On Proofreading

Here is an example of why it's so imporatant to proofread your essays before you turn them in for a final grade. Great laugh! Enjoy! (P.S. Thanks Dantes for this one! Took me a week to post it up but I finally got it)

A past student of mine.....

Sent me this link to vote for his movie "Reflections" in an amateur film contest that he entered. Some of you will recognize one of the actors in the movie as Gilbert Lacayo. I just thought I would share this with you so you can give them some support.

https://webmail.fiu.edu/cgi-bin/fetch.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fedcommunity.apple.com%2Finsomnia_fall07

The movie title is "Reflections" under FIU.

"The United Fruit Company" by Pablo Neruda

I thought I would post this for all of my ENC 1102 students. You should recognize it as the poem that Che recited to Fidel.

"The United Fruit Co."

When the trumpet sounded, everything
on earth was prepared
and Jehovah distributed the world
to Coca Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors and other entities:
The Fruit Company Inc.
reserved the juiciest for itself,
the central coast of my land,
the sweet waist of America.
It re-baptized the lands
"Banana Republics"
and on the sleeping dead,
on the restless heroes
who'd conquered greatness,
liberty and flags,
it founded a comic opera:
it alienated free wills,
gave crowns of Caesar as gifts,
unsheathed jealousy, attracted
the dictatorship of the flies,
Trujillo flies, Tachos flies,
Carias flies, Martinez flies,
Ubico flies, flies soppy
with humble blood and marmelade,
drunken flies that buzz
around common graves,
circus flies, learned flies
adept at tyranny.

The Company disembarks
among the blood-thirsty flies,
brim-filling their boats that slide
with the coffee and fruit treasure
of our submerged lands like trays.

Meanwhile, along the sugared up
abysms of the ports,
indians fall over, buried
in the morning mist:
a body rolls, a thing
without a name, a fallen number,
a bunch of dead fruit
spills into the pile of rot.

-Translated by Jack Hirschman from The Essential Neruda


Here is a link to an interview with Natalia Revuelta, who is still alive today and living in Cuba, still a strong supporter of her ex-lover. There is an interesting detail that you may pick up on from the daughter, Alina, that may have some relation to one of the stories in the text. Anyways, this is just some additional info I though you might find interesting.

Blog #7

ENC 1101

For essay #3 you have been asked to explore a new community, or sub culture within your university community, so that you may learn new things and then share that information with an audience of peers. The sub cultures on campus are just one of the thousands of different types of communities that exist through out the world, and more often than not, people in general do not expose themselves to other communities out of fear, lack of comfort, unfamiliarity, inability to open up and discover, or experience, a set mind frame of what is right and wrong or acceptable and inacceptable, and many other reasons.
National Geographic airs a show called "Taboo", where different cultures and customs are explored and aired to the world to view. Watch the following clips and write a reaction on your blog. However, you are not to allow your emotions to drive your reaction. Stay away from "Oh my gosh, what the heck was that, that is sooooo gross, I can't believe people do that, that's crazy, what's wrong with them?" Etc, Etc, Etc. I want you to step outside your comfort zone and what YOU have been raised to find acceptable, morally correct, religiously correct, etc. and open up your mind. Allow yourself to learn to appreciate other cultures, other customs, and react to the video using logic and reason as well as a level of maturity. You audience for this entry is the entire Blogger.com world. Anyone could be reading your entry, therefore you must adjust your voice and style so that you may establish credibility for yourself as you engage in a discussion about cultures and communities. You may also use the experiences that you are gaining with the clubs/organizations you are working with, or any other prior experiences you have had in the past, or perhaps encounters you have had with people "from another world" other than yours. What can you learn? What did you learn? Did you allow yourself to learn anything?

Blog #7

ENC 1102

Write a response/reaction to the movie we watched in class today taking into consideration the purpose for showing this movie was for historical background information. Do not allow your response to guided by emotions and preconcieved opinions. Base your response on what you saw in class today. Remember that this is a public blog and other people in the internet community could come across your blog. You want to sound logical and with reason when you present your discussion.

Think for yourself...Can you handle it?

ENC 1101 & 1102

Upon suggestion of my 12:30 ENC1101 class, I have decided to let you think for yourself with this weekend's journal entry. Let's see if you can handle it! I dare you to think for yourself! Better yet,

Ahhh Responsibility...

