Twist story revision

The man in the darkness

Nina Yang

W&C III

MS. Guarino

01/25/2015

  It is a regular weeknight. I wake up all of a sudden because of a bad dream. In fact, I don't usually have bad dreams, and this is the first bad dream I have had for this year. All I can remember is that I dreamed about a man chasing after me, but I couldn't see his face. He was running very fast like the wind. Luckily, it was just a dream. Without any drowsiness after the bad dream, I glanced around into the darkness in my room. Wait…There is a man standing next to my closet. He looks like the same exact person as in my dream. The man wears all black like The Lord Voldemort. He wears a hat, and it seems like he is staring right at me. I can't see his face because of the darkness. The scariest part is that he is floating, which means he does not have legs. A “ghost” is just hanging right next to my closet and staring at me. "He...hello..." I try to say something to break this silence. What if he is a good ghost? Or what if he wants to kill me? My heart is like a jumping rabbit, and I can hear it bumping very clearly. After several minutes, I still don't receive any response from him. Then, I grab something on my desk that feels sharp and decide to turn on the light to see what the man looks like. The switch is close to where the man is standing. I fell like a soldier is going to his first war, and I step closer and closer to where the switch is. "Ahhh..." With a scream, I turn on the light. Hanging in front of me are my bathrobe and my hat.

First draft

The man in the darkness

Nina Yang

W&C III

MS. Guarino

01/25/2015

  I wake up in a sudden because of a bad dream. All I could remember is that I dreamed about a man was chasing after me, but I couldn't see his face. He was running very fast like a wind. Luckily, it was just a dream. Without any drowsiness after the bad dream, I glance around into the darkness in my room. Wait…There is a man standing next to my closet. He looks like the same exact person in my dream. The man wears in all black like the lord Voldemort. He wears a hat, and it seems like he is staring right at me. I can't see his face because of the darkness. The scariest part is that he is floating, which means he does not have legs. A “ghost” is just hanging right next to my closet and staring at me. My heart is like a jumping rabbit, and I can hear it bumping very clearly. Then, I grab something on my desk that feels sharp and decide to turn on the light to see what the man looks like. The switch is near the man's position. My feeling is like a soldier is going to his first war, and I step closer and closer to where the switch is. "Ahhh..." With a scream, I turn on the light. Hanging in front of me, are my bathrobe and my hat.

1 paragraph

I wake up in a sudden because of a bad dream. I dreamed about a man was chasing after me, but I couldn't see his face. He was running like a wind. Luckily, it was just a dream. Wait.. There is man standing next to my closet. He looks like the same exact person in my dream. He wears in all black like the lord voldemort. He wears a hat, and it seems like he is staring right at me. I can't see his face because of the darkness. The most scary part is he is floating, which means he does not have legs. My heart is like a jumping rabbit, and I can hear it very clearly. I grabbed something on my desk that feels sharp and decide to turn on the light. The switch is near the man's position. My feeling is like a soldier is going to his first war, and I step closer and closer to where the switch is. "Ahhh..." With a screaming, I turn on the light. Hanging in front of me, is my bathrobe and my hat

Assignment

For each character, (Lucy, Schroeder, Linus, Charlie Brown) describe the writing style and discuss the pros and cons of that approach to writing.

Then answer the following question in a detailed paragraph: Which character/writer are you most like and why? 

Lucy: When she was writing the book report, she was so eager to finish it that she kept counting words after writing several words. This is not good during writing because the purpose of the book report is to write down your thoughts after reading the book and the summery of the book, but not to count how many words you write down. However, she write the book report at least on time.

Schroeder: He didn't count words while writing the book report. This is a good point, but the only thing he wrote is the summery of the book. A book report should contains both the summery of the book and your thoughts about the book. He put all his core about the book on summarize the story of the book. 

Linus: He was pretty good at writing a book report, for he analyze a lot about the book. In my opinion, he wrote the best book report among his friends. He was also reading other sources while writing this book report. 

Charlie Brown: He was too lazy to write the book report that he even didn't write any word down. He was eating snacks and watching TV. I think he should put all his attention in writing but not other stuff.

