Hello bloggers! This is it! This is my last writing prompt and I have mixed emotion of being sad and happy that I got to go through this type of experience of writing. Due to the Coronavirus I did not have the luxury to say a proper goodbye to my fellow classmates so from me to you virtually I would like to take a moment and say goodbye and I enjoyed being in a class with a lot of different spirits :) In today’s blog post I will be reflecting on my experience throughout this entire journey of English Composition I. These are the links I looked at for this blog.
GRITT IS...
Genre awareness is understanding how to use tone, content, vocabulary to write to a specific audience. The genre awareness sets the tone for the audience and makes what they are reading easy to describe.Genre awareness has been a huge help throughout this course because I can scope out what type of mood I have to go for and what audience I am writing towards . In my memoir I generated it to be sad but also happy remembering all of the good times Armand and I had. Rhetorical awareness is understanding that you fulfilled the purpose of your writing to fit your audience. My experience with rhetorical awareness and making sure to add it in my prompts made it easier to write to my audience and made reading my work more interesting that what you would see on any regular prompt. I applied rhetorical awareness in my writing prompts by spacing my words and paragraphs in a certain way to please my audience. my identity of an author has improved dramastically in this course and is still flourishing. I have overcome the obstacles of not knowing how to write papers or what to include in them. This course has helped me find my inner writer and identify what writing pieces I love to compose. Being able to express different types of emotions through writing has showed me that I enjoy doing this a lot. Before this course English was my worse subject and for some reason I could never pass that class. I thought it was just me and my bad luck with not knowing how to compose a “perfect” paper but then coming to this class and flourishing how I did showed me that it wasn’t me at all. Kierra and I would both agree that I have grown a lot in the past months. I got deeper into finding kierra when I noticed how fun writing can actually be! Being a blogger has a lot of ups to it. Being able to be creative in every piece has to be my favorite part of this entire process. My theory of writing has become very creative and interesting. This course has impacted the way I value and define writing by showing me that I can be myself while meeting the criteria. The composition concept I most value is don’t think of writing as the final product but as a process. This spoke to me bad use I have a habit of just thinking about the final grade and not actually about what I am composing My transfer of writing to future writing situations: I plan to use my writing knowledge to compose writing prompts in future academic context by creativity to every paper and making it my own and non-academic context by looking at life as one big book that we are just a character in. At work I see myself having to take notes and write down daily task that should be completed and in meeting I would have to persuade my coworkers to agree with a certain change I feel is mandatory.
1 Comment
Hey everybody, welcome back to my blog. This week we recreated our last blog as a “what if” (counterfactual). The links will be left below so you can get a better understanding. The “what if” questions for this blog is “what if the doctors had caught it the first time” and “what if I had answered the phone when she had called me that morning?”
Every summer my aunt Lauren comes from Canada and visits us for a while in the U.S. She always tells us that one day she’s going to move back home (in the states) and how she’s homesick and misses everybody. This time when she came to visit and she complained a lot about pain in her leg. My mom being the worrisome older sister tells her to get it checked out immediately and make sure that it isn’t anything life threatening. Fast forward to the end of the summer which is always the saddest part of the year when my aunt left to go back to Canada, she went to her doctor and got everything checked out and the test came back “normal”. Two weeks later on September 17th my aunt called me but I didn’t answer because I was just waking up on my way to school. Later in the day I called back and got no answer at all. Then unexpectedly I got a call from her father who told me that my aunt is in a coma. So immediately the next day me and my family flew to Canada and met my aunt in the hospital. “Why didn’t the doctors catch this sooner when she came in the first time.” says my mom hysterically in tears. “I wish I could tell you, but only God knows why this happens the way it did my child” My grandmom replied. *The doctor walks in* “Hello everyone i am sorry to say but Lauren has not been showing any brain activity and most likely will not make it. Is the mother here somewhere?” “I am here.” She replied. “Can you explain to me everything that has happened to my daughter?” “Yes ma’am sure.” The doctor replied. “Your daughter Lauren had a blood clot in her leg which overtime traveled up to her lungs causing a pulmonary embolism. Now you do have the option of letting her go naturally or pulling the plug now, take your time and let me know what option would be best for you. I am sorry this has happened.” “Oh no I am not letting my daughter go! I refuse to end her life. She will make it a miracle will happen!” My grandmom cried out. Two days have past. It is now September 20th 2018. At this point everybody was filled with grief and lost all hope that my aunt would make it out of this coma. Days went by more family flew in and she still had not woken up. I didn’t want to give up on her just yet so I made it my duty to still talk to her and make her feel as comfortable as I could. My mom was right beside me and never gave up hope either. From time to time my aunt had little movement going on in her hands and legs but not much. “How long will this coma go on for?” I asked my mom. “I don’t know baby days,weeks or even months but however long it takes it will all be worth