Such a big and daunting word when you are so young and perhaps flying on your own for the first time, unsure of what to make of all the freedom and liberties to actually make choices and not have to suffer consequences. Well, not really I guess. As some of my students learned today. A textbook. A textbook that is part of their learning process, something that is told to them from the first day of class, is a part of the class and must be brought to class, seems too much of a responsibility to handle. Or how about doing blogs on time? I wonder if they know that it has a time on it that says when it is posted? Well, regardless, when I check anytime after 12am Tuesday, if the entry is not there, they don't get a grade. Or how about not reading when a reading is supposed to be done? Hmmm, some learned that lesson, right? Ok, so maybe this is my chance to use this thing and vent, 75% of you won't even notice it because the only time you check on my blog is Monday night sometime after 6pm to read the prompt you need to do before midnight. But to the 25% of you who do read, well, let's just say that there are times when I get to be dissappointed, and it sucks.
Responsibility is something I teach my kids on a daily basis, it isn't something I should feel compelled to teach a bunch of college students. You all made a choice to be here, I doubt anyone put a gun to your head and forced you, and that said you all make the choice to do your hw, do your essays, do your blogs, etc. Whether you choose to do a good job is yet another choice. And perhaps since the decision to go to college is a choice, you don't see it as an obligation to yourself. But you should. Getting an education is your personal responsibility to yourself, and if you choose not to take it seriously than don't waste my time or your peers or your own for that matter.
Writing is a task that you will be required to do for many of your classes as you go on with your undergrad work and most likely when you enter the workforce of your profession. If you don't learn how to write an essay the way it should be written, don't expect to pass too many classes. But most importantly, you need to learn to think for yourselves, speak with conviction, think about life and the world around you critically, outside the box. If you can accomplish this then you can write critically, and that is the most important way to write.
I sign off with a quote, a thinking quote,

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. ~John F. Kennedy

Social Issues...Who Cares?

ENC 1101 & 1102 Blog Prompt


There are many social issues going on in the world around us that more often than not we don't even realize they are there. Whether in your community, in your state, country or across the globe in another country, these social issues, regardless of our attention to them are happening, and in one way or another affect our lives whether we want to admit it or not. Some of you perhaps watch the news on a daily basis, or read the newspaper, or online news and are aware of these issues, some of you may choose to put on blinders because you may think "There's nothing I can do, so why bother", or "The news only spews bad news and I only want to surround myself with positive news." Perfectly understandable. Perhaps there isn't anything you can do, perhaps the bad news around the wordl will ruin your happy, peaceful, life. Or maybe you do care, but you just don't know what you could possibly do. Regardless, the issues go on, they happen whether you want to acknowledge them or not. And I'm pretty sure you could sleep perfectly fine your entire life without worrying about the worries of the world. But this weekend, for my class, you are going to concern yourself with the issues of the world. For your blog entry, you are to discuss a social issue that you are aware of, (and if you are unaware of any, I guess that means you will have to do some "research"), take a stance or a position, how do you feel about it, discuss how you learned or discovered the issue, and any other relevant and intelligent remarks you would like to make about the issue. Most importantly though, as a part of this assignment, to prepare you for your final essays, you will encourage your classmates to learn about this issue as well. When you write your post for your blog, you will include a minimum of 2 hyperlinks that will redirect your readers to further information about the issue. Notice that the word "Hyperlink" is underlined, please click on it for more assistance. You will also be required to visit one of your peers blogs, read their blog and leave them a comment. This blog entry will be worth TWO grades. I sign off giving you some information on a social issue that you will not read about in the papers or see on the news.

In the city of Ocotal, in the northern part of Nicaragua, there live approximately 30 children at or near the local dump. These children not only live in some of the most deplorable conditions imaginable, but they spend the entire day, from 7am to 6pm working, rummaging
through the garbage at the dump, under inhumane conditions, collecting aluminum and plastic so they may in turn sell them to recycling buyers. The little bit of money they make is enough to feed them for the day. Of these 30 children twenty are boys and ten are girls. They range in ages from 4 years old to 16 years old. Of the thirty, only 5 attend school. Most no longer can read or write because it has been so long since the last time they went to school. Most are homeless and orphaned, and some even live at the dumpster itself with only a plastic tarp as cover. There are no adults with these children except for one mother who
is accompanied by her young daughter every day. Although Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America, it is also one of the poorest. While it is rich in beauty and culture, it is an impoverished country, and ranks as the 2nd poorest country of the western hemisphere after Haiti.

I think everyone should watch this video of Black Bush lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxOzMz2jlrs

For Shits and Giggles...well, not really

I found this video on one of my students pages and I thought it was fantastic. So I am sharing it with the rest of you, however, this is not a journal prompt. Please know that I have raised the bar on your entries. The purpose of this "journalling" activity is to spur those little brain cells and get you all thinking. Perhaps this is a new concept for some of you but I have full confidence that you are all capable of succeeding in this genre. Think outside the box, inside the box, under the box and on top of the box. Remember that I am only providing you with a "prompt" to guide you into thought. Now, you may have noticed that the word prompt is underlined and perhaps that will spark your curiosity to click on it. If it does, and it should, you can read the definition of this word as a verb to clarify any misunderstandings. :)

Carlos Mencia

I saw carlos mencia's stand up and for the light hearted I think it would have been offensive in terms of the way he addresses the stereotypes of other ethnicities. But I think the way he expresses his jokes which is in a very vulgar and uncaring way is unique and that yes every other comedian out there uses racial stereotypes as part of their act, but carlos does so with an attitude and an "in your face" method. Many of Carlos Mencia' s jokes always deal with real life situations, and to me it actually makes me think of such situations and the problems they involve and at the same time laughing about it. In my opinion, Carlos Mencia is very successful in getting his point across since he doesn't ever hold back on what he wants to say just because he might offend the audience, and that is something we should praise him for. Simply, he is just expressing his right of speech. At least it seems that Carlos says the things that he says not just to satisfy the viewers but to get his beliefs across. He may not appeal to everyone but I think he is the most politically correct comedian out there.