Mariana, Bustamante

Profesor Vargas-Ortiz, Sabrina

EN105-BLH
16 January 2016
What Knowledge of Writing Do I Possess
The world of writing has revolved around me since the moment I stepped in the daycare
door, after that my writing skills have developed depending on my past professors teachings and
my willingness to learn. I have been taught many different rules, guidelines, and standards of
writing, yet they were not enough to shape my skills to at least a style of acceptance. In writing I
have many flaws and Id wish to say I had as much strength as well. My writing can be
considered as a basic high school level performance; since that is all the knowledge I have about
writing itself. My goals for the term are to help me explore more doors into the world of writing
and gain as much knowledge as its needed to be able to help me survive in the real world.
In my past experiences with writing I have learned to write a decent essay, and research
paper with MLA format. I am able to follow the format with the understanding of the material
left behind by my recent professors, allowing me to get by for the moment. I often struggle with
my essays, but it is not with the MLA format, it is with the structure the essay has to be. Every
professor teaches the structure of an essay differently and they expect you to follow it exactly
how they want it. Having to learn new ways of writing is perfect but it is confusing when one
professor tells you its right and the other wrong. The one thing I want to understand firmly of an
essay its the roots on how to start its structure to fully bloom it into the expectation the professor

has for me. By the structure of an essay I do not mean the order of where the introduction or the
conclusion has to be, but what they expect in the introduction or other body parts of and essay.
An additional experience I have had in the past with writing is how to write a short
answer response. I am able to fully meet the requirements needed to write a good short answer,
with the ability to find resources in the text to prove my response about the subject asked. I
occasionally have difficulties in writing a short answer response but I can quickly catch up to
creating a better one the next assignment. What I have been taught a short answer response is
required to have at least eleven or more sentences that can be viewed as a paragraph, your
allowed to add a few more sentences as long it is not a five page essay. It needs the following
rules to be a good response: first sentence must be a general statement in which you can relate
the subject to an everyday life or event you have seen in the past. The following sentence would
be your topic sentence in which you rephrase the question in to an answer with two thread ideas
mentioning the author and title of the article or book. Evidence from the text, such as a quote,
and explanation of both your thread ideas would be the next sentences in your short answer
response, until you can prove your argument to the reader. Finally the ending sentences would
provide a connection to another story that relates to what your topic and the inference that can be
made about the explanations going outside the story. Those are the rules I have been taught that a
short answer response needs but I would enjoy learning new ways to improve my short answer
response.
What I would want to learn from this course is the different styles of writing such as, MLA,
APA, and others. Since in my study of work the knowledge of APA writing is required I would
appreciate it if by the end of this course I am an expert at it. I believe that EN105 will help me

develop the necessary skills to write in an advance level that where I already am. My goals are to
sharpen my skills by fixing all the flaws in my essays and improving my writing style.
I understand that my argument for this journal might seem illogical but for me it was had a great
impact in my life. I felt strong at heart with the issue that I was being forced to attend high
school for four straight dreadful, tiring, idiotic years of my life. Since middle school my views of
high school was a waste of time. I was just going to sit in a class room for eight hours filled with
students that did not have any respect for those around them or the teacher because they were the
least bit interested in learning. High school was a waste of time since I already knew what I
wanted from life, my goals were all set and ready to roll. I was going to join the Park University
family to get my bachelors degree, enroll in Webster University for my masters degree, then
move to Washington state to get my PHD to become a professional psychiatrist. My life is set
but, of course, since I was under age I was obligated to enter high school unless I wanted to see
my parents in jail for child neglect. Plus, if I ever wanted to enter the University I needed a high
school diploma. Dear government high school isnt as important as you say it is. All you learn in
high school is how many times Tommy cheated on his girlfriend and how many boys are left that
Jenny hasnt slept with. High school is for those young people who do not know what they want
in life and need more time to experiment and realize the path they want to take. In the other hand
for those who do know should not be left stuck in a race they have already finished. That only
causes their encouragement to break from frustration of not progressing and they will lose their
curiosity of the real world if we are just keep being pushed down. If we could immediately take
our goals, we could finish faster and fill the jobs that need employees and help our countries with
their issues. The government would not need to pay for your high school education resulting in
more saved money to pay the countries debt. There will be more educated citizens developing

