Blog # 10

What do you think you have learned in terms of writing skills?                                                        

In this past 3 weeks I think I learned a few new things that I never seen before.  The first thing that pops in my mind was the “annotation” that we learned last week, to me that was an important writing skill that  would help me a lot in future essays that I have to do for this class. I hope that that skill would help me past the CAT exam, of course with other writing skills that you (Doc X) had taught us in the past 3 weeks.  Another writing skill that I first saw in a writing class is the Thesis-based writing, that’s a skill that I do want to practice some more and get hopefully good at it so I can pass the CAT exam.  And hopefully use it on my college career in writing.

What proves that you have learned what you say you have learned?                                                                                                                                                    

Well we have to wait and see; I really do want to know if my take on the writing skills that I had learned works for me, If not I’m screw, and I have to talk to you one on one. But with more practice I believe I can get better at it. Keep in mind I haven’t wrote anything since high school last 12 years ago. And back then I was not a well writer. Hopefully I get what I have learned and become a better writer or at least pass the CAT exam.

What of the material we have covered is still unclear or confuses you?

I think is the summarizing, to get that main idea is kind of hard for me. And to put it in writing is a killer!  And paragraphing that is another material that I find it unclear. That’s why if you have time we can have a one on one to explain those skills to me. If not I try to get better myself or go to the writing center.

Would you say that overall you feel more confident about your understanding of basic writing skills, less confident, or about the same as when we started class?

I think I’m a little bit confident on my understanding on the basic writing skills. Hopefully with the blogs that I wrote, you can find ways that I need to improve. I’m a bit scared about this class because writing is not my best skill. Plus the English language is not my first language so at times I feel am writing in Spanish than in English. I do want to improve on all the writing skills but with practice and time I know that I become an alright writer.

Anything else I should know about?

Well I pretty much told you on the questions you ask, I use had to be careful on writing with grammar errors that I know I’m having. I hope there is some way I can get help on that. And I hope you can help me as well. I do want to pass your class and pass the exam,  but most important I want to move on in my college career and become a better writer.  

Blog # 9: Reflecting on Paragraphing

1. What have you learned from the paragraphing class?
Well I learned to have a successful paragraph i have to have a topic sentence and develop it.




2. How do you know that you have learned it?
I don't know, I have to wait and see when Professor X will read my paper. but I hope I got it.


3. Can you describe how you learned it?
Not really because I don't know if am using it right for my essay. but the professor did give some good samples of it in class.



4. What helped your learning? What made it difficult?
Well I think developing the topic that's the difficult thing for this paragraphing. I have to read and memorize the lesson from class.


5. How do you feel after today's class?
uuummmmmmmm I don't know ..... I'm a very negative person =/ but I kind of feel OK with today lesson, and I hope I do an excellent essay for Blog # 8 .......

Blog # 8 "I Know the Truth..."

In the article "I Know the Truth, So Don’t Bother Me with facts" writing by Jeffrey Kluger, explains why people are easy to manipulate with rumors. I agree with the writer when it comes to this topic. To this I have some reason why I think people are easy to trick. First I believe that we as human beings don’t like to change our opinion when we believe in something. Second people are influence by their emotions, values and culture. And last I believe it’s the genetics of human which affects and govern the individual’s tendencies toward certain directions.

My first opinion about people not liking when they have to change their first thoughts about a topic, reflects on the people behaviors of self insurance. Meaning that human have this ego, that thinks we are always right all the time. Especially men ( I know you like this ) that’s we don’t like to do research or even ask questions on any topic. For example I don’t like to ask for directions when I’m lost, even when gets me into trouble. Cause of his ego that I have being that I know where things are. I can get trick easy and even manipulate by my own thoughts. A lot of people think this way as well. Going back on Jeffrey Kluger’s article in which he states that two professor from Ohio State University took 750 people to do a study about how people are easy trick by rumors. The study shows that 1/3 of the 750 change their opinion about what they heard at first. The professors R. Kelly Garret and Erik Nisbet find that most troubling, how people were not willing to reverse their position on a topic.

Second I believe that people are influence by their emotion, values and even culture, meaning that we are don’t really have an opinion on life. We let our emotions get the best of us. And the values that we carry from our family suggest that we are easy control by the way other people think or act. People are close minded and they usually like to follow the leader on life. They can think or express themselves. Going back about the emotion that its stopping them to realize that they can change their opinion when they like. For example I’m like that when I have a feeling about a topic and I see that other people are wrong about it, I usually don’t say anything and I go alone with the other people believe or I get away from it and keep my opinion to myself. Culture can be the same thing. It rules the way we think about things. And people let that interfere on their way of thinking or even opening their mind and changing their opinion about a topic.

