A Final Reflection
Reflective Essay: Writing Research and Technology
This semester course has been very enjoyable for me. I loved discussing the readings at length and taking the time to understand the different elements of writing and the meanings that the pieces possessed.
I had an epiphany of sorts this semester. Elements of writing and the vocabulary that accompany those elements began to make sense to me. Words like audience and voice began to creep into my thought process as I was writing a piece When I wrote the Twitterive project I began thinking about who was going to be reading my blogs and projects This never occurred to me before. The other course I took, A Writer’s Mind helped me recognize that the audience I was writing for was a much more public audience than writing for a professor or classmates. I also learned to extract unneeded words and to use more powerful verbs to create a better piece. The two classes became intertwined in a sense.
Another element that jumped out at me was voice. When I wrote my oral history project, it was important to me to stay true to Aunt Peg’s voice. The project itself was a near disaster, but I focused on her voice. I learned from this project how difficult interviewing for a story can be.
The readings chosen by my professor zeroed in on different styles and purposes of writing, and also different, ideas on what to do or not. Reading Stephen King and learning from his craft was terrific. I am so conscious not to use prepositions in my writing it is truly amusing. Other readings explored different elements that have made me, if not a better writer a more conscious and involved writer.
But, I have to say that the most pleasant experience of this semester was the feedback I got from Professor Fell and Professor Mangini. For the first time since I began the Writing Arts Program, I heard things that was liked about my writing, things and elements that were right. I didn’t hear just the negative, or the things I did wrong. It was refreshing and most of all encouraging. It made me want to continue with writing. For that I say Thank You.
The most difficult portion of the course for me was the technology. At one point I had no technology, I deleted some of my own work accidently, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I couldn’t get pictures on my twitterive project. But, I persevered and worked hard, even redoing my twitterive to get those pictures. So I now know how to do it. I’ve come a long way this semester and I do believe I have met the contract requirements to receive a “B” in this class.
I don’t think anything I wrote could be called excellent. What I lack in talent I possess in determination. All of my work was done on time with the attention needed to give thoughtful responses. This includes feedback to my peers. I have tried to be creative and take risks, as with my oral history. I have taken the time to rewrite when needed and to take the critique of my classmates and professors seriously. I especially enjoyed the conversation over Aunt Peg and what I was going to do to salvage the project. I think I can look at a piece I’ve written and rethink or re-see the story. In my Writer’s Mind class, when I wrote about my daughter’s adoption I was able to jump in the story in a whole different place. This change made the paper better and I was able to tighten it up and make it more cohesive. Below are some reflection about the projects I completed for this course.
Collaborative Research Project
I am very pleased with what we produced for this project. Lauren and I worked very well together and attacked the project with gusto. We shared in the work equally and met each other's time frame. We learned a lot about our topic and basically learned that as consumers we must advocate for ourselves because the government isn't going to do it for us.
All of the readings assigned from class and the journal From "Farm to Table" helped develop our ideas and opinions. We finished up with a power point to make the topic more interesting to present which was a great idea Lauren. I was thinking along the lines of an outline for the presentation part of the project. All in all I think we did a good job with an unpopular subject.
Oral History Project
The most rewarding part of doing this interview was now having a story to share with the family about what life was like during WWII. I know this is not a subject we ever discussed at Thanksgiving Dinner. So I am going to print out the story and share it. The other rewarding aspect was just spending time with Aunt Peg. I am always mindful that she is 84 and you never know how much time you have. I love her very much and always have a blast with her.
The most difficult aspect of this project was keeping Aunt Peg on task. She has so m so many stories and she did as was predicted in class for interviewees, she would tend to ramble. The best way around that was to really focus the questions on the second interview to get the story straight and in a sequential order.
During the first interview she was very consious of the recorder so I just let her go and made notes as I went to ask her more specific questions. The second interview went much smoother and quicker.
Another difficult aspect was deciding how to tell her story so that it was personal. I couldn't figure out the voice of the story. By "exchanging" letters the story comes across personal and touching. As we know the letters didn't work and I just published the questiona and answers as they happened.
