Minjok Essay

When Koreans discuss the concept of 'Minjok', they usually think of a group which member is in identical nation. Some might argue that this concept lose its meaning nowadays since 21st century is the era of open borders. However, analyzing the concept of it does have several noticeable points.
The word 'Minjok' was first made by translating the word 'nation', which came from a Latin word 'natio'. At first, 'natio' means a group which bond its member with blood-relation. Its meaning has changed as certain social status, colleagues. After French revolution, the meaning of it changed as a group of people who share same political view, rather than blood-relationship.
The concept of Minjok was re-defined in Japanese-colonization period, which Japan completely take control of Korean government. Many scholars in Korea want to fight against Japan with strong collaboration among every citizens, and spreading the concept of Minjok is a method of gathering people. A historian named Shin chae-ho argued that the history of Korea and Japan is different from the initial point. They have different ancestor, and with the concept of ‘Minjok’, they have developed distinct cultures. His argument is against to that of Japan.

TOEFL Essay Workshop

Topic :The 21st century has begun. What changes do you think this new century will bring? Use examples and details in your answer.

Group :Gwon Junho, Park Hyogeun, Choi Changseon, Cho Munyoung, Yun Ungsang, 

Original Essay

     What is the most fatal, inevitable enemy of all living things? Of all life-threatening matters, the answer is disease. Humans, especially, have coexisted with it, trying to research, find treatments, and overcome it. Thus, as technology developed more and more, people were able to find better and more effective cure for diseases, resulting in lengthened life expectancy. Similarly, I believe the largest change in 21st centuryis disease, in both positive and negative ways.

      To begin with, some of the incurable diseases would not be called the same in 21st century. As I mentioned earlier, humans are able to conquer diverse illnesses through constantly growing technology. Humans have done so until today, so there’s no doubt that more diseases would be overcome. To give an example of the incurable disease in past, pest, best known as black plague, was one of the biggest threats to Europeans in mid-14th century. Millions of people lost their lives, and there was no hope at the time, as no one could figure out the cause of it. However, today, pest isn’t even conceived as a serious disease since vaccine was invented. Scientists were able to verify the cause through microscope, and inhibited the potentially dangerous germs from harming humans. Likewise, in 2012, there are lots of diseases thought to be formidable and insurmountable, such as AIDS and cancer. Though countless people are suffering from them these days, through extreme advance in technology in this century, I expect these diseases to take the same path as pest, and even longer life expectancy for humans.

      On the other hand, developments in 21st century may even worsen the ‘disease matter’. To be specific, extreme developments today have harmed the environment largely. The thing is that the environment is not the only target. Humans are also influenced by boomerang effect, and the best example is cancer.Although cancer is known to be a contemporary disease, it is not, as an ancient Egyptian was found to have carried cancer when he was alive. However, it was not a usual disease for Egyptians, and such informs us that some change brought increase in occurrence of cancer, which is human activity. In fact, there are numerous evidences showing how human activity can affect cancer cells to be more active. As humans are always looking forward to advance in their civilizations, more pollution is being generatedevery second. Although humans might overcome the present diseases in the future, at the same time, it is possible for them to resurrect the deadly illnesses that haven’t been found yet.

     To sum up, 21st century will open up a new age for diseases through vast enhancement in technology and development. However, it is not sure whether the situation would improve or deteriorate, as the chances are fifty-fifty. Whether it would be an innovation or a disaster, humans must be ready to absorb such changes in disease on the upcoming 21st century.

Anaylzing Changseon's TOEFL Essay

Our team members chose Choi Changseon’s essay to review strengths and weak points.

When we discussed about revising his essay, we focused on the next categories: ideas, organization, word choice, sentence fluency and proofreading.

1.     IDEAS – Changseon chose ‘diseases’ to be the big changes in the 21^st century. We liked his interesting and creative idea. However, His writing needed more support, so we added some more details.

2.     ORGANIZATION - His essay had a quite well developed beginning, middle and ending. Changseon introduced his topic interestingly by asking a challenging question “What is the most fatal, inevitable enemy of all living things?” Middle part was composed of 2 paragraphs. To support details, he used ‘comparison’ about diseases in the past and at the present. But, the examples supporting his topic sentences were not enough to clarify his ideas. Thus we added more examples such as ‘nanotechnology’ and ‘super bacteria’ to make his writing clear enough to understand. His closing was effectively summarized the contents of his essay.

