blog #15 Going into this English Composition class I was nervous. I have never been much of a writer and English/language arts has always been my struggle in school. When going to class we learned that we would make a website and have a digital portfolio. This was a lot for me to wrap my head around and I was extremely nervous but ready to take the challenge on. Well I thought I was. We kept moving in class and I kept going with whatever I could do. Sometimes feeling like I was asking too many questions but sometimes I was lost and needed help. Making the digital portfolio has been such a great experience for me to be honest. I have learned so much and once I got the hang of it I found it be quite refreshing. Having all of my work together in one place and being able to access it or show it is wonderful. I had some trouble with some of the blog posts and figuring out how to word them. I feel I did the best to my ability. I planned on putting more blog posts on my page about my life. Of course I only ended up putting one up. I blogged about taking my son Jordan and my two cousins DottieJo ten-years old and Bridgette twelve-years old to the Philadelphia Eagles kids club Halloween party. I posted pictures and wrote a little bit about what we did. I wish I did more of this because it was nice to look back and see what was going on in my life while I was doing all my class work. I did have some trouble making "hidden pages" but got the hang of it. This may have been a class I missed when it was being explained. I tried not to miss any classes so that I could stay on top of everything and keep up with the class. I do not have much of an immune system since my kidney transplant so I get sick easy. I had gotten a really bad cold and it took a toll on me so I had to miss one class. I had to miss another class because my son got the stomach bug. A mothers job is never done but I would not change it for anything in the world. I really enjoy looking back at my website and seeing all my work put together and being able to see all my drafts labeled and in one place. I added hyperlinks to let readers go to wherever I may have been talking about. So needless to say that once all is said and done I enjoyed this quite well. It is pretty neat to see it all put together like it is. I really like looking back and seeing everything that is there and how it is all put together. I am really happy and thankful that I have taken this class and gotten to experience the things that I have. Putting a website together like this is not as hard as it seems at all.
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blog #14
I made a very hard choice to come back to college. I graduated high school in 2003. I went to Penn State University right after High School. I started my college education with the degree of early childhood education in mind. I complete some classes got bored and dropped out. I did however complete some schooling where one more semester would have gotten me my associates. I wished for the longest time I had come back to school. Finally after some crazy and scary times in my life I did it. I got pregnant in 2011 and my kidneys started to fail during the pregnancy. I ended up on dialysis for roughly two and a half years. I finally received my life saving kidney from my best friend in 2016. While laying in the hospital hooked to all kinds of machines I decided this is it I am going to do everything I can to regain my life. This included getting as healthy as I could and going back to school. I applied and then waited till time to schedule my classes. In June of 2017 I received more bad news that I was developing an ovarian cyst that turned into a tumor that had grown quite large. After numerous tests and appointments it was decided best course of action to get a total hysterectomy and remove it all. The last image I had done of it showed it had grown to the size of a baby's head. This was so scary for me. I had the surgery and things did not go so smoothly. I went into tacacardia and part of my lung collapsed. I could not breathe without oxygen. What a scary ordeal. This is just a touch of what happened. So after this my goals were even more important to me. I was not going to let anything stand in my way. I did not realize until starting school how much I had forgotten and was out of touch. I am so thankful to Sabatino Mangini for his teaching. I have never had a teacher or professor teach the way he did. He included the students in so many ways. He touched on things that I had forgotten all about or how to do. Sabatino had me realizing some things that blew my mind. Certain things were always hard for me like citing work when writing a paper and he helped me with remembering how to do it. I know I have not gotten anywhere that I need to be but being out of school for thirteen years has hurt me in many ways. Sabatino helped me learn the ways of doing research. It is a lot for me to learn and realize like being able to use the internet to access all the things the library has to offer when doing research. I am so thankful for all that Sabatino has helped me with and taught me. I am beyond ready to keep going, get my education and have fun while doing it. Thank you Sabatino Mangini When writing scenes so I could decided what I wanted to write about for my Life-Choice Memoir I struggled with a few ideas. I wrote some scenes about some decisions I struggled with in life but were not as big as a struggle as I ended up with. I knew I should have been writing about this the whole time I was exploring ideas. Sabatino Mangini, my professor expressed his want for me to write about this topic. For a while I could not bring myself to even fathom writing about this struggle. Then I decided to explore it. I was not aware of the ride I was about to take with it. I wrote my paper editing it as needed. Moving a long so many emotions came flooding to me. Everything about the struggle I had with talking to my dad about my lies and what was going on in my life at the time. I chose not only to lie to the medical staff and doctors that I was still smoking while waiting for my life saving kidney but I lied to all my friends too. After writing this paper I found so many different emotions yes all the ones I had at the time came back but I also felt new ones. Was it that I finally quit smoking? Was it that I had my life saving kidney? I was not too sure at the time. Since writing this paper I have been able to start talking to my family. I started with my mom who was one of the hardest for me. She has always been one of my biggest heroes and someone I looked up too so much. Opening up to her about this paper opened the door for talking about the incident itself. Of course she was not happy that I kept smoking and hid it from her but she was also very happy that I finally told the truth. We have always been so close. Once I felt alright enough with opening up about it to my mom I moved on to my sister. Carly was hard because she has been by my side through all of my health issues. If she was not able to make it to appointments she would be on the phone with me right after. I am so glad Sabatino convinced me to write about this particular struggle in my life. It opened up some bad memories and a terrible struggle I experienced but also cleared the air per say.
