Reflective Essay (945 words -- It's looong)

English 11011 was a new experience for me. It’s a class that I relate my entire college experience to. After all, it was the first class that I got up to go to on my first official day of college. It was a writing class like none I have ever taken before and it definitely, as I’ve stated before in previous papers, was anything but conventional – for me at least.

With any class you have things you’d hope to accomplish when all is said and done. For English 11011, Miss Oliver had six specific goals in mind. The first goal was ‘to learn how to recognize and strategically use the conventions of academic literacy.’ Wow, that’s a pretty complex goal it would seem – not really. Basically, it just states that we needed to be able to recognize the different ways in which to structure your writing in both linguistic and logistical ways.

Attacking this goal from a personal standpoint I believe that I did accomplish this first goal. A specific assignment in which I exemplified this was the Multi-Genre Research Paper. A big selling point of the assignment is the order that you put your specific genres and this assignment really showed me that not only is the piece of work important, but the way in which you order it is REALLY important. A poorly ordered MGRP would’ve spelled disaster for what I was trying to convey.

The second goal was ‘to understand and use rhetorical principles to produce public and private documents appropriate for academic and professional audiences and purposes.’ Or simply stated, to understand who you are writing to and then with that known be able to write to focus onto the needs of your audience.

In the Photo Essay I really understood and grasped this concept. I know it’s seems cliché, but when you are doing a video about ‘Northern Ohio Sports Fans’ you better know the ways to connect to them. As a sports fan myself, I know exactly what that kind of reader would want. They want flashy pictures of ballplayers and shots of your team in its moment of triumph. Did I accomplish the second goal in this assignment? You bet your bottom dollar I did.

Goal number three encompasses a lot. Practice good writing? I sure hope I did. Culminate your research with good editing techniques? – Of course. Not to sound conceited, but I would sure hope that I knew how to do this coming into this course. This goal relies on the skeleton of what the writing process is. I could point to every assignment that I did to show you how I used the sources, editing and proper planning and provisioning to make my assignment one that I’m proud of. Along the same lines, goal number four is pretty rudimentary. Do I believe I practiced good reading in English 11011? Yes, especially in regards to ’20 Something Essays…” That book was not what I would call a casual read. Each essay had something that made it the most awkward piece of literature to read, but did I struggle through it enough to have a valid response? – Yes.

I’m going to trim down my responses to goals five and six because I want to get to the more personal side of English 11011 and how it affected me.

For goal five the online blogging went hand in hand (once more – blogging comes up as a misspelled word). It was something new to me and I think it’s brilliant. I can go back to the blog forever and ever and evaluate how much my writing has improved. That to me is such a special thing. Also, the online database EBSCO that I used for my MGRP was astonishingly cool. It made research a breeze and I’ll never be able to count how many hours I saved in the library using that tool.

Goal six is the ability to integrate previous research with your own research in order to form a good perspective. I keep going back to it, but the MGRP culminated this very well and I think I accomplished this goal. So many articles and books online had great points that I wouldn’t have know off the top of my head, but at the same time, for my argument I also had researched opinions that I wanted to add to it and I believe I was successful in this regard.

Now, I’ve got a little over two-hundred words to tell you my personal opinion on this class and my experiences. Firstly, my classmates: they truly made this experience enjoyable. Did I know everyone? – Of course not, but by the end of year I’m sure they knew my lousy voice and name.

My favorite assignment was the photo essay. It was just so cool and I didn’t know I could edit a short video with such good results. It was a pleasant, fun surprise. Of course, the most challenging assignment was the MGRP. I will not lie. During the last week of the assignment I spent a good twelve hours in the library doing both research and writing. It was stressful, yet enjoyable – which is ironic.

In closing, I really liked this class. The teacher was just the right mix of funny and yet a valuable asset to my clueless-ness. The time couldn’t have been worse, but I think that made it that much more quirky. The writing assignments were edgy, and anything but traditional, which rocked. This class will always be remembered as that crazy writing class at 7:45 in the morning where I finally learned how to step out of my comfort zone when writing.

"Last" Freewrite

What am I facing this last week of classes? Realistically, I think I have it pretty easy. If I calculated correct I'm only having two final exams. All my other classes are just having the fourth exam of the semester to calculate into the grade. My assignment in this class worth 25% of my grade is probably the most stressful part of this end of semester.

What am I looking forward to over Christmas break? -- Not much.

I'll be working retail at Best Buy for the Geek Squad and honestly, it's hopefully the closest to hell that I will get. Seriously, retail during Christmas is a job that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemies. The money is great but that only lessens the sting of getting yelled at by angry customers and working for 9 hours straight with only one thirty minute break to lessen the pain.

Beyond that I will be getting outpatient surgery on my upper jaw. It's the first step in a major surgery I will have next Christmas when they will move my upper jaw forward to fix an underbite that I developed during my growing years.

