Other classwork writing

American Born Chinese

So I kind of keep this a secret from most people, but I used to be a big fan of graphic novels. I have read a huge variety of genres of graphic novels, varying from action to quirky magic. That being said, when I first read the inside of American Born Chinese, I was honestly not very interested. The description of Jin Wang’s story sounded ok yet a little boring; as soon as I read the description for the Monkey Kings story, I was done. I thought it sounded childish and silly and I was dreading reading it. However, after actually reading it I feel slightly bad for my prior judgments and see it as a good read with a heartfelt message.

            All the stories in the inside panel sounded so different from each other; so when it said they were all going to tie in together at the end I was curious how Gene Luen Yang was going to accomplish it. When she finally did, I was definitely surprised to find out that Danny was really Jin Wang. Yet, when I found out that Chin-kee (when I first saw this name, I didn’t realize that it was a mocking of the word “chinky” embarrassingly enough…) was really the monkey king I thought it was a little out there. When he told Danny/Jin Wang that the reason he was disguising himself was to be Jin Wang’s conscience, or sign post to his soul, I thought that was really interesting. The whole time I was reading Danny’s story, I couldn’t believe how they were portraying Chin-kee because it was clear that he was designed to be like every racial stereotype out there; Chin-kee had giant buck-teeth, squinty eyes, long braided hair, traditional silk Chinese clothes and ate cat chow mein. Needless to say, I was quite shocked to see him in the book. So when it was revealed that he was the physical reminder to Danny of everything he was embarrassed about his race, and how people perceived his race, it helped with said confusion as it finally gave a reason why he was included.

            This book definitely had a good moral to it; that you should always accept yourself and not be ashamed of whom you are, especially for the sake of other peoples opinions, because you’re perfect the way you are. Other than for the good moral of the story, I’m not quite sure if I would read this again or recommend it for entertainment purposes to someone else. Other than the good morals, the story’s in it, especially the shape-shifting aspects, were a little too far out there for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, I love myths and fiction; I just think that American Born Chinese didn’t carry it out to my personal liking. I can definitely see how it is so popular and has won an award, but I would really only recommend it for academic reasons.

            Also, when reading it I didn’t see it as applying to only Chinese teens, or that race, which was a big aspect of it, was the biggest. As it was pointed out in class, I saw it as relatable to every race, as a relatable to story to all around teen angst and the issues of fitting in; that awkward teen stage that most people, including myself, experienced. I also have the hard time finding that fine line between books being a racial inequality issue or simple teen conformity issues. I do believe that this book, although covering both, falls in the ladder; which makes it a more attainable book for more cultures as well.

There were only two other problems I had with the book—the use of potty humor and the above narrations (if that’s the correct term for them).We were discussing it in class, the narrations that were throughout the book, especially in the story of the Monkey King. At points, like on page 163 for instance, I found it a bit confusing. It also kind of irked me on page 10 and 11, when it would narrate the story in a serious fashion but then make it silly with what the Monkey King says. I also dislike potty humor in most things, so I wasn’t the biggest fan of situations involving the Monkey King/Chin-kee peeing in/on things or when the Monkey King farted in the demons face. This aspect just made it seem a little childish to me.

Woah! New stuff!

So this week we learned a few new things, most interestingly being FANBOYS: FOR,AND, NOR,BUT,OR,YET,SO. When I first heard Barbara say that we would be learning about FANBOYS my first thought was “fanboys? Did I hear her right?” I WAS VERY INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT IT, YET I FEEL I STILL DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND. FOR STARTERS, I CAN’T REALLY REMEMBER IF YOU PUT THE COMMA BEFORE, OR AFTER YOU’RE FANBOYS. I’m hoping I used them correctly in that last sentence, so if I’m wrong please tell me so! 

Another thing that we learned about recently was intransitive verbs (S-Vi), transitive verbs (S-Vt-O), and linking verbs (S-LV-SC). TECHNICALLY I THINK WE STARTED LEARNING ABOUT THEM THE WEEK PRIOR TO THIS PAST WEEK, BUT THIS WEEK I BECAME REALLY EXCITED WHEN I REALIZED I MIGHT ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND THEM. When we did the newspaper exercise it didn’t really stick with me, it was almost like I was just guessing and hoping I was getting my sentence correctly labeled. However when we did the latest exercise with the magnet boards I think it finally clicked! Especially being able to talk it out with a partner seemed to help too. 

THE NEXT PATTERN OF THE WEEK THAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO USE IS AAAWWUBBIS; ALTHOUGH I DON’T THINK I REALLY KNOW HOW TO USE IT. I remember that we are not supposed to put a comma after although, because even if in speech we pause after saying it, we do not really put a comma after it in a sentence. WHEN IT WAS BROUGHT UP IN CLASS THAT WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO WRITE LIKE WE TALK, I WAS A LITTLE SURPRISED BECAUSE BEFORE TAKING THIS CLASS I WAS TOLD, UP UNTIL I GRADUATED FROM MY HIGH SCHOOL, THAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO PUT VOICE IN OUR WRITING, AND IT WAS EVEN SUGGESTED TO WRITE LIKE HOW WE SPEAK; SINCE AN ACTUAL UNIVERSITY GRAMMAR INSTRUCTER INFORMED US THAT IS INCORRECT HOWEVER, I WILL BE CAREFUL NOT TO DO SO IN THE FUTURE. I’M HOPING THAT THE SENTENCE I JUST WROTE WAS WHAT BARBARA MEANT BY WRITING A COMPLEX SENTENCE USING AAAWWUBBIS, IF I DIDN’T HOWEVER, PLEASE LET ME KNOW! 

