Reading Journal 8 || Virginia Woolf || "The Death of the Moth"

In this essay the writing mode, narration, stood out the most for me. Woolf uses this style effectively and makes it more personal. She has a strong appeal of pathos, and she let's the reader visualize and feel for the moth's activities for themselves. At the end Virginia Woolf stated, "nothing, I knew had any chance against death [and]... O yes, he seemed to say death is stronger than I am (3). These statements explain the purpose and the lesson learned, which is that death is reality and is something every creature has to face. She invokes empathy and acceptance in the reader for themselves as well as others.

Reading Journal 7 || Lauren Slater || “On Love"

The purpose of Lauren Slater's story, "Love", is to expand the concept of love and enrich it. This essay provided an in-depth analysis about the different aspects of love. It uncovers the truth behind what it feels to love, why we love, and how we love. She explains her feelings towards her husband, but does not complain about him. People love in different ways such as love being invisible to our face and through signs and symbols or straight to our face verbally. 

Weekly Reflection 4

08/01- 08/04
This week consisted mostly of working on our argumentative paper. The process of this paper had different parts to it and we had to turn it in on the assigned deadline. I completed all my parts in this process, but midway Mr. Smith decided to stop it. This process helped me complete my essay on time, and made the final draft an easier assignment. On the last day of this school week, we learned about "Definition Essay Pattern." The notes described what this type of essay looks like: containing the components of a subject and history behind the formation of the subject. This pattern can be used in a portion of an essay of a larger paper, but do NOT quote the dictionary, unless needed.

Weekly Reflection 3

07/25- 07/28
The third week of this summer class was all about group work. At first we assigned each other things to do individually, and then later towards the end we got together and worked on the entire essay to make it flow better with transition words. We also as a group presented what we wrote about to the class which went pretty well, but like always I was a little nervous. On the last day of this week we took a lot of notes on "Aristotelian Argument" since we are ending this course with our last assignment, which is an argumentative paper. We got to choose our topics and I chose the topic of children and smartphones, and my position in this essay will be that children are too young for a smartphone.

Reading Journal 6 || Suzan S. Harjo || "Last Rites for Indian Dead"

1. She constructs her argument by bringing out lots of Ethos and Pathos in her essay. By creating these appeals in her writing she develops emotions and evidences to support her argument. She wants the readers to sympathize for the Natives and also prove to them that these actions are harsh to our families and need to stop. Harjo also does a great job on focusing on the purpose of her paper by informing, persuading, and speculating. She completes all of three points and also brings in many effects to the one cause of American Indians being dug up from their burial sites to be sold, bought, and held in storage for research. 
2. Harjo's position in her essay is that American Indians are not artifacts that are to be sold and bought from collectors. It is wrong to dig them up and store thousands of them for future research. Lastly, they are entitled to be untouched and kept or returned to their burial sites. In this discussion she expresses the emotions and feelings of her Native American relatives and other tribes. Her position on this problem shows the voice of all the Natives that feel this way as well.

Weekly Reflection 2

07/18- 07/21

This was the second week of English 1301 in summer session 2. We learned about MLA citations and how to quote sources. One new thing we learned was the signal phrase you use before any quotes you make in your paper, including in text notations at the end of the quote. I also learned an important factor about the appeals in writing: logos, pathos, and ethos. The most important from the three is ethos because this appeal is how you establish personal authority over your paper using resources to make a strong ethical paper; especially with no plagiarism.

Reading Journal 5 || Joan Didion || "On Keeping a Notebook"

1. This essay made me feel as if I should have kept a notebook for myself earlier, so that I could remember all the details whether it was an important or an unimportant fact and event that occurred in my life. In her essay, "On Keeping a Notebook", Joan Didion states, "It all comes back. Even that recipe for sauerkraut: even that brings it back. I was on Fire Island when I first made that sauerkraut, and it was raining, and we drank a lot of bourbon and ate the sauerkraut and went to bed at ten, and I listened to the rain and the Atlantic and felt safe. I made the sauerkraut again last night and it did not make me feel any safer, but that is, as they say, another story" (4). This last paragraph of her essay sends an important message. As life passes by, we slowly start to forget who we were in the past and what we did; memories slowly slip away. When we write these memories down, it is a way to reconnect with ourselves from the past and recall the moments that have been forgotten.
2. The third paragraph contributed the best emotional connection for me as a reader. This is because she talks about how the notebook keepers are different types of people, they are not normal, instead they are lonely and always anxious. She also talks about how she started to write in a notebook. This paragraph connected to me as a reader because I went through the same feeling, and understood who she was talking about when she said notebook keepers. 
3. Didion asks many unanswerable questions, and this technique strengthens her work by keeping the reader thinking about what is the main point of keeping a notebook for yourself? She lets the readers reflect upon this specific question, so that they could stay focused on the question Joan Didion is trying to answer.