Self Evaluation of Task Four

My thesis for my paper was; it seems America's society takes the gift of reading and writing for granted, including myself   with my experiences with reading and writing, and having teachers who have influenced my reading and writing skills.
The main points of my paper where the experiences I had with reading and writing, the teachers I had.
The most helpful advice was on ways to construct my thesis statement.
I had two drafts that I typed on the computer and brainstormed my ideas without writing on paper or typing them. I felt that I could have done better incorporating the story “How I Learned to Read and Write” into my task paper.

A formal review of English 100

My reading and writing has changed since I have taken this class. I have become a more confident writer and the class has got me to read more than I ever had in high school. The class was a new experience for me I did not dread each task paper, I often found myself looking forward and anticipating the next paper. As for being a better writer and reader I feel as though I have improved my writing skills tremendously, although I have much more room for improvement. My reading skills I feel as it's up to par with everything I'm able to comprehend much of material and remember what I read. English-100 has given me feeling of self accomplishment and a liking towards English I notice that it's not something terrible in high school with boring old journal writings on paper that you have to save in your bag. Being introduced to blogging has helped my writing/typing skills I try to write formally answering questions and it's very helpful with responses to readings for task papers. Overall I thought my first semester at college went very well and I hope to continue learning and becoming better at  reading, and writing.

The Lonely, Good Company of Books

My relationship with books are not the greatest. I don't find many books that attract my attention. But when I do I become infatuated with the book, I did this with Lord of the Rings I found it was not a story about the ring and Frodo. But it was also about Aragorn and his fear being consumed by the power of being king. My experience on becoming a reader started with Narnia and Harry Potter. These books gave me interest into books, history to gain a personal understanding. Also these books made me realize I never read to just read like Rodriguez did, I try to gain some type of knowledge or personal gain from a book. If I were to read Plato's "The Republic" I would not just read it to say that I read it. Instead I would read it understand it and remember some philosophies Plato and maybe have a conversation or explain "The Republic" to someone. Comprehension to me is the key thing I aim for when reading if I were not to understand the book or text I may not read it or research it in depth. I am currently doing this with Norse/Pagan mythology for a research paper most of the books are older than dirt so it take allot of analyzing and comprehension to explain what the Norse faith was like.

Experience with reading and writing

Reading and writing have no played a very important role in my life. I normally read for enjoyment and never write unless it has to deal with some class. I know grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation is a big problem of mine. Before I took this course I was worried. I expected a bunch of research papers and super complicated journals like my College-Prep English class.But this class did not turn out the way I thought with blogger, writer's workshop, and more personal papers.I think I'm more confident in writing than ever. Although I still have problems with sentence structure hopefully that will buff out through each paper I write. I am starting to look at writing and reading as positive instead of a negative viewpoint. With that being said my goal is to do better on task four than my last paper and ending my first semester with good grades.

"America Needs Its Nerds" By Leonid Fridman

The word "Nerd" brings the thought of the kid who reads his textbook or answer's the question the teacher asks. America does not cherish this geek instead it's the athlete playing football or basketball. Later on they become millionaire's while teacher's or police officer's, firemen help people while the entertainer is the one paid more. Nerds become something important behind the scene of the town star football player.

Reflection of Task Three and Contemplating

I'm having some trouble starting on task three. I'm not sure why maybe I'm not motivated, stressed and I seem to can't make any connections with anything. "America needs Its Nerds" by Leonid Fridman seems like something I could write about. I think it's interesting how he talks about American society and it's problems. How sport professional's are paid more than teachers,scientist's etc. I might be able to relate to this when I was in high school "jock's" looked to me for answers in class. Although I was never called Nerd or Geek I do play lots of video games and I'm very good at them. Also the term geek and nerd has expanded to people who play video games like World of Warcraft, but if you play a game like Halo you're not considered much of a nerd unless you are ranked Lt. Colonel. This is my way of having fun and not going to parties with alcohol, sex, and drugs. Video games, and board games are being annexed by society also how it's a bad influence. Kids become obsessed with the game's but is it really because of video games or something more like social life?

Analysis of Kozol

A better analysis will be posted later, when I have received money to buy the book. But so far, in class his aspect on inner city school's sound's very terrifying with teachers who don't care about teaching making a connection with their student's. There is the exception of the one choir teacher who sings gospel songs with them. She gives them a sense of values, god's helping hand, and hope. I had a teacher similar like this Terry Miller. He was a interesting character very religious and science teacher. My class had no values or hope in life, most of the kids took the class thinking it would be easy it didn't turn out that way. Mr. Miller asked the class why we came to school, what we wanted to find out from our high school career. We did allot of critical thinking in the astronomy class we had most students still slept in class or didn't show up to class. Mr. Miller did change some students but not all it was nice to see a teacher trying to reach out to make a difference. That's what the school Kozol talked about was missing they needed more teacher's like the choir teacher. I'm more privileged to have many teacher's that helped their students giving hope you can do anything you set your mind to and pushing you to exceeded the thought of your best. It may be because I didn't live in a inner city school were violence happens daily and having a school with poor conditions.

