The Send Off

   This year has been a year of change and growth for me. I always pictured my junior year as a mid-point, a bit of middle ground in my high school experience. Not the stepping stone it has turned out to be. So many new things I have opened myself to this year, and so many things I have had to leave behind. All the while this class a firm foundation through out the year, as a constant challenge always keeping me on my toes. So many times I have looked at this class and its assignments and thought to myself, "there is no possible way.", yet like all my other challenges, the people I can count on stood firm a cove sheltering me to the waves of doubt and worries.

   Freshman and sophomore year, I stayed anonymous not really joining in with clubs or school spirit. The first football and basket ball games I went to were this year. This is the year I learned to read music, now I'm involved in Lassies and Band. I have tutored two different classes, and was able to see teaching in a different perspective. Along with all the things I have learned this year, I have learned things that have impacted me negatively. I have learned that in all honestly no one is perfect, (I am still having trouble not holding myself to ridiculous standards), and that you cant please everyone.

 "I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool... You see, I think everything's terrible anyhow... And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Ch. 1

   One of my favorite quotes from this year is from The Great Gatsby, when Daisy is talking to Nick. It explains how ignorance truly is bliss. I find myself at times more hardened to others than I was in the past. It is hard to look at myself and who I was, and who I'm growing to be. I.m a creature of habit, and this year holds so much change.

Plagiarisim Response

   It is hard to imagine college students that copy and paste things from the Internet willy-nilly and don't give a second thought to sourcing the information. Especially now that we have learned citing inside and out this year. The only reason that I can think of that these students aren't aware of the rules to plagiarism is that technology in society is growing so fast that it is hard to keep up with schooling students on the dos and donts. Even still it is rediculous for grown college students to steal whole paragraphs from online sites and think that is ok.

   To be honest this article got me a little rialed up. I had no idea students were doing this, let alone grown people.

"The secret to being memorabe and persuasive" response

   Everyone wants to be memorable, that's why we sign year books and compete for state records. People are constantly doing little things that will help them to become memorable. Like the kid that streaks at graduation, we wont be forgetting him. Or better yet the valedictorian, a much more appropriate way to make one's self memorable. Humans have a physical need to be accepted and love, and one way to show that one is accepted and loved is by the fact that you are memorable, people wont forget you.

   As said in the article great writers make themselves memorable by mastering language intelligence. These writers use devices such as repetition, so that what they say is stuck in the readers mind. and being stuck in the readers mind the remembered writer becomes memorable. Other things such as rhyming help a person become memorable, a witty rhyme will last through out the ages, far longer than a profound sentence.

   The article was helpful in giving tips on how to be persuasive and memorable, but the author could have used better word choice, and followed his own advice because he didn't make his piece very memorable.

"When the cat is away, the mice will play" ~ A memorable rhyme

Article 4: Response

   I found the article super clever, funny, and it most likely holds more truth than we will give it credit for. At times it really does feel like all the things we learn in school won't help us with the "real wold", but then I catch myself hanging out with my friends and being the only one to solve simple three digit multiplication and division problems in my head, due to the fact that I didn't rely on calculators when i was little.

  

 I liked how the author divided up the preferred subjects to major in, it made the paper easier to follow and lighter because so. Being a junior, I can now say I'm starting to feel the heat from college. The heat from all the important decisions i have to start making, and it was nice to joke about college for a change.

 

7 Grammar rules you really should pay attention to: Response

A "Dangling Conversation"

   Some grammar rules just make sense, for example the first rule is "When you're writing about a non-true situation — usually following the word if or the verb wish — the verb to be is rendered as were.". Which sounds a lot more intimidating than it is. Because it is a natural tendency for me to follow that rule in writing and carrying on a conversation.
   However rule 5: "The 'dangling' conversation" is honestly thrown me for a loop...... I haven't heard of it before, and it was hard for me to follow it.
   One rule I enjoyed reading on was about the pronouns, it was nice reading about a rule you thought you knew but learning more about it. For example I knew to word the sentence: "Me and Fred had lunch together yesterday" as "Fred and I had lunch together yesterday". But I didn't know there is a rule that you are supposed to use "between you and me" instead of "between you and I".

"Why I Write"

   I have always been a reader, but a writer I don't believe I will ever be. However you don't have to be a writer to write. Writing for me is a way to expose the thoughts and ideas inside me to others, and some times even to myself. Whenever I'm confused or lost it helps me to start writing down whatever is in my head, and when I put my pencil to the paper I feel as though thoughts and emotions explode from within me.

   Like a painter with their paints and canvas, I watch myself fill page after page, the strokes of my pencil matching the strokes of the painter's brush. I don't pay attention to what I'm writing, my mind will wander to that painter continuously at work, and when I final stop for a moment my writing, like the painter and their painting, is a picture of what is inside me.

   Sometimes when I'm upset I wont know the exact reason why, until I have started writing. Whenever I have an idea, an exciting thought I want to expound on, I start to write as a way of brain-storming and to give my idea life by adding onto it until it is a well rounded thought. The way I go about this is by writing down my every thought as I'm thinking it, to ensure no thought is forgotten or goes without proper recognition.

   I'm not a writer, I realize this. Yet you don't have to be a writer to write. Like you don't have to be a painter to paint, or any other artistic outlets. Writing is different for every one, because of how unique and different we are. So for me to write as a way to draw out the thoughts and feelings inside me, to paint a picture of my own essence, to sculpt my inner self, maybe that does make me a writer.

Multigenre Final Project

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2go_FyjHyOZSURHTzFMSlBWN0E/edit?usp=sharing