Writing Blog

                                                                         Writing Blog

                Writing has never been one of my strengths. I have always had trouble with getting words that are in my head on the paper itself. I think that I have improved a little from the beginning. I know that spelling, MLA format and a few other things were my ruff areas. I know that in the papers there was always something wrong with the format! One thing that always irritated me was I thought that I did really well on a paper but I never do. That’s not with just English though; it’s with some of my other classes too.        

                When I was looking over the papers I noticed that most of the mistakes were just common mistakes. Like spelling a word wrong, using the wrong punctuations, or the wrong format. I don’t know why but even if I read over the paper I still miss those simple, common errors.

                Last year for my WrAP I actually did better than this year.  Usually you are supposed to do better when you get older but this year I didn’t. I think it was because I didn’t really understand the topic and I didn’t really know how to write about it. Last year I got 4.5s all the way to a 5.5 and this year I got as bad as a 3.5 to a 4.5. For the WrAP I think that since the topic was an argument, it kind of threw me off, because I didn’t know what side I should choose and if I chose this side what would I say. Stuff like that. It just put a lot of tension on me and I got nervous about it.

                Next year I will defiantly try to correct all my papers a little better and I am also going to get someone else read it before I turn it in. I will use spell check and other sources to help me with spelling. For the format I will probably use the Norton or other sources from the internet.

The Common Errors List:

·         Spelling Mistakes- Dictionary, Spell Check, People, other resources I can find.

·         MLA Format- the Norton Field Guild, tutors, parents, anything that I could find on the internet.

·         CITATIONS- The Norton Field Guild, Internet.

·         Organization- I can get a tutor or a friend to help me with that.

·         Punctuation errors- Hopefully people will help me correct those because sometimes I don’t see them.

Honey Bee Blake Shelton

http://www.metrolyrics.com/honey-bee-lyrics-blake-shelton.html

Honey Bee is personally one of my favorite songs. I never really noticed how poems and songs are so closely related until you told us. When i looked at the lyrics for Honey Bee i noticed way more things then I hear when i'm listening. It really surprised me that you could make a poem out of a song.

There were metaphors and lots of the lines would rhyme. I noticed that in the 1st verse the first two lines would rhyme then the last two words of each verse would also rhyme. Also i noticed that they have a lot of line breaks but not really any enjambments. Usually songs like to repeat things/words a lot too.

Outside reading post

I am still reading In Cold Blood and it has gotten very interesting! Right now they have just found the bodies and are analyzing them. They also went back and forth between the killers and the police/town people. The killers are Perry and Dick. They had just returned to Dicks home in Olathe. They got tickets to  go to Mexico.

They are living a great rich life in Mexico! Then they are going to return home soon. I really like the way Truman writes his books. Sometimes he uses language that i cant really understand, but having the book on tape and someone reading it has really helped me. I like to read along in a hard copy so that if i don't know a word or something i will highlight it.

"The Whipping" by Robert Hayden

The old woman across the way    is whipping the boy againand shouting to the neighborhood    her goodness and his wrongs. 

Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,    pleads in dusty zinnias,while she in spite of crippling fat    pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling    boy till the stick breaksin her hand.  His tears are rainy weather    to woundlike memories:

My head gripped in bony vise    of knees, the writhing struggleto wrench free, the blows, the fear    worse than blows that hateful

Words could bring, the face that I    no longer knew or loved . . .Well, it is over now, it is over,    and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against    a tree, exhausted, purged—avenged in part for lifelong hidings
    she has had to bear.

So i read "The Whipping" by Robert Hayden. At first i was kind of hesitant to read it because i was scared it would be very violent. I thought that it would be about the kids past and how he was abused. When i started reading it i saw that i was wrong. Its about a how he saw a kid getting whipped. It was kind of sad, but really good at the same time!

While i was annotating there were a few words that i didn't know like, "zinnias," "bony," "purged," and "avenged." I also noticed that she didn't use any similes but things similar to them, like "His tears are rainy weather to woundlike memories."There is also a part where she kind of repeats herself. "it is over now, it is over..."

Thats not all i saw but that is mostly what i saw in it. I liked this poem a lot because I could really picture it in my head like i have seen it before.