ENG 2100

Week 6 of College

1. 1. What I did
      • Took notes for my psychology class
      • Wrote on the discussion board for multiple classes
      • Finished assignment 3 for my business recitation class
      • Took my business lecture quiz
      • Completed some SONA surveys
      • Interviewed for AKPsi
   2. What went well
      • I take down a lot of notes from my textbook for business class. It came in handy when I was studying for the quiz and I ended up doing really well on it.
   3. What was hard
      • It was the first time I was ever interviewed so I was really nervous and couldn’t think straight. My answers definitely could’ve been better.
   4. To-Do List
      • FYS reflection paper #2
      • Government class short essay
      • Business recitation Shadow-A-Company group project outline
      • Analysis assignment rough draft
   5. Where I left off
      • Analysis assignment rough draft
   6. Feelings
      • This week was pretty busy. It was the first time I had an interview and the first time I had a quiz in college. Both were very nerve-wracking. I’m just glad I was able to survive the week. However, I definitely know that next week is going to be even busier. I have three papers to write and a group project. All I’m thinking is that I just got to survive the next week and everything will be fine. I will be going to see the fall foliage with my family next weekend so I have that to look forward to.

I use rhetoric in my daily life through posting on my social medias. The messages I try to communicate are mostly positive about myself. For example, on my main Instagram account, I would often post good pictures of myself and with my friends. I am trying to show that I can look really pretty, I go out to a lot of cool places, I am very social and have a great group of friends, and I am having so much fun. My audience is all of my Instagram followers, which include close friends, old friends, people I know of but do not know too well, and family friends. It is not a public account and I do not want to show off to random strangers. I just want the people in my world to only see those positive aspects about me, never the negative. It is a profile to give others a good impression of me. Another example, on my other Instagram account, I would post random pictures of anything and everything. I am trying to show the more random aspects of my life such as what I like, what I did that day, and what I found funny. My audience is my followers consisting only of close friends who I trust. These are the people that I can be more of myself to. I do not need to try so hard to make myself look good to them compared to the followers on my main account.

Week 5 of College

1. 1. What I did
      • Took notes for my psychology and business classes
      • Wrote on the discussion board for multiple classes
      • Finished assignment 2 for my business recitation class
      • Finished my reflection paper for FYS class

• 2. What went well
     • The assignments this week were shorter so I went through them pretty quickly.
  3. What was hard
     • This was the first time we had a full week of classes so there wasn’t a break for me to relax like before.
  4. To-Do List
     • Study for a Music quiz on Monday
     • Do some more SONA studies for my psychology class
  5. Where I left off
     • Reading a few chapters in my business class’ textbook and taking notes
  6. Feelings
     • This week went by pretty fast. All I can really remember is doing homework most of the time. I started to think “So this is how college life is like”. If I don’t put in the effort to talk/hangout with friends or manage my time beforehand, I’m just going to end up doing homework everyday for the next 4 years. Time management is really important now. So, I planned days to hangout with my friends and my family way in advance. I seriously cannot be working all the time or else I’m going to keep feeling lonely and tired.

Recently, I have seen rhetoric in action on the news while talking about public schools reopening and covid-19 cases. My younger sister is in high school and must go back to school everyday now. On the first day of school, I woke up early to walk her to the bus stop with my parents. Since I was up anyways, I decided to stay and watch the news on TV with my mom. There was coverage on a school in Harlem with many politicians wishing them a good first day of school. I specifically remember the mayor saying that he hopes the students have a good day, reopening public schools was a very good thing, and there is no where safer for kids than school. His speech was positive but he is misleading people. I know that on the first day, it was not mandatory for teachers and students to get vaccinated, children under 12 could not get the vaccine still, and there are still many students out there who do not want to wear masks correctly. How is it a good idea to put everyone back into school at full-capacity when there is still high-risk for people to catch the coronavirus. How is that safe? Of course there are some who believe him and like the idea of sending students back to school in-person, however there are some who also feel scared to go back and would prefer a hybrid or online option. The mayor was adamant on sending all kids back and was trying to reinforce that idea with his speech but that is just not the truth. We are not clear from the pandemic yet. The consequences was 83 cases citywide of covid-19 just from that one day of school. Even though that number is going to keep growing as in-person school goes on, the mayor still has no plans to allow hybrid or online options.

