Daily Writings 8/21 My 5th grade English teacher Mrs. Smith introduced me to different forms of writing such as poetry.

She was very strict with homework and writing assignments. She sparked a feeling in e that never had been there before, I actually liked attending class. Huntington Learning Center was another big impact on my literacy narrative. As a whole they enhanced my reading, writing, and reading comprehension skills. The most important skill they taught me was how to find resources so I could be successful. 8/26 The summer of 6th grade I attended this place called Huntington Learning Center because it used to take me three hours and blood sweat and tears just to finish my homework. Now, after attending Huntington I can do my homework within a reasonable time and without getting frustrated. They taught me ways to find and maximize resources to help me get through tough classes. I am very athletic. Ive been on fields, courts, and in pools. Being involved in so many sports has given me a lot of experiences to write about such as shooting the winning free throw, missing the championship goal, and beating an opponent by .02 seconds in a swim race. All of these experiences inspire me to write. 8/28 I didnt ever go to book fairs because I didnt like to read. My friends would go to the book fair during lunch and come back all excited that they had just bought a new book. I didnt understand these feelings, how could someone be excited about reading? I felt like reading was torcher. My mom would always sign up to run the book fair hoping that whenever I came to see her that I might see an interesting book. The only books I touched were then thin picture books that were straight forward with the plots. In picture books there is not much room for interpretation the picture shows what the author wants you to see. 9/4 I applied to a few different school because I knew they were schools for engineers. NC State is a good school but I didnt like the atmosphere there, people werent as friendly and the campus was old! I also applied to the college in my hometown, UNCW. They have a 2 + 2 program for engineers that means I would have to transfer to NC State after 2 years. Out of all 3 colleges I applied to only UNCC accepted me. UNCC was my first choice anyway, when I took a tour on campus I knew it was the school for me my parents couldnt help but to love is as well, they saw how beautiful it was and how comfortable I was feeling when walking around on campus. 9/9 I wouldnt say I fully connected with any of the characters but if I had to pick who I am most like, it would be Zach. He is upbeat and always positive. He likes to dream big and do what no one has ever done. I commend him for wanting to be a black lawyer during this time period. Another great

characteristic is that he knows how to work with difficult people. He basically is working with all women. I always found it hard to make a connection with other girls. 9/11 The computer has the biggest impact on my literacy narrative. There are infinitely many applications that can come from a computer. Two of the things I use the most would be the internet (Google) and Microsoft (Word, PPT, Publisher, etc...) I research everything through Google such as definitions, phrases, and anything else I want to know more about. Lots of people use Microsoft products but for me it is a learning tool to help me spell and write better. 9/23 Given that I havent done much research I dont know that much about the EPIC building. I jogged over there the other day and took myself on a tour. One thing that I think is freshman might want to know is the purpose of the building. Some things I want to know about EPIC is about what the different floors are used for, what courses are taught there, who built it, how does it impact UNCC, and what major is that building dedicated to? 9/25 One of the techniques I use while researching a topic is that I use flash cards. On big projects keeping track of citations and the facts that come with it can get tricky to keep organized. For the citations flash cards I write the citation in the format the paper asks for, mostly MLA, then the source number and the type sources each in a corner. One thing that I never do when researching is that I dont normally research in the library. I normally just google whatever I need and pick one of the first website I see. 9/30 10/2 I found a different interviewee for my informative essay last night. Instead of interviewing one of the professors I thought it would be more relatable if I interviewed a freshman taking a class there. I havent done much with this project yet but I am going to write my rough draft this weekend. 10/14 I still feel that we have a very strong topic I think it will be very easy to talk about which is what I really wanted. Public speaking is difficult for me, I get nervous and cant remember what I was planning on saying. We have not started researching yet but we plan on working on it this weekend. 10/16 The Freshman Prince of Bellaire is my favorite TV show. The situation is what makes it great. What makes the show the best is the actor Will Smith. I want to meet him one day. In my semester long project we are traveling the USA and one of the stops will be Hollywood where I can meet Will.

10/23 I have herd of an annotated bibliography but I cannot remember what it means. I think it is a summary about what was read. I dont know how it fits into our project because I do not know what an annotated bibliography is. 10/28 The road block we have hit is finding time to do this project. We are all very busy and even though this project is not hard, we still find it difficult to get done. I think it is because it is so easy that it isnt on the urgent to get done list. One way to fix that is to set a time, place, and a goal to reach in order get started. 10/30 A pie chart would benefit our project because we would use it to show how much money we spent along the trip. Each piece of the pie would represent a different expense such as gas, food, and souvenirs. A map would be a good visual for our presentation because we are going on a road trip. It would be cool to see the path we take as we travel along the USA. 11/4 When my partners review my paper they might find that some of the descriptions are short and to the point. They might say that I need to lengthen some on the descriptions. Another thing they might comment on is the placement of my in text citations. If I did not know where to put them then I just cited the source at the end of the paragraph. I started to see some issues with locating reliable sources. I know that the purpose of an annotated bibliography is to make the researcher look at the source more carefully. 11/6 Sometimes visuals can be more destructive rather than constructive when it comes to a presentation. I have not really experienced any bad situations with visual presentations. I remember last year for senior project one person was practicing their speech for their graduation project and all of their pictures on their slide show were the wrong color. One good thing they did was that they didnt panic, they kept presenting like nothing was wrong. 11/11 If I could start this semester over I would change who some of my teachers are. My engineering teacher is a ridiculous grader, I do everything she asks but it never seems to be good enough. I would definitely not take visual arts with Mr. Love. He turns the lights off, lectures the whole class period and says the word essentially 27 times a class period, yes I have counted. I love taking English with you, not to be a suck up, you are just a really good teacher. I have no choice in my chemistry class, it is the luck of the draw on which bad teacher I would have gotten, and I wish Dr. Polar would have taught it this semester but he was not an option. Time management was not really a problem for me this semester I would just stress about looking up classes before they are taken. 11/13

In order to graduate high school senior year I had to do a graduation project. This project had many parts, an 8 page paper, 20 hour product, a portfolio, and an 8- 10 minute presentation. The presentation was the part I was most nervous about. I hate speaking in front of crowds. The last week of senior English we had practice presentations, I did perfect. It went just the way I planned, but two days later the real presentation came. This was in front of three judges that was made up of faculty from the school. I start to present my research and product but I get so nervous that I start to stutter, then I forget some of my statistics, and lastly, I fall right in judges as I walk out the door. I put so much effort into that project and I failed to deliver the information. 11/18 November 25th e-portfolio link due Check and make sure everything is uploaded. Weekly prompts, Informative essay, Literacy narrative, Daily writings, Annotated bibliography, and Semester long project (research), reflection letter to teacher. Make sure that all research and reflections are uploaded where needed. Make sure everything works.