Final Learning Blog

When coming into this English class, I figured I knew what was already expecting of me. Simply because I was used to writing formal, academic, 5-paragraph essays. Then being graded on my grammar and punctuation, instead of on my content. I followed the rubric because my teachers in high school always told me that upon entering college english courses, my professors would be expecting me to write extremely formal, precise, informational, correctly cited and formatted papers. That is why I feel that these classes did not at all prepare me for this English class.

For Unit 1, I think that I struggled the most with analyzing and creating my own rubric. I didn't even know what to analyze something meant. Upon choosing my topic, I decided to do a lot of independent research on defining the terms "analyze" and "genre." I was always used to having definitions handed to me directly and to be reinforced into my written work. Working with the genre of a news article was new to me as well. I figured that news are always very reliable and informational, as well as head on in the information that they provide to the public. After extensive amounts of research I learned that analyzing a piece of work means to taking the information from a piece of written work and breaking it down into further detail in order to further understand what the content is trying to push forward. Another thing that I learned in regards to this unit, was the creation of rubrics. In the past, I was used to getting an outline to follow a rubric for my papers. Building my own for this unit, seemed nearly impossible for me to do! What helped me feel confident about my rubric was the peer review group sessions that we had twice. I was quite nervous about showing my rubric to my peers in hopes that it was wrong. I seemed to have the problem that throughout this entire unit, we were essentially creating everything on our own, which made me feel like I was doing everything wrong. This has helped me instead, boost my self-esteem in this class and improved my writing significantly.

For Unit 2, I did not struggle much at all. This experimental design concept was very new for me. I also enjoyed this experiment because I am a biology major, and this is what I enjoy doing! I learned a lot from this unit as opposed to the rest of these units. I learned that breaking a constraint, such as language in an informal genre, could cause reactions that are usually expected among my peers. This English class has greatly developed my skills as not only a writer but as a critical thinker. But the only downfall with this unit project was that I didn't get as many of the expected results as I was hoping for. Which comes to say that changing constraints, like language, in a major part of social media in our society, doesn't always make a difference to most people. In other words, it is not always seen as out of the ordinary.

Unit 3 was by far, my favorite project to do this semester. I liked being able to write about my actual new experience in this new environment of an English class. I felt that I would not be judged on my content as well as HOW I write my article because I learned that there isn't a correct way to even write anything. I took everything I had learned throughout the semester and related this to how it would help me become a better thinker, writer, and observer. The conference with Nicole in person also helped me a lot. I was used to turning in rough drafts and having them graded with red marks all over, that in turn made me feel like a poor writer. I learned that I had trouble with staying organized in my work. I have one great idea then back it up with pointless information. I also had ideas that didn't coincide with the idea that I was talking about and then I would just not skim on where to put it and stick it right after the last idea I previously had. Among this, I had the tendency of not focusing attention on my audience. Meaning that I know that they aren't always going to know what I'm talking about. I seem to always lack detail and expanding my thoughts. I learned from this for my final article, that I had to take out useless information and replace it with more information for my audience to thoroughly understand what point I am trying to get across.

GWRJ Proposal

1. A general topic description.
-There are always wanted ads or classified ads, such as in our local newspaper that I constantly read, "The Pantagraph." I want to explore how people view these ads not only under 2 pages of the paper, but all over the entire paper in separate sections. Also, overall, I would like to research how exactly the writer of these ads write them and how people reply to them.

2. Describe the specific genre(s) that your article will explore (if any)
-Ads (wanted, classified, or personal). 

3. An explanation of the author's perspective (i.e. are you planning to creat a personal narrative of your own experience, or to research how other people writer, or what?)
-I will research how other people write and view classified ads. I think that it might be easier to hopefully research online ads and review the comments, or research how online ads differ from newspaper ads. 

4. Potential use of visual elements
-Web shots, pictures, or maybe even charts for examples. 

5. Discuss your plans for citing research in your articles

-I will most likely use in text citation with the references placed at the end of my article, it in text quotes if I interview or use direct quotes from a reference or person. 

GWRJ 10 Characteristics

1.McDuffie spilt her journal up into different sections, while Shapiro wrote one long journal.
2. Each had visual references.
3. Discussed importance of English and writing into research for Master's or career in Biology.
4. Interesting titles that catch readers attention.
5. Discuss weaknesses and improvements made in English.
6. Give specific examples.
7.Very detailed experiences during college experiences.
8.Cited sources in text.
9.References at the end.
10. Both discussed the difficulties of learning a new genre that sometimes someone isn't comfortable with.