Writer’s Journal

1. What I did this week:
   -This week, due to asking for an extension on my two revisions, I spent a lot  of time reviewing ideas to try and write a better paper. In the end I had decided on maintaining a theme across both my revisions and that was to add more humorous elements into my papers. I chose set my analysis project and my literacy narrative projects as my targets for revision because those two papers were papers that I was truly satisfied with writing.
   -I also worked on my Auto-ethnography Polished draft by adding the parts my professor had instructed me on from my rough draft. Although I’m sadly not yet finished I am very close.
2. What went well this week:
   -Anything regarding writing went really well for me this week. I didn’t feel the same distress I felt during my research paper project, instead I felt full of energy and inspirations on how to write any of the papers I wanted to write.
3. What was hard:
   -Nothing was actually too hard this week in the department of writing. Refraining from the writing subject, I had recently gotten my 2nd dose of the Pfizer vaccine and fortunately I didn’t have any major symptoms besides some fatigue. Meaning I slept through a couple days but other than that I was fine.
4. To-do list:
   -Finish my Auto-ethnography Polished draft by tomorrow morning or by noon tomorrow at the latest.
5. Where I left off this week:
   -Currently I left off of just finishing adding the parts my professor had advised me to add in my polished draft. Now I just have to include some details to wrap up the entire essay and I’m done.
6. I’m pretty satisfied with my writing this week because I’ve noticed how much progress I’ve made in comparison to my previous works. What I did for my Revisions was that I had copy and pasted my polished drafts into a new page so that I could then revise it from the original. As I was editing many parts from it I came to realize that there were many parts the I could’ve made do without or how I could’ve included more humor into different sections of my paper. Or simply that I’ve become more adept at incorporating humor into my writing which was a skill I had developed during my analysis paper project. It was nice to be able to see the progress I made in comparison to my first project the literacy narrative. The same goes for my Auto-ethnography Polished draft. Originally I’ve made a couple mistakes on matters regarding what the writing prompt encompassed in it’s description. However I’m glad to be able to realize my mistakes to actually learn from them. I’d rather make a ton of mistakes now so that I could genuinely learn from them for my future writing pieces.

____________________________________________

• The skill that I think I would take away from this course isn’t one from the goals we had learned but more of a skill that I had learned during my analysis. In my opinion the analysis project was a lot of fun because I was able to pay close attention to one particular chapter that helped me realize a new style of writing. That style being one of humor. Before I had kept any comedy in my writing to a low because I thought it wasn’t an acceptable style of writing due to the lack of availability. After analyzing Michael Theune’s chapter on humor, I learned the effectiveness of humor and began to start incorporating a lot more into my writing.
• I learned as a writer that there is a lot of work to be done to truly write a good paper. With all these rough drafts, polished drafts, and ultimately revisions at the end of the semester I realized that even when you think your paper might be perfect as is, it can always be improved upon. You just need to know whether or not you’ve revised your paper enough to receive a grade you are satisfied with.
• Some things that I would take with me to other writing classes would definitely be the use of Zotero and OneSearch. Although I made a mess of their usage during the research project portion of this class, these two utilities were incredibly helpful. Zotero for organizing my sources and OneSearch for finding the information from professional sources.
• My advice for future ENG 2100 students would have to be that they should pay close attention to readings from BIAW textbook. Not only are there interesting reads, but you can really learn a lot of techniques taught in each of the individual chapters. It is a very helpful textbook so honestly don’t slack on the readings.
  PS: Another piece of advice I’d give would be to send any little notes either at the end of your papers or through an email to your professor to receive feedback. It doesn’t have to be long just give your honest opinion about any concerns you have about your writing and you will receive feedback on it that will only help you improve your writing.
• For week 1, I don’t think I wished I knew anything in advance. I tend to believe in admitting to one’s own mistakes to be able to truly learn. Therefore if I had a second chance to warn myself in preparation for week 1, I wouldn’t tell my past self anything. I’d rather allow myself to make some mistakes now so that I could learn from them in the future.
• For students wanting to get the most out of this course I could only tell you to just apply your 100% into every one of these projects. If you truly want to improve then don’t half ass your writing projects because you’re too lazy or something. Genuinely try your best in each writing project trying to take the most out of what your learn from your textbook. Make your mistakes in the rough drafts so that you can improve upon your paper and submit it as your polished draft.
• I don’t really have much advice for managing the course online. You have all the resources you’ll ever need given to you on the website for your class assignments. If you have a question then you can either search for it online or just send an email to you professor. If you chose not to use the resources available to you then it is only your fault for your failure.

1. What I did this week:
   -This week, similar to last week, I did a lot of brainstorming on how I wanted to organize my revisions as well as what major projects I wanted to target with my revisions. I thought about the tone I wanted to assume as well as how my papers would sound if I reversed my style completely. Like in one essay about analysis I ordered events chronologically by the chapters chronology as my style. So what if I threw that out the window and wrote strictly towards the writing prompt. Or instead chose to write with spontaneity where I would just analyze different sections at any order. Maybe talk about the conclusion in my introduction, something spontaneous like that.
2. What went well this week:
   -I know it sounds repetitive but again the brainstorming went well this week. I really find it important or pivotal for me or anyone else when they are able to truly brainstorm genuine ideas. What I mean is that I, personally, find a lot of value out of being able to plan my ideas out so that I could potentially put them onto paper. So the fact that I was able to do such a thing this week really lifts up my mood, because during that atrocious research project weeks I felt terrible not being able to organizing anything.
3. What was hard this week:
   -The hardest thing this week for me was probably thinking about how I could change my tone in my papers. After my analysis project I seemed to naturally include a lot of humor into my writing. It really eases my reader into my writing and is just my natural style now. So it’s hard to try and change that tone into something else without the voice in my writing to just collapse on itself. Meaning when I stray away from a comedic tone, it sometimes feels forced when I stray away. When it feels forced then my writing doesn’t seem genuine enough as I’d hope for out of a paper.
4. To-do list:
   -Well, for starters I should definitely try to experiment some more with some of the ideas I have on possible revision topics.
   -Secondly, I’d like to write down these ideas onto paper. Although, knowing my personality, if I don’t obtain a large enough amount of inspiration from some of the ideas I have in mind I will most likely give up halfway rather than finish writing an entire paper. Thus I’d like to write down my ideas and see if I could mix them up with other ideas.
5. Where I left off:
   -This week I’m leaving off at two essays, my revision papers, halfway-ish done. Well, at least two solid ideas about how to write each revision papers are on their way to completion in a sense.
6. This week I’m feeling a mix of emotions with my writing progress. Although, on the one hand I’m happy about the ideas I’ve been able to brainstorm and I’m waiting in anticipation at how these papers will turn out I am also slightly upset at my slow progress. I understand that I shouldn’t rush myself with my writing but I guess I’m really hopeful and impatient to see the outcome of my brainstorming this week. Especially because I want to see if it’s better to go for subtle revisions of my tone in our first writing project about English mistakes which seems fitting. Or if in our analysis project I could use the same topic of essay but instead of keeping the chronological order, I just disorganize everything and see if the chaos will make my writing better.

