Test Prep Blog # 3 : Article Essay

Article : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/pink-friday-roman-reloaded-20120406


     Today I read the article "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded" by Jody Rosen which is a album review. Overall Rolling Stones thought that the album was good! It's fun, has a mix of both rap and pop music. The beats in each song in Roman Reloaded are fun just like Nicki's persona. I think that overall this article was very good and detailed and I agree with the Rolling Stones based on what they said about Roman Reloaded. 

     There are many things that I agree with about what the Rolling Stones. "But why would you choose just one Nicki Minaj? With her, the point is plenitude: more boasts, more hooks, more craziness, more shape-shifting, more cognitive dissonance, more pleasure. If you believe that art and commerce and provocation and fun – and hip- hop and disco and teen pop – can all be one and the same, here's a record for you. Come, all ye faithful." (Rolling Stones). This is one thing that I agree with. Many people weren't happy with the album because half of it was pop and the other was rap and a majority of people just like the rap. But I think that the Rolling Stones really got the point clear of how Nicki has the freedom to combine art, fun, commerce, and provocation and she can do it well! 

     Another thing that I agree with about what the Rolling Stones said is that they said that having Roman in the album was a great thing because it really did show who Nicki is and showed her persona. "Then there's the Roman Zolanski lane. Roman Reloaded opens with Minaj – a biracial woman from Queens via Trinidad – ranting in the voice of her (Polish?) homosexual "twin brother" alter ego. In the same song, she takes on the voice of Martha Zolanski, Roman's mother, singing in a cartoon Cockney accent. "Take your medication, Roman," counsels Minaj/Martha. "Quack, quack to a duck and a chicken, too/Put the hyena in a freakin' zoo," answers Minaj/ Roman. Later, she bursts into "O Come, All Ye Faithful." (Rolling Stones) . 

   After reading this article on Roman Reloaded by Rolling Stones, I was very satisfied with it because I agreed with alot of things that were said in the article. The Rolling Stones said that having Roman in the album was a great thing because it showed Nicki's persona. They also said that having both pop and rap in the album was really creative and I definitely agree with that. Overall I'm very satisfied with this article!

Test Prep Blog #2 : Plagiarism

     After reading Ms.Galang's post on plagiarism, I've come to conclude that plagiarism is not right! It's a crime and no one has the right to steal somebody else's work and say that it's their own and not citing the websites/books that we're used. The student's work that was posted by Ms.Galang could fix a lot of things in the writing. There are also many ways to avoid plagiarism. 

    The student that plagiarized from A Brief Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings could fix the paragraph that was stolen by citing the sources. One way is in-text citing which is after summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting the source that was used and then including the author's last name and page number in parenthesis. The other way the student could fix the plagiarized paragraph is by having a "Works Cited Page". On a separate page all you do is list the sources. This is also known as MLA format. 

     The three easy ways to avoid plagiarism is by summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting. Summarizing is simply reading the source and putting it in your own words. Paraphrasing is summarizing each sentence and changing words around a bit which I find very fun to do. Now my favorite one is quoting which is taking the source it self and copying and pasting it into your writing but you must make sure that you cite where you got the words from and put them in quotation marks (""). 


     Write a sentence using the original source correctly; use a quotation or paraphrase. Also, make sure to cite correctly : 


Original Sentence: Whether or not this religious inspiration is true, it is known that the piece is not the only Starry Sky painting that Van Gogh ever created.

Quoting : "Whether or not this religious inspiration is true, it is known that the piece is not the only Starry Sky painting that Van Gogh ever created." ("A Brief Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings.")

Test Prep Blog # 1 : 2 Good Reading Responces

       After looking at Ms.Galang's list of good reading responses and after reading all of them I thought about the quality of each reading response. Each reading response was fully elaborated, organized, and all are grammatically correct. Each reading response also had a main idea and was fully supported with details. But overall I think that Michelle's reading response on the book "Luna" was great! I also thought that Jamila's reading response on Tupac's song was excellent!

     Michelle's reading response was so precise and elaborated. She connects the poem that she writes and the book so well! The response is divided and organized in the structure of the book. The first paragraph is about the first part of the book, the second paragraph is on the middle of the book, and so on. And even then she still connects it to the poem which I think must be very hard to do. Something else I think she did a great job in was connecting the book to real life issues. She didn't just describe the issues that are in the book, she weaves those in with other issues and what everything can lead to. For example, her book is about a girl who gets sex change to live a new life. She goes from Luna to Liam. In the reading response she says : "Leaving Liam alone on this gender transition alone is horrible. I think that having no guardian support doesn't help the situation what so ever.I think it makes it worse. This makes the child question him/her whether they should really go through this transition. Next thing you know, this might even lead to suicide or depression or doubt." She talks about what happens in the book, Liam's alone on this gender transition and then she says that it can lead into suicide, depression, and or doubt. Something else I think she did a great job on was elaborating on each main idea. Each idea is supported very clearly and she does a great job on that. I think that overall Michelle's reading response was excellent and so clear and very detailed!

     Jamila's reading response on Tupac's song called "Starry Night" based on the painting was so good! Its filled with so many details and organized so well. Something that I really liked about the reading response is that she's very clear about her points and her supporting details and also her main idea is very clear and her details support it. She doesn't go off topic at all and she stays on track. The reading response doesn't really have any excess details either. In the reading response her main idea is that that no matter how good things seem, there's always a bad side to it and its clearly stated right in the first paragraph. She supports the details and elaborates on them too and she does it very well. In the reading response she says : "But when you give your all, it's like the fans demand more ad after the tour I sit alone like before"-(line 28-29).  I think Mac Mall is trying to say that he never feels completely satisfied with himself after a performance. He feels like he isn't good enough. It's clear that he is uneasy and is afraid that his fans won't be interested in his music anymore. He feels as if his fans are always wanting something better from him." She says the part of the song that intrigues her and then she elaborates off of it and its so flowy and not choppy! She did a great job of doing that throughout the reading response. Something else I think she did a good job of was letting her voice out through the reading response. It didn't sound like some college leveled reading response and it was pretty understandable but still she has a great vocabulary in the reading response. This was such a great reading response!

     I think that I've learned alot from reading these two reading responses. One thing that I think I should work on in my reading responses is organizing my reading responses. My reading responses are organized but I think that Michelle's was very clearly organized. Each paragraph in her's had a main idea, and was supported very clearly and she also has a clear introduction and conclusion. Something else that I think I should work on is not having excess details and going off topic because I tend to do that alot. On my blog I wrote : " I think the cordial represents all her strength and power that she’s been showing over her siblings. Santa Claus gives Lucy a cordial, which she uses to heal the wounded following the battle with the Witch's troops. The power the cordial I think represents her optimistic because she’s trying to cure people physically and emotionally." I go off topic in this paragraph and its very unclear. First I'm talking about what I think the cordial represents and then I talk about how Santa Claus gives Lucy the cordial. It makes no sence and I should stop doing that. These are two things that I should work on in my reading responses. 


     After reading these texts I've realized that there are so many great blogs out there and that I should read them to help myself in my own reading responses. For example Michelle's reading response on the book "Luna" is very clear, and elaborated. Jamila's reading response on the song "Starry Night" by Tupac is very flowy and understandable. By reading these two reading responses I've come to know that I should work on organizing reading responses and making my reading responses more clear.