...Focusing closely on doing simple tasks can really help us think more clearly and inspire us. Malcolm X is a figure who illustrates this idea. He was able to learn how to read because he focused on improving his vocabulary by copying words from the dictionary. He spent countless hours rewriting the words on his tablet, learning about history and improving his handwriting. In the end, he could actually read and understand books. This inspired him to fight for African-Americans rights and recognition of African-American culture. Malcolm X’s experience shows that focusing closely on tasks can get us to think more clearly and give us inspiration. I feel that the author’s point about doing things mindfully and feeling inspired afterwards is true. When I write essays for my writing class, I noticed that I need to sit quietly in the school library to get started on my essay. I noticed that this quiet space allows me to focus closely on brainstorming a lot of ideas for my essay. Later when I write my essay, I am also able to focus closely on each of my sentences, which lets me see if my essay is flowing well and catch any writing mistakes. Sometimes, I reread my essay and I add...
Words: 649 - Pages: 3
...What a delight reading all the 500 word essay submissions was! I was surprised at how many I received – over 100! And those were just the people who took this challenge and motivated – I know many more may have felt intimidated or overwhelmed by the assignment, or as if doing such a thing was beyond their ken. Here’s what I look for in a good essay: a beginning, a middle and an end, a provocative or revealing subject, an intimacy in the writing, and an essay that leaves me either having learned or felt something. I love essays that are courageous and confessional. I love essays that make me crave the outcome and wonder where it’s all leading. I ADORE essays that open with a provocative statement. The winning essay opens with this: My father didn’t recognize his sister when he carried her on the stretcher to the ambulance. What the what? Who could resist reading the rest? I couldn’t. Essay writing may be new for many of you but I encourage you to continue to work on that skill set. How can you jump start your essay with a provocative or interesting opening statement? How can you summarize your thesis in a way that satisfies us mightily? How can you tease us along and make us crave the outcome? Writing something in only 500 words is a creative exercise both in restraint and in meaning. These essays would have been significantly less compelling if another 250 words were added – unless the thesis at the top of each essay were more complex. The word count limit (again, a reality...
Words: 468 - Pages: 2
...an invention that had an impact on the way of life of people. About a couple weeks later, he worked on the Expository Writing Stations. By working intensively on the Expository Writing Stations, Pranav developed his expertise of how to write a successful expository essay. Doing the stations helped him in his preparation for the Writing STAAR Test. His understanding evolved throughout the stations by revisiting, reflecting on, and revising previously written texts through sections specifically like development of ideas, word choice/conventions, and sentence fluency....
Words: 549 - Pages: 3
...For me, reading has never been a thing I've necessarily wanted to do. Sure when I was little it was a good way to keep me entertained but as time has gone on and technology has grown, reading has become more of a chore. When I was younger I thought of reading as an okay thing. It wasn't terrible and it wasn't something I dreaded doing. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less and less fond of books. There's a good chance that my liking of literature has decreased because when you get older the books you're supposed to read have more words, bigger words, and less pictures. Maybe if it were acceptable for me to read the books I read as a kid I would enjoy reading more. The books of my childhood were the best. My six year old self thought Dr. Seuss was an artist with words. The B Book was a work of pure genius. Without a doubt that...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...child’s needs above the adults. What ‘Superman’ got wrong, point by point is (as stated) the rebuttal to the movie from the view of a teacher. The educator who wrote this essay, Rick Ayers, shows his support for teachers unions, the addressing of the curriculum and method that we teach kids and not the people...
Words: 963 - Pages: 4
...required ENG 105 course. Immediately, I thought that this course would be easy because all we will do is write essays. I thought I would be fully prepared by just going over Grammar rules and standardized test tips. In retrospect, after I have attended the class for almost the entire semester, I never expected to learn a new process of writing. During my time at high school, we never went over multiple stages of reflections, revisions, or writing skills. I usually just wrote for my enjoyment or for an assignment. I strongly believe that if I had learned these processes in high school, my papers would have benefitted greatly. As this semester comes to an end, I look back at everything I have accomplished in this class. I have acquired many writing techniques through annotations, in – class assignments, and multiple essays. Because of this, I have improved tremendously as a writer. Throughout the time I have spent in this writing course, I was reminded of how effective writing can be. As I further analyze my writing, I realized that I have learned how to become a real writer. The essays included will demonstrate the tremendous amount of strength I have gained in writing this semester. I believe that I am good organizing my writing in terms of placement and topics of each body paragraph. An example of this is in my first essay about my literacy sponsors. I organized the essay by beginning each body paragraph with a sentence that corresponds to the last sentence of the paragraph that...
