Think people!

Being able to think critically is a crucial skill to have in life. It allows you to see beyond a flat one-dimensional piece of paper. However, being a "normal" or "good" critical thinker allows one to read or interpret more accurately. So many times I have witnessed people's efforts to analyze literature and many a times their ideas or assumptions are whacked out! The create and exhibit false claims about an author's work and as a result produce certain views or facades about authors. Were they never taught how to analyze? As a student I can say that a lot of the in-accuracy stems from laziness. Kids do not like to do work and in a lot of situations they don't have any time to put the needed about of effort into deeply dissecting a book. This laziness and lack of time has made Spark notes very successful. Kids across America are no longer able to think critically. English homework takes time that doesn't exist anymore. At Onondaga Community College almost more than fifty percent of the students enrolled work. They have time to write three page papers, but not one that is filled with experiential and analytical depth. Teenagers are geniuses and should not be under-estimated. They may not think critically now, but it doesn't mean that they can't or never will. Teachers take heart. Your students may not seem like they are retaining any of your lessons, but they are, at least I am.

Portfolios

For this class Mr. McCoy said that instead of doing a final we will be doing portfolios. All I can say is ugh. I have been doing portfolios since I was in the seventh grade and believe me they are easy (if they are anything like what I have been doing at my middle and high school). Basically you write 10 to 12 reflections on what you did in English. For example you compare and contrast an essay you did in the beginning and end of the semester, your best and worst essays, what you did and did not like about English, and how you evolved as a writer. If your honest and you did the essays (preferably all of them because when you select pieces for the portfolio you realize that we did not write that many essays). I suggest you don't do your portfolio the night that is is due or you will be doing it all day. (Hopefully this is what Mr. McCoy wants us to do or something along those lines otherwise this post is no help to anyone who is concerned about portfolios).

Arguementive Essays

For this essay topic I am struggling. I still have no idea what to write about for this essay. The topic I wrote about for the persuasive would have been perfect to write about. I have an idea about what my topic should be but I feel that alot of people are going to use the same topic (probably argue against me no doubt). To me, I know that I would have trouble with lengh because I have one main point that I would use and I think it would be beaten to death throughout the whole paper.

This class.....

This class has had its ups and downs for me. I like to think that I'm a fairly intelligent individual that has his quirks, but being in this class, I find it hard to put my thoughts down on paper for others to understand. I find it easier to express myself through voice and music than I do through writing about it. My father says that since I'm a good reader, writing should come as second nature to me. Its just that, sometimes, my thoughts are too distant to what I'm trying to do.

Phonetics

India Foxtrot

Yankee Oscar Uniform

Charlie Alhpa November

Romoe Echo Alpha Delta

Tango Hotel India Sierra

India

Hotel Alpha Victor Echo

Juliet Uniform Sierra Tango

Whiskey Alpha Sierra Tango Echo Delta

Yankee Oscar Uniform Romoe

Tango India Mike Echo

Whiskey India Tango Hotel

Mike India Lima India Tango Alpha Romoe Yankee

Papa Hotel Oscar November Echo Tango India Charlie Sierra

Sharing :)

At the end of class on Wednesday, Professor McCoy encouraged us to write a poem in the style of Hamlets soliloquy. I had fun with it , and was inspired to write another one. I decide to use "the wolfman". In the style of Timothy McCoy. Our weekend was over,Sunday night had come. The work week stood to interrupt us again, she to her classes, and I to my cement mixer. The late hour, and the long walk home compelled me to go with her. I was hammered by flu, but I knew. The city void of static, lusting for blood, was not to be trusted with my treasure. An hour to walk, every step more tolling than the last. Her hand in mine makes it all right. The time flies by, as we walk, my love and I. Shared thoughts about the soulless shells we pass. Shared thoughts about the future. An hours walk later, staggered by the temperature, She gives me water to quench my thirst, a pill for the fever, and a kiss that made me a believer. Safely home are you, and nowI return to mine, until weeks end, my love. As I walk away from her, waving, I turn around and to see the devil, staring right at me. He spews hate from his mouth, he wants my blood. what a time to face death, I can hardly walk. No talking to the devil, look at his red eyes. He smiles with an open mouth and shows me his tooth,shiny and steel, frozen,with fear is all I feel. Devil bites me,She screams. Im stunned, time seemed to slow to a stop. I feel her hand touch my arm, In her touch I feel her love, I am blessed. Renewed by her touch, I reel. My blessed fist, against the devils steel. We crash into each other, caution to the wind. Each one of my punches, answered with a bite. He is the one on the floor, I dont want him to get up, I should give him some more. I am the devil now, smashing hic face under my heel. he sounded like he was snoring,as I softened his skull. He might have been asking for mercy, as he layed in that place. With blood pouring from his ass and his face. My lady is safe,the devil is dead. I am bitten and bleeding, but I will heal over time. Im alive, I won, but I can still see him there in the back of my mind, with his red eyes, his slack jawed smile, and his shiny tooth. He wants my blood!

Birthday

Well it's November 7th, and I'm finally 18. Yes, no longer the "baby" of the English class. As the beginning of the semester came was coming up in late August, I honestly was freaking out about college. I had no idea what to expect because in high school the teachers hyped it up to be this impossible mission, but some of my friends that were already in college said it wasn't as bad as it's said to be in high school. So far I would have to agree to my friends. I've settled in nicely and have adjusted to the different style of grading and work that we are assigned in each class. College seems to be easier than high school for me because I actually enjoy going to class. This is probably because I'm learning what i want to learn, not just a bunch of random crap in high school. English was easily my least favorite class in high school, but in college it's one of my favorite, at least for this semester. Mr. McCoy has taught many new techniques, from simply getting started on an essay, to completely revising it. This has helped me out a lot and has gave me a lot more confidence when writing essays.

