Reflection

This semester was a bit different for me than in all my other English courses that I’ve taking in my college career.  This was the first time that I’ve had to use a blog website were I post all of my work.  I personally enjoy using a blog website to share all my work, so that my classmates can help with becoming a better writer.  Also I appreciate getting feedback on whether the topic that I wrote about is interesting.  Getting feedback is a great way for a writer to become better with his or her work in the future. Looking back at the advice that my classmates write to me on Gateways, helps me do well with when I re-write papers and come up with better ideas for my papers.  Posting my work on Gateways has taught me a lot about becoming a great writer and coming up with interesting topics that people are interested in.  It made me become a better writer because my classmates giving me great advice on what I should change or add to make my papers be perfect.  When I listen to other people’s options it helps me come up with great ideas that I will add to my paper, for others to be interested in the topic.

Secondly I will talk about how we’ve practiced writing multiple drafts for the final paper that was due at the end of the semester.  I believe that the drafts and the conferences definitely helped me out with bring my final paper together.  The reason that the drafts and the conferences helped me out a lot is because the way that I wrote the draft was way different from how the final turned out.  Something that I approved on with my final paper is focusing more on society and culture linked with abusive relationships.  My first draft I focused more on the way that teenage abusive relationships are unhealthy, since that is obvious, with my second draft I focused more on the culture that is linked to abusive relationships.  I definitely enjoyed all the drafts that we had to write because I definitely improved on the final version compared to the first draft that I brought to the first conference.

Something that I improved on this semester that I seemed to always struggle with was coming up with a good introduction paragraph, also I improved the way that organized my information.  This way it helped when I begin the actual writing process.  I find it very hard to manage my time well when I’m writing my papers.  I feel confused as to where to begin my paper.  However I have noticed an improvement, by organizing the outline for my paper, to get a better sense of how to put my paper together in an easier way.  Now that I’ve learned the basics of how to write a paper, I will continue these strategies in my college career, and as time goes on I will develop more methods that will make me become a better writer.

Effect of Hurricane Katrina on Education Rewrite Article 1

In Article A Different Education: Compost and Community Not  Literacy,  Le Veaux writes about how Hurricane Katrina impacted the community and schools of the city of New Orleans.  In this article Le Veaux states that education in communities affected by Hurricane Katrina has taken a backseat and is no longer viewed as much importance in a students life.  It seems to me that he is describing education as more of a product of the community itself, than those who care about it.  In other words, if a certain community is of wealthy residents then it will have more successful schools, whereas, in a poor community, education will be poverty-stricken.

Le Veaux visits a low-class school in the poor community of the Lower Ninth Ward located in New Orleans.  In this school, he visits he is encountered by ugly smells, filthy conditions, and a bad school.  He visits a school that is being taught in a grocery store and called Our School at Blair Grocery.  In this school they teach their students techniques such, “planting sprouts, harvesting okra and figs, and screening potting soil”.  Students are not very encouraged to read or to take a liking towards school.  Most of the students aren’t that educated to read and seem not be encouraged enough to pursue higher education.  And because of this is a poor school students do not do as well as kids who live in richer communities.  For example, richer communities can most likely have better educated teachers.  That will help students succeed, unlike the deprived schools who have educators such as Nat Turner.  Mr. Turner is the OSBG schools founder and says that reading is not mandatory to students in the school.  Perhaps that is the reason that this school is not accredited. The school is trying to create a place to help the community grow.  However, because of the environment of this community and of its past with Hurricane Katrina, Turner believes in preparing instead of educating. Because of the Hurricane it affected many people and not all aspects of the city have returned to normal. And because this is a low-income community the speed of the healing process makes it difficult for students in this poor community to have the same academic opportunities as those who are richer and also dealt with Hurricane Katrina.  For the wealthy recovered faster than the poor and are not having troubles as the poor are.  Le Veaux seems to pin point the problem on the education system in general.  Stating that a wealthy community will always have a good school and a poor one always a bad school.  This was made worse by the hurricane.

By Le Veaux perspective I can tell that this horrible tragedy is shocking to him by the way he describes everything in the article. He does a great job of describing from how the schools were filthy to how the students have been affected by their own education. I would agree that we have the same understanding of the word education because I can tell that La Veaux reacts to this entire situation. In the article when he talks about the student’s education and how they didn’t want or know how to read, that seems to really stick out to me because I would never think that since this something like a hurricane would destroy people’s education levels. If something horrible happen to me like this, I would still try to do something that would make me an educated person. “The school is not accredited, many students can’t read” (Veaux pg.2). Education to me is something that I will not only carry as a student but something that I will carry for the rest of my life. Some of these students just stopped carry what education meant to them.   In my own opinion I believe that the way that the government organizes richer schools better than schools in low-come communities, is unfair to students.  Its unfair because in a country where we believe in educational success there is still those who can not accomplish what others can.  Due to the rich getting the better hand, while the poor stand alone.

In conclusion, it is difficult for me to accept the fact that the Lower Ninth Ward schools are still in such a poor state. For, much time has passed and one would think that the issues of education would be a high priority. The Lower Ninth Ward, which is where OSBG is located, received the worst damage from Hurricane Katrina. And, while its party-lifestyle has been restored, its communities’ school hasn’t. In the last couple of paragraphs in Le Veaux article, he describes the term environmental racism.  That meaning, “any policy’s or regulations that negativity affects the living conditions have low-income or minority communities at a rate disproportionate from affluent communities.”  When I think about the preceding definition I can’t help but make the connection between environmental racism and the Lower Ninth Ward.  Hurricane Katrina aided in creating environmental racism. Although not all education systems are not equally endorsed, I hope that the system of the education will change for the better.

