Writing WRaP-Up

Throughout the year we have written many papers about various topics, and I struggle with each one but always have a finishing paper I am proud of. I am disappointed when I receive my paper with a grade on it that is not a 100%. Even though a little part of me knew I wouldn’t get that, I still had hope. I am bad at catching my errors the first time, even the second time. I learned the hard way, after writing five papers, that I need to look back on my recent papers that have grades to double, even triple check, that I have not made the same silly mistakes I made the first couple of times.  

            Every paper I write and turn in for a grade I feel like it always has a fragment or a run-on sentence in it somewhere. No matter how hard I try not to have one, I always do. I had 3 sentence errors in my literacy narrative, surprisingly none in my profile, and that might be because my tutor helped me. Another issue I have is a spelling issue. I told my parents that I got points counted off on my profile for a spelling error and there jaws dropped. It isn’t like me to have spelling issues, but I did. Except on my profile essay you commented saying I spelt the word ‘grey’ wrong, but grey can be spelled ‘gray’ or ‘grey’. I’m not sure if points were taken off for that, if so, they shouldn’t have.  Also on that same paper I made ‘cardiovascular’ two words instead of one. Surprisingly my tutor did not catch that!

            Comparing my WrAP test scores from this year to last year is kind of embarrassing. Usually as you get older your scores should get better, but mine decreased in every category. Last year, when I was in 8^th grade, I got the highest score in the whole grade- straight fives. This year I received 3.5 and 4.0’s all the way across the board. I got it back and was confused. How could I go from an outstanding score to a mediocre score? It just didn’t make sense. On my WrAP I received the 3.5’s in support, sentence structure, and mechanics. No shocker with sentence structure! If I had to guess most of my points were deducted because of my run-ons or fragments in the writing. I got 4.0’s on overall development, organization, and word choice. Word choice has always been a strong suit of mine, as Dr.D has complemented me on in my literary analysis paper.

            Over the course of the 2011-2012 school year, I have corrected many things; one of those things being the way I write. I used to do 6^th/7^th grade writing just to get by. No adjectives, details, or quotes. Looking back that is a little pathetic on my part. I am so much better of a writer now and I am so proud of myself for pushing myself, completing the work, and not giving up when I could have. The feedback on my papers has displayed me being a successful writer, especially “My Rap” essay, or literacy narrative. I got four 9.5’s and one 8.5, and if you ask me that is amazing, considering it was our first paper of the year too! I wish all my papers could have this great of an outcome. The feedback I received from Dr.D made me feel great also. She said “Good essay, Katie! You have a significant story that you tell well, using strong, vivid detail and interesting and appropriate word choices throughout.” When I read that I knew it would be a good year, and it has, writing in English wise.

            My main writing errors have come to my attention once again, and I am going to try my hardest to try to prevent those errors from being in my paper’s next year also. I do believe I have improved my writing a good bit since 8^th grade because 9^th grade English I is a whole lot tougher than the year before. I wish the students next year the best of luck as I move on to bigger and better writing with a new teacher and new writing topics. A lot of memories have been made in Block 2 English that I will never forget. For example, writing about forced child labor in Uzbekistan. That is a sensitive topic that I am not going to joke around with. It is a serious problem in this world and until some action is made towards it, I won’t forget the dangers of it. My goals for next year are to continue to be a fluent writer and to not have any misspelled words in any of my papers. Personally I think it looks a little ridiculous if you can’t spell a word correctly and there are many ways to figure out how to spell it- a dictionary for example. Another goal I have set for myself as becoming an English II student is to read more and write more. Even if it is a simple summary because the more you write the more practice you have with all of the things I am weak in. Next year I hope we get to write papers on anything, maybe even a fairytale, like write a fairytale with our own little twist to it!

Common Errors List

1.     Misspelling common words

Ø  Make sure to use a dictionary or another reference if you aren’t sure how to spell a word. Always use spell check before submitting a paper.

-Example from Profile: “While leaning over the marble counter top with his black-grey hair shagging in his face…” [Grey to gray]

2.     MLA Format

Ø  Don’t forget the heading of your paper is always on the right, Times New Roman 12 pt. is the correct font and size, double space your paper, make the header and footer the same font and font size as your paper, set margins of your document 1 inch on all sides, no extra spacing between your title and your paper, and no special “attention” to your title (like making it a big font, bold, italicized, and underlined).

-Example from Profile. I didn’t use the correct spacing, font, or formatting in my final paper even when we took time to do it in class. Why I did that? I am not even sure myself.

3.     Run-ons and Fragments

Ø  I have a bad past with fragments and run-ons because they always seem to appear in my papers. No matter if my parents check it or my tutor, they always form.

-Example from Literacy Narrative: “My hand started cramping up, the clock started to move faster and faster, the shuffling of papers and zipping up backpacks in the background; my WrAP was finally complete and I was the last one. [TO fix this, I would totally take out the part after the semicolon. Now that I have read it over and over again, I think it is unneeded.

