What is the model senate?
Model senate is a project where the senior class imitates the United States Congress. Students are assigned real senators and their jobs. These senators make bills for different committees and topics. This year the topics were climate change, immigration and college debt. The committee members make the bills for each committee and the leaders/specialty roles choose from those to decide which bills go to committee. The bills then go through committee. If the bill passes it goes to the final exhibition night at the senate floor.
Ranking Member of the Energy & Natural Resources Committee
For this project I was given the specialty role of a ranking member for a committee. The committee I was in addressed the climate change bill, fitting for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The ranking member is the leader of the minority part of the committee, in this case that is the democrats. This role also leaded committee through Parly Pro a.k.a. Roberts Rules and had to research who they could possibly sway to get a bill passed or killed.
I found this role to be fairly easy to work with. Although I had to lead committee, I didn't have to write legislation or do a speech. I really enjoyed this leader role -- eventhough it was challenging -- and found myself more comfortable doing it. I felt like I didn't do enough, but I realize that is because of my other classes not pushing me hard enough.
However, it ended up that my bill did not pass out of committee. The bill got to the point where all of the Democratic amendments passed and the bill had become the perfect democratic climate change bill. The reason it didn't pass is because some of my democratic peers didn't vote yes because they didn't want to speak at the senate floor. In other words it didn't pass because of laziness. Which ruffled my feathers, but I couldn't do anything about it just like the actual senate...
My favorite moment would have to be the speakers list going crazy at the end like it did. We opened it again to let one more person talk and alot of people rebuddled. We ended up opening and closing the speakers list until we met the maximum amout of people that could talk during one opening of the speakers list.
What I really learned from this project is that congress is a very complicated system in which it has become nearly impossible to pass any form of legislation. There are many reasons for this. One being that people are lazy and sometimes don't care to pass a bill just so that they don't have to work. Another being that there are many ways that a bill can get killed that we didn't even consider. The list goes on, and even when they finally do there is the chance that the bill will just get vetoed by the president.
I found this role to be fairly easy to work with. Although I had to lead committee, I didn't have to write legislation or do a speech. I really enjoyed this leader role -- eventhough it was challenging -- and found myself more comfortable doing it. I felt like I didn't do enough, but I realize that is because of my other classes not pushing me hard enough.
However, it ended up that my bill did not pass out of committee. The bill got to the point where all of the Democratic amendments passed and the bill had become the perfect democratic climate change bill. The reason it didn't pass is because some of my democratic peers didn't vote yes because they didn't want to speak at the senate floor. In other words it didn't pass because of laziness. Which ruffled my feathers, but I couldn't do anything about it just like the actual senate...
My favorite moment would have to be the speakers list going crazy at the end like it did. We opened it again to let one more person talk and alot of people rebuddled. We ended up opening and closing the speakers list until we met the maximum amout of people that could talk during one opening of the speakers list.
What I really learned from this project is that congress is a very complicated system in which it has become nearly impossible to pass any form of legislation. There are many reasons for this. One being that people are lazy and sometimes don't care to pass a bill just so that they don't have to work. Another being that there are many ways that a bill can get killed that we didn't even consider. The list goes on, and even when they finally do there is the chance that the bill will just get vetoed by the president.
Writing Goals
College Essay RevisionI didn't feel like I grew too much in writing this essay, but if anything I learned how to file through a document a find what is and isn't necessary for conveying a message. I had a 650 word limit and had to try and fit a small story of how I came from rough beginnings to being at the top of my game in Junior year. Not only that, but adding the extended metaphor did not help. It made me add a couple words here and there. However, I think that it did end up working well in the end and I had a great essay.
One example of me shortening a sentence is in this line. "After tying my figure eight I call to my belayer, “climbing!” He responds with a slight nod and I put my hand on the first red-white plastic hold." - 52 Word Count |
Word Choice/VoiceIn some of my writing the wording could be improved to strengthen the writing. By improving this I could better my ability to convey a message, strengthen my argument, and/or just have better writing in general. One way I could start would be to find words that are more potent via a thesaurus.
Grammatical ErrorsAlthough these are uncommon sometimes peers catch them in my writing. They can be something small or something big. When I look over my work I must read too fast because I miss these silly mistakes. I believe that going over my work at a talking speed would point out these mistakes easier and help me to fix them.
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General Sentence FlowI tend to accidentally make run-on sentences. My brain thinks two steps ahead of what I'm typing or saying. So, for example, instead of writing tomorrow like a normal person would I would accidentally type "to morrow". This is an example of my brain thinking to fast for my fingers. It really comes from muscle memory my brain is trying to maximize efficiency and puts the space after "to" like it does usually. Run-on sentences happen the same way. My brain is already on the next sentence and then instead of putting a period where it belongs, my brain tries to "seamlessly" transfer to the next sentence. As of right now don't know how I could work on this, but I am open to suggestions.
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Continuation of College Essay Revision...
This sentence has plenty of excess words. Although, I do like the description of the first hold, I don't need the call out to my belayer or having him nod back. This is it after revisions:
"The climb starts after getting the check with my belayer. Grabbing the first red-chalk lined hold I start my climb."
- 21 Word Count
That is a decrease of 31 words and it doesn't skip out on anything that you could miss too much.
I didn't really get any feedback that pushed me to revise. I actually restarted the whole essay and started from a blank slate, not because I got the feedback to do that, but because when I do that it feels like the words come out better writing. I also got motivation from knowing that making this count is worthwhile for college.
I could quote both the first, second, and final draft, but that's busy work. At some point during my junior year in Humanities I was writing something and I must have felt like the work I had done wasn't reparable and just started over again. This recreation was much better than what I had previously created, and I liked the process because it gave me something productive to do with all the extra work time that my peers used to gossip or whatever.
"The climb starts after getting the check with my belayer. Grabbing the first red-chalk lined hold I start my climb."
- 21 Word Count
That is a decrease of 31 words and it doesn't skip out on anything that you could miss too much.
I didn't really get any feedback that pushed me to revise. I actually restarted the whole essay and started from a blank slate, not because I got the feedback to do that, but because when I do that it feels like the words come out better writing. I also got motivation from knowing that making this count is worthwhile for college.
I could quote both the first, second, and final draft, but that's busy work. At some point during my junior year in Humanities I was writing something and I must have felt like the work I had done wasn't reparable and just started over again. This recreation was much better than what I had previously created, and I liked the process because it gave me something productive to do with all the extra work time that my peers used to gossip or whatever.