Successful College Essay Exemplar

          Today we further analyzed what makes a really great college essay. The class was about how to make our college essay successful in the eyes of colleges that we want to admit to. Throughout class we came up with around 5 ideas on how our essays can be successful using the sample essay that the girl had wrote that got her accepted into 5 ivy league schools. Some of the things that we had chosen as a class was 1) Show personality, 2) Hook the reader, 3) Use experience, 4) sophisticated word choice, and 5) Tell a story. The last is my favorite because despite people being able to do the first 4, they need to incorporate everything they know and be able to tell a story that is worth reading. Use experiences and show the abundant personality that you have as an individual so colleges can think they you are perfect for their campus. Despite these great ideas to follow the teacher had more. 1) What is the purpose?, 2) use concrete realities to show abstract qualities, 3) Zoom in on the exact moment!, and lastly 4) use active and sensory details. It's pretty much the same as what we as a class had came up with. However, there is one very important one that is an outlier compared to the rest. This was to zoom in at the exact moment. At first, I didn't believe that was all that important however, after showing us an essay that didn't have that quality made a huge difference in the quality and substance of the essay. Hopefully using what we learned in class can help us to write a really well worded and successful essay to take the next step into another milestone in our lives.
           Using what we learned today can greatly help us in the future. With us almost being seniors, college admissions are basically around the corner and essays are going to start being due. We can use the techniques that the teachers have taught us in order to be more successful than others in our hunt for college. Also the exemplar was a very good way for the students to see what needed to be done in order to write a great successful college essay that hopefully will influence us into writing a great one as well.

English Notes: May 24, 2018

IWBAT:

• College essay stuff.

HW:

• Find a passage that shows Holden acting childish and one that shows him acting like an adult. How does this show TENSION within the character?
• Find a passage that shows how Holden’s change in environment affects his consciousness. What is the change?
• Find a passage about the ducks. Why do they keep coming up?

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Bildungsroman → means formation novel, coming of age narrative.

The Catcher in the Rye is a story about growing up -- a MODERN view of an entire literary form!

Modern → Gray area (continuum) constantly changing by nonlinear (more complex).

How do you make your college essay successful? Student Ideas:

• Express your personality through your writing. Show that you are beyond just a number.
• Hook the reader into your essay --> make them WANT to know more.
• Using the experience/moment to show personality and who you are.
• Elaborate/sophisticated word choice to convey whatever you're trying to get the reader to understand or see in you.
• Be a good storyteller! These are narratives, not a persuasive essay. Sure, you want your essay to push the reader into wanting to accept you into college, take an interest in you, but you're telling a story about you. This is where you break that mold.

River's Ideas:

• Successful - what is the PURPOSE? use the language of your prompt to determine what you must show: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
• Use concrete realities to show abstract qualities (METAPHOR, PERSONIFICATION, SYMBOLS). Example: Abstract Characteristic: Determined Rambunctious Curious Concrete Reality: Legs fluttering to get to her location Threw a churro Philosophical Questions
• Zoom in on the EXACT MOMENT! Example: Soccer Freshman year of soccer, Not making the team, Having to tell my dad when he got home from work, Working hard to get on the team.
• Use ACTIVE verbs and SENSORY details. What do you smell? Taste? See? Hear? Feel? Be specific, complex vocabulary, will hook the reader.

Next, we took a look at a "not so hot" college essay in contrast to the Costco college essay so we can see how truly effective these tips are.

One thing that the person in the second essay didn't do well that I think really did cripple their whole essay was the fact that they were talking about being a thespian and how much they liked acting but they whenever they spoke about acting they mainly complained about everything they had to do as an actor in theater. They especially highlighted some childish behavior and didn't say that they learned how to be a more cooperative actor, team player, or anything like that. Instead they talked about how they learned their passion for entertaining. They then closed out their essay talking about acting again! It didn't make sense to me and they never took their writing to the next level. You can apply what we did in class today to our college essays or even your entire college career (that is if you choose to go to college). Even if you choose to take a different path in life, you can apply this to how you choose to express yourself and use this knowledge to your advantage when applying to jobs in the near future.

