During the first meeting with Bill I remember he said “you’re very timid with your book.” At first I didn’t understand what he meant, then he brought up the point that the book was MY book. Then he marked it up a little, wrote a few things and highlighted the readings for me. From then on I constantly annotated in my book. It has been very helpful in keeping my thoughts situated and helping me remember what a particular phrase, paragraph or sentence means.

My engagement in class has definitely gotten better. I think the first day we were all pretty quiet for the most part. But after I became comfortable with my fellow scholars through Bills’ exercises I became more engaged with our discourse community.  Now we have conversations daily and don’t think twice about expressing our opinions.  I hope more instructors can do similar exercises to make their scholars more comfortable in their learning environment and discourse community.

It was a little harder for me to stay focused when reading some of the articles, probably because I was in the comfort of my home and was easily distracted.  I wasn’t able to finish all the readings but I tried to keep up as much as I could.  This is my first time taking summer sessions, and boy, it is intense with two classes and a job.

Toward the end of this session I’ve been late to class several times, I guess I just feel I need my coffee every morning even if it makes me late.=p  I’m usually very good with staying on top of things and getting my work done on time, but I posted my blogs late yesterday and I didn’t reach the goal of four posts on Friday.

Today I chose to blog from home because I thought it was safer to stay here rather than run into anyone else in class.  Blogging is something new to me, but so far I like it. Blogging allows us to engage with a huge audience, I think it brings in more diversity because it’s easily accessible.

I think its important to keep an open mind while blogging, especially when engaging with a bigger audience.  We owe it to our audience to listen and consider what they have to say.  You learn more when you interact with people in general, so interacting with a bigger     audience means means more knowledge will be exchanged . Blogging brings in different points of views, views we can appreciate and take into consideration when it comes to the topic we are addressing.  You can  make connections with the new knowledge your audience  brings to the table.

Yesterday Bill said “writing is a process not a product.” We talked about clarity in expression of thoughts, or our blogs.  Dyllon brought this up by describing how he goes back to older blogs and changes things.  This is the art of revision, and this example really made me see why revision is so important.  Knowledge is constantly being shaped so it’s good to go back and make changes.

I think we owe it to our audience to share our personality in our blogs, along with updating our audience, keeping it interesting, keeping it useful, and keeping it accurate.  It’s hard for me to shift away from simply reporting my blogs, but with time I know I’ll get better.  Hearing other peoples responses to this question helped me understand more.  Like Kellie said, “I don’t really know what to say, I find myself wanting to say I agree”, I am the same way.

I really enjoyed Olivia’s post on composition of people at the concert she attended this weekend.  A concert is such a perfect setting to observe different styles of composition.  Incorporating media can help our audience better understand the message we are trying to convey or the knowledge we are trying to share.  Olivia’s pictures made her message more clear to me, so thanks for that Olivia.

Making your webpage easily accessible and easy to navigate will help hold your audiences attention.  Regularly updating your blogs and engaging your audience will help make you a better blogger.  These are things I am still working on and hopefully I can become a better blogger. =)

Everyday I’m always in awe of how much we learn from one another.  This is our last week in this class, and I can say I will miss you all.  How lucky are we to have Bill as our instructor?  HIs teaching methods have open my eyes and refreshed my thinking on writing.

Today we talked more about self assessment.  I came in a little late so I missed the question, “Why do you think there’s a limited time to respond?” But goo thing I can respond here! I think it’s to keep our audience focused on the current knowledge we are trying to convey.  I liked the responses from my fellow scholars, that we might forget conversation, to keep people in the present, and to keep clear of clutter on webpage.

Setting your web page to where people can or can’t comment is a rhetorical act.  I really liked when Kellie said “our sense of audience, I’m aware blogging is social, so I think about my audience”, when Bill asked, “What’s at stake when we push for conversation online?”  BIll’s point on how students focus on the product instead of the process is another reason there’s a limited time to respond. This makes people engage themselves in the conversation with the author rather than waiting last minute and simply responding.

Individual assessment, physical assessment, and performance assessment are some terms that were so common when I was in the Air Force. But I’ve never been asked to assess myself.  For some people it may be easier to do this than others.  The thought of self assessing is pretty scary actually.  I think this task will be difficult for me because it is my first time doing something like this.

Like Eric and Kellie, reflecting on my performance this session was the first thing I thought about too when asked about self assessment . I think this task will be hard but fun at the same time. I included a link, it’s a short video where people assess their physical appearance in front of a two sided mirror while people on the other side described those same individuals as well. I thought it was so interesting and beautiful, I hope you all enjoy it.  I really liked when the guy toward the end said “You’re better than who you think you are.”

A lot of times we can be so hard on ourselves, especially when it comes to something we’re not familiar with or something that makes us uncomfortable.  I hope we can all tackle this task and take something from it. I’m very interested in how we assess ourselves. =)

I really enjoyed our session today with PeeKay about library research, she was very nice,helpful and very informative.  Today I realized how many tools we have at our fingertips because of our library staff; they  provide a lot for us and I don’t think we really acknowledge that.  I’m grateful for their hard that makes our research experience easier, more efficient and it can save us a lot of time.  I’ve never really used the library search engine before until today, I really like it!  I will put it to good use for the remainder of my time here at FLC.

I thought the search engines “Dogpile” and “Duckduckgo” were so interesting, I had no idea they even existed. (maybe I’m just really behind in technology.=p) Another thing I really like is that students can chat with people at the library for assistance.  I’m personally not a big fan of calling so I’ll definitely use that to my advantage.

I never really thought about how effective research can help us greatly with our papers. I’m glad we had this workshop today.

I’ve gone through so many different ways of note taking; I’ve used colored pens, colored highlighters, different symbols but in the end my notes always became colorful pieces of paper that I hardly got anything from. My COMP 150 has helped me establish some good note-taking skills.  It’s a process but my notes are becoming more clear and helpful when I need to go back and read something.

Quoting peoples exact words and writing down names has helped me a lot in my papers, especially on my works cited page.  The exercises Bill did with us while writing, where he’d talk while we wrote so we could become used to writing and listening, also helped me a lot.  Before this class I used to just write what the instructor would present to us, I never really listened while he or she talked  because I didn’t want to get distracted.  Little did I know I could be quoting them in papers.

The “Easy Writer” book is just great! It has helped me so much with my formatting in my papers. It is easy to navigate through, it is very informative,  and the size is convenient as well.  I have the hardest time with documentation but this book has made it so much easier for me to do my citations.  I’m definitely going to put it to good use.

Considering other peoples views is crucial to synthesizing sources.  Just because someone has a different view than you doesn’t mean their material it is wrong.  And this applies to any situation. One of the main points of composing is to address our audience, and audiences vary greatly depending on what you want them to grasp from your piece.  I think it is important we really listen and consider peoples different views and their style of writing before being quick to dismiss them.

Whether it is a paper, a person explaining why they missed class or a friend expressing how they feel about something important to them, we should acknowledge what that material or person has to say.  We all have different views on various topics, but if we give the composer our attention we could gain some knowledge and appreciate what they have to share.

Jumping back into writing after seven years was pretty rough for me. My experience as a writer has really changed from when I wrote in high school.  The teaching methods in this class showed me writing is more than just simply writing.  I’m grateful I took this class because I see writing in a whole new light.   It’s only been three weeks but it feels like we’ve been in this class longer.  It’s nice to see how close the class is now compared to the first day of class.  It’s nice we are now able to share our personal blogs with others. This class definitely made me more comfortable sharing my writing and it made me more confident in what I write.  It’s great to see how we have grown together as a class.