Task Three Question: Would you like to explore the problems in our educational system and provide your own opinions and solutions?

I would like to find out problems in our educational system. I think there are many problems such as funding for schools why do suburban school's recieve more money than inner city school's or school's that do poorly on standardized tests, or maybe the importance of adminstation and board of education to school's. I would like to see equal distrubtion of funds towards school's, also why school's spend more on sport's such as football, basketball, baseball etc. instead of computers and books and school renovations.

Let Teen-Agers Try Adulthood

4.) He makes assumptions about adulthood being simple for a 16 year old teen to handle.  I don't agree with his thoughts at all. Because they are outlandish putting kids in what sounds like a super intensive education. At sixteen kids act independent, but they just want to have fun hanging out with friends go to party's. I know in my town most kids don't pay for their gas, cars, or even have a job. Considering 16 year old's are not capable to make a smart decision. Botstein's proposal doesn't offer them to try adulthood it pushes them out into the real world with not experience. There would be many things that would need to change such as child labor laws. Most kids dont even get a job till 16 those few years in highschool having a job gets the teen an experience of the world. We have classes now were you can get highschool credits working a job that is trying adulthood working in the middle of the day not going to school. If you try something you don't throw yourself into something you don't know. You would want to take a small sample of it. Just like trying food it's like if you take a nibble of some strange new food and before you know it you've ate everything on the plate. I would like to know more about this man, it seems to me if he had a troubled past in high school  if he wasn't in the clique.
    

Where College Fails Us

My experiences of college have been slim and great so far. I like it because it's not like highschool and I seem to be learning more easily. I'm in college to gain some type of advantage over other people in the working world. College to me is worth the time, hardwork, and the money. Because its furthering your education and you get to become something that desire to be and help people.

Task Two Evaluation

I felt that this paper was good. I did not get to correct my final draft as much as I would had liked, because of microsoft word not working. I think that there was great detail and support. I hope people that read it realize what my father went through and providing for us in this difficult world with no GED

Interview Process

I conducted my interview in my kitchen, overall my interview went well I still have some questions not pertaining to paper like how some family is doing and who is still alive. I learned how my father lived and now understand things that happened in California.

Becoming Educated

What does education mean to me ? Education means the opprutinty to better your life. Becoming that teacher, lawyer, scientist, doctor, or politician. As Americans we are given the opprutinty to go to school become something great. It's whether you as a person decides to act on this gift of education. You may get your highschool diploma, but education doesn't end there. You may choose to go to college get your doctors or may have found a good paying job. You are always learning gaining knowledge and striving to be the top in the world's marketplace. Education is the step to success and learning to become a life long learner.

Casa: A Partail Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood

These cuentos in Cofer’s memoir are about women. Mainly because she is a female and she spent time with the older women who gossiped and told cuentos. An example would be how her grandmother talked about men how they could leave someone at the altar and have different families on the island and no one would know. Also her Mama’s view on men’s view of marriage was the price to pay to have children. They talked about how a man whose name would practically change every time the story. The important thing was that she Maria let love get the best of her.

I think the equivalent to these cuentos might be a man marries a woman Maria. Rafael loses all his possessions and his children. Maybe even Jose became a slave to the woman he married to scare men into believing that woman are after valuables. A grandfather would probably tell this or some younger men who are married. They probably would be playing cards around a table or dominos, drinking, and smoking being men. Young boys would be influenced by cuentos. Like Cofer she listened to her Mama, because she idolized her as a child and soaked up the main information about the stories.

Sister Flowers

A memorable childhood memory I have is during a summer when I was in the third grade. My friends and I were very bored and wanted money to buy these toys called bionicles. We decided to make a lemonade/ kool-aid stand.  So my friend Blake took a table from his house. I gathered cups and ingredients. We made a huge poster with seventy five cent lemonade and several other posters to lead to the lemonade stand. A post lady always stopped by and bought lemonade. Some days she gave us ten dollars.  We added two more people to our small business, David and Jason. This way we had a longer time to make money and we ran shifts.  But we raised the price to a dollar twenty five, since we had four peopleWe did this for several weeks making tons of money to a kid’s eye.

 When we bought the toys we were so happy Blake bought the red Bionicle, I bought the white Bionicle it had a snowboard thing. These toys had a turning knob to move the arms. They made comics and video’s of these toys, Blake and I became more consumed in this Lego toy for a long time they created monsters and mini Bionicles have battles against. Blake and I were excited when Bionicle monsters came out during the fall because we always argued who would win against whom. When leaves started to fall we created a yard care work to raise more money. Blake and I were hooked on making money. We always thought of ideas to make more money like selling gum or pencils. It makes me laugh to think what we did to get money scam kids or create a business.

Task Two Subjects

What makes him/her interesting and unique? He's my father and what he sacrificed to raise me.

