The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz Write Up

1. I selected the book I brought back from the library because I like thrillers. Also this book was in a section dedicated to being of interest to students.
2. This book has one author, Jules Verne.
3. The title of my book is The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz.
4. This book was originally printed by Editions L'Archipel. The book was reprintted by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska.
5. This book does not have a city printted in but it does have a manufactured in the US note. This is the first english edition, 2011.

In today's excerize, I've selected the thriller The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz by Jules Verne.  I chose this novel because it was in for students section that I felt was a good place for me to look. The book stood out from the rest because it's summary includes some mysterious elements. This novel is about a man's visit to lower-hungary and his espionage against german presence in hungary. ""Eb a nemet Kutya nelkul!" Which in good french can be translated to: "Wherever there's a German, there's a dog!"" (Verne, 52) This quote shows the protaginists dislike of the Germans. This book was originally unpublished until 1996 by Editions L'Archipel and was translated and republished by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska and printed in the United States. The edition I took from the library is the first english edition 2011.

Work Cited:
Verne, Jules. The Secret of Wilhelm Storitz. 1st ed. N.p.: Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska, 2011. Print. English.

Brittany Hofstater's story revised

 

It all started with a skirt. Berta’s life is forever changed, all because a skirt. Who knew a skirt could change your life. Who knew a skirt would find you the love of your life but also at the same time make you spend time in jail…

 

One hot July day, Berta was out walking in the park. She ran into this nice guy who caught her eye immediately. The guy approached Berta and he introduced himself as Harry. Harry asked Berta to join him for coffee tomorrow morning at 9am. Berta was in love at first sight, so she graciously accepted. She was filled with excitement, so she called her best friend Louise so they could go shopping to buy Berta a new skirt. Louise met Berta at the mall and they started their shopping day.

 

Berta and Louise went into their favorite store. Berta saw a new skirt; the skirt is neon pink. She wants this skirt! She thinks this skirt will impress Harry and has to have it. Berta noticed a different customer with the skirt in her hand. Bummer! She tells Louise that she needs that skirt. Louise and Berta head to the dressing room to come up with a plan on how to get it the skirt. The plan went as followed: Louise was going to cause a diversion in the store and scream that the customer is trying to steal a pair of sunglasses. Berta is to put the sunglasses in the customer’s purse to make it look like she is stealing them, getting her kicked out. Berta put the plan into motion. After the security guard kicked out the customer; Berta takes the skirt. With money in her pocket she felt a hole burning. She walks to the cashier but the cashier closes the register just as Berta hopes to pay. What now? She decides against the skirt and leaves the boutique.

 

Upon returning home, Berta tries not to think about the skirt anymore. Restlessness, Berta calls Louise at 10pm begging for her help. Louise comes up with another plan. They are to go to the store the next day, around 1am to break into the boutique to steal the skirt. Berta loves this idea, because she needs this skirt to impress Harry for her date.  She could not wait until the store opens at 10am because her coffee date is at 9am.  Louise and Berta go to the boutique. The shop is open, someone forgot to lock it! She goes and grabs the skirt, and leaves the money and a note for the boutique about what had happened. Technically Berta bought the skirt. This feels good. Elation! Berta and Louise left the store and heard sirens from a distance and ran so the police would not catch them. She takes it home and tries it on. Berta soon realizes she has nothing to match a hot pink neon skirt. What was she thinking, it fits none of her other clothes. At this point Berta is depressed. She still has nothing to wear for her date with Harry.

 

Little did Berta know, while she was leaving the money, she dropped her ID on the ground of the store. The cops showed up at Berta’s house and arrested her for robbery and breaking and entering. Berta never made it to her date. She did meet the love of her life while in jail; it was the police officer that arrested her. So all in all the skirt ruined and enhanced her life. Berta realized that it is not ok to steal, and that breaking into the boutique is wrong, but her life started with a skirt.

 

Sentences to story excersize

Group: Yazeed Alali, Almuhannad Aljahdali, Nick Carroll-Anderson

1.       The first idea covered is how the story will go and if the story was in a logical order to begin with. Our group felt the sentences chronologically made sense. We felt our job mainly was to tie loose ends. We gave the main character a name make the story feel more personalized. We gave her a reason not to buy the bag. Finally we added a conclusion of how she handled not wanting the skirt.

