Farewell

Dear Tasha (my favorite teacher!)

Well what can I say, all good things must come to an end. What a shame it had to end so fast though, its true what you said it seemed almost as if it was yesterday that we were all going into your classroom for the FIRST time. Well I must say this is by far the best class ive had for a really long time, I havent had such a good time in a class and learned at the same time. It was a 2 for 1 special. Tasha, I can honestly say you are one of the best teachers ive had, like I said before for the first time, I actually loved my english class lol. I learned a lot this semester, and I even improved my writing because of your teachings. I couldnt have asked for anything else from you, you have been a great teacher and other than that you have been a GREAT friend. You have shown me a lot this semester, your ways of teaching have inspired me to look outside the box and not to take things as for what they present them to you as. You have to look beyond what is given and always fight for your beliefs. Im glad to have taken this ENC 1102 course with you tasha, it was the best choice ive made by far. Your class has helped me out tremendously in ways that go are shown even outside of the classroom. Thank you for this wonderful semester and most of all thank you for showing me my true potential as a writer =p. I enjoyed writing those papers you assigned to us. I think the difference between you and a regular teacher is that you actually care about your students and their work. You showed a great deal of care for us and you made us feel extremely comfortable with all our choices and you encouraged us to always believe in what we think. Aside from being a great teacher, I think you are a great friend and this is why I have to say you are very successful.

THANK YOU TASHA!!!!!! YOU ARE THE BEST

<333333 !!!!!!!

we'll keep in touch!!!

# 8

After seeing the efforts these young people are putting into their causes all i could say is that it is amazing what people do when they really care about something. In my opinion awareness is the best thing to do to make the people of the city, state, and the world in general realize the importance of something. These groups are doing a great job at showing that they care and they are using the internet to promote awareness. People have to think outside the box like these people have done, effort is the only way we will be able to fix world problems. After seeing there links and their ideas and thoughts I just feel as if there are only a few of us doing this. This is why we must ALL gather up and join groups like this that aim to fix problems. We might not be experiencing the problem but the idea is to make the world a better place and not just care about ourselves. Im glad to see that people are doing this, and I would gladly take part in any organization to help others and create awareness. This is why I would use this to help my project for our class. People like this is who we should look up to, they are doing the right thing and ALL of us should follow.

Sex Trafficking

After watching the video I can honestly say that this is very disgusting. I was in awe after the reporter said that these girls are forced to have sex with 30-40 men in a single day. In my opinion this is no way to live, I can honestly say that I do not know how a young girl can let herself get into this situation. On the other hand, it is true what they said...these girls are brainwashed and forced to act like this if not they will face severe consequences. After watching footage of the hidden videotapes you can only imagine what it is like to be in the life of these girls. The streets they work on are disgusting the life is humiliating. As a society we have to do something about this, we must stop this disgusting trend. Human right are being violated and we are barely doing anything about the issue. Therefore, I believe that the solution to this problem is by 1st coming together and getting all these girls out of this "job." Then we must go after all these Human right violators. We cannot continue to allow this to happen in the current world we live in. It is disgusting, himiliating, and not right. No one deserves a job or a life like this, we must fight to get these girls lives back even if it is hard to achieve we cannot give up. We must take control of those streets again and not let this occur any longer.

Blog # 6

1st)Yisel-In my opinion Yisel is the number 1 candidate because she does a very good job at appealing to the reader. She immediately catches your attention with her slideshow. You can see various pictures of how she is and it gives you an idea of her personality. She goes on to describe herself even more and tells you what are the things that are of most importance to her and why. In my opinion she does a great job of "selling" herself.

2nd)Sonya-I liked Sonya's page because of the fact that it had several pictures describing herself. For example she has pictures of dancing...she helps out this claim by saying she likes ot dance when she is happy and therefore helps her reader know how she is and what she likes to do. I voted her 2nd place because in my opinion there could have been more pics to make her about me section more attractive. But overall it was a good page.

3rd)Amna-I liked this page because it catches your attention with the first picture you see. It is very different than what others put and just by this picture you can see that this person in a sense has a outgoing personality. You can see that the person likes to takes risk and that life must be taken advantage of. You can tell that this person does not want to miss out on any moment doubting whether to do something or not. I like this idea and therefore this is why I chose this page. I picked this page as 3rd place because there could have been a little more information and pics.

Analyzing Carla's Poem

After having read the poem my immediate reaction was the same one you posted. I got the feeling that the poem meant that although some things you lose are really small in the end it makes a dramatic change in your life and others as well. I like the fact that you went ahead and described how the poems meaning changes from beginning to end. Analyzing the fact that at first the poem only mentions very small items but then it moves on to bigger things. Furthermore, I also like that you connected the idea of the poem to your personal idea of why she would write such a poem. By saying that writing serves as a coping mechanism it helps to understand the emotions and the feelings the writer of the poem is going through. Something I think could have strengthened your analysis was if you explained a little more why the audience is older people. Overall, I think you examined this poem extremely well. You do a good job at explaining why the writer feels this way and how in the end she changes. Also you analyzed her claims well and the overall meaning of the poem. I think you did a good job but like I said there are certain things you could have elaborated a little more on...therefore I think you deserve an A-.

