My last paper for an English class, evar.

[fuzzybabybunny]

Length: 1-2 pages double spaced (so use it well!)

What is (or has been) your relationship with reading and writing? How has it developed and changed over the years? Did your parents read to you as a child? Did your elementary school teachers? What kinds of books did they choose and how did you feel about them? How did you feel about writing as a middle-schooler? How do you feel about it now? Chart and analyze these factors and their relationship with each other. Pay attention of cause-and-effect patterns. Give specific details/example scenarios¿stay away from generalization. I would rather have you focus closely on a shorter period than give me the 411 on your life. You may or may not choose to include your experience in this class as part of the content in this paper.

****************

ENG112 4/29/07
Reflection Paper
Let me start off by answering some of the required questions in quick succession. Did my parents read to me as a child? No. They did not read or speak English very well, and they wouldn?t have had the time to do so anyway. Did my elementary school teachers? Yes, they did. What kinds of books did they choose? I don?t remember. Clifford the Big Red Dog? How did I feel about the books that my elementary school teachers chose? I was bored and never paid attention because no one else was paying attention. How did I feel about writing as a middle-schooler? I was a hell of a lot more confident and competent than a lot of my peers, but I loathed having to write for class and enjoyed working on my own writing projects a lot more. How do I feel about it now? I feel exactly the same as I did in middle school.

Contrary to what one may think, I?ve had an involved history with both reading and writing. I was a ravenous reader from the time I was in elementary school to the time I graduated from high school. I kept a daily diary all throughout middle and high school, and an online blog with pages upon pages of philosophic articles during my freshman year of college. I have always been very picky of what I enjoy in a book, and do not take kindly to being forced to read and analyze a book that I have not chosen myself. All the English classes that I have ever taken have done nothing for me as far as enhancing my reading comprehension and critical thinking. These are things that I simply don?t do when I have no interest in the reading material, whether it be REM-inducing works like The Scarlet Letter or hard-to-decipher works like Shakespeare?s plays, all of which, by the way, I would find wholly uninteresting even if they were written in colloquial language. My development in the areas of English have largely been accomplished through personal activities like reading and writing in my free time, and by my own choice. I have gleaned very little from formal English classes other than mundane things like how to properly construct a research paper or how to cite sources.

I have obviously always been very picky about the things that I like to read or write about. Ever since elementary school, my mind would shut off whenever we would have to read something that I had no interest in, making me grow more and more resentful of English class, especially when we had to analyze works detail by detail. I remember one day in high school when we were reading Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio says in one part, ?ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.? It?s obvious that he means he will be dead tomorrow, but when my teacher asked us what this meant, no one raised their hands because all of us were bored to death and didn?t feel like expending energy just to answer such a simple question with such a mundane, non-life-altering answer. ?It?s a pun!? my teacher said. Really? That is so clever and original! I bet that if I smash my face repeatedly against my desk I can make myself dumb enough to think such a thing was clever or mind-blowing.

I think English classes have numerous problems. Firstly, not everyone is interested in reading assigned material, especially when the material turns out to be unexciting for them. As a result, they do not feel compelled to participate in class or open themselves up to whatever the teacher is trying to teach them, if anything. Secondly, many of the books chosen don?t make worthwhile points. Many are inapplicable to the reader?s life. Many don?t conjure strong emotions or opinions. Many are uninteresting to the reader. These are major, persistent, and pervasive issues in the teaching of English.

 

[Cooler]

Hate to break it to you but you will wish you had "English papers" instead of some of the suff you have to write in classes as an upper classmen.

 

[MegaVovaN]

What books do you read?

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: Cooler
Hate to break it to you but you will wish you had "English papers" instead of some of the suff you have to write in classes as an upper classmen.

Oh, I know. But the difference will be that these papers are direct steps on me way to my chosen career, and are thus not a time waster.

I'd rather suffer but know that I am moving forward than do something easy but feel that I am wasting time.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
What books do you read?

Now, on my own? None, because I don't have any free time.

In class we read "Written on the Body" which was a fast but wholly pointless book.

We also read "The God of Small Things" which is a slow+uninteresting read, and after two chapters I just decided to Spark Note it for the rest of the book.

 

[Whisper]

Books chosen as assigned reading in an English course are usually chosen for a reason, and they are generally a necessary part of said course. Removing assigned reading from any literature-based class would be tantamount to asking that a professor get rid of word problems in a physics class.

