Writing as a recursive process:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jgg7Lu2lLjQ-uqdW5FZPHngp6cBdKrO5X0Ph3spGeBg/edit
Unfortunately I used my peer’s comments on my first draft to help in constructing my final draft, and I didn’t switch documents so for this piece I will have to rely on memory and honesty with you and with myself. From the very start of this process, my rough draft didn’t contain enough to feel like it was a real rough draft. I felt like I had only accomplished very little and therefor had a lot to do to put together a final draft, so in some ways I did feel rushed. The prompt was challenging for me as I was trying to connect my ideas to something I cared about (racism) and I did have a lot of trouble incorporating the prompt. I know what I need to do for my next essay: I need to meet with my professor and make sure that my thesis is connected to the prompt and I also need to make sure I’m proud of my rough draft, so that can then extend into being proud about my final draft. Within the second essay, I definitely made a step up with my first draft. With this draft I made sure to participate in peer evaluating and also made sure to not delete any comments, which can be seen in the link below. From there, you can see extreme changes from first to second drafts as I added a whole new body paragraph, a conclusion and a works cited. I am proud of the work that I did going from first to a final draft and how it demonstrated writing as a recursive process. The first link is my rough draft and the second is my final.
https://docs.google.com/a/une.edu/document/d/1t3njR5eaIftekXgrwNa0bU0zC020TNyO3vGkuaRF05c/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/a/une.edu/document/d/1UvXB5H5hko35BN8cfwZsBK_wXorT0XYDtsx4nPZ7_Lg/edit?usp=sharing
Integrating your ideas with those of others:
Through this first essay I do believe that I did a good job incorporating quotes that backed up my ideas and connecting the social cohesion quotes to how I felt about racism in America. With that said, I need to work on how to incorporate quotes correctly and also specifically on introducing quotes so there isn’t any dropped quotes throughout my paper. For instance :
“HIV/AIDS are two very different issues but the main point that Epstein discovered was that in order for change to occur, the conversation needed to be started. “When I was in Uganda during the 1990’s, the HIV rate was already falling, and I vividly recall how the reality of AIDS was alive in people’s minds.” (116)”
In this section from my essay, I can see what I’m trying but failing to do. The quote is simply dropped in without an explanation or an introduction and that’s something that I need to remember for my next essay.
Within my second essay I used quotes effectively. “Social change is only accomplishable through connections amongst people. Helen Epstein worked as a scientist in South Africa who fought against the spread of HIV and AIDS. Epstein saw drastic differences in how the disease was being handled and talked about in both South Africa and Uganda. In her chapter “AIDS Inc.” Epstein states, “Open conversation among Ugandans about personal experiences with the virus has succeeded in preventing its spread by breaking the cycle of social stigmas surrounding those infected” (109). Epstein is showing that in order for social change to occur, there need to be relationships formed and the discussion needs to be open in those relationships.” This quote from my second essay clearly shows that I know how to properly introduce, cite, and explain a quote from someone else in my own words. This is a step up from my first essay as I am not dropping quotes randomly throughout the essay.
Active Critical Reading:
Blog post #2:
“Throughout my four years in high school I have noticed that there are some things we as a collective group of people choose not to talk about. Freshman year in particular, there was a required course that all freshman had to take in order to graduate. This course was World Religions. In her Ted Talk, Hallward explains that, “.. on a larger cultural level that means things like death and dying, sexuality, racism, mental illness. And why don’t we talk about these things? That’s because they all have an emotional charge.” (0:15) Hallwards claim is correct and I know that from my own experience in high school within World Religions. This course was something that nobody had any idea what to expect from, and sitting there in class the feeling that everyone was nervous and anxious was very apparent. The word religion already came with certain connotations and charges that were different for each and every person and for some they didn’t care but everyone had some sort of feeling going into the course. The emotional charge of that one word was enough to create this anxious feeling amongst the class before we even knew what we would be taught. It turns out, our teacher was incredible about keeping everyone’s pre conceived notions, biases, and beliefs, outside of the classroom. We learned the basics about each five major religions. We gained knowledge about what they believed in and also why. In many ways, I look back on this required freshman course and I think it was not only the most influential but also the best preparation course that was offered at my high school.”