Words: 1137 - Pages: 5
...edition Writing essays The language that we use for writing essays is often more formal than the language that we use in conversation. The next four pages give you help with the more formal type of language that is usually used in writing. They give words and phrases that will help you to write your ideas clearly and naturally, and in a way that is suitable for an essay. Saying what you agree with You will first need to read the essay title carefully, and decide what you agree or disagree with about it or whether you think it is true. Use these words and phrases to say what you agree with or what you think is true about the statement: Certainly . . . It is certainly true that . . . It is certainly the case (= true) that . . . Examples: An example essay You could be asked to write many different types of essays in English during the course of your studies. These may include factual essays, descriptive essays or stories. You may also be asked to write letters, emails, reports or pages from a diary as writing exercises. The phrases below all relate to the language you might want to use in a discursive essay (= an essay in which you are asked to discuss something). The title of the example essay is: ‘Despite the increased availability of ‘healthy’ food and our greater knowledge of what makes a healthy diet, we are fatter and less healthy than ever before.’ Discuss. Before you start Make sure you understand what you are expected to do in writing the essay. If you do not understand...
Words: 1738 - Pages: 7
...CRAMS Essay In the essays, “Living Under Circe’s Spell” by Matthew Soyster and “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs the authors describe what it is like to have Multiple Sclerosis or MS. Multiple Sclerosis is a nervous system disease that is incurable. Although they are discussing the same subject the authors display different attitudes towards it. Soyster seems to with an attitude of longing for the past while Mairs approaches the subject with a more positive attitude about her disability. Both of the writers use diction, appeals to pathos, and allusion to effectively describe their lives with this disease. The use of diction in these essays plays an instrumental role in establishing the tone and ideas that the authors present. Both the writers...
Words: 816 - Pages: 4
...Essay on “Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts” We’re spending more and more time online and less time out in the real world. But is modern technology really doing us harm? And are we missing out on a lot of important stuff when we hide behind our screens and use a mouse as our mouthpiece? These are some of the important question that arise from reading Jonathan Franzen’s essay, “Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts” from 2011. The 51-year-old author puts our daily internet routines into perspective and forces us to think critically about what we are doing online. But he beats around the bush for a while before he starts presenting his actual message. He thus starts out sharing a personal experience of getting a new smartphone and uses this as a starting point for voicing his concerns. Jonathan Franzen is aware of the danger of scaring off those young readers who might be fed up with older people complaining about the youth of today, “Very probably, you’re sick to death of hearing social media disrespected by cranky 51-year-olds” (ll. 140-142). He therefore catches this young audience’s attention by comparing his relationship to his outdated smartphone to a relationship of romantic nature. He uses familiar expressions like “trust issues”, “accountability issues” and having “outgrown the relationship”. In this...
Words: 888 - Pages: 4
...Macaulay and Rachel Rafelman thru their essays are trying to eradicate the stereotype, they are both almost speaking about the subject in their essays and the tone in the essays are almost the same, funny and at the same time keeping a serious tone underneath, sexism seems also to be a common point for these two author it seems to be the center of pretty much everything they’re talking about. Stereotype in the both essay as been pointed out and the authors seems to take people to that point where they are convicted enough to stop doing that thing which is stereotype not only that but they uses different other article to point to point that and say what think about it, for example, Ronald Macaulay; in his essay “Sex difference” uses novel and different other article to point the stereotype but not only that he also argues about it just as Rachel Rafelman in her essay “Party Line” uses interviews that she makes or other colleague Article to pointed that out and talk about it or argue about it, both author stick with the same idea that lead us to conclude that they are both talking about the same subject but just in two different environment, for example Rafelman in her essay she is at A Gala and Macaulay is just using Article, novel, journal to talk about the subject . In these essays the authors tone is what we can describe as having two side, funny and serious at the same time the reason why I am saying this is because in the essay the author are using it to keep use entertain...
Words: 906 - Pages: 4
...In his essay, “Becoming a Writer,” Russell Baker explains the effect that doing something for yourself can have on you. For baker, it wasn’t until his third year in high school that he realized writing wasn’t as much work as he thought. He figured it would be just another year with just another new writing teacher: boring, dull, and burdensome. Baker’s new teacher, Mr. Fleagle, did not prove him wrong by way of forcing his enthusiasm for Macbeth on the students and his constant overuse of the phrase, “Don’t you see?” The class became even drearier when Mr. Fleagle assigned an informal essay with absent-minded topics such as “What I did Over Summer Break.” One such topic, “The Art of Eating Spaghetti,” surprisingly sparked images of vivid memories into Baker’s mind. Before he knew it, Baker wanted to write down his thoughts for his own pleasure. After writing away most of the night, he had no choice but to turn in his less-than- perfect paper he had scribbled out merely for himself and not as a proper essay to turn in for a grade. Baker waited two days before it was time to see his grade for the first time; Mr. Fleagle had held on to his essay to read it to the class. His paper, titled “The Art of Eating Spaghetti,” turned out to be a huge success. The class laughed, not in criticism, but in pure humor and joy. Mr. Fleagle praised the essay by stating that the essay was “the very essence of an essay, don’t you see.” In the end, Mr. Fleagle really was a successful teacher, but more...
