Strenghts and Weaknesses

   As a moderately experienced writer, I have come to find my strengths and weaknesses in writing. I have always been decent at getting my point across. I always try to use sufficient detail to make sure I have everything I need to prove my point. I also reflect upon my information with my own thoughts to help the reader understand what I am ring to get across. With sufficient detail and my own thought process behind it, my reader can understand exactly what point I want to get across.

     However, I have one huge weakness that can sometimes overpower my strengths and completely ruin my writing. Whenever I jump deep into a topic or source, I often lose my coherence. So even though I provide detail and my own thoughts, the reader still might be confused on my writing. If they cannot keep up with my writing or if I jumped around to much when I wrote it, it completely defeats the point of me writing it.

Hits and Misses

     Every writer has their own personal preferences on the techniques and topics they want to write about. This year we had multiple opportunities to figure out what we liked most to write about. My "hit" would have to be he research project. The research project took a long time and was extremely challenging but was extremely beneficial to me. We were given an opportunity to write an arguable thesis about anything related to World History. I learned how to extract factual information from trustworthy sources and cite them properly. It was a huge learning experience.

     I could not come up with any piece of writing that we did that was unable to teach me something valuable about English and literature. Everything that ranged from easy to near impossible to write still taught me at least one important thing about writing. However, the personal narrative was the least helpful to me, and I consider it a miss because I have already written multiple pieces similar to it. Even though it was the least helpful, it still taught me much I did not already know.

Comments

Nick Delehaye 

Saad Ali

Digital Effects from social media

     As a frequent user of social media, I have my own opinions on how it affects the human brain. Apps such as Instagram are addicting and seem like a great way to share your experiences with friends and family. As you start off you might have a smaller amount of followers, but you will still get some likes or comments. The first time you get some likes or a comment, your brain gets shot with a chemical called dopamine that makes you feel like you are having a social interaction with a person  even though you are not.

     This is where a problem arises. Once you feel the thrill of getting some likes or comments on a post, it somewhat replaces the need for you interact with people outside of the internet. We are a social species that needs face to face interaction to maintain good health. However, these apps take advantage of every person’s want to feel accepted and be given attention and make people feel as though they are having these needs met. There are so many teens who have thousands of Instagram followers but have trouble interacting in real life with actual people.

Purple Hibiscus Readingg Response

     Purple Hibiscus up to the page 216 has a pattern of two issues, uncomfortable social situations and physical abuse. Almost all of these instances can be tracked down to an interaction with Papa. Papa is severely religious and forces his own beliefs upon his family or punishes them for their disobedience. Whenever Papa is around his family, he seems to be searching for something to call them out on. He has such strict rules that his family must follow that no normal human would consider logical. Papa’s pregnant wife was feeling sick before church, but Papa practically forced her to go inside.

     As I described in the previous paragraph, Papa is willing to make his family beyond uncomfortable in the name of religion. However, Papa is also ready to take matters into his own hands when he deems it necessary. In multiple scenes, Papa is beating either his wife or his to kids because of their “sins”. Kambile returned home from her aunt’s house with a painting of her grandfather, who was not christian, and was found admiring it. Papa saw this admiration as an act of Satan himself and beats his daughter to near death. These examples I explained show how Papa is the cause of most issues in this novel.

Comments

JC

Katie

Political post

Fox News

     President Trump recently suggested that between 2000-4000 National Guard troops be stationed at the US-Mexico border in order to stop the "lawlessness that continues" in this place. This request was placed under federal law Title 32, which allows state governors control over troops of their state. The article describes multiple states responses to this request from President Trump. Arizona's republican governor, Doug Ducey, decided to send 338 Guards in the name of public safety and stated that these Guards will provide air support, assist with building the border, and keep close watch of it. Democratic governor of California, Jerry Brown, has not replied to this request.

     Susana Martinez, republican governor of New Mexico, responded and sent 80 troops but says 250 will eventually serve at the border. Lastly, Texas' republican governor, Greg Abbott, agreed to send 1000 troops to the border over time to end illegal immigration. Whatever viewpoint one has on this matter, they cannot deny that it is happening. Highly skilled troops are being sent to the US-Mexico border and security will be tighter than ever. I stumbled upon this topic when I realized how many of my friends' parents were Immigrants, and I found an article from Fox News and knew it would have factual information for me to use. Immigration is an extremely controversial subject that I want to better understand, so that one day in the future I might be able implement humane laws that insure the public safety of the United States.