tsines – ENG 151.ON1 Spring 2017

PTSD Insight

Ted Sines, Marina Fulcher, Mike Bode, Bobby Considine, Kyle Penn

In the U.S. alone, about 5.2 million adults struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Many do not understand why people with PTSD act the way they do. When specifically talking about men that have come home from war, their traumatic experiences will stay with them for as long as they live. Many symptoms that come with PTSD include anger, flashbacks, avoidance, bad dreams, feeling on edge, sleep deprivation, frustration, etc. Daily activities may also become difficult to accomplish. Each individual experiences symptoms in their own way. When dealing with these symptoms, it can be difficult for family members and others around them to understand what and how they are feeling. Family members may become scared about the fact that their loved one might give up. This can happen to anyone. There are many sources available for treating PTSD, but there is no knowing if those resources will get rid of it completely.

PTSD is a grueling disease that affects millions of Americans per year. It is important we learn the facts about PTSD before we try to understand what people who have it go through every day. We need to understand that the outbursts these people may have is nothing they can control, so we need to be considerate towards that. We also need to learn how to treat someone with this disease and or the right means of getting them help. Everyone is different when to comes to getting help. Some people react better to certain types of medication and others respond better to therapy. With this Virtual Reality (VR) experience, you will be able to finally feel how they feel when they are going through the PTSD like symptoms.

So, what can we learn from this about PTSD specifically? With the help of VR, you will be able to be in the mind of someone suffering from PTSD. You will be able to experience the flashbacks to the battle grounds just like them, as well as the dreams that come along with it. You will also be able to see how this disease can affect your everyday activities and life. You can learn what it is like to affect your family members by having this disease as well. The whole point is to make people aware and help them learn the struggles of former US soldiers and the struggles of PTSD. It is a problem that gets swept under the rug and that simply cannot happen anymore.

Over the years, PTSD has been increasingly common in not just soldiers, but people who have been through traumatic events like 9-11. VR has been a new form of treatment for soldiers as well as trauma victims. People who suffer from PTSD are basically submerged in the exact same situation that caused the trauma. Soldiers who suffer from PTSD are submerged back into the war zone that has caused them to suffer from PTSD. It will start from the beginning of the experience of that day and then it will lead up to the traumatic event that caused the PTSD to occur. The event might be seeing a fellow soldier killed in war or falling victim to a car bombing. By being submerged in the recreation, soldiers can go through the experience again.

It might sound crazy for someone who suffers from PTSD to have them relive the experience that caused them trauma, however, there have been some positive results from this tactic. There have been soldiers who have left VR sessions with astounding results. Soldiers could have an incredible decrease in the amount of depression and stress. In just six one hour sessions there was a significant change in their person. Being in the recreation and reliving the events of that fateful day helped ease the depression and the stress they were in following the immense trauma of war.

Inside the VR, you will experience the traumatic event in the Army that fits your case, or that is making PTSD severe for you. Throughout the app there will be different modes that will make the scene or experience less traumatic and that can be raised to higher levels once you mastered the previous level. Through the experience, you will start off on level 1 which will show sand dunes, bodies lying on the ground, and hearing gunshots. On level 2, you will experience a tank rolling through and see a live house being blown up, with the continuation of gun shots. On level 3, you will experience a more intensive traumatic feeling. You will see bodies lying there with blood, people being shot at, EMT carrying bodies and other soldiers crying in the background screaming for their men. The appearance and resolution of the app will run off 1920 x 1080 which is (960 x 1080 per eye). This will lead the patient or person using this VR to feel like they are in the scene and replaying their traumatic experience.

When the user first puts on the head sets, they will experience a menu that pops up. Inside of the menu you will find the difficulty level, whether you want sound, if you are color blind, where they want the location to be, and lastly how many years it’s been since the incident. Inside the app, you will also have two controllers that will make it so you can interact. Having the opportunity to interact with the scene will help the patient better understand what they went through because they will be able to act like they are shooting or anything along those lines. With VR getting bigger and bigger, we expect this to work and grab the patient’s eye when they see it.

