Dear Papi,
As the months go past with me in Philadelphia and you being in Florida, it makes me think about you every day. I wish I had made more time to call you. I'm very jealous of your warm weather and beaches. I want to take a trip down there soon to come see you however I have to get my grades up first so maybe later in April or early May. Things have been pretty good up here and when I get down there I would love to tell you all about it, but let me tell you a little something about whats going on in school and what were up to.
I chose you to write too for my reflective letter because I've never sent you a letter quite like this one. School is never the topic that gets talked about because we are always talking about our lives catching up on other things. You've always been so kind to me in every way and I hope that we can start communicating on a regular basis. I haven't written a letter in a really long time too so hopefully me telling you about my journey in English Comp 100 won't be boring. We wrote weekly reflective essays about our travels through building our own website.
When the year started my teacher for English looked identical to one of my good friends Dan Bier, and to the right is a comparison. I was amazed and immediately made this "pic-stitch" as the app on the iPhone is called and sent it to a few of my friends. Amazing right? Then next in class we had to write down on a piece of paper a few things about ourselves and when it came to writing down a secret, I didn't take it seriously enough. So, I ended up saying a real secret at the end to the whole class that was more legitimate.
Our classes during the beginning of the year were getting cancelled due to weather a good bit so it threw some of the timing of the class off but not by too much that we couldn't handle. We then starting making our websites which I thought was going to be really exciting, due to the fact that I have never made my own website before. We had to blog just about every week about certain topics or just weekly reflections on what we were doing during the week. Our first assignment came quite quickly and it was a creative non-fiction essay which I did based on one of my best friends Larry, who has decided to leave school and join the United States Marine Corp. He will be leaving in mid July.
Some people in the class got to share their stories and what they had to write in their Creative Non-Fiction essays. I found that some peoples stories were entirely the truth, just how I could talk about Larry. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when he leaves it's going to be completely surreal and I don't really like thinking about it because he is such a close friend of mine. When we started doing all of our blogs I could see how the writings we were doing were going to help me put together all of my thoughts into a well rounded essay about a dear friend of mine.
Over the next couple weeks, I had a blog assignment called a writers roundtable and I'd say this is the one I had the most trouble with in the beginning because I wasn't too sure what I was doing. However our teacher posted examples of them and soon after I figured it out and I believe mine is definitely a good one. We also had to show some scenes in the sense that we must “show” a strange place to us that we can imagine and think about as you read, and a place that is familiar to us and that we can describe in great detail. We had to contextualize these places to the best of our ability and making them see the scene through words.
In class when we were doing all of the showing and telling about familiar and strange places, we did an exercise with one of my favorite movies of all time. "Ferris Bueller" is one of the best movies ever made, in my opinion, and when we were doing this movie I was immediately interested. We were talking about the different ways they using showing and telling in the movie and it was incredibly interesting because I never looked at a movie like that before and it truly opened my eyes to a totally different side of movie watching. And as you know Papi I love watching my movies more then anything. When I used to write papers I never thought about how I could be showing a scene instead of telling it in narrative writing. You can make a scene seem so real in a readers mind with the right wording and all I needed was a little bit of guidance from a good writer such as my teacher. This was also something that wasn't terribly difficult for me to figure out I feel as though I was comfortable with this writing because I just told everything how it seemed in real life, only I put it into words in play by play manner.
Our next major assignment was to write this, the reflective letter, to a close person in our lives that we don't get to talk to all the time. I really wanted to write it to you because I haven't gotten to see you or tell you about how everything is going and what I've been up to in my classes. This class has been a blast but I fell really far behind towards the end due to a concussion I sustained from head trauma. However, I had to get back to work as soon as possible. Let me tell you a little about Larry and my Creative Non-Fiction Essay. When it comes to Larry he is one tough dude and he has always had aspirations to join the Marines. In my story I told all about his life and how our lives haven't gone as "normal" as the majority of our friends. Normal to us however is something that no one will understand because we haven't been through the worst by any means, going to private catholic schools and the prestigious Saint Joe's Prep, but we have for sure seen and been through some really tough hardships that many of our closest friends aren't going through and will not go through hopefully. We stick together because we have each others backs and support one another to the fullest extent.
This class changed my writing in every way and it got me to think more outside the box when I'm writing. Something that I've always hated was writing but this class made me enjoy it and it became a lot easier and more fun for me. I wasn't very on top of all my work this semester for this class but I think that my finish product isn't half bad at all. I think I did some really good writing and in other areas it could have been better. Just knowing that though will get me to be a better writer in the future. When I look back on one thing with this class it's the fact that I actually was interested in what was going on. I had a tough semester with work and everything in my life and couldn't get to class all the time, but I can seriously say that this was the only interesting class I have taken since sophomore year of high school that I actually enjoyed being in when I was there. This kind of writing opened my eyes and when we had to write our biggest paper of the year, the I-search paper, I wanted to go all out and do something great. He said not to do it on capital punishment which was my first topic however I changed that really quick, but I didn't change the subject of incarceration. I talked about the benefits of rehabilitation centers over incarceration. I found so much good information and I found it all incredibly interesting. Rehabilitation centers will do more for a mind that is just chemically imbalance to live in society with others safely.
I'm incredibly happy that I took this class because I haven't gotten to write like this in my entire life and I had a blast with it. Since my time of serious writing came to a stop in high school because I didn't take it seriously enough, I've been wanting to figure out how I could become a writer because I want to have a passion for something I just am not sure if I really want it to be writing. I love writing now but only on certain things that interest me because things that don't interest me then I will struggle with till the end of time. It's just so unappealing to me that I just don't want to know anything about it.
I wish I got to talk to you more about everything and see you much more often but we will see each other very soon Papi.
Hopefully you enjoy this letter,
Jonathan.
