Extra Credit Blog

For the past semester we have been required to blog on certain topics, and i know that i have failed to complete all of these blogs and i dont really know why. i think part of the reason that i didnt blog and i think the main reason is because for awhile i thought that blogging was dumb. i didnt get the point of it really, i thought i was just for people who had to much time on there hands and sat by a computer all day, when really it isnt. Blogging is a way to express yourself, its a way to voice your opinion on a certian topic or anything you feel like talking about, and thats the great thing about it. Sometimes its a way for people to get something off there chest thats been bothering them, and they have had no one to turn to for help. so when they blog about it they may find help through there blog, from some one across the state, across the country, or even across the world. its a way for everyone, whether your white, black, hispanic, indian, or of any other descent. Its something all people should do because its not just for nerds, or computer geeks, or someone who just has too much time on there hands. Blogging is something that has really fallen off the last couple of years and it think that it is something that we can bring back to its glory. Some people have problems and have no one to turn to and they dont even know the help that they could be getting from just signing onto there computer and just blogging about what they are going through because they dont think anyone will care or because they dont even know. Blogging in itself is something fun and people dont know this until they try it, and thats what happened to me and thats why im going to try and continue to blog even after the semester is over because when im having a bad day or just want to get something off my chest i know that when i log onto a blog someone out there will listen and maybe even help me out. That is why blogging is cool.

Extra Credit -Simple Things I've learned

I, too, am going the "reflection route", but it's going to be a little different because I remember we wrote reflections of the class before spring break.

3 things I 've learned from attending Kent State:

1.
One of the most important things I learned is that laziness must die. Also, (and this is kind of a no-brainer, but hey, I am a slow learner sometimes lol) that college is not like high school at all academically wise. In high school, I could just not turn in a project, and I would still manage to get a good grade in the class. But at Kent(at least in my experience), there are less assignments which means every grade is weighted a lot higher. You would think I would of already taken this into account before hand, but nope..I regretably still revert back to my old and stubborn high school ways sometimes. There isn't much room for laziness. Which is a really good thing actually because in the real world you have to learn how to juggle everything and if you don't manage your time wisely you're screwed.

2.
Another thing I've picked up is how to schedule classes strategically so you can be successful! I am a night owl, so naturally I came up with the idea to schedule all of my classes past 12:30 pm. That didn't work out as well as I thought because after about 3pm my brain thinks that it's time to have fun. So next semester, I'm back on the morning classes train. Also, I learned to schedule classes as close as possible to my dorm because it is pretty much miserable when it's cold.

Basically, use your head in college! What a novel idea.

3.
My final thing is that making the most of campus life (and it means different things to different people) is really crucial because if you don't have fun, you'll go crazy. And the only way you can have fun is if you do your work!

"Work hard, so you can play hard!"

The End.. yay

Extra Credit - Reflection

Well, I wanted to give some reflection of my overall experience in your class this semester.

I gotta say... starting my first day in your class, I wasn't expecting to actually enjoy having you as my teacher this semester, going from loving music, to even bringing up George Carlin as a reference for a homework assignment. That can go a lot of the same with other teachers I've had so far, but you're an awesome teacher with, in my opinion, how flexible and relaxed you are in terms of our teachings in this course.

The blogging was something new that I never would of thought that would come up as a homework assignment. With the freedom of writing in our own way, with no boundaries of HOW we write, I quite loved the idea... and coming to today, I've enjoyed it so much.

You made our readings, and even our essays, interesting to tackle on. In comparison to the teacher I had last semester for College Writing I (even though he was good as well), you've actually made it more interesting, and mind grasping for the audience to get involved with, and be more creative (which is what I like in a English teacher). I rather express my writing through a more free-style of writing, rather than it being constricted and narrow.

Although I'm not in much favor of ALL the readings, most of them were ones I quite liked. Your AUDIO essay I LOVED (far as copying it onto my computer, as I mentioned... although I haven't listened to it so far yet lol). The Google article, and several other ones I've liked (and I gotta remember to copy those until my computer as well). You brought in topics that were interesting to being open-minded and awed about, in comparison to having a history lecture throughout the whole, entire course.

Your essay topics were a good mix. The 'music video' one was my personal favorite because it allowed me to think a little more open-minded about the video, and the song, through different perspectives of it. As a writer, I should expect to have more point-of-view on things, but you touched something in my head to look at a music video through more aspects of it. I never would of saw more to the 'One' song than before; it was all focused to the passing of my grandpa, and war, and pain... but you opened my eyes more to the overall production of the messages.

