writng response

                   My writings this year didn’t get a good grade. According to all the feedback I received on my writing, I always make mistakes on common errors such as comma splice, fragment, and run-on sentence and so on. There are 2 run-on sentences, 2 fragments, 1 comma splice in my literacy narrative essay, 1 comma splice in my profile essay and literary analysis essay. In my literacy analysis essay, I have weak paragraph transition and didn’t show how each paragraph connect to my thesis. I was weak on using quotations and didn’t explain the quotations well in literary analysis essay and research paper. In the WrAP test, I was weak in sentence structure and supporting my thesis.

                   Our first essay as a class was the literacy narrative essay. I have never such a long English essay before and I have no idea what a literacy narrative essay was. It turned out that I didn’t do a good job on the essay, I made a lot of grammar mistakes and my opening is not attractive to the readers. I also made some grammar mistakes on the next essay, but my grammar mistakes decreased as I write more essays.

                   Based on the feedbacks, I knew that I had made a lot of common errors on my writing, but the errors I make decreased as I write more essays. I also knew that I was weak on using quotations and transiting paragraphs. My sentence structure also need more work.

                   Since the beginning of the year, my essays have improved in common errors, organization, word choice, and ideas, but I still need to work on interpreting rhetorical situations, using and explaining quotations, word choice, and transiting paragraphs.

                   I think the feedback I received on my writing this year match my understanding of my writing work because I noticed that I’m weak at grammars and made a lot of grammar mistakes, I was also weak in using quotations. The way I evaluate my writing has changed over the course of the year. At first I just think about how I can write enough to reach the minimum, but as I begin to write more essays, I begin to think about how to improve my writing and fix the mistakes I made.

                   After reading all the feedbacks I have received this year, I now know what I should focus on and improve next year. Next year I will work much harder and spent more time on my writing. My goal is to work on how to use quotations and how to transit paragraphs. I need to work on revising my rough draft too. I believe that my writing will be much better if I work more on my weakness and keep up with my strengths.

common error list

1. run-on sentence: In my fifh grade, a new teacher came to teach us English, her name is Mrs. Zhang.
2. fragment: Since you are interested in reading, what about we work together and write a story?
3. wrong preposition: She helped me and built my confidence on writing.
4. comma splice: Our classmates often asked Lucy to draw something for them, sometimes it's a cartoon character, sometimes it's a place.
5. dangling midifier: By having the snake goddess as a character in the story, it made the story more interesting and more attractive to the readers.
6. long quotations: Research paper

outside reading time 4/15-4/22

4/21 150 min Nation P75-p164

outside reading 4/4-4/15

This week, I started a new outside reading book is “Nation”, since I didn’t read it during the summer, I’m reading it now. The two main characters in this book are called Mau and Daphne. Mau is a boy who has just returned from an island to turn himself into a man, he find that everyone he knows has died because of the “Big Wave”. Daphne is a daughter of an aristocrat in line to the throne. Both their lives have been affected by the 'Big Wave', and they must try to survive in, and rebuild the nation.

I think this book is very interesting so far. I think the description of the “Big Wave” is very vivid. I really want to know what will happen to the characters as the story goes on. I also spend 50 minutes of my outside reading time annotating the four poems.

4/13: 50 minutes, poems

4/12-4/25: 100 minutes, P1-P74, Nation

"Everything Must Belong Somewhere" by Bright Eyes

Leave the bright blue door on the white-washed wall
Leave the death ledger under city hall
Leave the joyful air in that rubber ball today

Just leave the lilac print on the linen sheet
Leave the birds you killed at your father's feet
Let the sideways rain in the crooked street remain

Leave the whimpering dog in his cold kennel
Leave the dead starlet on her pedestal
Leave the acid kids in their green fishbowls today

Leave the sad guitar in its hard-shell case
Leave the worried look on your lover's face
Let the orange embers in the fireplace remain

Cause everything it must belong somewhere
Oh a train off in the distance, bicycle chained to the stairs
Everything it must belong somewhere
I know that now, that's why I'm staying here

Leave the ocean's roar in the turquoise shell
Leave the widower in his private hell
Leave the liberty in that broken bell today

