Rule for Writers Chapter 3......

In Chapter 3 of Rules for Writers the main focus was global revisions. The important aspects of a successful revision are focus, purpose, content, organization and your strategy. Writing what you want to write and then stepping away from it for a while is important. After you have cleared your head and are ready to come back to read it, you have to come back as a member of the audience, not as the writer. This is an effective way to be able to evaluate the writing from another point of view. Next you need to revise your sentences for any grammatical errors and their effectiveness on your topic. Your last task is to proof read your paper. Effective proof reading is done out loud and slowly, checking for any errors that may still be left. Reading out loud helps you say and hear what you wrote opposed to what you thought you wrote.
I have never gone this in depth with my editing of my papers. I think that this will help me become a much better writer. I plan on applying these editing tools to my next paper. I have never felt confident in the papers I turn in, but I think that this will help my confidence in my papers. I found this Chapter to be very informative and I look forward to exercising these editing tools.

Coming Home Again

Coming Home Again, by Chang-rae Lee, was about the importance of the food preparation in a Korean family‘s life. This story was about a young boy who loved to spend time in the kitchen with his mother. Many of their memories were made in their kitchen. The little boy would rather spend time watching and helping his mother cook rather than going out and playing like children his age normally would. The food also helped the little boy and his mother reunite after he came back from boarding school. The two of them had a hard time communicating, so his mother would make him his favorite meal to help break the ice. Food was a way that this family shared and showed their love for each other.
The little boy was sent off to boarding school for about ten years before he came home for good. He decided to come to stay once he found out that his mother was very sick. His mother had Cancer. He decided to put all his years of observation in the kitchen to use and started cooking for his family. He had high hopes that his mother would like his cooking, but it was difficult since she wasn’t able to eat. Like many great chef’s, when his mother passed away all her recipes were gone too. Some of the greatest cooks only made mental notes of how to prepare their meals, they never made it to paper. The little boy decided to stay home for good and continue cooking for his family to honor his mother’s memory.
This was a touching story. I think that it is so sad that many traditions are nonexistent anymore these days. My mother and father would tell us stories of their big family meals and how breaking the bread with your close family and friends is all about. I was brought up in a similar setting. I hope that I can carry the tradition onto my family so they know what the best memories are really all about. I really enjoyed reading this story.

Chapter 2....

Reading chapter 2 I learned a few very important tools to help improve my writing skills. First tool that I learned was that there are a couple of important steps to starting a great paper. Having a strong thesis is one of the important steps and secondly to introduce your topic with a catchy statement or sentence. You want to grasp the readers attention and then following that sentence would be a supporting sentence to your thesis . You will then nee to draft the body of your essay. Drafting the body of the essay is basically the paragraphs that support and explain your thesis. At the end of your paper comes your conclusion. The conclusion wraps of what you have said in the body of your paper and ends it with your final thoughts.
I found that reading this chapter has helped me better understand the dynamics of building a strong paper. I plan to exercise what I have learned to help build a stronger paper in the future. I will focus on developing a strong thesis and attention grabbing sentence in my introduction. I also will use these tools to leave my readers with a sentence or question that will keep them thinking about my topic long after they have finished reading it.

Rough Draft Essay #1....

Hunting is a sport that many people participate in all around the world. Many avid hunters say that it isn’t a passion, but its an obsession. There are many types of game that people hunt and many different reasons why they hunt. As you can see in my image I love to hunt. My favorite game to hunt are turkeys. I hunt because I love the outdoors, enjoy spending time with both my father Paul and my fiancé Doug and lastly, I love to eat wild game.

I am going to share with you a very memorable hunt that sticks out in my mind. It was a cold, foggy March morning. The sun was not up yet when Doug and I arrived to our hunting spot. We got out very quietly and geared up to hike in. My gear was a little awkward to put on because I was eight months pregnant with my daughter Stella Rose. We loaded our guns ever so quietly so we would not disturb the turkeys in the nearby trees. Once we were all geared up we headed off into the woods to find a good place to set up.

Doug and I hiked in approximately one mile until we found the perfect spot. We cautiously crawled out into the dew filled meadow to set up our decoys. We were racing against the sun that was starting to peak over the mountain ranges in the distance. We were successful in getting our decoys set up without being spotted by the turkeys, so now we had to find cover to sit in. I remember I had to find something quite large to hind my massive belly behind. I found a huge oak tree to set up against. Doug also found a tree right next to me to sit against. We pulled down our face masks to blend in with the colors of nature and to hide our light skin tones. Now the hunt was on. We sat for about twenty-five to thirty minutes before the turkeys woke up and started to gobble. When you hear that first gobble your adrenaline starts pumping uncontrollably. Once I was able to calm down and regain my composure it was time to start calling to the turkeys.

