Post 6: Family Story/Issues Paper

I found this research paper to be a little difficult at first. I thought I had a good thesis, and then I realized that I there were no academic journals or anything about the topic. Then I had to create a new thesis and topic. My final paper ended up not so much being about my family stories but the environment in which my family lived.

I wasn't too attached to this paper. I know it was about my family, but I wasn't super interested in the topic I chose. Sure, I learned a lot about France during World War II, but I could have tried to have found a topic that I was more interested in. That's the problem with my writing sometimes, I'm not very interested in the topic even if I choose it. In all honesty, I thought that sample paper about the aliens was really cool and I would have preferred to write that one.

I did find out a lot about my topic when I wrote this paper. I never knew a lot about German occupation of France because we never really learn about it at school. I now have a better understanding of how and why the French got invaded. Well, I think we all know the why, but why the French allowed it to happen so easily was the real question I had. I really do feel as if I learned a lot about history because of this paper. Imagine that. I learned about history in a writing class. That's not something you hear about everyday in high school.

In order to make this paper better, I would advise the writer to choose a topic that they are really interested in. The writer needs to have a connection with the paper. I think having the family stories be the topic of the paper allows the writer to be connected more. A paper needs to be interesting and fun. Otherwise, the writer may not put enough effort in the paper as they should have. Don't just choose a topic to get a grade. Choose a topic that will be enjoyable for a long time.

I am glad that I had the opportunity to write this paper. It allowed me to work on my writing skills while learning about my family story. Now I feel as if I understand more fully what my grandfather had to go through during his childhood in France. I never knew my grandfather, but I feel very close to him now.

Post 5: General Conference October 2014

General Conference was this past weekend. I hope you all attended/watched/listened to it. The talks were extremely good. One of my favorites was Elder Richard G. Scott's talk. In his talk titled Make the Exercise of Faith Your First Priority, Elder Scott uses pathos to inform everyone how to achieve eternal peace through faith.

In the talk, Elder Scott told us about the four tools we have that allow us to practice our faith. The four tools were Prayer, Scripture Study, Family Home Evening, and Temple Attendance. According to Elder Scott, all four of these tools should be our first priorities in life. He even states that Scripture Study is more important than sleep and anything else we do. We need to teach our kids (if we have them) the importance of faith in Family Home Evening. Prayer and Temple Attendance help us draw closer to our Heavenly Father. If we want to stay faithfully strong in this world, we need to follow God by using these four tools. Pathos is used by the way we feel at the end of Elder Scott's talk. I don't know about you, but I felt as if the Lord loved me and that if I followed him I could do anything. Elder Scott puts hope and joy into our hearts with his talk.

I know that when we follow our Prophet and the Apostles, we will be blessed in our lives. We can all achieve eternal happiness. It's not that hard. If we just follow the Gospel we can live with our Heavenly Father again. When we listen to the Prophet and Apostles and really try to understand what they are telling us (like we are doing now), we can find what we need to do in order to live with God again.    

Here is just something funny I found online.

Post 4: Idea for Writing Paper

Hello lovely readers. Obviously, we are all trying to come up with a thesis about a family story in order to write a paper. Well, my family is pretty boring. However, my grandfather's story is pretty cool. He grew up in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. After a few years, he moved to America to start a new life. He gave up everything to come here. He had not even met his family that was going to give him a room. My grandfather was a engineer in France, but when he moved to America he had to work as a garbage man for a long time. My question for my research paper is: Was Europe so terrible that someone would give up their whole life in order to start over in the United States?


10/17 Revision

Alright, so I am sorry that I don't have your comments in this post. I copied them onto a Word document on my computer so that I wouldn't forget them. Thanks for all of the great advice, though. I have changed my thesis when I was doing research on my topic. Although I want to write about alien abductions like in the sample, I must keep to France. This is my new research thesis, what do you think?

Thesis: Because of German occupation during World War II, the French had to unite together and rise above the occupation by resisting against the German army both physically and mentally.