第二篇：Reflective Narrative
也就是写一个Personal Story，一件发生在你生命中的故事。个人感觉这篇比较好写，只要想好了要写啥故事，那就不愁了，直接信手拈来了。这篇文章个人发挥的余地就比较大了，想写什么就写什么，不过文章还是要有中心论点的，以及叙述要生动，让人有身临其境之感，就跟读小说似的。这篇文章我得了A+并且老师的评论是Excellent job。所以我也分享一些我写文章的经验，以及说几点我在这文章中得到的教训吧，我感觉很受用：
(1). 一定要注意句子和句子之间的内在逻辑，在一篇文章里，没有一句话应该是白说的，它一定是服务于某个目的的。
有时我会犯懒，直接说一个现象，然后就得出了一个结论，因为我实在懒得说过程了。可是读者都有精明的双眼，他们可是不会放过你逻辑上的一点点不合理的地方。你一定要对你说的每一句话负责，因为你想敷衍而过的东西，读者就会像纠住把柄一样不放过。他们会提很多细小的问题，不断在质疑，直到你能自圆其说为止。这一点我在Peer Critique的时候深有体会。这帮Peers一定要我把每件事情都说清楚啊！累死姐了好么！不过现在看来，这真的是个好习惯，也能证明你是一个头脑清晰，负责任的好作者。下面来看我写的一段话，括号里是我的Peer，一个叫Helene的姑娘的质疑：
I have to say I was a very spoiled kid in my childhood. Brought up by my grandparents in a suburban area in Beijing, I was no doubt the apple in their eyes. My grandparents, with the most loving hearts on earth（How can you tell？Any Example？）, treated me with extra love and care lest I felt slightly unhappy. They never blamed me when I did wrongs things, and with this indulgence which I took for granted, I grew more and more self-centered and wayward. At school, I was not a hard-working type of person, but all classes seemed really easy to me. （Why？You are smarter than others or your classes are too easy？）Teachers liked me because I could always get full points in exams. Classmates liked me because I could play the piano and accordion pretty well. （How does “playing an instrument” relate to “your classmates liked you”？Any relationship between these two？Or your classmates like music-oriented students？Explain.）And my neighbors always praised me with the biggest smiles ever when they saw me on the streets and told their kids to “learn from sister Tong.” （Why they did that？Why they praised you？）It seemed that I was the real model that parents set for their children in our district. All of these became my secret pride, which is not even worth mentioning when I looked back, but at that time, it was something powerful enough to float my boat （Avoid cliché!) and make an eight-year-old child quite proud and conceited.
这是第二篇文章的开头段。你们看，我永远无法敷衍我的读者，有些事情我只是想一代而过（因为这些真心不是这篇文章的重点啊亲！我只是介绍一下背景！）但是Helene却提出了这么多个why，而且她提出的问题也很有道理。这些疑问让我思考，也让我觉得我确实句子和句子之间的逻辑不够清楚，能引发人很多遐想。所以，我听取了Helene的建议，把这段改成了如下：
I have to say I was a very spoiled kid in my childhood. Brought up by my grandparents in a suburban area in Beijing, I was the apple in their eyes. They treated me with so much love and care in daily life because they didn’t want me to feel slightly unhappy. They never let me do chores or help them with anything for fear of wasting my time. When my mom criticized me for doing something wrong, they would firmly stand by my side and “defend” my position, and sometimes they even quarreled with my mom. For my grandparents, it seemed that their granddaughter was always right, and her smallest concern should be taken care of. With this indulgence that I took for granted, I grew more and more self-centered and wayward.
At primary school, I was not a hard-working type of person. I just did the required homework and spent the rest of my spare time playing. But all classes seemed really easy to me. I won a lot of awards in math and composition, and despite those academic achievements, I was also good at singing, drawing, playing the piano and accordion. My teachers liked me because I could easily get high scores on exams. My classmates liked to be friends with me because they admired my versatility. I became popular among the kids in our district, and my neighbors, who had occasionally heard their children talk about me, always greeted me with broad smiles when they saw me on the streets and told their kids to “learn from sister Tong.” It seemed that I was the role model that parents set for their children in our district. All of these things became my secret pride, which is not even worth mentioning when I look back, but at that time, it was something powerful enough to make an eight-year-old child quite proud and conceited.
这样就自圆其说多了，读起来没那么牵强了。永远不要低估你的读者们，他们很强大，他们很挑剔，他们有一双双的慧眼去识破你的各种破绽！写作的过程中，一定要不断自我提问，自我反省，你如果对自己提出的问题都不能自圆其说，就别奢望读者们去理解了。
(2). 避免Cliché！！！
Cliché也就是老美们用烂的那些惯用语。通常，这种短语是应该被避免的，但实际上是避免不了的，所以他们才叫做Cliché 。因为这种短语被使用的很广泛，比如写信、电影、文章中都会用到，对于英语学习者来说，这种短语是你应该明白它的含义但是尽量少用的。
我们曾经上了一堂课，专门列出了几个Cliché，然后大家把它们改成新颖的表达方式，我觉得这样还挺有用的。Cliché呢也是见一个积累一个，碰到这些以后就换个方式表达就行了，要不被用滥了就没劲了不是。
其实我在第二篇essay里面也用了一些Cliché的，毕竟是国际生嘛，还不太清楚什么是Cliché什么不是。庆幸的是Peers帮我指出，我才能改进。比如Float my boat，raining cats and dogs，moment of truth，fit as a fiddle这些都算Cliché，以后见到它们，大家要注意换一种方式表达。
(3). Provide a bigger picture out of your personal story。
你这篇essay，一定不要局限于你自己的故事，讲完就完了。要想让这个essay更有含金量，我觉得特别重要的一点就是一定要升华主旨，光就事论事是不够的。写一件事，你自然会得出一些道理，怎么把这些道理升华，让人们站在更高的角度来理解，让读者觉得你这件事情不只是发生在个体的身上，而是有了一种代表性，有一种由个体影射整个社会的意义，就靠你自己的三寸不烂之舌了。
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