The only few things I felt were a little unease, were things like when we learned about topics like the Gettysburg Address and such. I'm not gonna say they were completely boring, or 'what's the point of knowing this', but... it seems like it was a fill-in, especially that we never really talked about it much afterwards. That, and when it came down to the last essay, the Works Cited... I was completely iffy with, and I felt a little uncomfortable about, because I wasn't sure on some things on a correct format.

Overall, Mr. Sloan, you've been an awesome teacher for your first steps into teaching the college level! I'm really glad to have you as my teacher this semester, and it's going to be somewhat of a mini-heartbreak when I end up seeing you again on Monday lol.

... On the side, I'm kinda curious about if you've ever done any creative writing, or perhaps have any recordings of music from your old band (or your own personal writing) that you've done. I would like to hear/see em' sometime!! : )

I'm hoping you may end up teaching College Writing II!!

Best of Wishes,
Joseph Sendelbach

extra credit

I decided to blog on my overall experience of this class. I basically had no problems and thought everything that was expected of us was made clear and simple. Like I said at midterm I’m not the first one to volunteer to speak in class so blogging was a good way to get my opinion across. Although some found it annoying I didn’t mind it too much. I didn’t find anything we did in this class to be particularly difficult and I like how many essays were assigned. It wasn’t too much work to put on my plate but enough that I actually got something out of the class. When working on essays and blogs it was really helpful how we basically went over things in class and did class work that would help us with what we had to write. Another thing I liked about the last (once again I stated at midterm) was discussing and practicing revision. I like how we had the opportunity to change problems that were addressed during peer review in class. To sum it all up I found the class to be pretty laid back which was nice. I basically didn’t have too many problems with anything and the only somewhat difficult part of the class was part 2 of the final essay. This was completely understandable though keeping in mind that it was the final and was supposed to be a little more difficult than everything else. Overall I enjoyed the class, two thumbs up!

extra credit blog

this class was overall very good. i really do not like any class that takes attendance for points i just think its unnecessary and if a person doesn't want to go to class they shouldn't necessarily be penalized. i thought the class was pretty interesting as far as content. doing 3 essays is plenty enough so i think 4 would've been too much. so the teacher should probably leave it at 3. i love the take home final idea it saves so much time for me. thanks to this take home final i can go home about a week earlier then everyone else. i like how the blogging was used as a form of participation points since no one really talked or participated in this class that saves a lot of peoples grades. i believe i did pretty well in this class I'm hoping to get a B but i don't know what i have right now which brings me to online grades. i think online grades are a must have because people need to know what they have at all times. so maybe online grades could be incorporated into the class. The instructor was very good. overall the class was a good class that i enjoyed. watching and using the videos on the computer is a great idea. i liked watching videos and really thinking about them.

EC BLOG

first I would like to say that overall, I enjoyed the class. I didnt know what to expect at first but I liked the tools that were given to help me as a student become a better writer and reader, for example some of the literary devices we talked about like 'the straw man','bandwagon' and so forth. I also liked the different stories that we read because somehow regardless of what i thought about a piece, there was always something more to it and Ive never been a "out of the box" thinker so it was suprising and interesting to see what the class would come up with. one of my favorite pieces we read was about the important documents of history where there was a typed font, a calligraphy, and a hand written doc. I think I liked it so much because it seems like all of the "important" documents of America are written like that I just figured thats how they were written from "the beginning of time"...lol..but I always wondered why. Then the article was saying how the calligraphy print came from the times of monarchy and it was the ways of kings and queens. That kind of made me question why "America" adopted that idea if were a "Democracy".
I liked watching the videos, like the one of the band who was singing and they guy who was layin outside in the middle of the sidewalk, and then also the videos we had to watch and write a paper on because I learned to look at thevideos (well everything) as something thats not just put in front of me, but something that could have deeper meaning. I guess I liked the fact of exploring new meaning to the things I thought I knew.
I was looking forward to fall semester so I could take CW II, but looks as if all the classes are filled... (sad face to that one), this was my most favorite class of the year. thanks sloan!

FINAL!?!?!

I feel that the largest obstacles within this paper are trying to meet requirements such as the page length and the strict guidelines. Yes there is a lot of information that can be translated into my paper, but i feel like a lot of that information will overlap causing a lot of papers to sound similar and look similar. However, the only factor that is a positive is that everyone is allowed their own individual freedom in selecting their topic and the ideas that follow. The hardest thing is getting the paper to reach the required length (especially using only the 3 questions and sub questions). I will make sure that I meet these requirements, but i am letting you know now that it will be difficult.

biggest obstacles

im not having any trouble with the project itself except for the fact that i dont understand the 'citing sources' part. for some reason i was thinking the paper was supposed to our opinion, more or less depending on the quuestion we chose.like i chose to rite on if multimodality is positive or negative...so am i supposed to find sites and things in books to figure this out bc im confused..

