Comprimising

Best Way to Argue

Practicing Visual Analysis

The View From a Six Year Old

Final Drafts

Comic Anylisis

Annotated Bibliography

Argumentative Essay by madelinerallen

Workshop Reflection: Argumentative Paper

1. Xaiver's advised me to get rid of a few of my rhetorical questions because I had too many. He always helped me with some sentence structure, and as always asnwering questions I left my audience with. For example in the part of my paper where I start talking about standardized testing he wanted me to elaborate more. I never did elaborate because I was scared it would start to sound like I was going off on a tangent. He assured me I wouldnt so thats what I have to fix.
MC advisaed me to stop being so incredibly personal. Theres certain places in my paper where its unneeded and will be much stronger if I just talk more about my sources instead. For example when i say things like "I wanted to dig deeper." He also had me change some things like "smaller class sizes" to "student teacher ratio" so it wouldnt sound so repetitive.
Megan told me to make the introduction of my paper more clear as to which argument I'm using as well.

2.The most helpful piece of advice I recieved was from Megan. She said that parts of my essay were good enough to keep so personal, however there are some that can go which will make my essay stronger. Like MC, she thinks that I should get rid of the paragraph where I start talking about my reseach process.

3.The least helpful advice as always are things like sentence structure and a paragraph I wrote in second person. These are easy fixes that probably why they are the least helpful.

4. I plan to drop almost all of my rehtorical questions and turn them into stronger, blunt sentences. Also I want to get rid of a lot of first person and talk more about the view of my sources. Also I think I can bring up other benefits rather than smaller class sizes to help change more of the argument against public schools. Last but not least I will make sure its clear that my introduction becomes more clear that my paper is a rogerian argument.

Final Reflection

My final look back at English 112 starts with a deep breath in and deep breath out. This class took up the majority of my school work time. Each week I really did not know how I was going to keep moving forward in this class. I think the most important part of excelling in a class, is knowing the teacher. Megan is a great teacher, but in her class you have to be a great student. She throws no free bees. However she was extremely awesome at helping me every time I asked for it. I have decided to reflect fully on how I changed as a writer.

I have always loved writing, therefore I had always loved English. This class really tested my love for it. It made me realize that not all of my writing can always be creative and catchy, that it can also be challenging and informative too. I've always thought my writing was good. I never liked sharing it though. I've always been the writer to loose myself in it, and I never understood I was that way until I read this interview.  She talks about advice she once got from her teacher. She said "Write what you know you don’t know about what you know.” I love this. she says she loves writing because more often times than not, she "doesn't know what shes going to say, until she says it." I can say that i find myself in this predicament all the time. The thing about this class is that you have to pick your topic quickly and you have to marry it without looking back. So I had to make sure that it was something i knew i could talk about forever and ever. GUUHHHREATTT. What if I hate my topic I thought. What the heck am I going to do? Thank you Exploratory Proposal. Let me tell you, I have never been so confused about an assignment in my life. However when you donut know what to talk about, you kind of end up right where you want to be. I didn't even realized my topic at first. I just wanted to do teaching techniques and how they differed through out different types of schools. I think I had the Social Class Article in the back of my head when I was writing. Then I discussed everything with my group and realized I found myself in a position to write about public school vs. private school, and i never really looked back. The thing about this topic is that it was something near and dear to my heart. My childhood best friend attended both public school and private school. She had a not so good experience and begged her parents to send her to public school. I wanted this. At first I didn't think I was going to tell my friend Logan about it. Until I found myself in a position to where I wasn't going to do my friend justice if I didn't put her story in it. So, two days before my annotated bibliography was due, I called her up and told her where I was at. She was more then excited to help. She said that if she could help in some way decide another students fate she would do so without thinking twice.

Writing before this class was just "fun writing" you know? Anytime I get the chance to be creative with my writing I take it, and run with it. Like on February 5, 2013 when I wrote The View From A Six Year Old. That day we got to use our imaginations and that's what I love doing. Usually because when you use your imagination, your escaping from real life, and there is nothing more exciting then leaving reality behind. Through out this class we were not able to write like this. Because most of the time comprimising doesnt always work. We talked about comprimising on april 4, 2013. This quote is funny because it is insisting that comprimising never happens. This is kind of ironic because in an argumentative essay you have to write a comprimise. Even though through out the whole paper your trying to prove the other side wrong. In argumentative writing only one thing matters. FACTS. Who said this? Why should we believe it? What does this statistic mean? Why is it important? Argumentative writing sometimes makes me what to puke. I usually end up looking like this poor boy. The thing is though, when I believe in something, and I'm passionate about it, I can not be beat in a an argument. I have a belief and it will remain that way until proven otherwise. Megan introduced a set of rules to us that describes my family's style of arguing perfectly. Some of the rules were things like yelling louder and calling your opponent Hitler. This is how I responded. It can be completely ridiculous to argue that way and it could never work in academia, however it is a little easier to call your opponent Hitler, than it is to find information to back your own self up. Thats probably where I struggled most in this class. Was finding perfect sources to make my argument happen. They had to say things that i believed would help me. I needed sources that were good for both sides. Logan ultimatley balanced my topic out. I thought I wanted to write Toulmin. However I felt muh more comfotable with the layout of Rogerian. Also I didnt want one of my sides to "win." They both need fixing.

Fixing. Thats something that happened a lot through out this class. Each paper changed so much from the way it started. I waws always proud of my papers. But this class taught me not to be proud until you see the final grade, because you never know what Megan or your audience is going to think, and I think thats the best lesson I learned in this class: You may start writing for yourself, but in the end its not how you feel, it is how your audience feels.