Joseph Glenn Professor Suzanne Ingram

I originally wanted to know how critical does the teacher wanted to think. I believe the answer to this question is that you can think as critically as you want. I think that's the problem with high school genres, they limited you to how much you could talk about and how far you could go on a subject. It was more regurgitating information that you previously learned and sometimes it was on things that you don't even remember learning. The teacher always said in high school that I looked too deep into the subject, but what exactly is too deep? I honestly thought thinking deep was a good thing, especially when analyzing a piece of literature. I usually think very critically about many things, because as a child I figured out that there is a flip side to everything. My first encounter with this type of thinking was the news, they always showed the negative side of life. Most of the things they talked about were shootings and killings, also they talked about who dropped out of school and how the Nasdaq and Dow were going down again. Now that I'm in college, there isn't much of a limit of how far I can go with my thinking, thus this helps me to explore my writing and not think of it as a boring chore that I'm forced to do. So to answer your question you can think as critically as you want, just make sure that the topic is still able to be understood during the paper.

There are many differences between college and high school, however I will only go over the main ones which I feel is important. One of the main differences is the way that the teachers teach. In high school it's more of a sit down and shut it atmosphere, even if you have a cool teacher it still a rather hostile environment. In high school it seems that there is more

pressure not to raise your hand or get extra help after class, because you feel that many people will think that you aren't smart. That's one of the main reasons that I didnt get extra help. Another difference is the people and the maturity level. In high school many people sweat the small stuff like relationships that didn't last very long, and the breakup that comes afterward. The drama that comes with high school is definitely a problem because it not only messes up your grades sometimes, but it can also ruin your life and how you feel about it. I avoided as much drama as I could because of this factor, and I wasn't going to be emotionally hurt for anyone. While in college people are more mature and don't engage in drama as much, the people are more understanding and don't argue much, but instead they think of a rational way to solve a problem. There were also factors in the English classes that definitely differ in high school and college. In high school you usually wrote about things that didn't interest you and you had to write at least five paragraphs. Most students that I know, including me would just reword some of our ideas about the book once we ran out of ideas in order to make the five paragraphs limit. There were also the books that taught you about certain types of literature. First it was the literature from England, then Asia, onto the Anglo Saxon period, finally to the Native American/American literature. While in college, you write in order to better yourself and to understand new concepts that may or may not help you to be better. I believe that it is good that we don't receive grades for everything in college. The reason that I say that is because we usually did work in high school to get good grades, not really to better ourselves. Usually we just memorize the criteria for the test and afterward we forget the information in order to make space for new things that we would "learn". In college you do the assignments to make yourself better and also you aren't under the pressure that if you mess up on an assignment you will fail. I know that when I received an assignment in high school, I just did

it in order to get a 100% for homework. It also didn't help that our teacher didn't check it for correctness, but simply if you filled in the blanks. I didn't learn anything in the class because I was focused more on grades than actually learning. Although high schools claim that they help people learn, I think its college that truly helps you to do that because the pressure of getting high grades weighs more than learning in high school. The less pressure you have for anything you will usually do better on the activity which is something that high school didnt understand. With college you also have more time to learn usually with schedules and that helps you with the test and quizzes, unlike high school. Some of the things I would disagree with on the High School vs. College list is having less sleep. Believe it or not, I got more sleep here than in high school because of the pressure. I feel more relaxed here because not everything is a grade and the Professors are more laid back, while in high school it's a bit stricter and focuses mainly on short and long term memory. This is the main factor that helps me to sleep better in college than in high school. I would also remove not being able to park on campus. The reason behind this is because in high school you can actually park on campus, but you must pay a small fee. In college you can also buy a parking pass, it's just very expensive and it may not be wise to buy one for your first year of college. I would add that you have many important choices to make in college than in high school. With certain choices in high school they may mess you up for a certain time period, but with college your life may be in jeopardy career wise and literally. For example getting a zero in a class in high school may hurt your grade, but you can possibly get your grade back up. In college you may not be as lucky. I believe that the one that I've been applying the most is thinking critically, but with this concept I've critically thought even outside of the classroom. One of the examples of me thinking

critically was the Coca-Cola poster. I had to use the skills of thinking critically in order to figure out what the message that they stated truly meant. In global connections we had to depict who acted what role in one of the many prejudice TV shows in the early 60's. It was easy to figure out who it was, but it was more of the question of why did they stereotype people like that. Sometimes I critically analyze people, and it usually ends up with me overthinking about something. In English critical thinking helps you to ask questions to the writer in order to better yourself and the writer. You can ask questions that their paper sometimes don't because they weren't specific enough, or you may tell them to answer open ended questions that they left. In the Socratic Seminar I had to use critical thinking in order to get a decent participation grade. I had to use my critical thinking skills a lot more since I didnt have the book to reference to, and I had to think about what other people said in order to comment. The key concept that I've always had a problem with is taking risks. The reason is because I'm focus a lot on if I fail or if I just get denied. I'm especially nervous about grades, because they are one of the most important things during my college career. While some people have a fifty-fifty chance of doing something right or wrong, I may have a seventy five to twenty five chance of messing the grade up. The reason I say this is because for some reason Ive had back luck for a long time. While the reward of taking risks can be astronomical, the failure can be just as impacting. One example of doing this is when I took martial arts. When you spar people, your moves won't be perfect, but in order to get some hits, you must take risks. It's hard for me to take risks because I want everything to be perfect enough so that we won't need to take risks because I fear that I may fail, and I'm afraid of that more than almost anything. I think the only way that I'm going to be more prone to take risks is if I take small risks first before I try something that may change my situations.

Most of my answers are focused on either High School or my childhood before middle school. I think the reason behind this is because I enjoyed those two parts of my life the most so far. My middle school career is a time period in my life that I hated. I was bullied and threatened so you could say that during this time nothing truly productive happened in my life. An example of how school usually went was that some of them tried to act cool and tough and I was bullied a lot because of that. They tried to tell me to "man up" when they were children themselves. Most of what I've experience and that I talk about in these questions are about my high school career because that was around the time where I started to grow up and attempt to be myself. The reason I used my childhood before middle school experience is because I remember certain things during that chapter of my life that actually have impacted me to this day, which also cover the questions asked in this midterm. I talk about my English class a lot because thats where I learned the most. Especially with my teacher Mr. Solt who told us to read 1984, who I had my sophomore and senior year. I was rather curious if we would do anymore analyzing of things; it really interested me when we had to interpret certain genres and what they meant. I don't really have much to ask because I'm enjoying this course because I'm rather interesting in writing outside of class; it also helps me not to overthink. Another question I'm curious to ask is that will English 1102 be just like this? I like the style of the class so far so I just want to be sure of any abrupt changes. Also how frequently can I use the computer in class if my penmanship isnt legible? The reason I say that is because I fear that I may get a zero for a class grade if you cant exactly read what Im writing. I dont really have any concerns about the class and I feel pretty comfortable around people and I really like the atmosphere of the class its calming so I can focus a little more. I also

want to know do all classes have such a relaxed atmosphere. I want to know this so I can prepare if I need to for classes that can be rather uptight.