On a side note, I’m also wondering if I’m correctly capitalizing the patterns of the week; because that whole paragraph is practically capitalized. Am I supposed to be capitalizing the whole sentence in which I believe that I used a pattern of the week, or am I supposed to just be doing it to the specific spot within the sentence where the pattern is? 

All in all, I’m just excited with the fact that I am learning new things. BEFORE I TOOK THIS CLASS I BELIEVED I WAS PRETTY SPOT ON GRAMMATICALLY; I THOUGHT THIS CLASS WOULD BE EASY. Now I realize that there is so much more to grammar than just nouns, verbs, adjectives and punctuation, etc. I had never heard of particles or articles or FANBOYS; pretty much everything we have been learning this last week… So it’s pretty exciting, yet eye opening, to see how much more I have to learn!

Issues with grammar

To be honest, I am not really sure what to write about this week. I am not really good at the whole “choose your own topic” kind of writing. BETWEEN YOU AND ME, I DON’T REALLY HAVE THAT BIG OF OPINIONS ON GRAMMAR EVEN …If you want me to rant about how cute my dogs are or how ridiculous it is that people actually like Jersey Shore, something could probably be arranged. Now, I’m not saying that I don’t care about grammar; I am just not that knowledgeable about it yet, so therefore I don’t really know what to say about it. SOMETHING I HAVE NOTICED ABOUT MYSELF SINCE STARTING THIS GRAMMAR COURSE, IS THAT I AM BECOMING MORE AWARE OF GRAMMATICAL…THINGS?

For instance, I never really noticed before “its”, but now I see it all the time in my readings. I also pay closer attention to commas and semicolons in my readings too. I was reading Frankenstein when I will think, “Oh hey, that’s a good use of a semicolon!” I NOTICE OTHER THINGS TOO, I MYSELF AMD JUST REALLY TIRED THIS MORNING AND CAN’T REALLY THINK OF OTHER SPECIFIC EXAMPLES; I FEEL LIKE MY BRAIN IS RUNNING ON TWO WHEELS RIGHT ABOUT NOW. IN FACT, I AM WISHING THAT THIS BLOG WOULD JUST WRITE ITSELF.

THE ONE THING THAT I AM NOT REALLY FOND OF THAT HAS SHOWN ITSELF IN MY LIFE NOW, BROUGHT ON BY THIS COURSE AS WELL AS OTHERS, IS THAT I AM STARTING TO FEEL REALLY INSECURE ABOUT MY OWN WRITING. BETWEEN THIS COURSE AND MY 19^TH CENTURY LITERATURE CLASS, I HAVE BEEN LEARNING SO MUCH ABOUT HOW TO IMPROVE MY WRITING SKILLS; IT JUST REMINDS HOW MUCH IMPROVEMENT I STILL NEED. I know that is not the goal of these classes and I am probably just being over dramatic, but that’s how it is. Especially when so many other people seem to get what I don’t. For example, when we were discussing Frankenstein in my literature class the other day, everyone said the frame narratives in it were what worked so well for the book. When I heard that, all I could think was “What on earth is a frame narrative…?” Yet everyone in class seemed to understand. It’s the same with grammar; I look at other peoples writing’s and listen to their ideas and it just makes me wish that I could have come up with something like that; like that one groups creative edit to the Dear John letter.

At this point I feel I am just rambling, but that is what happens when you leave me to choose what to write about! With this class though, I feel it has been evident that I am improving with my writing and that I am learning a lot; I am excited to keep learning more. So that is the light at the end of the tunnel per say, to my little grammar perplexities at the moment.

What I have learned

            So far this semester I have learned about the difference between “its” and “it’s”. As a high school student, I took a creative writing class and vaguely remember encountering this situation. I wrote a horror story for Halloween about a haunted insane asylum where a mad doctor was living. Like I said, I remember writing something along the lines of “It’s footsteps could be heard from the floor above” but was confused because that didn’t look right to me. As a student, as well a writer, I knew that “it’s” was a contraction for “it is”. I had no idea that there was a correct word to use instead though: its. I kind of thought about it, especially since there was a green squiggly line reminding me that using “it’s” in the sentence was incorrect but “its” just looked silly to me because I had never been taught it before.

            Another thing I have learned in this class is how often publications make mistakes themselves or choose not to follow a rule. I always assumed that if you were going to be a journalist or an editor you needed to be perfect at grammar; it was this thought that prevented me from wanting to be an editor for a publishing company. It was that collage exercise that really made it apparent to me; seeing in black in white how many publications used weird grammar.

As a kid from the technology generation, I have wondered if having been exposed to so much technology, especially things like Microsoft word or texting spell check, if that is one reason why my grammar isn’t that great. Being reminded of your mistakes so easily and then having an immediate solution for it, as what Word does, makes it second nature to have a computer fix your grammar and spelling mistakes for you instead of thinking about why it’s wrong and how to fix it yourself; one of its programmed purposes is to do this for you. This is one reason why I wasn’t very surprised about how many students use texting abbreviations in essays or such bad grammar.

Finally the last thing I learned so far in this course is how to use punctuation to change the meaning of a sentence or paragraph. It was that exercise we did in the first week of class that made me realize this. For some reason it had never really occurred to me that you could change your grammar to change your meaning but when we did that exercise it dawned on me like “Oh duh! Why have I never done this before?!”. I especially liked the discussion when Stephanie presented how they changed the dear John letter; theirs was very creative and humorous.

Other than these examples I can’t really think of other specifics that I have learned. As a high school student, especially now as a college student, I know the importance of grammar. I just hope that in this class I can continue to keep learning different things to be able to grow as a writer and become a great teacher.