Red Ink

Red ink on a page means edits and corrections. Red ink was never a good thing. It was something ugly. It meant that my creation had imperfections. This year I learned to embrace the ugly because now I can use the red ink to my advantage by taking a piece full of errors and nonsense and turning it into something beautiful.

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Journal 29 9April2018

My biggest take away from this class was that it is okay if my work starts off as utter garbage. In high school, I would typically write one draft at the last minute before the paper was due and turn that in. I generally got away with this practice with no problem, but have found the revision process much more helpful. Having a first draft that I don’t have to worry about quality makes it so much easier to start writing. I know that as long as I am putting words down on the page I am making progress and that’s all that matters for the first draft. Being able to revise and have multiple drafts gives me so much more time and opportunity to improve the text and flesh out my ideas in a meaningful way.

The conclusion made in this journal is what enabled me to come up with a theme to my portfolio. My growth as a writer centers around being okay with being imperfect.

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Journal 20 19March2018

The strengths of this paper are the analysis in the second half and the ability to lay out all of the main features of the problem fairly neatly. My first drafts almost always tend to be more word vomit than a cohesive argument. Still being able to get my ideas on the page and start trying to get an idea of what I’m trying to say is the biggest part of writing the paper. Although a good chunk of the first half of the paper is block-quotes with little analysis in between as I started writing more of my own ideas and contribute something of my own that was unique to the process. The biggest thing that I would need help on would be to find clarity in my argument and figure out my whole reasoning for writing this essay. I can’t just regurgitate what everyone else has been saying about the topic. I need to come up with a strong thesis.

Being able to acknowledge that my writing will start off as “word vomit” and that being okay is exactly the main lesson I have learned from this class. I am very proud of the fact that I got more comfortable with leaving room for growth in my writing.

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Journal 9 30Jan2018

Summary is condensing the main points and ideas of a text into one concise text. Analysis  takes the surface level information and tries to draw a deeper meaning from the original text.

YouTube Video

Vox’s “Why Kevin Spacey’s Accent in House of Cards Sounds Off”

Summary

The video discusses different aspects of southern accents such as a non-rhotic variation and I-ungliding and compares Spacey’s fake accent to those of native southerners.

Analysis

The video uses largely logos to get its point across. Showing comparisons of real people against an actor clearly displays the differences. The video also talks about specifics in a scientific-ish way like how I-ungliding stems from the placement of vowel sounds in a speaker’s mouth.

This journal gave me a good refresher as to the difference between analysis and summary which was incredibly useful in this class. I this understanding meant  i was able to be aware of when I was just blindly reiterating points made in my sources and shift into analysis when necessary.

[twenty-something-collegiate]

Week 1

How might the technology students have access to today give them an advantage in their activism?

The uses of technology are something that can be considered in all aspects of life. This could be using hashtags in activism, but it can also be applied to writing. Using tools like Grammarly to check your work for errors is essential to the editing process. Furthermore, using technology allows writers to get their work out to wider audiences on online platforms, not unlike this one.

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Week 4

1) How do students benefit from being able to read and comment on their peers work?

2) Is it possible that when trying to find a happy medium in one's commentary that it turns out to be washed out and unhelpful? How can one avoid this?

I have never been particularly fond of peer workshops and commentary because I don’t always like the idea of having someone else’s ideas potentially drastically change my own writing. I tend to want to be very self-sufficient, but though out the class I have found that it is helpful to be more open-minded and allow other people’s opinions to influence my writing.

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Week 6

I tend to do more research on the topic I am writing about than I actually include in my writing. This is because I tend to get caught up on related tangents that may not be useful to my paper. I think that I could improve this by learning to focus my research more on things that I can write about productively. I think that it is essential to address a counterpoint because it is easy to dismiss a paper that has no mention of the other side of the argument as uninformed and one-sided. Being able to refute a different argument shows the authors ability to see a topic from more than one perspective.

This comment from my QQC is one example of where writing drafts is helpful to me. Before learning to be okay with writing something imperfect all of this extra research seemed pointless. However, writing several drafts allowed me to explore these tangents further and flesh out my thesis in a new light.

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Project 3 Draft 3

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pN0ldRiJBlouGRwYl9gjBr8TYIav_gDm

In this final draft, I tailor each of my pieces more towards their audience. The pamphlet focuses less on diagnosing and more on just what can be helped. The poster asks the reader to self-evaluate and the lesson plan is further expanded and includes extra material (video)  to engage the class.

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Project 3 Draft 2

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FiPaJNy_qr4sClbqZwdENljFJsC4Ng5g

In these drafts, I typed out all the information for my poster and pamphlet. I copied the factual definitions from my pamphlet into my poster to rework later. In my lesson plan, I began to focus my lesson more. I also realized that I third grade was probably too young so I bumped the grade level up to fifth.

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Project 3 Draft 1

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1puu0uElWdD6UUpXdL3AE-j13pqvSDP3y?usp=sharing

In this draft, I drew out generally what I wanted my final projects to look like. I sketched out by hand how my pamphlet and poster would be laid out and wrote a short lesson plan. (Don’t mind that I cannot spell for the life of me in these drafts)

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Project 2 Final Draft

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PM8WhUWIdr6EnYxsWefuRYXIzRbikYKfsm0ZKV__bgU/edit?usp=sharing

In this draft, I worked on the organization of the paper by rearranging paragraphs and lines. I was also sure to focus on the idea that lack of understanding leads to stigma so that it makes sense for my solution to be education.