Muse or Method?
My eyes cast a casual glance towards the clock across the room as I sit back down at my desk. With caffeine reinforcements at hand, namely the signature red, white, and blue can of Diet Pepsi I just pulled from the fridge, I quickly put away the mound of books that has grown since I came in the room at 4:00.
After making a hasty mental check to reassure myself I am prepared for the next day of class, I review my lesson plans one last time, sit back, relax, and ponder just exactly how I plan to go about grading the thirty essays tucked away neatly in my folder. Despite the method's classes and all of the other education courses I had taken at college, I felt ill-prepared for what lie ahead. "What's worse than writing a paper," I asked myself, only to answer quite obviously, "Grading one."
I must admit that it took me quite a while to realize why this concept was such a difficult one for me. Not only was I working with a group of thirty creative young minds, I was also working with a group of rather insecure young minds, especially when it came to writing. How could I effectively evaluate each individual paper and constructively provide advice without dictating what I expected my papers to contain?
Still, this was only part of the difficulty. The other is something I am just starting to understand now. In trying to formulate a basis from which I could evaluate these student papers, I was also struggling to unsurface the components of successful writing. Unbeknownst to me, I was wrestling with the same ideas that we have been discussing in class during the last couple of weeks.
Interestingly enough, I found that my approach toward the subject was similar to our approach as a class. How did I begin? I started by determining which elements of writing I considered to be the most important and basic: creativity and technique.
Through the centuries, many writers have attributed their success to the adoring eye and gracious blessings of the muses. The nine muses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, were recognized as the Goddesses of learning. As a result of their titles, these muses were often credited with spontaneously generating a frenzy of creativity within a writer which resulted in a monumental piece of literature. Although reference and credit to the muses is not often made within contemporary literature, the idea remains.
Utilizing their natural forces, they personified an idea of trust and the past by being the deliverers of truth and also history. The Muses came into his life and transformed it for the better; this is apparent because he focuses on them in the beginning and the end of his poem. Hesiod’s overall purpose of including the Muses was to create a base of authority and reliability while reading his poem; the presence of the Muses did that exactly. The nine daughters of Zeus led Hesiod’s stories and that is obvious when you simply read them. The stories that he tells have a lyrical rhythm to it as they are read to resemble the song and dance of the Muses as heard by Hesiod long
In the article, “Understanding Writing Assignments: Tips and Techniques,” author Dan Melzer shares with his audience seven useful suggestions to keep in mind when starting any writing assignment. Melzer’s first tips are for readers to examine their rubrics for any key verbs that will tell writers what approach and genre their paper should have. Knowing what kind of writing your teacher wants will not only help a writer get started, it will also inform a writer what they can research to view examples. Next, he tells his readers to write for their specific audience, to make sure they know their teacher’s expectations, and to take into account what they have learned in class. In these sections, Melzer stresses the importance of asking a teacher
In Patricia Limerick’s article “Dancing with Professors”, she argues the problems that college students must face in the present regarding writing. Essays are daunting to most college students, and given the typical lengths of college papers, students are not motivated to write the assigned essays. One of the major arguments in Limerick’s article is how “It is, in truth, difficult to persuade students to write well when they find so few good examples in their assigned reading.” To college students, this argument is true with most of their ...
As I look back into my high school years, I thought I wrote papers well. But then coming into a college environment, my papers were mediocre. By overlooking at my past papers, I found that they were unorganized, sloppy and had bad use of diction. From now on, I will use the tools I learned in English 1100-40 as a foundation for the future papers I intend on writing in college. Following the criteria of organizing ideas so that they flow, impacting the reader with diction and also by being creative, will help become an ideal writer. Following the criteria of staying motivated in short and long term goals, taking responsibility for actions and finally the ability to study well will help me develop into a supreme student.
Prior to taking English 1301 my method of writing simply involved writing the first thing that I felt made sense, this unorganized strategy resulted in essays with multiple grammatical errors that made absolutely no sense. As an English 1301 student, I am fortunate to have a professor who has mastered the art of writing. In assigning group work activities and the literary analysis of songs, I was able to learn from my professor, that writing is a process not a product. Working in a group divided the workload and gave us more time to observe each other 's paragraph, in doing so we were able to revise, edit and rewrite, this process taught me that a terrific paper is not an overnight miracle. Analyzing a musical selection was tremendously difficult for me; as a mediocre writer it took me a long time to grasp the concept; after continuously rereading and analyzing different lyrics for multiple meaning, I acquired the skill of reading between the lines, by simply taking the time out to ask questions and research information. Participating in these activities helped me understand writing as a process, and also encouraged me to work on my critical thinking
There are nine muses of Greek mythology who evoke different arenas of inspiration in a man; a muse of epic poetry, a muse of tragedy, a muse of comedy, a muse of history, a muse of astronomy, a muse of dance, a muse of sacred song, a muse of lyric poetry, and Erato, a muse of love poetry and passion (Marks 34).
