Similarly, the supplemental essays we are writing in response to the requirements of individual colleges might change a bit between now and this summer. However, you should be confident that whatever you write now can be applied to either the Common App. or a supplemental essay. You might need to adapt or modify some of your writing, but it is best to get some of the heavylifting writing done between now and the end of the school year.  Oh yeah, it’s also a big part of your fourth quarter grade in Writing 11.

Here is the excerpted relevant information from the Common Application folks:

The 2008-09 online application shuts down on June 12… The 2009-10 online application launches July 1. Your username and password will remain the same, though your former applicant records will be gone, to make room for your new roster of rising seniors…  There are no changes to the 2009-10 Teacher Evaluation form.

Might be something to think about for some of you as you work on revising your college application essays.

http://sisworldlit.wordpress.com/summer-assignment/

1. How has the international media responded to North Korea’s missile launch?

2. In what ways might international perceptions of North Korea impact how the world views South Korea?

3. Has anyone ever asked you “which Korea are you from, North or South?” What does that question reveal on the part of the speaker?

Over the past few months, North Korea’s behavior has grown unusually belligerent, even by Pyongyang’s prickly standards. The North has cut relations with Seoul, tested a new missile, and, after the U.N. condemned the launch last week, threatened to withdraw forever from further nuclear-disarmament talks and restart its weapons program.

Much of the recent commentary has suggested that these moves are a ploy—an attempt by North Korea to sweeten a coming deal with the United States—and that ultimately, Pyongyang will give up its provocations and open to the outside world, as China has. This is a dangerous fantasy. Kim Jong Il and his circle know that exposing their subjects to foreign influence would be fatal to the regime. So they’re likely to continue clamping down and provoking the West. There’s only one way for outsiders to stop Kim’s aggression: regime change.

THE launch of its three-stage rocket on April 5th, North Korea declared, was an outstanding success. The experimental communications satellite sent into orbit was already beaming back revolutionary songs to a grateful nation, and rocket technicians were weeping “tears of joy”.

Yet the United States, South Korea and Japan, over whose main island the rocket flew, said that the launch was a front for testing a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile. What is more, they claimed, it was a flop. The booster rocket appears to have dropped as it should have done into the Sea of Japan, but the rocket’s remaining stages along with its payload ditched in the Pacific some 3,200 kilometres (2,000 miles) from the launch-pad.

FOCAL POINT trains its lens on one of the 15,000 North Korean defectors who have made it to South Korea. Twenty-year-old Haejung (not her real name) was smuggled out of North Korea some years ago in the hope of a better life — leaving her family behind. She now attends Hangyeore High School, a special boarding school an hour outside of Seoul, founded in 2006 to help North Korean teens adjust to life in the South. Most of the school’s 240 students are separated from one or both of their parents back in the North, with little hope of ever seeing them again. They experience severe culture shock transitioning from one of the world’s most isolated Communist states to one of the most technologically and economically advanced societies. The school tries to fill both the emotional void and the cultural gaps. The students eat, sleep, and study on campus. The teachers live with them in the dorms, and many have training as therapists to provide psychological counseling. The curriculum includes everything from history to English to learning how to use a cell phone, computer or credit card. In Field Trip to the DMZ, the students make their annual trip to the border, and Haejung dreams of a time when her family and her homelands will be reunited.

McDonalds is a common symbol of the Westernization of some Asian countries, including South Korea.

The Editors of the New York Times have chimed in with their piece, How Hard is it to Fire a Rocket? From their point of view, the launch was a “failure” and the discussion of a nuclear-armed North Korea a distraction from the real threat of long-range artillery and rockets. Worth reading in its entirety. Make sure not to miss the video clip from Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The blogger behind Ask the Korean has posted a more local response to North Korea’s missile launch. It is also worth a read.

Your new best friend.

The Common Application download forms page is a good place to start. This is where you find all the “paperwork” needed to apply to colleges that accept the Common Application. Of course, these days they are all in PDF and/or Word form. Of particular interest to this Writing 11 class is the fourth document from the top of the list, the “Application (student form)“. This is a five-page PDF. The last page contains the essay prompt questions. The 2008 essay prompts and instructions are below:

Personal Essay Please write an essay (250 words minimum) on a topic of your choice or on one of the options listed below. Please indicate your topic by checking the appropriate box. This personal essay helps us become acquainted with you as a person and student, apart from courses, grades, test scores, and other objective data. It will also demonstrate your ability to organize your thoughts and express yourself.

1 Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

2 Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.

3 Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.

4 Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

5 A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, or an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.

6 Topic of your choice.

Note that the last prompt essentially allows you to write about anything you want to. The essay prompts themselves get updated periodically, it seems like about every two years, but prompt #6 guarantees that whatever you write about this spring, you will still be able to use it when the 2009 Common Application is released next fall.

You will need to choose one of six prompts and write an essay to submit with your Common Application. Sound simple? Wait – there’s more. Many schools these days require “supplemental” essays. So while you must write a response to one of the six Common Application essay prompts, you will probably find yourself writing an additional essay for many of the schools you apply to – even though they accept the Common Application. And if they don’t accept the Common Application, you will probably still have to write an essay.

The College Board’s page on the College Application Essay is useful.  You will find suggestions for writing in response to some of the more common essay prompts, such as the “The ‘you’ question”, “The ‘why us’ question” and “The ‘creative’ question”.

Find this book.

Sarah Myers McGinty’s The College Application Essay, published by the College Board, is the best book on the subject I have read. It is the only college essay book I have read that did a good job of explaining the types of skills needed to write well. It is more than a collection of essays, and the essays that are included are realistic, unlike the “Best of…” series of books that bind top essays from around the country together with little or no insight. Unfortunately it currently appears to be unavailable at amazon.com I am worried it might be out of print. There is some additional information about the book and a contact e-mail on the College Board’s website.

About.com has some advice about what to focus on while interpreting each of the essay prompts, along with a few samples of student essays. If you guys want to share information, maybe we can post other useful links below.

Dr. McNinja (this is a caption for a graphic, you already knew that, but do you use them?)

Writing 11 isn’t a technology class, but we are using technology  to improve our writing and visual communication skills. Specific techniques that David uses to be a more effective writer online (things that everyone should take note of to improve their own blog writing during fourth quarter) include:

• Using imbedded hyperlinks in narrative text instead of pasting long URLs
• Using block quotes
• Using captions under photos, graphics, and other images
• Bold text in response to assigned questions and/or as headings and subheadings

Speaking of ninjas, one of my favorites is Dr. McNinja (that was another imbedded hyperlink, by the way).