I like Linus the most because he is the one who seems pretty intellectual. He did the book report as soon as he finished the book, and he used many evidences to prove his thoughts. He analyzed the story very well and even went far beyond the story. I think I should learn from him when I'm writing a book report. He inspired me on how to write a comprehensive book report.

In class

First, she puts a small amount of sand on the bottom of the pan.When the sand starts to get hot,she pours in the rice and fries them till they become a form of a pop rice.Then, she keeps them in a big gray iron box.

I asked my grandma to make the tasty noodles again that I eager to eat the most when she came this time.

Response of the Blog Posts

Response of the Blog Posts

Nina Yang

W&C III

01/18/2015

Ms. Guarino

  The two-blog posts we read are both talking about writing. The first blog post is called qualities of good writing, which the author is basically talking about what is a good writing and how to make a good writing. Obviously, many people would love to know the answer of these questions. The author lists nine points of the question's answers. The author said that the writer should question himself every sentence he writes, and the writing should be support with credible data and reasons. Besides, the author states that the good writing is like good teaching, and it should tells a full story. In addition, if you want a good writing, it’s necessary to have rewrite. Like math, good writing should have perfect logic and structure, and it should always make sense, which the clarity is very important. Last but not the least, good writer are not smug. The editor behind the scenes is also important whether the writing is good or not. Another blog post lists the 13 rules of writing. To begin with, he said there is no one-way to write, and good writing is the power tool. The more you write, the better you are, and to make things easy to understand in writing is important. The author claims that the first draft will not affect you to produce a good work, and good writers are often terrible writers on their first drafts. After you finished your first draft, do not just fix the grammar. You should also fix the clarity for your reader.

  In my opinion, I think the author makes a really clear statement and gives good suggestions on what and how to make a good writing. It is necessary to follow these rules and believe yourself that you can make good writing.

Food essay follows the toefl rubric

  I might get a four because I think I have a pretty good hook, and I have  thesis that contains my main point of the essay and leads my whole essay. The body paragraphs are related to the thesis which are talking about the tradition of dumplings and how it relates to my family to support my thesis statement. However, I think there are few grammar mistakes in my essay that I should work on to improve my whole essay. All in all, I think I would get a four for the grade of my essay.

Blog 8

My improvement

 Nina Yang

W&C III

Ms. Guarino

  Time flies by so fast, the first half of the year is almost ends. I improved myself in many parts. In this writing class, I felt like I learned a lot of knowledge and I also improved my writing skills.

  Before taking this class, I sometimes felt lack of writing sources. I don’t have many things that I could write about, so I ended up with nothing to write or stuck in the middle of writing an essay. However, after taking this class, especially the creative writing part, I felt like there are tons of resources I could write about. The resources that I could write about exist almost anywhere around me. I could write a story about my desk, a cloud, or even the dirt under my bed. I finally feel that writing is interesting after taking more than 10 years of English class. In addition, since writing is based on grammar, I also learned much knowledge in grammar lessons we had in this writing class. We learned about the punctuation, the use of conjunction and preposition. Although to learn grammar is a boring thing to do, but Ms. Guarino made us to teach as a teacher. We made our grammar lesson interested to learn, and we learned better in this way than other ways. These were the goals that I wanted to achieve in the beginning of the year, and I think I made it. However, I also wanted to learn more vocabulary in order to use variety words in my writing. I think I still need make some efforts in this part of my goal. Grammar and recourses are like the foundation of the writing, and the vocabulary is like the blood of the writing. It makes the writing more vivid and fun to read. Besides that, I learned how to write an opening paragraph and an ending paragraph. It is like a formula of a math problem. Once you follow the formula, just add in the numbers that are your thesis, hook, and etc., you could write a great paragraph. I feel like I really learned a lot of stuff in this past semester in writing. Hope I could learn more about writing to increase my writing skills next semester.

  Now, we are working on the food essay, and we are learning how to right an ending paragraph. Hope I could achieve my goal during next semester and end up this class with better writing skills.

