Revising and Editing

Scores:

Pre-test: 38/50

Lesson 2: 53/60

Lesson 3: 16/18

Lesson 4: 17/21

Lesson 5: 4/4

Lesson 6: 8/10

Lesson 7: 23/25

Lesson 8: 16/20

Lesson 10: 12/15

Lesson 13 : 14/14

Lesson 15 : 5/10

Post-test : 46/50

Effectiveness :

Unfortunately, I feel like I didn’t improve much my writing skills, partly because I didn’t spend much time reviewing my assignments and working on improving it and partly because we never corrected our homework (writing work and grammar work) in class so consequently, I wasn’t always sure if my answers were accurate.      

Things learned :

This course was very enlightening for me as far as literature goes. We read few short stories, poems and even saw and read a playwright. We also learned a lot about different authors, periods that they lived in and genres. This allowed me to enlarge my general knowledge regarding American and Canadian literature. However, I’m not quite sure if I learned anything new as far as writing goes. Thought-out this semester, I found myself using things like structure, literary elements and ways to start an introduction that I previously learned in high-school.   

Appreciation:

What I liked the most about this course is the fact that we mainly read stories from 19^th and 20^th century writers. This is due to the fact that older authors as well as their stories don’t really interest me mostly because of the old style English. In addition, it allowed us to discover stories that can still relate to our present lives. I also liked analysing these stories in class and listening to its different interpretations even though it wasn’t necessarily a part of this course’s programme. On the other hand, what I “liked less” about this class was the unit about poetry simply because I can’t seem to appreciate this form of literature, not even in songs.

Course rating :

During this semester, my evaluations were always done on time, I only missed one day of classes and always read carefully every single one of the short stories, playwrights and poems that were due.  However, I feel like I didn’t always give my 100% and as they say, there is always room for improvement! For instance, sometimes, I could have paid more attention in class; I could have done my writing work and grammar work more attentively and I could have given more effort towards the evaluations that I did (especially projects and our writing assignment). For the aforementioned reasons, I would give myself a 6,5/10.   

Revising and Editing 1

1. What I liked most about my text is ... 
First paragraph

2. What I liked least about my text is ...
Conclusion

Here are my suggestions for improving the:

3. introduction 
I should have used one of the 11 ways to introduce an essay that we learned in class. 


4. thesis statement 
I should bring up my subject in a more creative way.

5. topic sentence of each paragraph 
I can look up for previous examples to make sure that my topic sentences contain everything. 

6. content of the text 
Unfortunately, I have a bad habit of not doing a plan before writing. That technique might help me to improve my paragraph's content. 


7. organization of the text 
I believe that my text is well organized, except for the conclusion since I didn't write a thesis statement. 


9. sentence style of the text 
I might use every now and then a figure of speech. 

10. vocabulary 
I could highlight the words that I often use in my text and try to find synonyms in a Thesaurus.
11. grammar 
Unfortunately, I didn't get any feedback on my grammar. Consequently, I'm not sure just yet whether it needs improvement or not.

12. spelling
Rereading my text and looking for some of the words in a dictionary.

13. conclusion 
My conclusion was the weakest link in my text because it lacks a thesis statement. Writing one the next time, would of course improve my mark. 

You don`t always become what you eat

                                       Written by Stephen Leacock, The New Food is a short story about a Professor that has invented a highly concentrated form of food in the form of pellets. As a story goes on, a baby that goes by the name of Gustavus Adolphus swallows one of these pills and explodes into fragments. This short story’s style differs a lot from another short story called Old Habits Die Hard. These differences become more obvious once we analyze these short stories` characters, dialogues, word order and sentence types.  

  

                                        First of all, contrary to Old Habits Die Hard, The New Food`s character`s interact with each other which fleshes them out, ads more action into the story itself and provides us a break from long monotonous descriptions. In fact, not only The New Food`s characters actually have names, such as Plumb, Henry, Gustavus Adolphus, but they also communicate with each other through dialogues in paragraphs five and six. On the other hand, in Old Habits Die Hard, the Old woman and the old man don’t have any names and don’t even say a word through the whole story. To sum up, The New Food differs from Old Habits Die Hard in virtue of its characters and their interactions.

                                        In addition, The New Food`s sentence`s type is simple and contains a regular structure (subject, verb, complement) which makes it easier and pleasant to read. Meanwhile, Old Habits Die Hard has a very different style. For instance, it contains one-word sentences such as “Bedlam. Bedpan. Bedrgaggled. Bedfast.” Also, some of the other`s sentence`s word order is very complex and sometimes hard to understand. For example, “Old man in white gown” doesn’t have a verb among many other sentences. In brief, word order and sentence structure are very different in these short stories, one is read with ease and the other is hard to read.

                                        All things considered, the style of Leacock’s story differs from that of Silvera because of Leacock’s characters that happen to be more elaborated, dialogues, word order and sentence types.    

                                       

Opinion about The Tell-Tale Heart

What I really like about The Tell-Tale Heart is the fact that the main character’s motivations are mostly dictated by his feelings and senses.  Therefore, when we read the story, we don’t have to engage in analysing and interpreting its character’s actions (since his actions are irrational) which makes it a really pleasant reading experience.

Wiki Quiz

1. Where is Mr. B's office? C-150
2. What percentage of the course is writing and speaking worth? 80%
3. How many items are on the "Writing Correction Code"? 18 items
4. What are Mr. B's office hours? Tuesdays: 11:30 - 2:30, Wednesdays 1:00 - 2:00 and Thursdays 3:00 - 4:00
5. What is the 48 hour rule? When a student is planning on being absent during an evaluation, he has 48 hours to notify his teacher. Otherwise, this student is going to fail his evaluation.
6. What is the first assignment? Interview one of the student's and write a blog about it.
7. How many references are made to "thesis statement"? 13 references
8. How can I reach Mr. B? Via MIO and e-mail (francis.bonkowski54@gmail.com)
9. How many short stories are we going to read? 3 short stories
10. How many pages on the site refer to "grammar"? Unfortunately, I couldn't find any!
11. How many items are listed in the Student Agreement? 10 items
12. What are the summative writing assignments? Assignments that are going to count in our final mark. 
13. Write down two questions you have about the course?
    
    1 - As far as litterature goes, are we going to study any modern novels?
2 - What would be the main advantage of taking the 103A English course while other English courses are worth the same amount of credits ?

Not so awkward after all !

Earlier today, I was honoured to meet a girl that described herself as a socially awkward person.  However, as the conversation went on, I quickly realized that we had more things in common than we thought we would ... Oh boy-oh boy, does that also make me socially awkward ? Oh, well... She goes by the name of Joanie and she’s a small town girl that just blew into Montreal from a place so far away that I can’t even recall its name. As a person, she seemed quite genuine and shy. She likes psychology, writing, analysing stories, people and characters and traveling. In fact, when she is going to get her college degree, she would like to travel to the Land of the Rising Sun. 

As far as her goals go, adapting to her new college-girl life and especially getting through the English course would probably be her main short-term goal at this moment. Eventually, aside from teaching French to a Korean child twice a week, Joanie would like to get a real job at a library or at a store that sells goods for artists. Finally, she would like to finish college with good grades, which probably won’t a problem since her performance back in high school was so exceptional that she even got a student’s grant for all her effort. I hope that everything goes as planned for Joanie and I personally wish her the best of luck.