When it comes to using VR to help soldiers and veterans deal with their PTSD, Bravemind is the one that most soldiers and veterans use. Bravemind allows the soldier or veteran to go back to a very similar place where their trauma occurred and allows them to “experience it again in a virtual world under very safe and controlled conditions” (Rizzo,Hartholt). Our VR app, PTSD Insight, is for the families, practitioners, and counselors. It allows them to get somewhat of an understanding so that they are not left in the dark when they try to connect with the soldier or veteran on a day to day basis. It will show the user the conditions that the soldier or veteran went through. Seeing someone go through a PTSD episode is very scary to see. Now because of PTSD Insight the families, practitioners, and counselors will also learn how to pull someone that is having a PTSD episode out of that episode and bring them back to reality in a calm and efficient manner so no one gets harmed or injured.

When families, practitioners, and counselors see PTSD Insight, they will know how to connect with the soldier or veteran after using our app. By experiencing a glimpse of war with PTSD Insight, they will have a general idea of what is bothering the soldier or veteran. It also allows the person to know what subjects are off limits to talk about when around the soldier or veteran. The person also using PTSD Insight will also be able to grow their knowledge about PTSD and what someone goes through when they experience a PTSD episode. Going through life with PTSD is a difficult thing for soldiers and veterans to go through, but to know that someone else is there to help them go through it allows them to relieve some of that pressure of dealing with PTSD. Soldiers and veterans dealing with PTSD say that support is great but connecting with another human being that is going through or has experienced that same thing is lacking in their recovery process. So, having PTSD Insight for the families, practitioners, and counselors; allows for that lacking connection with the soldier or veteran.

So how do we this VR system in the hands of the right people? First, we target the counselors that work with people suffering from PTSD. If we can get the counselors ear on something like this, it is very likely that they would be able to relay that information to the families affected by this disease. Other people have tried to use VR systems like this in the past, so we need to find a way to separate ourselves to make the VR successful. How do we do this? We go to any military convention or veterans banquet we can find to get the word out about or VR system and how it can help families who have someone with PTSD around them or close to them.

Unfortunately, there may be some barriers in the way of being successful with this VR system. How can we afford something like this? How can we even create something like this with little technical design backgrounds? Well, cost is an issue no matter what you are doing. Like many other organizations when they start out, we will have to take out loans. Hopefully, we can get our product out there and maybe an organization will back us to get us started with the production costs. We would also have to hire some people in the tech design industry to help us create the VR experience. It will not be easy in the beginning but it’s doable and our product can help a lot of people in need.

The expansion of PTSD Insight will increase year by year. Every year, we will look at PTSD Insight and see how we could make it better for the user. In years to come, we expect to have grown PTSD Insight. PTSD Insight only contains one branch of the military, but we look to expand to every branch of the military to help every possible soldier or veteran dealing with PTSD. Expanding the branches of the military is ensuring that every person gets the help that they need. Once all the branches of the military have been explored, moving to other traumatic experiences is where PTSD Insight is going next. PTSD Insight will help those that have gone through traumatic experiences like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Boston Bombings, etc. By expanding to other traumatic experiences, we can reduce the amount of people that experience PTSD.

When thinking about expanding the market of PTSD Insight, the market must not have something like PTSD Insight. PTSD Insight will be expanded to the United States Government, hospitals, and old age homes with the new updated version that contains all the types of causes for someone to have PTSD. By expanding to these markets, people who are not veterans get a chance to live a normal life again without worrying about having a PTSD episode. These people will be able to free themselves of PTSD after using PTSD Insight.

In conclusion, VR can help many soldiers and others to move past their traumatic experience. There are things that family members can also do to help, such as asking questions, offering resources in the community, and understanding what they are going through. VR can be a very effective treatment method for veterans. It will help them deal with their symptoms and even reduce them. With guidance, veterans can improve their condition and hopefully move on with their lives. VR can show a sense of reality and presence in a way that is hard to understand unless it’s been experienced. Who knows, maybe in the future doctors’ offices will have VR therapy for those with PTSD, if proven effective.

Works Cited

Alice Films, 2014. DVD. Watch Your Favorite Movies Online. Web. 30 Apr. 2017. <http://123movies.net/watch/kvYX8rdb-of-men-and-war.html>.

American Sniper. Directed by Clint Eastwood, performances by Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, and Kyle Gallner, Warner Bros., 2015.

