In the Basement of the Ivory Tower Reading Response

• ·         In my eyes, the reading is about how while going back to college looks and sounds great in theory, everyone is not cut out for it. It is a hard realization for both student and teacher to have deal with. While teachers want to help any and every way they can it is impossible to help someone that has putting up a “..wall of defeat and hopelessness and humiliation, the wall that is an impenetrable barrier to learning.”
  ·         The author had several valid points when it comes to come to Ms. L not being ready for this course. He recommends additional help, he tries to tell her gently that she is under qualified for the course by using the word ‘deficit’ and by trying to guide her in the right direction without breaking his moral code or the integrity of the school. While Ms. K might resemble some students I don’t believe she resembles returning students as a whole. What Professor X hasn’t mentioned is that there are prerequisites that a student must pass to be able to take a course like this. Mrs. K shouldn’t have been allowed to enter a class at that level and Professor X should have found a way to tell her without breaking her spirits and making her feel inferior.
  ·         I completely disagree with this paper. While in this situation it does make sense that Mrs. K failed the class, I hate to think that teacher think my about my fellow classmates and I like this. While we aren’t all perfect students (if we were we would be at Harvard) we try out hardest, seek out help, and work until it is perfect. I think I’m taking this essay to personally but I hate to think that from the beginning a teacher didn’t believe in me and knew I was going to fail.
  ·         “Their job in the paper, as I explained it, was to take my arm and introduce me as a stranger to scholars A,B and C, who stood on one side of the issue, and to scholars D,E, and F, who were firmly on the other- as though they were hosting a party.” I chose this quote because it give me a clearer understanding of what we will be doing in the future for this class. Plus I like the idea of a dinner party with scholars sitting on opposite sides of the table arguing while eating a steak and you and your professor siting at the head of the table and watch.

My 54 Year Love Affair With the SAT

• This essay deals first hand with a very influential man when it comes to todays testing and textbooks. The esay takes you through the first time Stanley Kaplan ever heard about the SAT to how he made a living prepairing kids to take it. The central argument was that the SAT weighed a great deal in the admissions of colleges because it dealt with the academic abaility of the student rather than the grades they had previously recieved.  It was a total new way of testing at the time and made kids use critical thinking rather than memorization.
• With this essay in particular i think its hard to say if the writer argued his point well or not. I dont feel like this piece was meant to argue that the SAT was beneficial or not. I think that it was more to show you his experience with it and to show the reader it was a new kind of test by telling the reader about how it was so much different than the other tests at the time. It also showed his enthusiasm to be teaching kids a new style of studying and comprehension.
• I think that this essay was really interesting because it showed how truley passionate Kaplan was and it makes reading his course material and textbooks more interesting. I think this effects me as a student because when the SAT first came out he was one of the few people teaching EVERYONE how to take it rather then the top 5% of a school that actually went of to college around the time it came out. I look back at my high school experience and I always skipped the PSAT and because i wasnt prepaired mentally and emotionally so I never took it. The writer goes into depth about how with practice you feel familiar and with that familiarity comes confidence.
• I chose 2 quotes that I really liked 1) Aquiring test-taking skills is the same as learning to play the piano or ride a bike. it reqiures practice, practice, practice. Repetition breeds familiarity. Familiarity breeds confidence. Confidence breeds success. I chose this quote because like i said earlier i can relate to this easily. I have mild test anxiety but when it came to the SAT i had  psyched myself out, crashing my confidence before i ever signed up to take it, resulting in me never taking and it in turn never applying to school. 2) "It was not a lack of ability but poor study habits, inadequate instructors, or a combination of the two that jeopardize students perfromance." I feel like this quote sums up CMS in one beautiful quote. (I would like to prefix this by reiterating that i did have a handful of great teachers) Because Myers Park was an IB/AP school the great teachers taught those classes while the rest of us were left with sub par teachers who werent nearly as excited to be there and teaching us.

7 ways H.S. prepares you for failure

1.(My response) During the reading I was suprised about how the writer felt. I didn't feel as if I wasn't prepaired. During english 111 I felt as if I was an above average student. Research however wasn't involved.
2. (2nd response) I wish I could have felt that prepared for english 111. I had never taken a true writing class before. I'm glad that yuo had great success in that class and hopefully this class will push you.
3. (My response) Its suprising that i did/do feel so confident being as i went through CMS. I did have a very inspiring teacher my junior year of english that really influenced and stimulated us as a class.
4. (Overall) I think that i am lucky to have had mrs. cates and I feel very confident (as of now) in my ability to write. Of course one of the best teachers that myers park had to offer (mrs. cates) was laid off the next year due to budget cuts. Completely unfair for future myers park students.