Dear Michele: A Letter to My Past Self

                                                                                                                             November 2, 2012

Dear Michele, 


Hi Michele! I hope your first week of high school is going well. High school was a lot of fun and you worked hard. I am writing you this letter because one of my worst regrets is that you didn't stop being friends with people that you knew were not really your friends. Remember in second grade, when you found your first best friend (Friend A) and you always did everything together. Once Friend A met the new girl (Friend B), you were pushed aside for their new friendship. Your best friend (Friend A), stopped hanging out with you because she was hanging out with her new best friend (Friend B). Do you remember the first time, when you three were playing at recess and Friend B said to you that Friend A and Friend B wanted to play by themselves without you? You had to go find someone else to play with, it really hurt your feelings. Then after that, day after day Friend B told you that she and Friend A wanted to play by themselves. Friend A started to treat you different and acted different, more like Friend B. Then in sixth grade, remember when Friend B wrote you a letter that told you all of your flaws. It was good that you decided to end the friendship after that letter.

What I regret is that you didn't completely let go of your friendship with Friend A and Friend B. Yes, you stopped talking to them for about two years and you created new friendships, but you missed the relationship you had with Friend A. You wanted to have your best friend back. You forgave them for what they did to you and once in high school, you started to hang out with these two girls again. You should have let this friendship go completely. They are not friends that you need to have. You know that they talk bad about you behind your backs, since they talk bad about others to your face. It is good that you didn't hang out with them as much as you did when you were little. I am glad that you didn't spend a lot of time with them. You should have had your other friendships grow by going to parties that your new friends invited you to. You just wanted to have a friend who wanted you around and you know they didn't want you around. In high school, you should have never crawled back to them because you are nothing like them. Don't let these girls get to you, you know they are jealous of you. They try to build themselves up by tearing everyone else down. Start meeting new people and let yourself be yourself around new people. Michele, you need to focus on school and not everyone else. These girls will only bring you down and you will not be happy. You don't need them. Start going to after school activities, to gain more friends.  Don't be shy, Michele! Be your kind, funny self and you will gain more friends. 

You will be a lot happier if you listen to my advice.

Sincerely,

Your Future Self

Got Milk? Advertisement Redesign Reflective

Going into this assignment, I had no idea how to pick a good quality ad to redesign. I was concerned that I would not find a ad that I understand the meaning clearly enough to redesign. I looked through magazines thinking about how to redesign it. I decided to pick a popular ad campaign "Got Milk?" which is a ad campaign that I clearly understand the meaning of. I had a hard time thinking how to change the audience of the ad. I found my particular ad in Seventeen Magazine featuring Nina Dobrev and her mom, which gave me a clear idea of the intended audience. Once I had my group look at my ad, they suggested ways on how to create a new audience. This process really helped me look at my ad from a different audiences perspective. I decided to choose this particular ad because it was very simple and their message was very clear. This allowed me to easily change the ad, but keeping the same message. Once my professor and group suggested maybe focusing on sports the idea came to me very quickly. I decided to pick a sport and athlete who are popular. I choose soccer and David Beckham to be featured in my ad. Once I thought about how to redesign it to feature these elements, the idea of the design of the ad came to me very quickly. Actually, the redesign was inspired by a Gatorade ad that I saw in class. I could picture the ad in my mind, but the difficult part was trying to describe it in my essay. I had a hard time being descriptive enough to extend my essay to the length requirement. It was also challenging to create and describe ethos, logos and pathos in my essay. When we sat down with my group and professor, this really helped me know what things should be added to my essay to make it better. I was able to understand how to expand my ethos, logos and pathos better and I received help with my work cited page. It was nice to have one on one time, to ask questions and ask for advice on certain aspects of my paper. By having this opportunity, it allowed me to overcome my obstacle of how to expand my descriptions to lengthen my essay. I really liked the concept of this assignment. It was a  creative idea to learn how to focus on two different audiences. This assignment also helped me understand ethos, pathos and logos better. I really liked this assignment, because it allowed me to be creative. I am a visual learner and I am very creative, so this assignment let me express this creativity. This creativity allowed me to understand how to create a ad to focus on another type of audience. I walked away with a knowledge of how advertisements use ethos, pathos and logos to appeal to the audience. I have a better understanding of how to use one message to appeal to different audiences. If I had a second chance to write my essay, I would probably want to expand more on certain aspects like the use of ethos, pathos and logos.

