This years election was definitely a huge shock to the world. The popular vote has failed, the republicans have full control over the house and the senate, and donald trump was elected the president of the united states. Fear and paranoia surround half the population of Americans and our country has been divided. My fears for this election have come true in every regard of the manner. The fear was not so much as Republican or Democrats, but more so the fact that the two running were extreme opposites. They have separate views on abortion which will affect womens rights, different views on how to deal with immigration, and different views on taxing the upper class. These are extreme views in our society and because their are so many extreme views everyone is tore over results. And with the republicans in full power there is nothing there to stop them from pushing laws at a vicious rate. What will happen to a womens right to abortion? Will she be punished for making a decision about her own body? Will the practice be outlawed by officials? Will the people revolt for their rights? How will child care and women’s work be factored into this equation?
This situation is quite frightening, and has left most of the world shocked that trump has been elected. And more so that republicans have full control. No one is certain of what laws will come, because no one is sure of what mr trumps plans are for the future. Can we trust our country in the hands of a billionaire who thinks taking advantage of others is “good business” and that the rich shouldn’t pay business taxes which support the poor. How much will the people be able to take? Will there be out lash from the extreme change? Only time will tell what will happen to our country, but with the divide and fears we can only expect disaster.
When most people think of writing we imagine the freedom to express your ideas, and share your opinions with the world. I once believed that notion as well, but my mind has changed in recent times. In the field of study all those beliefs are destroyed and you are confined in a bubble. And dont even think about freeing yourself as it might affect your grade as a student, because papers must follow a strict guideline. Research papers in particular are extremely taxing, and lack creative freedom in all respects of the ideal. When doing a research paper you are required to use someone elses words to express your thoughts about a topic. I find that unnerving and ridiculous to be honest. Why would someone educated and capable of expressing personal opinion want to borrow words from another writer? What makes their opinion more qualified than my own? Academic research is nothing more than copy and paste without any power to follow my own path in regards to writing. If writing were as free as many believed then why must we search for academic scholars that agree with our ideas to confirm whether they are correct or not? How are we expected to be excited about assignments, that by definition, will limit our creative freedom? You would probably suggest that this is a necessity to keep structure among the different writers. Yes, we require structure to function as a society but when do we determine when too much power has been taken away from the writer in expressing personal belief in their papers. When will writers find the freedom we have dreamed of? If we continue limiting writers we will define their views and prevent them from breaking free in the future! After all a bird trapped within its cage will never want to leave once it is forced to stay within its confined. Now a days, It feels as if blogs are the only resource to express a writers true ideals and give actual freedom through your words.
Freedom within a cage? Is it possible?
With that being said, blogs are wonderful assets when it comes to expressing your ideals. They allow you to speak about any topic you desire, and give honest opinions without worry of backlash. There is no defining structure that will limit your ability to speak with your reader. Only in freedom can we truly have a voice, and that cannot be found in academic journals. Only with an open mind can we find solutions to this writers block, and encourage others to write with passion. But until that solution is found using blogs to mend a writers broken spirit will have to suffice. Let us dream fellow writers, dream of freedom.
Over the course of the semester I had the opportunity to take an english course, and practice developing my writing skills. The morning “daily grades” were a form of writing in which we either wrote about a topic or a free write about our current status in the class. I think the assignment was interesting and provided us a great opportunity to write at our pace and self improve.
In terms of free-writing I think my skills have improved quite a bit. When given a topic I write quickly about what comes to my head without worry of grammar mistakes. This allows me to get my ideas down on the paper while im still thinking of them! Without the worry of being harshly graded I am much more creative and faster at getting my word count up. And in this format I was able to express my personal opinions about the topics, which was in my opinion, a very fun exercise that got me started in the morning. This very concept was wonderful for developing ideas and as a basis for a personal paper, because you only have to worry about getting the words down and correcting grammar later on.
In regards to my style of writing, I feel that I improved a decent amount. Before taking this course writing a MLA formatted paper was quite a difficult task. I had trouble putting everything together properly, citing authors, and the overall format was hard for me to implement. Over time I got better at crafting my papers and understanding what this format required of me. Unfortunately I still dont feel confident in my ability to write a great paper, and wish I had the opportunity to work 1 on 1 with the instructor. I would have preferred to write at least 1 paper using the MLA format while in the classroom setting, so that I could get immediate feedback on a assignment and understand where I am struggling. Sometimes it’s hard for me to figure out why I am struggling on my assignment and maybe knowing what the problem is might have helped with what feels like writers block. But overall I learned a lot in this course and would recommend it to everyone. I was taught how to work on my paper in a productive manner, how to write a blog, and where to find sources for my academic research. And the opportunity to ask an instructor for information is a valuable resource.
As a writer I feel much more accomplished, because I learned a lot about the structure of a MLA paper and can write papers without much guidance. I love the ability to write about whatever your heart desires, and share your ideas with others. I want to improve my overall writing ability and grammar so that these tasks are even easier to accomplish. And I want to be able to write a MLA formatted paper with ease, and feel confident about my papers. Thankfully this class provided me with the necessary foundation for improvement when past classes did not. In the future I hope that these goals are reached, and I will be able to help others as a result.
Our class will be writing a digital blog about Enrique’s Journey and the different topics that emerge from it. We plan to give our readers insight on enriques journey and shine a light on the topics we find most interesting. My plans for the blog will be a nice color scheme, around 30 pictures, and references to immigration. And we will incorporate the ideas of my class as well to make the perfect package of information, at least in our classes opinion.
Regarding the actual website we have a lot to work on. We will have to find a way to keep the website simple, elegant, and informational. Our goal is to make information easy to obtain and easy to understand. And we must consider the time of a day someone might view the website to determine the best color scheme for the eyes. Spelling and Grammar should be checked frequently to ensure that the information is correct, and looks professional. Links will have to be accessible from every page we have available, and images must be aligned in size. If we can manage to accomplish all these feats, then our blog will look wonderful for our readers. We will accomplish our goal in sharing information and topics we thought were worth mentioning, and hopefully, grab the readers attention to such matters.
Overall, the ideas we have set forth are simple enough to accomplish. The hardest part of this project would be checking the actual information we have created and making sure that it is value. Although our website is supposed to be an independent blog to share our opinions about these topics, we can all agree that its best, to provide as many facts as possible to support our ideals.
Enriques Journey has given our class the opportunity to think about immigrants in a new light. We get to listen to enriques story of trying to reunite with his mother, while he leaves behind the rest of his family. His journey is long and dangerous, and he risks deportation. But to enrique, the journey is worth the risk so that he can find the mother who left him many years ago to support the family.
Many topics come to mind when we talk about immigrants. There is the matter of how will they get to America, where will they find jobs, and how do they keep in contact with each other. But for my topic, I chose to discuss education in relation to immigrants. This decision was easy for me to make because I think education is a big part of why the story even took place. If all the people involved were more educated then things might have been different, and they would have communicated with each other better. Nothing is written in stone, however, and being educated isn’t enough to fill enriques empty heart. So my plans are to view the pros and cons of education and how it can affect the decisions one would make. And this will hopefully correlate to the events that took place in the story.
