope to obtain a minor in spanish. After I get my degree I would like to do mission work in a third-world country for a year or two before I settle down with my life back in South Dakota. Also, I would like to get married someday and have kids. All of these things will take a lot of dedication, but I am willing to do it to make my future what I want it to be.

Dead Poets Society

I will not lie, I really enjoyed this movie. The message that Professor Keating gave was very powerful. "Sieze the Day." We can all use that advice sometimes. I think we get caught up in society and in our own little world that we don't thank God for all that we have been given or even thank our parents for providing us with shelter, food, or clothes. Also, a lot of times when things in our life are tough or they are dreams, we think we can't achieve them, but we can. If we have goals, all we need to do is work towards them and go for it!

Thursdays Class

Today's class was by far an interesting one! There were a couple of things that really stuck out to me. The first thing was the activity that we did when we described all characteristics of men and then of female and in the end we realized how much we are all alike and that Men have some of the same characteristics as women and vice versa. The other thing I really enjoyed was that Lindsey told us we need to relate our topic with the world. I have never even thought about that when I write a paper. For my Literacy paper I plan on writing about my parents separation. It is so vivid in my mind because it is going on now. The month of August my life had been turned around and I have had to deal with many different obsticles facing my family. It will be very easy for me to start writing my paper because Separation and Divorce among couples is very common these days so I will have a lot to relate to. It will be extremely hard for me to write this paper because it digs deep into my emotions but I think it will help me face reality and the circumstance!!

When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

When I had to read this excerpt I was kinda dreading it because it was so long compared to the other two stories and I was afraid it wasn't going to be interesting. In all reality, this piece was the one I liked the most. It kept my attention the whole time and I wanted to read more; by that, I know the author did a good job writing the story! I found it so inspiring how Mr. Pirzada kept his faith and through the whole story he was extremely calm and didn't show any anger when there was a good chance his family was all dead. He was truly an optimistic guy. I also found it unique how the family allowed him to come to their house every night to eat dinner and watch the news; not many families these days would allow for a someone to do that. It really made me happy to hear his family was all alive- he deserved that because he kept his faith and knew it was all going to be ok in the end!

Medical Literacy

When I was in the sixth grade my grandpa was in the hospital for a brain tumor. At the time my cousins and I had no idea what was going on because we were so young. With the low level of maturity that we had, my cousins, sisters, and I got really bored being up at the hospital every night for three months so we would play hide and seek, sit in the cafeteria, play cards, and our favorite was to ride up and down on the elevators jumping when we hit the right floor we wanted to be on. I can just remember the smell in the hospital. It was as if there were many dead bodies that had been lying there for several days. Everyone that I passed had a dreary look in their eyes as did I. I feel so bad now becasue I could have been spending lots of quality time with mty grandpa before he passed but instead, I decided to mess around and avoid being with him. The last night I had with my grandpa he was very much unconcious and slowly fading away. I got up on his bed and slept with him. That was the first time I really showed my feelings and spent time with him. It was the last time I got to do that. Now, after remembering everything I did I regret it and pray every night my grandpa will forgive me and know how much I really did and still do love him.

About Myself

My Name is Jessica Wingen. My parent's names are Scott and Dianne Wingen and I was born in Sioux Falls, SD. I have an older sister named Kayla and a younger sister named Robyn. I am attending USD for Pre. Med and hopefully becoming a PA (physician's assistant).  The things I love are: my family, friends, popcorn, shirley temples, cheering, playing with kids, and boating. I have been volunteering at a local hospital in Sioux Falls in the ER just to get a feel for the medical field. Hopefully, someday after i have my career set I plan to go to a foreign country to work there for a few years. I am excited for this upcoming year and hope it turns out to be a success!