Week 12 12) Research Paper Reflection [Categories: Research Paper, Where to Invade Next, Reflection]: Please complete the following:
This blog post is designed to help me reflect on my research paper. I will be answering a list of questions to show how I feel and what I think about the writing I have done with my research paper. Reflective writing video helped me to write this post and reflect on my writing. Here is a link to my life-choice memoir draft #1. •Who did you work with to compose your research paper? Was this a good approach?
I worked mostly by myself. I did ask Sabatino to help me and look over my paper a few times. I just kept revising and reading it out loud to myself. I think this was a good approach. I worked hard and had to change my paper a few times so I think working alone at least till this point has been my best approach. •What rhetorical mode and genre are you using? I am using the genre of a research paper and the rhetorical mode of argumentation for this paper. •When did you write this project? Good approach? I have been working on this paper in class, in my ALP class and at home on my spare time. Mainly when my son goes to bed. Yes it is a good approach because in class Sabatino is here if I need help and then at home when my son is in bed because I get some peace and quiet without the interruptions. •Where did you write this project? Good approach? At home and at school. Easiest to access computers. Yes it is a good approach mainly because of the fact that I have the access I needed for the computers. I did do some research and written it out in my notebook but it helps to have the computer access of course. •Why did you choose to write about your chosen topic? Good choice? I think this topic touches home for me. I was a special education student and it helped me but also I feel kind of held me back in certain ways. I feel I did not always get the same material that other students got and it hurt me in ways. It also helped me cause I was able to go at a pace that worked for me. •How did it feel to write this argument ("during, after, and since")? Do you have any "if only" moments that can help you revise the draft? During writing this argument It felt good, I was informing myself of things I did not know before which felt amazing. I love learning about things that are dear to my heart. After writing this I wanted to revise and learn more. I wanted to make sure that the readers understood my stand and why. Since I think I feel the same as after because I want to keep revising it. •How will you revise your argument? I have already revised my argument. I had started with the argument that America should follow Finland's education system. After some research I realized that I wanted to be more specific and want to research special education so my argument became America should follow Finland's special education system. I labeled this system because they deal with disorders and disabilities so differently. Week 11 11) Annotated Bibliography [Categories: Where to Invade Next, Research Paper]: Please complete the following:
Source #1:
~ Sahlberg, Pasi. “Why Finland’s schools are top notch”. CNN.com, 6 Oct. 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/opinion/sahlberg-finland-education/index.html ~ Millions of Americans spend lots of time to help teach children so they get good or better grades. Finland is considered to have one of the best educational systems in the world. Finnish children do not start school until seven years old and have less to no homework then other countries. This article explains three things affect the quality of Finnish schools. Explains some affordable and smart steps America should take. There are also links to different opinions that relate to this topic. ~ America could learn a lot from Finland’s education system. The things they have implemented and use have shown to help their children. Finnish children learn more without sitting them at a desk for many hours 5 days a week. I do believe that there is so much that America could try out. America tries to cram so much into every child every day for many hours. ~ This source is going to be a huge help when I am actually composing my research paper because it touches base on some great points within my topic. For an example it explains three reasons why Finland schools are at the top of the educational systems. Source #2 ~ Aedo, Cristian. “Finland: A Miracle of Education?”. Worldbank.org, 26 June 2017, http://blogs.worldbank.org/education/finland-miracle-education ~ Finland testing 15-year-old students were surprised how high they scored. Although now their results have declined slightly they are still at the top of the educational systems. Finnish education policy relies more on the teachers and local authorities then it does on control and competition. The Finnish education system has a flexible special education they have different levels of the special support they can get. ~I am very interested to learn more about their special education levels of support. I think this article show cases some good points I have not seen yet in any articles. First reading the part about Finland’s results declining but looking further I see they declined some but are still on top. ~ This article is going to be great and relates to my topic because it talks about special education in Finland which is something I have not crossed until this article. Source #3 ~ Jackson, Abby. “4 reasons Finland’s schools are better”. Buisnessinsider.com, 3 Apr. 