Model Senate
My Legislation |
Project DescriptionWhat this project was was the senior class taking upon roles of senators within the real U.S Senate and passing billsin a mock senate . We wrote legislation and did research on topics such as climate change, college debt and immigration, based off of that research along with researching the senators we played as, we wrote legislation around those parameters and ultimately write speeches.
Whay I did was what the majority,of the class did above, research a senator I was assigned and write legislation around the issue my senators committee. I was Senator Chuck Schumer, (Amy Schumer's uncle - fun fact) Democratic representative of New York. I had no special role, just a senator in a committee doing his job. my Speech |
Video Reflection
Writing Reflection/Writing Goals/College Essay Revision
- Write 3 Goal Paragraphs: For each of those three goals, write a paragraph. That paragraph should include:
- What your goal is
- An example from your Tocqueville writing, your college essay, or your blog that shows the need for that goal
- Some ideas about how you can work towards improving this skill for your next piece of writing
- Write 3 Goal Paragraphs: For each of those three goals, write a paragraph. That paragraph should include:
Goal 1 - To improve at writing "Professionally."
When I write, type, or speak; I like to speak my mind. In the real world, I can feel as if that some people and places frown upon writers who "speak their mind" in a that would just seem to be full on rambling. I would prefer not to live like that since I like to speak my mind when I write something. But being able to write in a dialect that is more professional and appealing to certain places or people would be a way of writing that will be very helpful. Some of the early drafts of my college essay, the first draft was very outgoing on a level that could break someone's mind. However, in my recent drafts in my revamped essay, I used words such as "thing" or "Something" which made some of my sentences feel awkward. I was able to express myself in my essay, but I was also able to throw in some neat professional language into my writing. In order to move in a direction that will lead to improve my "professional" writing skill in a future piece of writing that would have me go on about something I like or don't like, and if I feel the need to use big adult words to convey in a way that adults who pull the age card will understand.
Goal 2 - Controlling my rambling.
In my writing, if I find myself writing about something I'm interested in. I love to go on and on about whatever that topic is. For example, you could ask me to write about my knowledge of the Galactic Civil War within Star Wars, and I would be gone. I would be writing non stop while going on endless tangents. Now if I was told to write about that same thing but with a word limit...I would have MAJOR issues. This can be about anything I get caught up in, I'll get really deep. So what I want to do is be able to be concise and to the point in my writing when it comes to having to write about something that has some sort of limit. Plus being concise is also something to be good at since, you don't want to lose your readers attentions. Sadly I don't have any solid visual sort of example to back me up, but maybe these paragraphs I've written. That's one, since I want to be concise but also get in depth with what I'm typing. The main approach I have to improving in this area of being concise is writing my heart out on an early draft. Then get some feedback from other individuals and get their opinions on what could be condensed or removed. Then I would read it myself and go about condensing the wonderful piece of writing in order to be concise.
Goal 3 - Verb tenses
I have a tendency every now and then to constantly switch between past, present, and future tense in some of my writing, which in some cases will throw off my funky flow. In the original draft of my college essay, (which I deleted) some if not all of my paragraphs had the three tenses jumping all over the place to where it confused the group I had in tuning my essay. I needed consistency. So what I plan to do in making this work out is pick a tense and stick to it and avoid jumping all over time and space.
College Revision
This is going to come across rather blunt but I feel like talking about this revision to my college essay is important for me to reflect on. The very first draft of my college essay was good, but the issue here that needed to be corrected was that I had incorrectly interpreted the prompts of my essay. The general prompt was about applying for a scholarship, but I wrote the essay draft as why I wanted to apply to college. So the biggest revision was trashing that original draft and revamping the essay in a whole new light that actually spoke to the prompt on applying for a scholarship. My essay conveyed who I was and what I was passionate very clearly, but as I said, the main revision was directing the essay in the direction of the prompt. Which required rewriting my essay completely. The original draft really showed who I was, however I completely erased it from my google drive. But the first paragraph opened up with me describing a scene I had shot for a series I have been working on for several years. The feedback that really sent me onto revising was having it pointed out that I didn't follow the original prompt right at all. However that draft required lots of revisions such as punctuation or rewording sentences or even cutting things out and replacing them with a better phrasing. However i decided to have some fun with my final draft in breaking the fourth wall. In a way that was similar to how Kevin Spacey would break the fourth wall in House of Cards. "Let me jump right into this, okay? I am a young adult who is half Navajo and Hopi and I’ve written this magnificent paper full of statements and expressions on my intention to apply for a scholarship." In making the growth happen, I had to loosen myself up and just not feel so pressured. That's really all I did, I got critiques and revision suggestions, and got opinions from others on breaking the fourth wall in a way that wasn't obnoxious as the way Deadpool talks to his audience. I wanted to be clever and creative with it.