Reflection of CommuniWrite

I think the blog was a great idea! It helped me prepare for class and think outside the box. I really liked the blog process better than what it would have been like to write a journal. I believe the blog is more efficient and it is easier to type something up then it is to write something. It saves a lot of time. It helped me stay focused on what we did in class or what we were going to be covering. It helped me prepare for class discussions which I find as a beneficial piece of equipment. I liked the blogs because it gave my professor immediate feedback on my thoughts and opinions. I would recommend the blog process to other teachers. It was a great success and it was very beneficial to me.

Effectiveness of The Review Strategies in Class

The revision strategies we did in class I found very effective because it allowed me to see what other people thought of my work. The strategies were very helpful because people were very good at giving advice. They told me I just need to elaborate more on my own because my research is good. I think if I do that my revisions will be very beneficial to my paper. Not to mention I found these revisions not very stressful so I really enjoyed listening to others opinions.

Free Blog (Thanksgiving)

I am so happy that Thanksgiving is next week. Thanksgiving is a time to get together with family and friends. I am excited for Thanksgiving because I have not been home for about ten weeks! It is going to be awesome to see my family and friends in the little town of Custer, South Dakota. It has felt like an eternity since I last mingled with them. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving break only last four days, so my stay will be short. I am not complaing because any time I get to spend time with family and friends it a great time. Not to mention a great home-cooked meal for the first time in ages. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Outline

Today's outline we did in class really made me think of how I wanted to organize my paper. I found it really beneficial because it made organization a little easier and it gave me more ideas on what to write about. I got a lot more accomplished because of the outline. It is different than any other outline I have done because it went into such great detail. Every other outline I did it was just like what are you going to write about. It didn't give the details like what is the point you are trying to make and I really liked that. I believe this outline will help me write my literary analysis. Although, I may struggle with this writing assignment I still find the outline very helpful.

New Thesis Statement for Literary Analysis

In Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game"  Zaroff and Rainsford signify the effects of post-traumatic stress after warfare.

Thesis Statement for Literary Analysis

In Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" the characters, Zaroff and Rainsford represent how post-traumatic stress can effect people differently after warfare.

Reading Critically

In class, I learned that if you read things critically it can totally change how you view the story. In class I was really amazed of what you can take from a story if you don't take its literal meaning. I would have never guessed "The White Heron" went into such detail about her womanhood if we didn't go over that in class because I never made that connection at all. I learned that reading critically is a great way to show what the authors purpose for writing the story is. When I attempted to read critically I still don't understand what to look for when I am trying to make connections. I mean in class it seemed so easy to make connections. I would have to ask what do I look for to make connections? Do I have to have more of an imagination or what? When I try reading critically I don't know what parts of the story I should interpret differently then its actual text. I wonder if I am tryingn to read it too critically that I cannot make the connection. Are most the things I am looking for common knowledge. I guess I really struggle with reading critically because I don't understand what to look for. So how can I improve on reading critically because that would really help me understand the true meaning of a story.

Symbolism

"A White Heron"

     I think the big tree that Sylvia climbs up on symbolizes clear thought because when she gets to the top she realizes that she should not tell the boy where the heron is because it means so much to the wilderness. I believe the color white or the color of the heron represents how important life is. After seeing the heron in the wild Sylvia sees what life is like in the country or wilderness and decides not to tell the boy where it is at, so it can live freely and live its full life and that its life is way more important than that of ten dollars. I think the hunter simply represents intrusion because he just shows up and mess with the wilderness. Like the birds were living peacefully, but then when the boy came he just wanted to take over and bribe Sylvia into telling him where the heron was so he got everything he wanted.

"The Yellow Wall-Paper"

     I think the man himself symbolizes something in particular. I believe the man symbolizes his power over women kind of like how things were before the 1900s. He is always telling her what she can and cannot do why he goes to work, while she stays at the house doing nothing. I think the wall-paper symbolizes is pattern or a certain context that wife believes she needs to interpret because it affects her directly. I believe the bars that the wife sees in the wall-paper symbolizes being trapped. I think the bars mean being trapped because she doesn't have control over herself her husband tells her what to do, instead of thinking for herself.