our country in a faster pace than the others around the world. The government would receive
even more money. During my high school year I fought with the school administrators even with
the school district and my parents to be allowed to graduate early, because I did not want to be
forced to stay behind. Their argument I was too young to take life seriously that I should have
fun with my friends and enjoy my time. Okay, first of all every day of our teenage life we are
always punished for not taking life seriously. Second of all high school friends just pull you back
with them and they really are not someone you can call a friend since they will be your friends
unless you have something they want. I have evidence with a situation that happened with a
classmate of mine. She was a very popular girl that had many friends. Once at a party she got
in a fight trying to protect a friend and got her throat slid open by a beer glass, and no one
helped her although she had arrived with many of her friends. They allowed her to bleed to the
point of unconsciousness. Nobody wanted to call the ambulance because they were afraid of
getting into trouble since alcohol was involved in a underage party. Yeah, high school friends are
the reason why I want to stay behind and not achieve my goals. The world does not wait for
anyone therefore, why should we be left waiting?
From the different series of essays that we have read for this course I have realized about
their writing that each one has a unique style of writing and those who can familiarize
themselves to the authors can comprehend their writing better than those who do not. Such as the
first four essays we had to read were Arriving at Perfection by Benjamin Franklin, Salvation
by Langston Hughes, Living like Weasels by Annie Dillard, and How it Feels to be Colored
Me by Zora Hurston. Other than Benjamin Franklin the authors were not too far away from
each other from when their essays were written yet each one had its unique taste giving each
reader their own opinion. For example, Hughes had a tempo to each individual word on his essay

giving it a musical theme as you read. I myself am a musician therefore I was able to pick up the
rhythm of the words. Other reader might not have been able to capture the music in Hughes
essay probably giving them a different perspective of the author.
In Arriving at Perfection by Benjamin Franklin his wording of words is unique from
the other essays we have read but it is because of the separation of ages. Benjamin had an older
English dialect making his essays an ancient curiosity for us. His way of wording and the
structure of his sentences are sophisticated yet at our time it is viewed as a wrong was of writing.
For instance, the words found in his essay such as, conceivd or annexd, at this moment as I
wrote them the computer has underlined them in red letting me know that they are written
incorrectly. Reading this essay anyone can notice the difference of his style which give us a
different view unlike someone who is used to this style. They might see it a past memory brought
back and for us an amusing secret.
Reading all these unique essays for the course has influenced my writing style in a form of selfconfidence. Ever since I was younger I enjoyed writing, anytime I had the chance to write I
would write a short story. One of my goals was to become a writer of science fiction and teach
younglings morals and the importance of life through my stories, just like the fairytales we read
today. Once I started growing up I became self-conscious I knew I was not a very good writer. It
has all ways been difficult for me to create the perfect essay or even get an A as a grade in my
class. I wanted to sound professional, make my argument smooth and clear to the reader, yet I
have always left my readers with so many questions of what I am even writing about. I, since
then, have decided to write only for myself and when I am asked to write for my classes. Other
than that I do not let anyone read my writing because I feel so foolish and embarrassed I just
want to rip my paper apart. I have always admired my classmates style of writing and I have

always tried to mimic their work, but that just ends in a more negative result than what it already
was. Now that I have seen that each author has their own individual style of writing I could never
reach their perfection since they are all extremely different. I will have to develop my roots of
writing into my own style of perfection.
My favorite essay that I have read so far has been Arriving at Perfection by Benjamin
Franklin. I was full of amazement as I read his words of advice to the path of moral perfection. I
chose this essay as my topic of argument in my first essay assignment for the course. Although
Benjamin in his essay is just telling us a description of his project and how he plans on achieving
it, the essay touched my childish curiosity of spirituality. The fact that someone has tried to
become detached from the physical world has always been a fascination to me. I do not see it as
watching a television series at all, in fact I am trying to achieve this path myself. I might win or
fail through the process but at the moment you attempt it you become a better one. During class I
was stunned on how my classmates reacted to the essay of Benjamin Franklin. Some said they
didnt even read it because it was too boring. Of course, everyone has their own opinion but that
clarifies my statement of how the reader can better understand the author when they are
connected. I believe I might not be able to reach full spirituality since being good is a struggle
but Ill try to reach it as much as I can.
The expectations out of my peer review would be, hopefully, good advice that allow me
to see my errors clearly so I will use their advice for my next essays. As my first essay in college
I expect my classmates to help me grow to the same level of writing as them, with their
constructive criticism. I would rather my classmates be harsh with my essay than lenient with it.
If people are too merciful with each other there would not be enough strong, intellectual, people
walking on this earth. Sometimes we need a good beating to stand tall and strong.