Beyond that, even if you don't feel that the assigned texts are relevant to your life at the moment, there's a good chance that 1) at some point in the future they will be, or 2) an understanding of this material is fairly fundamental to the understanding of future material that you are likely to run into at some point in your academic career.

 

[episodic]

To each their own. I was an English minor. Now - I totally agree that highschool and middle school English was boring - but I must have had some good college teachers. They managed to keep me coming back for all of my electives to be a minor of English.

 

[Farang]

I hated some of my English courses. I think literature courses generally suck because professors seem to have an unhealthy obsession for Sherman Alexie. However I took an upper division Rhetoric course and it was very interesting. As long as you stick to the courses on the use of language rather than the art of language they aren't too bad.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: Whisper
Books chosen as assigned reading in an English course are usually chosen for a reason, and they are generally a necessary part of said course. Removing assigned reading from any literature-based class would be tantamount to asking that a professor get rid of word problems in a physics class.

Beyond that, even if you don't feel that the assigned texts are relevant to your life at the moment, there's a good chance that 1) at some point in the future they will be, or 2) an understanding of this material is fairly fundamental to the understanding of future material that you are likely to run into at some point in your academic career.

I am a junior in college and I have yet to encounter any situation in which I have had to call upon things that I have learned in any English class, besides how to structure a research paper.

I'm not asking them to get rid of assigned reading altogether. I'm asking them to replace it with reading that is at least more relevant to life. Or let the kids pick the book that they want to read. Some of my best memories of English class were when we were allowed to pick books that we were interested in reading, after the teacher gave the OK of course. This was when I read awesome books like Dune, Slaughterhouse Five, and Bill Bryson's travel books. They are doing no good by boring their students to death and by seeding a disdain for English in their students. It is not tantamount to asking a physics professor to get rid of word problems. It is more like asking him to replace abstract physics problems with real world scenarios.

And like I said, I have not found any assigned texts that have had relevance to any part of my life, and I don't see it happening in the future either. On the flip side, books that I have selected to read for myself have had much relevance to my life, and will continue to do so, both in my academic career and personal life.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

Originally posted by: Whisper
Books chosen as assigned reading in an English course are usually chosen for a reason, and they are generally a necessary part of said course. Removing assigned reading from any literature-based class would be tantamount to asking that a professor get rid of word problems in a physics class.

Beyond that, even if you don't feel that the assigned texts are relevant to your life at the moment, there's a good chance that 1) at some point in the future they will be, or 2) an understanding of this material is fairly fundamental to the understanding of future material that you are likely to run into at some point in your academic career.

I am a junior in college and I have yet to encounter any situation in which I have had to call upon things that I have learned in any English class, besides how to structure a research paper.

I'm not asking them to get rid of assigned reading altogether. I'm asking them to replace it with reading that is at least more relevant to life. They are doing no good by boring their students to death and by seeding a disdain for English in their students. It is not tantamount to asking a physics professor to get rid of word problems. It is more like asking him to replace abstract physics problems with real world scenarios.

And like I said, I have not found any assigned texts that have had relevance to any part of my life, and I don't see it happening in the future either. On the flip side, books that I have selected to read for myself have had much relevance to my life, and will continue to do so, both in my academic career and personal life.

Why in the world does something have to be relevant to your life to be edifying or an enjoyable read?

I think a better solution would be to offer a large assortment of literature for the student to choose from and be graded on. Let them choose for themselves whether they want to enjoy reading something relevant to them, or enjoy reading something totally irrelevant to them.

 

[Mo0o]

I agree that certain titles chosen for high school reading are really boring, The Crucible comes to mind, it would be a huge disservice to remove Shakespeare just because the story itself doesn't apply to your life. For me, Shakespeare is a genius at language more so than being a good storyteller.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny

Originally posted by: Whisper
Books chosen as assigned reading in an English course are usually chosen for a reason, and they are generally a necessary part of said course. Removing assigned reading from any literature-based class would be tantamount to asking that a professor get rid of word problems in a physics class.

Beyond that, even if you don't feel that the assigned texts are relevant to your life at the moment, there's a good chance that 1) at some point in the future they will be, or 2) an understanding of this material is fairly fundamental to the understanding of future material that you are likely to run into at some point in your academic career.

I am a junior in college and I have yet to encounter any situation in which I have had to call upon things that I have learned in any English class, besides how to structure a research paper.

