Week 4 Activities – 9/16/09
Hello everyone! Here are the Week 4 Activities that the Fall 2009 class completed recently.
This particular week, we starting out with practicing the Fact, Reason, Example paragraph structure used to support your thesis statement. Then, we decided to see what we could get written in one-hour time periods. These ended up being much faster than a single hour!
As usual, when you review these activities, watch closely for the changes we made to our essays through each step of the process.
Practicing Paragraphs
1. Traffic
First Fact: Traffic on the highway can be very frustrating.
Reason: During the rain, drivers tend to be slow and not very cautious.
Example: They pull out in front of you without looking.
Conclusion: This causes hazardous driving conditions.
Fact: Traffic on the highway can be frustrating.
Reason: During rush-hour everyone is trying to get to work on time, and cutting people off.
Example: If everyone is not alert it can cause accidents, and then you’re stuck in traffic longer and you’re more frustrated.
Conclusion: Stress levels rise when people are not thinking of others on the road.
Fact: Traffic on the highway can be frustrating.
Reason: Stress levels rise when people are not thinking of others on the road and are rushing when attempting to get to work on time.
Example: When people hit the breaks or cut you off in traffic, it can be aggravating.
Example 2: This can slow traffic down even more, and make you late for class.
Fact: Traffic on the highway can be frustrating.
Reason: Drivers wait to the last minute to merge, causing you to be cautious.
Example: You have to be very observant, and on your toes.
Example: When you’re constantly watching other people it could cause you to miss your exit or turn, causing you to be late.
Fact: Traffic on the highway can be frustrating.
Reason: You need to be able to get to work on time, and slow traffic can make you late.
Example: When traffic builds up, drivers wait to the last minute to merge, causing you to be cautious.
Conclusion: You have to be very observant and on alert, which can make you tense and frustrated.
2. Late-night eating
Fact: Eating late at night can cause you to gain weight.
Reason: Your metabolism slows down and laying down after you eat can cause food not to be digested or calories not to be burned.
Example: You don’t burn the calories and your body stores it.
Conclusion: Causing unwanted weight gain.
Fact: Eating late at night can cause you to gain weight.
Reason: Your metabolism slows down when you’re less active in the evening, causing you to not burn the calories taking in.
Example: When you don’t burn the calories, you store them as fat.
Conclusion: As a result, you end up with weight gain and bigger jeans.
3. Average clothing size.
Fact: It can be difficult to find clothing that fits properly.
Reason: The fashion industry is designing clothes toward smaller sizes.
Example: Some stores only carry up to size 16.
Reason 2: You end up having to go to several different stores if you need a bigger size.
Conclusion: This can limit the resources you may have in your area.
Fact: It can be difficult to find clothing that fits properly.
Reason: The fashion industry is designing clothes toward sizes 0-10, while the average person wears closer to 14.
OR Reason 2: The average person in America wears around a size 14, but fashion designers seem to focus on sizes smaller than 6 or larger than 20.
OR Reason 3: The fashion industry is designing clothes toward smaller sizes, but most do not fit into these clothes.
Fact: It can be difficult to find clothing that fits properly.
Reason: The fashion industry is designing clothes toward smaller sizes, but most do not fit into these clothes.
Example: When clothes don’t fit properly, things may not cover appropriately and rolls fall out.
Reason2: You may have to go to many different locations to find the clothing size you need to prevent this.
4. Writer’s Block
Fact 1: Writing an essay can be difficult.
Reason: You may get stuck on a topic and not be able to support your ideas.
Example: It may be a topic that is not interesting or that you don’t have an opinion about.
Fact 2: You may be preoccupied with the process.
Reason: You can get stuck on where to begin and what comes next.
Example:
Fact 3: You could be worried about making grammatical errors.
Reason: This stresses you out and makes you feel like you don’t want to do it.
Example:
Let’s write an essay, WITHOUT the outline.
Your prompt: Discuss reasons that it can be difficult to construct an essay based on a writing prompt.
Fact 1: You might not know anything about the subject.
Fact 2: You may not be interested or have an opinion on the subject.
Fact 3: Distractions
Draft 1:
It can be difficult to construct an essay based on a writing prompt. You may get stuck with a subject that you feel doesn’t apply to you. You may get stuck on the process rather than the actual essay. Writing on a subject that you have no interest in is difficult. These things can keep you from being able to express your creative side.
In a classroom setting you may not always be able to pick your topic, and this will challenge you on your writing ability. You may not know anything about the subject, so you will have to brainstorm ideas. You may have to stretch your knowledge and apply new ideas.
In addition, you could receive a prompt requiring you to express a particular opinion. You would really have to think about how you feel about the subject. You may have a hard time supporting an opinion you haven’t thought about before. Time is usually limited on the essay exam so you can’t spend much time thinking about what to write.
A distraction could also impact the time frame you have to complete the essay. There may be someone coughing that distracts you, the time limit on the computer ticking down, etc. that make it hard to think of the next thing to say. It may be cold or hot or uncomfortable. Your atmosphere plays a big part in being able to keep focused.