Twitterive
Doing the twitterive project did make me more aware of my surroundings. I enjoyed revisiting memories from over the years. I love my yard and my roses and my life with my family. Doing this project made me really notice the changes that are taking place, not only the physical yard, but the emotional growth and changes taking place in my family's life as well. Watching my daughter grow, i've always taken pictures with my heart. With this project, I was able to look through pictures taken with a camera and review and remember the actual changes in a linear way. If it wasn't for Weebly and the computer situation this would have been a project filled with joy as well as some bitter sweetness to it. All in all I'm glad to be done with it. I hope when I get my new laptop I will be able to improve on this project and produce a better outcome.
Weebly and My Website
What do I think of Weebly? It sucks! As a matter of fact, I'm hating all technology right now. Because of last week's robbery I am doing my project on my pc. This pc should be in the big pc graveyard in the sky. I worked literally all day from 11am til 6pm. Nothing worked! Weebly was also uncooperative. It would not let me upload a single photo. My homepage got deleted and when I ran to the bathroom for a much needed break...I ran into a dining room chair and broke my baby toe!!! I know it was my fault, my homepage, garbage in...garbage out. One good thing is that I was able to get different fonts on my project. However, being so hung up on the technology made the writing process for me much more difficult. The story gets lost.
This got me to thinking about the disadvantages of the financially challenged student who does not have the resources to be able to learn and practice technology skills they've learned because they don't have a computer or the ability to get somewhere to use one. I know my situation will change. I'm fortunate.
So for students where the project is using technology they are not going to do as well. I did not enjoy this project. I felt a bit overwhelmed and out of touch. I won't keep this going after this class. I hate weebly and feel it hurts the writing process and the creativity of the writer. Maybe if we paid for weebly it would have been more user friendly. As it is it's difficult to navigate if you've never done it before.
Well, I don't hate Weebly so much anymore. I have learned to do many things with it over the semester and happy with t
All in all I think I have improved greatly this semester and am pleased with the work I have completed.
This semester course has been very enjoyable for me. I loved discussing the readings at length and taking the time to understand the different elements of writing and the meanings that the pieces possessed.
I had an epiphany of sorts this semester. Elements of writing and the vocabulary that accompany those elements began to make sense to me. Words like audience and voice began to creep into my thought process as I was writing a piece When I wrote the Twitterive project I began thinking about who was going to be reading my blogs and projects This never occurred to me before. The other course I took, A Writer’s Mind helped me recognize that the audience I was writing for was a much more public audience than writing for a professor or classmates. I also learned to extract unneeded words and to use more powerful verbs to create a better piece. The two classes became intertwined in a sense.
Another element that jumped out at me was voice. When I wrote my oral history project, it was important to me to stay true to Aunt Peg’s voice. The project itself was a near disaster, but I focused on her voice. I learned from this project how difficult interviewing for a story can be.
The readings chosen by my professor zeroed in on different styles and purposes of writing, and also different, ideas on what to do or not. Reading Stephen King and learning from his craft was terrific. I am so conscious not to use prepositions in my writing it is truly amusing. Other readings explored different elements that have made me, if not a better writer a more conscious and involved writer.
But, I have to say that the most pleasant experience of this semester was the feedback I got from Professor Fell and Professor Mangini. For the first time since I began the Writing Arts Program, I heard things that was liked about my writing, things and elements that were right. I didn’t hear just the negative, or the things I did wrong. It was refreshing and most of all encouraging. It made me want to continue with writing. For that I say Thank You.
The most difficult portion of the course for me was the technology. At one point I had no technology, I deleted some of my own work accidently, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I couldn’t get pictures on my twitterive project. But, I persevered and worked hard, even redoing my twitterive to get those pictures. So I now know how to do it. I’ve come a long way this semester and I do believe I have met the contract requirements to receive a “B” in this class.
