Personal evaluation

Personal evaluation

Writing and composition is a rigorous class, which taught me a lout of things. In the beginning of this semester I have listed three goals, which I have been tried hard to pursue them. However, there are some things that I need to work on in the future.

To begin with, my first goal for this semester is to improve my skill to use correct grammar, and try to avoid grammar mistakes. Until now, I feel better about writing an essay or a paper. There were practices that helped us to know what type of mistakes that we always made in our writing. We revised out drafts and essays again and again; we also had suggestions from our peers and teacher, which helped me a lot with my grammar. I can sense that my writing is getting better and I have fewer mistakes.  One specific thing that I noticed is that I can use the same tense in an article or writing. To be more specific, if I want to past tense, I would not make mistake in one sentence. For example, “ I went to the store and bought some clothes.” I used to have mistakes like, “ I went to the store and buy some clothes.” I rarely make that type of mistake now. Therefore, I have been working well on the grammar part.

In addition, my second pursuit is to have the capability to analyze all aspects of a plot or an article. What I meant by that, I wished I could see things from different perspectives. I have worked on analyzing and criticizing, and yet I am not good enough at analysis. Last time when we wrote the draft of significant moment, I used a lot of words to describe the story-telling part, such as the star and climax of the story, but I wasn’t focus on the analysis very much. I think I should analyze when I write anything because then I can improve my writing time to time. Many students were frustrated about analyzing, and I feel the same way. However, “ No pains, no gains,” so I have to try harder. After revising the draft of significant moment, I think that I understand how to combine the analysis with story telling.

Finally, I also talked about that I want to learn more than one type of literature. I am not trying extremely hard on this part, but I have seen some peoples’ paper. For instance, I have seen some people used dialogues to narrate a story that had happened. I used to use narration to tell a story rather than using dialogues, but now, I basically understand how to write a dialogue. From my point of view, using a dialogue is more appealing and interesting than narration since the characters’ personalities can be very vivid. Plus, dialogues have a clearer clue then story telling or narration because people talk directly, and it is more unlikely to make mistakes. Besides dialogue, I also know how to write an augmentation; just as what I mentioned, writing analysis teaches me how to write an argumentation by using evidence and main idea. However, I still need more improvements because “ practice makes perfect.”

In general, I have been working on all my personal goals and I can see the improvements. And yet, I still need to focus on details when I write sentences. The mistakes are inevitable and easy to make, so paying attention is very crucial. Plus, sometimes I began to write sentences with very formal tone and I wish I could learn more about writing in other forms such as exponent. I have said many times and practicing and trying is very important, and I am going to pursue that goal.

Nancy

Handout
1.What is preposition?

2.What is missing and wrong preposition in a writing?

3. Explanation of missing and wrong preposition.

4. Let's Kahoot!
     choose the right answer for each question. The person who in the first place will get a prize!

5. Closure.

Nancy's presentation

Handout
1.What is preposition?

2.What is missing and wrong preposition in a writing?

3. Explanation of missing and wrong preposition.

4. Let's Kahoot!
     choose the right answer for each question. The person who in the first place will get a prize!

5. Closure.

First draft

Handout
1.What is preposition?

2.What is missing and wrong preposition in a writing?

3.Examples of missing and wrong preposition

4.Activity .
   The person who wins will get a prize .

5.Listen to a recording.
Find the mistakes in the recording . The person who found the correct number of mistakes win the game and get a prize.




Preposition :
   I believe that many students have seen Prep. when they learned English language. Prep is actually the short word for preposition, which is used between the verb and noun. For example, the phrase ' look at him' look is a verb, and him is a noun, so the preposition is 'at'.

  Missing or wrong preposition is a common.  and frequent , part of the English language.  It is the wrong using of preposition. For example, such as ' listen to the music' , music is the noun , so 'to' is the preposition . However, if you use it wrong. It's called wrong or missing preposition.


