Advanced Reading, Writing, and Grammar

Basically is a narration about a slave who was smart and lucky enough to escape. At the beginning I like the way that the slave cheats in order to escape. Also i was impressed because the slave Achieved to pay his price and by him self. The slave was lucky for having his master thought him how to read and how to write. In addition I think the most important thing for the slave in his life was his master because his master gave him the most precious and forbidden thing for a slave. The ability of thinking, jugging express his opinion and every other important that some one who is educated knows to do. 

JOHN

      “The Ingrate” was an enjoyable story to read. It described a story that took place during the last days of the slavery.  The context of the reading was very important and helped me as a reader to under stand the surroundings of this story. For example, I didn’t know that the slavery ended in the north before the south, and if I didn’t read the context, I would’ve faced many problems understanding why the slaves were escaping to the north. I think the writer of the story was kind of objective. Although he was with the slave’s side and was happy for him to get his freedom, he show Mr. Leckler as a nice person who care about his slave’s feelings.

Aziz

In the short story The Ingrate Paul Laurence Dunbar raise the question of the race descrimination, narrating about one fate of the slave Josh, who heard the daring whisper ”Courage!” and ran way for freedom.

The historical context of the story is to portray the hardship of the slavery and reveal grim attitude of the owners towards their “nigger”. The author narrates about time before the Civil War and after, displaying the great changes that have come after the proclamation of freedom for slaves. He mentions abolitionists and Quakers, who played a significant role in the movement against slavery. The story also embraces the cultural context trough the relationships between whites and slaves.

Describing the dialogs between Mr. Lecker and Mrs. Lecker the author vividly demonstrate his own opinion about the sly and greedy nature of the Southern noblemen, hidden by feigned charity and generosity. Mentionning the ideas that occured in the Mr. Eckley’s and Mr. Lecker’s brains, Dunbar ironically exposes the culture of that society, their beliefs and values. Mr. Lecker thoughts about Josh “usually inteligence in a slave meant discontent; but not with Josh…” explain the real intention to his slave.

The tone of the text is very rich and  colorful, his words touch readers  deeply. He descibes feelings and motives of different people from the distinct levels of the society lively.

Asel

  My reading speed is not good yet. So, I do some tasks to improve reading speed. I read interesting articles in the subway which I take to go to school. And, when I watch the TV, I read captions of the program. I have to read them as fast as I can, because captions are changed quikly. This task is good for improving reading speed and listening skill.

  I think those works are not enough to develope my reading speed. So, I need to use “The Ultimate Speed Reader”. Because, it has effects on reading speed. If I practice reading English text through the ultimate speed reader, I can improve my reading speed. Moreover, I need to read more articles and text interesting to improve reading comprehension.

 My writing skill is not good, also. My weaknesses in writing are grammer accuracy and vocaburary. To improve my grammer accuracy, I take the specific category of grammer. And, study them concentratively.    Also, I have to study vocaburaries which are applied in various situation appropriately. So, to develope my vocaburary, I need to read various texts. Then, find words I don’t know. And, find them in Eng-Eng dictionary.     

I know that the way to improve English is more efforts and to be patient. Do my best studing English, and improve my English.

HaYun

My reading speed has improved a lot since I’ve got here. The Ultimate speed reader helped a lot in improving my reding speed. I plan on exercising more using the ultimte speed reader, so I can improve not only my reading speed, but also my understanding of the texts. Because I want to reach a higher level of reading and be prepared for the university’s assignments.
My writing facility and accuricy have also improved a lot during the past few months. I think what helped me the most was the toefl essays, the results reflected on the real TOEFL exam that I took last week. I was able to finish the assignment in the test before the time was up. I also had the chance to revise and figure out my mistakes in the essays. I really think we should have more TOEFL essay assignments in the next classes.

ALI 

I defenetly improved my reading speed with the help from the ultimate speeder. Also it helped me a lot that we had many reading assignments. Also my comprehention was increased for the same reasons. I think i can improve both my comprehention and reading speed with improoving my range of the vocabulary that i have. I say that because i can read fast easy or medium difficulty texts but it is not the same with the academic texts. I believe my readng speed and my comprehention decreasing because i have many unknown words.

My writing was improved because i appeared to be confident. I mean that i foolow Eric’s advise and said that I CAN DO IT! This really helps me a lot. Also my  facility and my accuracy were improved because we reviewd in class some part of the grammar. Also because of the workshop that we had. I believe for improving these two parts i have to work in our grammar blog and i have to review my assignment to see my mistakes.

JOHN

In the last two months we have done a lot of things that improved my English skills. Following to the Eric’s pieces of advice how I’ve succeeded in reading. The skiming and scanning approach helps me to understand a main idea of long texts. Practice of Ultimate Reader Program has also increased my reading speed. What also I have discovered in my English improvement is that reading the texts enriched my vocabulary.

My writing skills have also become better. The acquaitance with the structure of the TOEFL essay has changed the whole understanding of the writing process, as the awarness of the main rules about prewriting, writing, and postwriting stages.

But I still feel that I need to work on my further development of writing and reading. There are many words that I do not know. There are many topics that hard to discuss as if I were writing in Russian. To advance my English I need practice, practice, and practice. I have to learn about different types in writing, and read distinct genders.

Asel

 About reading, I used ultimate reader program in class which enhanced  my reading speed very much. Also, I have read news papers, books at my home. to improve more, I will challenge to more difficult level of ultimate reader and articles.

 About writing, I have written few writings in class but the progress is not satisfactory.   It is very hard task for me to improve writing skills because I have firm attitude established in Korean way, which have blocked my change of thinking. I have to adapt myself to the level of other young students to improve my skills.                         

  Yun

      In the last two months I had some improvement in my reading spead and comprehension. In order to let that happen I did many things. I read so many reading tasks either from our class homework or from the SAT prepration course I have attended. I also learned some stratigies that helped me to increase my comprehention. For example, paying more attention to the main subject and verb in each sentence, and also more attention to the topic sentence in each pargraph. In fact, I still think that I’m very weak in reading and I still have a lot to do to improve my speed and comprehention. It is obvious that I should do more hard work in reading tasks, and read as much tasks as I can and consentrate more about the reading stratigies.

      Writing! I really enjoy talking about my improvement in my writing skills. My writing facilty was increased much more than it used to be. I can write now many pages about any topic even if I don’t have a clear idea about the main idea. Even my accuracy has improved a lot from our writing lessons we had in the last two months. However, I think I have much more to do to improve my writing skills and that will happen, in my opinion, by paying attention more about the grammar rules and revising the essay more than once to figure out the usual mistakes.

Aziz

Since the