I want the most help on my essay details and how to add evidence. I feel as if when I am
explaining my arguments essay I leave the topic and fly away to different ideas. Then again for
me it seems compatible to the essays topic and all my past writing teachers have not brought
that issue to my attention. Therefore, I have completely no idea if I do leave my topic or not I
would certainly like to know in this weeks peer review about this issue. That is the same way I
feel about the evidence I add to my essay. As if the evidence does not prove anything of my
argument. Although, I am able to explain it and make it fit in the essay I believe my readers
would have to stop and really pay attention to what I am trying to say. I feel that I am not direct
in my essays, I give clues but not the actual message. For example, I am thinking of something
brown from the outside and green from the inside other than I am thinking of a delicious, juicy
kiwi.
In the past I have done peer reviews before turning in my essay so we could correct our
errors and have a better grade. Most of the time I would get excellent reviews with just one or
two mistakes. I believe that they were being too kind to me, since I know my essays are not
perfect. Everyone needs help and so do I, I am someone who is special that does no need fixing.
Only once have I received a review from a classmate that was very helpful to me. Ever since the
I have been careful in not committing the same mistakes in my other essays.
Peer reviews are constructive criticism that helps the author understand their flaws and
become a stronger writer. Without peer reviews we would not be able to correct our mistakes
which will make us continue making them. While peer reviewing the author can learn of their
imperfection even if they are not reading their essay, but by learning their classmates mistakes.
For example, they can review an essay and when they see an excellent statement or different
ideas they can think deeper in their essay and clarify their argument like their classmate did.

I enjoyed our last reading assignment about Stephen King and his essay Why We Crave
Horror Movies. I was fascinated by his morbid thoughts and examples, although I cannot quick
agree in all of his statements I have the different theory of why we crave them. King mentions
that in his opinion that the reason why we watch such horrifying movies is because we want to
show ourselves and others that we are capable just like them to ride this freak of a roller-coaster.
I do not agree with this statement of his but I can agree to the last sentence in his essay. all
we need is love, I agree with that. As long as you keep the gators fed (King 300). In my opinion
we are monsters that thirst for blood every day of our lives. I do not want to seem like someone
that has deep psychological issues but it is true. Like Kings quote I just mentioned we are the
gators and the horror movies are our food. It is human nature to crave blood. We have violent
video games, movies, videos in the media for our young generation but the reason why they keep
playing and watching them is because of their beasts inside. Think about it why is it taboo for us
to allow our children to watch a sex scene and not a scene were people are being blown away
into small pieces? I mean it is not like the sex scene is actually porn where you can see
everything of what is going on, but in the killer scenes we see enough blood that seems like
reality. They are feeding their monster to be able to control it. Yeah, there are situations where
kids decide that it would be a good idea to play GTA, Grand Theft Auto, and shoot out their
schools, killing many innocent people. Those kids fed their monster inside too much and now
they are addicted to the blood. They need a good whipping and rules to snap them out of their
idiotic state. There has to be a balance on our diet for our monsters. Too much they will become
addicted too small they will burst out of starvation. That is why those parents who prohibit their
children to even glance at violence, the children tend to be more aggressive in the future.
Everyone eventually has to have a taste of violence and when you starve your monster and for

