Letter To Myself

Dear Khadijah,

            The fashion show is a big part of your life since you’re thinking about becoming a model in the future. The fact that you fell in front of hundreds of people I will tell you how to prevent the mistake. When waking up that following morning, make sure that you had enough sleep and that you’re energized. The reason why you fell was because you were rushing to get on stage and your shoes weren’t on all the way. Firstly to prevent all of this I suggest that you wake up two hours earlier than you did. That way time won’t be an issue getting ready for the fashion show. Instead of eating right before the show, eat a full course breakfast and have lunch. The show starts at 7:00 pm. You got there at 6:45, not a good time. All the other models will be going crazy behind stage putting their outfits on, doing makeup, and hair. You on the other hand, will need to leave the house on time and have all the accessories needed to be set for the show. Once you get there at 6:00 pm, get dressed and acquainted with directions be ready to get dressed. All this I am telling you will prevent the biggest mistake you’ve made resulting in a huge embarrassment. Once you go out there hold your head up high with confidence and be sure that you do not fall. In the end you will be happy that you didn’t fall.  

Redesign Of Advertisement Reflection

Going into this essay I felt as if writing a 6 page paper would be a little difficult, with adding enough information. While looking in a Cosmo Girl magazine I saw an ad for Hydroxycut and thought this would be a good advertisement to redesign. This ad is very interesting when it comes to men and women with weight loss. There was no need to sketch out the redesign, all I had to do was put it in a male's perspective. The only challenges I had with this paper was making this essay longer and adding as much details as possible. I basically gave all my all and told every detail possible of the redesign. This advertisement gave me the advantage to look at advertisements and figure out how people view them and if they're false or not. The learning outcomes I walked away with are determining how ads with people affects them. The concept of this gives me insight of how advertisements impact our lives and what we take from it. If I were to get a second chance at writing this essay I would possibly choose a different ad that wouldn't be just the redesign of the opposite sex.

Literacy Narrative Process Memo

Khadijah El-Amin

Professor Lauren Rinke

Writing 150

October 12, 2012

Literacy Narrative Process Memo

 

As I sat down in class to begin my timeline, the most logical place for me to start was age one. At that age I was in the beginning stage of becoming literate. Remembering the small details was not hard in my case because at that age it’s the basic age and the beginning age of your life. Not much detail for just one year in the life stage. I just know that I began to pick up simple words and knew what certain things were. My parents made it their job to help me become literate. One thing I found interesting about my literacy development in my timeline was actually seeing that over time I really improved and progressed in my reading and writing. I never knew this until actually writing it out and seeing my progression. The theme throughout my timeline was reading and focusing on the books that made me like reading even more; which was reading Junie B. Jones books.

Deciding which area to focus on was not hard at all. Reading was my passion growing up. I already knew what to write about automatically. The experience of creating a timeline made me realize that as growing up I grasped things very quickly compared to others my age. I’m a very determined person when it comes to improving on any weak areas and I take that with me to become better than the day before.

            Narrowing down to an area of focus for my written narrative was very simple. Reading was what I like to do best. Ideas that jumped out at me were the small details from my childhood in which helped me become a better reader. When I began to write my narrative I organized it by age in my timeline in which I created. While writing, everything flowed quite easily. I didn’t use any prewriting strategies; the timeline had helped me enough. After composing my rough draft the only thing I changed was adding more details. My partner helped me fix that, there was a lot of room for more details to make my narrative more inviting. This helped me a lot because this is where I struggle in writing and I always overlook it, but in this case I changed it, which made it better.

When I made the final edits to my narrative I had no clue to how I was going to turn my narrative story into a video slideshow. The way I would normally write a story is to just briefly describe as many details as possible. When making a video slideshow you have to edit and pick out the most important details, which can be quite challenging in my opinion.

           My peer review partner chose only eight of my sentences because of the short time limit we had in class. I chose all of them for my slideshow. All the sentences that my peer review partner chose where very good sentences because they were the main concepts. I did find it difficult to edit my text down for a 52-character limit. I wanted to add more information but couldn’t. My strategy was highlighting the best details only that I wanted to share. The images I used was a good way to buffer between my text slides. It gave me the opportunity to add more information, despite the small text limitations.