“American Sniper-Drill Scene 18+.” YouTube, uploaded by Danger Arnie, 28 March 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDTifFGBcAI

“American Sniper PTSD BBQ Scene.” YouTube, uploaded by Andy McNish, 13 December 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7L-Er1b2Co

“CyberPsychology & Behavior.” Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for World Trade Center Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: A Case Report | Abstract. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

“Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.” Exposure Therapy with and without Virtual Reality to Treat PTSD While in the Combat Theater: A Parallel Case Series | Abstract. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

Hoffman, Hunter G. Virtual Reality Therapy. Place of Publication Not Identified: Duc, 2012.Scientific American. Scientific American, July 2004. Web. http://www.behavioralassociates.com/pdf/scientificamerica.pdf

Military Behavioral Health. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 May 2017. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21635781.2012.721064

Pathways, Andrea Carlile Military. “One Person’s PTSD Can Affect a Whole Family.” Military.com. Ho Lin, n.d. Web. 01 May 2017. http://www.military.com/benefits/veterans-health-care/ptsd-can-affect-whole-family.html

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” National Institutes of Health. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Feb. 2016. Web. 27 Apr. 2017. <https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml>.

“Psychotherapy Treatment for PTSD.” Psych Central. N.p., 17 July 2016. Web. 01 May 2017. https://psychcentral.com/lib/treatment-of-ptsd/

“PTSD: National Center for PTSD.” How Common Is PTSD? – PTSD: National Center for PTSD. N.p., 05 July Web. 30 Apr. 2017. <https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/ptsd-overview/basics/how-common-is-ptsd.asp>.

“PTSD Statistics.” PTSD United. Creative MMS, 2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2017. <http://www.ptsdunited.org/ptsd-statistics-2/>.

“PTSD Treatment Options.” Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. N.p., 08 Dec. 2016. Web. 01 May 2017. http://dcoe.mil/psychological-health/about-ptsd/treatment-options

Reger, Greg M., Kevin M. Holloway, Colette Candy, Barbara O. Rothbaum, JoAnn Difede, Albert A. Rizzo, and Gregory A. Gahm. “Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Active Duty Soldiers in a Military Mental Health Clinic.” Journal of Traumatic Stress. Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company, 03 Feb. 2011. Web. 02 May 2017. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jts.20574/full

Rizzo, Albert, and Arno Hartholt. “Prototypes.” Institute for Creative Technologies Bravemind Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Comments. N.p., 2005. Web. 03 May 2017. <http://ict.usc.edu/prototypes/pts/>.

“Select a Website below to Get This Article.” Elsevier: Article Locator. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

PTSD

In today’s society, many people are dealing with PTSD because of the effects of war. Most people do not know how to handle someone who is going through a PTSD episode. Veterans feel that no one can help them because the one trying to help them does not understand what that veteran went through and what that veteran saw. This virtual reality app will allow practitioners, counselors, family, and friends to understand what that person with PTSD is going through and it will also give them a little clip of what they went through over on the front lines. When this app is first opened, it will ask the user which branch of the military I would like to explore. They select the branch and then the next screen asks them weather they would like to look at the front lines or the after effects of war on a person and what they see when going through a PTSD episode. If the person picks to go to the front lines then, they would see a full view of the war. They will hear everything that one would hear, see everything that one would see and nothing on this app would be downgraded or down played. They see everything the way a solider would see it. If the person choses to explore the after effects, they would see what plays through a veteran’s head when an episode happens. It will take you back to the time and place that this memory occurred and everything will be surreal for you. According to PTSD: National Center for PTSD, there are four symptoms of PTSD. Reliving the event, avoiding situation that remind you of the event, negative changes in beliefs and feelings, and feeling keyed up. The main reason for why this app should be brought to market is because we should support the veterans and help them as much as we can so they can lead as close to a normal life as they can after coming back from war. It will also help the practitioners and counselors to find a better way to connect with the veterans.

Sources

“Symptoms of PTSD.” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (n.d.) https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/PTSD-overview/basics/symptoms_of_ptsd.asp. Accessed 22 April 2017.

“Veterans’ Voices on PTSD.” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (n.d.) https://maketheconnection.net/conditions/ptsd?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=Symptoms|4567656250|c&utm_term=ptsd%20symptoms|PTSD%20symptoms&utm_campaign=Search-PTSD-Exact|133167241. Accessed 22 April 2017.

Sky-crawler

This is my avatar Sky-crawler. Sky-crawler was created like this based off of the movie “Avatar”. My thought behind him was that in the movie, the Na’vi were very crafty in how they moved around their world and they had very good hand to hand combat skills. This talent of movie swiftly, secretively, and great hand to hand combat would help and allow them to prosper greatly in the OASIS in winning and retrieving the prize.