____________________________________________

Writing prompt:

1. If I’m being honest, when I define the occasion, exigency, and kairos, I genuinely do not know exactly what it is. I understand bits of these vocabulary words however I have never been one to truly be able to give a specific answer accordingly to their respective vocabulary words. For this prompt I choose my analysis writing project about the analysis on Michael Theune’s chapter about humor. The occasion in this essay is about the inclusion of humor in an essay. Whereas the exigency will pertain to the rhetorics used, or in this case the humor found in the essay to make fun of the absence of humor. Finally the Kairos will be the acute timing of things when giving out these jokes to the audience. In my case, my paper, I took to the approach of keeping the events of my analysis in the order in which the chapter I am analyzing had depicted. Thus I would tell the story accordingly keeping the Kairos consistent with the chapter from BIAW.
2. The main purpose of my project is to analyze a chapter from BIAW about using humor in an academic paper. To explain it’s utility briefly and lead into the reasons the author offers to accomplish his goal to persuade his readers to begin incorporating humor in their own writing.
3. The primary audience for my paper would somewhat lay in line with the original author of the chapter I was analyzing. The audience being the young first-year writers beginning to find their own styles of writing to use.
4. The relationship between the audience held throughout both mine and author of the chapter my paper was based one held consistent. Where they had remained this manner of appeasement of sorts. The author of their respective papers would crack jokes to maintain the attention as well as introduce and maintain their topics. I did the same where I would personally crack jokes up to keep in tune with the theme of my project as well as to maintain the retention of my reader.
5. When I had written this paper I found that my humor was effective in a sort of manner. Although, I’m not completely confident in this I feel that my essay will be a lot better if I am able to maintain this humor and try to add jokes along the way that will target multiple groups of people not just one single generation.

 

1. One of the main pieces of criteria that I had received was to fix the organization of my paper. It was very sloppy at the time, so when I was looking over ideas of my revision I had this risky idea to see if I could somehow use this disorganization to my advantage.
2. My revision papers will remain the same format as before where they will be written/typed as a paper format.
3. I personally don’t think my revision papers will have any new constraints or affordances mainly because the way that I plan to change my papers will be to reuse the information or explanations however change format itself. Meaning I will use a roughly similar paragraphs as before but in different orders to see how it will go. As well as in other papers I want to see if subtle additions of humor will change anything to my paper.
4. The new content that I will create won’t be much since in this analysis paper I felt like I had explained enough. Although I could continue writing I feel it would become boring long enough and that would betray the theme I hope for from my essay to be a comedic analysis paper. Although this paper is an analysis, I still hope for it to entertain my readers in some way so as not to get bored.
5. The revision will take more than a couple days of brainstorming which was what this week focused mostly on. After the brainstorming I hope to try and free write the many ideas I have in store so as to put my ideas out there. After free writing I want to compare these thoughts with each other to see if I can try to combine these ideas in one way or another. Of course before all this free writing I would re-read my analysis paper to use as a basis for my ideas. Even copy/pasting some paragraphs out to use as material if I want.

1. Writing I did this week:
   -This week I got to start my auto-ethnography rough draft and I’m not sure if this counts as writing but I did a lot of thinking/brainstorming about what to write about in my essay. Meaning I thought about who I want my audience to be as well as what to address and simply put, just a lot of thinking and planning on how to write this auto-ethnography. This paper was a paper that I was quite looking forward to writing, which is a huge contrast in comparison to my previous research paper.
2. What went well this week:
   -As I’ve previously mentioned, the planning phase of the auto-ethnography rough draft went really well. I just had so many thoughts I had wanted to write out and I’ve been planning to write this essay since I first started writing my research paper. I took this paper as a way to release stress but also as a help of sorts to future first-year writers.
3. What didn’t go so well this week:
   -Honestly I don’t think anything went bad for me this week. With the thanksgiving vacation this week I felt a lot more relaxed than ever and was able to do a lot of fun brainstorming on any work I had to do.
4. To-do list:
   -I have to do some quick last minute edits for my auto-ethnography rough draft. Not much to do.
   -I should re-read “Some People are Just Born Good Writers”.
5. Where I’m leaving off:
   -At the moment I’m leaving off with a somewhat finished auto-ethnography paper. I still want to make more edits but at the same time I don’t want to change too much. I just have too many ideas for such a short paper.
   -Besides that I should probably/definitely try to my best at revising and improving my research paper. I finally was able to get into a good mood enough to revise it for a polished draft but I still feel I could do better.
6. With my current writing progress I feel more proud and confident in my writing than before because I regained that initiative to genuinely want to write a paper. I say regain because prior to my research paper, I felt very proactive in wanting to write a paper. I enjoyed the topics/themes I written about for the writing prompts given and so I found myself deeply immersed in the writing. Or in other words I was having fun writing, and when I am able to have fun like in the first two writing projects I tend to write phenomenally better. Whereas in the more recent research paper I lacked enjoyment from the topic I had chosen so it felt very dull to write that paper. With this auto-ethnography paper I felt that enjoyment again and immersed myself in my writing.

____________________________________________

In the Auto-ethnography project you’ll be asked to do the kind of reflective writing Giles. Review the learning goals for this course and consider how you feel about them and your progress as a writer so far. Choose one or two learning goals as a jumping off point or frame for a brief reflection on your writing in this course. Do you think you’re meeting these learning goals? How do you know? What evidence do you have from your writing that you’ve worked on these goals?

