Working Mothers

This week we read "Working Mothers are Benefiting the Family" by Supreet Mann. It was about if working mothers in todays society is ruining or benefiting the family. Supreet Mann argues against those who believed that working mothers are harming the family. She believes that they are actually benefiting the family and teaches children valuable life lessons. A few of her examples are financial benefits, setting a good example/ role model, parents who work have stronger relationships, and daycare help children be more interactive with other children.

I agree to Supreet Mann's opinion that working mothers are rather benefiting the family than tearing them down. I believe that in a household of a mother and father who are both working and bringing in two incomes rather than one is beneficial to the family. Also, the mother would not always have to depend on the father to bring in the income. Another reason why I believe that a working mother is beneficial is because when a mother is working, it benefits the mother by having a social life. It helps the mother to be social with other people rather than staying at home without a social life.

The American Dream

In "Hiding from Reality" by Bob Herbert, he talks about how the American Dream is no longer possible due to economy, jobs, and many others. He states that the government doesn't over enough jobs and opportunities for all of those who are in need of jobs. As of right now according to Bob Herbert, we are nothing close to that happening. An example he gives is in New York City where the mayor hires Cathleen Black who has no experience in the public education, but she is going to make "public school" a better place by laying off thousands of public school teachers. That is in no way going to help educate kids into even trying to live the "American Dream".

I agree to Bob Herbert. He is right that the rich gets richer and the poor just gets poorer. As of right now, half of my family has been laid off from their previous jobs and are unable to find new ones right now. We all support each other and thats all we have as of right now, family. Living the American Dream is hard because we live in an economy that is going no where, maybe slowly but still no where. To live an "American Dream" we are to work hard, get educated and we are promised to be successful. But not today, we go to school and are not even promised to get the classes we need because there is a shortage of teachers or units. Its hard to live the American Dream.

TSIS CH. 9

In "They Say I Say" chapter nine talks about incorporating our own voice into our essays according to our audiences. It says that "academic writing can be relaxed, easy to follow, and even a little bit fun" (121). Writing shouldn't always be formal and it would be more interesting for the reader to read. It also points out that it depends who the reader is and the purpose to decide whether writing in our own voice would be appropriate.

Chapter nine was one of my favorite chapters, only because it was a little humorous! I laughed at certain parts. My favorite part was the example given by Geneva Smitherman on page 125 when she talks about Black Americans. Her humor was when she used phrases such as "people who done gone to school and read all dem books and still don't know nothin!" and "verbal strategy for black rappers to talk about how bad they is". I thought this was funny because she wrote in "oral tradition" which made it very interesting to read and funny. And as of today's "rappers" it connected they two points she was making.

2b or Not 2b?

We were required to review our reading in the book called "English Grammar and Usage" by Mark Lester and Larry Beason. In the book, we read and review chapters 6-9 and in those chapters we read on writing complete sentences, subject-verb agreements, pronoun problems, and verb problems. Just a quick recap in each term:

Writing complete sentences:

• Fragments
• Fused sentences (run on sentences)
• Comma Splices 

Subject Verb Agreement

•  Agreement with lost subjects (when the sentence is too long)
• Mysterious case of there is and there was 
• Agreement with compound subjects

Pronoun Problems:

• I or Me? He or Him? She or Her?
• Who, Whom, or that?
• Vague Pronouns
• Reflexive Pronouns
• Pronoun agreement errors 

Verb Problems:

• Tense shifting between present and past
• Choosing the right tense for pass-time events
• Rise or Raise? sit or set? lie or lay?  

Going over these in depth, I was really surprised at how much I didn't know. I was really glad I got the chance to strengthen my grammar and be able to point out my flaws in writing and understand what is wrong with it. I honestly forgot about all these rules in writing. I think that when we do write, we just write how we talk and we forget that there is certain rules to writing. This is one thing that will definitely help me strength my writing in the future.

They Say I Say

This week, I read the first three chapters on "They Say I Say." So far in the first three chapters they teach you different phrases on how to respond to others writing. They basically tell you that writing is not about expressing your feelings but more of responding to the writer. Basically what ever "they say" you take in and reply back to them of your thoughts and ideas, agreeing and disagreeing as "I say". The book comes with all kinds of different sentence structures that is available to teach you how to start a paragraph or a sentence as if you have been writing for a long time.

I actually have come to really like this book so far. It has taught me to approach my sentences and beginning paragraphs differently. I like that they tell us to not approach an essay as having to do so but to write an essay as if I am responding to the writer. It seems to take more stress off my shoulders. Just the thought of writing an essay makes me feel stressed but I think that if I was to keep a mind set of "just replying" (formally) to the writer I will become a better writer. I also really like the book because they give you examples of sentence structures. From this I am able to relate and be able to come back to the book and put those sentence structures into my very own words.

What do I Believe?

This week I read a couple of stories on "This I Believe" essays and thought some were pretty interesting. I read on things that related to me such as kindness and mothers. An essay I read was about being kind to strangers. In the essay he talks about coming home from the Vietnam War and that the war was not a very popular one. Therefore, not many people wanted to greet veterans home. He was greeted by a young girl on the plane with two simple words that made him burst into tears. She said, "'welcome home'". He said thanks, turned around and wept. Another story I read on was about a daughter who began to see herself in her mother. As she grew she realized that she talks and look just like her mother. Even though her mom is no longer here, she is able to have her mother's memory in herself.

As I began to read these essays, I start to ponder to myself what I believe. It was hard at first thinking about what I REALLY believe because we don't think about these things too often. Then I realize why I chose to look at essays under these two topics. Because I read on kindness and mothers, I believe I have strong connections between being kind to others and having such a strong relationship with my mom. Kindness is in everyone. We either show it to others or we receive it. Anyone and everyone can show simple kindness and it can go such a long way in someone's day. I chose to read topics on mothers because we all have different types of relationships with our moms. I never realize my mom was my best friend until I was married. We didn't have a great relationship with each other as I got to my teens but once I got married and moved out of the house, I came to find that she was my only friend.