Prewriting for Letter to HSU Freshmen

Pre writing for letter to incoming HSU Freshmen.
HSU stands for hills, stairs, and umbrellas.
Don’t worry about founders hall. You don’t get used to the stairs Ever and that is just something that you will have to deal with.
Don’t wear such long pants. They will get wet. OR you can just keep wearing pants that drag and deal with the fact that half of your pants will be wet by the end of the day.
Talk to people in your classes and make friends. They don’t have to be your best friends but people who you have enough conficence to talk to and ask questions.
STUDY! You may hear your friends in the hallway at the dorms but don’t get distracted. Homework and studying will make every class easy. But not necessarily every class just most.
Do not get discouraged if you get a bad grade on the first assignment/ test. Think of them as just a roadmap to what the teacher does to quiz you. Next time be prepared to ask questions before the exam and DO NOT I repeat DO NOT wait until the night right before the test to study. Your high school teachers were right. It does nothing for you and you will forget the information.
Don’t let the first month of school fool you. I know, you will get used to late nights watching movies and hanging with your friends. In this state you will believe that homework is just a joke that teachers made up to fool you. They were not fooling you. By thanksgiving break your homework load will increase. It is inevitable.
Don’t be afraid to be the only one in the dorm who goes to bed early. You will look the best and will be the most relaxed by far.
Talk to your friends from home. They will miss you and you know you will miss them. However, DO NOT get sucked into skyping them at all hours to stay connected. Not only are you keeping them from making new friends, you are keeping yourself from meeting new friends as well.
The first week you may feel like you are far behind on making new friends, It seems like half the people you meet came here with 25% of their local high school and that they know everyone by their first and last names. This is not the case and if someone does have a friend from high school, I ccan almost guarantee that they would love someone new and exciting to join their circle of friends.
Do not eat the j fries at every meal. Don’t even think about eating them every day. You will start to feel sick. The first month of j food fools you into thinking they really do provide healthy and love cooked meals. They do not. I would however suggest looking into the sandwhich line. They are very delicious.
Oh- beware the cupboard. Many people on campus like to refer to this fine establishment as the “chubbard”. This is because it will make you chubby if you go there often. While this is yet to be made certain it is definitely a fact that the cupboard over charges you. The very first time you enter you may notice that there are no prices placed on anything, ANYWHERE! Then you will proceed to assume that you know the price of an odwalla and it cant exceed what? Maybe 2.50? You will be sadly mistaken. Even with a 23% discount for using j points you will still be using over $3. Watch out for your money. No spending sprees!
Go ahead and walk around town. Everyone will and has encountered a strange hippie or two in middle of the night but most of them are passing through. That is not to say trust everyone but know that not every transient is after you in the night.
We do not have much of a selection for food off campus but I would highly recommend going to Don’s Doughnuts. 80 cent doughnuts abound there and it is not to far of a walk to get there.
I would not suggest bringing a car onto campus. While it does seem like a good idea, you can do without one. Also, If you bring a car, do not let just anyone know that you have it. You will get hit up for rides every hour and everyday.
Remember that Arcata is mostly by itself. Learn the bus route so you can go into eureka. The bus isn’t scary and if you’re confused, ask someone around you to help you out. People tend to be nice here and are willing to help you, all you have to do is ask for help and it will come your way!

Chapter 4. Soften Them Up

I thought that this chapter was very interesting. It was a smooth and entertaining introduction into Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. The author made the techniques easy to grasp by showing the audience simple arguments and the techniques employed within those arguments to get his point across. I especially liked the example argument from Calvin and Hobbes. Concession seems like an interesting and fun technique to arguing. It also provided interesting knowing that this is a technique that salespeople use when trying to make others but a product that you do not really need. Concession seems to effectively twist what one person says to win the argument. When Calvin says that he admits his father is right, the father's argument is noted but then carefully turned away from. The idea of concession within an argument almost seems like a logical fallacy. The argument is not clearly won by the information provided but by a sly wist of what is being said.
I thought that the author made his writing very accessible to his readers. I thought that he used short and simple language that easily got his point across. The opening example of him and his son debating over whether or not the son could wear shorts was a smooth introduction into what was going to be discussed in the chapter. Starting the chapter with the simple argument and then continuing to use the same example throughout the text put me at ease and made it seem easier to grasp the ideas he was bringing up. I was interested in what the author had to say about the arguing techniques. I know that I have used the same techniques at some point in my life but I've never been able to identify the strategies I or others were using. I look forward to analyzing an argument and seeing if I could identify any of these strategies. I thought this chapter was useful and thought it provided helpful information for arguing or debating later on in life.

As He Himself Puts It

At the beginning of this chapter the author goes into the necessity of using quotes within ones argument to form a useful argument. There are two extremes to this. Using too many quotes and not using enough quotes. When an arguer uses too many quotes the risk having an argument that they are not part of. As in the previous chapter it was shown the necessity of showing yourself as part of the conversation. With to few quotes the arguer risks making the conversation and argument solely theirs. They make their opinion higher and more important then what others have to say.
This chapter also aims to help readers by deciding what quotes they need and what they are going to do with them. Good quotes will strengthen an argument and will usually help to prove a point. Quotes are important in showing that you, the arguer, is well versed with what someone else is saying. Quotes, however, cannot stand alone. They need a purpose and a place. A quote's relevance to what you are saying is extremely important.
I liked the idea of a quotation sandwhich. An intro into what is going to be said within a paragraph and an explaination of the paragraph. Its important for anyone arguing to know how to successfully use someone else's words to their advantage. With a successful summary of another's work the arguer shows they are part of a larger conversation and that they have a strong hold on the knowledge of what they are trying to argue.