5/23/18

In class today we finished the discussion we started yesterday on the good fortune and the bad fortune of some of the characters in The Cather in the Rye, then we started to have a new discussion on Holden, asking "is Holden's life and story and tragedy and if so what makes it tragic and which type of tragedy would it be?" I thought that it had more of a Romantic Tragedy than Modern because it's mostly his fault he's failing in life, not the system, because he is a liar, has cynicism, and flunking  every class which is his fault. Of course he has some things in line with Modern Tragedy too, a systematic flaw that affects Holden is that the the world can't help him. That's what the discussion was, but we had homework. What you had to do was read this college essay that's posted on classroom, and read an article on that same college essay and say what are the five components of a college essay. What knowing the components if a college essay will help us to write college essays on our own, so that our college essays are to the best of our ability, and reflect us, the people who are writing them.  It also helps us to understand the teenage author of the sample essay, her background and her goals and such, and compare them to Holden.The article covers the admission officers who analyzed it to the brim saying what they think makes the essay so good, so you may use their thoughts to form your own idea of how a college essay should be. What analyzing Holden's tragedy does for us is understand where he stand on the good fortune/ bad fortune scale, and understand just how modern his tragedy is and just how romantic it is. Anyway it's not to hard of an assignment, it's due tomorrow before class starts at 7:00, get it done for tomorrow.

5/23/18 - Catcher in the Rye Chapter 5

Today Mr. Rivers asked us to consider how Holden Caulfield would be ranked as far as good fortune and bad fortune would be concerned and to compare him to Ackley and Stradlater.  Our group thought Holden would fit in the middle with Stradlater being at the top because of his romantic success and Ackley being at the bottom because of his physical ugliness and his social awkwardness.  This situation perfectly fits with something called 'The Goldilocks Complex'.  Holden intentionally puts himself in the middle of two opposite personalities.  So, like Goldilocks, he's "just right".  Not too good, not too bad.

Next, we thought about the way Holden might fit into a Romantic tragic figure or a modern tragic figure.  Our group argued about which category Holden fits in.  Some people thought he was a romantic tragic figure because of his tragic flaw of being kicked out of school and being a liar.  Some people thought he was a modern tragic figure because the system was working against Holden.  Since Holden is a student, the system is school.  He's failed out of four schools, so obviously the system isn't meeting his needs.  Our group finally decided on Holden as a romantic tragic figure because in a way he fits that category better.  He has sort of a 'noble' birth because he's part of the upper, wealthy class, and it seems like his life might be ruined (he starts narrating the book from a mysterious place, maybe a mental hospital).  But other groups disagreed and thought his tragedy was Modern so we're still not sure what the definite answer is. 

Then, we read a page when Holden described his brother Allie, which seemed to be the most honest sharing of Holden's true feelings about something.

I think in today's world, Holden would not fit into the middle in 'the goldilocks complex.'  Today, the fact that Holden was failing out of school (and three other schools as well), would rank him much lower than he's ranked in the book.  Sure, he's wealthy, but that wealth can't buy him success.  Also, Ackley's physical appearance might not be considered so gross or disgusting; people might accept him despite those problems.  So Holden might be ranked in the bottom.

05/23/18

Today was an interesting class. We started by talking about the status of the main characters in the book. Three students from different groups were asked to go up and place each character on a scale where good fortune was at the top and bad fortune was on the bottom. Stradlater was placed at the top and Ackley was at the bottom. Holden was placed in the middle and Rivers told us that this is whats called the Goldilocks Complex. The Goldilocks Complex refers to Goldilocks from Goldilocks and three bears. As it pertains to this book this is Holden hanging around Stradlater and Ackley so he appears more normal than he is. By placing himself with someone ranked so low and someone so high it makes him perfectly in the middle. Rivers than directed our attention to a passage in the book where Holden becomes a lot more personal with us than we have ever read so far. After this, we discussed the romantic and modern aspects of Holden. My group came to the conclusion that Holden is more modern than romantic. We talked about the fact that he is messing up his life but in more of a modern way. see romantics believe that when you mess up that it is absolute. However, moderns see it as more of a grey area we decided that Holden's situation is more of a grey area because he hasn't screwed for his whole life. it was just a temporary screw up.

5/23/18

Today in class we continued discuss the three characters that we have been introduced to so far, Stardlater, Ackley, and most importantly, Holden. Throughout this year we have been using the Good Fortune, Bad Fortune chart, which we used today in class. Ackley was placed all the way at the bottom of the chart to show that he has bad fortune. The reason he has such bad fortune is because of the way that Holden was describing him, gross. Not also does he have an unattractive physical appearance, but Ackley is jealous of Stradlater and how popular he is. All the way on the top of the chart, we placed Stradlater for the highest of good fortune. Stradlater is placed at the highest point because of his romantic success. Lastly, Holden was placed in the middle of the chart. He is not extremely popular like Stradlater is, but he is not as hated as Ackley is. Towards the end of class, we tried figuring out if this book is a Romantic tragedy or a Modern tragedy. The personal flaw of Holden through a romantic tragedy perspective, is his lying, but the systemic flaw in a modern perspective is that the world doesn't/ can't help Holden. At the end of class, Mr. Rivers read the end of chapter 5 to the class, which mentions Holden's younger brother, Allie, who had died from leukemia. Allie's character shows the sincere emotion and memory that Holden has of him.