Process Memo

Michele Mount

Lauren Rinke

Writing 150

October 12, 2012

Process Memo

            The animoto process began with the literacy timeline. When I first started to think about what I should write about, nothing came to my mind. Then I began to think more and more of how my literacy has changed throughout my life. I began to think back to when I was little and remembered how I had a hard time reading. Then I began to think about what changed me from someone having a hard time reading to someone who loves reading. The only thing that could explain this was reading the Harry Potter books with my big brother. When I began to write my timeline, I decided to start from when I first started to read and tried to link how literacy has changed me throughout the years. It was easy for me to know what to write about once I began to remember my difficulties learning to read. Once I started to write, it was hard to put everything I was thinking into an essay format and make it the length requirement. Something that I didn’t think about until I began to write was how much of impact literacy has had on my life and how literacy has changed me into a better student. A major theme that I had throughout my essay was how literacy has impacted my life and how the Harry Potter books have advanced my literacy. I also focused on how I used to have a hard time reading and how the Harry Potter books helped me with my reading skills and contributed to my love of reading. Once I figured my theme it was easy for me to intertwine the Harry Potter books into my theme. I do not think that it was difficult for me to stay to my theme; the only thing that was a problem was having enough information without sounding redundant. By writing a timeline, it helped organize my thoughts to put in my paper. It was also helpful to see from one grade to another grade how my literacy has advanced.

            When I began to write my literacy narrative it was easy for me to keep to my theme and I didn’t jump all over the place. I tried to focus on the main things that helped contribute to my literacy. I stayed to two main contributions: My brother and the Harry Potter books. I organized my paper by the different stages of literacy in my life. I organized my essay by chronological order. It was easy for me to keep everything chronological and in separate paragraphs. The only thing that I had a problem was not trying to sound redundant. It really helped me with organization by doing the timeline. Before I started to write, I wrote down what I wanted to focus on in each paragraph and tried to keep each section separate from each other, so I didn’t mingle ideas in numerous paragraphs. 

After my peer review session, I began to take out information that seemed to be redundant. It was very helpful having this session because it let me know if my thoughts made sense to other people. I took out redundant phrases or rephrased sentences to make them less repetitive. The constructive criticism suggestions were keeping away from repeats and also grammar. The constructive criticism was helpful because it allowed me to see my essay from someonelse’s point of view. I was already thinking about how I wanted my slide show to look but I wasn’t sure how it would flow with the character requirement and I didn’t know what pictures I could use. Making a video made me express my essay in a new way and it also gave me the opportunity to make my essay a visual presentation of my thoughts.

When I had my peer review session, my partners picked 15 sentences that helped contribute to my theme in my essay. I probably used 10 of the 15 sentences that my partners suggested in my final slide show. I also contributed a couple of my own sentences that seemed important to me. I also reworded some sentences that my partners picked out so that it would fit on my slide. I believe that the sentences I chose were important to the main theme of the story. I found it difficult to write to the character limit. It was difficult to make the sentence you wanted to express make sense in a different way by saying it in different wording. I used pictures to space out the text from other texts that didn’t go with each other. I wish I had more pictures of myself reading rather then having so many pictures from the Internet. Most of the pictures were complementary to the texts; which allowed the viewer to get a visual of what I was saying. I choose the images of me reading because they featured me reading and they also helped describe the slides. I believe that I used probably half of the picture requirement from the web and the other half from my own pictures. I choose the song “Somewhere only We Know” which allowed me to express what I think about when I read. I got inspired to use this song from the usage of this song in the Winnie the Pooh Movie trailer. This song helps tell my literacy because it shows the viewer what I think about reading. Reading allows us to explore different worlds and be anyone in these worlds. By looking at the comments made in response to my video, if I had to do it again I would try to find more of my own pictures to help express my story and I would also state how my literacy changed by stating what grades I was in.  Overall, I really enjoyed the animoto project and I really would like to do this again in the future. Maybe I will use this project in the future for my English students.