Blog 7

Improvement for revision

Nina Yang

01/11/2015

Ms. Guarino

W&C III

  For my final draft of the food essay, there are several changes that I have to make to improve it. First of all, I have to read it again to correct all my grammar mistakes in the essay. For example, there might be spelling mistakes or comma splices in my essay. It’s like the most crucial thing of writing. Although one’s content of the writing is not amazing, he or she has a perfect grammar in their writings. It makes the essay seems more professional than others.

 Another important part for my revising is to improve the content of my essay to make it read more attractive and less boring. The ways to make it looks more interesting is to have less simple sentence and more stories in my essay. Thus, when I explain the tradition of the dumplings, I can add the story of how did dumplings was invented, and how it relates to my family. Besides, the story of dumplings relates to me can also makes my story readable.

  Last but not the least, I should working on my ending paragraph since it’s so short right now, and doesn’t really wrap all my story up in order to conclude my points. Therefore, it’s necessary for me to write something more in the final paragraph so that it can contains my thesis and rest of the points in my essay.

Food essay

The traditional food in my hometown

Nina Yang

W&C III

Ms. Guarino

01/06/2015

  Here is riddle for you: White and plumpy baby on the table, delicious and yummy inside his stomach. Guess what is it? The answer is dumplings! I've been eating dumplings since when I was in my mom's stomach, and I would love to eat it every meal in my life.  Hope that most of you know what dumplings is. Dumplings is a Chinese traditional food especially in the north part of China, and people eat it as a symbol of good luck during family reunion and traditional holidays such as spring festival.
      Like me, many people love dumplings, and I miss dumplings so much when I study in the United States. Dumplings looks white and plumpy outside since it’s made by flour. The shape of the dumplings is like a gold ingot, which was the money used in the old China. Inside the white flour are different kinds of vegetables and meat fillings. The popular flavors are cabbage and pork, chives and pork, and fennel and pork. People usually put the uncooked dumplings in the boiling water and eat it with vinegar. When you smell it, you can smell the fresh smell of the flour and the appetizing smell of the meat and vegetables. When you bite on it, you would feel the savory smell of the vegetables and meat is filled in your whole mouth. It’s soft and kind of sour since you eat it with vinegar, but it makes the taste of the dumplings more delicate. The typical type of dumplings is boiled dumplings, but people in different place would also eat it differently. There are also steamed and fried dumplings, which are also extremely palatable.

  My hometown is in Beijing, where locates in the North part of China. In addition, my family is a very traditional family so that every time when I come back home from the United States, my grand parents will make the most authentic dumplings for me. My grand father said the dumplings is like the symbol of good luck and wealth because the shape of the dumpling is like a gold ingot. During the spring festival, my family will eat dumplings. This time, my grand parents will put a coin inside a random dumplings. The person who eats the coin when they eat the dumplings will get money. It’s also the symbol of good luck, and means that person will be wealthy in the New Year. This winter break, when I went back to China during the winter break, my grand parents made the dumplings again, and I missed the taste of it so much when I was in America. My grand father told me that if you eat dumplings at the beginning of the winter, your ear wouldn’t drop when the wind blows. It’s like a custom for all the Chinese people to eat dumplings.

  There is an old saying for Chinese people that no food is better than dumplings. Do you know how did the dumplings were invented? Here is a story for you. About hundreds years ago, there was a men called ZhongJing. He was a procurator in Han dynasty. When he walked around his city during the spring festival, he saw many people were dying because of the disease, and many people’s ear were injured because of the cold weather. He felt so upset and sorry for them. Then, he decided to help those people, and he made the dumplings soup for everybody in the city. After they eat that, people were dying soon got much better than before. From then on, it became a custom that people would eat dumplings during winter, and it becomes a symbol of good luck since it saved many people’s lives. 
  The dumplings is almost like a culture for Chinese people. Many foreigners recognize China when they eat dumplings. We eat it not only because it’s delicious and tasty, but also because it’s the symbol of wealth and good luck. We put our wish for the New Year into the dumplings when we eat them. Nevertheless, I would love to eat it, and recommend it to other friends from different countries.