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a. Song Come Sail Away by the Styx is a song that is representative of my experience in this English course. The male in the song is the captain who is sailing away from what he knows, singing, Ive got to be free, free to face the life thats ahead of me. Throughout this course, I have felt as though I am in charge of where I want I want my education to lead me. I can choose to absorb everything I can in class, supplement what I learn in class with readings outside the classroom, and ask questions. I can also choose to put in little effort, not ask questions, and take for granted the opportunity of receiving an education. This English class has made me realize that there is more to the subject than just grammar, writing essays, and reading articles and being tested on them. There are more branches of the subject to be explored. The English language is not only that we communicate, but how we communicate. We have had multiple literacy events in our lives shape who we are and how we interact with others. We have seen how the media caters its messages to various audiences in creative ways. We have explored how to recreate a topic in different genres so that we can present the material in another way. The class has made me think more about my current views. When we spoke about The Truman Show, for example, I began to question if I really accept the reality of the world with which I am presented. Sometimes this is true, so I must remember to stay on my toes and continue to question things. While he captain in the songs is out at sea, he says that reflections in the waves spark his memory. My memory is also jogged when we move onto speaking about a different topic, and I can see how I previously thought about it and how I think about it now that I have new knowledge. In the song, there is a repeated invitation to come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me. The captain is encouraging people to get on his ship and sail the open sea with him. There is much to be discovered in this world. If we confine our understanding of the world to a limited view, we are missing out on all the wonders the world has to offer. If we restrict our understanding of an English

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class to the essay-writing, test-taking, read-and-be-quizzed-on-it routine, we fail to see what else the language has to offer. The captain was right in wanting people to come on board with them because experience, observation, and taking chances can be the most helpful tactics. b. Ideas to emphasize One idea that should be emphasized is how we are too good at accepting things as they are. Questioning and deep learning are key. The structure of formal education can discourage students from thinking outside the box, inputting their own interpretation, and being creative thinkers when standardized testing and the teacher is always right motto, for example, are still prevalent. It would benefit all students if the concepts of analysis, critical thinking, and inquiry were examined more closely. These concepts are the basis to how active we are as learners. If a students has poor critical thinking skills, he is not likely to think deeply, and deep thinking is important if he is to learn to become a wellrounded person. When we think of how pervasive the media is and how consumer culture is ingrained in our beings, it is hard to challenge what is being forced upon us. Too many advertisements, suggestions, ideas of perfection, and materialism are being thrown at us at once. We may find it overwhelming and are quick to adapt. By adapting to this fast-paced culture, we are accepting it. This begs the question of originality. Are things considered original anymore? If the culture fosters a quick pace and little time for reflection, there is no reason to be inventive. We accept what we are given. When we ever decide to reject something, it is difficult to institute change. To be educated is a blessing. True learning manifests itself through inquiry and deep learning. We can only understand something to the best of our abilities when we have asked all the questions and analyzed the significance of it. Sometimes hearing answers that we do not want to hear shapes our views and causes us to not be satisfied. Dissatisfactions provokes us to search for new answers, and we must question along the way if we are to truly learn.

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c. Speak back to an author Dear Mr. Bain, I enjoyed reading your book, What the Best College Students Do. It was fascinating to read the variety of stories. It seems as though there is a student for every major topic that was written about in the text. One chapter that stuck out to me as being the most introspective was entitled Encouragement. It is so commonplace to be able to tell someone that they are doing well in school, but we forget to what measures some students go in order to achieve those high marks. I never thought about it much before, but many students base their self-worth on what kinds of grades they get. There are different approaches that students may take, and they relate back to the three types of learners, strategic, surface, and deep learners. Students who take a performance approach to their studies are different than students who take a learning approach to them. The learning approach coincides with wanting to understand the reasons why and thinking about implications. Furthermore, people who think their self-worth is dependent on grades may not realize that this belief can lead to problems. An interesting point was made here: People who build their self-worth around good grades may not learn much and may not even get the high marks they so desperately covet If what I think of myself depends on making the academic honor roll, then anyassignment that heavily affects my grades will most likely produce great anxiety and tension (Bain 166). For many students schoolwork is the most significant indicator of how worthy they are. When they make bad grades, which is bound to happen, not only do they struggle with their concept of self-worth, but they do not know how to accept failure. Performance and deep approaches to learning have more implications than we think. These ideas are relevant to first-year students who are just trying to find out what study methods work best for them and if they should work to master the material for the test or go further to understand its meaning and applicability.