Deciphering the differences between a Romantic tragedy and a modern tragedy can help find a deeper meaning to the story. We can see what part of Holden's life is destroyed and what it means. Also, we can dig deeper into Holden's personal flaws and how he feels about them.

05/22/18

Today was a good class and it was also my birthday, So happy birthday me. But for real now today's class was about the book The catcher in the rye just like yesterdays class. Although today's class was very different from yesterdays class because we were comparing Holden from The catcher in the rye to Nick from The Great Gatsby We asked which ones we would trust more based off of our knowledge of both characters and a quote from each book about each character. My group decided that we would trust Holden more than NIck just because Holden was more honest with himself whereas Nick was acting like he was better than everyone else. Now to the part where today was a little bit like yesterday. We talked about Holden and how he acts and his mindset. We found that Holden hates the fact that he lies all the time but he cants help it because it is now apart of him. Long story short we got to find out a lot more about Holden and started to rank each character on a scale from good to bad fortune.

May 21 2018

Hello, blog, today in class we focused all of our attention and time towards talking about the catcher in the rye as you probably know everyone was supposed to read chapters one through five for homework away and I personally dislike having to read for homework but something about this book made the time go by fast and it was very easy to get lost in the pages. It must be the interesting writing style. Most of the class time was spent on talking about the characters and the class broke them down and talked about the explicit features and the implicit features of each character. I will paste a few of my notes from today to look at and help understand more about today's class.

• What does Holden tell us about his environment?
• Snobby/preppy
• Ads, portraying something different. FALSE
• Being lied too. “Steak on Saturdays.
• Holden hates phonies but also is phony. (nick carraway)
• Hates himself  

Ackley	Stradlater
No boundaries Acting like you need him Eavesdropping Nosy creepy	Lazy Blames small things for his personal failures GIRL stuff. (car ride) Athlete Nasty razor Secret slob

• Holden is expelled.
• Holdens fourth school.

5/18/18

Today in class Mr. Rivers went over that if you had any blogs yesterday and Tuesday that you are able to reschedule because of the power outages. We dove right back into our notes that we had on Tuesday and discussed a  question that he had put on the board. The question was "Do all streams of consciousness look the same? If you were to sketch your own consciousness into a stream what would cause it to change course?" After we were done with discussing with our group we were able to open it up to the class and someone said that not all streams of consciousness is the same because we all have different perspectives, and each person is unique. Another person said that there is always a constant change, for example death is inevitable. At the end of the discussion we were able to circle it back to the idea of perception/ experiences. For example, if you and your sister live the same life but handle it differently shows perception. Mr. Rivers then read us a chapter from Ulysses and asked us to see why this was an example if consciousness. It was an example of consciousness because everyone has different brains and that chapter was just one sentence and it shows that he was a madman. We then read the first page of The Catcher in the Rye to see where Holden's consciousness is represented. We learned that Holden's consciousness is all over the place and as you read you can see that he jumps around a lot. We also discussed that he talks like he is immature, there are a lot of run-on sentences. In the first sentence he pushes through topics that he does not want to talk about. We discovered that Holden can be a romantic because he hates movies, he is anti-new technology. (Holden rather read a short story then watch a movie.) However, Holden can also be a modernist because when it comes to his brother it is complex. For example, he his jealous of his brother and calls him names but he also respects him because he has money to get a new car. At the end of class we went over where Holden can be and we used evidence from the text to help support our theories. Some people said that it could be a hospital, a school etc. Our homework for tonight was posted on google classroom, and we have to read 1-5 over the weekend. We also have questions to answer for Monday's class.

Overall, today's class can be helpful because we talked about how everyone's brain is different. And now in the future you can use your knowledge of consciousness and apply it to a book your reading, just like we did today with Ulysses and Holden. We went over the fact that everyone's consciousness is different because of life experiences and how experiences can affect someone mentally. You can go into the real world knowing that everyone is different and that you don't know what someone is suffering mentally.