it.” “I don’t want to go back to school until we are all out of this hospital.” I replied. “Where is aniyah? It has to be hard for her now that her mom is in this condition.” One of Lauren’s best friends asked. “She is with her dad she should be coming here later on today.” Hours passed by still no change in condition. Some of our family has left to return to their lives and jobs and aniyah is brought to the hospital. Me along with my mom grandmom and uncle and aunt stayed in the hospital. We were still very optimistic that she would make it through this alive. “She’ll make it she’s strong I know she will.” My mom says. “Yeah she’s a fighter she won’t give up I know it.” *Aniyah climbs up on the bed and lays with her mom* “Mommy I love you.” Once those words were said the machine went blank-- “Is… is everything alright?” My grandmom said in a panick. “NO NOT MY BABY NOT MY BABY!!!” Today, my mom now has guardianship over aniyah and she is turning 9 this year! We were able to bury my aunt in the U.S. (her home) where she always wanted to return to one day. I still think about her everyday and know that she is watching over us. Still to this day I think to myself what could’ve happened if the doctors had ran every test there was. Would they have treated her for the bloodclot? What if I had just answered the phone when my aunt called me the first time. Would she still be with us today? I feel like if I had answered then I could’ve made a huge impact on the situation and saved her from dying. Per se the doctors had caught it earlier, everything could have been avoided and nobody would’ve had to be put in this predicament. But Instead my aunt laid there and waited 10-15 mins for an ambulance to finally show up to her house. Now every time I have a faint leg pain or a family member is in the hospital I get terrified. Hello readers! This is my fifth blog post. In English Composition I, we read the short story Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway along with many other great stories linked below but this be in particular made me choose the storyI chose. One theme that stood out to me was misbelief. I show a lot of that in my short dialogue too. My short story is about the time my aunt ended up in the hospital very suddenly. There was little that we could’ve done to help her and so we did feel very helpless but tried to keep all hope. Enjoy.
It is the night of September 18th 2018. We are in Toronto, Canada in a hospital visiting my 28 year old aunt who suddenly fell into a coma. It is a warm summer night, the temperature is about 70 degrees. In the hospital there is my mom, grandmom, aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends and myself. We are all heartbroken by this sudden tragedy, and pray and hope my aunt wakes up from this coma. “Why didn’t the doctors catch this sooner when she came in the first time.” says my mom hysterically in tears. “I wish I could tell you, but only God knows why this happens the way it did my child” My grandmom replied. *The doctor walks in* “Hello everyone i am sorry to say but Lauren has not been showing any brain activity and most likely will not make it. Is the mother here somewhere?” “I am here.” She replied. “Can you explain to me everything that has happened to my daughter?” “Yes ma’am sure.” The doctor replied. “Your daughter Lauren had a blood clot in her leg which overtime traveled up to her lungs causing a pulmonary embolism. Now you do have the option of letting her go naturally or pulling the plug now, take your time and let me know what option would be best for you. I am sorry this has happened.” “Oh no I am not letting my daughter go! I refuse to end her life. She will make it a miracle will happen!” My grandmom cried out. Two days have past. It is now September 20th 2018. At this point everybody was filled with grief and lost all hope that my aunt would make it out of this coma. Days went by more family flew in and she still had not woken up. I didn’t want to give up on her just yet so I made it my duty to still talk to her and make her feel as comfortable as I could. My mom was right beside me and never gave up hope either. From time to time my aunt had little movement going on in her hands and legs but not much. “How long will this coma go on for?” I asked my mom. “I don’t know baby days,weeks or even months but however long it takes it will all be worth it.” “I don’t want to go back to school until we are all out of this hospital.” I replied. “Where is aniyah? It has to be hard for her now that her mom is in this condition.” One of Lauren’s best friends asked. “She is with her dad she should be coming here later on today.” Hours passed by still no change in condition. Some of our family has left to return to their lives and jobs and aniyah is brought to the hospital. Me along with my mom grandmom and uncle and aunt stayed in the hospital. We were still very optimistic that she would make it through this alive. “She’ll make it she’s strong I know she will.” My mom says. “Yeah she’s a fighter she won’t give up I know it.” *Aniyah climbs up on the bed and lays with her mom* “Mommy I love you.” Once those words were said the machine went blank-- “Is… is everything alright?” My grandmom said in a panick. “NO NOT MY BABY NOT MY BABY!!!” Welcome back to blog post #4! Thanks for hanging in there with me so far guys. this week we focused on the writing process. I read three different articles (linked below) about the writing process. Every writer had a different view on what it consist of and it was very interesting to see. This was one of the more difficult blog post to write but like any other I had a lot of fun coming up with this skit. I hope you enjoy reading this. One afternoon my friend and I decided to go to the library and get some homework done. My project was a narrative essay that i was totally confused about. I turned to my friend and said “I'm so stuck I don't even know where to begin, help me.” As soon as my friend was about to help me out we both overheard a voice say, “almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” We quickly turned to see who it was that gave their input and to my friends surprise it was Anne Lamott. She was accompanied by another woman (Mary Karr) and a man (Don Murray).