           

Give a Polar Bear Hug : Nissan Leaf Car Commercial

I have chosen the Nissan Leaf commercial which features the habitat of polar bears being destroyed because of global warming. Since the polar bears home is destroyed he travels to find a new home in a civilized community. He sees a man leaving his home and walking to his new Nissan Leaf. The polar bear goes over to the man and gets on his hind legs to give a bear hug.

1. The beliefs of this video is green. This video features the effects of global warming on the planet and habitats. This ideology would be a liberal point of view since they favor environmental protection. The commercial supports this point of view by featuring scenes of the ice melting and the idea of global warming taking away animals homes. This car is featured as a car that will not contribute to global warming and it will make people not want to buy a car that takes away animals homes. 
2. The intended audience for this commercial would be for people who are looking for a brand new car. Nissan's audience would be people who want to protect the environment and animals. By showing the ice melt it can appeal to people who want to protect the planet against global warming because it shows what global warming is doing to habitats. This commercial is also appealing to people who want to protect animals because it shows how polar bears are being affected by global warming and how their habitat is being destroyed.
3. This topic of global warming is negotiated reading to me because I agree with the audience on some aspects. I believe that we shouldn't contribute much to global warming. We should contain what we put into the environment. I believe that we need to find alternatives to help with Global warming. I do agree that we should help habitats that are being affected by global warming, but I would not let this influence what kind of car I buy. I do not think that protecting the environment is the greatest issue that we should face. I believe that global warming wasn't necessarily only caused by things in the environment, but I believe the earth was going to get naturally warmer.

The Role of Technology in the Classroom (Virginia Heffernen option)

1. During my school years, I was taught how to use many different technological programs. In my early school years, we learned how to use programs like power point and word to create documents and slide shows. Later in high school, I learned how to use blackboard and excel. Blackboard allowed us to view assignments and create class discussions online. My teachers also used Facebook, to communicate to students by having a class Facebook page. In AP English literature we also used Kindles instead of paper back books. I believe that blackboard prepared me for tech requirements in college. Blackboard is very similar to Moodle, but I never had to submit assignments online. I believe that my teachers could have created more assignments and class discussions for us outside of the classroom. I believe that blogs are a good way for people to share their views and also create many different ideas to discuss in class. My teachers could have put more emphasis on different forms of technology. Power points were ALWAYS used to teach information. I believe that their could be other programs to help teach information besides Powerpoint. If I had to write a email, I would suggest that the teachers create more online work to create more outside of the classroom work. I believe that the math teachers should look into programs like Aleks that give additional help to their students. I believe that this type of program creates more repetition and practice for their students. By having more online work, time could be saved in the classroom for other curriculum.
2. I will be a teacher who majors in English and history. I want to use many different forms of technology to make my curriculum exciting and fresh. If I teach middle school or high school, I will probably have a program like Moodle or have my student create blogs. I will be creating worksheets and I will have to write papers. Oakland will prepare me by giving me the knowledge of how to make professional documents. I will be using power points to discuss information. Hopefully, I will be able to find many different forms of programs which could help make discussions exciting and different. I believe that the technology I have used at Oakland has given me an idea of how to create different forms of lessons. I want to use different programs to get every student involved and engaged in the curriculum.
3. I believe that I do write more relaxed in a blog setting or in a email setting. There is not as much pressure to create the perfect text. By having a blog, you are able to be more relaxed to express your views and opinions. Blogs are more unprofessional rather then having a paper. By writing a paper in a document, their is more pressure to create the perfect paper and perfect grammar. 
4. I will be becoming a English teacher, so I will have to think about how to create lessons that will help prepare my students for the future technology advancements. I will try to introduce my students to as much technology as I can. The fact is that their will be more and more advancements in technology in the future, so I will have to be up to speed on the latest technology. If I am up to date on the technology that my students are learning then I can create curriculum that involves this technology. If Facebook is still around, I will use this social media format to create a online classroom to tell my students about upcoming events. 
5.  I agree with the author about how we shouldn't force students to learn the way students have always learned. We should encourage students to learn in different ways that can interest them more then writing another term paper that they have been doing forever. I do think that we should still encourage old fashioned teaching but introduce new teaching styles. I think that kids still need to be encouraged to read but maybe get them things like Kindles that are advancements in technology.