In this writing course, I most definitely can’t say that I was able to successfully learn/accomplish all my writing goals because that would be a lie. However, although I wasn’t able to succeed in all the listed goals I am still proud of accomplished in particular goals. One of the more critical learning goal I accomplished was “Using conventions appropriate to audience, genre, and purpose.” I may have not been able to accomplish my learning in all of writing course’s learning goals however one shouldn’t focus on the goals they couldn’t accomplish but rather feel gratified for having succeeded on the goals you have accomplished.

In the “Using conventions appropriate to audience, genre, and purpose” learning goal, I found a lot of success. I like to visual this success by taking a look at one of the themes I had used in one of my papers. That theme was an incorporation of humor. It quite honestly left a deep impact onto my writing because after that essay I had begun to truly incorporate humor in some parts of my essay. Even in my abomination of a research paper, I had incorporated humor into my essay because I had wanted to appeal more towards my reader. In my analysis paper I had gone so far with humor, from it’s diction the tone of the paper, organization, and more. I had incorporated so many key elements into my paper to allow for a much smoother reading experience towards my reader. So as to attract their attention but continue to keep said attention through the use of humor. The analysis paper is probably the best paper, in my opinion, I had written because of how much fun I had writing it. It really went to show my efforts to brighten up my paper and bring along more humor to it’s dull life.

1. Writing and reading I did this week:
   -This week I went over my revisions for my research paper. I was able to improve the general structure of my essays. I was able to write an essay that was less on the vague side and much more clearer.
   -I did a lot of reading on American history for my Modern American history class.
   – I wrote a well due email to the dean of students regarding vaccination status and what not. I’d rather not get into the details because it’s a long story but I wrote a good essay to the dean of students email.
2. What worked or went well this week:
   -Honestly I don’t think I had any good things happen this week in regards to reading or writing. In regards to reading, it was pretty boring reads whether it was for my class or for my own entertainment. I didn’t find anything all that interesting in this week’s lesson plans. The reading on citations was probably interesting, but I’m honestly just sick of hearing about citations. I hear about in every class, and I know it’s important but it’s just too much. In some classes I’ve heard more about the how to’s of citing than the actual project or writing assignments I have to do.
   -Unrelated to writing, I’m happy that my first dose of Pfizer went well. I didn’t have any too severe reactions from the vaccine so that’s good. Although I had some muscle pain and felt fatigued for a couple days I was pretty happy no other symptoms cropped up.
3. What didn’t go so well this week:
   -This week I’d like to say my research paper went well but not really. I just can’t seem to become too deeply interested into the topic itself so it becomes a hassle to finish it well. As a comparison, I usually put in 100% of the amount of effort into any work I need to do. However, like 60%-90% of that effort comes from my interest in the topic. Usually I’m interested in any and all subjects even if they’re boring, but with this project I wasn’t interested in researching my topic at all. So the amount of effort I could put in went down significantly. Even with the MEAL strategies that made revisions much easier, it still didn’t help too much in boosting my interest in writing this paper.
4. To-do list:
   -I have to finish reviewing my paragraphs to improve them more because they are honestly not at the point where I would like to submit. Like it’s not grade worthy yet, and I need more time to think about how I could improve upon my paper. I’d like to say that I have to research more but I haven’t been enjoying the research part as much. I feel like I’ve focused far too much on the journal articles aspect of research and failed to look and normal websites for research. Meaning I placed too much focus on the academic part and lost the aspect that is more casual. Such a loss is really ironic because the last project I did was talking all about how important it was too incorporate humor into “academic papers.”
   -I guess now that I had written that I should look for research elsewhere, other places that appear less formal. That way it seems more down to Earth to my audience.
   -Besides that there isn’t much else to do besides reading my textbooks for other classes to study.
5. Where I’m leaving off:
   -I’m leaving off at a semi-unfinished research paper that I have to get down by tomorrow.
   -I should get to work on the Autoethnography on Tuesday or so just because of how easy such a project will be. I’ve written a lot of reflection on my thoughts whether it’s on this blog or elsewhere as well as just my own consistent opinions on the project to start my paper.
   -I don’t have any necessary readings left to do for English, besides any readings for other classes. Other than that should be all.
6. Honestly, I’m feeling a little more satisfied with my writing. I’m definitely not at all thrilled with this project because of the way I had approached this paper, but I’m slowly getting out of this hole I made for myself. Meaning, I had chosen this topic on a whim because I had been originally interested into the topic in the first place after reading the BIAW chapter. However those thoughts quickly changed when I got to researching the topic which just decreased my performance to write a satisfactory essay. I definitely have not improved by leaps and bounds, but at least now I just feel as though that this assignment is just one paper out of many more. I shouldn’t dwell on this paper for too long. I should learn what I can now and just move on because thinking more on this paper will do more harm than good to me. So in that regards I’m feeling more satisfied with my writing.

____________________________________________

• When you first read the assignment or realized we would be doing a Research project, what were your expectations? What were you concerned about? Excited about? What did you think it would be like?

  When I first read the assignment I got really excited because I had thought that the research project could be about any topic at all. With the lessons about writing that we’ve been learning about acted as just some of the options we could write about. So with this idea in mind I had wanted to write a paper that resembled the chapter I had read in BIAW about online school. However at the same time I didn’t want to make my writing seem as if I was copying that very chapter. So I tried to research and find information that resembled the structure found in that chapter from BIAW. Meaning I had wanted to write about a short history of online schooling, then talk about the stigma online schooling will tend to receive, unto the finisher about disproving those stigmas. I was honestly expecting this research to be really fun to look up and learn about this stigma that surrounds online learning.

• How were your expectations met or countered? Were your concerns or fears justified? How so?

My expectations were countered somewhat, I guess, in the way that I had tunnel vision. Meaning the way I had found all my research through one search. I had used my time to learn about researching my topic solely through the websites my professor had introduced to help learn and become accustomed to. However, because I had focused solely on using these search engines to find my research, I feel like I was left out of the many opinionated articles by people that could’ve swayed my argument more. Although taking research from journal articles increased my credibility, I also feel like it limited my choices as well because there was only so many articles about my topic available. Eventually I would run out, whereas online in the wild internet there are thousands of articles available to choose no matter the topic. So I definitely tunnel visioned myself for the worst there.

Another mistake I made was not reading the directions too well because I had thought I could write about any topic that I had wanted. I didn’t realize that there was a limit in that it must be a topic regarding writing. It was honestly really depressing for me at the time because I had found so many new ideas I had wanted to incorporate into my research paper only to realize that I couldn’t use any because of the topic constraints. Honestly this research project has got to be my least favorite project so far because of the amount of mistakes I had made in this process. Don’t get me wrong, I love mistakes because at least I can learn from them. It’s just that these mistakes I made happened to dampen my mood to write so I was left not wanting to ever write/complete my (current) research project.

