Thursday, September 26, 2013

Jun-hee Kang/ first draft/ Tuesday 11 a.m

                                                                                     Think different

           When I was in second semester of 8th grade, our class got the graduation project to go over to high school. This project was one of the most important project in last middle school semester. This was the project that I have write over 10 pages long essay and open up the presentation in front of more than hundreds of students, teachers and parents. This is how project starts, I get to choose the topic that I was interested before and present for one hour, then during presentation, 8th grade teachers (English teacher, Social Studies teacher, etc.) will grade and the sum will be my actual result. I have seen seniors before, how they suffered from preparing their project by passing nights and weekends in school. I do remember a day that friends and I made fun of them, which I never knew before that my day was coming.

           As all my age boys were interested with mechanics, maybe not, I chose the topic 'Robot' because during that year, I was falling in love with it. Robots were my top interest than any other things. I spent all the weekends and nights at school, just like my seniors did. Kindly, 7th graders did not forget making fun of us too. During one month, I handed more than 7 times of papers to be perfectly done. Using Internets and magazines as a reference and presentation were my first experience. Practicing presentation was really hard because I was so nervous that I kept forgetting the lines that I have to say. This huge project was just hard for me to handle, it caused me a great stress, and later on it made me cry when I was alone in the auditorium. , After I cried, I started to practice again on the stage. Suddenly, I realize that I was not the only one in the auditorium. There was principal sitting on the chair and looking at me. Holy Father, what the hell. I was so embarrassed that I just stand there and keep looking at her. She then came to the stage and said,

"I know how hard it is, I have seen your seniors, crying, yelling and kicking the wall. But they all did it. Don't have to be perfect Jay, just try your best so that you don't regret when you are done."

This one sentence has touched my mind to think this project different. I was thinking this project as just to get a highest score and have to be perfect than try to show why I love robots and what I want to show to the others. From that day on, I really tried my best to finish up the project till last minute. When the day came for the presentation, I thought about the sentence she said, then I walked on to the stage and began my presentation.

From that day on, I always keep in my mind and ask myself just as head teacher asked me when I walked down from the stage. "Do you regret now?"

 

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3 comments:

  1. To Junhee Kang from Dabida Kang


    a.What was one detail that made this experience seem real to you?

    The sentence you mentioned that you were not the only one in the auditorium really dragged me into the story more than the other part. I think adding ‘suddenly I realize’ had the strong emotional connection for me to think and put myself in the situation. And the following as ‘Holy Father, what the hell’ seemed to be what came right out of your mouth, which made the story more real.

    b.Where there any places you got confused? If so, where were they?

    It wasn’t confusing. But in your second paragraph, you kind of generally explained your practicing the presentation, but all of sudden, it jumped into a specific night that your whole essay seemed to focus on – the embarrassing moment with your principal. So, my suggestion is, it might be a little help to separate the second paragraph into two parts: the general and the specific (the specific one may start with the sentence like one day, I had this embarrassing moment. I was in the auditorium, practicing…. ). But then your introduction will become too long, so I’d mix the first and the second general part paragraph into one paragraph, and make the body (the moment with the head teacher) longer with more explanation or details on that day.

    c. Reread the first paragraph of the essay. Do you think this is a good beginning? Does it make you feel like reading one? Explain.

    For me, the first paragraph seemed plain. It’d been better if it had a hook to draw readers’ attention. Maybe start with questioning, have you ever done personal or silly things, assuming that there’s no one around, when there actually is.
    d.What basic verb tense does the writer use? If the writer changes tense, is tense changing appropriate?

    Mostly past verb tense is used.

    e.What would you like to know more about when the writer revises?

    As I mentioned in ‘b’, I’d like to know more about the embarrassing night. What kinds of lines you were practicing, and how you came to start crying and so on.

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  2. To Junhee Kang from Choe Kyung-Yo

    1. What was one detail that made this experience seem real to you?
    In this “During one month, I handed more than 7 times of papers to be perfectly done.”, the specific number – 7 times- gave me an impression that how hard you were and how much efforts you made.

