I am working on updating the site with the syllabus and resources page.
All the readings are from the textbook, unless stated otherwise. Your homework this week is to:
- Buy your books, listed on the first blog post.
- Read Introduction
- Read Chapter 1
- Read Chapter 12
- Read Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” (p.313)
- Answer questions 1-4 (p. 328). Type or print neatly.
I will send out invitations to join the blog this week sometime.
Please bookmark the site, I will be using it to communicate with the class regularly.
The question of the day:
What is the best paper you have written? Why was it good? What did you do well?
You can reply to this this post with your answer.
Professor Ramos' Blog 
The art of writing essays has always been a struggle for me. From the time of 4th grade to high school I always ended up scoring a 67%, a 85%, or anywhere in between; So when I wrote an essay last semester about taking the StrengthQuest and discovering what people called my weaknesses were actually “strengths” for my Career course I didn’t expect anything above a B. My essays never had strong points so it made sense. I didn’t find out until the end of my course that my Professor was so moved by my long rambling about my apparent strengths that she began to use excerpts from the original paper in her career workshops. Now having to think about it that was probably the best essay I ever wrote because I engaged the reader with emotion.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Writing essays has never been a strength of mine, unless it was a persuasive essay. I’m not very good at structuring my main focus to make the essay flow together. However, writing a persuasive essay on something that I feel very strong about is always has a good outcome on my grade. Persuasive writing is my favorite not only because I’m good at it, but its easy, I feel as if I don’t need to think about what I write; I never feel stuck and it flows so smoothly. The only way I can get myself off to a good start is by physically writing out a structure plan for my essay if it is not persuasive, that is where I defiantly see the difference in my writing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The best paper I have written wasn’t in the generic essay structure, it was more along the lines of free writing. I believe that is where I succeed, in that aspect I’m very capable of just flowing my ideas on to paper. In the circumstance, that I’m given a random topic or there is an impromptu paper, I can usually write it with an irresistible impulse. Now when faced with more of a structured concept, my flow of ideas will become hesitant and begin to falter. I believe this is because I feel compelled to write precisely, as if nothing can be open ended.
LikeLike
The best essay I ever wrote was my senior year of high school. The topic was should teens get charged as adults when they commit a crime. What I did really well was putting my voice in the essay and explaining why I felt the way I did about the topic. I believe it was the best paper I’ve wrote because I felt passionate about the topic and about my stance on the situation. It was a good essay because I had a good thesis, counterclaim and conclusion paragraph. The whole essay was structured perfectly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I never written a good paper throughout my times taking English courses. English was never my strong side. Something about me and writing good paper had never click. Maybe because I overthink of what the paper needs or sometime I get major writers block. My best grade I got on a paper was a “B-” . The paper was about if I’m for or agents violent on social media. Writing a whole paper was never a problem for me, even though it takes much of my time and effort to get through to the conclusion in addition of proof reading. What get me the most and the main reason why I never got an “A” on my paper was because I start of strong in intro and the first paragraph, but later on its gets weak, makes no sense, and a few minor grammar errors. However I do get better result when I have someone else reviewing my paper and gives me a few feedback. If I spend more time in tutoring center and manage my time on writing on my paper with my schedule, then maybe getting that “A” could be possible.
LikeLike
In my junior year in high school I took AP American History. The final essay I wrote in that class was about the Korean war and its effects on the World along side with the U.S.A at the time. This was my best essay at the time because, in the end I got a B in the class. That one essay that for some reason had to be six pages long with MLA citation. Was one of the reason I kept my high GPA in high school. This is what I felt was my best essay, it was one of the few things in that class that I felt I did great in.
LikeLike
I’ve written a lot of essays in High school and in my college classes, but it has never been one of my strengths. My grades on papers I’ve written have ranged from A’s-C’s depending on how tough my teacher was or how well my paper was structured for that specific topic. I think I’ve always struggled with structuring my paper properly and making sure I get my point across in whatever I may be writing about. What has helped me a lot in the past was peer reviews because my papers became better with the corrections and ideas from others and I’m happy we are going to be doing that in this class. My best grade on a paper I have to say was last semester and I got a B. I had to write a self concept paper in my Interpersonal communication class and I had to explain a few concepts we learned in class and compare it to myself and how and why I view myself in certain ways. It was a harder paper to write because it was about myself, but I enjoyed that class and I was interested in what I was learning so that helped me when I was outlining my essay and writing it. This semester I am going to try my best to write great papers and get the help I need in order to get a good grade!
