...Narrative of Adolescence Years Abstract This paper is a narrative of my adolescent years from twelve to eighteen. I label these years of awkwardness and pain off a hit show from the early nineties called, “The Growing Pains.” Similar to the characters in the show I struggled creating a personal identity and had difficulty blending in with societal norms. As a result I suffered from much insecurity, false conceptions of beauty, and depression. Up until writing this paper I felt these ideologies and feelings were better left in the past. However, I now understand these experiences shape my current beliefs and will affect my identity as a counselor. Therefore I must address these experiences and deal with them emotionally. As I relive these moments I will correlate my development with the research of the following theorist: Piaget, Erikson, and Seltzer. By showing correlation of my development with their theories I will prove many of experiences as an adolescence were typical of an American teenager. Looking into the mirror I was frustrated. Why isn’t my hair pretty? Other girls wear their hair straight. Why did mine always have to be braided? Why couldn’t I have a relaxer to smooth out my curls? I shook my head in frustration and began to look for the hot comb. On my first day of middle school I was going to look pretty like everyone else. I was going to have my hair straight and laid to the side. My mother usually kept the hot comb under the kitchen sink...
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...Jones/ENG121/Fall2013 Major Assignment 3 For this assignment, write a response to the question: What is American? Your response may take one of several forms: a personal narrative (what do you personally feel is “American” based on personal experience), a thesis driven structured argument, a creative response with verbal portraits of “Americans,” or any other format you wish to use. Notice that the question asks “what is American.” If you choose, you may instead respond to “what should be American.” This must be in ESSAY form. In other words, it should be organized with proper paragraphs with topic sentences and supporting ideas. You have a great deal of freedom to personalize your response, but grammar/mechanics/style still counts. Feel free to reference any of the essays or film we have viewed thus far in your response. This is not required SCHEDULE FOR THE ASSIGNMENT: Mon 10/28 – Free writing/organizing in class (for a grade) Wed 10/30 – Writing workshop – tips and to do’s when writing essays Fri 11/1 – Complete Rough Draft Due – bring two copies of rough draft to class (for a grade) Wed 11/6 – PAPER DUE IN CLASS NOTE: Since rough drafts are mandatory for this assignment, I will NOT be reviewing rough drafts via email in the days leading up to the date due. I will only review drafts turned in on the day rough drafts are due. I will also answer questions about the assignment via email. Requirements * Title – your essay should have a “good” title – not just “Paper 3”...
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...class with at the start of my junior year. I had always been keen to free writing for the single reason that it was easy to fluff up and fabricate. As long as it was in MLA format and grammar was correct, I could not lose. I had discovered early on in my academic career that I was a decent writer; I could establish main points and a theme as well as apply proper grammar. It speaks for my writing that I was agitable to misusers of “there, their, and they’re” to say the least. The only criticism on writing prompts I would get were technical ones, like using apostrophes incorrectly or writing the number rather than spelling it. Yet, marked in red at the top of my first paper junior year was something I had not expected, nor seen before-- “Where is your voice?” My voice? I was not mute, so what kind of question was that? I thought about it all class period and looked for the flaw within the paper. All i had to work with was that obscure note and I thought about the question again and again-- I even began...
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...opportunity to understand better the material being studied. What does the research say about peer tutoring? In reviews of peer tutoring programs, researchers found: * When students participated in the role of reading tutor, improvements in reading achievement occurred * When tutors were explicitly trained in the tutoring process, they were far more effective and the students they were tutoring experienced significant gains in achievement * Most of the students benefited from peer tutoring in some way, but same-age tutors were as effective as cross-age tutors (Burnish, Fuchs & Fuchs, 2005; Topping, 2008) Some benefits of peer tutoring for students include higher academic achievement, improved relationships with peers, improved personal and social development as well as increased motivation. In turn, the teacher benefits from this model of instruction by an increased opportunity to individualize instruction, increased facilitation of inclusion/mainstreaming, and opportunities to reduce inappropriate behaviors (Topping, 2008). There is an old saying: “To teach is to learn twice.” Peer tutoring is a beneficial way for students...
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...Catalysts act on obstacles an individual faces which assists in overcoming personal and social boundaries. This is significant as it induces growth and transitions which bring new insights and understandings about themselves, others and the world around them. The bildungsroman novel “The story of Tom Brennan” written by J.C Burke and the speech ‘From Death Row To Law Graduate’ by Peter Ouko both follow the transitions of young men who face personal and social boundaries, challenging beliefs and attitudes of both protagonists and the situations they are in resulting in growth and new perceptions. An individual’s personal and social boundaries have an impact on the perceptions of themselves, others and the world around them. The ‘Story Of Tom Brennan’...