Last I think it’s the human genetics that cause us to think the way we do. We get tendencies of thinking without really thinking about it. Like a saying “think before you do something” that’s a good way of putting it. We as human don’t do that at all most of the time. And that’s how we as a society are easy manipulate. In conclusion I do agree with Jeffrey Kluger”s opinion on his article, I think we as a human being should take our time and don’t jump into things before really thinking about it.

Blog 7: Reflecting on Thesis-based Writing.

1. What have you learned from the thesis-based writing class?
I learned that thesis is hard to develop into a full essay. but with some pointer from Professor X I think I'm getting it.

2 .How do you know that you have learned it?
Well I don't, I'm hoping for profesor X to see what I wrote today and let me know my mistakes.

3. Can you describe how you learned it?
Well I try to learned this by doing some writing that the professor is giving us.

4.What helped your learning? What made it difficult?
Its' difficult for me as of now. but I will try to learned it and use it on my future essay.

5.  How do you feel after today's class?
A little bit scare about this way of writting, I hope on wednesday we can to more execises and practice more of this claims and thesis.

Blog # 6

Make a list of ideas and facts you thought were true at some point in the past but you no longer do


1. El cuco ( the boogie man ) - When I was a lil kid I always was afraid of el cuco. My parents always told me that he will get me if i'm not a good boy. But Now I'm know its a lie. cause he never got me. and its an old story that parents tell her kids to be afraid.

2. Gismo  ( from the gremlins ) - I saw the movie when I was a kid, and I though he was a real pet from china. But now I know he's puppet for that movie =(

3. Superman - I really though he did exsist in this world. but he's a comic book character.

4. Batman - Well I do think its possible that a rich man can be Batman and buy all those gagets and weapons. but haven't happen yet.

5. Star Wars !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - I know I'm a nerd!..... but it's a movie ... actually a great movie!

6. Dragons - Well I know that Human and Dinosaours didn't live together, but how knows if those dino can split fire from their mouth. but its science prove it that its a fantacy.

7. RoboCop - I really though he was for real. that the USA have that technology and and create a man and machine put together. but it was a movie. BUT! in the medical field human have machine body parts as their own. so I don't know about this one =)

Blog # 5 The Allegory of the Cave

In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave,” Socrates tells a story to his student Glaucon to explain how human are living in a cage and not the real world. Socrates gives an example about a group of prisoners that were living on underground den,  they were chain from their necks down only looking at one direction to a wall that show shadows that were cause by a fire that was behind them from a distance. Anything that passes thru that fire the prisoners saw them on the wall. Meaning that is the only thing they every see in the cave. To me Socrates is telling his student that when we as human are born, we only know what is around us at that time and we try to get adjust to the things we have. Socrates then continues that one day a prisoner was let go and was throw out of the cave, at first he’s vision was blurry and painful to see and get adjust to the light of the sun.  In saying that I believe that Socrates is telling his student that we as human when we try to see new things or learned new knowledge at first it’s very hard to understand and its difficult to process new things.  Learning for human at first it’s painful, like the example that Socrates gives when he prisoner’s eyes hurt when he was glaring to the sun.  The sun to me symbolizes the wisdom or knowledge of the world.

Socrates continues by saying that the prisoner got used to the light of the outside world and soon after he was thrown back to the cave. At first he couldn’t see inside of the cave because his eyes got adjust to the light from outside the cave. Now that darkness is in his life again he felted lost.  In that part of the story I think Socrates is telling Glaucon that once you have a taste or experience the outside world meaning new ideas or knowledge it’s hard to go back to your old ways. Socrates continues by saying that the prisoner that was outside was telling his old friends from the cave the things he saw (meaning the new ideas he learned) and how the cave people didn’t pay too much attention to him and they laugh at him with his new ways of thinking. In this I think that people are afraid to let go of our past or common knowledge and are afraid of learning new wisdom from the real world. We as human are stuck in our ways that we were raise since birth. And that we don’t really want to experience new wisdom because it’s going to hurt in the process. As in life everything is not easy, and we have to let go of our cave and look into the sun to find the real world that is out there.  