I began calling to the turkeys with soft yelps. Soon after I called I had a male turkey respond to my call by gobbling to me. For those who don’t hunt a male turkey is called a tom and a female is called a hen. I was pretending to be a hen trying to attract a tom. I responded back to the tom a little louder so he knew I really wanted him. We kept calling back and forth to each other until he was fairly close. I looked up from my hiding spot to see if I was able to see where he was. I saw him making his way around a large boulder as he was headed down the hillside right towards our decoys. My adrenaline started pumping uncontrollably again. I knew it was time to start raising my shotgun into shooting position. Once I had my gun up it was just a matter of time until he was mine.

The tom continued down the hill puffing out into full strut. All his fathers were fanned out displaying his beauty to me, “the hen.” He strutted and gobbled around our decoys ever so masculine like for about ten minutes. He put on quite a show for Doug and I. Once he was in shooting range, at about thirty yards from where I was sitting, I aimed at his bright blue and red head. Once my sights were set on his head I let out a loud put, which in turkey language means danger. This makes the turkeys tuck their feathers back in and extend their heads out to look for danger. Once he extended his out, making a great target, bang he was down. I had shot him square in the head. I was so excited. Doug and I were then able to come out from cover at that point and walk to where my kill was laying waiting to be claimed. The tom was laying in a beautiful patch of wild lavender and yellow flowers. It was a beautiful sight to see those flowers covered in a nice shade of red. I know this sounds terrible, but it is a hunters humor.

Doug helped me pick up the tom and drape it over my shoulder. When you’re pregnant you aren’t supposed to carry anything heavy, but I wasn’t going to let anyone else pack out my kill. It is the best part of the hunt to get your back covered in blood from a fresh kill. Again a sick hunters thing! Once we made our way back to the pickup it was photo shoot time. Doug took many pictures of the turkey and I, but out of all of them the one I chose to post captured the same smile I had on my face once I knew I had killed the tom.

I have to say that this was one of my most memorable hunts since I had the two loves of my life with me. Nothing beats sitting out in nature watching and incredible sunrise, hearing all of nature waking up around you. For the few hours we spend out in the woods hunting and killing turkeys we feel like god. We hold the turkeys fate in our hands. I have enjoyed hunting since I was three years old walking along my dad’s side deer hunting. Hunting is the way that we put one hundred percent organic food on our table and spend time with the ones we love. I hope that you have enjoyed the story of the most memorable hunt I have ever had.

Rules for Writers Chapter 1

While reading chapter one I learned that writing a successful paper takes many steps and careful planning. Making sure that you are familiar with your topic and developing an outline are key components to writing successfully also. Outlining will help you divide your ideas up appropriately so your paper is well organized and flows. One of the tools they talked about in this chapter was annotating texts.


Annotating the text includes underlining, highlighting and taking notes. Once you have done all of these things than you should feel confident in developing your thesis. The thesis is what you plan on proving and convincing your readers to believe also. The thesis can always be revised once you get deeper into your writing of the paper, but having a launching point is important. Now onto the actual writing of your paper.

Taking into consideration who your audience will be is very important. Being creative in your writing is important and will help you be able to capture the attention of any audience. This is something that I know I really need to work on. I always write only to impress one audience member and that is my instructor. If I broaden my thoughts I may find that my writing skills will improve. I am going to take the things I have learned from this chapter and apply it to my next writing assignment.

The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me

d. How is education a means to save one’s life? How is Alexie attempting to save the life of the students he works with? How did Alexie save his own life?


 Alexie demostrated how important having an education can be, especially to children who grow up in poverty. Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in poverty. His father loved to read, therefore; Alexie began reading Superman comic books at age three. On the reservation that Alexie grew up on the children didn't really care about becoming educated as they were never expected to become anything great in their lifetime. As Alexie said many times in his story they were all just indian children expected to be stupid. Alexie beat all the odds and has grown up to become a great writer.

Alexie now spends time going around to the other reservations trying to teach young indian children about the importance of having an education. He explains to them how having an education saved his life. He was able to move from the poverty driven reservation and went on to become a great writer. By visiting the schools Alexie is helping the children become more interested in reading and writing. He is also talking to them about how there is more to life than being on the reservation forever. He has been a great inspiration to the childrren as well as he has inspired me to want to become better at reading and writing.

Rules for Writers Chapter 46.....

As I read chapter 46 in Rules for Writers, I learned how to write about different pieces of writings. The main steps that I learned to follow were, first take notes as I am reading the text, second compile a quick outline to help myself understand the main points and the thesis of the paper, third develop my own summary about the paper using my notes and my outline.




I found this assignment to be very helpful. I think that as a fairly new writer I will benefit greatly from following her instructions on how to construct a summaries on different papers. I think that the hardest part for me is analyzing what the author is trying to say. You can either understand them easily, or you can be completely off. This is going to be the most challenging part of writing summaries for me.