Chapter 3

          In this chapter it talks about global revisions. Instead just fixing sentences you should start out with an entire aspect of the story. You can ask yourself if you have a purpse and audience, the main focus of your paper, your organization and paragraphing, the content, and a point of view. The best way to edit your essay this way would be to set it aside for a day or two and read it as an audience point of view and see what answers you come up with. Revising single sentences, you should proofread always. It's a slow way to catch andy typos or mistakes in your essay or story. Some people do it by just looking at a computor screen and others actually print out a copy of it and do it all there. You should focus on effectiveness when your editing your sentences. Proofreading is the most important part of a final draft. You should alwasy make time for it, thought it may be hard to see any mistakes from your point of view you can read it out loud and catch any that way, you can proofread our sentences in reverse order, which forces you to think about surface features instead and give you a more clear understanding on what exactly the sentence is saying. Proofreading shows that you care about your writing and respect your audience.
         I learned a quite a bit from reading this chapter that I didn't have any idea about. For example, the reading your sentences backwards, that sounds like a good idea, it can really help you understand more about what it is your trying to write and get the main idea of the story. I usually don't proofread, I'm not sure why, but since I now know its one of the most important things, which I should of probably already known, I'm just lazy. I'll start doing that more, mistakes and typos can be annoying in a paper and no reader really wants to read typos and things like that. Also, I've never heard of global revision before. It sounds like a really neat thing to be able to know and do. So I wil try that on my next paper, instead of just reading it I can ask myeslf whats my main idea in the story and would an audiece have a decent point of view on what I'm trying to write. Make sure its organized well and the content isn't all messed up, its proofread. I look forward to using these new techniques in my next piece of writing.

"Coming Home Again"

              In the story "Coming Home Again," the mom has stomach cancer and is fed through a tube. She can't hold any food down and one of the main ideas of the entire story is about food. But I chose to focus on the fact that the mom, if anything, regretted sending her son to boarding school. I think she mostly regretted it because when he was gone they didn't have time to be together as a family. And the time they would always get together would be dinner, or when it was time to eat. And when he came back from boarding school, his mom felt more nervous and distant and she obviously didn't enjoy feeling that way. But she was content with the idea that he was gone for a good purpose, he was getting an education which I would assume any parent would want for their child, and would in some cases do anything by any means to get their child the best education they had access too.
             I'm not sure if he regretted being away, but I would think he would maybe just a little bit because his mom developed cancer, and I would assume if a parent had cancer, the child would want to be with them as much as possible before they go. But he did get to spend a lot of time with her before she died, like I said as a family when it was time to eat. Their conversations were usually about food or food would bring up a conversation. He doesn't regret going to college, however the part about boarding school, while he was gone he grew more precious to her as her illness progessed. I think that he was glad to have gotten the education and at the same time, would be a little upset that he wasn't home to be with his mom the entire time she had cancer. I could imagine it would be hard, having to choose between going to school somewhere far away while your parent or a family member had cancer, but in his case I don't think he chose, she developed it while he was gone was my understanding while reading the story.
            

Chapter 2

There are many things that come with putting together a decent rough draft of writing. The first and most important thing you should focus on is the sentence structure and organization. You’re also going to want to include and introduction with a thesis, which is the statement stating the main point of your material. A thesis can be at the beginning or the end of your introductory paragraph. The body of the essay develops the support for your thesis statement. You should always have a plan developed first before starting the rest of the essay. As you begin your next paragraph and so on stop to think about the train of thought so that your readers won’t get lost as the essay goes on. Lastly, your conclusion should remind the readers of the main idea of the essay. It can be short and can also leave the reader with something more to think about. Avoid opening new ideas in the conclusion.

I plan to use all of this information in the future when writing rough drafts. Usually I put my thesis in the very first sentence. I just always thought that’s where it was supposed to go but I think putting at the end of the introductory paragraph would work better because it keeps it directly in mind as you continue on to the next paragraph. After I think about the main idea I can then start to develop my entire train of thought for the rest of the essay so that my points don’t get to far of topic and out of place. Keeping a train of thought is very important when writing an essay and I’ve realized that with my rough draft I just wrote. To make a conclusion, I will look at the main idea of my entire essay and pretty much summarize it into the last part, remembering not to make any drastic openings of a new discussion so it doesn’t completely confuse the reader but will state a sentence or two closing the idea with something to leave the reader more concerned about.  

The White Lie

A white lie can be referred to as many different things. In the story, it goes to say that a white lie can go from telling your friend she looks good when really she doesn't just because it might be more convenient for a compliment at the time, from telling a soliders family, he's missing when really he's dead. Keeping a family in that much torment for so long is just ridiculous. Things happen, people die. They couldn't move on because they said he had been missing. Would you want someone to do that to you? Absolutely not. On the other hand a white lie that I think would be reasonable at the right time would be like she said, there was traffic when really she was just tired and didn't make it to work on time. Those are okay, life is always gonna get in the way of things you have to do, and sometimes we just have to find a way aorund those minior stressors.

I think in some cases a white lie is okay, it still makes you an honest person. Some lies like the one about the death is wrong to me, because you shouldn't put a family through emotion like that, when something that drastic happens, you should be straight up. Sometimes when you think about it, a white lie is okay at times, for the reasons she stated in the paragraph about it, for example, when she said sometimes when you don't lie you can have major consequences if you were to say the truth, but at the same time I also think that your actions decide your consequences. If you can't handle it, don't do it. If you you don't want something, say no. Don't just lie about it event he smallest lies, because everyone hates being lied too, I know that for a fact.