Explanation:
Ways of using preposition:
Vi: intransitive verb. When using in a sentence, there should be a preposition .
Vt: transitive verb . When using in a sentence, there should not be a preposition.

For example:
Vi.
Listen to him
Look at this box.

Vt
watch television.
Read books.


Other ways of using:
+ in ( month, year)
+on ( one day, a morning, a specific day)
+at( specific time, 3:30)

Then there should be preposition after other verbs.
Such as :
Go to the amusement park
Running in the playground.
Laugh at me.
Insist in finishing the project.




Examples of mistakes:
 I was running the playground yesterday.
My mom was very strict to me when I was young.
The naughty child laughs him all the time.
The teacher gave a terse speech for the class.
You should take the responsibility to him.




Generally speaking, this type of mistake is inevitable. You have to practice more in order to reduce your mistakes in writing. Some prepositions match some verbs, so you need to use more, so that you can remember and avoid the mistake.

Final draft after revision

                                        Be dying to learn
         

  The water kept filling my lungs, my sight blurred. I was almost smothered at that moment when I learned to swim. I had to use an extreme way to understand learning .  When I was six, I learned my lesson which taught me how to learn things. We cannot contain all the information in our brains since the capacity of our brains is limited. Therefore, if one wants to learn things by listening and memorizing, that's not enough, we need to do infinite practicing and trying.
      I remember that it was a quite hot summer. All I heard was children's laughing and parents exhorted their children to be careful when swim.  One day my mum asked me if I want to learn how to swim since many children I knew have already learned how to swim. What was my answer? Of course not! How horrible it is to learn to swim. However, my mum was right, I guess I was the last one that didn't know how to swim within the people I knew. I didn't want to be laughed by anybody,so I went to learn to swim.
      I met the coach. He was a Chinese man who had really healthy and black skin, and the best word that I could describe him was brawny. I was happy to see him because he seemed nice, then he began to teach me and my friend to swim. My friend  was one month younger than me, his name was William. William has learned swimming for a week, so I had to catch up with him. The coach taught me how to breathe and then we had practices under the water. It seemed like swimming was not hard as I thought.  After two weeks of tiring practice, my skin turned wheat, and I became fitter, I could basically breathe under the water with gestures.
     The horrible thing had finally come on that day. That day was unforgettable to me: the coach wanted us to swim in a pool of depth of 2 meters. I was so scared because I wasn't ready for that since I just learned to swim for two weeks, and it was on land. I had no idea of how this was going to be. The coach came closer and closer to me, I got nervous, and I could even feel my heartbeat beating like a drum. The moment that coach asked me to swim in the pool I galloped to the girls' bathroom and cried inside for half an hour. It was such a challenge for me to swim in this pool. I just knew how to breathe and how to do the gesture. I didn't even know how to make breathing work with the gesture in order to swim in the pool. I cried for a long time, and my mum came to convince me to go. The problem was that I was not that credulous since I was worried about what if I drowned in the water? However, my mum got mad and she gave me no choice, I had to face what I needed to face.
    I followed my mum to the swimming pool and  saw the coach who was sitting beside the pool. He smiled without any blame, and I guessed he understood the reason why I wouldn't go swim in the pool. He just said' if you never try, how do you know you can't do it?' He was right but I still couldn't, I was a coward at that time. When I looked around, I saw kids who were diving under the water where as I was staring at the pool and I did not know what to do. Suddenly, a strong force behind me push me into the water. I felt dizzy and asked for help in the water, I could feel that I almost smothered. But I could see through my  blur sight the coach just stood there, and even my mum was watching me. I felt my lungs became heavy and I couldn't breathe;I felt like I was dying. However, in order to save myself, I began to think what my coach taught me. I tried to relax and began to put my head above the water to breathe. I was gasping and some water still came into my throat, but I tried harder to make my head up and I used my lungs to breathe. Finally I could float in the water without keep ' drinking water' . Then I tried to make my gesture right, I stretched my arms in front of me. Beside that, I also made my legs to pedal and to push the water backward so that I could move forward. I did it! Although I was almost exhausted.
   That was the story of me learning to swim. I know it was exaggerated, but it was a true and unforgettable story. Just as what I mentioned, I was dying to learn; or it was because I was dying I learned how to swim .  I realized that learning was continuous and there was more than one way to learned such as practicing and trying. Once my teacher had taught me' how can you assert that you cannot do it if you never try?'
   Learning should not be limited in transmission of knowledge from one to another, it is supposed to be practiced and tried in life . I have seen a very inspiring quote' there's no failure in Thomas Edison's life, there is only hundreds time of trying'. As we can see, we can get knowledge or techniques by more than one way. That is also the reason why I chose ropes course, because I have never tried it, and I have been practicing hard recently. Thus,practicing is very crucial for one to grasp a skill, that is so-called ' Practices makes perfect'.

