my year

This whole year at Ball State has been a learning experience. From new drinking games to Mythological studies I have learned so much. My most valuable lessons that I have learned are in English 101 and 102. I happen to love this class. Not only do I learn a new thing every day, but as i am learning I am having fun in a laid back environment and all my fellow students are learning with me. I really enjoy writing so being in this class has really opened my eyes. It has taught me that I need to be more responsible with my writing. I need sources, and in paper citation, and in highschool for me this wasn't stressed as much, so this year I am learning not to blow it off. It is very hard, but other then that I am right on target with learning. At first I had no idea what Rhetorical Analysis was and I am now beginning to like it. Over all this class taught me so much, and stuff that I am beginning to love.

Final Portfolio

It is that time of year when it is all about hustle and bustle, and rushing everything to get good grades. In English as usual we have an end of term portfolio to turn in as our final. With my 17 hour schedule, this has been a little bit more stressful then the past semester. Which i am going to argue as to why I have been slacking a little bit this semester. The last class Karen asked us if we were ready for english 104. I honestly think I am very prepared. My writing has developed quite a bit and I actually understand a lot more of english then last semester. Logos, Pathos, and Ethos are a lot more clear to me. I still slack with in paper citation, but mostly in my rough drafts i am just too lazy to write it down.

Even though i am stressed I will admit that i actually enjoy this portfolio. I really like just taking a break from some level 300 classes, and other difficult ones in my 17 hours. The portfolio lets me reflect on my progress and organize my thoughts. I also can perfect something for once, and emphasize my points, and finally just sit back, breathe, relax, and write.

This year has been such a great experience, it also made me much more open about my writing, and letting people give me advice, instead of being stubborn and always being right about my writing.

Thank you for such a delightful exeriance Karen! :)

Discussion Leader

This past week we started to revise our past projects for our portfolio this semester. This semester we are doing it completely different. Instead of revising our papers our selves, or with just a few people we are starting to read it out loud to our classmates. There is also a discussion leader who leads the discussion about what is good about the paper, and or what needs some work. We go around the room individually and critique the individuals paper.

I think this helps so much more then what we did before. This way everyone is forced to say something destructive, and something that the author of the paper can use. Also you hear a lot of different opinions, then just hearing the same ones over and over.

I am not looking forward to reading my paper out loud, but in the long run it will help me a lot more, and hopefully get me a better grade.

SLIIIIDEEE SHOOWWW

It was a normal day, I get out of bed just in time to make it to class, careless to what my appearance looks like. I sit down at the computer/desk that I always do, and karen walks around to each of us students and hand us a marker, me being the difficult person I am try to change colors, sadly that was impossible. Then Karen told us to write down something that you learned about taking english, I wrote something about revision. Then she came around with a camera, and i though, "NOOO PICTURES." and not even just pictures, Karen decides to take all the individual pictures from all the students and puts them on a slide show.

personally i thought the slide show was really neat. It was cool how a lot of the students had such different responses, I thought people would feel the same as me, but it was really proven here how different people perceive information we learned, when we are learning all the same, and all together.

Timed Writing

I had a lot of mixed feelings about the timed writing. I liked what the article was about. I personally am not a fan of Sarah Palin and i think she was kind of a joke. She also way to sensitive. When there is someoen as high of a social status as she is, she shouldn't really worry about what a show like family guy has to say about her. So I had a lot of my own opinions to express.

what made the prompt hard, was that it was over something that i didn't really understand. I know logos (logic) is, but i dont see how picking out with was logical in this article, i didnt find a lot of logic what so ever, so i was some what confused on how to state my opinion, so i felt my timed writing was a weeeeee bit sloppy

California Prison

This blog is about an article of Ted Kople. It was summarizing how much money it is to keep prisoners. To keep a Kople says to keep a a convict its as expensive as being a student at Harvard university. It all comes from the citizens taxes. So pretty much the citizens are paying for the prisoners who once did their society wrong. It is also over crowded in the prison. So crowded that they seperate them by race and even gangs. Also its so crowded the prisoners smuggle in the cell phones and other devices and still work their drug deals and or prostitution busniesses from inside their cell.