the first time have a taste of blood they can never go back. An excellent personal example would
be my father. He is incapable of seeing any kind of violence in the television blood, heads, knifes
anything of such sort will make him turn off the screen. He always complains about what my
sibling and me are watching it is too violent he says. Yet my father is the most aggressive person
I have ever met. As a kid he would beat us up just because a fly would pass by his ears. My
father needs some twenty-four hour of gory movies.
In unit five we had write our third essay about what controversial topic are roaming through our
society, although during the week we also had to read a few essays assigned that helped us revise
our essays. We had to plan on how we were going to fix our essays and make them better with
the advice given to us. One of my favorite essays was Shitty First Draft by Lamott, where she
talks about how writers also suffer when having to write an essay, novel, etc. It is a hilarious
essay demonstrating that who we think are natural born writers also suffer as we do. She
clarifies that no one can wake up in the morning and write a novel in just a day and call it a
master piece, it is impossible. There are steps everyone have to take to be able to create a good
acceptable essay and the first step is writing your first draft. You cannot write your essay only
one time and call it quits unless you do not mind what your grade will be. In your first draft you
can see all the errors that need fixing, there are sentences that need to be added or needed to be
deleted. There are grammars, and punctuations mistakes that also need revising. In other words,
we need to check our essay before turning it in that is her advice, after all, no one is perfect. I
always revise my essay twice I write my first draft and then me second draft but I should
probably check it more than just twice. The other essay we had to read was simplicity by I do
not remember who. The author is telling his readers to be able to create a good essay we should
stay simple with our style of writing. If we write in a very sophisticated, elaborate, fancy way

well murder our readers. They do not have time to go into google or their dictionary to find what
each word means in each sentence. Of course, He does not mean by using baby words in your
essay but for example, Edward had been exhausted by the storm of negativity in his life for years
that caused him great pain in his health is better than Edward was sad and became sick. You
have to keep your words in high level but in a smarty pants way. Another explanation for
staying simple in our essay was the video we watched in class about zombie words. It explains
how zombie words can eat the words that keep the essay alive. If the essay is not alive then the
readers will also die during the reading. I will try to be simple in my essay as they recommended
to keep my readers interested in the topic. I will you high level words but not fancy, zombie
words. Plus, zombie words also kill the creativity of the essay and that is my main enjoyment in
writing an essay. They kill the connection to the readers in an everyday life.
In this unit we had to prepare the work we were assigned throughout the course and make
a website portfolio with the assignments and the write the progress we had in writing. I n my
portfolio I have four sections. The first sections it is just so my fellow class-mates and teachers
will know a little more about me, in other words, he about me section. When I added the second
sections I go more into detail about how I felt about my writing style in the beginning of the
course. In addition, I explain what I wanted to gain from the course and what I want to improve
in my writing. The second section it just introduces my thoughts about writing and my writing
style. The third section has one of my favorite essay I wrote in the course I have one side which
is the original essay and the other side which gives a more improved version of the same essay. I
explain the changes I made to make the essay more fluent and better to read. The last section it is
just answering the second section. It is what I gained and learned from the course that helped me
improve my writing style, and what it helped me in to prepare myself for the next writing class.

In the portfolio we had to use the three spices of writing and advertisement ethos, pathos, and
logos. We had to make it enjoyable to the viewers using pathos, informative using ethos, and
logic using logos. I made sure to make my portfolio colorful yet dark to make it contradict each
other, but it makes the colorful pictures stand out even more. I created the portfolio into only a
writing theme. Everything is about writing although the professor mentioned that it would be
okay to make the portfolio into something we can use in the near future. For example, use it for a
job application or others. Since it was my first time ever dealing with making a website for a
class I just made it into what the professor wanted to see. But recently I applied for a job and I
thought to myself I should have done the portfolio into a more professional job wise theme to
help me get the job. I probably will not get the job but it does not matter Ill eventually find
employment sooner or later. The advantage that I have not that I did have then but decided not to
use it was the website portfolio. Once my portfolio is graded Ill probably change it to help me
get the job opening I want. I am glad that in this course they also showed me different things
such as, the portfolio, to help me in life. Plus, how to persuade people to like me, the employer,
by using the three elements of ethos, pathos, and logos. I will use the elements and the portfolio
to get a job.