So as you can tell, I'm really excited for break. (intense sarcasm)

Freewrite: MGRP

The multigenre research project that I am doing centers around the question of whether or not the technology that is readily available in the hunting industry has taken the sport out of hunting. The most fun right that I have done with regards to this project so far is brainstorm and start to work on the comic for the project. The most challenging thing would have to be finding five sources that are reliable and can actually help me with my research. There isn't much material on how technology has affected hunting. As far as progress goes, I'm not too far. I'd say maybe 15-20% complete -- and that's pushing it. I only have 1 of 5 sources needed and that's due to not making it to the library yet. I'm most unsure about the possibility that with such a specific question on an odd topic I won't be able to come to a clear and concise argument. What I need help with the most is finding reliable book sources. I'm so used to getting sources online so having to dish through a library is tough. I've created one of the genres, but it's just a sketch and not a final draft. It's a comic strip.

Freewrite 11/5/07

I think that the revision of intro that the author made for the New York Times publishing was just a more clearly stated thesis of the authors beliefs. I think that for her essay in 'Twenty Something' she was not really giving a clear and consise thesis as much as she was just explaining her lifestlye. With that, her tone seemed like it was one that really didn't care what others thought about her lifestlye.

For the second question, I would have to say that I agree. I have been apart of Myspace and Facebook and I think that Facebook is the healthiest alternative because I feel that it is much easier to connect with people that you actually have withstanding REAL relationships with.

Rock My Network (excuse x2)

Firstly, I wanted to apologize for not getting my blog in on time. This is becoming a nasty habit of reading the essay on Friday and then waiting to do the blog and never having time. I was at the Browns game and instead of having computer access all weekend our internet was out.

Ironically, I read this essay almost three weeks ago FOR FUN, so I was happy that I could read it again knowing what I already did.

I think that the author of this essay is like everyone else in that she craves that 'social satisfaction.' She wants to have friends and more friends and basically, it boils down to I have lots of friends so I'm a special person. BUT, she defines friends different than anyone I've ever met in person. For me, personally, I have a handful of close friends -- maybe five to ten. Then, I've got dozens of other friends, in a much more general sense of the word -- people that I've met, and I see usually twice a week. We get along and enjoy each others company, so I consider them a friend.

I think that in Rock My Network, the author lumps everyone into one large category of "friends." She uses all of the social networking sites to make more 'friends' and meet new people. Having used a couple of notable sites, I think that is absolutely fine, but I found it pretty sad that she found herself recognizing people in real life and yet she still called them by their online username, which brings me to another point.

Reading through it a second time it become ever more clear to me that her perception of the people she meets is diluted. I've talked to many people on the internet through forums and such and it is very hard to gather a perception of what they are really like in real life. Even when a picture is provided someone who seems outgoing and bubbly could actually turn out to be shy and even cold. So, that being said, I'm pretty sure the author is obsessed with the virtual friendships and in return neglects the true friendships that she formed as a child and into her adulthood.

Since mostly no one will discuss a late post I'll put down two thoughts.

1) I personally feel that the author is too wrapped up in the virtual word of friends and thus she will hurt her family relationships and even childhood relationships.

2) The author seems pretty honest in her intentions of meeting new people of 'social' levels. I think that she needs to understand that having a bazillion friends doesn't make you a complete human being.

Excuses

Why did I do my homework at 10:30pm last night? Let me count the ways.

Well, I was home all weekend, but once I got in that car on Friday and left campus, I was pretty much left of any thoughts about schoolwork for the remainder of that day and all the way until late Sunday. I knew I had to get the blog done, but the Browns actually WON a game! Can you believe it?! So I had to sit for the three and a half hours that the game was on and watch it.

Also, I didn't know the homework was due by noon. I will start doing the blog a day in advance because I wasn't even home from church and lunch until around 11:30am.

Prime-Time You

Prime-Time You was an interesting essay to say the least. I wasn't sure I could trust anything this guy was trying to say -- being that he is with the advertisers and who's job it is to predict trends in how I will react to certain marketable enterprises. Whatever.

Part rant against an ever changing society, part plea to humankind to stay as we are, I found the article to be a narcissistic view of humanity in general. Of course we are going to change. With technology, so goes our desires. This isn't the stone age anymore. If someone wants to do something, they will find a way to do it, to make it simpler to achieve.

His goals in life seem to circle around the idea that everyone can be lumped into a trend or an culture. The liberals, the 'button-down corporate America.' It just sounds to me that this mans life relies on the belief that we humans are a predictable sort and can be put in any trend or figure imaginable.

Bologna.

1) Do you agree with the author's perception of people's ever-changing desires and it's negative effects on us all?

2) Do you want what's cool to stay cool, or what's 'in' to stay 'in?' Or do you prefer the changing landscape of ideas and philosophies on what is the new cool?