This is a large portion of one of my blog posts which discusses Anne Hallward’s claims about social cohesion. Through text to self relationships I think I do a good job of explaining the curriculum at my high school and how it connects to what Hallward is getting at. From what I can see through this blog post, I have a strong understanding of how my own experience connects with Hallward’s claim about these emotionally charged subjects that we refuse to talk about due to unfamiliarity or confusion. I’d like to continue being able to find connections between my life and the text.
Critiquing your own and other’ work:
On the first essay, I made a few mistakes which lead to being unable to complete this portion of the learning log and I made sure not to make those same mistakes for my second essay. When editing my peer’s essay I made sure to include specific global and local categories that they could work on. You can see this example below. I clearly give feedback and not just little things here or there. As you can see from the link below, I comment thoroughly throughout the essay and make sure that my peer can get as much help as possible from my comments.
Global
- Good points throughout your essay, you have strong connections to the texts.
- Good use of outside information with Kaepernick and how it connects to what’s going on in the world today.
- I thought your naysayer paragraph was very good.
Local:
1.Don’t get ahead of yourself, check for silly errors. Read your essay out loud and make sure it makes sense.
- Double check on whether Neo Nazi and White Nationalist should be capitalized.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1we8OSwupPUFKDLuFojX9dkbFOtW1y0UKsnDQGPWMdp8/edit
Using MLA citation:
To begin with, I completely forgot a works cited page which is something that I immediately need to improve on. I don’t know how I forgot to do that but it’s not something that can happen again. It’s confusing to me how I let that slip my mind during this process considering I had done it so many times in high school. As for my actual citations, the main thing I need to work on is introducing my quotations.
Helen Epstein fought the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa through exploring possibilities for creating social cohesion amongst those in affected but also with those that were wanting to avoid being affected. HIV/AIDS are two very different issues but the main point that Epstein discovered was that in order for change to occur, the conversation needed to be started. “When I was in Uganda during the 1990’s, the HIV rate was already falling, and I vividly recall how the reality of AIDS was alive in people’s minds.” (116)
With this example I can clearly see what I was trying to do, I just failed to introduce the quote therefor having a dropped quote creates confusion. I need to continue to work on quote integration , that is my goal.
For my second essay I made it a goal of mine to make sure I didn’t drop quotes throughout the essay, because I knew that I had struggled with that on my first essay. I made significant progress with Essay number two. As you can see below the quote is introduced, it is cited properly and afterwards I explain what I think the speaker is saying. This is a significant step up from the last essay and I’m glad my focusing on an original problem let to a learning experience and growth.
In order for racism to continue to be diminished, the social habits in our country need to continuously change. As Duhigg puts it, “ It wasn’t inevitable that Parks’s act of rebellion that winter day would result in anything other than her arrest. Then habits intervened, and something amazing occurred” (87). Racism will not simply disappear. It’s the changing of social habits that is going to eventually wipe racism out of existence.
Managing individual error patterns:
The most common local revisions that were discovered with this first essay were definitely comma splices. Here are two examples:
- This response made things clear, that there are simply bad people out there.
- It doesn’t matter what age someone is, if they’re a bad person they are going to do bad things and these racists are so set in their ways and so hateful that there is no way of changing who they are.
I frequently use comma splices in my writing but this is the first time I’ve ever been told that so first learning what comma splices are and why they’re no good for my writing is important. Then I need to figure out how I’m going to fix this problem. Page 272 in the Little Seagull Reader has a good explanation on comma splices so starting there is my best bet. My goal is to make sure I’m not repeatedly using comma splices in my next essay. These problems continued from my rough draft to my final draft so for my next essay I will inform my peer editors to be on the look out for this pattern specifically. Unfortunately in my second essay I still use an unnecessary comma, as you can see below, but luckily there isn’t a plethora of comma splices. In essay number two I focused on making sure I wasn’t using comma splices and it paid off in my final draft.
“In many cases, we can see that parents who are open to all races and religions, pass those same ideas on to their kids.”