Words: 637 - Pages: 3
...Homelessness is More Appealing ENG 121 English Composition I Professor Beth Riley October 23, 2013 Homelessness is More Appealing Many of us will never be homeless, and not everyone understands the benefit of having a wife, but after reading the essays’, Homeless (Quindlen, A. n.d.) and I Want a Wife (Brady, J. 1971), one can gain a better understanding of both. I am a wife. Therefore, I can certainly connect with the narrator’s story of I Want a Wife. This is a narrative essay, in which the narrator reflects on why she too would like to have a wife after a visit with a recently divorced male friend, who is looking for a new wife. The narrator gives a list of duties and activities she will and will not do if she had a wife, and she can visualize the benefits a wife could afford her with less responsibilities and more time for school or friends. My other essay of choice is quite different in theme, but it is still relatable. Anne Quindlen’s essay, Homeless (n.d.) is a short descriptive essay with the narrator retelling of an account when she met a woman, who she believes is homeless, at the bus terminal. It is during the encounter that the narrator reflects on homeless people in general, the homeless individual and about herself. Both of these essays’ are well written, however, I feel that Homeless (Quindlen, A. n.d.), is a more appealing essay than I Want a Wife (Brady, J. 1971), as it allows the reader to become more engaged in the descriptions and reflect on the details...
Words: 1517 - Pages: 7
...SOC 201 Many countries around the world have an increasing concern about their economic growth and the different ways it is affected. As the essays by Jack A. Goldstone and Joel E. Cohen discuss the many different changes that world population will have in the next 50 or less years, some of these changes are astounding and quite frightening. Without any action these changes could have a toll on the safety and the continuing of todays developed countries. One of the changes in world population is the increasing aging population in the developed countries of the world. As talked about in Goldstone’s essay, the aging population in North America and Western Europe could lead to a decrease in economic growth. There are many reasons why an increasing aging population could cause a decrease in economic growth. As Goldstone shares in his essay, data from The Economist reveals that developed countries labor forces will substantially age and decline, slowing down economic growth in the developed world and raising demand for immigrant workers. In my opinion this makes complete sense there will be more people who require health care, retirement, and other financial help, and there will be less people in the labor force working to help pay for their elders retirement, just as an example. Another reason talked about in Goldstones essay is that the increase in the aging population decreases the amount of new consumers and new households, which is likely to decline the developed country’s...
Words: 576 - Pages: 3
...John Holt’s essay “School Is Bad For Children” is full of rhetorical devices, however, they are not as effective as Holt intended them to be. He begins his essay with a strong introduction, then changes his tone, only taught at a private school and not a public school, over uses repetition, uses too many hyperboles, and makes assumptions of his points without proper research. All of which cause the essay to fade in it’s effectiveness, thus giving the reader a hard time to finish reading. In the introduction Holt tells the general experience that school kid on the first day of school has. This gives the reader a pleasant imagery of image of an excited, young, lively child. Then, changes his tone unexpectedly, turning the essay into a different direction. Now, Holt begins to use sentences such as, “In a great many of ways he learns that he is worthless , untrustworthy, fit only to take other people’s orders, a blank sheet for people to write on” (Holt 73). This dramatic change of tone...
Words: 1344 - Pages: 6
...Brandon Stinson Mrs. Adams English 101 16 October, 2012 Too Much? For my Argument Text Analysis, I chose the essay “Do Professional Athletes Get Paid Too Much Money?” by Mihir Baghat. This particular essay is about how athletes make way more money than they deserve and how wrong that is due to the fact that the American society is a place where salaries and wages are based on the value of ones’ work and that a person should be paid according to the economic importance and value to society. By writing “Do Professional Athletes Get Paid Too Much Money?” Baghat is trying to inform the reader about the amount of money professional athletes are making now a day and that they should get paid a lot less. He is doing this by giving examples of jobs that he thinks deserve a lot more money than what professional athletes are getting paid. Teachers are great examples of this. Baghat states that “Teaching is one of the most economically important occupations if you really think about it. Our future economies rely on how well we educate our youth, and yet teachers are paid a mere fraction of what a professional athlete receives” (Baghat). Another example is when Baghat talks about President Obama and how he gets paid a lot less than professional athletes even though the President makes important decisions affecting the entire world. This essay is very one-sided at times but overall it does achieve its goal of convincing the reader that professional athletes get paid too much and...
Words: 1046 - Pages: 5