At home, when I was preparing to write this paper I went through a rollercoaster of emotions because of how many times I had found information that flat-out contradicted my initial assumptions. Example: I wanted to prove why online schooling is secretly good. All for me to read 3,4,5… articles telling me how terrible online schooling is. Honestly it’s such a really terrible feeling that I just slowly lost in my own research question, but being the stubborn guy I am I chose to stick with it. Leading to a catastrophe of a research paper.

• How did you grow as a writer during the Research project? What did you learn to do, do for the first time, experiment with, etc.?

The way that I had learnt as a writer was to take a break and take a look at the bigger picture. I really spent too much tunnel visioning on the negatives of my research question which only led to my downfall. I also learned to try and use regular websites for my research as well. Instead of having tunnel vision, again, towards the kind of sources I should be using, I should just use any and all sources I can find. Of course I won’t use websites like wikipedia that are known for containing false information at times, but in general. My rough draft of my research paper contained not one single article that wasn’t found from one search.

At the very least, though, I’m happy I was able to learn to experiment with Zotero and One Search to both record my sources as well as find them. It was honestly really helpful. Besides all these articles being very professional in their endeavors, the information was very clear and easy to incorporate into my paper.

• How do you think you’ll feel about Research projects in the future? How do you think you’ll approach them after going through this process?

I definitely feel a lot more confident about going into future research projects. In addition, about a week ago I had to write a research paper for another class and I was happy to know that about some do’s and don’t’s of researching. I can’t say it was a perfect essay but I was able to avoid getting tunnel vision and incorporated different types of information into my research paper. I think for any future papers I’ll be able to approach them a lot more calmly now that I was able to gain more experience in my writing.

1. What I did this week:
   -This week I had watched some video lectures for some of my classes as well as read some articles required alongside those video lectures.
   -I tried going over other ideas on what to write for my research project since my rough draft wasn’t something I was all too proud of.
   -I did a lot of studying for my history class to get past the quiz early into the week.
   -I also got started on writing another paper I have due for another class.
2. What went well this week:
   -Besides my regular classes and the work I did for them nothing else besides that.
   -I still have yet to figure out how to improve my research paper to something more satisfying.
3. What was hard this week:
   -Hardest thing was definitely my rough draft. Even after having calmed down from being overstressed, I can’t seem to wrap my head around the topic itself. It feels boring to research about as well to write, so I’m stuck on how I can truly improve it without it feeling lackluster.
4. To-do list:
   -I have to read, even if I find it boring, up on more information on online classes. As well as adjust the thesis to state online writing classes, because I was definitely confused with the topic to write about in the early stages of writing my rough draft.
   -The next thing would be the obvious of just having to study for all my other classes that I have.
5. Where I left off:
   -Pretty much I haven’t really touched my rough draft yet(Meaning all my edits and changes that I attempted to make were immediately deleted because it made the essay worse).
   -Although, however, I’ve at least managed to understand how to better state my thesis. I hadn’t wanted to make my paper seem like a copy of one of the chapters from BIAW so I forcefully changed the main idea. Obviously that wasn’t a good idea so I think I should just follow in the footsteps of that one chapter in BIAW.
6. Honestly, I’m disappointed I haven’t been able to properly revise and edit my rough draft. Although I have a solid idea on what to write for my thesis to truly reorganize my mess of a paper, I haven’t been able to become absorbed in the topic itself. When I can’t allow myself to enjoy researching the topic, I tend to write worse meaning it’s better to not edit my writing than to actually edit it. I don’t trust myself to write something better until I can learn to enjoy the topic again.

____________________________________________

We all know how catastrophic the Covid-19 pandemic had been, whether it be economically or politically everyone around the world was impacted by this pandemic. Due to not having invented any vaccines for the virus, at the time, as well as the high infection rate, governments all around the world had ordered quarantine. Adults were forced to take their jobs home, keeping their outside adventures to a minimum. This quarantine brought many significant changes to a person’s daily life. One such change could be found with all the young people, young people about children that still had to go to school. While adults had to worry about their present daily lives, children were unlucky if their present lives and possibly futures could all be severely impacted. I was a high school student when the covid pandemic hit, and it shouldn’t be a surprise when I tell you how awful school had become because of the quarantine. Basically, schools shut down for a week or so and started back up with some homework for a couple of weeks. I think it was only after a month did teachers finally figure out that they should record their lessons and send them to their students to at least try and have their students learn. However, that story is now a story of the past. Quarantine has passed, teachers have adjusted, students have adjusted, the school has transformed to a normalcy of sorts. So how bad are online classes now? Are they as bad as they were in the beginning? Have they improved from the beginning of the pandemic, or even from before the pandemic? If so, can this be a new option for learning?

To begin, we first have to understand how online learning was like before the quarantine caused by Covid-19. Online learning would usually take on an approach where they would gather many students and stuff them all into one class, such classes were called Massive Open Online Courses or otherwise known as MOOCs. MOOC classes could entail thousands of students tuning in simultaneously. These MOOCs, of course, come with their own downsides and advantages. In a book called To MOOC or Not to MOOC : How Can Online Learning Help to Build the Future of Higher Education? Sarah Porter, she explains how MOOCs can be seen as beneficial to the learning field because it encourages “active learners.” “…the University of Edinburgh had over 300,000 students registered for the six Edinburgh MOOCs that were run in 2013.” Out of these 300,000 students that had registered to join at first, only about 10% of those registered had actually attended. Such an occurrence has filtered out the students that own the initiative to stand up and learn from the other students that have no such initiative. Meaning these MOOCs can help distinguish and offer opportunities to students that can be classified as “active learners.”

