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Three posts from this page will be included in my final assignments as informal assignments.
My digital portfolio would say I am still a beginner writer. I make many mistakes about grammar or format. The contents are not strong enough. However, at the same time, it would also say I have worked hard and improved.
My digital portfolio is the evidence of what and how I have worked on this class. One of the most important things is I didn’t miss any blog post and did most of the bonus blogs. I have written constantly, which made me get used to writing and feel more comfortable about writing. Another thing is that I have revised my drafts again and again. You can see how much I have made revisions on them after learning new things in class or getting feedbacks by teacher or class in my web page. As a result, I have come to write much better. At first, I used to write whatever I came up with, but now, I have learned to focus on the purpose and main theme. Also I have learned to use different modes and tones according to the purpose. That helps me create stronger tests. You will see my progress in my digital portfolio.
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As I am a non-English native speaker, this class has been the most tough class. Thus, most of my times for study has been devoted to the writings of this class. And I think I have improved a lot as a writer through this semester.
I have learned a lot of things from the blog posts that I have posted at least two per week. Most importantly, I don’t hesitate to write as much as I did. I was not confident with my writing and I didn’t like to write at first. It took me too long and I couldn’t come up with the ideas. However, as I write such many blog posts, I have gotten used to write. Now it doesn’t take that long and is not a very hard task to write a blog post. In addition to that, I have learned how to write. The most important point I have learned is to stay on my focus. It seemed easy and obvious, but it was actually a difficult thing and very important. I learned to write my topic, what I want to say, on the paper before start writing so that it will always remind me of the topic. Also, thinking about rhetorical modes while writing helped me a lot. Using different modes according to the purpose of the writings and combining some kinds of modes in a writing helped me strengthen my essays. Another thing I have learned is to “Think On Paper”. I didn’t think it would work before I tried this way. However, when I couldn’t come up with the idea, I started to write that I don’t know what to write. And I kept writing what I know and think even if it was not what I have to write in the essay. (→Academic Mindsets Assignment Writing Process Reflection) Then I naturally get to the topic I would write. Though I changed the focus of the argument when I revised the assignment, it helped me start writing and finding the direction of the argument. Thorough this semester in this class, I have learned a lot as a writer. The skills I have learned will help me as a college student even after finishing this course. In my sociology class, I have learned about racism and sexism. I was surprised how people think about these problems seriously in this country. They aren’t that big problems in Japan. Especially during the latest election, these topics were the important keys. I agree that people shouldn’t be judged by their aspects that they cannot change, but I sometimes feel like the movement against the discriminations are going on wrong ways.
One thing which I am not agree with is “affirmative action”. With this policy, public universities and colleges have to accept certain number or percentage of the students from minor groups, for example. It seems good to avoid racism at first. However, is it really equal? What if a student from a dominant group was better at study, sports, and everything but couldn’t be accepted while a student from a minor group didn’t anything as well as the other student but got into the college? The student from a dominant group got a disadvantage because of his/her race. Same thing for sexism. Feminists are fighting against the discrimination for women, and it is a great movement. However, for me, sometimes it seems like they are trying to be superior to men. Before the election, I talked with a person who supported Hillary Clinton. I was asked which candidates I would vote if I had the right to vote. I was not sure and thinking. Then, she said “Hillary is going to be the first woman president, why won’t you support her?” I believe many of Clinton supporters are not like that, but there are some people who voted for her because she is a female. That means they didn’t vote for Trump because he is a male. This is not fair. Women should be given the chance, but it doesn’t mean women should be elected. The reason why a president is elected must be because of his/her policy. “Equality -the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities” I hope this definition is understood correctly and everyone will be treated equally. In this blog post, I am going to reverse the outline of my academic mindsets assignment.