2015, http://www.businessinsider.com/4-things-finlands-schools-do-better-than-america-2015-4 ~ This articles gives 4 reasons on why the schools in Finland are better. One they have better standardized tests. First, Finnish students only take one standardized test during their entire primary and secondary schooling. Second, they have more time for play. They spend little time on homework. Typically Finnish students spend 2.8 hours while Americans spend 6.1 hours on average. Third, college is free. Bachelor, master and doctoral programs are free. Last, Finland has elevated teaching. Only one out of ten students who apply to be a teacher get accepted. ~ It seems they have a strong system in place. Very interesting to me. I really like reading how they spend less on homework. More time for kids to be kids. Also they only pick ‘the cream of the crop’ for teachers. The best of the best get to teacher the young. It makes for a stronger educational system in my eyes. ~ This source is great for helping me make my arguments that Finland’s education is better than Americas and we could learn from them. We could even follow their direction for education. Source #4 ~Tung, Stephen. “How the Finnish school system outshines U.S. education”. News.standford.edu, https://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/january/finnish-schools-reform-012012.html ~ The U.S and Finnish schools have been going in different directions on how well the education is doing. They also found that the lower the cost for schools the better the results are. They had a speaker who was a Finnish school expert come and speak on the behalf of Finland's education department Pasi Sahlberg. ~I found it very interesting that two of the sources I found had the same Finland education specialist in them. It is very interesting to see how the lower costs of the school equals better results. ~This article directly relates and will help with my paper because it directly touches subjects I want to reflect on and that will support my argument. Database article #1 ~ Hornby, Garry. "Inclusive Special Education: Development of a New Theory for the Education of Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities." British Journal of Special Education, vol. 42, no. 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 234-256. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/1467-8578.12101 ~Finland has a different approach to special education. They have special schools for some of the children. They call it inclusive special education. Many children are not mainstreamed and this is why some of the testing results are so high. ~I found this article to be very interesting. It was very long but it showed a lot of different things about special education. They make sure each child gets the proper education whether in a special school or mainstreamed. This helps provide them with the skills they need when they are finished school. ~This article is going to help shape my paper because when I am addressing whether America should follow Finland’s education programs this is going to showcase a specific topic of special education. Database article #2 ~Kaplan, Sandra and Nancy B. Hertzog. "Pedagogy for Early Childhood Gifted Education." Gifted Child Today, vol. 39, no. 3, July 2016, pp. 134-139. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1076217516644637. ~ The trend of standardized tests that are driven by the kindergarten curriculum are contradicted what educators know about young children. Gifted education has started after second grade once students have taken the standardized achievement tests. More starts are starting to require early identification. Washington has a mandated policy to identify and serve children in gifted programs K-12. ~This article has some interesting points about special education in America. Seems America wants to constantly change and push these kids by constantly taking tests. They want them to be able to identify and follow their curriculum at an early age when some children are not ready for it. ~This article is going to help me when showing the special education portion to the argument of should America follow Finland’s education policies. 10) Where to Invade Next? An Argument. [Categories: Where to Invade Next, Research Paper]: Please complete the following:
In this blog post I will explore the ideas of what I will turn into my research paper. I will also present an argument that may turn into my research paper. Topics:
Health care in American v. other countries Education in America v. Slovenia and Finland Prison system in America v. Norway Research Questions: Should getting health care in America be free? Should education be more geared towards life's experiences? Should a prisoner have more rights and be treated more as a human than as they are now? Arguments: Health care in America should be free because than Americans could get the care they needed and would be healthier and happier which would produce better productivity. Education should gear more towards life's experiences because when you enter the "real world" as an adult there are so many things you wouldn't know how to do like write a check, change a tire on a car and be able to sow. I do not think that prisoners should have more rights because they would take advantage of it and would not just serve their time faithfully. Week 9 9) Summary of Where to Invade Next [Category: Where to Invade Next, Summary]: Please complete the following:
In this blog post I will give a summary of the film we watched in class Where to Invade Next. In the documentary Where to Invade Next, Michael Moore explores different countries and things they do differently than America. With every country he visits he points out something they do that he wants to bring back to America. He tells the people he meets with from these countries that he is claiming the idea. He visited Italy first and found that no matter where you work you get 7-8 weeks paid vacation every year. In December they get an extra month's salary. The country finds that with lots of vacation time people stress less and tend to be healthier and happier. People go home for a long lunch break every day. Next Michael went to France and found that for children in school their lunch is a class and they get a whole hour. The kids drink lots of water and eat healthy. Most of their cafeterias serve some of the best food in town. Michael also found out that the spend less on lunch then the US does. They have a slight higher tax than we do but they also pay for less than we do. The next place that Michael visited was one I found quite interesting, Finland. Finland and America were about tied for their education now Finland is number one. They have no homework and if they do end up with some it is maybe 10-20 minutes max. The children go to school 20 hours a week and they do not do standardized testing. Their concept of schools are that they are all equal. Slovenia was next and they have free college. There were some American students who traveled there to get their education. Germany was next on the list and they only work 36 hours a week with no other jobs. If someone gets too stressed out they go see their doctor and can get a prescription to go stay at a spa for three weeks. Bosses are not able to contact or email an employee once they are off the clock. Norway was another stop on Michaels journey this was all about their prison system and they do not lock them in a secured prison. They just take away their ability to see family and friends. Tunisia an African country has made free women's clinics and abortion clinics. Iceland was the last stop on the list of places to visit to claim ideas to take back to America. In Iceland Michael found that they had the first female president and their studies and records show that when woman are in charge things tend to go better. Productivity is not much different from outs. Towards the end of the film he realizes they all told him that these were Americas ideas first.
On Saturday October 21st I took my son Jordan and two my cousins Bridgette and Dottie Jo to a special Halloween party. I signed my son up for the Philadelphia Eagles kids club. With his membership he got 4 tickets to the exclusive Halloween party. We had so much fun pumpkin painting, locker room tours, meeting Alumni, getting airbrush tattoos and trick or treating. The kids loved it so much and it was a nice break from reality and got to enjoy some fun. Here are some pictures of some of the things we did and the fun we had. 7) Life-Choice Memoir Reflection [Categories: Life Choice, Memoir, Reflection]: Please complete the following:
This assignment is designed for me to reflect on the first draft of my life-choice memoir. I will answer a list of questions. Here is a link to my life-choice memoir.
6) Life Choice: Is This My Tradition? [Categories: Life Choice, Making Connections]: Please complete the following:
In this blog post I will be answering questions week 6 life choice. I will be showing an American tradition that have similarities to the lottery tradition. I will also be explaining a time when I either broke from tradition or decided not to break from tradition. The story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson the lottery has a lot of similarities to American Traditions. A tradition that American does and actually confuses other countries at times is how we tip everyone. When we go to restaurants we tip the waiter or waitress, we tip a driver when pay for a ride. This relates to the story The Lottery because a major theme of the story is chance or luck. That is how the person who gets stoned to death is picked. When you are wait staff you by chance get a tip and you never know what you would get. Yes, it sometimes varies on the wait staffs service but it is by chance. You could have the best service and still get a terrible tip. These traditions are about chance and luck. Click HERE for a link for some information about tipping and its tradition.
One time I decided to break from tradition was when I was young. My father was a strong catholic. He grew up going to catholic school and in a strong catholic family. I remember when I was young he wanted to start me in catholic school. He wanted me to follow in the family’s tradition of the strong catholic faith. My father was killed when I was 5, so catholic school did not happen my family could not afford it. We still went to church and followed with that aspect. As I got older I started to notice this just was not for me. I wasn’t sure what kind of “higher being” there was if any. I stopped going to church on Sunday and would only go on holidays with my mom-mom. After she passed away I stopped going all together. I only go into a church for weddings, funerals and baptisms. This is a choice I made and I apologize to my dad often, but this was a choice I felt I had to make. Why go with something when you don’t believe or are not sure what you believe. |
Jacqueline Heidin
This Blog is for me to explore and present my course material for my English Composition I course. Archives
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