What sort of questions would you ask and why? If he wished he would had completed highschool or would like to get his GED or maybe go to college

What sort of problems do you think may arise for Task Two?  I think creating a conclusion and Thesis

What do you anticipate? Why?  I anticipate to find out what my father's view on education.

Task One Evaluation

What is the thesis for your paper? how the divorce affected my social life and expressing my emotions.

List the main points you make in your paper. The doctor i went to, my mother's friend, and my father/new family

What was the most helpful advice you received from your peer evaluation? I create many Run on sentences

What was the most helpful information you received in class for your paper? Add more information to my introduction paragraph.

How many drafts of this paper do you think you wrote and how/when did you write them? For example, did you compose at the keyboard, did you write lots of notes to yourself, did you pre-write or outline, did you write in small chunks of time or sit down and produce an entire draft at one sitting? I think I wrote 2 drafts,I composed on the laptop and thought of things to include and typed it.

What would you do differently with this paper to make it more effectively, or what did you try to do that you just don’t think you got a good handle on? I think I could had added more explanation

What are most pleased with about this paper? I am most pleased about that I wrote about my parents divorce

On Becoming a Chicano

My identity is somewhat complicated I am Mexican, Caucasian,and Italian. Some struggles I dealt with is denying  that I am Mexican because where i live there are not really any ethnicity. I remember going into a small town in Iowa during the summer I was very tan and dark wearing a gold necklace at the time and having my ears pierced at the time I received many strange looks in the gas station the clerk was watching every movement I made as if  would steal something.
I think the experiences Rodriguez and myself  had some similarity, but I did not ever learn Spanish because my grandmother on my mom's side discouraged using the language like it was some type of blight. I sometimes wish I grew up with learning Spanish because whenever I go into some place with Mexicans and they talk in Spanish I feel out of place because I can't respond back. But I'm sure I'm not the only person that feels out of place when someone walks into a room with people they don't know everyone judges one another by looks,race, or sex.I think this happens because of our instincts to protect yourself.

How It Feels to Be Colored Me

There was a boy I knew, his name was Patrick he and I were friends, rode bikes and played together. Patrick lived in a yellow house with brown trim, his mother had many plants in front of the house, Patrick was very tall for his age long limbs pale white skin, and bleach blond hair that looked like snow, freckles on his cheeks and a  big smile with shiny braces. He liked to run and exercise allot always jogging around the neighborhood with his father in a blue sleeveless shirt, with white-silver shorts with a blinding gold necklace and diamond earrings. Sometimes his dog would run with him I don't know what type of dog it was but had white and brown fur and stood around a person's hip with pointed ears like something was going to sneak up on him.
I think these images gelled in my head because I was always outside and would see him routinely run around the neighborhood  and his hair was so much different from anyone I had seen at that age, also it could had been  how I was paranoid about his dog. I really couldn't tell you why I remember these details about Patrick.

Ideas for task one

I think I might write about when my parents divorced it was a very tramatic experience for me although I had block many memories of it out. I don't know how exactly how I would write it with not very many memories kept and blocked out of my mind is the problem. I anticipate alot of searching within myself the feelings I had and so forth. I dont have much questions for task one.

Rite of passage

I had few elderly person's of importance to me. But those few have made me into the person I am to day. My grandmother and grandfather on my Dad's side have always been there for helping raising me and my sister when my father was working and my young mother needed assistance handling two children.My grandpa had a beard that I could never forget and a scary tone in his voice when he was upset by something, my grandma has these crutches to help her walk and is very sympathetic and emotional. I have always respected them, you can watch t.v shows with them and joke around and you can go to them for support.

I remember moving from California to Missouri writing a note on a little piece of paper at the age of 7 telling my grandmother how much I missed her. She and my grandfather moved out to Missouri  I remember staying the night at their house my grandfather picking out movies or us watching football, In the mornings my grandpa and grandma would make breakfast them coffee and toast or ego waffles , for me chocolate milk and ego's. Now they recently moved to Atlanta where my unlce lives, it was a very emotional move but we are always in contact texting or phone call's, Facebook, and skype.

My Letter of Introduction

My name is Chris Reid, I graduated from Kearney High School. Not very many people have heard of Kearney it is not the biggest of town's, ever since we won state in football and basketball it put the town on the map of Missouri. I did not live in Kearney for my whole life I was born in Riverside, California. We moved to Missouri was around the age of 7 or 8. I Grew up most of my life in Excelsior springs where I went to school for most of my student career until my sophomore year, where I started school at Kearney High.
   
More personal matters of myself. My parents got a divorce around the 6th or 7th grade. It was a very hard thing for me to handle at that age and stopped talking to most of my childhood best friends. Me and my oldest sibling went through therapy but not sure if that helped me. Later on in life My father met my stepmother around the 8th grade and now I have two younger siblings who are 4 and 2. I am very grateful for having them, my mother met my stepfather around the same time as my dad and step mom. My mother had a child I am also very grateful for having him he's 2. Although I don't get to see him as much as I would like, I cherish the time we have together. All of my family is proud I am going to college and I am really looking for to learning and experiencing college