Just leave the epic poem on its yellowed page
Leave the gray macaw in his covered cage
Let the traveling band on the interstate remain

Cause everything it must belong somewhere
Sound-stage in California, televisions in Times Square, yeah
Everything it must belong somewhere
I know that now, that's why I'm staying here
Well I know that now that's why I'm staying here

Leave the secret talks on the trundle bed
Leave the garden tools in the rusted shed
Leave those bad ideas in your troubled head today

Just leave the restless ghost in his old hotel
Leave the homeless man out in that cardboard cell
Let the painted horse on the carousel remain

Cause everything it must belong somewhere
Just like the gold around her finger or the silver in his hair
Yeah, everything it must belong somewhere
I know that now, that's why I'm staying here
Oh, I know that now, that's why I'm staying here

In truth, the forest hears each sound
Each blade of grass as it lies down
The world requires no audience
no witnesses, no witnesses

Leave the old town drunk on his wooden stool
Leave the autumn leaves in their swimming pool
Leave the poor black child in his crumbling school today

Leave the novelist in his daydream tomb
Leave the scientist in her rubic's cube
Let the true genius in the padded room remain

Leave the horse's hair on the slanted bow
Leave the slot machines on the riverboat
Leave the cauliflower in the casserole today

Just leave the hot, bright trash in the shopping malls
Leave the hawks of war in their capitals
Let the organ's moan in the cathedral remain

Cause everything it must belong somewhere
They locked the devil in the basement, threw God up into the air.
Yeah, everything must belong somewhere
You know it's true, I wish you'd leave me here
You know it's true, why don't you leave me here?

I chose to analyze the song named "Everything Must Belong Somewhere" by Bright Eyes. In this song I found a pattern of “leave the…” and “let the…”. There is one “let the…” after each five “leave the…”. Most of the song rhymes, such as “wall” and “hall”, “kennel” and “pedestal”, “case” and “face”, “somewhere” and “stairs”, “somewhere” and “here”, “shell” and “hell”, “page” and “cage”, “somewhere” and “Times Square”, “bed” and “shed”, “hotel” and “cell”, “sound” and “down”, “audience” and “witnesses”, “stool” and “pool”, “tomb” and “cube”, “bow” and “river boat”.

In this song, “everything must belong somewhere” is repeated eight times, “I know that now, that's why I'm staying here” is repeated sixteen times. Almost all the format of the lyrics in this song is “leave the…in…”. It shows that the singer wants to say that everything must belong somewhere so just leave it there. At the end of the song, the singer sings “You know it's true, I wish you'd leave me here
You know it's true, why don't you leave me here?”, the singer wants to say that everything must belong somewhere and so does I but you didn’t leave here as I wished.

"Fifth Grade Autobiography" by Rita Dove

I chose to read the poem called "Fifth Grade Autobiography" by Rita Dove in the "Poems of Childhood" section of the poetry book. When I first saw the poem’s title, I thought this poem is about her experience in fifth grade and is a narrative poem. After I read the poem, I found out that I was right about the type of the poem but this poem is actually about a picture.

I found a lot of imageries used at the end of the first and second stanza. For example, “the raccoon tail flounces down the back of his sailor suit” and “sun though the trees printing her dress with soft luminous paws”. At the beginning of the third stanza, there’s a word “jealously”, it showed the author’s feeling towards her brother. There are also many enjambments in this poem. This poem seems to be a poem about the authors good memories with her family, but at the end of the poem the author says

“He smelled of lemons. He’s died—

  But I remembered his hands.” This made the poem a little sad

outside reading 3.26-4.1

This week I finished Funny Boy by Shyam Selvaduurai. The fourth story of the book is called The Best School of All. This story happens when Arjie transferred to a new school called the Victoria Academy because his father wants him to become a man. The fifth story is written in diary form which I think is well interesting.

 I think this story is a little awkward because in this story, Arjie fell in love with a boy in his class named Soyza. The author well described the conflict in Arjie’s mind after he found out he fell in love with Soyza. This week for outside reading I also read and analyzed a poem named Fifth Grade Autobiography.

3/31: 30 min

3/28: 120min, p 301-312