    2. Were there any places where you got confused?
    In this question, I am quite similar to Dabida Kang’s thought. I guess one paragraph would be better to have one main idea. But the second paragraph has 2 main ideas largely. At first it was talking about the process where you prepared all your presentation, and then it dramatically changed into a scene where you got panic and embarrassed for your presentation. It was a little dramatic change to me.

    3. Do you think this is a good beginning? Does it make you feel like reading on?
    I think it is a quite good beginning. It is enough to capture the reader’s attention in spite of not having a great opening. His detailed descriptions about how difficult the project was, and the last sentence “I do remember a day that friends and I made fun of them, which I never knew before that my day was coming” arouse my curiosity and is also a good bit of fun.

    4. What basic verb tense does the writer use? If the writer changes tense, is the tense change appropriate?
    You mainly used past tense, which is the natural result because you were looking back on your 8th grade. Therefore, I think you don’t need to change the tense deliberately. It is a perfect tense right now.

    5. What would you like to know more about when the writer revises?
    If you add more, I would like to know about what your presentation was, I mean more detailed explanations. Such as, did you stammer during your presentation? What was the most difficult thing in your preparation for presentation?

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  3. Jun-hee Kang/ Final draft/ Tues. 11 a.m

    Think different

    Cameroon which is located in Africa was where I spent my primary school to high school. When I was in second semester of 8th grade, our class got the graduation project to go over to high school. This project was one of the most important project for middle school seniors. This was the project that I have to write over 10 pages long essay and open up the presentation in front of more than hundreds of students, teachers and parents. This is how project starts and graded, I get to choose the topic which I was interested before and submit the papers with 5 evaluation sheets of presentation from the teachers. 8th grade teachers (English teacher, Social Studies teacher, etc.) will evaluate the presentation and that sum will be my actual result. I have seen seniors before, how they suffered from preparing their project by passing nights and weekends in school. I remember a day that friends and I made fun of them, which I never knew before that my day was coming.
    As all my age boys were interested with mechanics, maybe not, I chose the topic ‘Robot’ because during that year, I was falling in love with it. Robots were my top interest than any other things. I spent all the weekends and nights at school, just like my seniors did. Kindly, 7th graders did not forget making fun of us too. During one month, I handed more than 7 times of papers to be perfectly done. Using Internets, magazines as a reference and presentation were my first experience. Writing papers was somehow under control by using lots of information from the library and internet, but the presentation was just going to chaos.
    Practicing presentation was really hard because I was so nervous that I kept forgetting the lines that I have to say. It wasn’t a matter of how well I spoke, memorized or understood the concept of presentation. I’m not that shy or get frighten when I stand in front of many people. But when it is related to a speech, then I get in trouble. This huge project was just hard for me to handle, it caused me a great stress, and later on it made me cry during practicing when I was alone in the auditorium. I felt too much responsibility from this project so it just blew up my head. After I cried I took a deep breath, then I started to practice again on the stage. However, I suddenly realized that I was not the only one in the auditorium. There was a principal sitting on the chair and looking at me. ‘Holy Father, what the hell’. I felt so shameful and embarrassed that I just stood there and keep looking at her. Then she came to the stage and said,
    “I know how hard it is, I have seen your seniors, crying, yelling and kicking the wall. But, they all did it. Don’t have to be perfect Jay, just try your best so that you don’t regret when you are done.”
    From this conversation which did not take up to a minute has touched my mind, to think this project different. I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing, I was thinking this project as just to get a highest score and have to be perfect than try to show why I love robots and why I chose this topic as my graduation project. I realized that I could not find any reason and meaning from it. I was like a robot. From that day on, I really tried my best to finish up the project till last minute. When the day came for the presentation, I thought about the words she said, then I walked on to the stage and began my presentation.
    From that day on, I always keep in my mind and ask myself just as head teacher asked me with a smile when I walked down from the stage. “Do you regret or not?”

    ReplyDelete