Writing About Literature

Writing about literature is something that I am used to doing. In high school, that was the focus of every english essay. You were simply given poetry, prose etc. and then given an essay question. "Shooting an Elephant" and "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock," are not too complex, but it will be interesting writing an interpetive essay, about the literature. The expository and persuasive essays made it difficult to take my own words and compose them into an essay. Taking someone else's ideas in literature and saying my opinion seems to be much more straight forward. The problem I had with the first two essays was, finding a topic to write about. Now that we have information given to us it seems much less frustrating. The Movies of Your Mind seem to help me understand sections and then later understand the entire literature as a whole. I find it to be an effective tool for any type of writing.

Revision

One of my favorite things about this class is the amount of revision that we do. In every other English class I have taken the teacher expects us to learn and become better writers through practice and hundreds of writing assignments. This class however improves our writing skills by actually showing us what we need to work on and letting us hand in assignments a second time. Not only does our professor show us our areas that need improvement, but he gives us an opportunity to apply what we have learned and re-submit our papers. This technique has made me a stronger writer and has given me much needed confidence when I write.

Writing about Writing?

So our next essay in class is the interpretive essay. I am going to say that this will probably be my least favorite essay of the semester. I don't mind writing arguments, trying to persuade people, or writing to figure something out, but writing about writing just does not catch my interest at all. I view writing as an art form and when I look at art I don't care what it means to anyone else. My favorite song can mean a lot to me, but it could sound boring to you, and I really don't care. More importantly I don't care for people to know how I view a piece of writing....who cares what i think of a piece of writing? I read it for entertainment, not to tell you why i thought it was entertaining. Maybe it's just me, but i don't know. Anyone else feel the same way?

Movies of your Mind

Interpreting essay's and poems is a strange and new expericences for me. In the past I never really took the time to go back and analyze what was going on in my mind as I read through a novel or poem. I think it's interesting though seeing what my mind jumps to when I read a certain phrase or passage, but I'm finding it's difficult to analyze what's going on in my mind and trying to put it on a piece of paper. It always seems so jumbled and crazy, and I think it's going to be hard to turn these free writes into a concise essay, but thats just me.

what does everyone think about the cardinals winning the world series? i was rooting for the texas rangers the whole time. the rangers had them beat till the last two games. the cardinals took game 6 to 11 innings and ended up coming back to beat the rangers in game 7. personally i would have rather had the red sox in and winning the world series. who would you want to have won the world series? (this is probably not a safe question to ask)

Interpretations

It's amazing how many different interpretations can come from one poem. Today in class, we split into groups of three to discuss how we interpreted the poem "Song" by W.H. Auden. I was amazed that such drastically different ideas could be pulled from this one poem. My interpretation was more uplifting whereas other people took the poem to be somewhat cynical. This poem was about love and how it changes over time (at least, thats what I took it to be about). I think the age of the reader would be a big factor in the interpretation of this poem because chances are, the older you get, the more experience you have with love. I myself (being seventeen) can't say I have had too much experience with love. I look at this poem and see an interesting story, whereas some of my older classmates may be able to relate this poem to an experience they've had. It just amazes me how subjective writing is and how many different meanings can be pulled from the same piece of work.

It's already november.... FML

(*Note- If the subject title is offensive by saying "fml" I apologize, but that is how I feel...maybe think of it standing for, 'forget my life' seeing how this year has gone by so fast!!) Whatever. You know, honestly at the beginning of this semester, I was extremely nervous attending OCC for my first time after being out of high school for a couple years. Now that I look back, I have absolutely no idea why I was so nervous. High school was different: gossip, drama and a ton of stress. I'm not saying that these situations may never occur during my time here, but everyone had me a little freaked out by saying it's "just like high school, just harder". In my opinion, I've found that not to be the case. I used to get so distracted in high school classes; people were always immature and never paying attention, which always threw off my attention as well. College on the other hand (whether you may agree with me here or not) makes me feel more concentrated and amused about what I'm learning. I enjoy being involved with the different age groups as well, seeing their insight on experiences they might share with the class, or just the comfort of knowing that whatever age you are, you are never too old to learn. I used to always pick on my mom for being in her 40's and still doing college classes, just to learn more. But now I understand. As a comment towards Mr. McCoys' class, I enjoy what we've been learning about, it's really opened my way of thinking farther than I thought it could go. I would like to write my own book sometime in the near future but every time I would brain storm the idea, I got intimidated by my own thinking that I would run out of things to say; that people might not understand me. It gives me hope knowing there's more I can do with my writing and thinking by observing and applying the different ways of writing we've learn in class. Props.

Revision

At first, I was really sucking it up with revision.  Especially in the expository essay. I hardly made any changes and the ones I did make didn't benefit my paper at all, in fact..I'm pretty sure it made them worse. However I found that printing out a hard copy and reading through, scribbling out words that you don't like, making changes, adding, subtracting and writing down ideas really helps. That's what I did for my persuasive essay and I'm more than positive that it came out better than my expository essay. Learning what to do for revision is hard but I am definitely getting that hang of things. The papers might be easy, but how you write it down is the hardest part!