In the "comments" section below, please respond to the following questions. If you need to make it two comments, please just make sure your name is on each.
First, put your name in the comment. Then...
1) Describe the best class you have ever taken (anywhere).
2) What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of writing? Why?
For Thursday, please have read the assigned sections in the Writer's Reference, and be prepared to test out your grammar skills!
Garrison Enriquez
ReplyDelete1) The best class I have ever taken was my AP U.S history class of my junior year in high school. It was an extremely challenging course for me, but being a history lover I also enjoyed it as much as I had trouble with it. My teacher was very entertaining and had no trouble keeping us interested in the class, which is why I enjoyed the class even more. I love learning about history, so my teacher being able to make history even more interesting than it already is only helped me love the class even more.
2)The most challenging aspect of writing for me is the beginning. Setting up my introduction and ideas in the first paragraph always seems to give me a lot of trouble. I have to think intently for awhile about what I am going to say, but when it comes to me, I can then continue writing without that much trouble. I have no problems really with the middle and the ending, but just making a good introduction is the toughest aspect of writing for me.
Ted Lee
ReplyDelete1. My favorite class was my Spanish 2 class in high school. I loved this class because the teacher not only allowed us to joke around, but also rolled with our jokes. Everyone in the class was fun to get along with. The classroom overall had a very relaxed environment.
2. The most challenging aspect of writing is getting my thoughts into words in a formal but easy to understand manner. Sometimes I know what I want to say, but cannot get that thought onto paper. If I do, it seems difficult for the reader to understand.
Ryan Motamed
ReplyDelete1. The best class I have ever taken was Music Appreciation. I took it in high school when I was in 10th grade. I really enjoyed the class because it was really relaxing and I was interested in the topics that were being discussed. I also respected the professor a lot because you could tell that he genuinely loved his job.
2. I think the most challenging aspect of writing is actually writing, as in forming my thoughts onto paper. I never really know what to start with. I usually have many ideas to put on paper but really beginning the paper and structuring it are very difficult to me.
Mikayla Molinaro
ReplyDelete1) The best class I ever took was Culinary Arts. I have a passion for cooking and always looked forward to whipping up whatever delicious meal we happened to be making that day. I continued to Culinary Arts 2 and further developed my skills in all areas of cooking. I still enjoy this hobby, and try and bake desserts whenever I have free time. I loved my Culinary Arts classes in high school and I know that the skills I acquired will continue to help me throughout my life.
2) The most challenging aspect of writing to me is that I tend to have too many ideas for one topic. I often shift off topic or spin off onto a whole new perspective. I have difficulty remaining within my outlined ideas and staying on track.
Jennifer Cha
ReplyDelete1) The best class I have taken was the Contemporary Issues class during my senior year. Everyone in the class talked about issues in society and how much and how fast society was changing. It enlightened me on how each person's mindset is different. It was a very memorable class and a good experience for me overall.
2) Grammar and sentence structure seems to be the easiest for me, but the attitude and style in which I write my essay is the hardest for me. It is very important to leave a good impression on the reader about my essay, and it is hard to let the reader know precisely how I feel about the subject I am writing about.
Jon Skelton
ReplyDeleteThe best class I have taken was an accounting class during my first year of high school. It was interesting because even though the class was ninety minutes long, we only spend forty doing class work. The remaining time was spent telling stories and having waffle parties. It was a nice break from my other classes and school work. The aspect I find most challenging about writing is deciding what to write about or how to write about it. I generally have many ideas and I often have trouble narrowing them down to a single option.
Alex Bule
ReplyDelete1) The best class I have ever taken was AP Language and Composition. This class was optional in my senior year of high school and helped me out so much with regards to the content and depth of my writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the large amounts of work that it required of me. The thing that made the class worthwhile was the teacher; she devoted almost all of her time to her students, whether it was her lunchtime or hours and hours after and before school. This was, by far, the best class I have ever taken.
2)To me, the most challenging aspect of writing is being able to come up with a piece of writing on the spot. Although I'm not very good at planning either, but my best pieces of writing are ones that I have taken home to work on, rather than just being given a task in class to finish by the end of class. With time permitting, I can usually come up with a pretty decent work, but under time constraints and pressure, my creativity is hindered. Therefore I hope that by the end of this course, I will be able to compose a good piece of writing under any kind of pressure.
Shawn Kim
ReplyDeleteThe best class I have ever taken is English 3H. What was unique about this class was that it didn't involve writing endless essays about each topic we had covered. Instead, we would have discussions and presentations revolving these topics. Since I am more comfortable speaking about my opinions instead of writing about them, this class fit perfectly to my personality and having an awesome teacher along with that made it the best class I had taken.