5/15/18

Today in class Mr. rivers talked about how to use ¨bildungsroman¨ to distinguish between modernism and romanticism and how pre-modernist philosophers like Sigund Freud influenced modernist writing. We were able to distinguish these four sentences from our discussion on 5/14/18 to be either modern or romantic.
1. Adults undermine children, which destroys innocence and the free spirit of childhood. (romantic)
2. Children become adults after a certain age or event that pushes them forward over time.(romantic)

Bildungsroman 5/15/18

In today's class Mr.Rivers handed out our new books, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. Before going into our lesson he said that this book has been banned in other schools because many people find it disturbing. People think at a young age, students should not be reading books about alcohol, drugs, prostitutes, and using curse words. However, this book gives the students an opportunity to see the character really learn from his mistakes. After discussing the book, and what we will see throughout it, Mr. Rivers went over the IWBAT. The first IWBAT is use the bildungsroman to distinguish between modern and romanticism. A bildungsroman is a coming of age story, many people can see it in books, movies, and even TV shows. The next IWBAT is analyze how pre-modernist philosophers like Sigmund Freud influenced modernist writing. Before we got into Sigmund Freud we went over the 4 analysis that we said yesterdays. We had to pick whether they had  more of a modern side or a romantic side.

1. Adults undermine children, which destroys innocence and the free-spirit of childhood (ROMANTIC)

We said this was a romantic because it was free-spirited and it connected with childhood. Another reason why we said it was romantic was because it was a binary, it connected adults to a child.

2. Children become adults after a certain age or events pushes them forward (ROMANTIC)

We also said this one was a romantic because it distinguishes the fact that you either have to be an adult or a child you can't pick both. And the last reason was it was that when you are a child you go in a linear movement. You go from a child to a teenager to a adult etc.

3. Adulthood is difficult to define because one might be independent but not mature (or vice-versa) (MODERN)

We said it was modern because it is difficult to define adulthood. The last reason would be that it questions definitions, so it is hard to understand what is actually being said.

4.Becoming an adult means making difficult decisions between want and needs (which is therefore determined by perspective) (MODERN)

We said it was modern because it is in the gray area because of the fact that perspectives change for each person.

After that we went over Sigmund Freud. Freud was a psychologist that discovered that ones brain is more complex than we really think. Freud says that humans constantly have internal conflicts, that leads to your subconscious, and conscious. A symbol that he used to explain this was an iceberg. The iceberg can resemble someones thoughts. For example, the iceberg underneath the water (things we can not see) is your subconscious that is beyond our reach. The top of the iceberg is an example of what we see and how we react to it whether it is good or bad. However, other people see it as a stream where everything is constantly moving in the same direction. It is considered to be more real than realism and it reveals truths through subtext. It also questions the traditional forms of writing.

Overall, what we learned today in class can be used in the outside world because as we read Catcher in the Rye we can detect the mistakes the character made and make it into our own. Meaning if someone every encountered a difficult situation they will know right from wrong. Learning about Sigmund Freud is helpful in the long run because we can now know consciously what we are doing and how we act. For example, animal v. non-animal, we humans are similar to animals but we are more able to control the way we feel.

5/11/18

Today in class Mr, Rivers talked about different ways we can interpret the songs we will use for our assignment. He talked about how to not just look at the chorus but to look at the important parts of the song that you really have to listen for. He talked about how things could be metaphors and mean multiple things. I was able to find all my songs in class for Walter who was my choice. I choose if i had a million dollars because of the way Walter talks to Travis about  what he will buy with his money. Father and Son because of the way Walter grow up and turned into his father in the way he cared for his family. Cats in the cradle because it talks about how Walter walks all the time so he isn't their for Travis' childhood. Better not wake the baby because it shows how Walter is allowed to follow his dream no matter what just as long as he doesn't screw over his family and destroy their lives. Resist and bite was my first and favorite choice because it relates to how Walter has to struggle against society and the odds stacked against him but he never gives up. This relates to real life as it allows people to look deeper into music and potentially ads. It allows people to really be able to decipher what they are about and who they target. People would they learn to not be influenced by it and tricked out of their money. It also allows people real understand the emotions behind the song and relate with the artist. 