Her Point Is

"To argue persuasively you need to be in dialogue with others". This was within the first sentence of chapter two in "They Say, I say" In this chapter the author tell the readers that to argue persuasively you must take into account what the other person is saying and show that you are part of a larger dialogue and informed about what others are saying. A word that was a strong focus in this chapter was summarizing. To create an effective summary within an argument you must first be able to go back within the text and "wrestle" with what was trying to be said. To create such an effective summary there must be no distortion of the view and the arguer must disregard their own personal bias to make the summary true and effective. The chapter talked strongly about summarizing others to show that you, the arguer, is part of a larger conversation and that you are not conversing with yourself and disregarding what others have to say.
There were also templates to provide help on how to introduce quotations and summaries into a discussion. I think that this chapter was useful. I know that I have been known to disregard others information within an argument. I realize that this is a fault and it makes it hard to create a good argument when there is no discussion about others points of view or their research that could aide in my own personal argument. I will try to use this information in the future.

Portfolio Guide

The portfolio guide was somewhat boring but it was helpful and useful information to know. It was nice to be given the information now so the portfolio assignment was an actual goal and no longer is something so far in the future. Since all the requirements were easily spelled out, the portfolio doesn't seem like such a scary assignment. I think the portfolio will be easy to complete if i do all the information. I realized that the portfolio isn't such a daunting task but, in reality, will be the same as any other assignment that we have completed in class. I'm looking forward to putting it all together and accomplishing this class.

Essays on Writing....

I greatly enjoyed reading Harrington’s essay called “Writing about General Apache”. The short essay made me happy to think of the connection the teacher and his student had. It was apparent that Harrington had a great admiration for all of his students which was probably why he liked when they wrote about their own experiences. Everyone’s individual experience has an effect upon someone else. Being able to share one’s own experience, and especially know exactly how to share the story is very important to both characters in the essay. Being able to convey your story is somewhat of a theme for the essay. Harrington succeeds at telling General apache’s story but has him read over the poem before publishing it. Their writing has a profound effect on anyone who knows someone similar, understands the situation, or simply reads the poem. The word choice and the simple language that Harrington uses makes it easy for the audience to understand General Apache’s story. I’m happy that both of the characters were able to confer to each other. The very fact that Harrington conferred with his student creates a vivid respect within the relationship that the entire audience can understand.

Zinsser’s simplicity essay caused some frustration for me. I believed him to be hypocritical because I encountered, as a reader, language that did not seem that simple to me. Why such big words? If he is to complain that students should not find a more intelligent word, or that a Airplane pilot cannot anticipate precipitation, then why does he not use ‘simple’ language if that is what he wishes to read? On the other hand, however, I can relate to his frustrating situation. We as readers have all encountered a sentence that is difficult to read and understand. The last paragraph confused me slightly. The first time I read it, I was confused. “Writing is hard.” I knew what he meant when he said that those who cannot write a clear sentence should not write. I agree. As a reader, I do not wish to be confused and bombarded with so much jargon.

Learning Styles Assignment

There are four different types of learners, visual, kinesthetic, aural, and reading/ writing. An Aural learner is someone who learns by listening. A visual learner is someone who learns by seeing something being done. A Kinesthetic learner, however, is different from a visual and kinesthetic learner because they learn by actively participating and using their hands. People who are considered reading/writing learners are ones who can read information and rewrite it to learn class material.
After completing the online learning styles inventory quiz I was given the score of 10 points for aural learning and 5 points in Visual, Kinesthetic, and Read/Write. This was actually quite a surprise for me. I believed myself to be mainly a dominant Visual learner. In most of my high school courses I only had to see what I needed to do and then do it but after closer inspection I found that I prefer to listen to teachers give lectures. I found that I get distracted very easily from watching a professor’s hand gestures when trying to listen to a lecture. When I’m listening to someone give directions I tend to look at the ground so I can fully understand what they are trying to tell me.
I believed myself to be mainly a visual learner because to memorize things I usually draw pictures or mnemonics to help myself remember what it was I was studying. The read/write learning didn’t surprise me since I have memorized things previously by writing and rewriting. I was a read/write learned when it came time to learn vocabulary words for my classes. I was also surprised that I scored points for being a kinesthetic learner. There are no instances that I can remember of being a ‘hands on’ learner.
I believe that knowing I am mainly an aural learner will help my study habits. I know that I will do better if I attend tutorials or discussions where I can talk over new information that was given to me. The VARK learning styles website also told me that I will do best if I take notes out of the book and then listen during the class. I think this will be the most helpful tip mainly because I do not tend to take notes on the readings assigned and then I cannot write fast enough to remember everything the teacher said during class, causing me to forget information easily. I thought that the learning styles inventory was very insightful and I will be using the study tips they gave me for my future learning.