2.       The introductory paragraph had to introduce the main character and put her into the store. The theme of the story revolves around the girl wanting something and eventually giving in on gluttony. We finish the story with a contradicting conclusion in that we have the girl give it away which is nice little life lesson.

3.        The first paragraph introduces the main character and puts her in the store. The next paragraph introduces the skirt and she decides she wants but does not make a purchase. The third paragraph she returns to buy the skirt succeeds that time. The conclusion paragraph includes her not wanting the skirt and that she gives it to her mother.

4.       The conclusion has the girl finding out she doesn't want the skirt and can't return it. The them of her indulgence is given a morale ending when she gives the skirt to her mother. The morale being that giving can be better then receiving.

The girl and her new skirt

                As Hannah walked by the window of a Macy’s, she peered in and a skirt caught her eye. She liked the bright coloring but the price scared her. She knew it wasn’t in her budget but felt she had to investigate. Hannah walked into the store and towards her dream.

                In the Hannah viewed the skirt. The skirt is new and the color is neon. She looked at the price tag on the skirt which was three hundred dollars. The money for the skirt was her pocket and she knew she should not take it out. The money burned in her pocket as she wanted the skirt. The shop was open only for another twenty minutes and knew she had to make up her mind. Another customer was looking at the skirt being the only one left in stock. “Whatever!” she exclaimed as grabbed the skirt off the shelf and brought to the cashier. While she was waiting in line the cashier closed the register as she hoped to pay. She let a sigh and said, “Bummer, maybe I don’t need it.” She decided against buying and placed the skirt back on the shelf and left the boutique.

                Even though she didn’t want to think about it anymore, the skirt was still on her mind. She felt relentlessness as she didn’t return spend that much. The next day she was in the area and she glimpsed at the skirt.  Hannah walked through for another close look. She finally just grabbed the skirt and walked quickly to the cashier and made her purchase. The weight was off her shoulders. “This feels good,” she smiled and walked away full of elation.

                When she took it home, she was excited to try it on. She puts on the skirt and looks and herself the mirror. Disappointment. The outfit looked awful. She tried on again with another top. It looked no better with any of the other clothes she tried with it. “What now. I can’t return it because it was on sale,” she thought to herself. She knew someone who would really appreciate the skirt. Her mother lit up with joy as Hannah gave the skirt away.

How my group organized our presentation

 My group decided to take on the topic Quotes and Paraphrasing. The group consisted of Yanjun Li and myself. At the beginning of the class when all the groups found each other, I originally had plagiarism picked as a topic. There were five students who wanted this topic and Li and myself felt it would be easier to split off and choose a different topic than plagiarism. Coordinating a multiple group effort would be difficult and reduce the amount of material to cover.
 Before decided deciding what topics to cover and researching them, we discussed how to present the material. Power Point was the clear winner. Being able to read the slide during the presentation would help make up for the lack of preparation. Moving on, we brainstormed major topics and how to correctly order them. The layout of our slides was pretty straight forward in that we would cover a topic and then show an example of the topic in action.
 After a title slide with the presentation name and our names, we moved straight into a slide with a dictionary definition of both quote and paraphrase. We decided on this kind of a slide because it is the foundation of the presentation that all the rest of the presentation would relate back to. The next slides were used to soften the exactness of the dictionary definitions. The way we did this was by showing the viewers when and where they would find the use of quotes and paraphrasing. This section of the Power Point was finished with an example of a quote and it's paraphrased counterpart.
 After we had introduced and defined our presentation's subjects, we moved onto finer details. The first we went into were about how to reformat a quote. We brought up two sub-points followed by an example of both. After bringing up rules about quotes we moved onto rules of paraphrasing on the next slide. Since our audience was students we finished with slide to help them avoid trouble, this case plagiarism. The plagiarism slide showed how to avoid plagiarism by correctly citing sources. The last slide was source cited page.
  Writing this post, I feel that I make the process sound a lot smoother than it actually went. The major problem going into the presentation is that we did not have knowledge on the topic that we would have had doing plagiarism. We did not do our pre-assignment on the topic meaning we had to understand the topic before we started preparing the Power Point for presentation. Unfortunately, I feel that we did not fully understand the topic before brainstorming about slide topics and organization of the slides. It would have helped us quite a lot if we had just stopped everything and spent ten to fifteen minutes to fully grasp the concept. This misunderstanding came out as we worked through the Power Point and saw previous slides that just weren't correct and had discontinuities.
 When researching the topic we tried to use credible sites and cross referencing. Since we were using a dictionary definition we felt that was a direct quote situation. We also used the LEO site that we found our topic at and used an OCL that I had been told to use when being consulted with an SCSU writing tutor.

