Friday, May 13, 2011

Driving Home Your Point

Illustration. That's an interesting word. For  me, the word immediately conjures an image of pictures in a child's storybook. Those pictures help the young reader understand what the words mean. Basically, that's what the writing style of illustration does -- it uses an experience, a story, and specific details to enhance the reader's understanding of a point the writer is trying to make. 

Your writing assignment: Select either #5, #7, or #13 to use as the topic sentence of an illustration paragraph (p. 80). Be sure to use appropriate transition words or phrases.

My response:

     A sense of humor can make difficult times easier to bear. Take this academic year, for example. I was hired to teach at a high school just one week before school began. That meant packing up my classroom at the middle school where I had been teaching for the past ten years, making numerous trips from Lantana to Loxahatchee with my SUV stacked and packed. My goal was to set up my new classroom (and my 1200 book library) before students arrived while simultaneously simultaneously attending pre-school meetings and coming up with lesson plans for the week. I was barely up and running on the first day of school, and I have felt like I was behind schedule all year. The stress of being at a new school with new rules  and trying to adapt to a completely new grade level built up so greatly that I forgot to have fun. The self-imposed pressure to live up to my previous successful performance levels with my students only added more stress. On top of that, I, unbelievably, expected my high school students to be better behaved than my middle school students had. Ha! I finally lost it in February. The event caused me to take a hard look at myself, and when I did so I realized I had abandoned my sense of humor.  Those same issues still impinge on my daily duties as a teacher; however, now I find something to laugh about in each class and at lunch, thereby relieving a boatload of stress upon the waves of laughter.

Your turn: Post by the 17th at 5:00 p.m., please.

14 comments:

  1. Misfortunes can sometimes teach valuable lessons. To me misfortune is a relative term. After all, you could look at Thomas Edison's first thousand failed attempts at inventing the light bulb as a thousand misfortunes or instead you could look at those failed attempts as a thousand valuable lessons on how not to produce a light bulb. Misfortune is almost always followed by a lesson in life, which can only be learned through the experience of life's proverbial ups and downs. Now to be honest, some of the misfortunes in my life where of no fault of my own but the majority of my misfortunes were constructed by my own hand. I made some terrible decisions when I was younger. I take full responsibility for those decisions, but at that time the consequences of those decisions seemed more like misfortunes. As a result of those consequences I was taught the value of things such as freedom, hard work and helping others. After all, I can look back at the bad decisions of my youth and see how my misfortunes, or so I thought at the time, taught me lessons on how to deal with life. Those lessons are an invaluable tool, not only in my life but also in the lives of others. Whenever possible I try to share the experiences of my youth with another person that may be able to learn from my mistakes. Today, I can honestly say for the most part my life's misfortunes have now become my greatest assets.

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  3. A sense of humor can make difficult times easier to bear. When I am in a mood that just isnt a good time, whenever someone makes me laugh its almost takes it all away. I just quit my job after being there for 5 years. My co-workers and boss are treating me not so good. But, my friends that I do have try to make it better my making me laugh. I know that some people are stuck in troubled situations and feel that nothing will make them feel better but to me a good laugh and humor can make it all the most better.

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  4. A sense of humor can make difficult times easier to bear. For instance, I felt a lot of stress not being able to help pay the bills because I was saving up to buy a car. The feeling of being powerless to help put me in a bad mood, but every time I went to work, I had my cousin there to tell silly jokes about it. Having that laughter makes the stress go away and I realize not to take stressful situations seriously. Also, doctors have said experiencing positive emotions can help the body cope. Being able to laugh can make it worth while.

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  5. Unfortunately, cheating at college (or stealing at work) is more common than most people realize. Some people believe taking little things home with them from work is okay as long noone see it, which they don’t even realize that there are stealing from their job. For instance, an office clerk who might need some office supply for her home, she might found it easier to take some paper home with her, because she figure that no one would miss it,infact it just a little bit of paper. For example, a thief who get caught stealing, and he was arrested and sent to Gail for 3 months as soon as he had came out; he went and did the same thing again. My point is that don’t start stealing because this is an abnormal behavior. Therefore, stealing is wrong, regardless how little it might think it is. People how have choose to steal, have to realize that there is a consequence to paid because taken somethings that don’t belong to you; it is wrong.
    In conclusion, I believe in life we have more than one option, if a person take something that didn’t belong to them and they come to realize that than their should return it and apologize. Regardless how little it might be, if its not your thing don’t take it.

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  7. A sense of humor can make difficult times easier to bear. For example when my mother was crying and hurt, remembering the death of my brother last year, I decided to put on a comedian dvd for us to watch. This comedian and his sense of humor was just hilarious. My mother and I were on the floor laughing so hard. She had tears coming from her eyes. I then decided to use my sense of humor and tell some jokes as well. She cried more tears of joy. That night we were at peace and slept well. So for future references whenever she gets sad and cries; I know that I can use either my humor or her favorite comedians humor and jokes to make the situation easier for her to handle. Having the ability to make someone laugh when their down is such a wonderful thing. It eases any pain and makes it bearable.

