`` Jimmy Santiago Bac Poetry As Lifesaver, And Gerald Graff 's Hidden Intellectualism

In "Disliking Books" Gerald Graff informs the reader of his troubled childhood with literature. Like many students, Graff disliked reading books, and when he did read books, it would mainly be comic books and sports novels. He informs the reader that it was not until college where he fully began to appreciate literature. He pursued a major in English in order to push himself beyond wanting to read books of his personal leisure. And like many students, Graff struggled to read the dull, boring books, often giving up on reading them because they were too difficult. Graff became fascinated with reading when he had to write his term paper on the ending of "Huckleberry Finn", where he found fascination with reading the book and others like it. The main purpose of this narrative would be that anyone can learn to love literature. It just takes a topic like debating the ending of "Huckleberry Finn" to spark and interest in reading, like it did for

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

The issue being debated in the article “Hidden Intellectualism” by Gerald Graff is street smarts versus book smarts. Gerald Graff is an English professor at the University of Illinois and has written many books. The author claims that people are better off if they are more street smart than book smart. The authors is very persuasive using real life examples. I although disagree with this claim. I think that you need an equal mix of both street and book smarts.

Everyone on the planet has a goal set in life, but only a handful attempt to improve to obtain their goal by studying the subject their goal is in. In my English class, English 101 this quarter I was astonished by how much I had progressed as a writer sharpening my writing skills and also learned a lot about writing that I hadn’t learned before. In my writing portfolio for this quarter I had to write an autobiography essay, a research essay, and this reflection essay to develop my writing skills better. The writing assignments were fun to do because it challenged me to work on essays of different styles that were new to me. The essay assignments helped me grow as a better writer that gave me the self-confidence and skills to take on the world on my own.

Poetry is often used as a form of writing to express emotions or tell a story. The poems “LA Nocturne: The Angels”, by Xavier Villaurrutia and “Meditations on the South Valley: Poem IX” by Jimmy Santiago Baca, are two distinctive poems. In Baca’s poem he expresses the disbelief and the sorrow of the death of a boy named Eddie. While, in Villaurrutia’s poem reveals an expression of secret desire men have. Baca and Villaurrutia’s poems, both use repetition, imagery and metaphors in their poems to convey their message.

The article, Jimmy Santiago Baca: Poetry as Lifesavor retells the challenges and hardships Baca experienced. Rob Baker, the author, informs the readers that past experiences will continually influence decisions in the future. In the beginning it is revealed that the characters parrents abandoned him at the young age of seven. His troubles only worsened as time went on for he dropped out of junior high, due to not performing well academically and socially. Therefore, he fell into the wrong crowds and was eventually sentenced to prison for five to ten years, at the age of twenty-one. Poety helped him to overcome the mental and emotional impact that prison imparts with the individual. Baca now uses his experiences to reach out to the community by becoming a teacher to encourage children to embrace their own stories.

When readers read a story written by an author they will usually think that the author likes to read books and is what led the author to writing a book. William Goldman said, “As a child, I had no Interest in reading” (Goldman 3), this can lead readers to imagining the author as a young child rather than an adult not wanting to read a book. When Readers imagine the author as a young child the image imagined can give a better sense of how the author felt as a young child. The imagination of a child giving the reader a picture to think about is less complex than that of a adult giving a reader a picture to think about.

In the profile article “Jimmy Santiago Baca: Poetry as Lifesaver” author Rob Baker, who also is a creative writing and English teacher proves to not only the readers but also the National Council of Teachers of English the significance of poetry. The authors main point is that poetry saved Jimmy Santiago Baca’s life, he shows us how by explaining the emotions when Baca began to read poetry; he then went on to write poetry and even publish his own works while still in prison, after Baca’s release, he became a dedicated teacher who also works with gang members and teaches workshops.