• Consider your thesis Does it make a clear claim based on evidence?
  -No, it does not. Honestly I think this paragraph doesn’t have a solid thesis that states the main idea in one clear and concise sentence. Instead the introduction seems to slowly meld the entire paragraph to introduce the thesis and yet even then nothing solid is stated.
• How can you revise the thesis to respond to your Research Question and make a claim?
  (This paragraph is in regards to the Introduction)
  -To revise the thesis, I’d have to start with my research question to change it something more relative and specific. Something more similar to the chapter I had based my paper on from BIAW. The topic is way too broad, which allowed for ramblings to appear in my writing that strayed completely from the true main idea of the essay. Originally the orange/red near the end of the paragraph was meant to be the research question as well as the thesis however the entire introduction doesn’t state that. Meaning I have shrink the scale of my research to something smaller. What I would change it to would be to discuss online writing classes. Discard the Covid-19 situation, discard online schooling, and discard the majority of my sources. All of these ideas were unnecessary in the way that it wasn’t required at all to be mentioned. Missing the objective of a research paper.
• What do you notice about the distribution of content?
  -What I notice about the distribution of content in my writing is that there seems to be no significant problems with mainly the E and A parts of the MEAL strategy. I provide evidence, and I back it up with a sufficient explanation. The M portion of the strategy appears in the beginning of my second paragraph however it isn’t strong because of the lack of thesis statement. Thus, of course, because of the lack of the thesis the L portion of the MEAL strategy doesn’t even exist. It’s hard to link back to the thesis when the thesis doesn’t even exist to begin with.
• Are there paragraphs where you’re missing one of the components?
  -As stated previously, the second paragraph shown above is definitely missing the L portion while the M portion exists however lacks a thesis to use as its structure.
• Are there paragraphs where you have unbalanced components (e.g. six sources but one sentence of analysis?)
  If that excludes the issues I had previously discussed then no. The E and A portions of the MEAL strategy are fine, in my opinion. The true problem lies in the thesis itself. It doesn’t really exist in this paper leaving the rest of the paragraphs to ramble on about some vague and irrelevant topic.
• Simply put, my plan to revise M-E-A-L in this paragraph would be to just delete it and restart. The thesis isn’t visible enough to be able to support the body paragraphs sufficiently to create a balanced MEAL.
  If I couldn’t take this approach then I would start with the first sentence. Instead of beginning with the M I would state the thesis immediately. Afterwards, would I lead into the main idea of this new paragraph. Once that is finished, I would end my paragraph with the L portion of MEAL.
  PS: The introduction is honestly a lost cause in my opinion. I’d rather restart from scratch than try fix bits and pieces of it at a time.

1. What I did this week:
   -I did some studying for my Pre-Calculus class.
   -I did a lot of brainstorming about what I should be doing next and how I should organize my future tasks.
   -Wrote my rough draft of my research paper during the one week extension.
2. What went well this week:
   -Honestly this week was filled with a lot of stress. The things that did go well this week were quite low. I didn’t have any tests that I had to worry about. I did have one for FYS that I did decent on however that wasn’t much of a concern.
3. What was hard this week:
   -Basically just having to organize everything. It was a very stressful process because there were just too many things to keep track of that I’ve been burning out for a while now. I had two nearly three papers I was thinking about simultaneously. While also thinking about an email I have to send to the dean regarding the vaccination policy. While also having to keep track of the materials I have to go over for an incoming quiz on the 8th. Oh, and not to forget some more assignments due on the 8th as well. Pretty much this week I was overwhelmed with too many things to plan out that I just burned out completely. So I had to take some time to just re-organize myself completely.
4. To-do list:
   -Finish reviewing all the material I missed for Modern American History.
   -Start writing a paper for my Art History class.
   -Finish Pre-calculus homework.
   -Research a lot more information in regard to my research project.
5. Where I left off:
   -I’m leaving off at pretty much what I wrote on my to-do list except that I haven’t done so yet. Meaning that I’m leaving at having written what I believe to be one of my worst essays yet that I’ve submitted to English.
   -Research some notes on what to write for my paper in Art History.
   -Did a couple questions on 1 part of my Pre-Calculus homework.
   -Research more thoroughly on the negatives of my research question.
6. Honestly I feel really tired with this week. There was just so much to think about and do that had just burned myself out with the stress. I hadn’t even realized I was burned out until I realized the little and effortless work I was creating. Although I’m disappointed, I’d rather just take a rest to calm down. I can think about what next assignment I should work on after I’ve had time to gather my thoughts, release any pent up emotions, and just relax some more.

____________________________________________

Due to my indecisive personality, I tend to usually organize my options of whatever it may be into pros and cons. Like if I would go to the store to buy water, then I would take my time to gather information. I would look at the prices for all the different sized bottles. Look at the volume per bottle. Convert the prices of the bottles of water with the volume they hold into ratios and then compare. Notice which one offers more water for a lower price and just buy many of those options. Similar situations occur if I happen to have extra cash left over and I happen to be shopping for something. I’ll think about what I’m trying to buy and measure how beneficial this purchase will be to me in contrast to simply saving the money. If I’m buying junk food then 9 times out of 10 I’ll save the money. I’ve already resolved in my head that buying junk food may grant me gratification, it’s only temporary. Whereas I can save the money one more day to then buy something I that brings more gratification and lasts longer.

When I had gathered my sources, I had originally done so to use connect minute details with each other as if proving my point. Meaning I would take an article that could be strongly opposed to the point I’m trying to make, however use a particular quote found in that article to further emphasize my point. By using such an article that could easily be interpreted as against my argument, it can be seen as if even this person that is so strongly opposed has surrendered to this “truth.” What I mean is that I tend to search for sources to use in my rebuttal to further convince my reader of my “truth.”