As the months go past with me in Philadelphia and you being in Florida, it makes me think about you every day. I wish I had made more time to call you. I'm very jealous of your warm weather and beaches. I want to take a trip down there soon to come see you however I have to get my grades up first so maybe later in April or early May. Things have been pretty good up here and when I get down there I would love to tell you all about it, but let me tell you a little something about whats going on in school and what were up to.
I chose you to write too for my reflective letter because I've never sent you a letter quite like this one. School is never the topic that gets talked about because we are always talking about our lives catching up on other things. You've always been so kind to me in every way and I hope that we can start communicating on a regular basis. I haven't written a letter in a really long time too so hopefully me telling you about my journey in English Comp 100 won't be boring. We wrote weekly reflective essays about our travels through building our own website.
When the year started my teacher for English looked identical to one of my good friends Dan Bier, and to the right is a comparison. I was amazed and immediately made this "pic-stitch" as the app on the iPhone is called and sent it to a few of my friends. Amazing right? Then next in class we had to write down on a piece of paper a few things about ourselves and when it came to writing down a secret, I didn't take it seriously enough. So, I ended up saying a real secret at the end to the whole class that was more legitimate.
Our classes during the beginning of the year were getting cancelled due to weather a good bit so it threw some of the timing of the class off but not by too much that we couldn't handle. We then starting making our websites which I thought was going to be really exciting, due to the fact that I have never made my own website before. We had to blog just about every week about certain topics or just weekly reflections on what we were doing during the week. Our first assignment came quite quickly and it was a creative non-fiction essay which I did based on one of my best friends Larry, who has decided to leave school and join the United States Marine Corp. He will be leaving in mid July.
Some people in the class got to share their stories and what they had to write in their Creative Non-Fiction essays. I found that some peoples stories were entirely the truth, just how I could talk about Larry. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when he leaves it's going to be completely surreal and I don't really like thinking about it because he is such a close friend of mine. When we started doing all of our blogs I could see how the writings we were doing were going to help me put together all of my thoughts into a well rounded essay about a dear friend of mine.
Over the next couple weeks, I had a blog assignment called a writers roundtable and I'd say this is the one I had the most trouble with in the beginning because I wasn't too sure what I was doing. However our teacher posted examples of them and soon after I figured it out and I believe mine is definitely a good one. We also had to show some scenes in the sense that we must “show” a strange place to us that we can imagine and think about as you read, and a place that is familiar to us and that we can describe in great detail. We had to contextualize these places to the best of our ability and making them see the scene through words.
In class when we were doing all of the showing and telling about familiar and strange places, we did an exercise with one of my favorite movies of all time. "Ferris Bueller" is one of the best movies ever made, in my opinion, and when we were doing this movie I was immediately interested. We were talking about the different ways they using showing and telling in the movie and it was incredibly interesting because I never looked at a movie like that before and it truly opened my eyes to a totally different side of movie watching. And as you know Papi I love watching my movies more then anything. When I used to write papers I never thought about how I could be showing a scene instead of telling it in narrative writing. You can make a scene seem so real in a readers mind with the right wording and all I needed was a little bit of guidance from a good writer such as my teacher. This was also something that wasn't terribly difficult for me to figure out I feel as though I was comfortable with this writing because I just told everything how it seemed in real life, only I put it into words in play by play manner.
Our next major assignment was to write this, the reflective letter, to a close person in our lives that we don't get to talk to all the time. I really wanted to write it to you because I haven't gotten to see you or tell you about how everything is going and what I've been up to in my classes. This class has been a blast but I fell really far behind towards the end due to a concussion I sustained from head trauma. However, I had to get back to work as soon as possible. Let me tell you a little about Larry and my Creative Non-Fiction Essay. When it comes to Larry he is one tough dude and he has always had aspirations to join the Marines. In my story I told all about his life and how our lives haven't gone as "normal" as the majority of our friends. Normal to us however is something that no one will understand because we haven't been through the worst by any means, going to private catholic schools and the prestigious Saint Joe's Prep, but we have for sure seen and been through some really tough hardships that many of our closest friends aren't going through and will not go through hopefully. We stick together because we have each others backs and support one another to the fullest extent.
This class changed my writing in every way and it got me to think more outside the box when I'm writing. Something that I've always hated was writing but this class made me enjoy it and it became a lot easier and more fun for me. I wasn't very on top of all my work this semester for this class but I think that my finish product isn't half bad at all. I think I did some really good writing and in other areas it could have been better. Just knowing that though will get me to be a better writer in the future. When I look back on one thing with this class it's the fact that I actually was interested in what was going on. I had a tough semester with work and everything in my life and couldn't get to class all the time, but I can seriously say that this was the only interesting class I have taken since sophomore year of high school that I actually enjoyed being in when I was there. This kind of writing opened my eyes and when we had to write our biggest paper of the year, the I-search paper, I wanted to go all out and do something great. He said not to do it on capital punishment which was my first topic however I changed that really quick, but I didn't change the subject of incarceration. I talked about the benefits of rehabilitation centers over incarceration. I found so much good information and I found it all incredibly interesting. Rehabilitation centers will do more for a mind that is just chemically imbalance to live in society with others safely.
I'm incredibly happy that I took this class because I haven't gotten to write like this in my entire life and I had a blast with it. Since my time of serious writing came to a stop in high school because I didn't take it seriously enough, I've been wanting to figure out how I could become a writer because I want to have a passion for something I just am not sure if I really want it to be writing. I love writing now but only on certain things that interest me because things that don't interest me then I will struggle with till the end of time. It's just so unappealing to me that I just don't want to know anything about it.
I wish I got to talk to you more about everything and see you much more often but we will see each other very soon Papi.
Hopefully you enjoy this letter,
Jonathan.