Week 7 Thlog

Week 7 Thlog

This week we mainly focused on ideas for Writing Project 3. Monday’s weekly  tips were very helpful and applicable. Process tip #1 (“know what you write”) I felt was really important because so often us students get stuck having to write about a topic that we’re really unfamiliar with. What I love about this class is its freedom of choice; we for the most part get to choose what to write about. I still had to do some researching for WP2 (obviously), but  getting to write about something I was interested in—underage drinking—and getting to analyze it from the perspectives I wanted to—biology and sociology—made the research process bearable. And being so familiar with scholarly research articles made it even easier. For other classes, I’m sure my freedom will be limited and I’ll eventually have to do intense research on a completely unfamiliar topic.

              Process tip #4 (“turn your paper into a poem”) was also surprisingly helpful. It’s an organization technique I had never encountered before, but it really does help me make sure my sentences transition smoothly . Using that strategy—by separating my paragraphs into individual sentences—I was able to see where I awkwardly moved on to the next topic and place a transition word/sentence there.

              Monday’s peer-reviewing was helpful because my peer-reader constructively criticized my paper and highlighted areas/concepts that needed more specificity. I found that there were quite a few areas where I was vague about concepts that were essential to the heart of the paper. I was able to go back and find definitions from course readings to support those terms or elaborate on them on my own.

              Today’s (Wednesday’s) class was at first overwhelming but ended up staying pretty structured. Besides the online setting, the objective of today’s class was pretty different than other lesson plans. Analyzing the painter’s teaching techniques showed me how Zack wants us to elaborately explain every aspect of our “new genres”.  I think the videos emphasize that every little detail is important. Missing one feature could subtract from the whole genre and make it lose its meaning altogether. It gave me a better idea of what Zack wants our WP3’s to look like, but I still want to hear more details in person because there are so many parts.