January 18th Homework

Response To Allen:
In her writing, The Inspired Writer v. The Real Writer, Sarah Allen argues the different challenges that not only students face, but everybody that writes. I enjoyed how she wrote about writers fears of writing because it explains even the best writers are still afraid to write. I feel like I really connected with this writing because I've never enjoyed writing, but I'm not too bad at it.


Blackboard Reading Question:
My past experiences compare to Allen's reading greatly because I have always struggled writing papers and articles. I have never been inspired to write anything in my life, but that doesn't mean I'm a bad writer.


Reflection:
I really enjoyed this article by Allen because I related directly to it. I have always feared writing and I don't think I will ever enjoy writing. But I know that it's something that I have to do, and I can only hope to get better.


GRR(57):
When I was in high school, I was never really taught on how to write correctly. It was more of learning the format the teachers wanted us to write our papers in. And most of my friends say they had the same experiences as I had in high school, they learned more of the format rather than learning academic writing.


Murray Response:
In his article, All Writing Is Autobiography, Donald Murray argues that most of people's writings are autobiographical because whether the writers know it or not, when authors write they tend to write about their experiences without using themselves in the stories.


QD 1, 3-5:
1.) I think that Murray is trying to get the readers to reconsider using autobiography in more of our writings.


3.) Murray uses his writing as a way to express his emotions, whether it's through poetry, or a simple story. This proves his point as to writing is autobiographical. He also wanted to break away from the usual "rules" of writing to explain a little easier to the readers that writing is autobiographical.


4.) Although his article is very different than previous articles we have read, it is also similar in some ways. He puts some factual information into his article and I also using a form that students may find difficult writing themselves.


5.) Murray's arguments change my view of writing a little bit. I would change by including more emotion and some of my personal experiences into my writing pieces.


MM (66):
To me, I think that inputting your own personal experiences can have a positive impact towards a persons writing, and the fact that when your writing about your own experiences, you would look forward to writing more than having an assignment on writing a summary from a reading.


GRR(139):
1.) My sister's treehouse, which was made of wood scraps and cardboard, made a great place to play with her friends.
2.) The treehouse was made of wood scraps and cardboard, and made a great place for my sister and her friends to play.
3.)  My sister's treehouse made a great place to play with her friends; it was made of wood scraps and cardboard.


Response to Dawkins:
In his article, Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool, John Dawkins argues that sometimes it's ok to break the rules regarding punctuation. He goes on to explain that most college handbooks don't provide some information on the use of punctuation, and that punctuation is based from the way the writer is intending the readers to understand their article.


QD 2-3, 5-6:
2.) Handbook rules provide no instructions for use of the comma, punctuation is all different depending on the sentence structure, and that handbooks don't generally help with interdependent clauses.


3.) The idea behind raising and lowering regarding to punctuation is to decide how much emphasis the writer wants to put into the sentence or article that they are writing. It may impact your choice of using punctuation and how much emphasis is being used.


5.) Before reading this article, I didn't think of punctuation as raising or lowering a level to make a sentence with more or less emphasis. I always thought punctuation was to be used in a certain way for the sentence to sound correct.


6.) I usually think of punctuation as a way to complete the sentence, and to help it make sense for the readers. I do worry about punctuation quite a bit because I always thought that it had to be a certain way for a writing to be good. Reading this article has changed my views to using punctuations because I now know that punctuation can be used mainly to put emphasis into a sentence.


MM (155):
I think that our professor wanted use to read this article because it would have been tough for a professor to explain why punctuation is rhetorical without all of the examples that Dawkins had in his article.


Reflection:
I found this article tough to read, but it contained a lot of information that I have absorbed. And with that aspect, I think this is a great article for other students to read in the future. It gave me a new understanding as to how punctuation can be used.