Blog 10: Some EC

I took out a small portion of an essay I recently wrote. Its about the book, Goddess for Hire, and the main character's new found identity of a reincarnated goddess. (drum roll please......)

Her unconventional career choice (her “job” to defeat world evils as the reincarnated goddess, Kali) is what makes this novel an alternative, or revised, rendition of the chick-lit novel. Its time-consuming and challenging qualities make being a goddess a true job. [Possessive pronoun: its]

Most people would probably visualize a woman character in a chick-lit to be focused on her job, probably in business, or retail, or fashion. Compared to the rest of her family, Maya’s dreams and aspirations are much different than theirs; who are all doctors. [Possessive pronoun: theirs AND who] Maya on the other hand, gives a whole new experience for chick-lit readers. [Simple sentence] Unlike the common business-woman seen in many of these novels, Maya embraced a career that has never been seen before: a reincarnated goddess, whose job is to defeat all the evil in the world. [Possessive pronoun: whose] Whom does Maya reincarnate into? The Hindu goddess, Kali. [Use of whom] Maya is seen in the majority of the book focusing on her powerful skills and learning how to “call the goddess within.” She considered this being her full-time job, and worried that getting a “real” job would interfere with her goddess’ duties. [An apostrophe to show possession on a singular noun ending in –s] Maya and her mom often fought about Maya’s future, and this put tension on their relationship. [Compound sentence] When her mom apologized about her ultimatum of getting a job or moving out, Maya contemplated what she would do in the real-world and was searching for her interests: “Shopping? What about fighting malevolence? Sure, there was some job satisfaction, but…” (p. 207). [Complex sentence] In this passage, she is expressing her fears that embracing her goddess powers would not suffice as a career path.

At the end of the book, all of Maya’s peers and family and community members accept her goddess duties as a full-time position. [Series of 3 items without commas and strung together with ands] In my own opinion (which may be different from yours), it is clear Maya has embraced this career path of being a reincarnated goddess. [Possessive pronoun: yours] Singh has done a great job with this book in making it different from most of the other chick-lit novels.

Blog 9: Pretending to be a big football fan

Don’t get me wrong; I like football and I love the Cougs, but I’m not one of those super-fans who obsess over each and every game, but I needed something to write about (something different that wasn’t “my goals” or “Dora” or anything else we have done in class), and I could not think of anything until I ran into an interesting article about the Cougar football game that one of my friends on Facebook shared; it was about Mike Leach, the Cougar football coach, and how the Oregon coach was bad-mouthing him even though we (the Cougs) were the losing team. [One-sentence paragraph]

The Oregon coach commented on Mike Leach saying he was “low class” and that continuing to pass the ball was “total B.S.” We lost the game by 24 points; how does that make Leach classless? [Rhetorical question] Oregon’s coach was just that— classless. [Dash to emphasize the last element of a sentence] There was no question going in to the game if the Cougars were a better team than Oregon. [Use of than] The Cougs were expected to lose, and were expected to lose by a lot. However they did lose, they kept the score closer than anyone thought they would [Use of however] I guess that was one positive that came out of the game. If the Oregon coach didn’t like what Coach Leach was doing then he should have stopped it. [Use of then]. The Cougars set records for completions and passes attempted and they still lost the game. [Simple sentence with compounded verbs connected with ands]

In my personal opinion, I don’t think the Cougs did anything wrong; what do you think they should have done? [Real question] Keeping the score differential decently low with the #2 team in the nation, the Oregon Ducks, the Cougars (who aren’t necessarily the best football team) are slowly starting to show improvement under the coaching of Mike Leach. Unfortunately, they still lost. [Long sentence followed by short sentence]

Maybe we’ll get them next time
Also, maybe I should become a sports editor (ha ha, only kidding). 

Blog 8- Apple Picking and Appositives

Okay…so I am having a hard time including these POWs in my previous blog posts, and I thought I would change it up and write about my fun weekend of apple picking from a couple weekends ago; It’s easier for me to start from scratch anyway. 