A Raisin in the Sun Song Playlist 5/9/18

In class today we reflected upon the discussion we had yesterday on "This is America" the new song from Childish Gambino, (Donald Glover) and used what we talked about to compare them to the characters from "A Raisin in the Sun." like how in the music video the shootings show that violence and hate towards black people still exists today, and how that compares to the bombings mentioned in the play and Mr. Lindner and his association not wanting the Younger family to move into their new home. The assignment that we started today was a character song playlist. Since we compare the themes and symbolism of "This is America" to the characters in the play, now we have to do that again but with the songs that we choose. So basically the whole assignment is you choosing songs for a playlist, like you would usually make on Spotify or Soundcloud, for any one of the characters from the play you choose, containing songs that best show their, dreams, feelings, challenges, and perspective on life. This whole assignment is another way of helping us identify symbols, and themes and connecting them to other works like we're doing now, or to real life and current events. And not just that we're learning to connect these to people weather it be to fictional characters like in Raisin in the Sun or to real people and to their works and their perspective. Relating topics and themes is the point of this, relating a songs message, themes and stance to a character's opinion or a character in general provides a better understanding of what they're trying to say. Anyway you have to lookup six songs in total and explain and connect them to your character in four sentences or more and it's due Friday. This should be a fun a assignment since I'm pretty sure everyone's got a favorite artist or song they want to share.

5/8/18

Today in class we started out by talking in our groups about how we thought John Oliver critiques segregation in today's schools.  We came up with how he uses comedy to take away the blame on the children,  to show all of the limited environments, to show the division of school systems, and to take the tone down a notch.  We then finished watching the John Oliver video that we did not complete yesterday.  Mr. Rivers gave us an opening image of Childish Gambino's music video to decode and we thought he looked crazy, looks unkempt, we see wealth, along with the implement of being held up/held down.  We then compared it to a racist character image where it has big lips, says chicken, the big eyes.  Noticing in these two images that Childish Gambino is sort of making a reference to this racist character as they are making the same facial expressions.  We then proceeded to watch his music video of his song this is America.  There were many symbols in this video about the truth of black people's lives today.  One of these were when he shoots the first man and drags him and cradles the gun in a cloth showing that the gun is more important than the human being.  He is showing that this is a decades old issue but brings in things like kids with Iphones to show it is a new issue too.  He then shoots a choir with a police car there and it shows that crime is ignored.  A major point is that chaos and violence is hidden by social media and distract people from the severity of it. The lyrics also show a point when he shoots the people he sings "this is America."  Another unnoticed symbol was the idea of "death" riding a horse being chased by cops and heading straight for the children.  And despite all the violence no cops are actually seen, only their cars. Overall it shows that every time there is celebration death follows showing that the American Dream can't be achieved by everyone because there is no equal chances.  With the time remaining in class we watched the video again to get the full effect and to make sure we didn't miss any of the chaos in the background. 

5/2/18

Today in class, although primarily focused on finishing reading "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry, we went over a excerpt/quote from yesterdays reading. During a relatively heated exchange between Walter and the rest of his family over the issue of Walter calling Mr. Linder to make a deal on the house, Ruth and Walter say these two things to each other.

Ruth- "You talking 'bout taking them people's money to keep us from moving in that house?"
Walter- "I ain't just talking 'bout it baby - I'm telling you that's what's going to happen!"

Mr. Rivers then had the class analyze these two quotes from Ruth and Walter in our groups. We were tasked with finding why each character (Mama and Walter) thinks she/he is right in this situation. The major reasons that the class decided that Mama thought she was right because: in taking money from Mr. Linder, they were compromising their morals and giving into the money; additionally it has been/was Mama's and Big Walter's dream(s) to own a house of their own and submitting to the white pressure was destroying that dream. The major reasons that Walter thought he was right in this situation were: because the money came from his fathers years of laborious work, he felt very guilty for losing it and needed to 'redeem' himself by getting at least a portion back; additionally, by losing all of the money, Beneatha's hopes and future of becoming a doctor have essentially disappeared, increasing his guilt for losing the money. After the discussion with the class was over, we proceeded to read and finish the play (we read pg. 144 - end).

This lesson in class today can be applied to real life because, especially if you want to become some form of English major/teacher in and outside of college, you are going to need to know how to dissect information and look deeper into characters' decisions and the reasons behind their choices. You don't even have to be in a form of English profession in order to use the skills used and/or learned in class today. Being able to look deeper into not only characters but a text is a useful skill that can be used in book reports, DBQ's, or any other form of research paper that requires close reading and analysis of pieces of evidence. In fact, the use of close reading skills doesn't even have to be school related, if reading a magazine, a news article, or a book/story, closer reading might reveal some new details and information that some people might have missed. However, the majority of close reading skill are used in a school setting or for something related to school, which makes the skill even more important because school essentially determines what and where you will do and go in your life.