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...idealism, is our troubled modern day hero. He awoke in the middle of his life - broke and lost. A serial entrepreneur, his life was a never-ending quest for material success. At age 38, as Joseph Campbell forewarned humanity, Adam had "climbed the ladder of success, only to realize it was propped up against the wrong wall." Alone, with nothing else to lose, Adam Jefferson climbed down off of the ladder and searched for the wall of his future. This led him on a 100-day odyssey to start the ascent of his new life, an epic journey which called him across the world discussing today's challenges and opportunities with the great minds of our past - Carl Jung, Mary Parker-Follett, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Einstein, and many others. An act of their collective genius and magical combustion, a psychological and sociological theory for sustainability and success was formed. Like all heroic quests, Adam ended where he had begun. Prior to his expedition, Adam had an unforgettable encounter with one of the great minds of the 20th century. One freezing, early morning on January 17, 2009, Adam Jefferson met the famed Harvard psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They walked the beach in Winthrop for hours, discussing morality and the questions one ponders in the solitude of despair. They exchange woes - "You tell me yours, and I will tell you mine." Adam found an uncanny comfort in the company of misery. One hundred days after this encounter with...
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...call his name. In this poem, identity is not seen as something that is solid and concrete but as something that is situated and constructed by others, a glimpse of poststructuralist view on identity. Recently, language learning has been seen as participation and negotiation of self (see Higgins, forthcoming; Kinginger, 2004; Lam, 2000; Morita, 2004; Ohara, 2001; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000; and Solé, 2007 among others). The trend is resonated in the growing interest in language learner identity and the studies in narratives. In this paper, a case of heritage language learner will be investigated upon the theoretical frame of poststructuralism. Narrative inquiry will be used to analyze how she negotiates her learner identity. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: First, by looking at the struggle a language learner makes to acquire her heritage language, I reclaim the centrality of identity in defining heritage language learners. Second, to widen the horizons of narrative studies to the cyber space as it provides an ample source of easily accessible data and it has become one of the commonplace media of daily communication. Heritage Language Learners and Identity To refer to the Heritage Language Learners (HLLs), various terms have been implemented such as ‘native speakers,’ ‘quasi native speakers,’ ‘bilingual speakers,’ or, from the dissatisfaction with the prior terms, ‘home background speakers,’ and ‘heritage language speakers’ (Valés, 2005: p. 412). There has not yet been...
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...English 1000 with Janie Miller Monday, January 24, 2011 Hemauer's Farm Girl 1.) I think the purpose of Hemauer writing this essay was to remind herself of the time on the farm and share with her audience the things that she learned from it. She is almost giving a reason for why she turned out the way she did, but she is extremely proud about it. An older audience might perceive it as a child that actually lifted a hand like they did back in the day, whereas a a majority of the younger audience might not be able to relate to working on the farm. 2.) I think for that exact reason, she is reaching out to the younger audiences. She is sharing her personal experiences in order for this generation to learn from her generation. She talks about the stress and pressures of being a kid and "fitting in". 3.) She describes/gives credit through her explanation of everyday chore activities and having to choose the farm work and obligations over something that she would rather be doing, or even thrives to do. 4.) Hemaur's responsibility to her readers is to teach them a lesson. The lesson is that sometimes you have to do things that you don't want to do. By showing/ telling her story and/or experiences, she hopes that the audience can use that information in order to make what she considers to be the right decision. 5.) In order to connect with her audience on a much broader subject, Hemauer talks about internal struggles more than physical labor. She talks about fitting in...
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...offenses such as rape, torture, pedophilia and child-abuse are dealt with in New York City, by a special unit of detectives of the police department known as the Special Victims Unit. These crimes are then passed on to the courtroom for prosecution. Law and order is a crime-based drama, with a mixture of ‘court-room’ and ‘detective’, TV series, mainly shown on channel five. By reading the description of the show, I immediately realised that this is a show that is based around the world of crime and how the crime is dealt with within the city of New York. It starts from finding who the criminal is and then we follow the story up to the prosecution in the court room. Words such as ‘courtroom, ‘rape’, ‘victim’, ‘detective’ immediately grabs the reader’s attention, giving us the impression of the type of genre this TV series is. The picture that accompanies the description also shows that the genre of this series is crime as the main detective is pulling out her police badge and is what the audience see’s first when looking at the image. From observing the TV schedules I have noticed that different genres have different schedule times. For example, genres like Game shows, Animation and children tend to have early daytime TV scheduling. In comparison to genres like Horror, Crime and soap operas, which are shown during the evening mainly past 8pm. Genres such as children are...
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...Personal Narrative: The First Time I Rode “The Zipper” After our wrists were badged with all access to any ride in the fair we pranced down the rickety wooden stairs. They groaned at us in protest after every step we took. Once we both touched the ground, we looked at each other, sharing a mischievous gleam in our eyes, today was going to be great. As we curved around the shack of registration I felt a small breeze on my sunscreen-soaked skin, which was so thick, it felt like a translucent armor enraptured my exposed flesh. I felt a small tingle of heat radiated off of the burning ball of hydrogen in the sky. The screams of pre-pubescent do-gooders and adolescent-hoodlums emanated in the atmosphere along with a constant hum of side conversations....