 

 

Work Citied

La Veaux.” Apifferent Education: Comostand Community, not literacy The Alantic

Weeds.www.theatlanti.com/life.archive/2011/08 a different-education-compost-and and

Community- ni\ot-literacy/242874

Safety In Abusive Relationship

            For my final research project I choose to do research on teenagers who are going through rough times in their lives with abusive relationships. These days 74 percent of people know someone who has been in an abusive relationship. I believe that teens should know when to end an unhealthy relationship with someone who is being abused. Today, I will be interviewing a close friend that was in an abusive relationship for a couple months now.

How would you feel if you knew someone close to you who was or is in an abusive relationship but you did nothing about neither did they? A couple years ago I found out that my close friend I grew up with was in “love” with her boyfriend, Alex.  As their relationship grew, I saw that there were a couple things that didn’t seem to be normal to me. As a good friend I tried to approach Tara into ending the unhealthy relationship that she was in. Tara refused to listen to someone who has much more experience then she has.

One afternoon their relationship got really physical, she had bruises all over her arms and her back. When I saw one of my best friends all beat up like that I just started crying because from the beginning I knew that he would be “trouble”. When I say “trouble” I don’t mean by dealing with drugs, what I mean by hurting one of my best friends. The saddest part of this story is that I wanted the best for her and helps her out, but she was so in “love” that she didn’t pay much attention to what I had to say. By being around someone who was getting abused really made me a strong person. The value of this research project is the value of safety.  The reason I pick safety is because safety is the number one priority when being in a relationship.

Abusive Relationship

For my final research topic I choose to write about abusive relationships. Basically in my final paper, it’s going to talk about teenagers going through rough times with relationships. It will mostly specify in domestic violence and how to deal with the situation. In this project I am obviously against relationships that are in domestic violence. I want my audience to know that being in an unhealthy is not something that should be allowed in a relationship. In my final paper I will be giving solutions so that if my audience is or knows of someone that is in an abusive relationship will know how to stop the domestic violence that these teenagers are going through.

The major points of this topic is, how to get out of an unhealthy relationship, how to deal with someone who is controlling towards you, and where to get help if you are in a relationship that is unhealthily and needs help. I feel that the audience is mostly going to be interested in all the stories that these young teenagers will be telling from real life experiences. I want to get some real life stories so that teens can actually see what people are going through when they are in abusive relationships.

Something that interests me about this topic is teaching my audience about domestic violence. I choose this topic because not many people realize that they might be in an abusive relationship. My general interest on these points that I have mentioned above is learning about how to deal with someone who is controlling. Being with someone who is controlling is a hard to deal with because you want to make sure that the person who is controlling you gets help and the same time you have to deal with it.

(Redue Encounters 9/16) Facebook The Blog Website

As for my encounter this week I will be using facebook as a blog website to scan the comments that people write to each other.

The conversation that I choose to write about was between two old lost friends that moved on to college and haven’t talked since

high school. The mood of the conversation seems like they’re both happy to reunite with each other. I would definitely consider that

the nature of the conversation is in a good mood.

Robert and Amy haven’t been in contact at all in a very long time. I haven’t seen any posts between them over a year ago. I’ve

seen both of them comment other people before. In the blog post that Robert and Amy are posting they are just talking to each

other about what schools they are attending and they also mentioned what their majors are. As they expand their conversations

they start bring old memories that they had a class together.

The bloggers do not have to register to post a comment. All they do is write the comment in a box and press “post”. It is a very

easy process, even if you have never had a facebook before; it is easy to learn how to use it. Usually on facebook you’ll see people

talking about inside jokes that they have with friends, or it can even get to people posting their drama at times. Facebook is known

to be the “DRAMA website”. There are people out there that tell all their problems on facebook. Some basic guidelines for effective

web commenting would be to make sure to get the point across through the comment that you are righting to the person. The

reason I choose facebook for this encounter is because a lot of people know how to relate to it. On this blog websites you will find

people talking about everything.

 

-Olivia Ornatowski

BlogSpot (OLD ENCOUNTER)

The website I chose for my essay is called blogspot. It is a site where anyone can create their own daily blogs based on any topic of their preference. I happened to choose a blog created by a close friend of mine, Shamiran. I discovered it through the use of Facebook. Everyday she posts the link to her blog so her friends have an easy access to it. Blogspot gave her the opportunity to let the reader know her views on life. Her blogspot is http://shamiranshae.blogspot.com/p/personal-lessons.html.
Shamiran has been writing these blogs for about a year now and tries to have new blog everyday. Coincidently she named her site and calls her blogs, Shamiran’s Life Lessons. The nature of the site generated from a simple post she produced about an expierence she had. Eventually, with the help of Facebook more and more people started to involve themselves within her blogs. From reading to commenting the blogs I became a follower of Shamirans life lessons.
Her blogs are about morals and life experiences. I believe that she attracts many readers/bloggers to her site because they can relate to her blogs. She is a nineteen year old female who was born and raised in Illinois, and started to write her blogs when she began attending her community college, You can read about many different topics, from love, education, or learning experiences.
The only complication one may come across while on her website is the process of leaving a comment. The commenter must be registered with Google in order to post their opinion and/or feedback. The effect this may have on the reader is that (if not registered) they cannot contribute to the expansion of the blog.
All in all I feel blogging can be very useful when presented or promoted to the people. I believe that many wouldn’t have been informed about Shamiran’s blogs if it hadn’t been for her spreading her link through the use of Facebook. Blogs themselves are a great form of communication between readers as well as being informative. It is almost as if they expand one’s mind through the use of the writers opinions. After reading Shamiran’s blogs it has come to my attention that I should probably create a blog page as well. It is a great form of relaxation and expression. I’m curious to see what feedback I would receive.

By: Olivia Ornatowski