As you can see, writing an essay can be challenging. Expressing an opinion in a certain time frame has a big impact, particularly if it is a subject you are unfamiliar with. During a situation like this you may have to dig deep, wing it, to complete the task at hand.
1-Hour Writing Challenge
For the next hour, we are going to write a short story. Completely fiction. It can be loosely based on real life if you want it to be. Each person will provide 1 sentence that fits with whatever came before.
What information do we need to start a story? Journalist’s Questions! Who, what, when, where, why, how?
Subject: Dick & Jane.
Once upon a time, there was a boy named Dick and a girl named Jane. She was cleaning house and he wouldn’t help. Jane decided she would come up with a strategy to help her trick him into doing chores. So Jane stopped doing some of the things that she did for Dick. She stopped doing his laundry and cooking. She didn’t make his lunch for him in the morning. She stopped picking up his dirty clothes off the floor.
Dick asked her why she wasn’t doing the chores. Jane replied that she didn’t know what he was talking about.
Dick asked, “Why aren’t you making my lunch? Why don’t I have any clean clothes?”
“I simply didn’t have the time. Maybe if you could help me, more things would get done”.
Jane noticed that Dick made futile attempts to help at some of the tasks around the house. Feeling that if anything was going to get done, he would do it himself. Jane was inspired by his attempts and began doing her part of the chores again. While complimenting him on the new things that he was now achieving. Jane told Dick that this is what she wanted all along, for them to work together. Dick respected her wish and always held his end of the chores from then on. And they lived happily ever after, until the kids came.
Easier to write fiction? YES!
Semi-fiction: Stretch into TRUTH.
Your prompt: In one hour or less, tell me the story of what we have done in class so far this week.
In class this week we learned how to diagram a paragraph using facts, reasons and examples. We practiced writing paragraphs and the proper structure. We were given examples of topic sentences and had to support them with examples and facts.
Our first subject was traffic and the frustrations of being on time. Another subject was the fashion industry and how challenging it is to find proper fitting clothes. We also talked about problems with late-night eating and how it causes your jean size to go up.
Then we talked about writers’ block and the challenges of writing an essay. We all shared personal experiences of things that made it difficult for us to complete a writing prompt, like not being interested in things, knowledge of the subject, and distractions.
Our easiest task of the day was writing fiction. We talked about Dick & Jane and the pursuit for her husband to help clean the house. We really didn’t have to think about facts to support the prompt, we just made it up. This let our imagination run wild and opened up our minds. It’s easier now, even as we write this new essay, because we got past some of that writer’s block!
Last, we used the skills practiced today to write about what events had happened. We will use these skills in our English Comp test. We figured out that it is easy to write fiction or tell a story about something that happened to us. It only took 30 minutes to write both the story of Dick & Jane and our essay about class.
{The instructor thinks this is because writing prompts are scary. They fill them with big fancy words and tell you that you must know a bunch of facts to support your opinion with, and you may feel overwhelmed if you don’t know much about the topic.}
Writing Prompt: Home health care can be a very difficult area of nursing to be in. Discuss reasons that Home Health is considered one of the harder areas of nursing to go in. Would you work as a Home Health nurse? Why or why not?
Fact 1: You become personally involved with the family
Ex. You feel emotionally attached/Friendship but it can backfire
Fact 2: They want you to do things outside of your job description
Ex. Talking about problems
Ex. They expect you to be at their beck and call
Ex. Watching other kids, cooking, cleaning, etc.
Fact 3: You feel guilty if you want to back off things you did before but don’t want to continue with
Draft 1:
Home health can be very challenging. You are not only dealing with the patient, but the family structure as well. You are pulled into situations you may not want to be involved in. Nurses may not want to continue in this field due to the many challenges and demands it entails.
You often become personally involved with the family. Being in the household draws you into the family, and sometimes they involve you in their personal issues and ask for your opinion. This can put you in a very difficult situation where your opinion may jeopardize your employment or the health of your patient. In addition, sometimes you have to balance having a strong emotional attachment to the children with not over-stepping your boundaries.
The family may expect you to do things outside of your job requirements. They may ask you to help their children with homework, or help with house work and chores. Those things take time away from your patient and may lessen their quality of care. You also feel obligated to do these tasks, leaving the nurse feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
You are in the nursing profession because you want to help, whether it be the patient or the family you are with. It may not be said directly, but it is implied that if you have time to do one thing you will have time to do more. The next thing you know, you are suddenly doing a bunch of chores that have nothing to do with your patient. This can become exhausting, leaving you depleted and wanting to look for another job. Sometimes the patients’ families seem to think that it is never enough, and the nurse feels unappreciated.
As you can see, it is hard to be a home health nurse without becoming personally involved in the family. Having the family add extra items to the list of things you are expected to do can take away from the care of your patient and their needs. The nurse becomes frustrated, exhausted, and finally seeks other employment. This is why some nurses leave the home health field.
This information is provided free of charge as a service to students enrolled in our RN Bridge Program. If you live in Nashville, TN or within commuting distance, contact Pam for information about our accelerated nursing school program. Feel free to review our schedule of upcoming classes.
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