SRTE

Hey, Ms. S.,

I filled out my SRTE form. Thanks!

Love, Maria Miralda-Tena

Self-Evaluation

This semester I learned a lot about Penn State, its community, and my part in its community. Our class took multiple field trips to different locations on campus and I got to know University Park and State College better because of it. We visited the Palmer Museum of Art, the Arboretum, and took a field trip to go see Kiss Me Kate at the Playhouse Theatre. I got to see many different forms of talent all having to do with art.

One of the most important things I learned is that art can be found in places one wouldn’t think to look. The obvious place is the art museum but it was also found in the arboretum, the playhouse theatre, and even just walking around campus. The nature, building, and the tight knit community is artistic in that there is passion and involvement everywhere. When I looked up a definition for art, I found this: “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination”. From this and from taking English 15 this semester, I concluded that art and humanity are very closely related. In many ways, humanity is art and vice versa.

My writing also improved over the course of the semester. We wrote four essays focusing on rhetoric and overall, they helped me improve my persuasion in my essays. I learned about pathos, ethos, and logos persuasion and incorporated them into my essays. Peer reviews and the teacher’s comments helped me improve my essays as well, and I think the days where we took a class period to read over each other’s essays helped me too. Having an opinion from not only my professor but also my peers was very helpful because there was more than just one reader looking at my paper.

I wrote a lot about Penn State in this course and I really enjoyed exploring my school and its affiliation with the arts. However, I also liked being able to expand my horizons at the end of the semester and write about something outside of Penn State.

A nice break from persuasive essays and essays about Penn State was the memoir we wrote half way through the semester. This was an essay that took longer to write because I had to think back in my memory to a time in my life I wanted to record and share with others. This was an essay that I definitely spent time on and wrote from the heart.

The blogs were another creative way to express our opinions in a more informal way. They were not stressful like the bigger papers, and I felt I could write what I wanted and how I wanted. I liked being able to record my thoughts after seeing the musical, after visiting the museum and after going to the Arboretum. It was a nice way for us to record our thoughts and I would definitely recommend this in all English courses.

Overall, this was one of my favorite courses I took this semester because I learned a lot and had fun doing it. The class was pretty laidback, which was nice and I really got to explore the campus, my writing, and myself.

Thank you so much for everything! J

Self-Portrait with Rollercoaster

The first poem was very subtle in that it wasn't clear that the author was talking about herself. She described a girl with a blonde pony tail who went on roller coaster after roller coaster. It made her feel free and it sounded like a lyrical version of most kids thoughts when they go to theme parks. The beauty of this poem was that only the title gave away that it was a memoir. It was written in third person and only the students in class who payed close attention to the name of the poem recognized that it was about the author. This was a good start to the poetry reading.

Overall, these poems were about life including topics like childhood, growing up, and relationships. The best poems are about relatable topics like these. When people feel as if they can relate to something it means much more to them and poems that get through to people are the most touching kind. All of these poems were about a hard or memorable experience that can be expressed in many ways, one of them being poems or short stories.

I loved the diversity of these different poems. Some had eight parts and were put into the category of a "lyrical essay" while others sounded and looked like regular poems. Some were in paragraph form and did not necessarily sound like a poem at all. I loved that they did not all sound the same and they kept our attention.

I loved hearing these poems and "lyrical essays", they were so good! I hope to be able to write like that one day. :)

The Wonders of Wawa

Wawa is a home away from home to many people especially to those who reside in New Jersey. I have yet to visit a town or city in Jersey without finding at least one Wawa. Even me, who lives in a small college town named Princeton has a Wawa just ten minutes from my house.

How can I begin to describe it? Basically, everything one will ever need is in this place. There's ice cream and frozen foods in the refridgerated section, candy and chocolate in one aisle, and donuts in the front aisles. There's the famous "wawa brand" iced tea and lemonade that triumphs any other kind and is half the price. There are wawa slushies, smoothies, different kinds of coffee, and hot chocolate. There's fresh fruit, pre-made wraps, and chips. Not to mention the variety of hot foods behind the counter like mac-n-cheese (my personal favorite), subs, sandwiches, and soup. There's even a little section with over the counter drugs! The list goes on and on and anytime you're looking for something new to eat, wawa is the place to go.

Another reason why Wawa is the best, at least in my town, is that you will always see someone you know in there. Since everyone loves wawa and goes at least once a night on the weekend, you're bound to catch a glimpse of someone from high school or some other activity you're involved in. The best is going in there and seeing drunk college kids or even kids you know just messing around in there. Wawa is the place to be and to those who have never been there before, GO! It's the best place ever and you won't regret it!