Final draft of significant moment

                                        Be dying to learn
         

  The water kept filling my lungs, my sight blurred. I was almost smothered at that moment when I learned to swim. I have to use an extreme way to understand learning .  When I was six, I learned my lesson which taught me how to learn things. We cannot contain all the information in our brains since the capacity of our brains is limited. Therefore, if one wants to learn things by listening and memorizing, that's not enough, we need to do infinite practicing and trying.
      I remember that it was a quite hot Summer. All I heard was childrens' laughing and Parents exhorted their children to be careful when swim.  One day my mum asked me if I want to learn how to swim since many children I knew have already learned how to swim. What was my answer? Of course not! How horrible it is to learn swim. However, my mum was right, I guess I was the last one that didn't know how to swim within the people I know. I didn't want to laughed by anybody,so I went to learn swim.
      I met the coach. He was a Chinese man who had really healthy and black skin, the best word that I could describe him was brawny. I was happy to see him because he seemed nice, then he began to teach me and my friend to swim. My friend  was one month younger than me, his name was William. William has learned swimming for a week, so I had to catch up with him. The coach taught me how to breathe and then we had practices under the water. It seemed like swimming was not hard as I thought.  After two weeks tiring practice, my skin turned wheat, and I became fitter, I could basically breathe under the water with gestures.
     The horrible thing has finally come on that day. That day was unforgettable to me: the coach wanted us to swim in a pool of depth of 2 meters. I was so scared I because I wasn't ready for that since I just learned to swim for two weeks, and it was off water. I had no idea of how this is going to be. The coach came closer and closer to me, I got nervous, I could even feel my heartbeats beating like a drum. The moment that coach asked me to swim in the pool I galloped to the girls' bathroom and crying inside for half an hour. It was such a challenge for me to swim in this pool. I just knew how to breathe and how to do the gesture, I didn't even know how to make breathing work with gesture in order to swim in the pool. I cried for a long time, and my mum came to convince me to go. The problem was that I was not that credulous since I was worried about what if I drown in the water? However, my mum got mad and she gave me no choice, I had to face what I need to face.
    I followed my mum to the swimming pool and  saw the coach who was sitting beside the pool. He smiled without any blame, I guessed he understood the reason why I wouldn't go swim in the pool. He just said' if you never try, how do you know you can't do it?' He was right but I still couldn't, I was a coward at that time. When I look around, I saw kids who were diving under the water where as I was staring at the pool and I did not know what to do. Suddenly, a strong force behind me put me into the water. I felt dizzy and asked for help in the water, I could feel that I almost smothered. But I could see through my  blur sight the coach just stood there, and even my mum was watching me. I felt my lungs became heavy and I couldn't breathe;I felt like I was dying. However, in order to save myself, I began to think what my coach taught me. I tried to relax and began to put my head above the water to breathe. I was gasping and some water still came into my throat, but I tried harder to make my head up and I used my lungs to breathe. Finally I could float in the water without keep ' drinking water' . Then I tried to make my gesture right, I stretched my arms in front of me. Beside that, I also made my legs to pedal and to push the water backward so that I could move forward. I did it! Although I was almost exhausted.
   That was the story of me learning swimming. I know it was exaggerated, but it was a true and unforgettable story. Just as what I mentioned, I was dying to learn; or it was because I was dying I learned how to swim .  I realize that learning is continuous and there is more than one way to learn such as practicing and trying. Once my teacher had taught me' how can you assert that you cannot do it if you never try?' Learning should not be limited in transmission of knowledge from one to another, it is supposed to be practiced and tried in life . I have seen a very inspiring quote' there's no failure in Thomas Edison's life, there is only hundreds time of trying'. As we can see, we can get knowledge or techniques by more than one way. That is also the reason why I chose ropes course, because I have never tried it, and I have been practicing hard recently. Thus,practicing is very crucial for one to grasp a skill, that is so-called ' Practices makes perfect'.