1. What I did this week:
   -This week was pretty routine. I basically did the same besides using my free time to research many different topics.
   -I tried researching controversial discussions and debates to see if it could spark an idea of what to write on for my research paper. In the end I chose to stick with a similar idea being told from one of the chapters in BIAW.
   -Besides that, I got around to downloading any and all the software required for the week/locating sources to use in my research paper. Thankfully I got everything working with no huge issues, besides the long duration it took to download everything since I had to update my laptop multiple times.
2. What went well this week:
   -Well, I got a 98 on one of my quizzes in pre-calc. I was worried about that class for a while because I was having trouble one solving that particular type of question we were studying, but thankfully we got through it.
   -Although it was only towards the end of the week, I was able to truly organize all my thoughts, tone, and ideas I wanted to use for my research paper. It’s always a slow process that goes through a lot of revision, but the reason why it “went well” was that I wasn’t stuck between two ideas I wanted to write about. I was firm in my decision to talk about/write about one particular idea.
3. What was hard this week:
   -Although I said I did good on my pre-calculus quiz, it was still hard to study for it because of the entire feeling of nervousness I went through prior to the quiz. Especially when I submitted a minute late, I thought I was done for by then.
4. To-do list:
   -First I should figure out my situation regarding my FYS class. Due to vaccination status policy and still being in a hybrid course I have to figure out what’s going to happen to me and FYS.
   -Next I gotta find all my sources that I want to use in my research paper. Information that will be used to inform my viewer in a fun way that they may find enjoyable but also memorable.
   -I have to finish one last lesson’s worth of Pre-Calculus homework.
5. Where I left off:
   -This week I have organized exactly what kind of paper I want to write which will be an informational one. I’ve figured out what kind of tone I’d like to use in my approach as well found some sources I can use for my paper. Honestly, I feel like I could’ve already written my paper and be done with it but at the same time I feel like I have too few sources. So I’d like to find as many key sources to use in my writing.
   -I’ve finished all but one lesson’s worth of Pre-Calculus homework.
   -I haven’t finished my video lectures for Modern American History, but I have finished the notes portion for all other classes.
6. Honestly I feel very excited, I assume, at writing this research paper. I was thinking about a different topic entirely throughout this week, and I was just not finding key sources that I could use for the type of paper I had planned. Thus I changed topics to something that I’ve recently become more absorbed in, and that was online class. With the whole quarantine situation and my own personal experiences, my opinions regarding online school have largely changed. With such a change in opinion has come a newfound curiosity regarding online courses which could really help in my research paper.

____________________________________________

For starters, my research question will be something along the lines of “Why are online classes usually seen as a stigma?” The reason I say along the lines is because I’m not too confident in the question aspect. I have a basis for what kind of paper I want to write however I usually figure out the question after I finish writing to see what I wanted to say in the first place.

Some of the terms I would use to search in the databases are:
-“Online class”
-“Asynchronous learning”
-“Hybrid learning”
-“Online college”
-“Online degree”
-“Work degree requirements”
-“Social”
-“School”
-“Stereotypes”
-“Norms”
-“Grades”
-“Statistics”
-“Education bills”
-“Funding”

One article I had found concerned online college courses. This paper was a journal article whose research question was, “Virtual Classrooms: How Online College Courses Affect Student Success.” From this article I was able to find information on nearly all the authors. The only author I could not find clear information was for Lindsay Fox. A quick google search will reveal many different Lindsay Fox’s. One is a buisnessman from Australia, another is a YouTube star, there were too many people with the same name that I was unsure of who may be a true author of this paper. As for the other authors I did find some information on them.
Eric S. Taylor is “an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education”. He is mainly involved in “Eric Taylor is an associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.” (use.harvard.edu) Susanna Loeb is a director of Annenberg Institute at Brown University as well as a professor in Education and a professor of International and Public Affairs. Eric Bettinger “is a professor in the Stanford University School of Education. He is also a research associate in the program on education at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Bettinger is the Director of the Center for Educational Policy Analysis and a Co-Director at the Lemann Center for Brazilian Education at Stanford.”
To summarize all these authors are genuine experts in their fields concerning the study on education. They are very respected individuals for the many papers they have written, as well as the work they have accomplished in their fields of study. Eric Bettinger has 4 PhD’s involving fields of education and 4 Master’s degrees. All these professors are incredibly adept in their field, meaning their paper that they had written discussing the correlation of online college and student success seems to most likely be a credible source because they are all incredibly informed in their fields of study.

1. What I did this week:
   -I read some of the class readings assigned this week.
   -I finished studying for History and completed my mid-terms before the deadline.
   -I started some research on the BIAW topics I could use for my research paper rough draft.
2. What went well this week:
   -I would have to say the work that I had to do this week. It was definitely hard which I will explain in the third point, however, it’s because I was able to wrap up all the work I needed to in good time that it went all so well. I never felt as if I had to rush and I could feel relaxed at each task I had to do. Which is the reason why, even though this week was stressful for the amount of work I had to finish, because I was able to finish without being late is what went well for me this week.
3. What was hard this week:
   -Now I’ll explain my dilemma of the week. The beginning of this week I felt like I was swamped with so much work to do. I had to write a monologue piece for FYS, study video lectures of 2 classes other than the class I had mid-terms for. The reason for that was because in one of the classes I was slacking with the video lectures and I needed to catch up. The other was for math and that was in preparation for any quizzes I may have had. Since I had my Modern American History mid-terms during the middle-end of this week, I wanted to study as much as I could before then. However, by wanting to study more that left less time for doing everything else for my other classes. It was hard managing everything so that I would have enough time but I got through it.
4. To-do list:
   -First thing on the list is definitely to do more research on my what kind of question I want to research for my research paper. I don’t want to answer question from a previous topic, not unless I have genuine new ideas to use in my essay. I hate using old ideas so I’ll have to spend at least an hour or two of research to determine my topic more accurately.
   -Next I’ll have to study pre-calc for the remainder of today and tomorrow (Saturday and Sunday) in preparation for a quiz. This past week my teacher had surprisingly not given us or had forgotten to give use any quizzes.
   -I also have to read the remaining assigned readings of the week.
   -Outside of school, I should start running again in the cold. I’m not too sure why but I’ve always loved running in warm weather and prefer when the weather is colder. Thus, now that the weather is growing colder I gotta go out running more.
5. Where I left off:
   -Last week I basically left off with having to study for a ton of classes. Which is basically what I did this week. Thankfully I was able to finish all the studying that was a real necessity. Only kind of studying I need is quick reviews for pre-calc.
   -Where I’ll be leaving off this week will be having finished half of the assigned pre-calc homework, only need to study for one of my classes, and that’s all.
6. I’m honestly feel very satisfied with the work I put in this week. Although the end of this week seemed to have slowed down so much, it’s mostly because I haven’t been placed in as much pressure as I was placed in the beginning of the week. However, because I was able to get through all that I feel genuinely satisfied with myself. Although I haven’t done much writing this week, I’m happy to see how I’ve been able to grow as a writer. Incorporating different tones and writing techniques in my work.

____________________________________________

Writing Prompt:

Usually the strategies I implement before I start to write is simple imagery. I tend to imagine or visualize how I want my story to sound. It’s also how I can judge what kind of approach to the tone I want to use because I imagine the type of personality I am using when I am reading my paper out loud. Using this method, my writing tends to resemble an actual conversation with another person. As if I am speaking directly to my readers as individuals.

