Out of Class, Definitions, Unit 3

Although there are many definitions of words that are currently being debated, it is difficult to brainstorm and come up with these words. We all use debatable language everyday but when you have to think of a specific definition being debated, it can be tough. One definition I thought of was the definition of marriage. I thought about this when my friends were arguing about what marriage means. One friend said a marriage is just a union between two people. My other friend debated her and said a marriage is more specific than a union; it is between man and woman. This is a perfect example of a definition that is debatable. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what marriage is. Another word that has multiple meanings is the word “love”.  There are all types of love. There is the love between husband and wife. Or the love I have for my dog. Or the love I have for food. There are all different meanings of love depending on the context. There are also a lot of words that some people use as slang but it has a completely different meaning in its proper term. One I can think of is the definition of “awesome”. To my dad, he calls something awesome when it is truly awe inspiring. To me, I say something is awesome when I just think it is cool. “Cool” is actually another slang word with many definitions. It can be used as the slang term, or it can be defined as a temperature that is not very cold.

In Class Assignment, Descriptive Writing

The forest is dark and woody. There are lots of trees and bushes. There are trees of all shapes and sizes. There are some really short and fat trees. There are also little skinny trees. But most of the trees are really big and tall, dozens of feet tall. When you look straight up, you can not see much of the sky because the tree branches are hovering up above. But you can see a little bit of sign light beaming through the tree branches and leaves. The ground is grassy but lots of dead leaves covor the green grass. When you walk on the dead leaves on the ground it makes a crunching sound. The main color scheme of the forest is various shades of greens and browns.
There is a narrow path that makes it easy to navigate through the forest. The path is naturally made by generations of people walking along the same route throughout the forest. Because so many people have walked alongt this same path, the grass is gone and it has turned into narrow dirt/mud path. The path goes through the widest gaps between treest. There are also creeks along the path.
I am walking along the path and I find a huge key just laying on the ground where I am about to step. It looks like one of those old skinny anciet keys. It is definitely not a key from modern day. It looks like it has been lost in this forest for a very long time. The key is a bronze or coppery color. It is rustic looking but I can tell it used to be shiny before it was covered in dirt from the forest.
Later on along the path I find a cup. It is submerged half way out of a pile of muddy leaves a couple feet away from the path. It is a plastic cup. It is very dirty but it does not seem like the cup is very old. I think maybe someone was having a picnic in the forest recently and forgot to throw the cup away.
I come across an obstacle along my path. The obstacle is a ginormous tree trunk. One of the tall trees recently fell and it happened to cut across the pathway. I look around to see if I can get around it some how. I walk around but I do not see any way to get around it. So I decide I must climb over it. The tree trunk is very large with lots bugs and dirt on it but I manage to climb up on to it and jump off onto the other side of the trunk.
After a long day of walking, I come across a long cabin. It is very quaint and small. It looks inviting so I go up to the cabin and see if anyone is there. As I approach the cabin, I see little elderly couple sitting on the porch. They invite me to come inside. I hang out there and eat with them and visit with them.
As I am walking along the path I find a fence. It is a little wooden fence. It is not tall at all, it reaches upto my hips. It does not seem like the fence was built to keep people out. It looks like the founce borders someones property. The fence is really old and is rotting.
On the other side of the fence is a huge pasture. The pasture seems to go on forever past the horizon. The grass is dewey. I see an endless number of cows and horses scattered around the pasture. I hop over the fence to the other side. I walk around and look at all the horses. The pastuer does not smell good because of all the animals.

In Class Assignment, What worked and wha didn't

This paper about a movie was easier to write than the first paper. I learned a lot from the first paper and I learned where I needed to improve. I hope I did a good job of not making the same mistakes of the first paper. The workshops always help me with my papers too because I like to hear other people's thoughts on my rough drafts. I always get new ideas from other people's comments on my rough drafts. The prewriting prompt questions were really helpful too. I watched the trailer of Mean Girls and it helped me with writing my brief summary of the movie. I also used my prewriting notes on the movie poster as a part of my paper. I used the movie poster as one of my outside references and I was able to find a lot of details in the poster that helped me with the argument of my paper. The film technique chart was interesting to fill out when watching the movie because I looked closely at the little details of the movie, but I did not really use many of the notes from the chart in my paper.

Out of Class, Authors Note to Final Draft, Unit 2

This is my final draft to my paper on Mean Girls. I made many revisions to my second rough draft. My rough draft for workshop 2 was incomplete so added a lot more since to this final paper from the last draft. I added more about the script of the movie and I added a conclusion paragraph. I rearranged my paragraphs so the paper would flow better. I also ended up reworking my thesis statement so it fit better with my paper. I created a different introduction paragraph because originally my introduction paragraph was a summary of the film. This new introduction paragraph relates more to the relevant pop culture of the movie. I also added my quotes from the outside references. I chose the movie poster and two movie reviews as my outside references. I am still unsure if I correctly incorporated quotes from the two movie reviews. On my last paper, my thesis statement and argument were not strong. I hope I have improved since my last paper and I hope my thesis statement and argument is much clearer on this paper. I enjoyed writing this paper much more than writing the Unit 1 paper on analyzing a space. Analyzing a movie was much more entertaining, especially since I wrote about one of my favorite movies. It was a lot easier to come up with ideas about the film to write about and analyze.  

In Class Assignment, Quote Burger

I find the concept of the quote burger to be very helpful. Incorporating quotations into papers can be difficult. It is hard for me to be creative about incorporating quotes when I have multiple quotes to put in a paper. The quote burger helps me further think about how exactly I am going to bring the quote into the paper and how I should comment on the quote. Many times I will put a quote in a paper but not put much commentary or analysis after the quote. So far on my paper for Unit 2, I have not put many quotes because I have not added 2 of the outside references yet. This quote burger will help me a lot when I decide on the quotations I am going to include in my paper.

Out of Class, Authors Note to Second Rough Draft, Unit 2

This is my second rough draft to the paper. I have made a lot of changes since my first rough draft and I have added some new parts. I still have so much more work to do on my paper. This rough draft is very incomplete. I have to finish the last paragraph I was working on in this rough draft and add a conclusion. I also need to incorporate my 2 other outside references. I have found the 2 sources I want to use but I am still figuring out where to incorporate it. I am planning on using a movie review from the New York Times and another review from filmcritic.com. I also need to work on my thesis statement still. In my thesis I mention the ridiculous behavior of the characters but I am not sure if I am going to actually do an entire paragraph dedicated to that part so I may need to redo my thesis statement.

In Class Assignment, Feedback on Rough Draft

I received a lot of helpful feedback on my paper. Thesis statements are always the hardest part of writing a paper for me and Kayla gave me some great ideas on how to fix my thesis statement to make it better. She also gave me ideas on how to make my argument stronger. I need to better emphasize how Mean Girls relates to high school girls. She recommended that I maybe add a personal story about high school in my paper and relate it to Mean Girls. I need to work on making my paper more personal. She also pointed out that I need to work on my transitional sentences to help the flow of my paper. She also revised some sentences throughout my paper to make them clearer. I am going to keep all these recommendations in mind as I work on this paper. I still have a lot of work to do on my paper. It is incomplete and I need to make a lot of revisions to what I have so far.