Blog #5 .

The creative writing text I chose is The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah. It is an urban novel centered around a young woman named Winter Santiaga as she goes through the ups and downs of being the daughter of a drug king pin. Being that the author was born and raised in the Bronx, New York I believe that most of her research was done around her. She more than likely used her the things she saw, encountered, her neighborhood and surrounding areas to create this work of fiction. I also believe she probably interviewed peers who were living in the same situation. I have the collectors edition of the book and in it she talks about write the book so well because of her upbringing in the area.

The creative project I started in class revolves around death in my family. My way of research and the writing process would most likely be reflecting on myself. Reflecting on how I felt, how I reacted, how I dealt with the deaths etc. I would use most of the examples given in the blog, discussion with peers, clustering, talk with peers and free writing. The discussion and talking with peers could be used for interviewing. I would interview the people closest to me and see if they noticed any types of changes in my behavior and what not. The clustering and free writing would give me a way to formulate my ideas and write whatever comes to me.

Blog #4 .

Project 1. Being that I want to be an author and take an interest in Creative Writing, I would want to take the personal experiences I’ve been through regarding my personal life and turn that into a work of fiction. I have already started on something like this but I would want to go further with it. I would talk to other people who have been through the same or similar situations as myself. I would also do research and see what else other people have went through, how they dealt with judgments and other people and everything they went through. I would relate them to what I’ve been through as well. I would also exaggerate just a little bit to give the fiction piece sort of a little extra something. This is something that is my biggest goal to finish. I know it will be easy since it's taking my personal life and turning it into a creative piece of work.

Project 2. Being an African American I tend to lean more towards stories and books that I can relate to. I would do research on how writing has been apart of the African American community dating back to slavery. I would talk about how in Slavery times writing was prohibited for blacks. The masters feared it would give them the power and education to run away. Then I would talk about how writing has become such a big thing in the African Americna community. This would not be the easiest since it entails a lot of historical research but dedication and hard work would make it alright.

Project 3. In my Research & Tech class, which pretty much goes hand in hand with this one we have to choose a topic for a research paper. The topic I chose is "Why is writing so theraputic for some?". Even though I'm using this for a paper in this class. I would not only depend on research from the internet but I'd do my own personal interviews and see how writing has personally affected their lives and how it has helped them.

Blog #3 Lives for Boundary .

Purpose = The Main purpose is talking about the American Educational system and how its failed students considered to be "America's poor". The author also gives ways of  how it can be handled. He uses not only the story of his own life but of others as well to enforce his point and that of the story. I think his purpose is not only to enform about the US educational system but to also inspire. And show that you can grow up poor and what people consider illiterate but you can also grow from that and work hard towards an education. Much like Laura in the first chapter who went from being poor in Tijuana to being a student at UCLA.

Process = I think that the author did a study on his life as well as the lives of others, that grew up in situations like him.

Methods/Sources = I think the biggest method he used was interviewing in order to get the information from the other people he used as examples in the book. And he also reflected on his past and what he went through when he was younger and his life today.

Blog #2 .

Creative Writing would have been the one most relevant to my interestes and career goals, being that I want to become an author. Since we could not choose Creative Writing as one of the research essays it was hard to find one that would also work with my career goal. I think that all of these reasearch essays could help me in my research but of the ones we could chose none of them would solely benefit my research. I may be wrong but I think that these essays are more beneficial to those taking the education career route. Creative Writing and Textual Analysis are the two that would help me out the most. Besides these two I think that Ethnography would also help me in my career. This could be relevant because when writing on a certain subject that you don't really know to much about doing a study or getting the information from the group of people it pertains to is extremely helpful. For example when I began to write a short story about a young woman with HIV, I didn't really know about the disease but after researching and reading stories about people with it. That helped me a lot.

A Rose for Emily .

The main focus of this essay is talking about the short story "A Rose for Emily". I think that in this essay Judith Fetterley describes what she believes is the overall theme of the story. Fetterley goes into great detail of how the story really goes into what a woman is, how society and men create this image of what a lady is and the double standards that go for women as well as men. I believe this because at one point in the essay she says that Emily Grierson basically got away with the murder of Homer Barron. Throughout the essay she uses text from the story to prove her points. In addition she also breaks down the story and the character of Emily. For this essay Fetterley uses textual analysis. She analyzes the story, gave details on what happened, the reasoning behind it amongst other things. She not only states her opinions but also facts from the story itself. She makes you understand basically everything about "A Rose for Emily" without having to actually read the short story. This authors approach would be good for college essays when you have to analyze a story or certain information and write an essay on what it is specifically about.

Questions for Moreno.

1. Do people believe that by enforcing the English language as the primary literacy/learning launguage it is taking away from these students cultures?