the hardest thing in writing

    Significant moment: combination of analysis and story telling

  I wrote about my significant moment about how I learned to swim when I was six years old. In this writing, I used many paragraphs to focus on the part of story telling, however, the part of introduction and analysis are more difficult for me to write.

  To begin with, the introduction is significant to the whole writing since it is used to attract viewers’ interest in reading this writing and to narrate the basic content of the story. However, one thing that was hard for me was the hook. I know what a hook is like, but I cannot write a very appealing one to start my writing. So, I struggled for a moment and I tried to come up with an attractive one, and then I found out I need to make an exaggerated one in order to capture viewers’ interests.  Then I need to state my thesis, which could not be too general or too specific. In the meanwhile, the thesis is supposed to be clear and it should be easy for the readers to understand. After thesis, a bridge is required in an introduction as it connects the introduction to the body paragraph. The bridge needs to be natural and I have been working on it since I am not really good at this. Therefore, I think the introduction is difficult for me since I need to put many important things to start my writing.

 Besides introduction, the analysis part is very crucial to the whole writing. However one common mistake that many students would make is that the ratio of the whole writing for analyzing is too small. Before revising my writing, I wrote about 40 sentences to narrate my story, and only12 sentences are analysis. Thus, what I lack was the details for analysis, I just basically talked about what I learned from this lesson, but I did not explain with examples specifically. For instance, I wrote “I realize that learning is continuous and there is more than one way to learn such as practicing and trying.” I did not explain anything about practicing and trying, so people could not see the reason why there is more than one way to learn, why practicing and trying is so important. Writing analysis is hard because I have to think of one thing from different perspectives rather than see things from one perspective. Plus, how to add analysis while telling the story requires the techniques to arrange the analysis and story. To make people think while they are reading is one of the hard thing to do.

   In short, this paper was a little challenging for me, and I revised it for several times. After doing peer suggestions and teacher’s suggestions, I felt much better about it. Introduction and analysis are crucial for the whole paper, where as story telling part just requires me to tell the story clearly and vividly. Therefore, I need to work harder on these two.