-Example from Global Issues paper: “If I was in the Uzbekistan president’s position, I would keep producing all the cotton we needed I would just get non-labor machine to do it instead of putting humans in the fields all day.” [To fix this, I would make it two separate sentences. I would out a period after ‘needed’. Then start my new sentence like, “To allow this to happen, I would just get…”]

4.     Semicolon vs Colon

Ø  In most papers I write, I use semicolons or colons, turns out I have been using them wrong all along. A semicolon is used to join two phrases, and takes the place of a conjunction. These two phrases being connected by the semicolon, if they are taken apart, must be able to standalone and still make sense.

-Made-up example: Tom didn’t want to go to math because he had forgotten to do the homework; however, he didn’t want to miss review for the test either.

Ø  A colon is used to connect an independent clause to introduce a list of items.

-Made-up example: Mom handed me a list of items we needed for the trip: Cookies, goldfish, brownies, milk, apples, and carrot sticks.

5.     Difference between To, Two, and Too

Ø  Obviously two is used when referring to numbers. Too is another word for also, and to is used when both of those do not apply.

-Made-up example: I went to the market and bought two oranges too!

6.     Missing commas

Ø  Commas can help to prevent misreading and in this case it is helpful to use a comma when opening with an introductory element like, because, while, or although.

-Example from Literacy Narrative: “Throughout the day I tired to finish all my homework in class so when I got home I could just get started on my WrAP prep. [I would place the comma after day in this sentence.]

With much love,

ksparkles77

Reading Log

1 hour- Biology text book
2-3 hours from Water for Elephants

ksparkles77

Aesop Rock: Float analysis

Good afternoon,
   The song I chose to analyze for homework was Float by Aesop Rock. Originally I was going to choose a song I knew well, but then I saw the list Dr. D had come up with, so I choose off of there. Why I chose Float, I do not know, it just stuck out to me. The first thing I did when I picked out which song I was going to do was go to YouTube and listen to it. Let me give you all a heads up and say that it is not the kind of rap music you would imagine it to be. It almost reminded me of the dude, Danny, that came and said a few poems to us from poetry slam; it sounded much like that. Anyways, back to the lyrics...
   This song consisted of 9 stanza's, and the last one being one line long. The first stanza consists of a rhyming pattern between 'shoestring' and 'mood swing', and also has a repetitive -ective sound on two words. Lastly in stanza 1, "To slit throat" and "four letters in hope" don't rhyme but the (oo) sound is there, making it assonance. Stanza 2 is all about the sounds you make as you say the words. For example, portrait, tortoise, tortured, orbiting, and orchard all have the (or) sound, and when speaking those words, your mouth makes the same shape each time. The last line of stanza 2 has a consonance with "charred child", the (ch) sound in each. When the second line in stanza 2 reads "Inside a tortoise shell, tortured", the singer is referring to the jail sell and giving it a animal characteristic. Also, "orbiting hell's orchard is a metaphor also.  Something that stood out to me in stanza 3 was all the double letters that appeared. Canteen, caffeine, villain, hobble, hollow, nozzle, see, and application all have double letters in them, and the funny thing is none of them rhyme. Also in this stanza there is a tad bit of rhyming when it says, "We see intent to re-invent". Stanza 4 was quite odd to me when I first read it because I had to read it multiple times after that to see if there even was any poetic elements. The first line when it reads, "honor modern", my mouth made the same (o) shape for both words. The second line contains imagery, specifically a metaphor, because Bilbo Baggins' stilts do not tip over a Petri dish. The last line in stanza 4 really made me think because I imagine two harps, one being one color and one being another color, but both still playing the same song in harmony. Stanza 5 has many spots where it rhymes, and some are on the same line. Stanza 6 has two rhyme schemes, one is "Atlantis" and "chant is", while another is "sulk" and "bulk". Also in the last line, "cult pulp in bulk", that alone is a tongue twister and assonance with the (ul) sound, just having a different beginning and ending letter. Stanza 7 also contains rhymes, but stanza 7 also gets a bit personal meaning it goes back in time to memories with the mom and sweet wine of father time. In stanza 7 it says, "My fetus breeds as a combine of father time" meaning over the time (years?) her fetus has breaded babies. Stanza 8 is the last "full" stanza and it ends with a repetitional ending of -ation. In this stanza it says "I will be hung in the village square in 5 minutes", I guess that means death for him. The one line in stanza 9 supports this in a way because once you are literally hung, you are just floating there while everyone around you is "drowning" in there tears.