“Oh my gosh! Anne Lamott I'm a huge fan!” my friend said filled with excitement. I had no idea who these people were at first but soon after we exchanged hellos they all began to give me more advice on writing. I asked her why I could not think of a great first draft to write and why am i so stuck on writing a simple narrative. Ånne replied “shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts." I had no idea that even the best writers like herself go through this issue of having shitty first drafts. Don Murray added, “the writing process itself can be divided into three stages: pre-writing, writing, and rewriting. The amount of time a writer spends in each stage depends on his personality, his work habits, his maturity as a craftsman, and the challenge of what he is trying to say.” He continued by saying “when you complete a draft you know how much, and how little, you know.” I responded to that comment asking “why is it harder to write this narrative for my college class when i've done it numerous times throughout high school?’’ Don said “what works one time may not another. All writing is experimental.” I nodded and proceeded to ask my next question. “How can i make sure i've done the best that i could ever do on this assignment?” Mary Karr said “Revision is the secret to their troubles—and yours. That, and a sense of quality that exceeds what you can do—that gives you something to strive for. Actually, every writer needs two selves—the generative self and the editor self”. I commented on that statement by telling her i do revise but still can never get the grade i desire on this specific paper. She said “every writer I know who’s worth a damn spends way more time ‘losing’ than ‘winning’ ”. The way that I interpreted this is that all I need to do is keep practicing and revising until I get the grade I want. Never give up. All of this information was greatly appreciated and helped me alot. She continued by saying “other than a few instances of good luck, good work only comes from revision.” I started to get the feeling that she focuses on revising her work more than anything. Hearing everybody's advice calmed my nerves and I felt much better about writing my paper. Before the three writers left Anne had one more piece of advice to give me, “I always show my work to one of two people before sending a copy to my editor or agent. I feel more secure and connected this way, and these two people get a lot of good work out of me.” After she said that she winked at my friend and walked out of the library with Karr and Murray. Welcome back friends and hello to any new readers! In this blog assignment I will be writing a letter to my author self ‘Kierra’. The idea for this amazing letter came from a reading I will be linking down below. This letter inspired me more than I thought it would and I hope it inspires everybody else who decides to read it.
A Fable for the Living Dear Kierra, You are so much more than what you may think. You hold so much potential in you and you just haven’t found the right way to show it. You’ve heard the saying “your mind is a cupboard and you stock the shelves”, be creative, be free and see where it all leads you. Watch how fast you love who you become. Stop waiting for everything to come to you and start making things happen on your own love. Right now the relationship between me and you feel like we both were born on the same day minutes apart but only one of us lived our lives to our fullest potential while the other barely got to see the sunlight. You hold so much potential in you that you don’t know how to let out properly. You are an exquisite, smart and talented person, make that mean something! Take advantage of what you know you can achieve and be the unyielding writer you know deep down you can become. Your biggest problem is that you stock your shelves with the wrong things. You need to stop focusing on issues that won’t help you in the long run and focus on important factors that will. Never forget that you are the creator of your own destiny, so if you choose to stock your shelves with expired goods you’ll become no better than that, but if you stock it with unripe goods waiting to grow and ripen that is what you are destined for too! Here’s a plan so that we can make sure you get to see the sunlight: Step 1: Take one hour everyday to write.
Step 2: Make all assignment due dates !
Step 3: Have fun enjoy being a writer.
Sincerely, Alexus Mark.
Hello readers. Welcome to the first blog on my site for my English 100 Composition class. This blog post will be based off of 32 questions. The questions provided below originated from a french writer Marcel Proust. Marcel Proust argued that one's true personality was shown by their answers on questionnaires so here we are! I hope you enjoy reading my responses as much as I liked responding to the questions.
