Midterm Assignment

Part 1 (Letter)


Dear Friend
          So much as gone on in my English 1102 class since this semester has begun. As usual Ms. Ingram has given us an assignment that's mainly about ourselves, which I love. The topic of our first paper was "What's it like to be You?" and I thoroughly enjoyed writing that piece. I was able to reflect a lot on my past, and was given the opportunity to gather my thoughts, prior achievements, and struggles, to supply a potential reader with facts about myself. Also, I learned a very important aspect about writing that I've never realized before. That realization was that while you write, you're actually having a conversation with the reader. You have to formulate your paper as if you're discussing something and you have to present factual evidence supporting your claims, just like a real argument in person. I think it's useful to know this because if you want to effectively get your claim and message across to the reader, you have to be able to know how to do it. Also, this semester we've had a lot more reading as compared to last semester. So far, we've read a book called Peace Butter & Jelly written by David Mark Seidel, one of Ms. Ingram's good friends. The book talks about his life story and has recipes in it that David loves to cook. I also feel like the reading quizzes that Ms. Ingram now assigns has helped to keep me in check with my reading. Last semester when we weren't held accountable for our readings, I wasn't as compelled to complete the reading. But now that there is a possibility that we'll be quizzed on what we read, I've taken it a lot more seriously. I never thought that I'd have a blog ever in my life as you may know. Our latest assignment was a research project in which we had to create a blog and update it weekly with our current progress and thoughts on it. With this blog, I was able to see how much I improved throughout the project, and was able to view other student's blog posts to get an idea on what they're doing as well. I really liked how it was really easy for other student's to give me feedback on my thoughts by just commenting below my blog. Everything went smoothly and although I was a bit skeptical at first, I really enjoyed completing my blog. Overall English 1102 has been a really educational and enjoyable class so far, I hope you'll have the same experience as I did in this class when you take it next year!




Sincerely,
Tim Tran








Part 2 (Major Assignment Reflection)


          The piece that I'm choosing to reflect upon is the Annotated Bib/Blogger assignment. As I stated above in my letter to a friend, I was extremely skeptical at first due to the fact that I've never done a blog before, and I didn't really know what it was all about. For this assignment, we were told to pick a controversial or interesting debatable topic regarding health in which we could formulate an argumentative paper with. At first my topic for this assignment was "Is it Really Worth It to Take Performance Enhancing Drugs?" but because I've already done a short paper about that topic in high school, I wanted to branch out more and research something entirely new that I knew nothing about. So I chose to write about whether traditional anti-bacterial hand soap or hand sanitizer was better.  Due to the fact of the more and more activities I'm involved in now that I'm in college, there's a much greater chance that I'll come into contact with bacteria and germs. My paper will be addressing the general public which would include but not be limited to my fellow peers, adults, and other youth who may be concerned about their health. While writing this paper, I had to fine-tune my researching skills as well as relearning how to properly cite sources so I wouldn't be accused of plagiarism. This paper has been relatively easy so far for me because I have a lot of interest in my topic, and no roadblocks have made be stumble along the way yet. So far from writing this, I've learned how soap and hand sanitizers work and how to maximize their efficiency to kill bacteria while washing my hands. Another thing that I found out was that I myself am guilty of not washing my hands long enough for bacteria to be killed, and that was quickly addressed. For this piece, I would expect a reader to learn that whenever water and soap are available, use them instead of hand sanitizers. Hand sanitizers only kill bacteria but do not removable surface grime, dirt, and other solid matters away from your hands like traditional soap and water would. For my final portfolio, I think I'll revise some of my blogs and answer the topic questions a lot more thoroughly. 






Part 3 (Viewpoint on Peace Butter & Jelly)


         I feel like Peace Butter & Jelly was an easy but yet enjoyable read. This book illustrates a good example of a nice book for students to be able to ease into the mindset for English 1102. Also, since the author of the book is local, you would be able to ask David himself to come in and discuss the book with the class like you did this semester, which I enjoyed.






Part 4 (Haiku)


Enjoying English,
Never thought it would happen...
But it really did!