Women Conditions in the 1900s

The 1900s was an era of change for women in the United States. Women of the middle class began to enroll in colleges or training programs (Austin 1). Women with the advanced educational knowledge made the devolopment of new types of human service organizations possible (Austin 1). Without women the development of  human services organizations would not be possible (Austin 1). Organizations such as the large general hospital and psychiatric hospitals were controlled by men but ran by women as nurses (Austin 1). The public schools had male principals but the staff of schools were mainly women (Austin 1). I think women really helped these organizations thrive because women are really good with nurturing and care something a man necessarily isn't good at. With women becoming more involved with better education and better jobs women began to start making career choices before marriage decisions (Austin 1). This is significant to me because women were always thought to stay at home and do the housework where men were supposed to do all the work outside of the house and make money. I believe this change was really good for society because it shows how everyone should have equal opportunity and the right to high levels of education. After reading how far women have come in today's world it makes me respect women even more than what I do because I don't believe women should just be seen as people who do house chores. I believe they deserve the same education and opportunity for work as men do and it is great to see how women have turned the tables then what it was in older years.

The Most Dangerous Game

After I read the Most Dangerous Game I was a little bit upset. I can't believe someone like General Zaroff would go to such extremes to get a thrill out of something. In General Zaroff's case his ultimate thrill was hunting men. To me killing other humans for a thrill is just wrong. I can't seem to see why anyone in the world would want to kill someone just for ultimate satisfaction. I mean he hunted Rainsford for three days. I think Zaroff had a serious problem if he thinks killing humans is the ultimate thrill. This is the only thing that really sticks out in my mind. I guess I wouldn't ever think of killing anyone especially for just a thrill or pleasure. I could understand killing an animal to put food on the table for the family but not another man for ultimate pleasure.

Omelas

At first when I was reading this story I thought Omelas was this perfect city where people were always happy and really free to do whatever they wanted. I was thinking man it would be great to live in a city as wonderful as Omelas, then I came to the child that sits in a dark, dirty, secluded room and I began to feel sick to my stomach to imagine this poor child sitting alone in the dark. This is where my feelings began to change when people would open the door and start kicking the child to get it to stand up. I could not believe that the city's happiness was really set up around this one child's misery. My opinion of the great city soon changed to wow these people are so harsh. How could they live with themselves? Well come to find out some people did care about the child but they knew that the misery of the child is what made the city happy which still makes me sick because to me everyond is equal and deserves the same amount or opportunity for the same happiness. Why should one child be rejected that? I think when the man or woman or child walked away from Omelas they were actually freeing themselves from the suffering. I think that maybe they sought better opportunity and to seek their own happiness rather than living off one childs misery. This story really hit me because I saw the city as being perfect when actually it was kind of a harsh city that had a major flaw. It made me see that maybe some things seem perfect but they really aren't so don't judge something for what it seems and be happy with what you are dealt. I thought this was a very touching story, at least how I interpreted it.

Writing Process

When I was writing my research paper I noticed that these things take a lot of time and a lot of reading things I do not like to do or do not have a lot of. When I was writing my research paper I learned things about the black footed ferret that I had never known before. I had no idea the black-footed ferret was almost extinct at one point in time. While doing my research paper I learned that humans can have a huge effect on the animals around them. I learned that it isn't that bad to write 7 to 10 pages on something you are passionated about it as well as interested in. The ferret is one of the few things that I have ever wanted to keep reading about I think that is because I love animals and the ferret lives where I am from. I found that kind of neat. I will need a little help to make my paper a little longer so I can reach the minimum of 8 pages. Overall I thought this writing experience expanded my knowledge dramatically on my topic. Although I don't like writing and reading this much I now see that research can be beneficial to me. Also I learned if you are passionate about something it can drive you further than what you ever would have gone before.

Evaluation This Far in Semester

I really like the discussion based classes I feel like everyone including myself is more interested in class that way. I don't really like having to read and take a quiz every day. I don't really understand what I am reading half of the time or what to expect on the quizzes so I really struggle with that. Not to mention I am a really poor reader so it takes a lot of time to read things so if I have to read things twice I don't have time to do that. I cannot really complain about much except all the quizzes and reading. I think the discussions are great. I don't really like writing this many papers either. I know we are required to but I am not a great writer so I think my grade suffers because of it. I have no idea if I am improving at all or if I can improve. I feel rushed to get these papers done because of all the other classes I have. I don't feel like I really have a lot of time to work on much. Also I am having a hard time with your class. I just have a lot on my mind and it is just hard for me to take everything in.

