Midterm Essay

1st: Dear Shenica,

Let me tell you all about my English 1102 class. First off, let me just say that once again this is one of my favorite classes thus far. It has always been every since I took English 1101 last semester. I chose to pick Ms. Ingram again this semester( even though I have to wake up at the crack of dawn because all the other classes were full by the time I registered) because I feel as though she makes learning easy for me. She is always straight to the point and breaks everything down so that you get a better understanding and she makes sure you are never confused on assignments. I also picked her for the simple fact that she knows you personally and she knows who you are as a writer. She is a very one-on-one person. She is more than happy to sit down with  my fellow colleagues and I and really help you improve your writing whether its working on your grammar issues or learning how to conduct research as a college student.
     One of  the most important things I have learned is how to properly do research. As a student, I have always hated doing  research papers for the simple fact that its so time consuming. I mean who likes to sit down at the computer and look for articles, and books on a topic, read them and comprehend them well, and then be able to report it back on paper in your own words? I absolutely hate research papers!! All is all, Ms. Ingram has taught me how to research in different steps. It makes writing  a research paper much easier because your writing in steps instead of getting everything thrown at you all at once and then being left to make it on your own. We have been work shopping with Ms.Ingram and going to the library to learn more about where we can find resources for any type of topic we are willing to learn about. This was very helpful because I never knew that UNCC has a database that will look up books and articles for any topic that you want. This has also made my research easier. In fact, I have already used it for my other classes and plan on using it on every research assignment.
     Also, I have really learned more about myself in this class. Our first assignment was an essay about who were and essentially what makes us who we are today. Believe it or not, It opened my eyes up to just exactly who I was on the inside,. I was able to share my story with my class as well as my teacher and now I feel as though we are all connected on more of an emotional level.

2nd: One assignment that I would like to reflect on was the " What's it Like to Be You" essay. Essentially, I had to write this essay because it was assigned to us in class. I got my ideas from many different activities we did in class. One assignment I got my ideas from was the book we read in class. The poems in the book Peace, Butter & Jelly gave me some ideas about how to include a few lines of poems in my essay. Also, another activity we did that helped me out with my ideas was when we had to brainstorm ideas about key values that are important in our lives and when we had to come up with a poem about ourselves that most likely described ourselves. I feel as though my classmates, my teacher, and my self we the audience for this assignment. In some parts of it, I felt as though I was talking to myself but through writing. My classmates and teacher effected how I chose to write this essay because they gave me lots of ideas during the round table workshop and my teacher gave me lots of feedback when she gave us back our essays. One skill that I worked on in this essay was being more creative and using lots of detail so my readers wont feel as though they cant comprehend the whole "picture". At first, I felt like this assignment was difficult because its usually hard to write yourself and describe who you are but after I brainstormed ideas and recieved suggestions from my other classmates, It became so much easier. I have not made any revisions to my most recent copy but I will by the time its time to submit our portfolios. I did take a few risks in sharing my personally problems that I suffered with when I was younger. The only thing I read that may have influenced my writing was the book assigned to us in class. I leared alot about myself. I was able to evaluate myself as a whole to see who I really was.  I expect the reader of my piece to learn about who I really was deep down inside instead of just going off the person who they see on the outside. When I make revisions to this essay for my portfolio, I plan to add more detail where its needed and maybe correct any grammer mistakes I have made.

3rd: I like the idea of reading a short, fun book at the beginning of the semester. It prepared us for what we would be writing about for the rest of the semester. It gave us a break from just jumping right in and writing essays.

4th: Writing is passion
       I've really grown to love it
      think I'm good at it.

4th Blog Post

From doing this blog, I have learned about different ways of approaching a research assignment over all. I have also been able to look at different ideas as far as approaching my research topic. I was able to look at my other classmates topics and see how they were able to approach them.  I now know how much time and effort goes into a research assignment and I have learned that it is better to complete each step of the process and not just rush through it. I have also learned about the writing process and how it contains various steps which all are important when forming a effective, and more complete essay.

3rd Blog Post

I am writing about low-income and its effects on the those who live in poverty so besides my audience, I believe my audience would be people who live in poverty. I understand why my topic is crucial for my audience to care about what I'm writing because this is a major issue that effects many people around the world. I care about this topic because I have personally seen it effect a family member of mines. One new fact that I have learned so far is that one average, a diet consisting of calorie dense foods cost about $3.53 a day while a diet of low-calorie foods cost about $36.32 a day. I commented on Chloe Watson's Blog post.

2nd Blog Post

One of the most interesting resources I have found was an article. The author's name is Stacy Kish and the name of the article is " Healthy, low-calorie Foods Cost More on Average". It is interesting because it talks about a study that was done by Adam Drewnowski. His research showed that lower-income foods cost more per calorie, while more calorie dense foods showed a lower cost per calorie. Their researchers also found that high calorie foods were less likely to rise during inflation. This means that when prices are food are going up, the price of high calorie foods and fast foods are less likely to rise. I have re-visited my topic and was able to tweak it to make it more narrowed. Instead of showing how low-income effects the health of society, I have narrowed it down to see how it is effected with in people who actually live in poverty. One challenge that I may have is finding a variety of sources instead of just internet and article sources.

Beginning of my Research

My research topic is " How low-income effects the Health of Society". I decided to do this topic because of the class discussion we had on the definition of health. This topic is interesting to me because I began to see some type of correlation between people with lower incomes and various diseases like heart disease, diabetes, hypertension etc. I believe this topic is important because everyone should be informed about people with lower incomes and the problems they suffer with. I expect to find out why people with lower income are linked to different diseases and issues with health care. So far, my research has suggested that people with lower incomes can only afford to buy the less expensive foods which tend to be the unhealthy ones. I agree with this view point because I have seen this issue in many people such as some of my family members.