Reflecting on my life as a means of deciding on a topic, one time period struck me as particularly important in terms of writing itself: my second year of second grade. Moving to Poway in 2007, the first class I was in was Mrs. Ramin’s 2-3 combo at Painted Rock. I had purple wire-rim glasses, a brown Hello Kitty tracksuit, two friends, and a hatred of writing. This was particularly unfortunate for young Analise, since Mrs. Ramin’s main focus was writing. She encouraged her students to write daily, setting aside 20-60 minutes each day for it. Although I hated it at first, my passion for creative writing grew as I turned my love for my sister and for Webkinz into tales of adventure and peril parallel to my then favorite series, Magic Tree House. I wrote, drew, and colored whatever my seven-year-old imagination spun for me. After that spark, the fire of writing died down to a smolder until eighth grade, when I wrote my first successful essay, “Flowers for Algernon: A Comparative Essay On How Two Versions of the Story are like

In my English 1010 class, I have learned to do a number of things through writing essays. I have written a Literacy Narrative, a Discourse Community Analysis, and a Writing Research essay. Firstly, I have learned to identify how an author’s purpose, audience, genre, and context determine effective writing. The purpose of the literacy narrative was to help me understand myself better as a writer (Jones 1). My teacher was the intended audience of the narrative. The genre of the narrative was non-fiction by cause of it being about my experience as a writer. The context of writing made my writing more interesting and more effective. Knowing those elements helps you to compose writing that is more effective due to you needing to know what you need to write about and who is receiving your writing. I displayed these skills by going into detail about my experiences with reading and writing through my life. As shown in the following sentence from my literacy narrative I shared how fun and exciting it was when my second-grade class received the opportunity to write a book, A Book of Future Astronauts, “Everyone in the class was truly excited to be writing our own book,” (Writing is Good).

From a young age, children in a first world country are expected to have the ability to read and write. But if you think about this, more than 100 million youths in the world are illiterate (UNESCO). Growing up in a place where pencils and papers are scarce, being able to read and write is a blessing, yet most kids in America just see it as something they’re forced to do in school. Although most children write just for educational purposes, I see writing as something much more. Writing truly allows for a greater emotional output than other types of communication and in my rhetorical self, it is an incredible way to express myself and my thoughts to others.

Also, I had no problems with essays during my grade school years. I did not need much time to create an essay, or a journal, or something else for my writing class. The older I become, the more difficult it gets for me to write. Perhaps, I have more problems, needs, or other various things in my life that keep me from being able to focus on writing. Therefore, when I read “The Watcher at the Gates” by Gail Godwin, I saw myself there. In this essay, Godwin illustrates examples of many things that may be obstacles to some people to start writing. Also, she suggests several ways that may help people to overcome such a problem.

Well-written and inspirational literature not only has the ability to carry a reader into another world but they are able to accomplish this feat while simultaneously delivering deep messages that surpass the written text. Children’s literature is sometimes overlooked in terms of reaching these standards and being considered worthy of critical analysis; this genre is often perceived as having juvenile storylines and concepts portrayed through simplistic language. However, the common writing styles in children’s literature, often being either illustrated books or picture-books, offer the genre with a unique opportunity to achieve deep themes and messages through the dynamic

Writing has never been my strongest point, so writing essays were always a struggle for me. Professor Sndograss taught me how to dig deep and find something inspiring to write about If that meant rereading the poem and litter over and over again then thats what I did.

I have been writing since I have been in Middle School. I have realized that by college it was easier for me to write down my thoughts in order for me to remember what I have said or done. Writing out my thoughts gives me a sense of recollection, knowledge, and pacification that gets me through my day. I pictured writing to be as simple as jotting down a few sentences, but as I got farther in school I realized that there is more to it than just writing sentences. English has been my most difficult subject I have ever endured, but I have somehow been managing to make excellent grades and achieving all requirements. First in the essay, I will discuss my experiences in the English life that I’ve taken so far up until college. The second part will list my struggles in creating a thesis, a work cited, and properly citing my sources used in the papers.