Blog # 4 revision of "Hype"

On the essay from "signs of life in the USA" by Kalle Lasn talks about the toxic of advertisements that is affecting the American people today. Explains how the business company spends tons and tons on money and hours to get the people (consumers) to see and hear the products on ads all around the media. To be honest I totally agree with Kalle and her passage, every day when I wake up and turn on the TV all I see is a little bit of news or a favorite show and tons of commercials during the half an hour of to an hour. I take the MTA (living in NYC) and I see ads on the top of the trains or next to the seats, sometimes catching my eyes to those ads.  I laughed when reading the passage the second paragraph when she wrote (Kalle) and I quote “You fill your car with gas and there's an ad on the nozzle". And that’s so true now in days before when I was younger I never saw that, now it’s a common thing to see that. An other funny advertisement that I saw once which to be quite honest tops all the ads I seen in my life was during the FIFA World Cup last year, when I went to a local bar in the city and I saw on the urinal a mini soccer ball with a goal net. At first I was like "you got to be kidding me" and it was an ad for a beer company. I think company are going way extreme on the ads now in days, they want to catch the consumer's eyes to see if they but their product.

Kalle Lasn goes by saying that before she used to hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on her head and now she’s she hears that kid singing the Oscar Meyer wiener song. I think her point of view on this is so true. People got used to or accepted music from advertisements with a caught melody. It’s polluting our head with stupid ads every day, I don't mind companies trying to sell the products, but to inject us with tons of it every day of every hour of our life’s, I believe it’s over doing it. Just keep it on a normal level and I believe that people will get the point, that's my opinion. Like the passage say “There is nowhere to run “meaning ads are everywhere and they are here to stay. And the sad part is that we are not doing anything to stop it, we use let our minds get pollute with meaningless ads

Blog # 3: Reflecting on Summary

1. What have you learned from the Summarizing Class?

I learned the strategies how to write a well out though summary.

2. How do you know that you have learned it?

Well time will tell, I just have to apply the strategies on my future assignments.

3. Can you describe how you learned it?

Well I hope I learned it on the summary I did for homework this week. I try to use all the steps of the strategies that professor X show us. For example introduce the author and title I did that. And all the steps as well…….. I hope ……

4. What helped your learning? What made it difficult?

Well the 2 summaries that we did in class helped a lot and how the professor explains to us in detail.  Well the way how I want to express my thoughts from the writer’s text to my own summarize, I find that very difficult to do.

5. How do you feel after today’s class?

A little bit scare of how am I going to write my summary of “I know the truth, so don’t bother me with facts”, because I haven’t done an assignment like this since high school (12 years ago)

Blog 2

Today in class we discuss about annotations. At first I really didn't see the point on it, but now with the activities we did in class, I see it as a helping tool to become a better writer. What I got from annotation is that now I can break down the paragraph and analys it better. not just reading it and getting nothing out of it. For example Jorge ( my partner of the day ) and I read an essay named: " Is Google Making Us Stupid " and we annotated this essay. We concluded that google is making us not use our brain to our potecion that we have as human beings.





"I know the truth, so don't bother me with facts"

I was partner with Linda on this one, She did an OK Job on this annotation.
she needed some extra details about the research that he professor from the article make.
their names would been nice to add on her annotation. We agree on the vocabolary that its needed to define or explain better.

Blog #1 Hype

On the essay from "signs of life in the USA" by Kalle Lasn talks about the evolucion of adverstisements that is affecting the american people today. Explains how the business company spend tons and tons on money and hours to get the people ( consumers ) to see and hear the products on ads all around the media. To be honest I totally agree with Kalle and her passage, Everyday when I wake up and turn on the TV all I see is a little bit of news or a favorite show and tons of commercials during the half and hour of to a hour. I take the MTA ( living in NYC ) and I see ads on the top of the trains or net to the seats.  I laughed when reading the passage the second paragraph when she wrote ( Kalle ) and I quote " You fill your car with gas and there's an ad on the nozzle". And thats so true now in days before when I was younger I never saw that, now its a common thing to see that. An other funny advertisement that I saw once which to be quite honest tops all the ads I seen in my life was during the FIFA World Cup last year, when I went to a local bar in the city and I saw on the urinal a mini soccer ball with a goal net. At first I was like "you got to be kidding me jajaja" and it was an ad for a beer company. I think company are going way extreme on the ads now in days, they want to catched the consumer's eyes to see if they but their product.

I don't mind companies trying to sell the products, but to inject us with tons of it every day of every hours of our lifes, I believe its over doing it. Just keep it on a normal level and I believe that people will get the point, that's my opinium . Like the passage say " There is nowhere to run " meaning ads are everywhere and they are here to stay.

 Is Google Making Us Stupid?

                In “ Is Google making stupid?”,  Nicholas Carr begins his article by stating that google can be a good source fro delivering fast information on certain topics. However  he also feels that intelligent is not a form of being able to find knowledge fast, but it’s focus of being able to think profoundly about a certain topic. He states that if we take our time and analaze that we can looking for we can in rich our thoughs.