final reflective blog

Finally, it's time to the end of this semester. I would say thanks to my english instructor Crystal Bock. She is a very nice instructor with high responsibility. Since this is my last semester here, so I put more time into job stuff. So I struggled with heavy homework of this class whole semester. However, I found that I do learn and improve a lot under this high pressure at this point.
Through this semester, the key point to pass this class is that I made several appointment with my instructor when I feel struggling on the homework. It's extremely helpful to talk with her. Every time, I would get some good ideas from her to finish my essay. Compare with the beginning of this semester, my writing improved a lot. Before this semester, I didn't write any research paper before. This is the reason why I was struggling on every essay. For research essay, It's very hard to get all evidence that you need. I took ton of time to gather those evidence every time. Now, I learned how to write a research essay and how to find evidences. I can't believe that I could write more than 1200 words in one class, but I really did this. This is amazing to me. Like what I said, I didn't put too much attention on this class and missed a lot of deadline. If I would have enough time, I'd like to put more attention into this class, and I am confident that I would do a much better job than what I did so far with instructor's help.
In this class, we really did a lot of practices on critical reading and writing. It pushed us to read those essays carefully since we need to answer these questions. Like my instructor said, pressure helps people improve,  my reading also improved a lot because of those practices. Through those essays and practice questions, I learned a lot of strategies on how to writing a research essays.
Overall, this is a hard semester  and this class is a hard class to me. However, I do improve a lot through this semester. I have to admit that I couldn't improve so much without the high pressure from my instructor. So, thanks to my instructor again.

blog 7

1. This essay is talking about the tax on sugared beverage. In this essay, the writer talked about the bad effect that sugared beverage could bring to people, such as increasing body weight, poor nutrition and so on. He used evidence to show that high tax could decrease the consumption of sugared beverage.

2.  When I first read this essay, i learned the relationship between tax and consumption. Also, i was shocked about the bad effect that too much sugar could bring to since I like sugar beverages. In this essay, writer used several resource to prove that higher tax could decrease the consumption of sugar beverages. In 3r paragraph, he used tobacco product as a example to prove his point. In this example, he used detailed statistics to make reader to know that relationship clearly. Overall, I think the idea of this essay is good since sugar beverage is very popular to our teenagers. This could make us have interest to read this essay.

3. In the 4th paragraph, he assumed that one quarter of the calories consumed from sugared beverage are replaced by other food, the decrease in consumption would lead to an estimated reduction of 8000 calories per person per year - slightly more than 2 pounds each ear for the average person. This assumption is very interesting to me. It give us a directly view of how weight related to sugared beverage. To those fat people, this part could attract them because they really want to lose fat.  Following this, he also mentioned that the reduction in calories consumption would decrease the risk of heart disease, this let people understand how important to reduce the sugar consumption.

responds for the multitasking generation

1. this essay first described how every member of family multitasking in their daily life. Then it talks about that people pay their almost all attention on the social media or other internet staff instead of communicating with others face to face. It also used a some evidence to show how multitasking influent people's psychological implications.

2. Actually multitasking is a very common word in our daily life now. It happens in the most time of my day. I listen music when I drive and watch TV when I eating. Those two examples are two tiny cases of my multitasking life. When I read this essay, I am impressed about the author's thorough analyze of multitasking. I learned a new word, generation M, through this essay. I also learned that actually we can't not use our brain to think about two things at same time. Multitasking means we do it in order but our brain is keeping switching between those tasks. Also, this essay talks about the influence of the common phenomenon that people more and more focus on social media instead of human connection and physical communications.

3. There is an assumptions in this essay provided in Wallis's essay:Multitasking would influence the value of a task. This assumption think that multitasking would decrease the quality of tasks even when people finish it. For example, the knowledge people get after they read a book. People would get more clear knowledge from this book when they just focusing on reading than they multitasks. So he said multitasking would decrease the value of thinking deeply. I agree with her opinion. I think people can do some unimportant things or some easy thing people could finish without thinking at same time. However, for those important thing, people need to focus on them, then people could get the satisfied value from it. I have a strong feeling when I do my coding homework. Coding homework requires a strong logic. When I really focus on it, I would get the result step by step easily. However, I have to recall after some thing disturbed me. It wasted my time. Even worse, I lost my original correct thoughts after the influence.