Last weekend (not this Dad’s Weekend, but the one before), my roommate and I dragged our boyfriends along to Bishop’s Apple Orchard to pick apples and make homemade apple cider. [Appositive punctuated with parenthesis] I shouldn’t say we dragged them because I think they wanted to go in the first place, and they really enjoyed themselves as well. ANYWAY…we drove to the orchard, and with three large bags in hand we were ready to pick some apples. The best and ripest apples— the ones on the very top of the tree— were no feat for my roommate, willing and adventurous, to climb up and get. [Appositive punctuated with dashes AND adjectives out of order]. We weren’t sure how many apples we actually needed to pick to make 3 gallons of cider, so we picked and picked until we had all of our bags full of apples.

Once we thought we had enough apples to make cider, we went down to the place that had the apple-cider-making-machines: a shed [Appositive punctuated with a colon].  It was really cool because we had to provide our own gallon jugs as well as pick our own apples; it felt so authentic.The apple-cider-making-machine (dubbed by me), was this tall, wooden thing. It’s hard to explain, but I added a picture in case you needed a visual. We had to put the apples into a grinder, and then had to grind them all into tiny little pieces. After they were grounded up, the apple pieces were ready to be juiced. The grounds of the apples were in a mesh bag that was inside of a barrel. We put the lid on the barrel and pushed it down as far as we could, and before we knew it, three gallons of cider were trickling out of it.

After spinning the wheel of the grinder for so long, all of our arms were exhausted, and we were ready for our reward of freshly juiced cider. [Past participle phrase]. I have to tell you, this cider was the best cider I have ever had. We paid, said our “thank you’s” to the family who ran the orchard, and headed back home. Of course we were all hungry, so we stopped for lunch at Cougar Country, the best burger place in Pullman, and gorged ourselves with a delicious lunch after a fun day of apple picking. [Appositive punctuated with commas].

Blog 6: A Wedding Weekend

I had a crazy long weekend. My sister got married (super exciting) on Saturday, and I decided to take a 3-and-a-half-day weekend to myself to help my sister prepare for the big day. She had me help her with some of her DIY decorations which I’m not particularly great at. Nor do I actually enjoy DIY crafts, mostly because I’m absolutely terrible at crafting. [Starting a sentence with nor] *sigh* Anyway, after class on Thursday, I took off to Spokane, where my sister lives, and spent some quality time with her, the rest of my family, and the groom’s family. Because we live on separate sides of the state, I don’t see them very often; it was nice to catch up and meet some other new family members. [Starting a sentence with because] So Thursday night we all join together for a barbeque and ate and laughed and talked about the wedding.

Friday arrived and the nerves were starting to set in for everybody. But the show must go on! Friday was the day of the rehearsal and the Bachelorette Party that I hosted. Everything leading up to the rehearsal dinner and party consisted of getting the reception space decorated and set up and making sure all the small details were  being taken care of. I have to admit, I was a little cranky at the rehearsal because it was held outside and it was cold, windy and wet. [Using because at the end of a sentence] Don’t worry; I persevered knowing I would be rewarded with a fancy dinner of Pizza Hut afterwards.

The Bachelorette Part was Friday night after the rehearsal and dinner. With the help of the other bridesmaids, I threw a pretty fun party. I’m not sure if this is normal or not, but my grandma and her shenanigans were the life of the party (for real!); she is so fun. [A compound sentence using a semicolon] When the party died down and everyone was getting tired, we put in a movie called Bride Wars, which we thought to be appropriate to end the night that was before the wedding.