Roosevelt and became a part of what was known as Black Cabinet. In 1917 Mary Mcleod Bethune became the chapter president of the NACW in Florida. Her occupation included helping blacks register to vote. Later after that, she was elected president of the Southeastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. She also founded the National Council of Negro Women, and became the Secretary of War. Mary Bethune also served as the Director of Negro Affairs. Mary Bethune also supported the case Brown v Board of Education by putting her opinion in the “Chicago
Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune was an intelligent woman who fought for women’s rights and equality in education. Bethune grew up in poverty, as one of 17 children born to former slaves. In the 1800’s-1900’s African-American’s were not given many opportunities, but it became a different story with Bethune.
On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, a mysterious aircraft circled overhead U.S. navy’s most important naval base at Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Many personnel misunderstood the situation as a naive pilot flying in unauthorized areas until additional planes appeared atop with red circles, which were promulgated as the rising sun, the Japanese symbol for war (Wukovits 8). However, this “surprise” attack came with a reason: The U.S. had been at political odds with Japan for over a decade, as it had ceased importing oil shipments from Japan. Although the military tried to defend themselves to their utmost power, America was not prepared enough. Bombs were dropped, destroying infrastructure, killing 2,403 civilians and wounding 1,178 others (Kiong 1). Franklin D. Roosevelt, and navy personnel could have prevented these losses. In retrospect,there were many prognostications that, if were scrutinized more meticulously, the United States government could have used to prepare
Sequence and structural proteomics involve the large scale analysis of protein structure. Comparison among the sequence and structure of the protein enable the identification on the function of newly discovered genes (Proteoconsult, n.d.). It consists of two parallel goals which one of the goals is to determine three-dimensional structures of proteins. Determine the structure of the protein help to modeled many other structures by using computational techniques (Christendat et al., 2000). This approach is useful in phylogenetic distribution of folds and structural features of proteins (Christendat et al., 2000). Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is one of the techniques that provide experimental data for those initiatives. It is best applied to proteins which are smaller than 250 amino acids (Yee et al., 2001). Although it is limited by size constraints and also lengthy data collection and analysis time, it is still recommended as it can deliver strong results. There are two types of NMR which are one-dimensional NMR and two-dimensional NMR. One-dimensional NMR provides enough information for assessing the folding properties of proteins (Rehm, Huber & Holak, 2002). It also helps to identify a mixture of folded and unfolded protein by observing both signal dispersion and prominent peak. Observation in one-dimensional spectrum also obtains information on molecular weight and aggregation of molecule under investigation. In spite of this, two-dimensional NMR are used for screening that reveal structural include binding, properties of proteins. It also provides important information for optimizing conditions for protein constructs that are amenable to structural studies (Rehm et al., 2002). NMR is a powerful tool which it w...
During the time, Jim Crow laws were established and were maintaining racial inequality. African Americans were then required to take literacy tests and pay poll taxes in order to vote. Subsequently, she helped other African Americans prepare for the test.
As a strong math, science and engineering student, writing has not come easy to me and by taking this class, I was hoping to become a stronger writer. Throughout the semester, organizing ideas in logical ways has become straight forward thanks to the peer discussions and review I have had. Before this class, I struggled to transition between ideas and discuss each idea in a logical sequence and, unfortunately, my language arts and history grades suffered as a result. By exuding effort and receiving guidance, my hope was to improve my writing and prepare myself for the college writing which would be
What standards are being used to judge these papers? Do my desperate all-night writing sessions, in ways I don’t understand, help me improve? How did I learn to write at a level that has helped me succeed up to this point? My early writing education is mostly lost to my conscious memory, but I do think that regular reading, from a young age, of books of all sorts loomed large in that education. I remember a prose piece from sixth-grade “honors” English And Reading class called “Mutants”.
There are four main levels of a protein, which make up its native conformation. The first level, primary structure, is just the basic order of all the amino acids. The amino acids are held together by strong peptide bonds. The next level of protein organization is the secondary structure. This is where the primary structure is repeated folded so that it takes up less space. There are two types of folding, the first of which is beta-pleated sheets, where the primary structure would resemble continuous spikes forming a horizontal strip. The seco...
Over the past semester, I have found the most challenging part of this course to simply be the transition from high school composition classes to college. Because writing expectations are so different in college than in high school, even with AP and Dual Enrollment “college level” classes, I first found myself being overwhelmed with the pressure to write the perfect first draft. The pressure came from knowing how much a final draft of a paper contributed to my grade. This left me sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time with thoughts of what I wanted to say racing through my head, but unable to deliver these thoughts into organized, structured sentences. I learned, through writing my persuasive essay, that instead of trying to write the paper start to finish and already in its perfect form, it is easier for me to look at the paper through its different components and focus on them individually, then work to best organize my ideas fluently.