My goals throughout the semester were to be able to improve in being able to elaborate on my ideas and be more organized. Throughout this semester I have improved a lot on that aspect. What has really helped me develop as a writer was the peer reviewing we did in class. Peer reviewing was very helpful because i was able to see the progress that my classmates had done and also get ideas based on their work. This helped me a lot to be able to expand my ideas because took their essays as examples and I applied their methods to my papers. Also, the assigned readings were very helpful. It was great to be able to read an example from a professional writer and taking notes out of the book, it has very helpful information and tips. I still need to work a lit in order to become a better writer and what my plan is to practice my writing more and take English 102. I feel like my biggest weakness is still my punctuation, In every essay i get back i get comments and I still need to improve.

For my portfolio i decided to revise my pepsi light ad analysis essay. I feel like the strengths of my paper ware that i made sure the reader had a clear vision of the ad without providing the photograph. Another aspect of my essay that I feel that I did a good job in was in analyzing the ad.

What i feel less confident about is about connecting my thesis to the rest of the paper and then organizing it. Also, my word choice.
I will apply this to improving my paper for my portfolio. I will make sure that all my evidence connects to my thesis and that i don't get out of topic. I will definitely keep my analysis that I did thought my old paper.

I analyzed "today's technology", she had a very strong introduction with a very clear thesis, but she was not specific. She always followed with her thesis which is something that will be very helpful when I write my own argument essay. However, she has a lot of good evidence but she needs expand it a little more. One of her paragraphs talks about how we encounter people using portable devices everywhere we go, which I believe that's not so relevant. I think that fits better in her introduction rather than just writing it as "evidence". This is very helpful when writing my paper by being more organized and stick with my thesis argument. She also has good evidence, which connects to her thesis in a way that is very convincing. Also, she lacks considering other positions where another person can appose and weaken your argument. This taught me that in order to keep my paper strong I need to carefully acknowledge other views.

Ethos logos pathos

-Logos
•fairness
•everyone should be able to have the same opportunities.
•society needs more educated people.
•school is expensive.

-pathos
•most undocumented students are not allowed to work. Therefore, paying for college is very difficult.
•undocumented students tend to set lower standards for themselves.

-ethos
•undocumented students who are receiving money from the government tend to work harder rather than those who have the benefits.

My weakest evidence is that everyone should be able to have the same opportunities. I feel like it will be very difficult for me to prove this. This argument this be difficult because people might argue that there are also people who are not undocumented that do not get financial aid and they still go to college and find ways to go to school. The way I can support this argument is by explaining that undocumented people are also not allowed to work.

My strongest point is that students who are undocumented tend to set lower standards for themselves. They think that it's impossible to go to college so they just work and forget about school. I have noticed that students who are undocumented try very hard, and get good grades. People who receive the help, take it for granted and don't care about doing well in their classes because either way they are getting paid for.

Pattern Of Error

In my last graded papers I have noticed that my thesis statement has not been strong enough. Because the thesis is a very important part of my paper, not having a strong thesis can effect my paper. The reader of my paper can be quite confused if my thesis is not clear. What I can do to avoid this problem in my future papers is to make sure that my paper is less confusing and less vague. I also need to make sure that my thesis statement connects with the rest of my essay. Asking a friend or a teacher to approve it is also good , they can guide you in the right direction if you are confused.

Another pattern of error that I notice in my paper is a lot of run on sentences. This effects my essay a lot because my grade depends a lot on my grammar. Sometimes I do it without noticing and sometimes when I review it myself I don't find these errors because I read it without looking carefully for these errors. A way that I can fix these errors is by reading the paper and looking specifically for these errors, another way is by having someone read my paper before turning in my final copy.

One of my biggest problem in my paper is not being very descriptive. I tend to be very vague and not expand to what I have to say. This effects my paper immensely because my peer reviewer might not know what I'm talking about. In a lot of my comments I find that people ask me to talk a little bit more about the subject. If this is resolved it would improve my essay a lot. It will meet length requirements and also it will help bust up my grade because the reader will have a more clear idea about what my paper is about.

Importance of peer reviewing.

Peer reviewing is very important when it comes to improving your essay. I think it's extremely helpful when the person who reviews your paper reads it with care and actually gives you good feedback. Sometimes you are put with a group that does not feel the comfort as they would if they were in a team with their friends and that can decrease the chances of you getting good feedback. Another way that peer reviewing can be effective is to have more than one person read it, and have them read it out loud. When you read something out loud you tend to catch your mistakes better. It's great to have feedback from more than one person because sometimes things can make sense to you but not to whoever is reading your paper. Therefore, I think that we should keep doing this before essays because I notice a big improvement.

KONY2012??????

This Monday as I logged into my Facebook my newsfeed was saturated with videos, wall post, pictures that said, kony 2012. I was very confused about what people were talking about. That whole day I ignored it, but people kept posting it up and making a big deal out of it. So I decided to watch the video, the video was about 28 minutes long. This video was about a man that goes by the name of Joseph kony, he is a dictator in Africa. This man is being accused of kidnapping children and making them soldiers, and making the girls sex slaves. They are forced to kill even their own parents. This video starts off very interesting. They begin by making people realize how their life is good compared to life in other countries. Which I agree on, we are very unaware of what other countries are going through and we complain about simple things like not having the newest shoes on the market.  This video is trying to persuade people to be aware of what's happening and "make kony famous". The video explains clearly what they want us to do. Which is to buy their "kit" and donate. On April 20th they want everyone to put posters and fliers of Konys picture all over the city to make him "famous". But is this a good idea? In my opinion, it's not. Facebook itself is the biggest social network now and I think that by now everyone is extremely aware of who this man is. Going out that night to make him "famous" will cause a lot of problems. We can conclude that teens Under the age of 18 will want to take a part of this and these kids will be breaking the law by being out passed the legal curfew.  Along comes the issues of trespassing or vandalizing . This issue is very important and it should get addressed, but where is the money we are donating going to? Making these videos and paying their workers? I think that people should not trust just any guy that comes and makes a well-edited video.I think people should inform themselves better and look for other alternatives rather than donating to "invisible children". 

Safety

 The article I chose was "Free Speech off Campus Must Be Protected. The reason why I chose this article was because I found it interesting to read. The reason why this argument was interesting was because as a current college student, I don't feel as safe as I did when i was in high school. There a hundredths of people coming in and out of the University with no type of security. This is why this argument is very significant, I think that security in universities are extremely important, and any of type of issues should addressed as soon as possible. 

This article argues that the University of Minnesota believes they should regulate what students say on social-networking pages about the regarding the college whether its out side or inside the institution .The case that began in 2000 in the University of Minnesota that involved a student and her fellow mortuary science classmate. On their Facebook page they had posted a joke about how they both had nicknamed their laboratory cadaver "Bernie", and about stabbing someone with a dissecting knife.

The post was forward to the University of Minnesota authorities by another classmate. A criminal investigation began and concluded that the formal students had no harm to anyone, but the university imposed disciplinary charges to the students anyway.

As I look back to my old blog post and compare it to my new post I realize that I was very vague and and less descriptive. Something that has been particularly helpful for me in this class is peer reviewing. I like to get comments from other people and most of the times they're comments are very helpful towards improving my essay. The peer review worksheets was really helpful because they would let me know if I was in the right track or not. I also enjoyed reading my peers papers. Another aspect of this class that was very helpful was having a long time to improve my essays, when you have less time to write your essay you tend to have a suckier paper. I think that my writing has improved a lot. 
Overall, I really enjoy this class and doing these blogs.