I HATE REVISION

Personally I am more of a creative writer. So revising is a pain in the behind for me. I love just jotting down all my feelings and all my knowledge with no thinking because I am more of creative and emotional, so I am not very intellectual. But when i write a paper thoughts come to me so much easier then it is to criticize someone elses or my own paper.

individual conferences

I really love the individual conferences because then I get to actually hear about my paper personally then read it. Everyone has their own opinions and even reading some one's review. We get different opinions and ideas just reading someone elses opinion, but hearing it we can't change it around that much. Also Karen tends to get more indepth with her feed-back and gives ideas , but she still says the good part of the paper making us feel were not total failures.

sorrrry

I a weee bit late for the blogging. But i chose to talk about our first project. I loved it, because it gave me a chance to reflect. And reflecting on my trip to cancun made me appreciate it even more. At the time I didn't even realize how i was learning a new culture, and now looking back I can fianlly realize that i was on a once in a life time trip, and it was such a beautiful experience.

Insight game

Besides the annoying sound that the Insight game had whenever the card was flipped, it was an efficient reflection on myself. I learned that i am a ENFP. The description fits me perfectly! I have a taken a test like this before in my ID 101 class and got the same results. So obviously this test was accurate.

It says that im creative, open minded, imaginative, outgoing, and caring. Those are the few things all my friends and family know me for. I am very proud of this result. Trust me at times I do wish I was more organized and actually finish what I start but it is truely hard for me.

never the less i am prud to be an ENFP people may question me a lot but most people get used to me and my spontaneous actions, and learn to accept them and love me for who i am :)

I went to go watch the Unity speaker. The speaker was a minister. He was really funny. Most people might be suprised to see a minister thats funny, but I was not. My church back home is funny most of the time and very interesting and lively. He had a lot of interesting points and he knew how to keep me drawn into his presentation.

first week new semester :)

This semester started off great! I like having pretty much the same class I feel a lot more comfortable and open with everyone. And for once I am actually writing this blog on time. I am really looking foreward to this semester besides revising and researching papers. I really like more creative writing projects. I also love this semester because now i feel more open and comfortable with the teacher aka karen. I am so pleased with this english class.

my writing...

My writing over this semester has changed a lot. I learned how to express myself more and describe how i'm feeling in a more understandable way. I also learned how to research and read more and get more into my topic. I also learned how to organize my thoughts and my writing. This semester I think i improved my writing so much and i am very proud of myself.

Next semester i hope that we have more free writing, maybe more blogs on random things reflecting our life and personal experience. Also writing prompts that we are actually interested in. Not that some of the topics weren't interesting, I just think more creative writing would be really fun. Maybe if we watched a few movies that could be fun, and then after the movies we can reflect on them. The group projects were pretty fun as well.

College Students & Blogging

I think it is really interesting to read other college students blogs. Especially ones that are older and more experienced then myself. Especially in one blog this girl talks about housing off campus, which i am very interested in. A lot of my friends have houses and apartments off campus so it is good to hear about them. Me and my room mate are in the premium plan so we have another year in the dorms but or junior year we are planning on living in a house so reading this article showed some good and bad things about her living experience.

You can tell she is an older student because her writing is more matured, flowing, and keeps my interest.

There is a World to Explore

There is a World to Explore by Pamela Gardner is a very good paper. It was some what lengthy but kept me interested. All in all i would give it a five. I say a five for various reasons, this blog will contribute to all my reasons.

I like how she wrote the paper I think it flows very well. She started the paper off describing why she picked the topic she did in a non obvious way, meaning it didn't start off by saying my paper is about this, and this is why. The way she introduced her paper made me want to read more and see what it was a bout.