The most challenging aspect of writing for me is starting the essay. I am unable to give my thoughts and ideas the opening it needs to grab the attention of my audience. Also, I have trouble writing with good use of vocabulary. Therefore, my writing sounds "elementary" and I through taking this class, I wish to overcome these challenges.
Mary Gao
ReplyDelete1) The best class that I have ever taken was Voices of Modern Culture. In that class we read different kinds of writings that had topics that are relatable to our time period. We read books such as "The Kite Runner", "Othello", and "Into the Wild". From these texts, we talked about what society allows and frowns upon. We also did projects related to the social media and made advertisements by using the different techniques that we learned for the film unit. I liked this class because of how I can relate things we learn from class to life.
2. The most challenging aspect of writing for me is trying to make sure that my explanations of evidence relates to my thesis. Sometimes I find myself going off on a tangent or including unnecessary explanations which I think connect to the thesis. Another thing I find challenging is wording things awkwardly. What I write may make sense to me but sounds odd to others.
Yuri Lee
ReplyDelete1) The best class I have taken is probably Junior English. I actually don't enjoy writing or reading required texts (meaning I'd rather read what I want to read) too much, but the teacher was awesome. She brought the most boring parts of grammar and reading to life and was enthusiastic and passionate about the topics she taught. This was probably the first class that I learned to really write. Although I'm still far from being good at it, I believe this is where I learned what real essay-writing is like. I barely got an A in this class, but I truly believe that I deserved it.
2) The most difficult part of writing for me is being able to convey and elaborate my thoughts to the reader by phrasing words correctly and effectively onto a piece of paper. For most of analytical essays I had to write in high school, I had good ideas to support my theses. The brainstorming part of the essay wouldn't be a problem either, because I knew what I wanted to say. However, when I got to the part when I make a first draft, I would get stuck because I could not figure out how I can explain my thoughts. In my head, everything makes sense, but I always found it difficult to write it all down on paper.
Sammy Xian
ReplyDelete1. The best class I feel I have taken is probably Health and Safety during my freshman year in high school. The fact that I could actually use the things I learned in class in a real life situation really made it interesting. Everything about that class was great! The teacher was exceptionally hilarious and everyone felt pretty comfortable with each other. This was a big thing because of the subjects that were being discussed.
2. I personally feel that the most challenging aspect of writing is deciding what to write for each topic. Sometimes I feel like I have writer's block and can never think of anything to write. Other times I have too many ideas, but can never decide on which ones to use or how I'm actually going to put it all on paper. Some ideas that I think were good are sometimes ignored because I was never able to write it all out.
Breanna Jow
ReplyDelete1. The best class I have ever taken was my AP World History Class in high school. Even though the class itself was challenging, both mentally and sometimes emotionally, no one wanted to let down our teacher. He had invested a lot of time and dedication into teaching us not only about World history from 10,000 BCE, but also teaching us how to write for any future essays or AP tests. Furthermore, my teacher's classroom was and still is filled with different objects from around the world, creating a comfortable setting and somewhere to look at if any student was zoning out.
2. To me, the most challenging aspect of writing is creating the first draft for any writing piece. Sometimes when I am trying to create a first draft, I will have an idea for a part of the paper when I'm running through the course of the day but am not able to write down that idea; in addition, once I get that idea and try to write it down, the idea is suddenly gone and I am left with a blank sheet of paper or screen. Since the idea I had died, I try to just work out something to write, and that will create confusion or a road block when it comes to editing the paper at a later date.
Lilian Kim
ReplyDeleteThe best class I have ever taken was AP English 5-6 during my junior year of high school. I really enjoyed this class because there was no limit to how much we could write in the class. The instructor never set any boundaries to how much we could write and what we could write. I felt that the class was a very mature class that strayed away from typical 5 sentence essay and one page writing assignments. This class consisted of writing facts and then we had a chance to input our opinions and support them.
Marie Biaggi
ReplyDelete1) The best class I've ever taken was my art class in high school. I absolutely love to draw, paint and be creative and I was able to express my love for those things in that class. I tend to doodle random things on paper and it was awesome that I was actually getting a grade for it. It was not a class that I felt I was "wasting my time" in. (Oh, and I love psychology too!)
