Daily/Moodle Writings

Response to the Last Lecture:

The Last Lecture Randy Pausch gave was very moving. Pausch talked a lot about achieving your dreams, and helping other people to achieve their dreams. The way that you accomplish these dreams is by using the lessons you learn in life to help you make them come true. Pausch uses the metaphor of a brick wall very often. He compares brick walls to obstacles that people will encounter in their life. Pausch states that brick walls are there to deter the people who do not want something bad enough. I personally believe the same thing that he does. Obstacles in life can sometimes make people change their dreams due to them believing it cannot be done. These types of people simply do not want their dreams bad enough. The people that work through that hardship or obstacle will accomplish what they want. They will be truly happy with the result of their hard work and will power to bypass the brick wall. This connects to my life, because I will face obstacles that will have to be overcome to receive what I want. Pausch gives an example in his lecture that deals with the way two of his superiors said the same thing, but in different ways. One superior said he didn't know in an encouraging way, and the other said it in a discouraging way. The message here is that it's not always what you say, but how you say it. This applies directly to writing and rhetoric. Papers can elicit certain emotions, responses, or ideas from the audience based on how it's written. This implores writers to use different techniques and elements of rhetoric in their writing. They may use schemes and tropes in a combination of different ways to make their writing interesting, and to also create a mood. Randy Pausch used a few different types of tropes in his speech. The techniques helped him to connect with his audience on a level they would understand, and it also helped to create humor during his lengthy lecture.

Experience is one of the main teachers of life. Pausch used his experiences to help enable others to achieve their childhood dreams as he did. Childhood dreams are something to hold on to, and hopefully accomplish. They are your true desires. Accomplishing your desires will lead to you being happy with your life. It will also lead you to want to help others achieve their dreams, so that they may feel the same experience as you did once you achieved yours.

I picked this moodle post, because it demonstrates the progression of my thinking. I made a connection between an example given in the lecture and rhetoric. Randy Pausch used rhetoric himself throughout the lecture. He used it to create humor, connect with his audience, and most importantly engage his audience. This post shows that I understand the benefits of using rhetoric. The use of rhetoric helped to keep his audience’s attention. This is a key component of any type of presentation or lecture. If your audience is bored, then most likely the way you’re presenting your information is boring.

Journal Entry: 10/15/12

I am interested in a few different topics concerning language. I would like to know why language became important for the human race. I am also interested in the power of word choice, and how it can affect someone else’s interpretation. I find it astounding how changing one word can alter the meaning of a sentence. I am also interested in how language is used in Advertising. Advertisements are designed to use words to influence someone’s opinion. I want to know what they say, and why they say it.

I chose this entry, because it shows the progression of my thinking about language and writing. I started to actually think about language. I thought about what it is, where it is used, and how it is used. I also realized that language is often taken for granted. This was also brainstorming for the inquiry research paper that I wrote. Language and writing were big themes in my English class. My professor challenged me to think about writing and language in a new light.  This is the goal that I believe my professor had for us. To change the way we think about writing itself.

Journal Entry: 10/1/12

I agree with Kennedy’s statement that self-reflection can help a person learn about themselves. I also agree that self-reflection can help a writer to be honest. They are able to express how they feel on certain topics when they think about their own values. Self-reflection does reveal truths about an individual that would be otherwise unnoticed. I have never kept a journal. Self-reflection to me is the way I critique and motivate myself. It has helped me to turn my life around, and I learned a bunch in the process. Self-reflection is very important. No one will be honest with you if you cannot be honest with yourself.

I chose this entry, because it shows how I felt about self-reflection after reading an author’s piece on it. It shows my understanding of self-reflection. I also was able to come up with benefits that I thought would come from self-reflection. I feel that self-reflection is a tool that many people overlook. Sitting down and reviewing things about myself is one of the ways I try to improve myself. I reflect on my experiences, and try to remember the lessons I have learned from these experiences. This fits in with the overall objective of the portfolio since the portfolio is filled with reflective writing.

Journal Entry: 9/24/12

Straub’s perspective on peer response is different from the experiences I had in high school. In high school, we just wanted to get it out of the way. Straub believes we should be specific and constructive with peer response. Peer editing focuses on grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Peer response focuses on giving the writer feedback about what works, and what doesn’t work in their paper. You are telling the writer how you interpreted what they wrote. This allows the write to gauge the effectiveness of their writing. Peer response should be a constructive tool aimed at helping the writer. Be specific on what you like and don’t like. Also focus on pointing out where techniques learned in class are used or can be used.

This journal entry demonstrates my ability to differentiate between peer editing, and peer response. It also shows the development of what I think peer response is based off a reading I did in class. I picked this entry, because it introduced the concept of peer response to me. It is a very useful tool that I plan to use the rest of my academic career. This fits very nicely in the overall context of the class. Peer response is a tool that we used a few times throughout out the course. We also used it on several different works of writing as well.

Reading Respone to Anne Lamott-SFD

I completely agree with Lamott. The first draft of most writers is not their best work. It is actually pretty terrible to the writer’s standards. It is easy to assume that all professional writers sit down and know what to do write off the back simply because it's their profession. This is indeed not true as professional writers are still humans. Lamott summed up writing the best by saying, "Very few writers know what they are doing until they've done it". Everyone experiences writers block, and it is hard to start a paper that is for academic or professional purposes. Lamott even states that one of her friends tells himself he has a choice between writing the paper of killing himself.

I know personally when I sit down to type a rough draft or first draft I am completely lost at first. It takes me a few minutes to think of what to write, and how I should write it. After I get the first few sentences down, I get a feel of what I need to do and let the writing flow. Writing the paper gets easier as I start writing. An hour or two passes by and my rough draft is done. I feel good about the work and turn it in. Once I receive the paper back, I see how many mistakes I made in the rough draft. There are marks all over the paper from a peer or teacher proof reading the work. I make careless grammar errors, misspell words, or forget punctuation. Writing a terrible first draft helps writers to get their ideas on paper. Then after the ideas are on paper, writers can revise their own work and craft their ideas into the paper they need. They fix errors and take out needless sentences. It helps the writer to figure out how and what to write, and this is why writing a shitty first draft is important.

This moodle post demonstrates that I understand the importance of a first draft. I also talk about how writing a rough draft is helpful to me. One big benefit is getting my ideas down on paper. This allows me to kind of get the ball rolling with my writing. First drafts are also good to use for peer review. I learned that you can play around with different techniques in your writing, and then receive feedback on if it works or not. I picked this moodle post, because it showed that my thought process about different elements of writing was changing. I began to see why the draft process is important.