LikeLike
I think the best essays I have ever written have been research papers. I really like to research a topic and find out everything about it. When I write a research paper, I am able to organize everything very well and make it flow nicely. I think my strongest skill when writing any paper is my organization skills and being able to stay on topic, which I have come to find is what most teachers enjoy because it makes their life easier. I am not the best writer in the world, however, I find myself doing just fine in english and composition classes.
LikeLike
I enjoy writing but wouldn’t consider myself the best writer. When given a topic to write about or even free writing I get lost in my words and could write forever, but that usually causes me to ramble on about subjects not having anything to do with the main topic. Therefore, the best paper I have written would probably have to be a narrative essay. There’s something about telling a story that usually has me sticking to the guidelines and not going off topic. That said and done, narrative essays are usually easier for me to write because I can stick to the point and make my essay organized.
LikeLike
My best essay was my last semesters research paper in English 010. It was good, because I was able to perfectly execute my writing and presentation of the paper. The research was defiantly my strongest point, because I used scholar journals and reliable websites.
LikeLike
The Best kind of essay I have written would have to be my research paper I wrote in high school. The reason on why I think i did so well is because I really like what I was researching. The topic was the hundred years war, and I wrote it for my Ap Europe class in high school. What really helped me to do well is I went and got help, because I really did not know how to cite my sources, or really how to write. But I was determine to do well. When i got my paper back I got my First A on a paper, it was the best feeling ever! So with ever paper since then I always try and seek out some help.
LikeLike
I literally just typed this longggg answer to tell me i have to be logged in, so i logged in and then it said i still had to log in then erased everything i wrote… Anyways, I did not write well in High School just because i simply was not interested in what i was forced to take or read. My best writings were last semester in my English 010. There is not one specifically because i felt that they all were really greatly written. My teacher would require us to go to the tutoring center at least one time for every essay or we would lose 10% off that essay. So i would go twice just to get the extra credit and help. The tutor caught a lot of my grammatical and tense mistakes that i never see for myself. I feel like just finding those mistakes improved a lot to help me do my best. (just got my long claws done so it is taking me forever to retype this)
LikeLike
I never really like writing essays because I always seemed to struggle with organizing my thoughts into the format of an essay. However, when writing a persuasive essay about a topic I am passionate about, the writing comes natural to me. I believe the best essay I have ever written was a persuasive essay I wrote my senior year in high school. I had to argue my views on gun rights. I received an A on that essay, and I believe that my interest and strong views on the topic was what helped me write such a strong essay.
LikeLike
To choose my best paper I have written is going to be easy. English has never been my favorite subject in school and writing papers is a torment for me. I was a junior in high school given an assignment to do a research paper on an endanger specie for my environmental class. It had been the first time I was excited to had written a paper, due to the fact I love and care for animals. I had picked the blue whale as my topic for my research paper. Right away I had gotten books from the school library and reliable web sources to check at home to get accurate information for the research. Now that I look back, the big reason I did so well on the paper was because I was passionate on my topic and I had not procrastinated. Procrastination, as many of my fellow classmate would agree, is an big issue why writing papers has been a problem. I had stayed focused and used my time wisely to structure and draft a paper that the topic was important to me. When the time came for us to turn in the assignment, I had about 4 pages of information and causes why the blue whale was endanger and also ways it could be helped. My environmental teacher was impressed and I had gotten over 90% on the paper.
LikeLike
Since my first academic experience stopped in 1986 when I graduated from Junior collage with a degree in nursing I do not remember the papers I wrote during my first time in Collage. I attended Santa Barbara City Collage last semester where I took a class in History of the religions of the Middle East. In the class we were required to write a paper at the end of each section. With each of the papers the teacher required us to follow a five paragraph structure which answered three questions that he gave us then we were required to have an opening statement that he gave us and a conclusion which answered all the questions. This was a good structure for me because it gave me a temple from which to write. I got the highest grade on the middle paper because it was covering material that I know the most about. I think it was because I knew a lot about the subject I was able to summarize all of the material we had been taught into the five paragraph, three page paper. I like the temple’s that are in our book and I wish I had them last semester. It would have made it easier to write the required reports. Without a structure I have a tendency to let my thoughts wander and I loose the point of what i need to say. I am hoping to learn the correct way to gather and put information together, to organize my research to write papers and how to do proper notation and documentation.
LikeLike