I like how she decided to back track in the second paragraph to show what she was talking about in the first one. It cleared up a lot of the past so i could get what was going on. She also talks about it in a lot of detail giving names, locations and dates sets the stage very well.

through out the paper she talks about how much you learn by traveling. She gives great detail and you can tell how much she cares about traveling. The only down fall is that in the middle and towards the end I feel like she looses her structure and how well she details so my attention gets some what lost. I feel like in the middle she could organize her ideas a little better and maybe in the introduction bring up how she visited Argentina as well.

She had a great paper, she should've just organized her paper more at the end that is why i gave her a 5

one on one

Meeting one on one really helped me out. For one it was a better time of day. Usually at 10 in the morning i am still waking up meaning i am not ready to listen and talk about my writing, especially infront of the entire class. Meeting one on one made it a lot easier for me to talk about my writing and be more open about. I really appreciate how Karen is very open minded and actually listens and tries to help instead of putting her students out there on a lim. GOOD JOB KAREN!!! :)

book list

Surprisingly I actually read one of the books on the list. Smashed: A story of a drunken Girlhood. I thought this book is a great book. One reason is because if your expecting a whole class of freshman to read a book, it needs to be something they relate to. In college a lot of people will start drinking, and not only that throughout the story the girl goes through different transitions of her life. I just loved this book because I have alcholism in my family, and also she went to similar places I've been before, so i might have a bias opinion but i thought it was a terrific book. Seeing it on the list actually wanted me to go home and get the book. This book also shows how she goes through a lot of situations teenagers go through.

Why I Hate Writing Video

The video put together all the reasons why students hate writing. Ofcourse all the reasons in some way related to me. It's not that I hate writing, it's that if it's something i cant really relate to or understand I just find writing to be a burden. Especially when pages are assigned and I cant seem to think of anything else to say. Writing is just some times agravating especially when I think I did such a good job, but only to find that it was just like any other paper I wrote. For instance on project three I cant even find that many interesting articles on a dance major, so I don't have that much information to go three pages about. The timed writing had me completely lost so i just went with what i thought we should write which I dont know if its correct.
Sometimes however I disagree with some points in this video. If it is a good prompt I relate to or i'm interested in writing gives you time to relax and reflect on yourself and your thoughts. I'm not going to lie though, these blogs stress me out because i have such a busy week sometimes I forget all about the blogs, and now feel like i'm failing english. As an example I am more calm now because I wrote my feelings.
I just hate writing when it's something that doesn't draw my attention and instead of having writing as something to enjoy and reflect on, it turns into a chore.

A Long Way Gone

Our assignment was to pick something from the chapters and reflect about it. I chose the first paragraph because it stood out to me the most. This really stood out to me because I think childhood is extremely important in ones life. A childhood is when you learn right from wrong, life lessons, love, and having innocent fun.
Having your child hood taken away like the boy soldiers would be horrible. I am so suprised Ishmael Beah is still able to go on with a normal life after this. After being a boy soldier I would think that there would still be a life of crime, and not knowing what is right or what is wrong any more. I'm guessing there are boys who were effected by this war earlier in their life, and I am guessing that it was a lot harder for them to learn what happened to them is wrong.
It's also sad that on the same page Ishmael Beah was excited to see his friend, not to catch up and play around but to hear about how many people he has killed. In a way it really shows how his child hood disappeared. Instead of being concerned with school or things kids his age should've been interested in he wanted to hear his friends war stories.

Writing Center

Today we went to the writing center for the end of class. I had no idea there was even such a thing. My only class I have in the Robert Bell building is my math class. So i would have never thought the writing center would be in a building were math classes are being held.
I was really excited when i discovered the writing center. I feel more comfortable with someone that really knows what they're talking about edit my paper. This is because i get more of a professional response, I also get shy about my writing so it's better when someone who does this a lot reads and corrects and makes comments about my paper.
The only thing that worries me is that I feel like there will never be any time for any one to correct my paper because it's so busy. The girl showed us all the appointments and there isn't even an opening for three days, So i feel like i will never get time to make an appointment.