Hope everyone had a joyous spring break,
ksparkles77

Circus Life

Good morning,
    I am currently reading Water for Elephants, and if you did not read last week's blog about it, you didn't miss much. I have a good feeling about this book because it isn't a genre I usually choose to read, but it catches my eye because there is a movie based off it! The genre is romantic drama, which to me is quite odd because it is two combined almost. Anyways, I actually got into the book over spring break, and let's just say it's different. You may be wondering why I titled my post "Circus Life", and that is because that's the new life-style Jacob Jankowski gets himself into when he chooses to hop aboard the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth train in the middle of the night.
   To catch you guys up, Jacob Jankowski is the main character, and he's quite crazy if you ask me. Jacob decides to get away from all civilization when he looses his parents in a sudden, fatal car crash, and can't take all the after math of the accident. He runs to the boundaries of his town and walks for what seems like ever, until a train abruptly awakens him from behind. Then he makes the quick decision to tag along, and once he goes on there's no coming off. Jacob sees people, animals, and stunts he would never see living in his small, cooped up town. My predicition is that Jacob might love working for the "most spectacular show on Earth", but you cannot just leave your life. You had some sort of job/responsibility there, and now that your gone who will complete them? I doubt Jacob thought that much ahead before making any decisions he made.

Reading Log: 120+ minutes reading Water for Elepants
40-45 minutes analyzing 4 poems
20 minutes analyzing song

See you all at school tomorrow, ksparkles77

"My Father's Garden" analysis

Hello again,
   The poem I chose from section II was "My Father's Garden" written by David Wagoner. Don't let the title mislead you like it did to me. When I first read the title I thought the poem would be about a young child writing about her father's garden. About how it was made up of all these different color flowers and how he even grew some fruit and veggies in the garden. My guess was very wrong; this poem had more to do with metal working than anything else it seemed. This poem was made of four stanzas and had no rhyming scheme. I felt the poem that I read was quite difficult and that made me reread it at least 6 times. It also contained much imagery within the paragraphs. Not much caesura and enjambment was used but there was some. I also had to look up a few words that were not in my vocabulary to help me grasp the reading better.
   One of the techniques I came across quite often was personification. I found four examples of personification within my whole, entire poem. I made a connection that I thought was very clever and that not a lot of people would notice right off the bat. The start of stanza 3 reads, "He was called a melter. He tried to keep his brain", and the start of stanza 4 read, "But it melted. His classical learning ran". When I went back and reread the poem for the 3rd or 4th time, I realized that both of these lines had enjambments in them. Not only that but the word before the period was 'melt' with an ending on it (-er, -ed). Another thing about hose lines were the word after the period was 'He or Him' bringing all of our focus back to the father. I found 2 similes in the poem and even found it odd to see a Latin phrase in the text. "magna sine laude" means 'without big praise', and how that fits into that stanza, I'm not quite sure.
   There were places in this poem that confused me also. For example, stanza 3, line 2, "From melting in those tyger-mputhed mills". At first I read 'tyger' as the word tiger, then going back I started to doubt myself what it meant. I wanted to be sure it was tiger and not some other odd word I've never heard of. Therefore, I looked it up and there was no definition for the word. I asked myself the question, and even wrote it down, why did Wagoner choose to spell 'tiger' like that? Was it to confuse the reader, because it surely confused me. My best guess to what the theme was was garden's aren't always pretty "flowers" that bloom and smell nice. I came up with this as my theme because in stanza 2 it says, "He would pick flowers for us:...to knock them down". That was the best imagery example I read in the whole poem. Those four lines in stanza 2 were very clear in my head, and those lines actually made me think about what the father's real job was because that descriptive part was not describing real flowers. When I thought about the tone of the poem, I started getting confused because I don't remember learning about tone too much. So, based off my readings and my memory, I wrote down the tone of the poem as being from someone's point of view who knew/knows "him", referring to the father, well; maybe a child of his because this was under the Poems of Childhood section.
   I advise anyone who likes imagery or finds it interesting to read this poem because it contains a lot of that, and it is very descriptive.


Geaux poetry,
ksparkles77

The End

Happy April Fool's day y'all,
   I finished my book Lucky One this week, and let me tell you, it was good! I wish that there was a sequel to this book because I would start that immediately. Now that I have read the book I am allowing myself to see the movie as soon as it comes out. Whenever I completed chapter 38 (last chapter) of Lucky One, I was having many mixed feelings. I wanted to know what was going to happen to Keith Clayton, Logan Thibault, Beth and Ben. I turned the page feeling lost and confused, then I saw there was another little section that read: Two Moths Later. This turned my frown upside down because after I read those few pages I discovered what happened to all the characters. Let's just say there was a happy ending for some characters but not all.
   The next book on my agenda is another book that has a movie from it. It's called Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. So far I have read 2 pages of the Epilogue; I know I'm not that far into it, in fact, barely into it at all. From the reviews I have heard from my mother, it sounds like a thrilling book, but she said it was weird. Anyway, she still recommended it to me and we are going to watch the movie together once I finish it because she happened to read it too. The one thing I am worried about with starting this book is if we are going to be reading a class book the same time as I am reading this book. If so, I will end up putting Water for Elephants on hold and never going back to it. At least that is what happened with The Help. 


Less than a week until break,
ksparkles77

Outside Reading:
the Lucky One: 170 minutes
Water for Elephants: 5 minutes
Poetry: 50 minutes (whole week)