The Consequence of Reading Online

Matthew Bostock. “Realizing the True Potential of Digital Reading”. http://phatitude.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/digital-reasding.jpg November 2012

In today’s world, everyone is in a rush and people just expect something to be given to them. Nobody has the time to wait for anything whether it is a traffic light, their coffee brewing, or even researching something for their job. Few people stop to take the time to do the work. Then, people just expect everything to be handed to them. Almost everyone has a smart phone that can allow them to go on the Internet. Having this smart phone is taking the easy way out instead of just going to a newsstand and reading the newspaper. When weighing out the positives and negatives of reading online, the negatives are more dominant with reading online, then reading a physical hard copy book.

Reading online causes people to skim over a reading, lose focus, and not retain information about the reading. Every person’s attention span is different but for the most part everyone’s attention span is very short. Trying to keep someone’s attention is hard enough as of now with any other distractions, but when someone has the Internet at their fingertips it becomes ten times harder because the person has an outlet for escape. In the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, Nicholas Carr states, “They found that people using the sites exhibited ‘a form of skimming activity,’ hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would ‘bounce’ out to another site. Sometimes they’d save a long article, but there’s no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it” (Carr). Here is a perfect example of how short a person’s attention span is. They are reading and then sees something pop up on the computer that looks more interesting. They are going to click on whatever looks interesting and will lose concentration on whatever the reading just was. They will not take the time to stay and read the full reading because they do not want to read it or they have lost interest in the reading. In the article, “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens”, Ferris Jabr gives an example of a study that proved that reading online is not as beneficial as reading a physical hard copy book. In 2013, Anne Mangen and her colleagues tested to see which would do better with comprehension, online or paper readings. They gave it to 72 10^th-graders with similar reading ability and gave half the online reading and the other half the paper reading. After the kids finished reading, they all took a comprehension test that was comprised of multiple choice and short answer. The students that read online did worse on the test than the kids that read the paper copies (Jabr). The students that were given the digital reading did worse because of a few possibilities. One possibility is that the students got sidetracked and wandered off onto something else. Another possibility is that the students did not have all the benefits that the students with the paper copies had. The students with the paper readings could write down important facts in the margins of the readings and could underline important facts. The only thing that the students with the online reading could do was just read the reading because they did not have the ability to write down important facts that they found. These two examples both show the negative effects of reading online. In Carr’s article, it states about the reader skimming instead of reading. In Jabr’s article, it shows a case study of how reading online is less efficient when it comes to having to recall the information someone just read. I feel that the students in the study that read online were skimming their readings and or they got distracted.

On the other hand, some people see the positive effects of reading online but they do not see the real disadvantages of reading online. Many digital articles are starting to add hyperlinks to give more detail and to also support their article. In the article, “The Deep Space of Digital Reading”, Paul La Farge states, “Meanwhile, some writers are taking advantage of the formal possibilities of digital media to tell stories and communicate information in new ways. One of these new forms is what people in the 1990s called ‘hypertext’: text divided into units called ‘lexia,’ which are connected by links, sometimes in a branching or tree-like structure, sometimes in webs or cats’-cradles or other tangled forms. (Technically, the Web is a hypertext, but the word often refers to single works with an internally linked structure)” (La Farge). When someone clicks on a hyperlink, the hyperlink will take that person to another site to give more information, but what happens when that hyperlink is a link to YouTube or another entertainment site. You have all those other videos at your disposal and it then becomes an easy access for you to lose track of what you were currently doing. It is another disturbance that you must deal with. When you read something on paper, there is no excuse for you to get interrupted. In the article, “Plagiarism is Dead; Long Live the Retweet: Unpacking an Identity Crisis in Digital Content”, Susanne Murphy states, “Online reading is constructive and dynamic: while reading for information, clicking across and through a variety of embedded and suggested links, each reader creates a unique (and transient) new text whose reality is physical only in a ‘follow the clicks’ sense” (Murphy). Susanne Murphy is talking about allowing your online research to expand and to take you places that are beneficial. When you are investigating for some information and having to dig and dig through tons of sites and data, just to find out what is correct and truthful material, it can become a hassle. “Follow the clicks” means that you now must take more time out of your day to just read and review the site, author, and evidence just to find out if you can use it as a good source. You will find and go through more false information that actual real information. When an author writes a book, the author has already gone through all the false evidence and has provided you with the correct data. It is easier to take the physical book and use that information instead of having to examine it all yourself and then decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong.