Saturday morning started bright and early due to the time of our hair appointments. My sister, though she usually is an early-riser to begin with, woke up at about 4am…5 hours before the hair appointment was scheduled. [Using  though to interrupt a main sentence] I chose not to wake up that early, but was still up before I would prefer to be nonetheless. All of the bridesmaids, including myself, were super excited to get all dolled up for the big day; my sister especially. With freshly styled hair and fantastic makeup, the 6 of us made our way back to finally get dressed into our wedding-day attire. With dresses and heels on, we packed up our umbrellas to get ready to face the rainy weather for hundreds of pictures. I was cold, I was wet, but I was there to help my sister stay warm and dry while we were taking pictures. As a sister, I was unhappy about the weather conditions and wanted to run inside, take my uncomfortable heels off and curl up with a blanket; as a maid of honor, I sucked it up. [A compound sentence using a semicolon, the two sentences mirroring each other, with repeated parallel structure]

After pictures, the ceremony began. It was a really nice ceremony that was short and sweet. By this time I was ready for a big dinner and to sit down for just a minute. The reception consisted of a delicious dinner and some great dancing including square dancing (more or less), jumping up and down, and line dancing; the “Cha-Cha Slide” and “Cotton-Eyed Joe” included. [using a semicolon as a super comma.] It was a great day/night. But I’m happy to be back in Pullman, in my apartment, wearing slippers instead of high-heels.

               

Blog 5: A lot of grammar in a small response

As I was reading the story about Dora, it didn’t occur to me that some readers thought that the teacher did not do enough to help her; I thought the teacher went about teaching Dora in the most appropriate and effective way. I THOUGHT SHE WENT ABOUT TEACHING DORA IN THE MOST APPROPRIATE AND EFFECTIVE WAY [Compounded subject with two or more personal pronouns]. Most people, especially children, do not react to criticism well. It can often be discouraging if you are being corrected over and over again. Dora's story is a great example of how a typical first-grader writes; its content is simple and isn't always in clear-cut sentences. The way the teacher corrected Dora, whose punctuation was not used correctly, was exactly how a young child should be corrected. Not once did the teacher give her students negative feedback about the writing of theirs. I think positivity is an important factor to teaching and to learning [Compound sentence with two or more verbs joined with and]. Instead of correcting her and going on about how her punctuation was wrong, the teacher would ask Dora to read her story out loud which helped Dora see where the periods were supposed to be. When reading her stories, the teacher smiled which gave Dora a sense of confidence and made her feel like she was doing something right.  When she came across a period that was misused, Dora was not scolded or told “that is wrong,” the teacher simply would have Dora look at a picture book she was reading and compare her own work to the book. Dora could easily point out the differences and I think it’s a great idea to have kids compare their own work to something they are familiar with, like a picture book. THE TEACHER WORKED HARD TO HELP DORA AND THE OTHER STUDENTS UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF WRITING [Compound sentence with two or more subjects connected with and].

Dora was showing progress by trying out different methods of using periods. She tried putting them in between words, at the end of lines, at the end of the pages. Grammar is difficult to learn for many young children who are first starting out. The fact that Dora was trying different methods shows that she is trying to get the concept right in her mind; she knows that what she is doing may not be correct so she tries to make her use of periods more logical. Children who are first learning to write, including Dora, don’t understand the concept of sentences [Use of who]. Why shouldn’t they be able to put a period at the end of the line? It looks right to them. Also, there is a big difference between the way we talk and the way we write. THE WAY WE TALK AND THE WAY WE WRITE DIFFER [S-LV-O>>S-V-O]. Sometimes how we talk does not match up with the correct use of grammar. Grammar is complicated and abstract and confusing. It changes with society which makes it hard to keep up with. Reading about Dora was a good eye-opener to see how a child sees grammar and the long process it is to learn.

