Practice Session #1

Overall, I believe that the piece written by Lili Velez was great overall. Lets start on how she started the excerpt. “We panic, we pack, we get to college, and then panic again, moaning.” This is a great opening because a lot of people that’s a freshman in college can relate to this. Most teens who go and live on campus panic about college since its a new experience. As a result they do panic a ton which is understandable. The line right after states “I wish I had known I’d need this”.  A lot of us go to college thinking we have everything and then boom, the professor hits you with a syllabus and you find out that no matter how prepared you might to be, you may never know in college. So in all honesty, I believe that the first part of her excerpt was very relatable which I believe can keep college students who attends college and understands the struggle into the writing. Now, I believe that she could’ve done a better job at the end when describing the discussion in her English 102 about Donna’s paper. I wanted to know more about what was said about the topic and what her paper was really about. I feel that describing that part of the excerpt would add more understanding for the reader as whole and more context. That’s really my only takeaway from the excerpt because I feel like that would’ve been a great scene to add on the statements made in the paragraph before. But, Lili did a great job of writing about a topic that a lot of people can relate to.

Practice Session #2

After reading the opening to Nick’s personal essay, there were things that I really liked. I liked the imagery that Nick used. It states ” his eyes fixed upon a herd of deer who stared back at him with same intense interest” This is a great use of imagery to get us the tone of the situation which helps the reader paint a picture in his/her head. I also like how you inserted what you think the dog said to add flavor to the text. It stated in the excerpt “Must chase! Must bite!” in context to what the dog was probably thinking at the moment with the eye contact with the deer.  All in all, the words used along with the structure of the writing, The writing is great in my opinion.