Honestly, thinking about it now, my strategies are actually quite similar to the invention strategies we had read about. I had already placed great importance on how my writing is being articulated to my audience. I also love using questions. Even if the questions are rhetorical, I love using them because of how it introduces visuals both I and my reader can visualize. It sets the narrative. These two strategies are probably my favorite because of how often I already make use of them. Probably another strategy I’d enjoy would be the brainstorming one for 5 minutes. I don’t usually tend to write out my thoughts because I’ve simply grown accustomed to keeping my thoughts in my head. Sometimes I may even have thoughts yet no words to express such thoughts, so I’ll keep brainstorming on alternatives to express those thoughts.

The outcome of my invention techniques was honestly a lot more satisfactory than I had originally thought. The brainstorming of ideas was probably the best technique because of how many ideas I could come up with. However, the free writing was terrible and I’m sure the reason is simply because I don’t like free writing. I’ve never been good at it because my thoughts begin to wander so much that I’m not even thinking about the same class anymore. So that was a disaster. However, the brainstorming was better because I my chart started to look decently organized. Although there was a huge in balance of ideas, it still looked pretty decent to me. (Imbalance pertaining to me having lots of keywords to explain only one main idea. So if I have 6 main ideas to talk about in total, one of those ideas can last a couple pages and the rest will fill up less than half a page. I focused too much on one idea.)

I think my tentative research question will be about the grading criteria. I’m honestly not too sure about what section of the grading criteria I’d like to write a research paper about. It could be about the grading writing in general and my question could look like: How much of an impact do you think a grade makes on your writing? Or something along those lines. Or I could talk about the horrors of rubrics. A question that could spark lots of controversy but also keep it somewhat professional. Maybe: How effective are rubrics truly? Honestly I have no idea how to start this paper. There’s just too many ideas I could write about, even if its just in the sphere of grading criteria in writing. I could still change that theme completely if something else attracts me, I can very spontaneous at times.

 

1. What I did this week:
   -I finished studying for early this week’s modern American history quiz.
   -I began to revise my rough draft of the analysis assignment early into the week and have nearly finished it to submit as a polished draft.
   -I began to study a ton in preparation for my modern American history mid-terms next week.
   -I went out 3 days this week for some exercise and to hang out with friends and family.
2. What went well this week:
   -All my classes didn’t seem to have any problems with anything. Meaning my grades in their tests and quizzes are pretty satisfying for me so I’m doing good in that regards.
3. What was hard:
   -Honestly, nothing in my life so far could be seen as hard. It might’ve been an annoying task to do for a class but for it to be challenging, I don’t remember anything like such happening this week.
4. To-do list:
   -I have to keep studying a ton for my future modern American History mid-terms.
   -Finish up revising my Analysis assignment’s rough draft.
   -Catch up on some video lectures for Art History
5. Where I left off:
   -I almost finished my Polished draft, however I’m sure I’ll be able to finish that soon.
   -I have one more lecture in American Modern History left before I can start my review of the full course.
   -I am only missing one video lecture to watch for Art History.
   -I’ve been procrastinating in completing some Pre-calculus homework. Although it’s not due for another month I should still complete the questions I can at the moment.
6. I’m honestly feeling quite happy or satisfied at my progress with my writing. I’ve definitely made many mistakes in my writing but I’ve also learned how to incorporate different tones as well. It’s honestly quite fun but also scary to use different tones in my papers. Fun because I’m learning so many new ways to portray my thoughts, and scary because I always feel as though the tones I use may not be suitable for such an academic paper. One such paper was when I had written with a more lax attitude that was comedic. It fit with the theme of my paper but it was also risky because it I used such a tone for an academic paper.

____________________________________________

Writing Prompt:
The chapter I had chosen for this prompt was one of the chapters for this week’s readings of ENG 2100. The reason I had chosen this one was because of how it foretold a field of education that I had been slowly beginning to acknowledge as well. Tiffany Bourelle and Andy Bourelle, discuss about their views concerning the effectiveness of online classes in the field of education. They discuss this issue by first introducing to their audience about how benefits online classes bring. About how their versatility to be easy to access/attend classes at home makes for a suitable solution for people that are unable to attend classes in person due to complications. However they also make sure to straighten your doubts, because they know that people feel as though online courses are simply not as effective as face-to-face courses otherwise known as f2f courses. The Bourelle’s then address the main issue, that people believe online classes to be inferior to f2f classes. They feel as though this misconception is irrepairable if left alone and hope to change their audience’s minds on the effectiveness of online classes. So they proceed to discuss about the advantages online courses can bring to the table.

So they respond to many misconceptions they are aware that students may hold. I realized this part because I shared the very same thoughts/doubts the Bourelle’s had corrected. I thought of online classes as inefficient in comparison to f2f classes but I now realized I was wrong through both experience and this reading. Especially in this point in time with the entire Covid situation, students were forced into online learning. The start of online learning was terrible because teachers were not able to adapt as quickly as was required of their students. However as teachers began to adapt, online learning also began to improve marvelously. I didn’t need to google for more information on this topic because I’ve had discussions with teachers, students, family, adults, practically the majority of people I knew about why I disliked online classes. It was for the same doubts the Bourelle’s had cleared up. Some of these doubts could be how online classes can’t offer f2f feedback from your instructors, or maybe even online classes simply being too academically easy in comparison to f2f classes. However none of that is true and is disproved by the Bourelle’s.

One of the things I had noticed about this issue was how accurate the Bourelle’s were, when they spoke of these stereotypes/misconceptions regarding online classes. They discussed the public’s feelings when in concerns to achieving degrees online. How an online degree were usually looked down on in the work place as compared to degrees obtained by attending university in person. Even teachers themselves would advise against online classes because they feel their students won’t be able to learn as efficiently as in a classroom. The loss of interactions with their teachers and peers when sharing work would cause students to be set back. All these perspectives concerning online classes were incredibly accurate. What I was mostly impressed by in this chapter was how these truths mentioned concerning online classes could be so relatable to my own experiences. I had also remember conversations with other people about the very same stereotypes discussed. It was astonishing how accurate each statement they wrote was. I honestly wonder their thought process and the experiences they faced that led them to want to write such a chapter. As well as what led them to write the chapter in the way that they did. Was it because they are very passionate about this particular topic and hoped to spread awareness. Or did they simply want to have their audience, of young writers, become more open minded.

