Bye Bye Bye

Wow, sixteen weeks later and i thought the day would never come. I am so relieved I got through this course and that my classmates did as well. When I was first introduced to the course and I saw all the work I did not know how far along I would last. i thought the recommended hours per week for this course was outrageous but I managed to spread the work out through the week and the 6 hours did not seem so bad then. The whole online environment intrigued me but did have me worried. I was able to overcome my fear and get through the course perfectly fine. I really enjoyed the fact that we had a whole day until 12am to turn assignments in and believe me I took full advantage of that (wink), it is something we do not get in face to face course. My biggest worry was the group project which turned out to be much less scarier. I was so worried how we (my group) could do a group project online but with Ms.Gross’s great organization skills everything worked out well. The blogs were a lot of fun because it did not feel much like an assignment, it felt like free writing to me most of the time and I absolutely love that. It was almost like another type of myspace or facebook, being able to read what people are feeling and their perspectives, I am a nosey person so I liked to read everyone’s post. I wanted to comment on everyone’s blogs but I thought I would be doing too much; fortunately my blogs were just as interesting because the feedback from my peers were always great.
It was very cool getting to bond with my classmates online and never seeing each other face to face. I can tell you that I have painted images in my head of all of my classmates and it would be so cool to see if any of them actually match what I thought they might look like. I appreciate all the help from my peers from the peer draft reviews to the blog comments and the homework help. It was great working together and I thank you all for your help, including Ms. Gross. Everything was done quickly ; responses and help were never delayed and always an email or post away. I hope to eventually run into a class mate from this course and meet them face to face, maybe it will be in the classroom again or maybe in a future job since we are all well on our way. Congratulations to all of us who stuck with this course, I know from Ms.Gross comments we have done a G-R-E-A-T job. To those of you who graduate on Friday night I’ll be there with you experiencing the memory and knowing we are the first graduates of the new stadium; to those who do not keep perusing it will be well worth it in the end.

Writitng papers have never been easy and in this scenario it has been even harder. In my English 103 course that is wrapping up this week I am required to write a comprehensive 6 page paper on education. I chose to write about the budget cuts and how they are effecting education in a negative way. Throughout my research I have found out many statistics that just should not be realistic but the sad truth is that it is. I remember all my years in school, we had many programs offered to us throughout and things started getting tense financially two years ago when I was in high school. It is unfortunate the students now have to deal with all the cuts and the sad news is that the students are eventually going to be required to write a six page paper just like me, but will never have the proper knowledge of how to.
Through out my paper I have really realized how much I struggle with the organization. I have so much to say, I just do not know how to express it correctly into the essay and I loose my patients. I see that I need help in areas were I was never addressed before. This is where I question though, why it was never addressed before. I know I have been making the same mistakes but why didn’t my high school teachers catch it earlier to save me the frustration later on. This is a point in my paper as well because with the budget cuts this is going to be an issue; students will not have the dedicated teachers they deserve. I see it for myself now, in my own two shoes how important proper education is, since I am struggling with things now that should have been taken care of years before.
Due to the research paper I have be become familiar with “help”. I have asked for direction from many people. I address different people because they all see different things. It has helped me to not be scared to ask for help, and I once before was to stubborn to ask for help. I have learned all the internet sources that help you with grammar and things of that nature. I have learned to take full advantage of every resource available to me as well such as smart thinking (I love them). They taught me were the appropriate spots for commas and colons are, because I used to struggle in that area also.
Over all the research paper has been an experience in its self although it is not my first and I know I will not be my last. I am slowly learning how to take guidance and assistance. I have been taught how to punctuate correctly and when I am getting to wordy. The research paper will definitely help me in the long run with all essays, and I will just have to continue to work on the things I have yet to learn from the research project.

Gosh Darn Research Paper

This time of the year is the time I look forward to; less than a month left of school and in no time we will be on summer break. In order for me to enjoy my summer break though I have to get a couple things done in the classroom. In particular I have this six page research paper due in MLA format, by the end of this week. I enjoy writing papers but when the requirements get past three pages I start to get worried. When I read the directions for this particular assignment it made me feel good because my professor was only requiring four pages of the six to be completed at first, she has since changed it to five. It gave me a chance to have people look over it and help me with fixing the things she may catch before the final thing is do. Big assignments such as this one are the only thing I do not like about this time of the year.
I am worried about this assignment only because it is such a large chunk of the grade. I went to her office today to speak to her about it because there was a miscommunication with the topic choice of the paper. She gave me a lot of insight on how to make my paper better and how to narrow it down. I tend to have a lot of ideas and throw them all into the paper and that ends up ruining the paper. I look forward to sending my paper into smart thinking tutors because they help a lot with any type of paper. When I read their feedback I can make my paper look much different, and I appreciate their help.
One of the requirements my professor has listed is to cite and use a scholarly journal in our research, I am not very fond of this. I wish we could pick and choose what sources and from where we use them. It makes things more difficult when you have to remember to incorporate everything the professor wants just to meet the minimum and your work will or will not bring the grade to its maximum. I will most defiantly include all the things in my paper because I am hoping to pass the course with an A or B and to do so I know what needs to be done.
So far I have 2 full pages completed and I need three more, I am a little nervous on what information to include but time will allow me to find the right information and prepare it for my research paper and pretty soon it will be at the necessary six pages. I have taken all assignments serious but I feel like this one is the do or die assignment. Since I feel like this assignment is so detrimental to my grade I will take it seriously and do my best to complete it and get the desired grade I hope for.