Children need to play, not compete

1. read to summarize
   This essay is talk about that children need more play instead of competition. Writer used several examples and evidence to prove her position.
2. read to respond
    After I read this essay, I am not that agree with the writer. I do think children don't need to compete in most of part; however, I think competition is useful to some parts. Writer talked about the sports, she think children should just need to enjoy the process of playing it instead of compete with other and try to get the champion. I think competition could help people to discover their potential. Since people need to try their best when they do a competition, people would do better than normal during the competition. Some people would never know they could do a amazing job because they are never did that under a high pressure.
3. read to analyze assumptions.
   She assume that children would have less hurt if they have no competition. I couldn't agree with this assumption. Clearly, children would get hurt if they are careless even they are just play instead of doing a competition. Actually, I never did basketball competition, but I hurt my feet before when I just play with others. Moreover, there are a lot of professional coaches or tutors to help those children when they do a competition. Those coaches or tutors would teach them how to warm up and how to protect themselves. In addition, they would have more equipment to help them protect themselves. Thus, doing a competition is more professional and safe than playing without any protection.

blog3

When I read a selection of writing, the most helpful one for me is annotating. I take notes and my own interpretations about the text, and I write down some questions about the paragraph. The second one I use most often is taking inventory. When I read a text, I prefer to list all the annotations and notes I already took to find the pattern of the text. Meanwhile, I also apply outlining during the reading. I used to outline the main gist of each paragraph, then try to list all the outlines and find what information the writer tries to send. This strategy is very helpful for me when I read some academic papers. Research papers are so long that it is hard for people to grasp the main idea of each paragraph. If I outline the keynote of every paragraph and every section, it will be easier to understand the main idea of every section, and the paper. This is a fast way to understand the writer’s idea and an effective way for me to recall the paper when I need to read it again. What’s more, paraphrasing is another strategy I use to read a paper. When the content is so hard to understand, I prefer to rewrite the sentences with my own words. This is a better way for me to grasp what the writer tries to convey. Also, paraphrasing helps me improve my writing skill.

Some strategies I do not currently use, but they are also helpful to read a selection of writing critically. The first one I should improve is looking for patterns of opposition. Finding the opposition is important in critical writing. When I read a critical paper, I will try to find the idea and the opposite idea of the subject. The second one I will apply is evaluating the logic of argument. Logic plays a vital role in a critical writing because it makes readers reading step by step. I will summarize the logic line of an article and how the writer makes the argument clearly. The third one I will apply in next reading is comparing and contrasting related readings. Some likeness texts will help me to understand it better. I will find some texts which have similar key words, and read them together, which will give me a better understanding of the key words.

Respond for Jessica Statsky's "Children Need to Play, Not Compete"

Respond

1. This essay is an evaluation for author to evaluate Jessica Statsky's "Children Need to Play, Not Compete". In this essay, writer evaluated the logic of of Statsky's argument, considering whether the support for her thesis is appropriate, believable, consistent, and complete. She used several paragraphs to tell reader that the log of "Children Need to Play, Not Compete" is appropriate, believable, and consistent, but incomplete. 2. When I first read this essay, I think the structure of this essay is very good. She first stated those points she agree in that essay. For this, she mainly focused on the Statsky's logic. She used almost half of her essay to indicate why she like those points. Moreover, she also tell readers those points she doesn't agree. For example, she think Statsky's essay is not complete because it neglects to anticipate parents' predictable questions and objections and because it fails to support certain parts fully. She also used almost half part to support this opinion. I used this structure a lot when I wrote evaluation essay since this structure would evaluate essays thoroughly. Usually, there would some points we agree and some points we are not agree in one's paper. In the evaluation essay, we need to tell other reader our opinion. This would be more objective. 3. The author said Statsky's argument is incomplete in that it fails to anticipate certain objections and questions that some parents, especially those she most wants to convince, are almost sure to raise. I agree with this point. When people try to write a essay to a certain part of people, they need to consider all kinds of people in this group. In Statsky's essay, she didn't influence two types of readers: those who themselves are or were fans of and participant in competitive sports and those who want their six-to-twelve-year-old children involved in mainstream sports program. Clearly, those people would be attracted to her essay because of this topic, so Jessica should put more efforts on how to convince those people. work cited Christine Romano: Jessica statsky's ""Children Need to Play, Not Compete": An Evaluation.

Working at McDonald's

read to summarize

his main point about the value of part-time jobs for teenager is that those job for teenager should be more creative. Also, those job should help teenager learn about more and more useful skills

read to respond

My first reaction is this paper is that this author would tell us some advantages and disadvantages about working at M. Actually, there are just a few high student who would have their first job. Since our Gaokao is extremely competitive, every high school student need 100% attention to focus on their course work from the first day of their collage life. Personally, I prefer to have a job in my high school even I didn't do it. Usually, people start to save money when they start to earn their own salary. Once I know how hard to earn money, I would make a detail plan to spend them. Also, most of teenager have a lot of dreams. They are confused about what they really want to do. Having a job and earn own money would pull them from the sky to the ground and let them think their real life. At this point, teenagers would know what is their real dream and start to work on it.
I don't have a job when I was a teenager, but I think teenager should attend their schoolwork regularly.They have to know that those jobs are not their future job. They need study for their future dream.