Significant moment2

                                        Be dying to learn
         

 I have to use an extreme way to understand learning .  Since I was very young, I learned my lesson which taught me how to learn things; it was not only listening and remembering, it was practicing and trying. That was  quite true and I still learn things that way.  The capacity of our brain is limited, but after practicing, the memory would be deep-rooted.
      I remember that it was a quite hot Summer. All I heard was children's laughing and Parents chatter about asking their children to be careful when swim.  One day my mum asked me if I want to learn how t swim since many children I knew have already learned how to swim. What was my answer? Of course not! How horrible it is to learn swim. However, my mum was right, I guess I was the last one that didn't know how to swim within the people I know. I didn't want to laughed by anybody,so I went to learn swim.
      I met the coach. He was a Chinese man who had really healthy and black skin, the best word that I could describe him was brawny. I was happy to see him because he seemed nice, then he began to teach me and my friend to swim. My friend  was one month younger than me, his name was William. William has learned swimming for a week, so I had to catch up with him. The coach taught me how to breathe and then we had practices under the water. It seemed like swimming was not hard as I thought.  After two weeks tiring practice, my skin turned wheat, and I became fitter, I could basically breathe under the water with gestures.
     The horrible thing has finally come on that day. That day was unforgettable to me: the coach wanted us to swim in a pool of depth of 2 meters. I was so scared I because I wasn't ready for that since I just learned to swim for two weeks, and it was off water. I had no idea of how this is going to be. The coach came closer and closer to me, I got nervous, I could even feel my heartbeats beating like a drum. The moment that coach asked me to swim in the pool I galloped to the girls' bathroom and crying inside for half an hour. It was such a challenge for me to swim in this pool. I just knew how to breathe and how to do the gesture, I didn't even know how to make breathing work with gesture in order to swim in the pool. I cried for a long time, and my mum came to convince me to go. The problem was that I was not that credulous since I was worried about what if I drown in the water? However, my mum got mad and she gave me no choice, I had to face what I need to face.
    I followed my mum to the swimming pool and  saw the coach who was sitting beside the pool. He smiled without any blame, I guessed he understood the reason why I wouldn't go swim in the pool. He just said' if you never try, how do you know you can't do it?' He was right but I still couldn't, I was a coward at that time. When I look around, I saw kids who were diving under the water where as I was staring at the pool and I did not know what to do. Suddenly, a strong force behind me put me into the water. I felt dizzy and asked for help in the water, I could feel that I almost smothered. But I could see through my  blur sight the coach just stood there, and even my mum was watching me. I felt my lungs became heavy and I couldn't breathe;I felt like I was dying. However, in order to save myself, I began to think what my coach taught me. I tried to relax and began to put my head above the water to breathe. I was gasping and some water still came into my throat, but I tried harder to make my head up and I used my lungs to breathe. Finally I could float in the water without keep ' drinking water' . Then I tried to make my gesture right, I stretched my arms in front of me. Beside that, I also made my legs to pedal and to push the water backward so that I could move forward. I did it! Although I was almost exhausted.
   That was the way that I learned to swim. I know it was exaggerated, but it was a true and unforgettable story. Just as what I mentioned, I was dying to learn; or, because I was dying, I learned how to swim.  I realize that learning is continuous and there is more than one way to learn. Leaning should not be limited in transmission of knowledge from one to another, it should be fun. Plus,practicing is very crucial for one to grasp a skill, that is so-called ' Practices makes perfect'.

Be dying to learn

                                        Be dying to learn
         

  Since I was very young, I learned my lesson which taught me how to learn things; it was not only listening and remembering, it was practicing and trying. That was the quite true and I still learn things that way.  The capacity of our brain is limited, but after practicing, the memory would be deep-rooted.
      I remember that it was a quite hot Summer. All I heard was children's laughing and Parents chatter about asking their children to be careful when swim.  One day my mum asked me if I want to learn how t swim since many children I knew have already learned how to swim. What was my answer? Of course not! How horrible it is to learn swim. However, my mum was right, I guess I was the last one that didn't know how to swim within the people I know. I didn't want to laughed by anybody,so I went to learn swim.
      I met the coach. He was a Chinese man who had really healthy and black skin, the best word that I could describe him was brawny. I was happy to see him because he seemed nice, then he began to teach me and my friend to swim. My friend was one month younger than me, his name was William. William has learned swimming for a week, so I had to catch up with him. The coach taught me how to breathe and then we had practices under the water. It seemed like swimming was not hard as I thought.  After two weeks practice, I could basically breathe under the water with gestures.
     The horrible thing has finally came on that day. That day was unforgettable to me: the coach wanted us to swim in a pool of depth of 2 meters. I was so scared I because I wasn't ready for that. The coach came close and closer to me, I got nervous, I could even feel my heart beat like drums pounding. The moment that coach asked me to swim in the pool I galloped to the girls' bathroom and crying inside for half an hour. It was such a challenge for me to swim in this pool. I just knew how to breathe and the gesture, I didn't even know how to swim in the pool. I cried for a long time, and my mum came to convince me to go. The problem was that I was not that credulous since I was worried about what if I drown in the water? However, my mum got mad and I have to go.
    I followed my mum to see the coach who was sitting beside the pool. He smiled without any blame, I guess he understood the reason why I wouldn't go swim in the pool. He just said' if you never try, how do you know you can't do it?' He was right but I still couldn't . Suddenly, a strong force behind me put me into the water. I felt dizzy and asked for help in the water, I could feel that I almost smothered. But I could see through my  blur sight the coach just stood there, and even my mum was watching me. I felt my lungs became heavy and I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was dying. However, in order to save myself, I began to think what my coach taught me. I tried to relax and began to put my head above the water to breathe. Finally, I could float in the water without keep ' drinking water' .
   That was the way that I learned to swim. I know it was exaggerated, but it was a true and unforgettable story.  I realize that learning is continuous and there is more than one way to learn. Leaning should not be limited in transmission of knowledge from one to another, it should be fun. Plus,practicing is very crucial for one to grasp a skill, that is so-called ' Practices makes perfect'.

