In this blog post I will reflect on the things I learned this semester in my English Composition I class.
I remember Professor Mangini telling us we were going to finish this class a different person, a better writer. I did not necessarily believe him when he said that. It seemed like something every teacher says on the first day of class. But he was right. I have learned so much this semester about what being a writer actually means. How they each have their own imperfect process. It wasn’t all about the grammar and other English stuff. All that stuff is definitely important to learn, but it’s not something that will better the quality of your writing. This class had an entire different approach on English Composition. I felt curious each class on how to expand my brain. One of my favorite things we did this semester was watch a documentary called Where to Invade Next, featuring Michael Moore. You can find a summary to the film in my blog. But vaguely, Michael Moore was interviewing people in different countries and comparing them to America and how we’re doing it wrong. After we watched the film we learned what a rhetorical analysis was and wrote one on Michael Moore. I thought it was interesting that a rhetorical analysis focuses on how the writer writes, not the information itself. I analyzed the strategies Michael Moore used to get his point across. Such as; ethos, logos, pathos, telos, and kairos. He does certain things throughout the film to persuade the audiences to believe what he is saying is true. He makes sure he provides plenty of background information so that the viewer is well informed, but also remains persuasive. Now that I learned what a rhetorical analysis is I can use it with other school documentaries. I really enjoyed learning how to blog. The assignments that we had each weekend in the beginning of the semester were really interesting to me. I loved reading the short stories and writing a response on how I interpreted it. Then, relating that story to a time in my own life. It was a cool way of transitioning your brain into something more personal and actually writing it down. I’ve never really written about my personal life before. I have everything stored somewhere in my brain. It was a good feeling to be able to find a way to relate to a piece of writing. The even better part about the blog posts was that each blog post was apart of our process for our two major assignments. The Life Choice Memoir and the Research Paper. I did not realize what Professor Mangini meant when he consistently reminded us that our blog posts will help us later in the semester. The beginning half of the blog posts having us relate to problematic experiences in our lives was getting us thinking about our topic for our memoir. We wrote about a time in our life where we had to make a difficult decision. Then watching the documentary and doing the blog posts for that, helped us with the research paper. I don’t think I would have been able to just write a research paper from a prompt. The movie was a great way to introduce the assignment. We were able to watch someone being persuasive. This class really opened my eyes to the world of writing. In one of our recent class we had to free write about how writing the research paper made us feel. I found this very inspiring. Getting those thoughts off your mind and making room for more important tasks and thoughts is something I need to do regularly. I noticed how clear my mind was after writing a lot of my stressful thoughts down.
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In this blog post I will discuss my process for before, during, and after writing my research paper. I co-authored my research paper with Kelli Keffer, a student from another class. Here is a link to her blog. Before writing this post we reviewed the video Reflective Writing. This video describes a useful way to write a reflective writing piece. We just finished the first draft of our Research Paper: Eat Great, Perform Greater. We have a lot of revising and editing to do. Our Research Paper provided an argument on how America should serve healthier elementary school lunches.
I set myself up in my basement where there is an oversized desk, put headphones in, and stayed there almost all day. This was the first time I ever did this. Typically I go to Starbucks to do my work because it's easier for me to stay on task when I'm not in the comfort of my own home. I think writing down there is going to be apart of my new process.
While watching "Where to Invade Next" seeing how the French serve lunches in school really grabbed our attention. We are also very into healthy eating and nutrient so we knew it would be interesting to us. We did however think that there would be more information on it. Why wouldn't you want your children's school lunches to be healthier? But it was a little harder to find information on it then we were was expecting.
In this blog post I will provide you with an annotated bibliography for my research paper. An annotated bibliography consists of a summary of the source, an evaluation of the text, and an explanation of how the source is relevant to the topic. I will be co-authoring this research paper with Kelli Keffer; a student from another class. Here is a link to her blog! Our research question is: Should elementary schools in America serve healthier lunches? Source 1
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