2) The thing I struggle most with in writing would be making deep connections and profound thoughts about works. Sometimes I hear other people's thoughts and I think in my head, "Oh, that's so obvious" but it's not something I would have been able to come up with myself. Secondly, I also struggle a lot with having a good vocabulary. When it comes to writing papers and essays, the thesaurus on Word is my best friend (:
Steven Tarkington
ReplyDelete1. My best class would be foundations of engineering. I really enjoy engineering so it was a fun class for me. We built all kinds of things from solar powered cars to bottle rockets. I'm a hands on type of person and I like building, fixing, and playing with technology.
2. For me starting my papers is the hardest part of writing. I always have a million ideas but I can never choose one. Also the fact that I never really like one idea over any other makes it that much harder. Along with that if I'm not writing something I'm interested in I get easily distracted and it takes me really long to write.
Mindy Pham
ReplyDelete1) The best class I have even taken was English during my junior year in high school. It was a mandatory class but I enjoyed it because the teacher of that course became one of the most influential instructor from all my four years in high school. She gave really great advice and was always honest about what she thought about something. That class was also filled with my friends which made it even more tolerable.
2) The most challenging aspect of writing is to brainstorm creative ideas. I usually like writing about facts that I have read or do research to write my papers. It is difficult for me to sit still and come with topics to write about compared to being given a specific subject matter for a paper.
Shea Shoemaker
ReplyDelete1. Out of all the classes in high school I took, my favorite would have to be French. I love how we would do hands-on activities that helped us learn the language but in a fun way. Learning a language was difficult for me but the teacher I had was very kind and always there to help me with any question I might have. This class was different from my other classes because I felt that I was actually being taught something rather than just being told to memorize facts.
2. When I was younger, like middle school, my teachers always said I had good writing technique. However, in high school, I realized writing had to be much more structured and this was difficult for me. I had trouble brainstorming and getting all my ideas on paper in a way that was clear and made sense. I wasn't horrible at writing, it was just one aspect of school that challenged me. I had to write long papers and come up with so many thoughts with enough information and proper citation for everything. I hope now that being in this class I will be able to write a paper without completely stressing over every part of it.
Michael Morton
ReplyDelete1) The best class that I have ever taken is Physics 1. The teacher was one of those teachers, much like the teacher of this course, that loves to get to know the students and holds discussions both in small groups and as the class as a whole. The reason this was my favorite class is not because I received an A+ for both semesters, the departmental physics award, and scored more than 100% on every test, but it is the reason why I did so well. Physics is interesting. I understood it completely and actually enjoyed learning about physics. It is one of the very few classes in which I have wanted to learn the material. However, I don't see myself pursuing further education in physics - I just find it interesting.
2) The hardest aspect of writing has to be the time management. With every class I have become accustomed to getting done with the bare minimum at the last minute and handing it in. That's how math is done - if your work and answer are correct then you will always receive full credit. When I apply this groundbreaking theory to writing, however, I receive somewhat unsatisfactory results. Writing has no set time investment - a piece of writing can never be just written and turned in. I find it extremely hard to go over something that I have written because the repetition and work is so tedious; I don't even check math before I turn it in. The rough draft into review into final draft process is hard for me because I'm a math guy, but I hope work on fixing that throughout this course.
Laurie Ho
ReplyDeleteThe best classes I had ever taken was taught by one certain high school social studies teacher. He told us about the world and its problems in ways that I never would have thought about. He taught me some things that other teachers would never bother to tell us, and he was well informed about the topics he was teaching. Also, the class was funny and actually made me like history for once.
The most challenging aspect of writing is finding and thinking good analyses. Sometimes, I thought something was good but in reality it could have been better. Sometimes I pull hidden things out of the quotes, but I wonder what I type is valid or something randomly made up.
Lilian Kim
ReplyDeleteQuestion 2
The most challenging aspect of writing for me is my tendency to constantly focus on entertaining and capturing the attention of the reader. Through every sentence that I write I worry so much about how the reader will perceive what I write. I think that, since I try so hard to impress the reader I actually present writing that is lower than my true abilities to the reader. I take a while to brainstorm and when I am finally ready and prepared to present everything in my writings I have a hard time finding the perfect way to present my thoughts and make it make sense.
Emma Manley
ReplyDelete1) Out of my thirteen years of education, one class seems to stand above the rest. In my junior year of high school, I was in an Honors Pre Calculus course taught by Ms. Shaffer. I was initially intimidated to take the class, but Ms. Shaffer's patience and kind heart made me feel comfortable. Looking forward to my math class was something I had never experienced before. I also loved her own passion for the subject; she sports a tattoo of pi.