Annie Dillard

   Annie was invited to plays games with boys. But when they used an ice ball to play with each other, the ice all kicked a man's face. Then, the man chased after  them for a long time after he jumped out of his car without closing the door. Finally, three of them got exhausted and stopped. The man didn't hurt them , he just said' you stupid kids.'

She learned that life needs enthusiasm so that she could have fun. Even though the man just said' you stupid kids', he did nothing harmful to the kids.No matter what she did, the process is more important than the result. She knew that she should do anything she wanted since she was still young.

'But when he trapped us at the lip of Panama Canal, what precisely would he have done to prolong the dap rams of chase and cap its glory? I brooded about this for the next few years.' This quote shows that the author has been thinking about this affair . She knew that people wouldn't be harmful to kids, which shows the good sides of people, even they are strangers. This is important because it shows the main idea of the article.

Grammar mistakes-sentence sprawl

                       How to make a sentence clearly and coherently?
     One obvious problem that few people focus on in students' writing  is sentence sprawl.  Of course, that is one of my problems while I am writing.  To be more specific, sentence sprawl is that the sentence is very tedious, but it doesn't explain the situation going on very well. However, this type of problem is more likely to be happen if one is thinking of oral English and he puts what he thought in the sentence.
 To confirm  this problem in our real writing, for example, in spoken English, people may say ' Um, today, I'm going to the mall trip with my friends, we are going to west farm mall, and it is the most awesome one.' This is when people speak English, but some students write this kind of sentence in their writing, which is not appropriate. This type of problem is very common in our writing, but some students neglect it. To fix this sentence , we can say' Today I 'm going to the west farm mall with my friends, which is the most fantastic one.'I abbreviate this sentence, and make it looks more concise and clear.  I can cite one more example to make this problem more concrete. For instance' It is rainy out side, so people use umbrella and hide in their uses, and then the rain stops,people all go outside to enjoy the sunshine after raining. '  This sentence use many words to connect and to describe its situation. However, we can write like this ' It is because that it's rainy outside, so people use umbrella and hide in their houses , but after the rain stops, people all come out and enjoy the sunshine after rains. '  The difference between these sentences is that  the later one makes more sense since there is a reason and a consequence.
     In order to solve this problem in my writing, I need to practice the ability of speaking and writing concise sentences, like summarizing the main thesis of an article. Plus, I need to write logically, write with the cause and effect relationship.  I need to write clear sentences every time in want to express the situation of something since people would get confused if I write a sentence with 'and, and, so.' To work on this, I will have to read more articles, to see how the authors cope with their sentences. What I need to do is not only read more, but also write more by myself. However, quotes may be helpful to me because quotes are always clear and concise, and quotes express points directly.  This semester,I need to improve my skills in writing coherent sentence and express myself in a direct one.