Untitled: The presentations for our projects that we had to do were actually... -
The presentations for our projects that we had to do were actually pretty interesting and it was cool to see and learn about all the different topics that people chose to do for their paper. There was a definite variety with what has been shown in class and there are still my more presentations…
I loved the topics people have been presenting, they have all been pretty interesting for the most part ad i learned something new from each one.
With only one week of class left, I can honestly say this semester flew by. This class actually ended up teaching me a lot more than I really expected it to do. And I like how everything we learned in some way all connected together, and it was so much easier to relate our papers back to the stuff we learned in the beginning of the semester about communities. I also realized how we started the semester with the simple conversation of communities, and what our interpretations of communities were. Then we looked at articles written about communities, all showing someone’s different opinion or idea of opinion. Then we all chose a special community to really relate back to and analyze and get to know.
I chose to learn about Gang communities. I think my topic, for me, was really interesting, and I learned a lot. I think that is a key thing in research projects. If you are going to spend a lot of time on an essay, and have a chose of topics, go with the one that would interest you the most. That way, the researching is not as hard to do, because you actually are interested in what you’re learning. What really interest me the most though, and something I really didn’t even think about looking into until the day before the essay was due, but I got really interested in looking up what the most dangerous gangs are, and what makes them so powerful and dangerous. It’s a hard thing for many people to learn about, but I think since gangs are such a big part of so many communities, its good to really be educated on them. Another thing that really interested me, is that government cut spending money on gang prevention programs. It would be interesting to look more into that, to see if it is because of the lack of money they have to spend, or the lack in results they are seeing from the prevention programs.
We just turned in our essays, so I guess it is a little late to add that information in. I wouldn’t say I am completely proud of my essay, but not disappointed in it either. I go back and forth worrying about whether it had enough information, or not enough. I feel like there were so many more topics I could have touched up on. And I think my essay still needed some revising and organizing. But now I know for next time to really finish the essay early so I have plenty of time to go through it.
I also just did my presentation. It was as hard to give, as I always think its going to be. I am far from a public speaker. Usually when I get up in front of a bunch of people I forget everything I was going to say. But it wasn’t bad, I think I left some information out, but overall got the message across. Hope it all made sense to you guys! Now I just need to finish up my e-portfolio and this class will be done for the semester.
The essay so far has been going pretty well. With only two weeks left until our final essay is due, it amazes me how quick the semester flew by. Seems like just yesterday we started this whole process, learning about communities, and choosing which one we wanted to use for ours. I am about five pages in on my essay. Not quite as far as I would like to be, I still have lot to write. I know I can finish it though. I still have some article to talk about in my essay. I also need to work on the organization of my essay. The next thing I am going to do is try to finish writing the paper, hopefully within the next few days. After, I am going to organize the paragraphs better and fix up the transition sentences. Then go paragraph by paragraph and fix each one. Hopefully I am pull this off in the next week. I have been slacking on it since I turned it in for my peer revisions. I got some really good feed back though. I still don’t know which introduction paragraph to use since I wrote two. I really like the information in each, so I am trying to combined them, but not quite sure how yet.
The next part of this class, after finishing the essay is to focus of the e-portfolio. That should be pretty easy, and it’s a good way to wrap up on all our work from the semester. It is also a good way to look back on our work to see what we did to bring the whole essay together. This essay has been a good learning experience on how to write a long research essay, especially since this is the first one I have done. I am worried about how quick the semester is coming to an end, I have so much to do, and such little time! In the next few weeks we also have presentations. I think I am a little confused still on those. She gave us examples of what we can do, like a power point or an art project, or even writing a song. I just am not completely clear on what exactly the power point or art project whatever we choose to do is supposed to be one. Besides our project… but what about our project? Are we summing up what we learned?
I have to say this class has taught me a lot. I went in to this classing just thinking I had to do it for a GE requirement but I have been really happy with it. I learned a lot without it being too hard. And I am also pretty happy with grade, I hope nothing I do will lower my grade from here on out. I have made sure not to miss any more classes. And I love the no final! Haha saves me time to really focus on the classes that I AM struggling in.
So far, I have written three pages for my essay. I am surprised how much I have actually found to say for each paragraph. In class we talked about how we all should start writing, and how many people start writing their body paragraphs for their essay first, but I surprised myself with how much I actually had ready for the introduction as well. We have also started peer revisions. I am hoping I get good responses for mine, and good suggestions. I think with the peer revisions is a really good idea, it helps not only the writer improve their essay, but also helps those who are editing, notice more mistakes or expand their mind on the format of an essay, which will help with their writing as well.