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...Personal Narrative I have spent many hours a day doing what I enjoy. For many people, the activity they enjoy is different from another. I like to spend most of my time at my home playing video games. It has been this way for most of my life. To me, there is nothing wrong with it but I have my fair share of problems with video games but it really helped me as a person. My first experience with video games came when I was four. It came in the form of the Nintendo 64. I got to start playing the N64 when my older brother got a PS2. At first I was kind of hesitant to play it. My older brother would say "Here, play this game." I would say "It doesn't look like a game I want to play." "Try it at least," he would say. He did that for a while with me and my younger brother for a few minutes before we found Pokémon Stadium. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it. I decided to play Pokémon Stadium anyways though because I liked the tv show. As soon as I turned the console on and started...
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...in society would call for a change in dynamics. Shouldn’t we return to the days of humanism and leave the drone-like consumerism to the past? Many novels that are read in college English courses point out the injustices, evolution, or the hypocrisy of the capitalist society –like some of the novels in this course. On the contrary, Nicholson Baker's novel seems to suggest that the post-modern world actually inspires reflection and contemplation. Instead of exposing a world of negativity, The Mezzanine, completely defies the common perception of the hyper-productive, desensitized post-modern society. The symbol of the escalator allows Baker to illustrate his take on the industrious, consumptive postmodern world. It was quite interesting to witness the methods Baker used to interrupt time for both his protagonist and his audience –of possible naysayers. The time spent on the infamous escalator forces Howie to explore many of his forgotten memories. Immediately, the thoughts flow through his mind as he approaches the escalator. “It would have been less cumbersome, in the account I am giving here of a specific lunch hour several years ago, to have pretended that the bag thought had come to me complete and ‘all at once’ at the foot of the up escalator, but the truth was that it was only the latest in a fairly long sequence of partially forgotten, inarticulable experiences, finally now reaching a point that I paid attention to it for the first time. (Baker, p. 9)” A simple lunchtime...
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...Personal Narrative Essay Title: “For Sale” Everyone knows that phrase: “The grass is always greener on the other side”. But as a child it was a hollow statement for me. Until the day I perceived it as my philosophy of survival. This story is of my purest memories following my relentless battles. Simplistic flashbacks of virtuous kids. Full of laughter and play with nothing to be feared except for the day’s end. All before the moment where the innocence was dissolved away by the acidic misfortunes of life. [a series of sentence fragments] To illustrate, the first setting in this world was in the town called “Ocala”. It was in South-central Florida, a place where nature thrived and creatures of all walks of life roamed. The most business we had there was a prison thirty miles away, and a Wal-Mart 30 miles further down the same road. So one would say it was pretty rural. Just a quaint ole town, where the trees outnumbered the people. My best friend Samantha and I loved the fact that we had mother-nature as our playground. Spending most of our waking moments playing in the open forests, we’d sneak around concocting strategic methods on how to collect lizards and insects, then place them in small decorated cages. Once we obtained our new pets, we would examine and befriend each one, always setting them free later. However, our nights were different, pictures were taken, video games were played and even dress up was included from time to time. Videogames helped enable our...
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...Anecdotal Records The simplest form of direct observation is a brief narrative account of a specific incident called an anecdotal record. Often an anecdotal record is used to develop an understanding of a child’s behavior. Anecdotal records do not require charts or special settings. They can be recorded in any setting and require no special training. All you need is paper and a writing tool to record what happened in a factual, objective manner. The observation is open-ended, continuing until everything is witnessed. It is like a short story in that it has a beginning, middle, and end. The process of recording the incident requires a careful eye and quick pencil to capture all of the details. You will need to note who was involved, what happened, when it happened, and where it occurred. It needs to be done promptly and accurately. Figure 3-5 shows the contents of an anecdotal record. When you use the narrative form of observation, your eyes and ears act like a video camera. You will be recording pictures of children playing, learning, and interacting. During your observations, you will record how children communicate, both verbally and nonverbally. You will record how they look and what they do. Physical gestures and movements should be noted. You will also detail children’s interactions with people and materials. Record as many details as possible. Anecdotal Records Must Be Objective During the observation process...
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...alternative filmsMainstream films can best be defined as commercial films that are made by major entertainment studios or companies that are owned by international media conglomerates. Because of better financing, these films can afford more expensive actors, wide releases, and are sold at popular retail stores. This has become known as the studio system. Films made by major studios or companies that are not owned by a media conglomerate but are distributed by a company owned by a media conglomerate (see Lucasfilm) are also considered to be mainstream and are often referred to as mainstream independent films. Companies that are completely independent, such as Lionsgate, also produce mainstream films, from a cultural standpoint, but independent of the studio system. The alternative to mainstream films are sub genre films that appeal to a certain audience, such as African American films. Low budget films, art films, and experimental films are often the starting point for entertainers who wish to enter into the mainstream circuit or a sub genre circuit. Mainstream films are targeted for all cultures and audiences, with the dominating culture and audience being the primary marketing focus, while sub genre films are marketed towards only one specific culture and audience. Mainstream films often recruit talent from all film genres and backgrounds. Alternative media are media (newspapers, radio, television, magazines, movies, Internet, etc.) which provide alternative information to the...
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