My overall growth in Language Arts Class is being able to understand and accurately relay international & personal events.

 

This has allowed me to really analyze a situation I am being exposed to or learning or reflecting on, how to look at it to really understand the content and meaning in a piece of writing. Whether I am reading or writing, I am now able to weave in a main idea or depict the minor details. Being able to see those main ideas and the minor details allow me to really help me understand the event.

 

A endeavor the supports my growth in this class is my memoir. The purpose of this project was to write about a personal event in my past that I valued. This project heavily relied on the revision process to keep us up to the requirements. It also allowed us to polish our pieces of writing to the best quality. In this project our first draft was a fast write where we wrote down some basic ideas after being introduced to the project. In the second draft we looked deep in the specifics on our writing, making more in depth lines and expanding on our first revision. The third revision was focusing on the appealing to the reader, focusing on the intro paragraph and then pacing of the rest of the piece. In the fourth draft we worked on Imagery. Imagery is the process of describing rather than telling, also known as figurative language. For example; in this fourth draft I have created the line –

 

 “-Creating a storm of dirt and leaves behind the bike .”

 

The fifth draft introduced diction, which would clarify meaning to the reader. Diction is a deeper look in word choice and structure. For example; while revising for diction I created the line –

 

“The bike shook, the medal organs moving in unison as it chocked on a rising tide of oil that filled the pipes.”

 

In the last two revisions of the memoir focused on the closing of the piece and then the final review for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. By the end of the project each draft was coved with feedback and major revisions, each piece slowly reaching up to our final. The focus of my memoir has been very important from the start of this process. It was required for us to focus on significant event in the writer’s life. My memoir was focused on my first motorcycle ride, which is a memory that I will always value and having this as the topic allowed me to make sure that the entire piece of writing worked together. I have grown to be able to accurately relay personal events. This project was able to support my claim of growth in multiple aspects. I have learned how to display my past with key concepts like the Topic Focus, Imagery and Diction. ­­­­

 

The artifact for my memoir is my collections of drafts and my feedback. In this piece, my revision process becomes visible with the addition of the details to make up my overall personal event description. The feedback given was targeting on the three main concepts I have learned. I was able to revise what I drafted for each term. In my artifact I have all my drafts and feedback. You can see my process of revision from each draft. For example Comment [S23] Read:

 

“My image of the scene was that this ride was taken place in the dark. I figured it was night time. Maybe you could add some additional imagery in the beginning hinting to the reader the time of day.”

 

This feedback was given on the draft 6 where I initially developed my Imagery and diction based sentences. However, given this feedback I was able to revise and add in another sentence in the second paragraph of my draft 7: I clenched the back of the dark jacket in front of me, refusing to let go even when the pressure of the rough cloth made my skin turned pale enough to reflect the day light.[S2]  This gave the reader a better perspective the time zone I was concentrating on. With these details I created a main idea to describe to my personal experiences. Now when I describe a memory I am able to use the concepts I have learned in this project so my audience can understand to the best of their ability. Resulting in my ability to relay a personal event.

 

 

Another Endeavor that supports my ability to understand and accurately relay international & personal events is the Globalization project. Globalization being the direct and indirect connections of a large groups of people. The main process of this project was collecting the international information from an Emerging Epidemics book and connect the main ideas to Globalization. The emerging Epidemics story was based on biological diseases and its impact to the local and international community. There were many class discussions that reviewed main ideas from the book. A reoccurring question for example; is it a demonstration of Progress or Decline? This question was very opinioned based however we have also grown to be able to support our claims. One topic in Emerging Epidemics was;

“Our neighbors were Canada and Mexico, nowadays our neighbors are Sri Lanka and Paraguay, and anywhere else.”

Would this be progress or decline? I would say progress because this international connection allows us to foster a world full of shared knowledge and innovation. However, someone in the decline stance could easily reference the reading and support their claim that the food that we share across the border can cost us lives. Home contaminated food being sent imported or exported to another location can cause severe illness to those who eat it. And worse of all it is not always caught in time. These discussions allow us to really understand the impact an event has on the international community. We took a high quantity of notes to assist us in answer & creating questions and allowed us to end the project with a peer seminar. This project allowed me to open my horizons to the bigger picture and connect it to the Emerging Epidemics reading. Relating to my growth in the ability to understand and connect to the international events.

 

My Artifact for the Emerging Epidemics project would be my notes and my reflections on events given in the book and my process to understand and connect to the topic of Globalization. The notes have really looked into the minor events that all lead to a main concept. For example, it went into a depth of Bioterror or the use of biological diseases as a weapon against another group of people. I looked into both progress and decline to determine how this impacted our world. While yes, it caused serve death to large quantities of people is was also a remarkable advancement of science and war strategy. With such a opened ended topic I have yet to be able to narrow bio warfare into a set good or bad. Yet I was able to say that I understood what it was how it impacts in order to support a claim when asked. For example in my notes I found that at multiple points nations paired up to defeat the epidemics and the common biological rival. Meaning that even victims can have some sort of positive reaction to a threat. I believe that my though process has deepened and allowed me to look more in depth, really allowing me to mentally piece together a main idea supported by my collection of the minor details. In conclusion, this endeavor provided me a skill set to understand international events and connect them to my own personal events.