Essay 1 Rough Draft

          Now I know when you first glance at this picture you don’t see much, but there's a lot more behind a simple picture, like the saying goes "a picture speaks a thousand words." Photographs can tell a story. Once photo can be of a slight occurrence, but the accumulation of pictures you have begins to reveal pieces of consistent themes and patterns in your life. And this is one I chose to tell about because it was one of the most important days in my life so far. It's a picture of my sister and I before my graduation last year. To some people, graduating may not be that big of a deal. It wasn't to me until someone came into my life and made me realize all the things I have, and the potential I have to succeed. I never cared about school, I never thought I was going to graduate; I had extremely low expectations of myself and found myself getting nowhere. 

     I struggled through school my entire life. Since I could remember. And when I finally got to high school, it started out just like a regular year until I figured out all the needs you have to meet to be able to graduate. And this never actually set in my mind until about my senior year a few months in. A little late, yeah I barely made it. I almost dropped out and just thought the hell with it; I can go get my GED. Thank God, my mom never let me do that because I would of regretted it. No diploma, and I wouldn't have been able to walk the stage with all my friends which for some was the last time I was going to see a lot of them. Walking across the stage with my entire family in the stands seeing what I've accomplished and seeing how proud they all were of me made me feel extrememly special. If I were to of dropped out I gurauntee they wouldn't of treated me the same. This picture and my diploma hold a major amount of significance to me and it will for the rest of my life.

      Looking at this picture brings back so many good emotions for me, one because, I love my sister with everything I am, she's my best friend, my other half and she means the entire world to me. Another reason is because I waited so long for something I thought I'd never have which is my cap and gown. Because for me, little did I know how much significance that day would hold for me. I felt like I accomplished something. I finished something I started which is also something I never found myself doing much, but now that I did that, I’ve gotten so much better at it. When I look at this picture so many events and accomplishments come to my mind and I cant help but smile. I can now look at myself literally, I think about it everyday, it's always something in the back of my mind and its the fact that growing up, I was the trouble maker kid that mom's "hated." And my sister grew up with so many good things always accomplishing different things that my mom would always be so proud of her and I never found my mom being proud of me. And when I graduated, I had something. She waited just as long as I did and she's the reason I made it through. Even though she wasn't necessarily all there for me, I knew it's something she wanted; to see her kid walk the stage and so I did it with that in mind. Now I feel like my mom thinks more of me, and that I can do what I put my heart into as long as I follow through.

            Many pictures can tell a lot more then meets the eye. A lot of them hold a great amount of significance to the photographer or the person or people in the picture and it can be interesting to know what a picture really means to someone in full depth. Knowing that I graduated and looking at this picture gives me a sense of how I've developed as a person over the years and how I shouldn't have low expectations of myself because I can acheive what I want with the resources I have, and the willingness to go beyond my potential and do better then my best.

Chapter 1

           Writing is not about putting down what you already know and think, but more of a process of breaking your thoughts and ideas down into pieces and figuring out what it is that you're thinking. Most experinced and well developed writers will handle a piece of writing in stages, consisting of three main stages. Planning, drafting and revising but may at some point refer back to each one during the breakdown process. The best way to generate ideas for a piece of writing is to jot down ideas either while listening to music or driving on your way to work. Explore your thoughts with those around you and anyone willing to listen to help you realize what your thinking and why your thinking that and experiement with ways of getting your thoughts to other readers in an understandle and reasonable method.
           Some general ideas for a writer to become more aware and even interested in their topic is choce is to talk and listen about the thoughts and ideas they're currently exploring, annotating texts and taking notes, listing, clustering, freewriting, askign the journalist's questions, or keeping a journal. The goal should be the same no matter what technique you choose to use. After your generate your thoughts and ideas you can then begin working on a thesis. Which is a question or the main idea of the topic your writing about.
          Using this information towards my writing in the future I think will help me in all the ways I descried since I've acually never really done any of them except, never for an assignment or something I had to do but usually for some reason my best thoughts and ideas always come to me when i'm driving. So i'll find the best oppertunity for me to quickly write down what came to my mind and then I'll look at it later and analyze that. What I was thinking and why and when and what it meant and all those types of things. So I look forward to using some of these strategies, especially since most are new to me.

  

"Superman & Me"

          In the story "Superman and Me" it talks about how a "smart indian" can be dangerous. Indians are often stereotyped as the people who don't know anything and can't become anything strictly because they are Indian. As the story goes on to say, a "smart indian" can be dangerous for a couple of reasons. They are ridiculed and feared by others or non-indians. Some may think that they won't amount to anything in life because of the stereotypes of the indian culture, which is why Alexie says that he saved his own life and wants to save the lives of other Indians, talking about reading and writing specifically in this story.
          Indians are expected to do very little because of the background and knowledge we assume to have towards them. Indian children in schools were expeced to fail outside of the "Indian world." They would stay quiet and sit in the back of the classroom. They grew up with the tradition of not learning to read or write which I could see how it would effect them in a lot of ways during their education. Unlike Alexie who taught himself to read and write because of his fathers interest in books and reading and things like that. I think what he means by smart indians being dangerous maybe to their peers and society as well, is the fact if Indians ignored the stereotype of their culture and applied themselves to do what they believe they can do, then it would be sort of like a "threat" to the non indians, proving that they can amount to what they set themselves up for. Anyone can do anything they really put forth the effort into, it's just a matter of how bad you want what your aiming for. In the story, Alexie is obviously the perfect example of someone who didn't give up and didn't give in to the negative aspects of the indian background and culture. He refused to fail. He was arrogant, and lucky and smart. And he did everything he could to acheive what he has today. He put forth the effort and did what he had to do for himself. He saved his life by not being affected by the "non-indians" and the things they had to say and portray for so many years. And the same goes for those he inteds to help with their lives as well. An indian who had experience with a negative atmosphere but still managed to "save his own life" growing up and knowing that reading and writing is the overall foundation from a decent to a very well education.