So I just thought I would post my thoughts about the "online" class we had. I'm glad that Prof. Castle divided it up into two parts. In the open discussion, I had an extremley hard time following the conversations, and by the time that I was ready to post or talk, the topic I was writing about was obsolete. The second part when we had to raise our hands was much better. I was able to follow the conversation plus when made a comment, it was still relevant to the conversation.
What do you guys think? Which did you prefer and why?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I completely agree with you. I am so glad that somebody else agrees with my opinion that I voice in class. I felt that in the first situation, there was way too much disorganization and incoherency. At least in the second situation, I felt as though I could actually understand what people were trying to say. In the void that filled the time, I was able to avoid being a void by re-reading what they had written, and trying to further my knowledge and understanding of what their opinion truly entails, and what they really mean by it. I also felt that the first method made me somewhat dumber, while the second method provided for unlimited understanding and comprehension of what was being said.
I definite liked the first part better than the latter. While the first part had its problems, the second was tediously slow, and lost the interest of many people to other more "interesting" things (such as surfing the web, listening to music, or eating). While the first one might have been too fast, you could always scroll back up and see what was talked about or bring a topic back to light that was passed by.
Recap of Composition..
This year has been an exciting one as it is the first of my many years ahead of me at college. Composition was one of courses I wasn’t truly looking forward to. To be completely honest, I knew before even going that I would have difficulties with college level writing courses. I am not a fan of writing, nor am I fan of editing. Yet, I found that I definitely over anticipated the level of difficulty in college students writing.
To start, I realized from not only Composition II, but Composition I that we are at college to learn how to write. And to my surprise, I learned numerous things about the writing process. I learned that no one writes a perfect paper as a first draft, and furthermore that revision is the key to excellent writing. As many eyes you can get on your paper before you have to hand it in, the better. When people critique your paper they tend to catch tiny or sometimes larger errors that we train our brain during writing to think that it is correct when it truly isn’t.
Secondly, more so in Composition II, I learned that nothing is ultimate. Everything is indefinite, and can be argued. Who is to say that is a white wall? What is white? What is a wall? We are taught to learn that anything and everything is an argument so that we have a more positive attitude when writing a persuasive paper, even if you think you’re on the losing side. If we were to think we can’t win the argument, then you’re probably right, you’ve already lost.
More recently, our professor has presented us with the idea that we have to jump through hoops to satisfy/please the world, or maybe just to get by. Much of my class thought different, but I agreed with my professor. We don’t have to do anything, the only thing we have to do is die, but that’s life. We don’t have to write an essay our teacher assigned; we don’t have to graduate high school. Nevertheless, we still do it because we know that society accepts it, and to get by you must do it.
On a different subject, I also learned about choppiness and transitions to prevent choppiness. As I just used to start this paragraph, I opened with a very poor transition. I hopped from one subject to another. You don’t ever want the reader’s mind to wander during your essay. To effectively keep them reading on you should attempt to use transitions to make the reader feel like he doesn’t ever have to reread anything.
Like I said, it has been a very exciting and knowledge-filled year. I have learned so much from these two basic writing courses that I couldn’t possibly describe to you everything I have learned in one sitting. However, I found these to be the key elements that made up my Composition course. I am glad to say that I passed both courses with no more worries about where I stand in college level writing.
I agree. It takes a little time getting used to the communication in peer response style format...I don't think they always know what their opinion entails either, even when they're presenting it...
I help students write college papers
Post a Comment