I'm not asking them to get rid of assigned reading altogether. I'm asking them to replace it with reading that is at least more relevant to life. They are doing no good by boring their students to death and by seeding a disdain for English in their students. It is not tantamount to asking a physics professor to get rid of word problems. It is more like asking him to replace abstract physics problems with real world scenarios.

And like I said, I have not found any assigned texts that have had relevance to any part of my life, and I don't see it happening in the future either. On the flip side, books that I have selected to read for myself have had much relevance to my life, and will continue to do so, both in my academic career and personal life.

Why in the world does something have to be relevant to your life to be edifying or an enjoyable read?

I think a better solution would be to offer a large assortment of literature for the student to choose from and be graded on. Let them choose for themselves whether they want to enjoy reading something relevant to them, or enjoy reading something totally irrelevant to them.

It doesn't have to be relevant to be enjoyable. But it's definitely a plus. My big beef with English classes is that assigned readings are BOTH not enjoyable AND irrelevant. I can deal with not enjoyable but relevant, and I can deal with irrelevant but enjoyable, although more often than not things that I enjoy tend to have at least some relevance to my life.

And read my edited post. The best English classes I've had are the ones where I got to choose the books I get to read.

 

[irishScott]

It can be interesting if it's taught right. Sounds like your teachers just sucked.

I agree on the "reading what you want to read" part, but my AP English Lit class did open my eyes to a more critical side of books I'd never considered.

But to each his own.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: Mo0o
I agree that certain titles chosen for high school reading are really boring, The Crucible comes to mind, it would be a huge disservice to remove Shakespeare just because the story itself doesn't apply to your life. For me, Shakespeare is a genius at language more so than being a good storyteller.

I think Shakespeare should be optional because not everyone appreciates language more than storytelling. Me for example. I read stories for the story.

I'd be fine if you could pick what book you wanted to read, and Shakespeare was thrown in there, along with Kurt Vonnegut, Frank Herbert, etc. People who want to read Shakespeare can read Shakespeare. People who don't want to read Shakespeare can read Vonnegut or someone else. People who don't want to read any of the various options can go to the teacher and ask permission to read something else that interests them. It's a hell of a lot better than the whole class reading Shakespeare with two people enjoying it while the other 28 want to kill themselves.

 

[nageov3t]

people with poor writing skills blow my mind... I can't count the amount of time wasted at my job because clients can't articulate what they need and we have to spend time going back and forth getting them to clarify what they wrote.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: loki8481
people with poor writing skills blow my mind... I can't count the amount of time wasted at my job because clients can't articulate what they need and we have to spend time going back and forth getting them to clarify what they wrote.

I think this problem could be alleviated if English classes were taught better. I remember in high school that it was painful to sit there as we read passages aloud, because so many people couldn't read right. Probably because they've never had to read anything they were interested in. Same goes with writing.

 

[Strk]

Your essay is a bunch of petty bitching.

While the question does ask about reading and writing in school, it really doesn't say focus on it -- the question seems general. Yet your entire essay is just venting about why you hate English classes.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: Strk
Your essay is a bunch of petty bitching.

While the question does ask about reading and writing in school, it really doesn't say focus on it -- the question seems general. Yet your entire essay is just venting about why you hate English classes.

What is (or has been) your relationship with reading and writing?

My relationship with reading and writing has been good. My reading and writing skills were largely developed outside of class on my own time, with English classes only serving to detract from this development, and these are the reasons why: (states reasons and gives an example) Pay attention of cause-and-effect patterns. Give specific details/example scenarios, stay away from generalization

Hopefully this "petty bitching" gives my teacher an idea of why only three people out of a class of 30 participate in class. Wait, did I say three? I meant two.

I'm sorry, I'm not going to say that English classes have helped me immensely in any way because truthfully they have not. I'm sick of cherry-coating everything for a good grade.

 

[BoomerD]

I have an english class over the summer, and one of the books chosen by the instructor is; "Us + Them, The History of Intolerance in America"...
THAT one is gonna be hella tough for me to be objective about, because I'm NOT particularly tolerant myself...Hell, they may have an entire chapter on ME! :roll:
BUT, it's the only class that fits my schedule of classes, so I have to take it. Unfortunately, Summer semester has a VERY limited schedule of offered classes, so ya take what ya get...

FBB, I agree that much of what's read and written in English classes is a waste, but usually, it's NOT so much about the content, as it is the techniques of reading and writing that are important.

 

[JEDI]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/spacetaker/kartinki/1154848827938.jpg