Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 2)

This interview with Terry Gross on her NPR show Fresh Air was recorded in July 2015, right after the book Between the World and Me was published. In this discussion, Coates discusses many topics discussed in the book and the excerpt we are reading, “Letter to My Son”: his close friend Prince who was killed by the police, the complicated politics and risks of walking down the street as a kid in Baltimore, and an incident in which he was arrested for threatening a teacher while in high school and why he did it.

We won’t have time to listen to the full interview in class (though I hope to get at least to 20 min.!)  but you can listen to the whole length on your own:

http://www.npr.org/2015/07/13/422554778/ta-nehisi-coates-on-police-brutality-the-confederate-flag-and-forgiveness

As you finish and proofread your essays, I’m posting two lists of transitions we’ve already reviewed in class. As the revision chapter mentioned, review your essays to evaluate the flow between sections and paragraphs AND transitions used to flow between your ideas and the ideas from your sources.

Transitions for “Beginnings, Middles, and Ends”:

Writing has never been my thing, but I’ve done much improvement at it, for example,I have learned how to address “you” on my thesis, instead I address it by including to whom exactly I am directing the writing such as “students”, “residents”  or “college” etc. Like this I get to make a clear point of view and provide a better understanding to the reader. I still have a lot to learn about college writing, for example, I have problems on the way I structure my sentences, which may cause the reader to get lost and not get the full point of view I’m trying to direct to them, but thats part of the college experience the “struggle”. One thing I mostly enjoy of academic writing is that I get to express my way of thinking towards any topic and at the same time gain knowledge through it, since I have to integrate many sources in the writing and most of these sources contain good info towards the topic from both sides, the pros and the cons.

In the last 2 and a half months i feel like my writing skills have improved immensely since high school. College as helped me to expand  the idea of the topics. Like instead of just aimlessly writing it helps to involve yourself.  Like in the gentrification topic Professor sears asked us to look in the areas you know that have gone through gentrification. In high school that would have probably asked to just write about gentrification and talk about how it makes you feel instead of doing research finding out when it started and more information pertaining the topic. Also, in my college experience my Vocabulary has furthermore expanded since high school. Ever since high school i tried to always use bigger words to enhance the essays or papers I’m writing about. Thats just a personal goal that i think would be good for me throughout life. But thing thing that I’m mostly excited about when it comes to my college writing is that is isn’t over yet and won’t be for a while because this is just my first semester at city tech and it should get better and better from here on out.

College writing compared to high school writing is noticeably very different. In high school I felt like I could get away with more when writing but in college a lot of things are factored in. For example grammar and the way I transition through sentences and paragraphs. Although this is something I believe I have gotten better at since the beginning of the semester. They way I transition to new topics and paragraphs in my essay has gotten a lot better.  One aspect of college writing that is still challenging to me is expanding on my ideas.  At certain points when writing my essays I don’t know how to continue  so end up ending the paragraph abruptly.  Doing this hurts my grade in the long run so its something i have to continually work on. One part of college writing that i enjoy is writing the first paragraph.  It sets the tone for the rest of the essay and depending on how well it is written it could make writing the rest of the essay easier.