The Proust Questionnaire _1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness? My idea of perfect happiness is waking up with a purpose. someone who is smiling all the time knowing that today will be a good day. You wouldn’t have anything to stress about and you would just be seen as a positive and careless human. __2.__What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear is my immediate family dying. I have had this happen to me recently and the thought of having to go back through that pain and darkness is scary. __3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I am spoiled rotten so when i don’t get my way its equivalent as the world ending. I literally cannot be told no without catching an attitude and sometimes it bothers me because i know i have to grow up. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? The biggest one has to be ignorance. People can be so unknowingly rude and unkind to others and it's sad to see. I have been around a lot of ignorant humans in my life, and all i have to say is we got to do better. __5.__Which living person do you most admire? I admire my mom the most. She handles a lot of situations I would've folded on. Like for instance, she took in another child (my cousin) after my aunt recently passed away she did this while already sheltering my brother and I. My mom makes everything she does look so easy. She is the strongest woman i know. __6.__What is your greatest extravagance? It has to be food. I love eating all types of food even though my boyfriend still considers me a “picky eater”. I come from a Caribbean family so food is how we show our culture. __7.__What is your current state of mind? My current state of mind is blank. Its focused on me wondering how to answer this question. __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? I’m a christian but in my opinion it has to be abstinence. I mean come on we’re all human if you practice it though great for you. __9.__On what occasion do you lie? I’ll only lie if i am calling out of work ‘sick’. I use this excuse so many times it just never gets old. __10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? skip. __11.__Which living person do you most despise? DONALD TRUMP. I don't know how he got elected president. Who voted for him? Couldn't be me. __12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? I adore honesty, tell me exactly how you feel. I think that a relationship without honesty is pointless so if a man can't be straight up with me then why are we in this predicament? __13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? A kind heart. A woman who is kind is pretty. You can be the prettiest girl ever but if your attitude is a piece of crap then you become an ugly person and who like an ugly person? __14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? “Literally”, “honestly” and “couldn't be me”. “Couldn't be me” has to be my favorite phrase though because a lot of people do stupid things and it just couldn't be me in that situation. __15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? My little cousin Brad. I consider that boy my own son because the love I have for him is totally something different than i've ever experienced. __16.__When and where were you happiest? I don't know. __17.__Which talent would you most like to have? I wish i could sing. I pretend like I don't know if I can't sing but trust me i know i'm not fooling anybody. __18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I would like to be more happy. I always have an attitude that ruins my day. I would love it if i knew how to keep that under control and not be such a brat. __19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? Graduating high school i honestly don't know how I did it but I did it. __20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I would like to come back as a Kardashian baby. My life would be SET. Just think about it, what actual problems do the Kardashians deal with ?? Then on top of everything they’re loaded with money so if I didn’t want to work I wouldn’t have too. That’s living the dream alright. __21.__Where would you most like to live? I would love to live in Florida where the winters are still warm. The only thing stopping me is the fact that I barely have any family down there. __22.__What is your most treasured possession? MY PHONE!!!! My entire life is on my phone if i was to lose this i would cry. __23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? My senior year of high school. That's when my life changed completely to the point where i fell into a deep depression that i'm not all the way out of yet. __24.__What is your favorite occupation? A pediatric surgeon. Idk if i like it because of Alex from Grey's Anatomy or if i'm really interested in that type of surgery by own will. __25.__What is your most marked characteristic? This is a question that others would have to answer for me. __26.__What do you most value in your friends? I mostly value how they can always tell me the truth and not judge me. My best friend is really my diary i can tell her anything and she knows when to listen and when to give feedback and i love her for that. I wouldnt trade her for anybody else in the universe. __27.__Who are your favorite writers? Shonda Rhimes (Greys Anatomy), Jennifer Lee (Frozen), E.L. James (50 Shades of Grey) & Niall Leonard (50 Shades Darker) they were all perfectly scripted 10/10. __28.__Who is your hero of fiction? My hero of fiction has to be the ‘Blue’ dinosaur in Jurassic world. He never fully switched up on his day ones and I like that. __29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? I honestly do not know. __30.__Who are your heroes in real life? My mom of course and also my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Miller who always let me read my Junie b. Jones books to her during lunchtime. __31.__What are your favorite names? Ariele, Chase, Taylor, and Paige. __32.__What is it that you most dislike? People who are overly happy. I cannot stand someone who never once gets upset or show any other emotions other than happiness. __33.__What is your greatest regret? Not obtaining the grade i know i could have achieved in high school. I could've done way better than what i've done. __34.__How would you like to die? I would like to die unknowingly and most likely in my sleep. If i know i'm going to die that'll make me scared to actually die and sad. __35.__What is your motto? It is what it is. Everything happens for some reason i might not know the reason but that's okay. |
Alexus MarkI use this blog to express my inner writer and help people see the world through my eyes. Archives
May 2020
Categories
All
|