My Literacy Timeline

• Kindergarten
• I started to read

• 1st Grade
• I was behind at my reading level, so I started to go to tutoring to help me with my reading. I didn't really like reading because I had a hard time comprehending what the words meant. I was pulled out of class at a certain time everyday to go get reading help, while the other kids in my class learned reading. I knew this was going to help me down the long run, but I didn't like being left out from the other kids.

• 2nd Grade
• I hardly read because I didn't have a passion for it. My brother started to read to me from his books. My favorite books became the Harry Potter books.

• 3rd Grade
• When my brother read to me, it made me want to become a better reader and writer. I wanted to read the books that he read. So I began to read and finish the Harry Potter books. One time my brother was reading a Harry Potter book to me and I stopped him so I could finish it by myself.

• 8th Grade
• By the 8th Grade, I had achieved one of my goals which was to read all of the Harry Potter books. I accomplished this goal and I learned to love to reading. I started to read more books and finish more books in a shorter amount of time. I also started to love writing; which helped me gain a better appreciation for reading.

• 12th Grade
• Took AP English Literature and I started to learn how to read with an in depth mind. 

• 12th Grade
• Decided that I want to become a elementary teacher with a major in English and a minor in History.

Breaking through Barriers in Culture Groups

Cultures sometimes have barriers. Sherman Alexi grew up on an Indian reservation. Alexi was trying to go against the normal outlook of Indians and wanted to become successful. He grew up in an environment that had stereotypes against the intelligence of Native Americans. Sherman grew up having white teachers who obtained a low level of expectations for their students. Sherman's teachers did not encourage their students to continue their education and break the stereotype against their cultural group. Sherman was inspired to read from his father's passion for reading. So Sherman took it upon himself to teach himself how to read. He started to read constantly and was reading at an advanced level compared to the other children's reading level. Sherman wanted to improve his life and he learned that if he read and got educated he would create a better future for himself. Most children did not go against this stereotype and did not have the drive to push them towards a better future. Sherman eventually became a writer and tries to encourage students on reservations not to fall under this stereotype, but break it. Literacy was important to Sherman because it showed him the loophole to a better life.

I agree with the stakes Sherman took to get his future career. I believe that it would be hard being apart of a culture that doesn't encourage education. I believe that if you want to become successful, then you need to have the drive to go get it for yourself. I am apart of a culture group that encourages furthering education. I cannot imagine the difficulty of being apart of a culture that doesn't have high expectations for their youth. I am very impressed with the drive that Sherman had for his education. Hopefully more people will take the route that Sherman took and have the drive to push past this stereotype. I believe that no matter where you come from you have to want something bad enough to go get it. Similar to Sherman, I have the drive to push through goals and I also want to create a better future for myself. I also believe that to have a better future you need to be educated. As a child, I always knew that I was going to go to college and that education was a top priority. When I was little, I knew that to have a good future, I needed to get good grades in school. By breaking stereotypes, you are not just helping yourself but you are helping your family through generations.