other issues i would have with doing my project as well as with any other school related work would be internal issues im dealing with that arent necessarily from school. but i guess they are affecting me huh? going thru some family issues trying to balance a relationship that seems to go every way but mine from time to time and then when i feel like im doing good in my classes my grades sneak up on me and show me otherwise. but as usual ill get it done....just kinda one of those curveballs life throws at you huh

Obstacles with project

One of my biggest obstacles with this project is that I haven't started it. I haven't had too many ideas as to where I should go with this topic, and so far, the words just haven't come to me yet. Although, I haven't done the necessary research yet either. So that has something to do with it. Since I didn't start it yet, my blog post isn't going to be of much help.

Final Essay Obstacles

Well... for me, I guess it's just the idea, the imagery, of how I want to see the final project as.

So far, I may have a few ideas for the music, but it's uncertain how I want to approach that.

The more important obstacles I'm trying to overcome is the idea behind it. I got to eventually start processing the 'story line' of where exactly I want the project to discuss. I’m still gotta motivate myself to doing the research on it.

… To be honest, I’m still on the drawing board. I still gotta give myself some time to look for things, and start generating the ideas.

It isn’t like I’m completely facing the obstacles from the view of a mountain. … But I guess the only thing that could bring up a challenge is what research I’ll uncover that can prove useful to my argument. That, and the nervousness of uncovering enough information to at least reaching the minimum requirements of the length of the video.

You’ll likely see some good ideas come up before you know it : )

final essay

to be honest i really dont find anything to difficult about our final essay. things that was complicated for me just a little was coming up with a thesis statement. The reason this was hard because i didnt really know what i wanted to write about, so it took me a minute to come up with my thesis statement. other than that i think the essay should be fairly easy i just need to make sure i use correct grammer in my essay and the correct punctuations. Also i need to make sure my that my paper is very interesting. I never wan to write a dull and boring paper. This final essay shouldnt be to hard.

I'm not having that many difficulties with the final essay project. It is hard to find many resources to back of my thesis though. I have a few good examples that I am able to go into detail about and there are also very good articles on electronic media but many I don't believe are very creditable. The topic I chose I am able to go in many different directions with which is very easy for me to get off topic so I definitely need to narrow my whole topic into only a couple subtopics. Overall it has been going pretty smooth but once I start actually writing the majority of my paper is where I will probably run into some problems.

I'm not having too many problems with our final essay. I think everything was laid out pretty clearly. The only thing I might be a little concerned on are my arguing skills and ability to clearly get my thesis statement across. I thought in my other papers I put the thesis statement out there pretty well but after peer reviews I realized I didn't. I also don't want my view on the argument to be unclear. I'm going to go over pros and cons of both and I don't want my point to get lost. Those two main points are my only real concerns. Other than that I think I'm doing fine with it.

The Final Essay

I think that with the final essay the hardest thing will be the good backup resources. this is gonna be difficult because when using the internet to find good facts for your paper is sometimes a good and bad thing all at once. Sometimes it is good because you can find a good resource and facts about your topic but at the same time it could just be someone on the other side of the country voiceing there opinion on what you have decided to write about. But then again you could get lucky and find a good resouce that has true facts but it takes awhile to find this information. Another obstacle will be my patients because sometimes i tend to just rush through a paper and use any facts i find on my topic. For this final essay i will really need to just relax and write the essay as long as it takes.

My Final Project...

My biggest difficulties with my final essay project are trying to combine two of the three questions, while also trying to organize my ideas. I feel another problem for might be the whole "research & siting" aspect. I kno what I want to talk about and I hav the right idea of where I wanna go with the paper, bt for summ reason wen I go to put the ideas on paper the never come out in the fashion tht I would like then to. Then I always forget about siting my words, & also nt using more "opinion" in the paper than fact. For example if I go off common sense tht I may kno bt it may nt be tht common to everyone else, I normally would nt thnk of siting the source tht it came frm bcuz it is nt somethng tht I kno where to find, I jus kno the facts. So instead of rolling with the flow I hav to look it up. Combinging the questions is also vry hard bcuz I kno hw i want the state the new found question, bt again it never sound right wen I read it out loud to myself off of my paper.