Online Communication Style

It has been said often that patience is a virtue; unfortunately I could never perfect my inability to remain patient. When I speak with people it irritates me when I know what they are going to say but they put so many unneeded words in between the important text that I begin to grow inpatient. I often want to cut them off and finish their statement for them. The same goes when I communicate online with friends and family, sometimes they put superfluous information that confuses me, not to mention I once again lose my patience waiting on a reply when it should only take a couple seconds, but since they want to elaborate it takes longer. I have learned from all this and keep all my lines of communication as short and sweet and they need to be. There is a time and place for everything, so depending on who I am talking to and what one is asking is how elaborate my response will be weather in person or through online communication. I like to keep things as short as possible but use descriptive words to help guide the person I am talking to, to my main idea or thought. I take my own advice into consideration, I figure if I put too much into what I am saying I will lose the person I am speaking with to confusion. It is often harder to lose someone to confusion during an online conversation with very detailed responses just because it is hard to tell what point of view you are coming from since they cannot hear a tone or feel your emotion. Grammar is another thing, if the grammar in a text in not proper it will also cause confusion. It is just best overall to keep things detailed enough for one to follow but not to thorough that they get lost in your text or speech.
When I chat or email with people online I do not think they think much of my ways of communication because it is something we all practically do the same. We tend to short hand things and abbreviate words that do not need to be abbreviated for instance “YOU” as “U” and “AND” and “N”. I think when I others and I do such a thing, it shows a sign of laziness and impatience, both in which I have no problem admitting too. I like to give fast responses as much as I like to receive them, the point is much more important to me then the unnecessary information that others tend to provide. Unfortunately when we speak we cannot short hand much, our best bet is just to eliminate the extras and get straight to the point, this shows impatience I am sure, however the majority of the time I am on full schedule and my time is limited. If someone asks me a yes or no question, more than likely it will be exactly one of those two answers and nothing more, not even a reason as to why, just to save time and get to the idea as soon as possible.
I am almost positive that I would impress more people in person and online if I elaborated a little bit more on things. It is too bad that I have this issue with patience and rush things that should be looked at and evaluated a lot more in depth than what I do. Although it comes in handy, I am motivated to work on this problem and elaborate much more on things

Expanding my knowledge

I have always felt confident in my ability to write and express myself. I did very well throughout all my school years up until I hit English 101 this past year. It definitely opened my eyes and made me realize the difference between high school and college English. I managed to barely get through English 101 and how blessed I am to have landed in our current course English 103. It has definitely been an experience in itself being challenged in such ways it caused major frustration and at points almost overwhelming. Now that we are three-fourths of the way there I am glad I hung in there. I have learned and expanded my ability to do things I never experienced or thought of doing. I still struggle with things here and there but continue to do the assignments and allow them to assist me.

All the writing assignments and multiple critical thinking work has allowed me to start to think about things a lot more. I have started to ask many more questions when faced with situations and realize how these questions that are assigned to the readings allow us to understand the passages a lot easier. These critical thinking questions have also assisted in the writing assignments that have been assigned. When I start to critically think I come up with more information for my paper and new conclusions. It has paid off immensely and will continue too as the course goes on.

As our English103 course starts to wind down I have seen 2 essays that literally made my stomach ache when I seen the instructions; I did not think I could complete the assignment. After I sat down for hours trying to figure out what to do, with some help from the smart thinking crew, compliments of avc.edu , I actually wrote a good paper. I do not feel like I am a pro at writing analysis papers now after that one, but I do feel confident and now know what I am actually supposed to do. The current synthesis essay we are working on is most likely going to have the same effect on me. The multiple drafts she allows helps me to get an understanding and improve my work every time.

I enjoy writing essays on more personal levels and opinions, however the assignments that Ms.Gross has assigned throughout the course has helped me to become comfortable writing other things. I am starting to see the value in writing assignments and all the work that has been assigned throughout my school years. I will use all the techniques and skills taught to us and all the skills gained to further any paper or assignment from here on out. My writing can only improve from here and I have slowly started my way through this course. Despite what difficulties I have run into along the way, I can see improvement in my writings and I am satisfied with that, I look forward to gaining more knowledge and being able to meet the criteria for that “A” paper.