Week 4 of College

1. 1. What I did
      • Took notes for my psychology and business classes
      • Sent an email to my teacher and peer mentor
      • Wrote on the discussion board for multiple classes
   2. What went well
      • The discussion board questions were not as time-consuming as I expected, so I had some extra free time this week.
   3. What was hard
      • The chapter I had to read for psychology was very long, so it took me a while to finish it and take notes.
   4. To-Do List
      • Finish the polished draft for the literacy narrative
      • Write the reflection paper for my FYS class
      • Do assignment 2 for my business recitation class
   5. Where I left off
      • Reading a few chapters in my business class’ textbook and taking notes
      • Finishing up the polished draft for the literacy narrative
   6. Feelings
      • At the beginning of the week, I felt very overwhelmed because I was behind on reading the textbook and taking notes for some of my classes. Even though it isn’t necessary, I prefer to take notes in my notebook rather than on a word document. I am very thorough with my note-taking and want to have all the information physically in front of me. So, it stressed me out that I could not take notes fast enough to put myself back on schedule. However, I got very lucky. Wednesday and Thursday were days off and both of my classes on Friday got cancelled. All of a sudden, I am back on schedule. It was such a relief knowing that I didn’t have to spend all of my time just doing work and actually have time to relax now. I wasn’t able to hangout with my friends for the past month and now I can make plans with them!

From this document, I noticed that it always talks about “college readiness” and all of this is for college instructors and students. However, in the introduction it clarifies that the document is also for people outside of education, such as parents, policymakers, employees, and the general public. So I wonder, how do the habits of mind and experiences differ for each profession? Do some people need less habits and experiences than others? I also noticed that the habits of mind “is fostered when writers are encouraged to” section shares a lot of the same words including recognize, act, reflect, etc. Likewise, the experiences that “teachers can help writers develop” section shares a lot of the same words including write, examine, analyze, etc. Although the habits share similarities with each other and the experiences share similarities with each other, I agree that all of these habits and experiences are essential. Curiosity, openness, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition are similar but still very different from each other. Some are more important than others, but each still play a role in the approach to writing. They tackle a difficulty that can come with trying to write something. Rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, writing processes, knowledge of conventions, and ability to compose in multiple environments also overlap with each other but are still just as different. Some experiences are more important or necessary than others, but all of them play a crucial role in strengthening and contributing to the habits of mind approaches to writing.

Saturday, September 11th, 2021

Week 3 of College

1. 1. What I did

• • • Took notes for my psychology and business classes
    • Wrote my rough draft for the Literacy Narrative
    • Emailed some of my teachers
    • Filled out the Quarterly Feedback form

1. 2. What went well

• • • My notes for psychology were good enough for me to get high scores on my assignments again

1. 3. What was hard

• • • I have not written an essay in so long, so it took me a lot more time to think of what to write for the rough draft.

1. 4. To-Do List

• • • Read another few chapters for my business class and take more notes
    • Write in the discussion board for my business recitation class
    • Read the notes for my music class
    • Do the Connect homework for my psychology class

1. 5. Where I left off

• • • Reading chapters in my business class’ textbook

1. 6. Feelings

• • • Although it was a holiday and there really shouldn’t have been any homework due on the days off, some teachers still assigned homework and I had to rush to complete them. But other than that, I was able to relax and spend some time for myself. Ever since college started, all I’ve been doing was homework, so it felt good to have a few days where I was not overwhelmed with it the whole time. Overall, it was a good mini break. Also, clubs were starting to hold their GIM meetings. I went to one on Thursday and was able to talk and meet with a bunch of friendly people! It made me really happy!