Having a reading online just requires you to do more work than what you wanted to, for example I am taking a biology class right now that required an online textbook and I cannot stand to use the textbook. This textbook confines me so much that it makes it harder for me to learn. The best way that I learn, is to write something down or underline the important facts. This online textbook takes away from me learning. It highlights what it thinks is significant for me to know for the tests and exams instead of allowing me to do it for myself so I can learn. I love to write things down in the margins of my books that I have question about or additional things that my teachers say about a specific topic. I cannot write things down in the margins of this online textbook because the textbook will not allow me to do such a thing. I never sit down and just read this textbook because I have the world at my fingertips. I wonder off onto Facebook, Twitter, and retail shopping websites instead of reading because it is online. Due to this textbooks restriction, I am not doing too well in the class and I cannot understand any of the topics that my teacher teaches the class. This is one of the biggest reasons that I do not like to use or even read something online. I hate to read anything online because of all the struggles that I have had with this biology textbook.

Yes, the future is moving towards technology, but I feel that we should keep physical books in use. There are just some things that just need to stay the way that it has always been and having a physical book is one of those things that should not change. Somethings should and could be online like magazines, news articles, emails, and thing like that; but things like textbooks for school and research books should still be on paper. It makes it so much easier for the person doing the research or learn in the classroom.

“The Nether”

When I first read the short description of what the book was about on the back cover of the book I was not interested at all. So, my mind set about this play was not very good when walking in. It took a little while for me to understand what was going on but as the play continued, I really started to enjoy the play. The play was about this man that had created this virtual universe for people to go to and explore their feelings and explore things that society says is wrong but is OK to do in this virtual world. This man that created this virtual universe is now being investigated because some actions in this universe are considered “illegal” by the government in actual reality. The play continues to switch between the room where the investigation is being held and this virtual universe. there was another character that was being investigated also but he was being investigated for information about the one they call “Papa” in this virtual universe. The man being investigated for information about “Papa” ends up committing suicide because in the virtual universe Papa told him that he could not stay forever and that he does not love him.

There were a few things that could of been better with the play. I went on Friday night and I heard that the rest of the shows were sold out. The play could of been on the main stage instead of the little room, which would allow for more people to come and it would of been a more comfortable experience for the audience. Also, they could have done more with the set. In the play they described what the girls room looked like and things like that. They could have tried to create that room with other props.

The play was done very well. I thought that the actors did a very good job bringing these characters to life. The change between scenes was done very well. The music that went along with the scene change was very good. The lights we done very good. There was just enough light to see the actors and the set but not to much light to loose the effect of the place they were in.

Who I Am Now

Who I am now is a man that can read and write at a college level. But if you had asked me when I started high school if I would be here today, I would probably tell you no. It was a long hard struggle to get to this point, but I have completed the journey and now am at the top. Reading and writing have never been anything that I have enjoyed to do. If I had a choice, I would never pick up a book and read it on my own for fun unless it was a Sports Illustrated magazine. I hated to read and write because no matter what, it would be insufficient. I would stutter and mix up words and it was just too much for me to do. It was like pulling teeth to get me to read because I felt stupid when I would speak aloud. It was not until I met three very special people, who showed me that with patience and time, I could reach my full potential. Even though today English is still not my favorite subject, these three-people showed me that even though I struggle to do something I can still do it and do it well.