Theses statement “A growth mindset can let me perform better as a student even in difficult study situations because I have learned to accept failures as a part of learning.” Topic sentences
Source Material
Argument Summary There are two major mindsets toward study; growth mindset and fixed mindset. Students who has growth mindsets think brain is like muscles and can be developed. On the other hand, students who have fixed mindsets think intelligence or ability is something you are born with, so cannot be developed. Carol Dweck claims that a growth mindset is efficient when it is used properly. Meanwhile, Alfie Kohn states that growth mindset cannot work in bad systems. I agree with Dweck and think that growth mindset will help me improve as a college student when I use it to learn from failures. I will make a lot of mistakes, especially the situation is difficult. However, these failures will let me notice what was wrong with me and what I should change. Yet, failures are scary and always wake my fix mindset up, but actually failure is not the end but the beginning. Thus, I should not afraid of making mistakes and just try. In summary, I will improve as a student if I keep revising my strategies, leaning from the past failures. In this blog post, I am going to analyze my draft of hiraeth assignment. For this assignment, we had to write about our “hiraeth”, a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, or a home which maybe never was. My hiraeth is the kendo club that I belonged to before I came to America.
Context: My hiraeth is the kendo club and the members with whom I spent almost every day in practice and other things like going for dinner. (WHO) I miss the strong connection with them as more than just friends; teammates. (WHAT) This is a story just before I came to America. (WHEN) This story is set in the dojo, the place we practice kendo, at Osaka University in Japan. (WHERE) I cannot return the home because obviously I am too far from them now and I am not their teammate. (WHY) Text: The genre of this writing is creative nonfiction. In this genre, a writer writes about the story that actually happened. For this essay, I mainly used narration and description. Narration was used to “tell” the story and the context, and description was used to “show” it. The broad sky symbolizes the world, that is, my dream. And the small dojo symbolizes Japan, that is, my comfortable place, or my friends. Also, tenugui, the cloth we use when doing kendo, symbolizes my memories in the kendo club, the friendship with the teammates, and my gratitude to the kendo club. Subtext: The theme of this essay is the longing for the home to which I cannot return. I tried to show that I miss my teammates and the days in the kendo club by describing the scenes of the last day I spent with them. The motif can be the decision to leave my comfortable place and pursue the dream. It is expressed by the conflict between the dream and the comfortable and exciting days, which are symbolized by the sky and the dojo. I think the description in this essay works well and it allows the readers to visualize the scenes. And I believe that this narrative lets the audiences my longing for the "home". Found poetry is a type of poetry in which words are picked from a source/sources. There are four forms of found poetry; erasure, free-form excerpting and remixing, centro, and cut-up. And I used erasure to compose my found poetries from my latest Hiraeth Assignment draft. Erasure is a method that the writer select a source and erase most of the text and leave the certain words/phrases that make a poetry.
Poem 1 [Tenugui] Kendo club, my best friends We have become stronger together We have spent a lot of time “Thank you so much I will never forget the days here.” “This is a present for you.” She gave me tenugui filled with their message “Thank you guys.” Stains on the cloth with tears I knew it would travel with me to America Poem 2 [Dream] My dream had been to study abroad I decided to come to the United States 7000 miles away from my country. Until August, I joined the kendo club Every day in the practice The days were so fun that my decision wavered Going to America meant not only not being able to meet them every day but also not being able to be their teammate anymore “I wish I could be here longer, but this has been my dream since I was little.” I left the dojo. There was a broad sky with various shapes of clouds. Three and a half months have passed since I came to America. For the first few weeks, I was full of dream and energy. Big houses, school buses, squirrels, the election flags… Everything I saw was new and interesting. Also, classes were exciting. Most people are awake. Many students ask questions or leave comments. The lecture styles are much different from the ones in Japan. The contents itself are interesting, too. I used to study more than eight hours a day, but enjoyed it. However, now I’m not as enthusiastic as I was. I am homesick. I miss Japan. My home. I like that the people here are friendly and even the people I don’t know say “hi” or “how are you doing?” to me. I can learn the things that I have wanted to learn here better than in Japan. There are a variety of kinds of people so that I can learn many other perspectives. There are a lot of things I like about this country, but I miss my country badly. One of the biggest part of the reason is obviously language. I can’t understand what people are saying. I can’t fully express what I want to say. I can’t have a conversation in a comfortable tempo. In addition to those, I can’t understand the people’s point of laughing. I miss the world that I can fully communicate my thoughts with people with a shared sense in a comfortable rhythm. Another big reason is that my family and friends are getting used to the life without me while I am not used to the new life yet. Every time I see the picture of the friends that I was close, I feel lonely. I know I can’t be like this. I am allowed to pursue my dream so I have to appreciate it. But I feel like I am getting lost. I am losing my goal.