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Thank you for this wonderful resource! Sincerely, Melissa McGrath d. Writing successes/ things to change/ rhetorical choices I have been successful in drafting my papers. I realize that the final product can only become final once I have gone through many rough drafts. Some are free writes, web diagrams, bulleted lists, and paragraphs that are out of order. I work on writing in chunks. The introduction may be one of the paragraphs I formulate halfway through the writing process because by then I have a clear goal of what message I want to convey; it is only until I have a few cohesive paragraphs that I can begin to write a logical introduction. Other times I need to start off with a strong introduction that will guide me through the paper because it can be easy to get off track. A strong introduction can keep my focus and ensure that I write about what I have set up the reader to anticipate. After drafting in many forms, I get into my first attempt at the paper. I add in details and analysis as I go, making sure to give credit to the source if I use outside information to support my argument. Transitioning between paragraphs is a challenge. I would like to improve upon this aspect of writing. I want one idea to connect to the next, and all ideas should have some relationship to each other. However, sometimes I feel like I need to introduce a new variable to the equation. Rather than smoothly transitioning into the idea, the change may seem abrupt to the reader. It is easy for me to think that everything still flows well, but to the reader who has not sat down with my piece of writing for as long as I have, it may be unclear what the purpose of an abrupt start was. My literacy autobiography includes many rhetorical choices, one of the most prevalent of them being narrative. This autobiography was a story about a literacy event of mine. I incorporated dialogue and tried to analyze the process of learning how to play the flute. I started the story with my third grade self who was struggling to produce any sort of recognizable sound, and ended with my participation in a

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music competition because I was literate enough to not only play various notes with clarity and certain forms of emphasis, but I could begin to tell a story through my playing and use more sophisticated flute vocabulary. I also use rhetorical questioning when I ask why I could not play the most basic note on the flute. It is me thinking out loud and trying to encourage the reader to consider my point of view. Given that learning how to clearly play my music notes was important to me, it is reasonable for me to want to know why I was not able to produce a clear sound. Therefore, the reader can understand why I would ask what seems to be such a simple question. I also included a few rhetorical questions later on my paper when I discussed NYSSMA, a music competition. I was making the point of how far I have come since achieving musical literacy. I was able to muster up the courage to compete in a statewide music competition, but this brought a lot of worry. I wondered what criteria the judge would use to evaluate my solo performance and if I should focus more on calming my nerves or on playing the piece as I had practiced. By including multiple questions, the reader gets a glimpse into the nervousness I was feeling right before entering the judging room. Rhetorical questions engage the reader. The questions are not designed to be answered out loud, but they provide food-for-thought and ask the reader to consider some of the things the author was experiencing at a certain point in time. e. The story of English class Who are you? What have you done? Where are you going? we were asked one of our first English classes. Well, what is that supposed to mean? Im a daughter, a sister, a friend, a volunteer, a student, and a whole bunch of other things. Thats vague. What have I done? In my academic career? Where Ive traveled to? How I try to build good relationships with people? Im not sure where I should take this. Where am I going? Well, after this class Im going to go to the gym, but on a more serious note Im in college trying to get a degree in the medical field so that I can graduate and start my

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professional career. One day Id like to have a family of my own. Is that all shes looking for? Man, I could write pages and pages to answer these questions. Theres just so much to consider. And so my experience in my first college English class went. I left class a little puzzled, but at the same time I was anticipating what was to come. I had my own ideas of what we would cover. I knew we would be writing a lot, but one can only do so much writing. I suppose I assumed that the writing we would do would take the form of essays. How was this class going to be any different? Writing essays had become tiresome. I was not in the mood to take any more fill-in-the-bubble tests. On top of that, at 3:30 in the afternoon, listening to another professor speak for the duration of the class was not my idea of a good English class. The August heat was already tiring. It would be effective to have multiple activities going on and to be in an environment where other students wanted to learn new things as well. After every class I walked out contemplating something new. Oftentimes I would go to the gym after the class; while on the recumbent bike I would give some thought to some of the ideas that were bounced around that day. It is difficult to speak and pant at the same time, so I try to keep talking to a minimum while Im on the bike; it was a good time to silently think. One day we were assigned to read a chapter in a book about managing ourselves. One of the subheadings was How Our Brains Construct Reality. It hit me when I read that our brain builds models of how the world works. We have strong habits and tend not to want to stray from our existing models. This is very true. From then on in, I kept this idea in the back of my head. I had existing models of how I thought a typical English class would play out, but I was trying to fit new ideas into old boxes, as Ken Bain says. It was time to fit new ideas into new boxes. I made a phone call home in September after having been at college for over a month now. Hello? my mom answered the phone in a pleasant tone. Hi Mama! How are you?

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Im doing well, Meliss! How are you? How have things been? You getting the hang of it yet? Yeah, its going pretty well. My classes are going well. I have a lot of stuff to do this weekend, but everything is good. Im going to go downtown tomorrow night with some people. I asked how things were back home, and after the small chat, I needed to tell my mom about the connections I was drawing in some of my classes. We started with my history class. and so I think thats pretty cool. I just wanted to share that with you. I know youre not big on war history, but I just find it so interesting how the events in the twentieth century had that many parallels, I began to tell her. And in English, well, Ive been doing some reading in this book called What the Best College Students Do and the author makes some really good points. I read a chapter earlier this week about how if I understand how I think and work, I will have more control over who Im going to become. It spoke about how we construct reality based on our comfort zones and how we can struggle with our thoughts when the models that our brain has built seek routine and habit and. Sounds like youre enjoying it! Im glad that you like what youre learning, my mom responded. Mom is fabulous at giving hugs and words of advice, but she wouldnt understand how I was beginning to piece things together. I wasnt just reading a book and leaving it at that. I was actually seeing how the authors points were playing their respective roles in my own life, and I became excited when I could draw a connection. We finished up our conversation, and I continued on with the school week. In subsequent English classes, a new topic was introduced each time we met. We moved quickly in some cases but there was still enough time to ponder questions. Those three questions that reeled us into the class back in August have stayed with me. These questions are part of the ongoing discussion that happens inside my head every time I am introduced to a new concept. The great thing about English is that we covered things in topics and picked them apart