For me to read and write, when I was younger, was a struggle. My elementary and middle school teachers tried to help but never could connect with me do to their inability to compare it to something that I understood. I did not really start to understand how to read and write until I attended Archbishop Curley, my high school. My sophomore year, I had a male teacher that really opened my eyes to importance of literacy. Mr. Park was about twenty-six years old with a bachelor’s degree in English and Literature. He attended Archbishop Curley and graduated in 2006. Right out of college, he taught English at a Baltimore City high school and then about three years after, he came back to his alma mater to teach. So, at the end of the first day of classes, I walked up to Mr. Park and told him my story of my experiences and struggles with reading and writing. He knew where I was coming from because he was the same way growing up. He had female teachers throughout elementary and middle school and what his teachers were telling him just was not computing correctly in his head; he could not understand them. He then told me that it was not until he attended Archbishop Curley that he finally figured it all out. Mr. Park shared with me that his English teacher started to ask him what he liked to do for fun and then his teacher started to compare the interest to the class. After that happened, he could finally understand how to write well. After, we spoke he began to teach me in the same ways he was taught. He asked me what I liked to do on my free time and I told him that I love to hunt, fish, crab, and camping. Well with that he started to compare an essay to camping. He told me that when you go camping, you need to make sure that you have everything you need. You need to do research on what you need for camping and how much of it you need. That research for what you need for camping is the same thing as doing research for an essay. He then said that your introduction should be introducing the audience to what the essay is going to be about. The introduction is like the week before you go camping and you tell everyone you know that you are going camping and telling them what you are going to do while you are camping. The body of the paragraph is like the actual camping trip. That is where all the fun things are happening. He finished this all off with the conclusion and how the conclusion is a summary of what was said in the essay. Just like when you get back from camping and everyone asks you how your camping trip was and you tell them a summary of your trip. At the end of that conversation with Mr. Park, I finally understood how to write an essay. He had explained it to me like no one has ever before, explained it in a way that I can relate to. This is a picture of Mr. Park and myself from my graduation.

Fast forward to my senior year, I could write an essay but it was not written in a form that would be accepted in college. I was struggling to write my college essay and so I took it to my British Literature Teacher Dr. Stathes. He is a big bulky guy that is about thirty-four years old. Dr. Stathes could talk to you about anything. He was the type of guy that knows a little bit about everything and if he did not know as much as you do on a subject, he would be interested in listening to you and what you must say about the subject so he could learn more. So, when I took him my paper, he was surprised about what my essay was about. My essay was about how I had a problem with my choir teacher in my junior year. I play lacrosse in the spring and I was also in an advanced choir that the teacher directed. The rehearsals for this advanced choir were after school, while I had to be on the practice field for lacrosse. In lacrosse, I was fighting for a starting spot on defense with seven guys including myself. I decided to give up the advance choir and focused on playing lacrosse instead. Well, when I went to talk to my teacher about quitting this choir, he went off on me. He wanted to know what about the choir, what about him, and what about us. Meaning that he was only concerned about himself and the choir and not about me doing something other than the choir. He did not want me to experience anything else besides this choir. This conversation was about me, not him and he just didn’t want to hear anything about it. After that conversation, he started to treat me differently and tried to find me not paying attention and messing around, so he could yell at me. The whole point of the essay was to show how I handled myself in a respectful manner. Dr. Stathes liked the idea of my essay, but there were many things to fix. He said first off, my word choice was not sophisticated. He said that I put in basic words that did not fit. He also said that I had problems with my paragraph structure and that the paragraphs did not flow together. So, I went home that night and took his advice and wrote a whole different paper using the same topic. I took it back to him the next day to read over and he said that I did a better job but there were still problems with the paragraphs and how they flowed. He was kind enough to take time after school and teach me how to write a paragraph that meets college standards. He took another topic that I was looking at and we wrote the paragraph together and as we would write the paragraph, he would stop and explain to me what would be better and how to change it so I could see my mistakes and then fix them. Dr. Stathes took the time to work with me and prepare me to write like a college student.

Then comes my first semester in college. I had to take English 148 because I did not do to well on the placement test. Professor Fleischmann taught me English 148 and I am glad that she did. On every writing assignment, she always had corrections for me. Whether it was about subject verb agreements, pronoun agreements, or just going on and on in a paragraph. In class, she would go over everything that she had wrote down on people’s papers and showed us how to fix our mistakes. By the end of the semester, I could write an essay perfectly with very few corrections and if I did have corrections, they were about word choices and misspelled words. I had fixed everything that I was doing wrong because Professor Fleischmann took class to go over these types of things to prepare us for future English classes and to prepare us for the rest of our college experiences. Professor Fleischmann had given me the tools to succeed in college.

Thinking back on all this help that I have gotten from Mr. Park, Dr. Stathes, and Professor Fleischmann will allow me to succeed in college and in life. Each teacher would take what the previous teacher had taught and then expanded and added to it. I am now more careful when I write papers for classes or just write for any assignment. I feel that if I do not write like those teachers have taught me, I will be letting them down because of all the time that they have invested into my writing and into me. When an employer is looking at someone’s application and cover letter for a job, they already have an impression of the person from the way that they wrote their application and cover letter even without meeting with the person. People draw conclusions about people from the way that they speak and write. If I had not gotten the help from those teachers, I would not be where I am today and I would probably not have a high paying job in the future.