I don’t think anything I wrote could be called excellent. What I lack in talent I possess in determination. All of my work was done on time with the attention needed to give thoughtful responses. This includes feedback to my peers. I have tried to be creative and take risks, as with my oral history. I have taken the time to rewrite when needed and to take the critique of my classmates and professors seriously. I especially enjoyed the conversation over Aunt Peg and what I was going to do to salvage the project. I think I can look at a piece I’ve written and rethink or re-see the story. In my Writer’s Mind class, when I wrote about my daughter’s adoption I was able to jump in the story in a whole different place. This change made the paper better and I was able to tighten it up and make it more cohesive. Below are some reflection about the projects I completed for this course.
Collaborative Research Project
I am very pleased with what we produced for this project. Lauren and I worked very well together and attacked the project with gusto. We shared in the work equally and met each other's time frame. We learned a lot about our topic and basically learned that as consumers we must advocate for ourselves because the government isn't going to do it for us.
All of the readings assigned from class and the journal From "Farm to Table" helped develop our ideas and opinions. We finished up with a power point to make the topic more interesting to present which was a great idea Lauren. I was thinking along the lines of an outline for the presentation part of the project. All in all I think we did a good job with an unpopular subject.
Oral History Project
The most rewarding part of doing this interview was now having a story to share with the family about what life was like during WWII. I know this is not a subject we ever discussed at Thanksgiving Dinner. So I am going to print out the story and share it. The other rewarding aspect was just spending time with Aunt Peg. I am always mindful that she is 84 and you never know how much time you have. I love her very much and always have a blast with her.
The most difficult aspect of this project was keeping Aunt Peg on task. She has so m so many stories and she did as was predicted in class for interviewees, she would tend to ramble. The best way around that was to really focus the questions on the second interview to get the story straight and in a sequential order.
During the first interview she was very consious of the recorder so I just let her go and made notes as I went to ask her more specific questions. The second interview went much smoother and quicker.
Another difficult aspect was deciding how to tell her story so that it was personal. I couldn't figure out the voice of the story. By "exchanging" letters the story comes across personal and touching. As we know the letters didn't work and I just published the questiona and answers as they happened.
Twitterive
Doing the twitterive project did make me more aware of my surroundings. I enjoyed revisiting memories from over the years. I love my yard and my roses and my life with my family. Doing this project made me really notice the changes that are taking place, not only the physical yard, but the emotional growth and changes taking place in my family's life as well. Watching my daughter grow, i've always taken pictures with my heart. With this project, I was able to look through pictures taken with a camera and review and remember the actual changes in a linear way. If it wasn't for Weebly and the computer situation this would have been a project filled with joy as well as some bitter sweetness to it. All in all I'm glad to be done with it. I hope when I get my new laptop I will be able to improve on this project and produce a better outcome.
Weebly and My Website
What do I think of Weebly? It sucks! As a matter of fact, I'm hating all technology right now. Because of last week's robbery I am doing my project on my pc. This pc should be in the big pc graveyard in the sky. I worked literally all day from 11am til 6pm. Nothing worked! Weebly was also uncooperative. It would not let me upload a single photo. My homepage got deleted and when I ran to the bathroom for a much needed break...I ran into a dining room chair and broke my baby toe!!! I know it was my fault, my homepage, garbage in...garbage out. One good thing is that I was able to get different fonts on my project. However, being so hung up on the technology made the writing process for me much more difficult. The story gets lost.
This got me to thinking about the disadvantages of the financially challenged student who does not have the resources to be able to learn and practice technology skills they've learned because they don't have a computer or the ability to get somewhere to use one. I know my situation will change. I'm fortunate.
So for students where the project is using technology they are not going to do as well. I did not enjoy this project. I felt a bit overwhelmed and out of touch. I won't keep this going after this class. I hate weebly and feel it hurts the writing process and the creativity of the writer. Maybe if we paid for weebly it would have been more user friendly. As it is it's difficult to navigate if you've never done it before.
Well, I don't hate Weebly so much anymore. I have learned to do many things with it over the semester and happy with t
All in all I think I have improved greatly this semester and am pleased with the work I have completed.