First off, writing an essay is just difficult for me. I have not done so in a really long time so my writing is pretty rusty. In general, it was challenging writing the Literacy Narrative rough draft just because my skills are lacking. More specifically, what was challenging was using “I” and describing what happened rather than telling. Throughout middle school and high school, all the assignments I had to do were objective analyses of books and lab reports, where “I” was forbidden. I have not used “I” in a paper for so long. However, with the Literacy Narrative assignment, I knew it was more of like a personal story and would have to use first person perspective. So when I was writing the rough draft, I had to remind myself every few minutes to “show not tell”. I am used to summarizing and analyzing information and I know that is not what I should be doing in this case, but I just did not know how to stop doing that. A strategy I can employ to tackle these challenges are to invest myself into the story. The problem is that I cannot stop overthinking and doubting my words and trying to rewrite it as more of an analysis of my feelings. So I need to forget about trying to be objective and just tell the story as if I am telling it to a friend. Do not stop writing and let my feelings take control/take ownership. No thoughts are allowed to mess me up. I am proud of my story and what I have to say, so I should be proving that in my writing. That should help me stop doubting myself using “I” and writing in a “show not tell” manner. A question that remains is is there such a thing as overusing “I”? If so, how can I prevent myself from saying “I” in almost every sentence?

Saturday, September 4th, 2021

Week 2 of College

1. 1. What I did

• • • Took notes for my psychology and American government class
    • Created a thread and wrote a response to a classmate on the discussion board for American government

1. 2. What went well

• • • My notes for psychology were good enough for me to get 100% on all of my assignments so far

1. 3. What was hard

• • • I chose to handwrite my notes for my classes and I have not held a pencil in a long time so my hands hurt a little

1. 4. To-Do List

• • • Write a rough draft for my Literacy Narrative
    • Complete my email assignment for business class

1. 5. Where I left off

• • • Brainstorming for the Literacy Narrative

1. 6. Feelings

• • • Honestly, it has been very stressful this past week. I did not expect to get so much homework on the first days of all my classes, so the workload just seems really intense right now. Also, why is it so hard to join a club? I did not realize that I have to attend so many meetings and participate in so many events just to become a member. All I want to do is socialize and find a group of friends but it seems so difficult just to do that. Although college is not going so smoothly right now, I am sure that with time, I will get accustomed to the workload and make some friends. Everything will be ok!

I would define the term story as an interesting snippet of someone’s life that is shared with others through writing or speech. All stories have a theme(s), moral(s), or message(s). There are such a wide variety of themes, morals, and messages that a story can have. These can range from love to finding your identity to how to properly install a microwave and so much more. It can be about anything and everything! I think the most important elements of a good story are the context or background, structure, and theme, moral, or message. When sharing a story with someone else, they may be unfamiliar with the people, location, events, etc. You need to include some basic information and details to catch them up on what they need to know to fully understand the story. Then, there needs to be some order to how you present the story, otherwise the person listening will get the details mixed up. The structure can be in chronological order with a beginning, middle, and end, or a different order of beginning, middle, and end with flashbacks. It does not matter as long as it makes sense to the listener. Lastly, there must be a point to telling a story to someone else. No matter what kind of story it is, there should be a final theme, moral, or message that is shared. Otherwise, people will wonder what was the whole purpose of telling this story and why did they waste their time listening to it? Those three elements are needed in order to not confuse the listener and make the story flow smoothly.

Hi everyone! Welcome to my blog!

My name is Morgan Ong and I use she/her pronouns. One goal I have for this course is to get used to writing more often and more efficiently. In my English class last year, I did not do a lot of writing, so I want to get back into the groove of writing more frequently again. One question I have about this course is if my writing skills are actually really bad, will points get deducted from my grade?

A “rule” about writing that I’ve been taught is to never use the same first words for multiple sentences in a row. My mom told me this when she used to revise my homework in elementary school. That rule has stuck with me ever since and I still use it to this day! I believe the rule to be true because it makes my writing less repetitive and sound less bland.

When I was younger, I did not do a lot of writing, which is probably why I am not good at it. The only time I wrote seriously was for school assignments. I never kept a diary or journal for myself. For my personal life, I would only write to-do lists to keep myself organized. I write for practical reasons and not for enjoyment. Although I find writing sometimes difficult and frustrating because I am not good at it, I do think that writing is something that I will need for the rest of my life.