2) Writing can be difficult for me for a few reasons. I usually do not have an issue with finding a topic to write about, but my thesis statements need work. I find thesis statements difficult because I never know if I am being to vague or wordy. Thesis statements should be concise and effortlessly address the idea of the rest of the essay; I feel I have not been able to write a successful thesis statement yet.
Christopher Harron
ReplyDelete1) The best class I have ever taken was AP Physics during my junior year of high school. Even though I am a science person it was definitely not easy for me, but one of the hardest classes I have taken. This challenge is what drew me to be so interested in physics and the class because when I started in the class I was receiving many D's and F's, but throughout the class I could feel my knowledge slowly being better and my skills increasing. Plus, we had an amazing teacher who would set up several demos a day just to explain to us a couple or even one concept which was a much more unique and enjoyable way to learn.
2) Sometimes writing can be very difficult for me and at other times it is a breeze. This depends heavily on how interested I am on the subject. When I'm interested my ideas and thought process comes quickly, but if I am not it can take a while. Most of the time the aspect that I am having the most difficulty with is time. During many timed essays I take too long to organize my thoughts and do I not finish.
Nikki Lieu
ReplyDelete1)I love food. So the best class I have ever taken would definitely have to be a Culinary Arts class I took last year. Because I love to cook, this class allowed me to do something that I enjoy, but within school time. On the other hand, classes such as bio or physics did not interest me whatsoever, thus creating a boring and lame experience for me. I loved the classroom environment because I was able to be in a relaxed environment while doing something that I enjoy--eating and cooking!
2) The most challenging aspect of writing for me is the way in which I organize my writing into a certain structure to make it flow. Because I always feel as if I have to follow a certain structure for my writing, I feel like I cannot achieve a certain creative and original voice and flow. I want my writing to have a more "natural" and original flow to it, rather than sounding boring and superficial. I want to improve my style in writing.
Chin Vong
ReplyDelete1)The best class I have ever taken was introduction to Piano in high school. It was a great class because the students essentially had complete freedom over how to best use their class time. Since it was so close to the end of the day, it was, to most students, a breather. An oasis from the robust and rigorous demands of high school. In this class, I was able to develop an appreciation for music and a great love for Piano. This class didn't demand paperwork, only effort. Effort that I willingly gave.
2)The most challenging aspect of writing, to me, has always been the abuse of helping verbs. Though unintentional, my writing is always plastered with it. In seventh grade, I was taught to memorize helping verbs and since then they have always appeared in my writing. I know not to use them, yet whenever I write, I can't seem to find any alternative words that would be more appropriate. As a result of this, my writing appears "unlively" and is a bore to read.
Victoria Garcia
ReplyDelete1) The best class I've ever taken is AP Calculus. My teacher, Mr. Stockham, was the type of teacher who was very dedicated to making sure his students understood every lesson. If you didn't understand in one way he would have another way to explain it or even give you different scenarios. One time he even stayed till 9 PM and reviewed the WHOLE Calculus book before the AP test. By the end of the night, his whole white board was filled with equations, graphs and integrals. The day of the test, I felt very confident and I did pass the test with a 3. It's an average score. I was content with that and after he went over the free responses I realized and learned what I had difficulty on. That was the best class I've ever taken and the best teacher I've ever had so far.
2) I really do love to write. I have a journal that I write in daily but, in my opinion spelling is the most challenging aspect of writing and also grammar at times. I seriously love spell check. I think I've always had trouble with spelling and grammar because since elementary school, I usually always had a teacher who would get pregnant or unfortunately, really sick and I would have different substitute teachers a lot of the time. I would say I had bad timing or maybe the teacher did? But, thank goodness for college and spell check! Being here, I feel that now I can actually learn something about writing.
Andrew Farkas
ReplyDelete1) The best class I have ever taken was my freshman Biology class. I liked it because the teacher was incredibly insightful, engaging, and humorous. This was also one of my most rewarding classes I ever took because not only did I receive an A after a lot of hard work, but helped me find out what I wanted to major in for college. Like my Biology teacher I liked to be personable, to help people with their problems, and to work in the scientific field. This drove me to become a psychology major so hopefully one day I can be a Psychiatrist or Neurologist. Looking back on that Biology class and everything I learned it is easy for me say that it was my favorite class.
2) A problem that I had writing last year was forgetting to put a subject in all my sentences. My teacher always seemed to be deducting points when I described things from the sentence before. I think my main problem is that I don't always reread what I write to make sure it makes sense.