Author: Patrina Ayamba (Page 1 of 10)

During the start of this term I was very nervous because this was my first semester in college and I was scared because of the stories I heard about writing intensive courses. over the years my writing  has improved a lot but I was worried that It wouldn’t be good enough or considered “college level writing”.  Coming from a different country especially at a young age were we didn’t really write essays in the format essays are written in the US, it took a lot for me to catch up in writing. It took years of constant practice and extra help for me to learn to site properly, quote properly , explain my evidence properly and what I always struggled with most introductions and conclusions. Over time I began to get better at these things and when I graduated from high school  I knew my writing skills were at a good place but I was still worried it wouldn’t be enough. This term has thought me alot about my self as a writer because I did not expect to get the grades that I did on unit 1 and 2. I got really good grades for both projects and I am beyond proud of myself because I put a lot of time and effort into all my projects to make sure that I was pushing myself to be the best writer I could possibly be. This semester I learned the if I tried hard enough and put in the extra work my grades would reflect that and it did.

How I will use what I have learned this term and transfer the knowledge to other writing situations is that I will use what I have learned so far to continue to improve my writing. While I have come a long way and I am very proud of how far and how well I have done there is always room for improvement. so I plan to use these skills in other writing courses that I take and I also plan to improve these skills and continue to improve my writing.

The work I did early in the semester vs the work I’m doing now is very different because all the projects I did throughout this term were all different genres. I am Glad that each project was a different genre because it challenged my creativity and helped me explore new and fun forms of writing which really kept me excited and engaged in each project that we did in class. For the first project which was the education narrative , I had so many different ideas of things I wanted to write about because there were so many things that shaped my life and my education. But every time I thought about an event that had the biggest impact on my education all I could think of was my experiences when I first came to the US and that was what I decided to write my education narrative on.  Aside from the struggles I faced education wise being an immigrant and knowing nothing about the US education system, in my story I decided to also dive into a particular incident that really changed my perspective on things. The incident I talked about was when a student made a harsh comment about me, in my essay I wrote.. “She will never graduate, she’s not smart enough”For a second I believed those words, sitting there by the corner of the room looking out the window watching as the cars passed by I overheard someone talking about me.” This quote was really important for me to add into my writing because it had a huge impact on my and was a big turning point in my story because it caused me to want to do better and want to prove that student wrong  and show her that I am much more than she says I am.

For unit 2 I had a lot of different ideas on what I wanted to do for my research project but in the end I had decided to do my project on Mansa Musa. I was always fascinated with African folktales and folklore and African history in general, so it amazed me that the richest person to ever walk the earth was African and not a lot of people even know who he was so I wanted to educate more people on the life and legacy of Mansa Musa. In my project I aimed to give facts on Mansa Musa’s life, his legacy, he famous pilgrimage to Mecca and what he did for his empire and kingdom in regards to education and islamic education. In my essay I wrote “The news of the mosques and universities he built spread to the far corners of the earth and this caused a wave of “Muslim scholars, poets, and artisans to his empire” causing Timbuktu Mali to become very well know for its abundance in culture and religion”. I felt the need to stress the impact he had on the islamic religion not only in his kingdom but in different parts of the world as well.

For m y unit 3 project although I had a lot of different ideas on how I wanted to reach my target audience I ended up creating a poem. I had so much fun creating this poem even though there were a lot of times were I wanted to take the easy way out and create a video because I thought that would be easier but I’m glad I saw it through because I really put a lot into this poem. In the poem I talked about Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca. I wanted to make sure I gave all the important details about this journey and make sure nothing was left out. I also wrote this poem to show what kind of leader Mansa Musa was, he was a selfless king who shared his wealth and dint greedy keep it for himself.  In my poem I stated “Town after town they crossed  pounds of Gold he lost ,But all for a good cause People coming in mobs.  Screaming & yelling because, Mansa Musa “king of kings” calls Upon everyone behind closed doors, In the halls,& behind the walls. “Come & this gold is Yours”. I wanted to further emphasize Mansa Musa’s generosity and how he chose to spend his wealth.

1.What do l do well in this assignment? (List one or more aspects).

Somethings that I did really well on this assignment was telling the story in chronological order. This was kind of hard to do because this incident did happen a long time ago and I was really young but I was still able to piece together the events starting from the beginning.

2. What is my main point? What is the “so what” of this paper?

My main point of the paper was that to show that you shouldn’t let your past experiences or the things that people say to bring you down affect you and stop you from reaching your goal.

 3. Who is my audience? Do I use the right language and tone to reach that audience?

My audience was mostly teens or people still in school especially immigrants  that are having a hard keeping up in school because I too struggled a lot in school when I first came to the US.  Yes I do believe I used the right language and tone to reach the audience because I told my story in a way that it was easy to understand and others could relate to.

4. What specific part(s) of the essay were a bit confusing? Why?

some parts of the essay that were a bit confusing and I do plan to fix in my revision was the ending of my essay because towards the end of my essay I started talking about how I began to do better in school but I didn’t really go into detail on how that started to happen or how I began to do better.

5 . What specifically could I do to clarify the unclear parts of this writing? * (see below for suggestions)

What I could do to clarify the unclear parts of this writing is add an extra paragraph before the ending paragraph further explaining how I began to start to do better in school, like my mom started tutoring me at home etc.

6. What details, facts, or stories could you add to enhance the essay?

details, facts or stories I could add to enhance the essay is talk more in detail about my struggles in school and how I over came them or why I was struggling so much.

7. What specific detail(s) do not work could be cut from the essay  or could be moved within the essay for more clarity?

There’s nothing from this essay I feel the need to cut or feel like they need to be moved around, I only plan to add more to my essay to Make it clearer.