Blog # 4

After reading and watching the video of the sagging pants I must admit I am pretty dissapointed with the US government. There are bigger problems going on in the world and they are worrying about where our patns are when we dress? Cmon, they should be a little more serious than that. Honestly, fining people up to $50 for the way you dress??? What happened with "freedom of expression." I guess the government bends the laws to whichever way they want then? This just makes me wonder...whats next? It seems like everyday there are more and more restrictions upon us here in the US, wouldnt u agree?

I think the government should be focused on things like arresting killers or drug dealers, and sheltering homeless people, and financial issues. These are things that require attention and that in the future will help us out. What function does fining people for sagging pants serve?

I completely disagree with this idea, I couldnt be any more dissapointed. At first I thought it was some kind of joke but then I saw that it was even on the news. After doing research I found several links with this topic and after reading things like "Pull up or Pay up" I couldnt help but realize that our government is turning into one big joke. I really think we the people should make a stand for our rights and fight this dumb law. The problem is that we are letting the governent slide with these laws and we are doing nothing to argue back against them. We cannot stand here and let them impose laws on us whenever they feel like it. Therefore, to stop things like this we must argue our right of freedom of speech/expression. That, or were pretty much facing a future with these pointless laws.

Blog # 3

First off, this isn't the first time I hear about NCLB I actually studied it last semester in the Education in History class I had. In my opinion NCLB is one of those ideas that seems really great when you read it on paper. There are parts of NCLB that when you read it you ask yourself, "why didn't we do this before?" But the fact of the matter is that we cannot simply go by what is on paper. Now that the law is in effect we have seen that many people do not agree with the law. I personally think the law is a joke, like the video says it is not human nature for all of us to be equal and set the same high standards as everybody else. This is something that will never happen, simply because of the fact that we cannot all learn equally. It is human nature for one person to be better one thing than they are at another. It just doesn't make sense to me how our government can make these ridiculous laws. Also NCLB is unfair to minority groups because lets say you just moved from your country here to the US and you are beginning to learn english. According to the NCLB act your school suffers from low test scores that are taken yearly from 3-8 grade. So imagine being a school in a location where minority groups make up a lot of ur population. All you will actually do is hurt your school. This is dumb. Therefore, its like the video explained, it makes "fear" the dominant factor in education. Currently I think many schools now teach not for students to learn but for the simple fact that they want to see "rewards" and not punishments from NCLB. Another factor I do not agree with is the fact that you(teachers) basically plan out the entire year based on the standardized test. The main focus is only on the material that will be given on the test, so how do you get smarter and extend your way of thinking(as a student) if everything you are learning is already planned out for you. NCLB cuts students from learning extra things and mayb even more productive things, but instead you must follow the curriculum of NCLB or if not you will see punishments for not passing the tests. This is why I believe that students as a whole see school as a forceful thing to attend to. It is not a welcoming environment, honestly who likes to do things or attend to things that you already know the outcome to? Thats what school is now, "go to school learn what you have to because the big test follows it." Maybe this is why so many students turn to other things and drop out of school. But I guess this is what we have to deal with, a corrupt education.

Blog # 2

After watching that video I was in awe, I was stunned. The information they reveal here is crazy. I had never heard of the North American Union until now. Something I really liked about this video was the fact that it revealed how the media controls us. In my opinion it is a proven fact, we believe what we see and hear on the news. I believe that we should not believe everything we see/hear from them. For a while now I have been skeptical about many things said on the news and it all started with a video called "Loose Change." (link)http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=593477999977759983&q=loose+change&total=4295&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3It is a video about how September 11th seemed to be a setup by our own goverment. Like this video said there are certain thing that the media shares with us that the only reason they do it is to make us "believe" and not look for further information on the subject. What we all should do is look into things talked about in the media for ourselves. Research them and come up with as much information on it and create our own conclusion. On the other hand what we do is listen to everything the media says and stand by it. Therefore I believe that this video was an excellent source of information and im glad it is being seen by others. Also I believe that we have gotten to the point that we completely lost control over everything. We are controlled by the higher ranked people and we continue to let ourselves be controlled. I think we definitely have to do something about it and regain power for the well being of our future, education, and us as people.

Blog # 1 (spring 08)

Well first off my name is Arnold Cedeño and this is my 2nd semester here at FIU. I am pursuing the field of business and hopefuly everything goes right with that. Well so you guys get an idea about me I am going to tell you some of the things I like. First of all my passion right now is cars, I spend a lot of time around cars and going to car hang outs. Another thing I like to do is play poker. Other than that im normal lol, I go out with my friends and have a good time.

Making this blog for ENC 1102 is something very new to me. This is the first time I will be posting up a blog entry. The only thing similar to this which I have taken part of is, http://www.myspace.com/. When I think about it I believe that posting my thoughts online will eventually lead to my success as a better writer because I will be critiqued by my fellow classmates and my teacher. Knowing this I can only see positive things coming out of this blog. This is why I feel that this a great opportunity for all the students, not just me. As for the security settings I will allow everyone to see my page because this is the only way I can become better at writing or the subject at hand. I think that people shouldn't be shy about expressing their thoughts because the only way to get better at anything is being open minded and having others strengthen your weaknesses. I look forward to reading what other classmates have to say about my opinions. Therefore, the idea of posting up our responses online is a great way for all of us to improve overall.