Topic

My topic I want to write about is the black footed ferret. The kind of questions I think I would need to ask myself are: What is a black footed ferret? Where does it live? How does it live? Why was it almost extinct? What does it eat? Why do we need to save the ferret? Why is the ferret important? How big is the population? What does the ferret need to survive? Asking myself these types of questions would prove why we need to save the black footed ferret. These questions would let the reader know background information on the black footed and for people that don't know a lot about black footed ferrets it would give good and accurate information on the black footed ferret. The point I would try to support is to prove why we should save the black footed ferret. I believe people need to know what the black footed ferret is because it is a unique and interesting animal. It was thought to be completely wiped out. So I just think it is important for people to know what the ferret is.

Research Paper

I have a few good ideas of what I want to do my research on. My problem is I don't know if either will work for this paper. My first choice would be to write about black-footed ferrets because they are interesting creatures and it is controversial to keep prairie dogs around to save the black footed ferret. Would I be doing the research on prairie dogs or the black footed ferret? Second I would like to write about the cure for AIDS or Cancer. Would it be difficult to find research done on that? Another subject that would be a possibility would be a way to prevent second-hand smoke. I am not real interested in smoking, but it hurts everyone's health so I would try to find enough research together to find a solution. I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to write about something like that. I think the class session today really helped me and was really beneficial to everyone in the class. It helped me find little topics that I could write about for the black footed ferret. I was very excited when people started asking me all sorts of questions about it because I am very interested in wildlife especially the black footed ferret. I was surprised with all the ideas that everyone else came up with. I liked the "class therapy" today because it was great to hear other people's views on certain issues. I was very intrigued by what topics were brought up and class. I hope there are more days like these because I think it was very beneficial.

Presentations

I thought presentations went very well. I thought everyone did a great job of explaining their revision strategies. However, outside the class room as far as my group was concerned, we did not really work very well together. We didn't meet to work on our presentation at all. Everyone was just left out to dry because no one in my group really had any time to meet because of classes. I do think we came together pretty well as a group to give people a good understanding of our revision strategies. I took it upon myself to get a good understanding of every single strategy I was assigned so I could help the rest of the group out if they did not understand which was going on. I think in some cases it really paid off. I learned from these presentations that you have to do your part and do not rely on the rest of your group members, so be PREPARED!!

Peer Review Over My Proposal Paper

I found the peer review on my proposal paper to be very uplifting. I had thought I wrote my most horrible paper ever. I could not believe my ears when Isabel said that my paper was very interesting and that it flowed really nicely. I know proposal review is supposed to give you ideas on what you can work on, but to me this really brightened my spirits and gave me hope that maybe my paper is not as bad as what I think it is. I would just like someone a little bit older with more experience to look over my paper though and tell me what they think about it. Today I learned that peer review is not just a way to get ideas about your paper but a tool that can also brighten your day.

Proposal Essay Working Thesis (Needs a lot of work)

The continual use of scientific animal research as well as animal characteristics would allow people to live healthier, more comfortable, longer lives, and would prove why it should not be eliminated.An area of animal research showing great promise is that of genetic engineering.  One part of genetic engineering that will be able make a difference involves transforming animals into carriers of human organs for human transplants.Scientists can use characteristics like intelligence, stress, tolerance of pain, and the way we live our lives as possible things that could distinguish the way humans look at life to the way humans treat animals. Researchers are using animal testing to find a way to use less animals and eventually go to non-animal experiments some time in the future.

My Reaction to Katha Pollitt

I can't believe someone in this country believes that the flag stands for "jingoism,vengeance, and war." Maybe it is just the fact that I believe the flag stands for something completely different. I believe the flag represents what it means to be free and it makes me remember all of the people who have died defending this country. So to read what Kath Pollitt told her daughter that the living room was off limits to fly the flag, I was actually really appauled. Also I think it was just the timing in which she used the terms. I mean this was just a few days after nine-eleven where many of innocent people lost their lives. I totally disagree to say that the flag represents "jingoism,vengeance, and war." I mean I get where some might think that but for me, maybe it is because I live here and I have seen some of the other countries. I believe America is the best country in the world. I think America is truly the land of opportunity. However, I do understand everyone has there opinions and her judgement of the flag does not make her right and it does not make her wrong. That is something we are all entitled to.