Quotations and Paraphrasing presentation

Here

Stundent paper review

My favorite author wrote about a man and his pot in  a fantasy setting. I enjoyed the way the author managed the storyline with a strong introduction before introducing characters. Also the intro ended in a cliffhanger way to intrigue the reader. "No one knows where it (the pot) is until now... 1,000 years later." (1) In the second paragraph there was a conflict introduced which helped this story stand out amung the others. "They all knew it was the good luck pot, and would stop at nothing to get it (from the protagonist)." (2) The story had it's flaws though in that plot points were introduced and passed by very quickly. " He wanted to break the curse, so he went to the village wizard. It was a giant wooden head that knew everything. He was told the only way to break the curse was to travel to Africa..." (3) That example moves through quite a lot in three sentences.

My least Favorite author wrote of a family and their maid. I felt that this story was structured but the flow from topic to topic was rough. "She was cleaning the blanket. At this time, the landlord’s son back home and found the jade was disappeared." (4) This example shows how these two sentences don't really describe welly that the maid is taking suspicious actions. I felt that certain sentenses felt like fragments that should not have been stand alone sentenses. "One day, the landlord’s son back home with his new collection that is a jade. That is his favorite collection. He used the ruler to record its length, wide, height. After that, he put it into drawer." (5) These sentenses I feel should be revised and rearranged.

(1) http://eng191f12s28brittanyhof.blogspot.com/, September 4, 2012
(2) http://eng191f12s28brittanyhof.blogspot.com/, September 4, 2012
(3) http://eng191f12s28brittanyhof.blogspot.com/, September 4, 2012
(4) http://en191f12s28bingzhe.blogspot.com/, September 4, 2012
(5) http://en191f12s28bingzhe.blogspot.com/, September 4, 2012

Item story

A quiet whisper of cool breeze sounded as it passed through barren trees burned of their leaves. The forest was stripped of leaves and of grass leaving a normally lush green sight black and brown. Inside the forest stood a stone courtyard surrounded by a small wall with a house on an edge. The home was only a few rooms and within sat two people staring distantly at each other. The two smelled of sweat and dirt as neither had bathed in days.

A woman of darker complexion had heavy bags under her eyes and small boils on her skin. She wrapped herself tightly in a blanket and was looking at the man across the room. Catching her eye, the man’s shot away and walked around the room to grab scarf near an open door. Peering into the congruent room the man saw a poorly managed bedroom with toys across the floor and crayons, stamps, and a ruler on a desk. The man sighed loudly and turned back into the room and walked over to jug and kicked it lightly. Empty and hollow, the jug rang. “We have to leave here. We have no water, no food,” the man said as he motioned to a plate cleared with only a few nuts resting in the middle. The woman frowned and watched the man. “We’ll die here.”

“And better to leave and succumb to that poison?” she shot back at the man tempered by delirium from being without water. He leered away from her.

“I have to try something,” he said as he walked to the front door avoiding eye contact. The man opened it to see the courtyard which had debris and soot blown onto it. He walked to the nearest salvageable item which was small boat which had been ripped out of the water and thrown hundreds of yards. He revolted as he flipped the canoe from a horrendous smell and sight of a person that had been hit directly by the blast. The body was severely charred with multiple limbs and the head ripped off. He winced as he bent down to check the body and canoe for a shred of food or water. The canoes interior was empty and the pockets of the body contained only a leather wallet and few coin. He pushed the canoe back over and surveyed the rest of the area. Only rock, bent metal, and the head of the sailor remained in the courtyard. Looking at the decapitated head burnt of hair; the man lost hope and weakly walked back into his home.

The woman had bent over on the ground from where she was sitting. Even though he could hear her light breathing, she was unresponsive to his prodding. Leaning against a wall the man slowly slid down to the floor. He looked sadly from the window to the woman and shut his eyes.

Who Am I? report

At the beginning of most of the posts, the writer would introduce themselves.  Usually this would be followed by a description of their families and where they come from. Due to the high amount of foreign exchange students in the class it seems that common topics were learning and current comprehension of English and future plans of staying in the states. Another common topic was favorite hobbies and activities. Favorite food was very popular as well.