My first semester here I learned how to do a annotated bibliography in my university 101 class, but I never understood who would actually go through and re-read them. Now l completely understand how it is helpful. I wish I was more thorough and gave specific examples when I was writing them, because it helps so much when writing me essay. Each of the articles I read were rather long, and it helps to not have to go and re-read each of them, but sometimes I find myself having to go back for the annotations I wasn’t as precise with. It is all a good learning experience for the next essay though!
I have also learned that with longer essays, making a layout HELPS. I went though and decided what I was going to write each paragraph on, and as I get to each paragraph, I lay out how I will write that specific paragraph, as we learned in class. They may still need some work to them, but for right now they have the basic idea down. I found it kind of confusing trying to tie in all the information into each part of my thesis, but I don’t want to leave any of the articles out since they all have such good information about gangs. I am still working on my outline to make everything fit and flow well. I don’t want it to sound choppy and disorganized.
Wow, this essay is coming up quick! I signed up for the third peer review, so i need to start writing, i have 6 pages that need to be done pretty soon. Im worried i wont have enough to write about though. The body paragraphs should be the easiest part, but its really only my into that i am feeling confident in at the moment. As i starting writing i will see, it should not be as bad as i am making it. hopefully!
What do you think gets into the water you drink?
You would be suprised.
Pictures like this are definitely impactful. This makes me a little hesitant to drink tap water now!
This is pretty shocking! We ever really expect our water to be dirty unless we can actually see it. And i totally agree about the third world country thing. I would hate to think what is in their water!
After finishing my research narrative I thought about Facebook and its privacy settings. I thought that if you had the privacy settings turned on then anything that you posted would be protected from people that were not your Facebook “friend”. I realize now that no matter what there is always the…
I agree. What has always worried me is that there are so many ways people can get around to view your pictures of facebook, and once someone has it up on their computer, they could do whatever they like with it. People should really be careful with what they post on the internet, even with privacy settings
This semester is flying by. I cant believe we are already starting the essay soon. Well maybe I shouldn’t jump ahead of myself. I need to finish the inquiry proposal first. I am not sure how I am going to do that yet. The diagram we were given in class always helped me when I was learning to write essays, so I think I am going to try using that to help organize my essay a lot better. I know I have a lot of good points for my essay, but I just don’t know where exactly my “argument” is. But I guess I could always look at it through the eyes of an actual gang member. I just don’t know I would be able to do that.
In class we also talked about how to start the intro to an essay by using a quote or a question or a personal story. When that was said so many ideas popped in my head. I definitely have a personal story, being that my mom is a teacher at an elementary school whose community is very similar to the one I am doing my research topic on. Or I could talk about the kids who went to my high school who were associated with gangs. I never knew any of them personally though so that one may be a little hard. Or, one last idea could be using an example of the gang activity that has happened in San Jose in the past couple of years. Two years ago, two gang members burned down the elementary school down the street from my house on Four of July. That same year, a freshman was shot and killed on New Years by another gang member. These stories are horrible, and heart wrenching, and part of the gang life that my research project is trying to stop.
When we talked about quotes though, we said we should only stick to quotes that famous people said. I am thinking about quoting something my mom said though, about her students, and relating it back to a personal story before getting into the background and my thesis. “I thought they were just being creative. I had no idea my six year olds were drawing gang signs.” To me, this seems like something that would draw my attention, even if someone famous didn’t say it. It relates perfectly back to a personal story, that leads very well to the topic of my essay.
But, I do have all spring break to think about my essay and organize it. Hopefully the earlier I start it, I will be able to organize it better and make it one of my best pieces of writing. I know that is the purpose of writing this essay, not for the research, but to improve our writing skills, and to learn how to write a research paper. We are college students now, we need to know these things! Plus this will be the longest paper I will have ever had to write, so this really will be a learning experience. I hope I have enough to write about!
(Source: sbstnx)
This weekend I went back to my home town to spend some time with my family. While i was there i went and helped in my moms first grade classroom on friday and was amazed by the community and how different it was from the elementary school i went to and the community it was. By spending time in my moms classroom i realized it really the community that i am basing my project on. While walking around and helping kids with their art projects some of them had drawn gang signs on their paper. Gang signs! They are only six years old!! At such a young age, children learn so much form observing their families at home, and following in those footsteps. I never imagined it would make such an impression of children who are so young. Especially when i relate it back to my own experience, going to a very parent participating school, lots of involved parents and great teachers. I was never exposed to that a gang sort of community. As i went into middle school, i remember noticing a huge difference. Where is all the innocence these days? Why are we corrupting kids at such a young age?