3.     WORD CHOICE – A good writing should use the best words and avoid redundancy and repetition. So we carefully checked for any flaws in his writing and we corrected them when revising.

4.     SENTENCE FLUENCY – For effective sentence fluency, we sometimes combined or divided the sentences to make them read more smoothly. To do this work, one of our members read the essay loud and we listened carefully for anything that could be awkward.

5.     PROOFREADING – After finishing revising, we checked for any errors in punctuation, mechanics, and grammar.

Revising

We revised changseon's essay ;

(If you click the picture, you can see it in detail.)

After Revision(Final Draft)

What is the most fatal and inevitable enemy of all living things? Of all life threatening matters, personally the answer is diseases. Humans have coexisted with diseases, trying to research, find treatments, and overcome them. Some say that people will be able to find more effective cures for diseases, resulting in lengthened life expectancy as the technology develops more and more. Others, however, say that numerous diseases will be able to come out as the technology advances. As Humans and diseases are inextricably bound up each other, the changes in diseases will greatly affect the 21^st century as followings:

 To begin with, some of the incurable diseases nowadays will disappear in the 21st century. Humans are able to conquer diverse illnesses through constantly growing technology. As a result, in the end, there will be no more incurable diseases left. To give an example of the incurable disease in the past, pest, best known as black plague, was one of the biggest threats to Europeans in the mid-14^th century. Millions of people lost their lives, with no hope remaining, since no one could figure out the cure for this disease. However, today, pest is not even considered as a serious disease ever since vaccine has invented. Scientists were able to verify the cause through microscopes, and inhibited the potentially dangerous germs from harming humans. Likewise, in 2012, there are lots of diseases thought to be formidable and insurmountable, such as AIDS and cancer. Though countless people are suffering from them these days, through extreme advance in technology in this century such as developing nanotechnology, I expect these diseases to take the same path as pest, perhaps resulting in even longer life expectancy for humans.

On the other hand, human activity, especially technological advance caused by the development in the 21st century may even worsen humans' power against incurable diseases. To be specific, extreme developments resulting in numerous vaccines have ironically caused stronger diseases, which are incurable, to occur. In the past, the rate of mutants in various diseases was low due to the lack of cures. However, as the development of technology led to the invention of effective vaccines, the rate of mutants in these diseases skyrocketed. According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, organisms develop and get stronger as they get biologically threatened causing invincible mutants to appear. Likewise, increase on cure methods led to the increase of mutants. Ultimately, the development of cures led to the infinite routine of cure vs. disease. One example of this is the appearance of Super bacteria. Since the past, bacteria haven't been a huge threat to the human race. However, due to the constant changes and development of medicines, Super bacteria, which are incurable with current technology, occurred. Although, humans might overcome the present diseases in the future, at the same time, it is possible for us to create more deadly diseases.

To sum up, the 21^st century will open up a new age for diseases through vast enhancement in technology and development. However, it is not sure whether the situation would improve or deteriorate, as the chances are fifty-fifty. Whether it would be an innovation or a disaster, humans must be ready to absorb such changes in diseases on the upcoming 21^st century.

The words in red - grammatical errors are changed

The words in purple– sentences and phrases are changed

After Finishing the Project

After we finished our team project of TOEFL WORKSHOP, we learned that we should give a lot of time and efforts to write a good essay. We know that an effective essay needs prewriting, writing, revising, and proofreading. While revising Changseon’s essay, we could think of the essentials in good writing and learn a lot from one another.  We are sure that this revising experience will make us write better essays from now on.

Monthly TOEFL Essay #2

Monthly TOEFL Essay #2

Gwon Jun Ho 10a1

The 21st century has begun. What changes do you think this new century will bring? Use examples and details in your answer.

           Humankind has faced numerous restraints to their goals throughout history. They have developed various ways of avoiding it, such as alchemist’s work to live forever, making a wheel to move faster. Although some of goals are not achieved in that period, it indeed helped nowadays’ technological development. Now, in modern society, people's average life span doubled, and we can travel to even other countries in a day. Because change in physical barrier is useful in explaining the impact of changes made by era, I firmly assert that major changes in 21th century is, human will be free from restriction by age and distance. Also, humans will be responsible for the use of resources.

