Midterm Reflection

Section I

Please read the description of the course goals as they are listed on the course website. Do you feel we are proceeding towards these goals? What is so far proving most useful? What would you change, and why?

I feel the flow of the course it progressing at a pace to where individuals who are a little behind than others have the opportunity to catch up without disrupting the way the class is progressing. This pace works just fine because it gives me the time to explore, understand, and play with the tools that are provided. What I find most useful are class lectures. The readings and some of the assignments are a little hard to understand but lectures and discussion amongst my peers provide clarity for writing assignments and required reading. And if neither lecture nor classroom discussion provides clarity, then there are other resources available like the Google and Wikipedia. Overall, I am comfortable with the way the class is progressing and how it is being taught. The only frustration I had during the course was the sudden change in the formatting of the Wiki itself which had nothing to do with the class. I spent a few days in frustration not being able to edit my wiki which really set me back. Fortunately, I was able to determine that the new wiki and Internet Explorer are not the best of friends and have started to use Firefox instead.

What are you learning in class? What more do you think you could learn in class? How can class be structured to help you learn what matters to you?

The main theme of the class is gaming culture. Through reading of required texts and reading of works created by my peers, I am learning a lot about a culture that I though I was familiar with. In regards to writing techniques, I’ve learned a lot about mechanics and style. Some of these are learned through class lecture and also through the tools provided in the wiki. It sometimes feels overwhelming because some of the writing techniques seem outside of my writing ability. What matters to me most is making sure the blogging and unit assignments are done properly. I feel there are more than enough tools provided to give clarity on what we should be writing about. You also provide enough creative freedom and leniency to where our final products might not be what you’re looking for but it provides something to talk about or gives a spring board for another blog.

How do you define your responsibilities to this class? How are you living up to those responsibilities? What are your greatest contributions to class? What can you improve?

My responsibilities are to read, write, and respond. I’ve read the texts on time but I’m sometimes guilty of not understanding what it is I just read. Again, I can anticipate getting some sort of understanding through lecture and reading my peer’s interpretations of the message the author is trying to make. I’ve done the required writing assignments for myself but I feel I need to respond more to other people’s work. My greatest contribution to the class is my awesome presence. Just kidding. I like to share my opinion on what the assignment requirements are with people who aren’t so sure. Again, I don’t know if I’m right but they assume I am. I just like helping, there’s nothing worse than feeling lost when everybody else is found.

How do you define ShareRiff's responsibilities as teacher of this class? Is ShareRiff fulfilling those responsibilities? What more or different can he do to help you fulfill the work of this class?

The class is Expository writing. ShareRiff’s responsibilities include providing the tools that allow us to write papers that inform, explain, describe, or define. There are times where there is confusion on what exactly we should be writing about. With that being said, there are more than enough tools on the Wiki and the web that supplement the message that ShareRiff is passing on through lectures.

What suggestions do you have for how we can improve class, to help you learn more, and enjoy the class? (you can bullet your list for easier reading)

• For those who are still have questions on how to participate on the Wiki. Maybe ShareRiff can allot a small portion of a lecture class to have those who have questions use the computer to familiarize themselves with what they are having difficulties with.

Section II

1. Graphical representation of your writing/composing process: you can scan in a drawing, you can upload or link to a photograph or film clip, you can use software to design a graph or flowchart....have fun.

"I've got games on my mind"

2. A reflective cover letter that addresses how you are meeting the following student learning outcomes completed to date:

I personally find writing to be very difficult. The fact that I’ve been out of school for more than five years and haven’t written anything longer than a paragraph during that time doesn’t help either. During my early writings I didn’t really focus on the four modes of evaluation (rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, process, and knowledge of conventions). This was mainly because I didn’t know what they were. As the course progresses, I’m trying my best to apply those modes to my writing. 

When I began to write for the course I didn’t really pay attention to who my audience was. My idea of the audience is anyone who is reading this paper. Most of the time that would be the professor. Realizing that writing with attention to audience allows me to either expand and explain more or leave out details with the assumptions that my audience knows what I’m talking about.  My voice and tone throughout my papers have been more informative than persuasive in my opinion. I think its because I take more of a definitional stance on my papers.

For the composing process, I would usually start by creating an outline that consists of a thesis, body (supporting) paragraphs, and a conclusion. I’ll brainstorm and write down my ideas in the areas where they would logically fit. After getting a general idea of what I’ll be writing, I ask myself questions to expand my supporting paragraphs. What is it? What causes it?  What is it similar or different to? These questions really help me because I try to answer them verbally and transfer those responses or ideas on paper.

What I look forward to after writing a rough draft is the class workshops. But I really didn’t get that much feedback for my unit one assignment. The suggestions I received were grammatical corrections and a couple of sentences that I could have added to expand on my body paragraphs. After hearing ShareRiff’s audio review, the weakest part of my paper was paragraph structure and lack of sentences that could enhance the information in the paper. If I could go back, I would expand on some of those paragraphs to provide more clarity to the audience.

For the rest of the semester I’d just like to be able to apply everything that’s been provided to create a decent paper. Understanding and applying all those modes and writing techniques are also things I’m looking forward to before this class ends. Overall, I’m enjoying the class and am excited to see what’s ahead of us.