Choosing the images was very easy. They were images of things I like that has to do with reading. All were personal and from the web, they helped tell my story clearly. Choosing a song was very random; I used one from the website which went well with my overall them. It communicates with my literacy by me being a very determent person. The only thing I wish I could have done differently was to use more of my own personal photos.

Ford 150 (Visual Argument)

The beliefs or ways of thinking in this commercial is to make people believe that this ford truck can do anything. From carrying cargo, holding tools, and transporting trailers. The man represented in the commercial is a hard working man that uses his truck for his manly duties, which shows dependability and manual labor in our society. The intended audience is men who want to buy a truck in which they think will be very beneficial to them. False advertisement is used to appeal the audience so they can go out and get that Ford 150 to make them feel more involved and manly. This commercial clearly doesn't state how much it is, and how huge trucks like that are, and huge trucks like that probably don't run on unleaded gas but premuim. Those facts are not stated because they want to reel men in, in general to go out and buy one. Based on the three types of visual readings my response is that it's reliable to pull men in to buy such efficient trucks. I feel it is the case because most men want a vehicle that is going to help them with their personal lives and on the job too.

Digital Literacy In My Own Words (Virginia Heffernen)

My teachers from elementary, middle, and high school best prepared me for my tech requirements for college by teaching me basic steps of learning and developing a higher sense of learning over time. Back then technology was not advanced when I was growing up. So in that case learning was more hands on than relying on technology. In high school technology developed very gradually and improved making learning more useful for me and my peers. If I wrote my past teachers an email regarding their curriculum, I would say involve more technology because it’s more convenient.

In my career field I want to become a counseling psychologist. The technology I anticipate in using is basically the technology that we’re using now. In order to communicate with my clients I’ll need all lines of communication. Meaning phone calls and emails. Nothing new of a technology is really needed. Oakland University will most definitely have me prepared for using technology in my chosen career field. Everything I do in class involve in using technology, so it’s getting me use to it. In my opinion I write better in a relaxed setting using email. Emails are more personal unlike a blog: in which everyone can see. Emails are better and more convenient and personal beyond messages between you and whomever you’re writing to. If I were an English Teacher my attempt to better prepare the future generations is to make sure my students are using the technology we have today; in order for them to be prepared for super high tech jobs they have to know how to use the technology we have today. Communication is very important, so using emails and other ways to communicate among one another is very useful. I agree with the main thesis because as a person grows older they gradually become literate.

Over time technology has improved and makes becoming literate more easier. So teachers need to change their curriculum to better prepare students for the technology in the future.

Why Is Writing Important To Me

In my opinion, I think writing expresses how someone feels or indicates what something is. My major is Psychology and the field that I want to be in is counseling psychology. All lines of communication must be open in order to fulfill my client or patient of mines. My words need to be chosen wisely so I won't offend someone, my goal is to help them, not hurt them even more. It could also hurt me potentially in the long run. 

My writing and communication skills need to improve by knowing the different styles of writing there is, and grasping the concept. Writing is what helps us learn things and is very informational in our daily lives, how else would we know what's going on in our society if it wasn't written? That something to think about when it comes to term of writing and how it benefits us. 

My Literacy Timeline

Birth: None
1 year old: I started learning images of things
2 years old: Talking was very essential by then, I knew what things were and the meaning of some things.
3 years old: Books were always read to me by my family
4 years old: (Headstart) Vocabulary picked up gradually by interacting with other children my age
5 years old: By this time going to the library was one of my favorite things to do, just because I loved books with big colorful pictures and that excited me.

Grade School:

3rd Grade: My favorite teacher was Mrs. Gruell and I could say that's when my love for reading grew. She made us read as a class and helped us if we had trouble pronouncing words. My favorite books to read then was Junie B. Jones. Reading this made me love reading even more. (:

6th Grade: One time each student in our class had to pick out a book of our choice and we had to present it in front of the class. I was nervous at first but over time I got use to hearing my own voice.

9th Grade: In English class we always had a book we were reading as a class, and we discussed as a class. This made reading more interesting.

10th-12th Grade: I took it upon myself to read novels of my choice because I like reading and I'm very good at it, even hard words I can understand. Never have I read at a slow pace.

Downfall: I always judge books by its cover. I'm improving though.

Present: Very strong reader and I like to read books on topics and situations that interest me.