Dora Learns to Write and in the Process Encounters Punctuation

As I was reading the story about Dora, it didn’t occur to me that some readers thought that the teacher did not do enough to help her; I thought the teacher went about teaching Dora in the most appropriate and effective way. Most people, especially children, do not react to criticism well. It can often be discouraging if you are being corrected over and over again. Dora's story is a great example of how a typically first-grader writes; ITS [possessive pronoun] content is simple and isn't always in clear-cut sentences. The way the teacher corrected Dora, WHOSE [possessive pronoun] punctuation was not used correctly, was exactly how a young child should be corrected. Not once did the teacher give her students negative feedback about THEIR [possessive pronoun] writing. I think positivity is an important factor to teaching and to learning. Instead of correcting her and going on about how her punctuation was wrong, the teacher would ask Dora to read her story out loud which helped Dora see where the periods were supposed to be. When reading her stories, the teacher smiled which gave Dora a sense of confidence and made her feel like she was doing something right.  When she came across a period that was misused, Dora was not scolded or told “that is wrong,” the teacher simply would have Dora look at a picture book she was reading and compare her own work to the book. Dora could easily point out the differences and I think it’s a great idea to have kids compare their own work to something they are familiar with, like a picture book. 

Dora was showing progress by trying out different methods of using periods. She tried putting them in between words, at the end of lines, at the end of the pages. Grammar is difficult to learn for many young children who are first starting out. The fact that Dora was trying different methods shows that she is trying to get the concept right in her mind; she knows that what she is doing may not be correct so she tries to make her use of periods more logical. Children who are first learning to write, including Dora, don’t understand the concept of sentences. Why shouldn’t they be able to put a period at the end of the line? It looks right to them. Also, there is a big difference between the way we talk and the way we write. Sometimes how we talk does not match up with the correct use of grammar. Grammar is complicated, abstract and confusing. It changes with society which makes it hard to keep up with. Reading about Dora was a good eye-opener to see how a child sees grammar and the long process it is to learn.

GOALS

It all started with a spoon that could talk. When I was in 2^nd grade, I wrote a book for something called Young Authors. I got weirdly into it and wrote a book about a talking spoon and wanted to be a real author from that point on.  So I am not a real-life author at this point in my life but I still do enjoy writing (for the most part). So what kind of writing do I enjoy? Mostly casual and informal types of writing; BLOGGING, LETTERS TO FRIENDS, “ABOUT ME” ESSAYS. [series of adjectives connected with commas and no and’s] And what do I dislike to write? Research papers. There is something about a research paper that makes me want to cringe. They are so boring and dull; I feel like it is so hard to get your voice through all of the BS that is put in there to make it the to the required 10+ pages. Basically, I love writing when it’s on my own time and the topic is something I can either relate to or is something I’m interested in. 

Being someone who enjoys writing, I am always looking for ways to improve, especially since I am hoping to become a middle school English or Language Arts teacher. That is why I’m excited to be taking this course! Overall, I would say that I’m a pretty decent writer but there are always ways of improvement. I am an avid semi-colon user. Whether I use the semi-colon in the correct way or not, I am unsure.  I do it in hopes to break up a run-on sentence. My own definition of a semi-colon would be a sentence that could either have a comma or a period and still make sense. It’s kind of a shady definition that probably doesn’t fit the real one at all but like I said, I’m looking to improve! An example of my semi-colon use comes from this very blog post: “They are so boring and dull; I feel like it is so hard to get your voice through all of the BS that is put in there to make it the to the required 10+ pages.” Along with trying to avoid a run-on sentence, I use a semi-colon to connect two sentences or ideas that go along with each other. 

Something else that is seen in my writing is the over-use of the same word. This is something that I have been critiqued on in almost all of my academic writing since I’ve been in college. Here is an example from this blog post (once again): “When I was in 2^nd grade, I wrote a book for something called Young Authors. I got weirdly into it and wrote a book about a talking spoon.” I get told that using the same word a lot in one paragraph is REPETITIVE AND BORING AND WRONG. [series of adjectives connected with and and no commas] I think I do this to try and emphasize one word so the reader can really get a grip on what I’m trying to say. It is something that I have to constantly be aware of so this is something I hope I can change (accidentally used "something" twice in one sentence and realized it after rereading before I post).