MyCompLab

After doing the mycomplab excercise I realized that slang has begun a part of my everyday life. I noticed that I could not tell the difference between what was slang and what wasn't. I picked up on it after a while but now I understand how much I have become one of the people that use slang. It is actually kind of funny because I don't think I use that kind of language. So when I got wrong something to do with "the guys" I was honestly shocked that it was wrong. I find it extremely fascinating in a weird way. It is funny how slang kind of has taken over my life and now I don't even recognize it. I just wish I would have done better on the excercise but it is not always what you get right but what you take from the excercise. I now have a better understanding of what slang looks like

What Do I Hope To Accomplish?

I hope to overcome my shyness in class. I hate my shyness because it makes me clam up in class. When really I speak my own mind and I have my own opinions, but since I am shy I am scared to say something. I really don't know how to overcome this feat because I don't even know what the first step is. I am really great with hanging out with friends and everything. I don't really understand why I can't do the same in class. I mean I am not scared of any body in my class they all seem like good people, but I also see that they are as quiet as me in the class room. I think that sometimes my pride gets in the way and that I am afraid of being wrong, which would explain why I am shy. So I think I need to stop being tense and learn how to relax during class and have free discussion. I mean if i firmly believe in anything being shy shouldn't have any effect on why I can't say things in class unless I am scared. Honestly I think I am just scared. To overcome this I I need to relax and forget my pride. So what if I am wrong. Some things don't even have a write or wrong answer it is just an opinion. If I am wrong so what. Maybe I could learn from my mistakes. Isn't that what going to school and life is all about? Learning from your mistakes. I think I will try to be more active in class. I hope that I could just conquer this fear one time because once I get over it the first time the easier it is going to be. This is not something I just blogged about because Lindsey was upset that we were all quiet in class. I am writing about this because this is a fear I have wanted to defeat my whole life. Instead, I just live with it and not do anything about it.

Grammar Diagnostic

 I discovered I am really bad at grammar today. The diagnostic did show me however, that I am actually decent at placing commas. I always thought this was my weakest link as far writing and grammar goes. I found out I have a problem with run-on sentences. I hope I can correct or improve this aspect of my writing. I was just really shocked that things I thought I was really good at, I actually suck at.

English Reading and Reaction to "University of Life"

     Reading "University of Life" made me open my eyes and see things from a different perspective just as Hillary Clinton did. I mean I am not one to get into politics mainly because I do not pay that close attention to them, and I am neutral as far as political parties are concerned. "University of Life" made me see that other perspectives can lead to some pretty interesting things and that my view is not the only view out there. I mean just like Hillary Clinton was all bummed that she had to be President Johnson in her mock election instead of being Goldwater. Even Hillary herself did not know she would switch parties at that time until after the experience. So I guess this selection really showed me that I should not be afraid or scared to look at something from a different perspective even if I do not like it.

English Reading

After reading "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" I realized how war can really tear people from their families. Like when Mr. Pirzada would always watch the news to see what was happening in his homeland and never knowing what was happening to his family. I would find this extremely difficult because during hardship I am one who would be there in a blink of an eye for my family. I mean coming to college at times feels like the most awful thing that has happened to me as far as being away from family. So I cannot imagine what was going through Mr. Pirzada's mind or what he was feeling. "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" it made me realize that family is not a given and that I shouldn't take my family for granite because war and other terrible things could tear you apart. It made me really happy to see the Mr.Pirzada was reunited with his family. I wish the same could be said for all families who have family members or relatives in the military.

A Little Bit About Me

My name is Jordan Konkol. I was born in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where I lived for five years. I am a huge animal lover. I love spending time with friends. I was born with a pulmonary valve disorder. I had open heart surgery to repair this valve on June 4th, 2009. I love to play sports such as: football, basketball, and track. I have three sisters. The thing that is most important to me besides life is spending time with my family. That is me in a nutshell.