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  8. Misfortunes can sometimes teach valuable lessons, so misfortunes are not always unfortunate. A wise man once said " there are only blessing and blessining in disguise ". I am a firm believer in this statement as I have faced many less than fortunate fates only to find that as I worked my way through, what appeared to be troublsome, only became helpful in some other way. I have also found that the things that have upset me the most in life have become the most fruitful. While being disturbed by an event I was enabled to exsperience the peace on the other side. There is alway a valuable lesson in adverity, however; it is up to me to stay on the path that leeds to the lesson.

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  9. L. Spann

    Writing Assignment pg. 80

    Unfortunately, cheating at college or stealing at work is more common than most people. Realize. Cheating on tests, assignments, and even on the job causes a impact on your life and family. For instance, I had a math test today, and I studied very hard for three days in the Student Learning Center where all students can study, do homework, research, and tutoring lessons for free. Shortly after arriving in the classroom, the teacher gave us a preview of the test. Of course the class asked a lot of questions before the teacher answered the last question. After completing half of the test, I looked up to my left and Bill was starring at my paper. Then suddenly, I glaze at my right and Susan had her notes out, hiding behind another student while doing the test. Another example, is that, I was in my Science class, sitting beside another student that was complaining about reading a lot of chapters in our textbooks, and home works assignments, because they wasn’t doing the assignments, and we had a pop up quiz base on the work we turned in. Instantly Molly turned around and ask for a pencil in the middle of testing just to look at my paper and repeated the four answers softly so she will remember them. Another incident, I was in a group study and everyone had to participate in order to receive a grade, everyone met in the Student Learning Center to work on the project but Dorothy, so a week later Dorothy pulled me to the side asking me to give her a copy of my work and she would change the answers around. In other words, cheating will never get you ahead in life and you will never enjoy victory knowing it wasn’t you that finish the race honestly.

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  10. Unfortunately,cheating at college(or stialing at work) is more common than most people realize.I think those two crimes go side by side.For instance, stialing is taking something what is not belong to you,so and cheating at college is taking someaone else work,or getting grade and not work for.For example,when I was in second grade ,one of my classmates never did her homework.She always find someone to copy the work and then she get a good great.In the end of the year she did't pass exit test,so this teach me not to be a lazy and do all my wark.Another example of stialing,it's happend at my job.One of my co-workers she was a bartender,her regester was short every night twenty and more dollars.After a few weeks of investigation my boss let her go,becouse cameras in the office shows that she was taking some money and put in her pocket.So all my life expiriences teaching me,every lie will come troe sooner or later and it's bring you only trabble.

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  11. Misfortunes can sometimes teach valuable lessons. For instance at one point in my life I was able to own a sod business. It consisted of basic labor, small paper work and little supervision. My investment always broke even but I never lost faith I stayed in the business and looked for work every day trying to expand my business. Nevertheless my time came when I went from making 40 dollars a day profit to 2000 dollars a day profit. Like all good things they must come to an end I had to shut the business down because of the economy. I did some research and I found out that in a recession there is a lot of depression which means more usage of drugs and alcohol and some of the strongest companies today were built in a recession. Also technology keeps increasing more in this recession than ever. Since my business went down I chose technology for my new career. The misfortune of my business led to a valuable lesson “next time start a business that is always going to be in demand.”

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  12. Unfortunately, cheating at college(or stealing at work) is more common than most people realize. Cheating at college is something that happen alot these days. The way students cheat these days is unbelevieable. For example, cheating is something that happen when someone didnt study for their test and feels that other person did .If they only knew that cheating is not going to teach them any thing nor get them any where in life. Stealing at work is sad, even if you are taking supply from the office that is called stealing because you didnt buy it.

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  13. Misfortunes can sometimes teach valuable lessons in any situation. For instance, I wasn't the easiest teenager for my parents, I was very rebellious. In order for me to learn not to do certain things or hang out with certain people, I had to basically experience it for myself. For example, the summer of 2002 I was involved in a very bad car accident. A bunch of us girls took a trip down the shore after one of our graduation parties, like I said I was a rebellious teenager. I went along even though my parents had warmed me not to go, being that the girl that was driving us there had a bad past with drinking and drugs throughout high school. On the way back from the shore that night we got in the accident due to my friend Sarah being drunk behind the wheel. At the time no one knew that she was evening drinking at the shore but because of that accident 2 of my good friends were killed. Thankfully I made it out alive with only a broken wrist and a few broken ribs. After that night, I never saw my life the same again. It was like I instantly grew up from an immature, rebellious girl to an adult. when I think back now all I had to do was take the advise of my parents and know that everything they want for me or tell me is for my own good. That's why for me I know that misfortunes can teach us a lesson. It sure did for me, my life has changed for the best after that dreadful night.

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  14. A sense of humor can make difficult times easier to bear. For instance, when my sons father passed away his mother was very sad and hurt. We all was crying and feeling down. So I decided to go to the movie store and rent her favorite African movie. Joe Joe her favorite character in the movie was to funny. His sense of humor had washed all of our tears away, turned our frowns into smiles. We laughed and joked throughout the movie. I knew that this movie and Joe, Joe's sense of humor would brigten up the room.

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