January 15th, 2014 Luz Delgado Section: 001

Evaluative Comments about Files This reading and writing course (I) was a great experience in which I have learned I lot of important thing that I did not even know. As well those files and activities that the teacher gave of every week were plenty of relevant information, although, there were some difficult ones. All these material will help me in my career. I liked the course and I like the teacher, too. I would have liked to have done more activities in class in order to clarify doubts. Honestly, my only complaint is that I do not like the classes when the teacher could not come and we had a substitute teacher, joined to some doubts that she left me. However, I always did my best.

FILE 1: THE WRITING PROCESS To be the first file was excellent because I have learned the writing process and that before you decide to write you have to be clear about what topic you are interesting in and then, start writing or you can start doing some mind maps, diagrams, pictures, brainstorming or grouping ideas in order to be easy to understand. In this file, I have found some advises and the three steps prewriting, drafting and revising to succeed in the writing process. In fact, it is a process that takes time and energy. That is true. You have to make an effort but at the end you will learn.

FILE 2: PREWRITING

In this second file what I like the most was prewriting techniques because it gives you plenty information and ideas to start writing. As I wrote in file 1 you can use mind maps, diagrams, pictures, brainstorming or grouping ideas. It also shows you that prewriting takes many forms and has several purposes; it helps you to get ideas, or organize your ideas. Furthermore, you can ask yourself questions and answer them in order to help yourself in this process. However, I do not do this because sometimes, it takes long time, but I would like to organize my time and start using these techniques. FILE 3: STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF WRITING (I) My opinion about this file is that writing is not easy; it is an art that should be made closer to perfection with every words. When you write you have to think about the audience that will read it. So, you have to use the correct modifier, the correct mechanics and you should try to sound natural. Perhaps, there will be people who do not like the things that you write, but you have to deal with those faultfinder. To be honest I do not like writing or maybe I feel insecure. Moreover, I do not know how to express my ideas and how organize them. I am trying to face this and I hope to go beyond. FILE 4: STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF WRITING (II)

Since I began reading this file I have been having some problems because it is difficult to get and create the topic or main idea sentence in a paragraph and it is important, as it tells you what that particular paragraph is about, so it also needs to be coherent and understandable. This one was the first file that pulls me down and I started to feel a little bit of frustration. I must work hard in this.

FILE 5: STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF WRITING (and III)

When I reread this file, there was a word that stuck with me, and that word is Unity because when you write a paragraph as says in the file, every idea you write in one paragraph should be related to a single topic, and every topic should relate to the central idea suggested by the title. Therefore, you need to have clear ideas and sometimes, it is tricky for me.

FILE 6: DRAFTING. Narrative Paragraph

I have learned a lot of about this file. I think I did not have much problem with this. I also learned some connectors showing time, some linking words and so on. I acquire knowledge of Drafting and the importance of writing down many times as possible in order to get coherent ideas and opinions, because it will help you to write a comprehensible final version of a paragraph, text, story, and so on. I like the idea of Drafting, as it has helped me gain to be clearer in my writing. Also, I have acquired more knowledge. There are some mistakes that I must correct like: mechanics and the used of connector because I always get confuse.

FILE 7: DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH

As the previous paragraph (file 6: drafting. Narrative Paragraph) I did not have much problem. It was very clear and the easiest one because it is used for describe picture of a person, place, thing or idea and you just have to give your point of view or a perspective of what you see or have seen. Of course, you have to be explicit with the information and do not get wrong. In my opinion it was easy because of the use of adjectives. Besides, there are plenty adjectives to play with.

FILE 8: EXPOSITORY PARAGRAPH Honestly, I did not understand this file at all. I still have some doubts. Though the file was clear to understand I got confused with it. It was a challenge to write an expository paragraph because of chronological sequence that I had to follow and the way I had to use the connectors to help the readers understand what I have written down from one step to the next and sometimes, I did not know how to connect the ideas making them comprehensible. Although it was tricky, I coped with it and I did.

FILE 9: PERSUASIVE PARAGRAPH This file was as difficult as the previous one (expository paragraph) because it is not easy to write down a paragraph or a text in which you must convince someone about what you has written down. I was not easy for me. FILE 1: READING AS A PROCESS This file was excellent because it gave me an introductory idea about the reading process. I liked it because explains what do good readers do and what can you do to become a better reader. Something that I remember the most about this file is that you should look at the title, pictures, captions under pictures, headings, bold-faced print and other graphics to get an idea or ideas about the text. I have done this and it has worked out for me. READING FILE 2: Guessing Meaning from Context (I) Guessing meaning from context was neither difficult nor easy. In my opinion or perhaps my experience I have read some books and I havent understood at all, but I continue reading trying to get the meaning without looking at the dictionary, although it is a temptation doesnt to look at. Also, I liked how this file explains the parts of speech and word parts (prefixes, suffixes, roots). For me it will be helpful for the rest of my career.

READING FILE 3: Guessing Meaning from Context (II) Reading a text and inferring the meaning of a word without getting it from a dictionary is a skill. This file has some good activities about inferring the meaning of a word that helped me to understand how this process work, but some of them were difficult and I felt totally lost and confused. I need to find more synonyms and antonyms to get more ideas and vocabulary because I read the file three times and it is a little bit complicated. It is a challenge and when I do not understand something I feel nervous and sometimes I want to give up. FILE 4: SCANNING, MAIN IDEAS, TOPIC SENTENCE This file was also good because I have learned about scanning and skimming, I didnt even know about them and they are good ways to improve reading and to get some specific information. Main ideas and Topic sentence are the only things that I am concerned about. I know that I am having trouble with that and I have to work hard to improve it. READING FILE 5: MAKING INFERENCES This file has helped me in the way how to infer important information in a text. When you make an inference, you have to be able to identify the clues that you used and it was a little bit difficult for me because sometimes I did not understand the ideas of the writer. Conclusions To sum up, talking about reading and writing is talk about two skills that help people to communicate with others around the world. Both reading and writing are very important in our life and they are also an integral part of our education. Therefore, they are the daily habit that we must have in life. As an example, we can see that when children read since they are kids they become better writers. So, people should read every day about something, it does not matter if it is about history, geography, religion, culture, general knowledge, so on. The most relevant thing is to get in contact with reading and it will help you to

write better. For those future students I advise them that they should read at least one article every day in order to get knowledge and if they do not like reading, they can watch videos on internet about culture or other educational thing.