1. 1. The writing I did this week:
      -This week I hadn’t actually done much writing. Besides taking notes like usual for my classes, I didn’t have any extensive writing I had to accomplish.
   2. What went well this week:
      -I’m happy that when I had received feedback on my Analysis Rough Draft assignment, I wasn’t off the mark on the way I had written my Analysis. Although there are many things to correct, I’m satisfied knowing my paper had met the requirements.
   3. What went bad this week:
      -Honestly my week was fine until I had realized I had made a huge mistake in my weekly blogs. I didn’t realize I had to write a writing log in this format every week. I had thought it was only the writing prompt I had to finish, thus it was a huge slap in the face when I had realized I had been doing this assignment wrong the entire time. Honestly  I’m very stressed out over my mistake on this, but I can’t do anything about it since it was my fault for not having read carefully enough to the directions. I can only prevent such an error from happening in the future now.
   4. To-do list:
      -I have to start editing my Analysis Rough draft
      -Start studying for a future mid-term for Modern American History.
      -Re-read everything I’ve every been assigned to do for all my classes.
   5. Where I left off:
      -I don’t have anything written of last week, but going by my memory I left off at summarizing my thoughts of the work I had done this week. At the end of each week I’ll have a moment to think about all the work, readings and writings, I had done for each of my classes. I do this to understand what next I should focus on. At this moment, I have to focus on thoroughly studying for a Modern American History quiz.
      -After I’ve finished with studying for American History, I will move on to thinking about how to reorganize my Analysis rough draft.
      -I will also solve some practice problems for my pre-calculus class. For this task I don’t necessarily need to spend too much time as I’ve understood the lesson, and the homework won’t be due for another month. This seems to be more of a mini-task to do in-between other tasks so as not to get bored.
   6. Honestly, I’m very annoyed and angry at myself for not having realized or, rather, remembering sooner about the first part of the writing log. I had practically thrown this memory to the back of my head thinking that I would no longer need to do anything more than the writing prompt given each week. I guess this is just another way for me to learn to re-read directions in not just the same manner, but with a different perspective on how to follow directions. So as to give insight to myself on what the directions are asking off me.

____________________________________________

Chapter: “Some People Are Just Born Good Writers” by Jill Parrot from Bad Ideas About Writing.

Society & History:
History has foretold for countless centuries that good writers were born that way since the beginning. In the past, people had believed that “good” writers were chosen in some way by God himself. If not that then they were directly inspired by God. Thus leading to this social misconception, held by all kinds of people, in which there are only the “genius” writers. The remnants of writers aren’t in this category therefore they can never be “good” writers in their lifetimes.
Such history would then create a society of people that would maintain this notion that because they weren’t born as a “good” writer, then they automatically disqualified from becoming a better writer. These thoughts will negatively impact your ability to improve as a writer, thus further propagating your decline in this endless loop of decay as a writer. The more you think you just aren’t a “good” writer, then the more you disassociate yourself from the occupation of “writer.” When that happens you can’t improve as a writer because you yourself don’t address yourself as a writer that can improve.

Audience:
The readers of this chapter are the audience being spoken to. To be more specific, the audience would generally entail the young writers reading this chapter to thus improve their own writing. Thus Parrott addresses his/her/their audience as the young writers who put themselves down because of a common misconception held by both history and society themselves.

Speaker:
The speaker of this chapter of Bad Ideas About Writing is Jill Parrott themselves. He/She/They speak throughout this chapter through their own eyes. In one section of this chapter, Parrott as a teacher/professor had made mention of how they had a personal experience of this negative misconception causing visible impacts on society. Due to such a personal experience, I would believe the speaker is the author themselves because of the personal experiences they are able to share to support their claims in this chapter. They had spoken of how students were being regarded as by Parrott’s fellow teacher/professor colleagues.

Message:
There are many messages being told in this chapter. One for example is to tell students to forget this preconceived they’ve held for years that they can’t be “good” writers simply because they weren’t born as one. Such thoughts of inadequacy will cause a student to thus fail. Rather than failing from not being born with such a talent, society fails because they have accepted failure and nothing more. Leaving only failure to remain.
Another message can be to other teachers/professors that a student shouldn’t be punished because they are inexperienced. This message came from Parrott’s personal experience of when his/her colleagues were commenting about a student’s writing because of their inexperience. Parrott’s response was to question their statements because a teacher’s job would be to help their students improve. Parrott had found it obvious that student’s wouldn’t be able to write outstanding papers because they are just students. As long as one continues to hold the title of student, then a teacher should be willing to help improve that student rather than reprimand them for being inexperienced.

Purpose:
The purpose of this chapter is to remove this horrible preconceived notion that a particular group of people were born with the ability to write. Parrott, wants to teach future writers that every one of them is qualified to improve to become a better writer than the one they were the day before. Society might tell you otherwise however they are wrong. History itself has been wrong for countless years, and so is society. Thus you, a young writer, shouldn’t believe you can’t grow to become a better writer. Like Parrott says, “Good writers are not born. They are learned.” (Parrott, 74).

Context:
Parrott uses kairos in a way that makes their story flow very smoothly. What I mean is that in the beginning Parrott had started the story with more of a calmer tone. So as not to scare you away. Parrott started his piece with a simple introduction of history/background information about the purpose of his/her for writing this chapter. After the introductions are done, Parrott slowly continues to change the tone of the chapter to keep that feel of not wanting to scare her/his readers away from continuing to read on. After he/she has done this, he/she changes their tone to be one of sympathy for her/his audience. They tell us, the audience/readers, a story about an experience when Parrott had realized how students would be punished for the inexperience. Instead of helping students improve themselves out of this inexperience, teachers/professors were reprimanding their students. This story was used to finally open up Parrott’s readers to continue on to learn of the juicier details about this topic of “being born to write.” After this little empathetic moment, Parrott is now able to start on teaching her readers the importance of improving your writing. The empathetic episode Parrott had insinuated was meant to appeal to her reader’s feelings. That way they would feel more open to the ideas they were giving out. Otherwise, some people would avert their attention elsewhere or wouldn’t truly listen to the advice they were being told. They would continue on in this daze of not being able to become a better writer forever. Parrott doesn’t want that, so she/he changes her/his tone to appear more empathetic to the audience. It’s a very good use of Kairos because it works remarkably well in instilling ideas into people. They drop their guards and allow information to make their way into their heads to be remembered rather than forgotten.