Essay Difficulties

I am really confused about making the argument. I am on both sides for this argument so i dont really know what side to pick. I have positive and negative things to say about both sides of the argument. So as a result i am at a standstill as to what i am supposed to do. Another thing that i am puzzled by is the way we are supposed to connect the modalities to the argument topic. I can give you facts telling you why books are obsolete, but i really am confused as to how we are supposed to squeeze the modalities in there. I think that some more reasearch needs to be done in my part, so maybe while doing that the answer to all my questions will arise.

problems with the final essay

So far, I would have to say that the biggest challenge to writing our final essay is finding credible sources to cite with information to support my thesis statement. Only because credible information on the internet can be hard to find at times if you don't know where to look. However, it may be easier because of the question I chose to do. The other obstacle is probably going to have to be making my argument understandable. I know what I want to say in my head but might have difficulty writing it down. Other than that, writing the paper shouldn't be that hard. Knowing my writing style the only other hard part will be in writing in the required amount of pages.

In-Class Blog

I chose to do a traditional paper, so I really don't think there are many obstacles with my final essay. I think the hardest part is always picking a side and then giving valid reasons to why you are right. We have already done that. The brief synopsis was the hardest part. It took a while to think of good points that contributed to the side I choose. All I have to do now is take those points and create a well written thesis statement. After that the paper starts coming along. You take each point and start elaborating. That elaboration creates the body of your paper. After that all you have to write is the conclusion. Overall the most difficult thing to do is to pick a side and give good reasons as to why your side is correct. After you have that done, the rest of the paper is really simple. I think the brainstorming and outlining are the hardest parts of writing essays.

Final Project

I think that the biggest difficulty with my final essay is getting started. I know that as a professor that is probably the last thing you want to hear but actually sitting down to write the paper is going to be the hardest thing. I already know what I am going to say but to actually sit down and write it is going to be the hard part. Getting all my information was kind of easy. I knew the authors that I will pull from and I always have ideas like this in my head anyway. I have been organizing it in my head for a bout the past week but when I actually make the effort to write it down is anybodies guess.

Final Essay Obstacles

Some obstacles that I think I will encounter will be how to argue my point clearly and effectively. It seems like I know how I feel and what I want to say, but I do not know how to exactly get that across. I want a neutral person to feel more like I do on this topic after they hear my audio essay. I feel that the multimodal cultural pheneomenon is a negative thing because it is eliminating face to face interaction, ultimately effecting reality. I want to expand my ideas and thoughts thoroughly through my audio essay.

final essay

I think one of the major difficulties with the final essay paper was really thinking about what exactly i wanted to write about. With so much already on the subject matter I wanted to go down a road that hasn't really been visited, especially when it comes to some of the newer technology. After that it'll be hard exactly how i want my argument to go and what I'll be narrowing my choices or material down to. I think wording will be a slight challenge because in order for an argument to be clear you need to have your words flow smoothly and avoid the wordiness factor and off tangent topics.

Difficulties of Final Essay

Personally, I feel like I only have 2 real difficulties with my final essay. One of those being the actual research involved. I think it's going to be harder than I think to actually find valid sources that have solid information that can relate to my final essay. The other difficulty, is going to be not rushing with this paper. It's the last paper of the semester for me, so I know I'm going to want to rush through it and get it over with. This obviously would not make my paper as solid as I would like it to be, or could be.

Final essay

I haven't really found too many obstacles dealing with the final essay. It may be difficult to write three to four pages on technology because you can only say so much. I think that trying to support my argument might have its difficulties. Sometimes it's hard to prove something when you may not have a lot of facts on it. I never liked having to cite a paper so that could be an obstacle. But there are plenty of sources to help me do that. So all in all, I think this project should be pretty enjoyable and uncomplicated to write.

Final Essay Obstacles.

With these kind of argumentative toned essays, your going to run into some road blocks along the way. The most obvious is proving your right, while simultaneously making sure you support why I believe the opposition is wrong. Your never going to be able to be 100% right in most cases. Thats why there are two sides to every story. With my topic choice I specifically have to worry about why something is going to happen- even though it hasn't happened yet. How do I convince an audience that I'm right in my findings, even though it isn't completely true? (yet, that is) Its a hard thing to disprove something entirely, but if I support my thesis with facts and explain why things will be the way they will be, I think I'll do just fine. In fact, I'm supporting my topic right now by writing this blog. Looks like I've got one foot in the door already, coach.

I think this episode of the simpsons is making fun of how people are more preoccupied with cool things rather then cool people. It is basically saying it's not the person that we're really looking at, but instead what they do, and if what they do is considered to be cool then they themselves are cool as well. The episode shows how Homer is considered to be uncool based on his age alone. I thought it was kind of funny to see how listening to classic rock in the 90s was uncool as opposed to now where if you buy a led zeppelin t-shirt from kohls everybody thinks your a bad ass (classic rock shirts from the same place my nana shops is the coolest! ) Anyway, getting back to the point, the episode is more focused on cool things and exaggerates the fact that we are so centered around them.