                  First of all, our life span will infinite. Before industrial revolution, human is so weak to severe diseases because no proper treatment was provided. Now, many scientists are trying to find the determinant of life span such as telomere. In my perspective, it is possible to make the reason for why people die. In other word, we can live forever if we want. But, I don't think it means every human will live forever; they can, but many people will select when to die. People might get bored if they don't have to worry about their survival, and some people who lose the goal of life, can die. Human can make their future without the worrying about survival. How to live longer is not a problem that day, how to live happily, is a problem.
             Moreover, we can travel to any places regardless of any distance. Transportation technology have steadily increased to the point where we can travel to other city in a day, which spent a week, just a hundred years ago.  With this speed, in the end of 21th century, we can travel to other universe, and maybe alien can be a real being, not an imaginary one. 

Another important change in 21th century is, people feel responsibility for the use of any resources. Before technologies are not highly advanced, human do not need much resources; they did not produce same product again and again. Nowadays, however, mass production and cutting-edge technology requires much resources. Our resources is not infinite; it will be depleted in some moment, and once it is depleted, we cannot return it back unless a time machine is made. It need to be reminded that there must be a cost for our convenience. We need to be careful when we exploit any resources. 

             Nobody cannot accurately predict about future, even a second later. However, it is obvious that technology will advance, and it will bring numerous changes. Everything will be faster, and our life span will be longer. 

Earthlings (n) someone who inhabits the earth;

When I was young, my younger brother often bought pets such as hamsters, chick, and fish. My siblings were interested in the pets, but easily got bored of them. They didn’t care about them at all, and I felt pity for them, since they have no reason to be tortured in my cup. Just for my brother’s momentous desire, they are captivated in a dirty bath, with no provision. I asked my mother to feed them, but she said that it’s merely a tiny animals. Other adults said the same thing and also said I was too young to understand it.

Time flies and now, tiny creatures are faded out of my mind. I became accustomed to people’s common thought; human is superior of all the animals. Just before the end of adolescence, I watch a film named ‘Earthlings’ directed by Shaun Monson, and he just captured my mind; I strongly feel affinity with the idea of this film ‘Earthlings’, which describes animal’s suffering due to human’s desire, by dividing the film into five aspects; pets, food, clothes, entertainment, and scientific research. Animals are in overcrowded environment, slaughtered without pain-killing, and some circus-animals are forced to do difficult tasks just for people’s joy. They lacked minimum care. The most surprising thing is it is all based on facts. In the website of earthlings, it is introduced as a

“Considered the most persuasive documentary ever made, EARTHLINGS is nicknamed “the Vegan maker” for its sensitive footage shot at animal shelters, pet stores, puppy mills, factory farms, slaughterhouses, the leather and fur trades, sporting events, circuses and research labs.”

Granted, it is one of the most persuasive documentary. And to know how it change the daily life of people, we can consider Aristocrat’s modes of persuasion. According to the modes of persuasion, there are three ways of persuasion; ethos, pathos, and logos. The First one is ‘ethos’, in other word, credibility. Next, ‘pathos’ is an appeal to the audience’s emotions. Finally, ‘logos’ represents logical appeal such as describing facts with supporting the author’s claim. Among three of them, I think that Earthlings mostly consists of ‘pathos’, and also based on ‘ethos’. With watching earthlings, people get aversive feelings by cruelties of it. It induces emotional reaction of watchers, so it’s based on ‘pathos’. Also, the producer of this film took a video of how they are suffered to claim his opinion. Again, every scenes reflects reality, so in a way, ‘ethos’ are used.

Earthling is blamed for some opponents that it mostly depends on ‘pathos’. For instance, blah. They argue that it fails to give a both-sided opinion to the watcher, since it only describes human’s violence to animals, rather giving any better alternatives to audiences, for animal’s suffering.

The narrator of Earthlings said, ‘It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat, we would all be vegetarians’. Some of my peers argued about this sentence and said that ‘earthling’ is merely a well-made propaganda. They express somewhat resistance to this.