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using creative methods. My expectations about essay-writing never came true. We tackled bigger and better papers and projects. I believe the goal was to get us thinking more critically about where we are now, what beliefs we have that have come this far with us, the society in which we live, and the world in which we live. Every life experience has a story behind it. It is important to know where Ive been in order to look to the future. Life has a complex set of meanings, but there is nothing that cant be understood with a little effort, a professor who cares about her students and a discussion that continues long after the class has ended. f. What have you learned about writing that you can take to other courses?

One of the most important things that I have learned about writing is that keeping in mind ones audience is critical. Writing in such a way that will be meaningful for a particular audience is the only way that delivering the message will be worthwhile. In order for a piece of writing to be effective, what is written must be geared towards the appropriate age group. For the childrens book that I created as part of the multigenre project, my preface was more advanced, and a child would probably ask questions as to what the author meant. Parents generally read the books to their children, so I was anticipating a parent to understand what was written there. However, the entire childrens book should be designed in such a way that children ages four to ten can comprehend every word. That is why there are trillions of books out there everyone has different tastes, and the audiences that the authors are writing to vary immensely. Being aware of the audience is important for any kind of writing, not just the writing that is done in an English class. History papers carry a different set of criteria, and the audiences may have varying levels of comprehension of certain events in a time period. The thought goes to waste if the people who are reading an individuals writing do not understand the logic of the author. Audience also ties into credibility. An author is believed to be more credible when he knows what his audience is capable of understanding.

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The purpose of a piece of writing is also critical. If an author rambles about a point or drifts off on a tangent, then there was really no thought process that went into the writing. The purpose must be clear. Why is the author writing? Maybe he wants to express his opinion, analyze something in greater detail, offer a new perspective, contrast two ideas, persuade his audience, or inform his audience of something. The job of the reader is to decode the purpose and find the relevant points in the writing. Audience, purpose, genre, pathos, and ethos are intertwined in that a piece of writing will be catered toward a certain group of people in an appropriate medium, and it will have a specific message to deliver that will make the audience feel some emotion, which in turn will either increase or decrease the credibility of the author. They are all equally important because they capture the essence of writing. g. Allegory of the college? I am a tourist on one giant road trip with many other first-time tourists. We are here taking notes on some of the most important concepts there are to learn. The car became so crowded that we all decided to walk to our destinations. We travel to the most interesting of places together or alone to class, to the gym, to the dining hall, to our dorm buildings, etc. Without a car, walking is the only way I get to experience all that this state has to offer. I have struggled to find the right interstates at times. Around noon, some of the most common rest stops are crowded. I just want to grab a bite to eat, and the jewel of the crown is exquisite to visit, but sometimes there are too many people that I will have control my hunger and put off eating until a later time. This monument is so popular that some people will even wait to pay ten dollars for lunch. Traffic jams tend to happen around 6:30 in the evening as well. I suppose people are hungry again. I cant blame them. We all have long journeys each day. We need to be nourished so that we can perform at our best. We as tourists cannot let the locals down. There are pictures to take, journals to keep, and other tasks that must be completed before a certain date. One would think we were students with all our heavy backpacks.

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Sometimes it is difficult to find time to relax during the work week. From Monday to Friday, we are expected to take notes on all we see around us. The majority of us must pay close attention to the English language. Others of us must focus our attention on other languages. There are other general classes of information on which we must report daily, such as the study of life. A few basic math calculations are involved as well. I call home while I am walking from one monument to the next. I have a far walk between my hotel and the chemistry exhibit, but the good news is that I only need to take notes on this monument every other day. Every three weeks our tour guide quizzes us on all that we have experienced and learned. To ace the exam, it is important to stay proactive and take good notes on the structures of these monuments. New discoveries are made each time we visit them. The discussions we have as a group after our visits are impactful. We bounce ideas off each other. Our next topic of discussion is what to do over winter break. We are not required to stay together as a group. We are free to roam and experience another part of the world. In January, we will be reunited, and the tourism will start up again. The subsequent months will bring quite a bit of change. We will have determined what our favorite monuments to visit are and will have made up our minds if we want to continue to tour the state or if we should move onto a different project. Either way, our experiences together would have been bountiful. I would like to return and continue to learn with this tour group. We are a large bunch, but that means that there is just more to discover about everyone. Safe travels to tourists across the country!

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