Midpoint Reflections…
Just wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for the effort and energy put into the midpoint reflection. I initially planned to read 1/2 of them tonight and the rest of them over the weekend…1/2 way through I decided to stay and read each one of them…all I can say is “Wow!” When I was asked to teach this class…I decided that one of my goals was to help create a community of writers…another goal was to help build confidence in the students I would teach…finally, I wanted you to see writing as something “WE DO” not a chore. According to your reflections…MISSION ACCOMPLISHED…so far. I wrote “golden lines” down from each of your reflections into my Daybook…I could barely fit my head through the entrance way of Ritazza’s on my way out and I think my car “hovered” home!! I’m so glad that you’re all getting so much out of the class and I really look forward to the work we’ve yet to finish…thanks for making my day and I’ll see you all next week…scroll down to see what is due for next week’s class!!!
October 18th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Well I’m glad we have made your head so big! :)….anyways I left you a little story about chickens under your rainy day rant!
October 19th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Cool…I can’t wait to read it…I meant what I said in a good way…you all humbled me greatly with your reflections…I think I was the proudest teacher on campus last night when I left Ritazza’s.
October 19th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Unfortunately I missed out on this whole rainy day blog. But it was so fun to read it, this is what I love about writing you get to know every person as an individual personality and figure out what makes them laugh and what makes them frustrated. I was literally laughing out loud at the different stories, and I actually red the sentence twice with Red Pig in it, just to see if I had missed anything. I just finished reading Chapter 10. I actually felt more confident about my paper coming up after reading it. I know it sounds weird but I actually found it interesting to note that you shouldn’t just look for different sources to list in your paper. You should focus on building your argument and appealing to different audiences. Also I liked how Elements of Argument gave specific examples of paranthetical documentation and the different styles a paper can be written in. I will definitely be referencing chapter 10 before I turn in my paper. Thanks Tony, I hope you have a great weekend -hope the weather’s great so you can enjoy a run with Thor!. I’ll see you guys Wednesday.
October 20th, 2006 at 6:49 am
Thanks for the comments Erica…it seems that my Rainy Day Rant has provided yet another
opportunity for all of us to create community…it’s never too late to add your thoughts to that post. I’m glad you got something from chapter 10 and that you see it as a reference…as for this weekend, Thor and I will be out there regardless of the weather!!! Hope you enjoy your weekend too!!
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:51 pm
I think Chapter 10 was really full of a lot of rules and information that seems
overwhelming but I also think this will really help while writing our research
papers because there are a lot of helpful hints, checklists, and things to look
back on if we get stuck while researching or writing. A lot of it I had learned
in past english classes, such as plagiarism, quoting, paraphrasing, and citing
our reasources. It’s always good to refresh our memories on those though! I
think this chapter will really help and am not as worried about the position
paper now because I can always look back at this when I get stuck. Just like
Erica, I also found it interesting that you should build your argument instead
of finding different sources. I never thought of it that way, and in the past I
would always just try to find as much information and I could and organize it into
a paper instead of focusing on certain aspects.
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:53 pm
PS. When is our rough draft for the position pieces due? I cant seem to remember.
Thanks!
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:38 pm
Rough draft for Position piece is due on November 8th…
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:42 pm
Ashley…good points about chapter 10…we’ll be discussing the chapter at the end of class Wednesday.
October 24th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
I agree with Ashley and Erica. I never thought to ‘focus my investigation on building my argument’ as oppossed to gathering a ton of information on a subject. Elements of Argument pointed out a lot of useful methods to go about starting as well as actually writing the position piece. I especially like the examples that it gave on how to do a more broad investigation of your sources. It seems simple, but I never thought to go the extra mile and make phone calls to different sources or to interview someone who may be connected to your topic. I will also definately reference back to Elements of Argument…a lot of good tips on citing sources, quoting, paraphrasing, etc…everything we need to know to write the position piece. I’m excited about writing it, but I’m still having trouble coming up with a subject that hasn’t been beat into the ground a hundred times…but anyway chapter 10 was informative…oh and I’m glad that you enjoyed our midpoint reflections Tony. Ha Ha we’re not just exploding your head. I have to admit, I’ve gotten a little more confident with my writing as well, so thanks for not killing our ideas lol
October 24th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Francswai…glad to hear that chapter 10 was a good read…when choosing a topic for this
piece remember that it will be your “take” on it that will separate it from what’s been
written about it previously…I’m glad to hear that your confidence as a writer has increased…
October 24th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
I thought chp. 10 was really helpful because I’ve never written an argumentative paper and I don’t think I have read one and if I didi I have forgotten about it. The chapter gives a good overview about what goes into writing a argum. paper. I liked that it gave an example because I like to see what others have done and an idea about what I’m going to do. This chp. put to rest some of my fears that I had about my paper, at first I had no idea what an argm. paper was and now that I read the chapter and have some idea of what topic I might be doing, I am kinda of excited about. It is a chance to put some my ideas and passions in a new form that will make me a better writer and hopefully help me put my opinions into words. Can’t wait to see everybody in class, I missed not having class last week. c ya’ll wed.
October 25th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
I just typed out my thoughts and erased them on accident. so here we go again…. I think that the mind refreshing as well as the examples are always good stuff. I know that I know a lot of this if not most of the information presented in capter 10 but trying to remember all the little things can cause a brain overload and sometimes I think I pack my brain too tight. So tight infact that I leak valuable knowlegdge. As far as the checklists go… always helpful…making sure that my paper is not only well put together but also complete. Oh! and I’m super excited to have found a topic (probably only interesting to me) that I can’t wait to explore more. I started mapping out my ideas and actually lost the napkin i had been mapping on…but i think that this helped in a weird little way because now the ideas that were important, strong, and valid are the ones that I’m remembering as opposed to what may have just been fluff.
October 25th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Jessie and Lacey…I can sense the calmness in both of you…cool! I’m glad that this chapter
has helped you both out and I’m looking forward to discussing it tonight…see ya both in
class…
October 25th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Ok so i wasn’ty quite sure where it is that I needed to put our thoughts on chapter 10 but I suppose that since this is the last blog that was posted, I would put it on here. I thought that a helpful part of chapter 10 was tellin about how to paraphrase or summerize those long portions of text that we all have to read and want to include in our papers. Something that I didn’t know was that when you paraphrase, you shouldn’t really change the order of things and really try to keep the integrity of the portion you are paraphrasing there. I mean I knew to always try to keep it the same but I didn’t really know that changing the order or maybe a sequence or something wasn’t really the right thing to do. I also liked how it talked about when you go to a web page to look at the other links on it just to verify and make sure that the page itself is a reliable source.
October 25th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Well I am glad that I got some use out of this expensive book. I can see that it is always helpful to go over some material about research papers before you actually start one. This information the book gave was very helpful. I am glad that I have good concrete facts and help that, when writing the research paper, I may go back and read for help and clarity. I especially liked the part on avoiding plagiarism. THat part should help out a lot. I never really thought of including visuals in my research paper, but I guess it can be wonderful.