Cartoon Worth 1000 Words.

According to Mort Gerberg “Cartoons are the most powerful, the pithiest form of communication, used everywhere and in many forms. In the above picture is a 994 unseen words; I use that phrase because we are used to the saying a picture is worth a thousand words and since there are 6 words in the photo I adjusted the 1000. Now back to my photo, the illustrator whom remains unknown sketched out a photo of a high school graduation with seven students, three women and four men. As I acknowledge that, it tells the viewer that more males are enrolled in high school than females and since the male is in the front of the line it allows us to believe males are usually at the top of the class. On the contrary there are more male drop outs in the photo that then females, that ratio is 2/1. This ratio gets us to believe that men have the whits but they lack the motivation to fully utilize their smarts. The fact that the men do not have feet or shoes in the drawing like the females do, is an observation I made that backed up my previous statement about how the males are not motivated on their own, they need a push or a leader to follow. On the other hand there is one woman to every two men that graduate. The women have shoes which illustrates that they make their own decisions and walk on their own two feet. The challenge is the same for both genders, it is the same work and teachers that they deal with but only the strong survive, and in this instance it is only the highly motivated. The illustrator uses creativity with their idea to eliminate but yet still include the drop outs in the photo by outlining them. The effect of the outline gives us the idea that they are there but not completely because they do not get the full sketch that the others did. The illustrator’s humor comes in the way he drew these cartoons up. The cartoons used look much older that high school students. I can easily confuse them for mothers and grandmothers, which leads me to the next conclusion drawn from this photo; more and more older people are going back to high school to get their G.E.D, also known as a diploma. This makes a valid conclusion due to the fact that the economy is so bad many people did go back to school to complete what they left behind.
The diploma in the right of the photo along with the gowns that the people are wearing and the noticeable sign that reads “High School Graduation” is what shows us the social function in which it was taking place. This add was most likely used in a high school newspaper or article that discussed dropout rates and men versus women in the education. The illustrator most likely put this in a school newpaper to open the eyes of the sometimes stubborn and ignorant high school students and get them to realize that the person sitting to the left and right of you just might not be graduating and if you are to the right or left of someone it may be you who is not graduating.

Freedom of Speech; Not so Free

Freedom of Speech; Not so Free
The first amendment has allowed Americans to believe in a sense of freedom that is not exactly there; Freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has never been free. I once read a passage by a man named Stanley Fish and he claims “The version of crying wolf is crying first amendment”, In the sense that, as Americans, we are lead to believe we can say what we want but the truth is we are limited. We suffer consequences left and right because we are unable to intentionally cause emotional distress upon others or be obscene in public. Society suffers plenty from the first amendment right, we all should be able to express our opinion in a respectful matter and not suffer any consequences.
Having to scream out first amendment rights after saying something someone questioning you on, is unnecessary, it is possible though in today’s day and age it may get you out of a hole. We all have grown up believing we could say whatever we would like, then the reality check came in once we said “shut up” at school and received demerits; that’s when we began to ponder what exactly is freedom of speech then. Truth is, we can say almost anything we would like, as long as we do not incorporate harmful or offending commentary in our speech. We cannot call this freedom of speech though; it should be rephrased to sheltered freedom of speech.
The First Amendment is an important idea and a good principle when it is being utilized in the way it is described and not tossed around with different exceptions here and there. It is hard to make any restrictions at all on speech due to the First Amendment being so broad. As a result of it being so extensive, boundaries are set and made without the deliberation of political groups. Freedom of speech is vital but it must have limitations like all other freedoms. These must be acted upon in the context of conflicts with other rights. If people have a right to life, then yelling “fire” in a crowed would violate their rights, this could not be fair to others and that is why there are exceptions, however, not all are reasonable.
The silencing and the government censorship process are an incompatible combination. In any efforts the government might make to shelter people young and old from bad ideas. We are deprived of the right to makeup our own minds and form opinions. We act with fear when writing and talking because we are in fear of being criticized, censored or punished for our work. It is unbelievable to me that a group of people can decide what is reasonable for a whole nation, especially when they can hardly handle their own problems. Since we begin to fear these things we begin to self censorship. Self censorship is when we bite our tongue or cut the sentence short before we go to far and touch on issues that raise eyebrows like sexual preference, race and religion.
In America we are known to live such free lives, however limitations are set on every form of freedom we have. Just like for every action there is a reaction and for every cause there is an effect. When we utter to much from our mouths we suffer the consequences. Things that are free do not come with consequences so there for freedom should not be anywhere near the word freedom of speech. Freedom of speech needs to either be redefined or made to be what it has been created to be.