The other students saw Earthlings and said to me that it shocked them, and ironically, they happily ate meat without hesitating a moment. They said that it is far different problem between those cruelties and eating meat. In contrast, some people boycotted meat product and even claimed to become vegetarians with their video on YouTube. They all saw the same clip, but their response was distinct by each other.

Nevertheless, I think that people like one of my friend misunderstand about the true meaning of this film. The ultimate goal of ‘Earthlings’ is to make people realize one obvious fact; we, humankinds, are not different from animals which we feel superior to.

Monthly TOEFL Essay #1: Collective Society

Essay Prompt - Describe a custom from your country that you would like people from other countries to adopt. Explain your choice, using specific reasons and examples.

                  Nothing occurs with nobody, since human is sociological being. Especially Koreans have developed extraordinary strong relationship among neighbors, from the cradles to the tombs. In our daily life, we eat together, and work together. We share our happiness, and help relieve the pain when someone is under affliction. We also feel sense of belonging. We call it “Collective Society”. I firmly assert that collective society is what we should hand over to next generation, and also, what I would like foreigners to adopt the most.

                  First of all, it helps make a strong relationship among members. Throughout millenniums, Koreans have faced many wars. Such invasions are mostly derived by the geographically position—peninsula. For both Japan and China, Korea is a way to conquer other nations because Korean peninsula connects two countries. For instance, in Korean’s Civil War, Korean peninsula was exploited for both sides as an advanced base for counterpart. Such wars impoverished Koreans and everyone needs to find their own way of surviving. An individual’s power is not enough to resist to external force, and thus they help each other to overcome suffering. Koreans solidified ourselves to fight against enemies, and form intricate bonds among people which make us to overcome any situation. Just like families talking each other with no hesitate, people converse with comfort.

Moreover, it provides the way how to live with others. Since ancient times, several large families gathered and lived in a village. With playing neighbors, children could learn how to interact with others. Some opponents refutes that Collective Society induces bullying because it forces every member to follow what others do. They claim that bullying is prevalent in many Asian countries, which emphasizes whole groups rather than individuals. However, Collective Society does not only emphasize the whole; rather, it focuses on harmony among members. Most of bullying occurs after individualism was spread. Nowadays, children grew up in a small family, with not many siblings. Thus, they don’t know how to deal with others. If we live as we did before, bullying will disappear naturally.

Last but not least, Collective Society encourages people to run toward common goals. In other words, it gives synergy effect. For example, Korea’s exponential growth in economy is due to the synergy effect. After Civil War, nothing was left, and with a President’s lead, every Koreans collaborated to achieve economic growth. They worked day and night. They devoted their effort to Korea’s economic growth, and we achieve the goal, faster than any other countries. A poor small country, which desperately needs aids, is now giving assistance to other countries. In this case, it has severe limits; a community’s development entirely lies on a leader. However, as I mentioned before, everyone has equal right in Collective Society, so minority’s opinions are also respected. Even though many people think in a wrong way, there has been always someone who can see the righteous thing.

To sum up, collective society provides deeper relationship among members, provides guidelines for how we live together, and finally, gives synergy effect in achieve common goals. Many people often misunderstand Collective Society and Totalitarianism. They have distinct features; Collective Society rather focuses on harmony between members. It gives solutions for competitive society it influences many of Korean’s characteristics such as their kinship and passion, Thus I firmly think that it’s worth spreading.

My Goals

Before introducing my goals, I want to briefly introduce my previous dream, since what I have dreamed and what I have done make me who I am. 

Once, I dreamed to be a historian. When I was young, someone left a book named "King Sejong" in front of my house. I was deeply impressed. As other kids read tales of the Arabian Night, I read what he did.

My dream changed to OST composer since I started to learn piano. Classical music also amazed me, but I want to be famous. I simply thought that, if people love my songs, I can be a star. 

As I became a middle school student, I studied Math! It was quite interesting subject more than I thought. It also leads to be a member of KMLA family.

Being a high school student, I face one problem now; WHO I AM?

My Goal is to find the answer for the question above.

In KMLA, I have experienced various types of subject; which requires English ability, Mathematical thought, and many other abilities.

Before I experience real "Studying", I need to equip myself with fluent English speaker, to raise Korea to highest level, as our school motto said.

That's all I want to do.