,,, I hope to laugh when I read this post a year later. This Thursday, I experienced my first Thanksgiving Day. I went to my host family’s friend’s house and had dinner with them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any pictures, but I would like to write about this interesting experience.
At the table, there were a lot of food; turkey, green beans casserole, mashed potatoes, and so on. I was interested in a piece of butter in the shape of chicken (or maybe turkey?). Before we started eating, people hold the hands each other and started saying something. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but my host mother told me it was words of Judaism and Christianity. (There were Jewish and Christians so they did for both.) It is very interesting for me that religion is a big and important aspect for the people in this country. Everyone started eating, and I tried the turkey first. It was the first time for me to eat turkey since turkey is not common in Japan. I didn’t dislike it, but I preferred chicken to turkey. After eating them, the people in the house brought some deserts from kitchen. It was interesting that they had three kinds of pies and a cake. I liked the pecan pie, which I ate for the first time. During the time they eat and after eating, they all talk a lot and seemed like they were having a great time with the important people. There were a lot of laugh. I like the tradition that most people go back to their home and spend time with their family. Even if you just do nothing and sleep in the house, or use the holiday to travel to somewhere, I think it is good that you can get a chance to go back to your home and spend time with the people you love. I will continue the topic that I wrote on the last post.
I used to think kendo is a kind of sports. I just wanted to be stronger and win at the tournaments. Many children are like that. They just enjoy it as a sport. However, they learn the spirit as they grow up, sometimes unconsciously though. And the mysterious and interesting thing is that anyone cannot be stronger until they learn the spirit. You can see them in the rules or manners in kendo. For example, you must bow each other before a practice or a match starts and after it ends. You mustn’t hit the opponent from his/her behind. You mustn’t express your joy or depression to others. These came from samurai spirit of respecting. Samurai would show their respect to the opponent, who are going to kill them. And the audience must be silent. That is because they respect the ones who play the role in the arts at that time. Also, respect to the people who are older than you, including your teacher, is really important. You must use honorific expressions to the people who is older than you even one year, and you mustn’t call them without Mr. or Ms. Although I wrote that the respect to older people is important, the respect to younger people is important as well. No matter if they are older or younger, stronger or weaker, you can always learn from them, so you must respect them. In addition to the respect to people, we have to respect objects. For example, we bow when we get into and get off from the place where we practice. And we clean up the place all by ourselves. These show the respect to the place. Kendo, is a modern Japanese material art, which descended from swordsmanship and uses bamboo swords and protective armor. (Wikipedia)
Kendo is not a sport. It’s a way of “developing”. Through kendo, we are trying to be a better person. Yes, we fight each other. There are tournaments. However, they are not all about kendo. The spirit of samurai is still alive. Actually this spirit is not only for samurai. It is a traditional beautiful Japanese spirit, which is being lost gradually. This spirit is based on the seven concepts; “仁(jin)”, “義(gi)”, ”礼(rei)”, “智(chi)”, “信(shin)”, “忠(chu)”, “誠(makoto)”. “仁” (literary means consideration to others) means that you have to be merciful to others. “義” (literary means the right way) means that you have to follow your justice, mustn’t cheat on anything. “礼” (literary means the manner) means that you have to show your respect to others by right behavior. “智” (literary means wisdom) means you have to have the knowledge to achieve your goal. “信” (literary means to believe) means that you have to have the strength to believe others. “忠” (literary means dedication) means that you have to be loyal. “誠” (literary means true) things means that you have to you have to be sincere. I will post the last half on another blog post. |
Katsuki Iio
Born in Osaka, Japan in 1997. Archives
December 2016
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