My Wobbliness!

In this English 1101 class I would say that I have had my share of wobble periods.  I have tried new attitudes, new ways, and new points for writing.  A lot have failed, although a lot have also worked!  I came into this class without a clear understanding of what I would be doing.  However, I came out with a completely new outlook.  I have learned many new styles of writing, and ways to write about life.  One very important thing that I have learned is that everything with writing is not always black or white, there can definitely be grey areas!  Wobbling in this class, or not having a solid understanding, has really made my writing what it is.  By wobbling I have learned how to pick myself up, pick my work up, dust myself off, and keep on trucking!  I have learned how to take and receive criticism, and also learn and improve from it.  All in all I would say that my wobbling in this English 1101 class was necessary for me to be able to get a better grasp of the different writing concepts, attitudes, and techniques.  I have learned a great deal in this class that I plan to use for the rest of my college years, and for a lifetime.  I will keep moving forward as a novice writer, and better myself day by day.

Ethnography Project Final Blog Post

Our ethnography project came together well, even though it did not start off as easily.  Starting my ethnography project and trying to find something to write about was not a simple task.  I had the building that I planned on talking about, but I just had no way of relating it to literacy underlife.  After our group came upon the topic of architecture everything seemed to fall into place from there. 

 

 

In this picture you can see my original connection between architecture and literacy.  I used Robinson Hall very heavily to emphasize my point.  However, my focus on Robinson Hall in specific did not last all too long.  I then began to expand my focus points while working with my group.

Revising my work however was a completely different story.  After doing my literacy narrative, revising was not as bad, simply because I now know exactly what it was.  The hardest part in revising my ethnography project would be from broadening my points from Robinson Hall specifically, to all academic buildings on campus.  I think this was a special kind of revision because it didn't focus on actual writing, but rather on changing my work to fit my groups progression, but revision nonetheless.

Working in a group seemed to flow a lot smoother for this project than just about any other project that I have worked on.  My group seemed to pretty much just understand everything that needed to be done.  We never really had any problems with not completing any assignments involved in completing our ethnography project.  I know we aren't supposed to say that everything was peachy clean, but when it comes to working in this group, honestly it was!

However, creating an untraditional piece was not easy at all.  It's so hard to kind of go against everything that we've been taught going through school.  I also think this ethnography project was necessary because it helped us to see that our writings and meanings are created by us.  We're so used to doing things by the book that we forget to add our own creativity and letting it shine through in our writing.

Overall, I think the ethnography project was important for our growth in writing.  It helped us to see that we can't always look for basic meanings that are given to us, but we have to create our own.  I think that is exactly what we needed to learn in our freshmen year of college for many of us.

This picture is my portion of our ethnography project in writing.

Literacy Narrative Final Blog Post

Wheeewwww! Where do I begin?!  Writing this literacy narrative has not been a walk in the park.  I have struggled with about everything under the sun when it comes to writing this paper.  First, I couldn't find a topic, then I struggled with making it interesting,  and I also didn't understand what to write.  However, once I discovered my topic I pretty much just plowed my paper out from there.  I wrote my entire literacy narrative in literally about 3 days, and that was the problem.  I never really stopped to think about the actual assignment, but rather just getting it done!  When I figured out what to write, my essay started off like this......

 

However, after reading and analyzing the start of my first draft I realized that it was not what I wanted to write about,  or even read for that matter.  So it was back to the starting blocks.  My final draft is still based on the same topic as my first draft, but I go about telling the story in a completely different way.

 

Revising my work on the other hand was along the same lines of picking a topic!  I didn't completely understand how to do it.  Coming into this literacy narrative I had revising and editing totally confused.  I mistook one for the other.

 

 

 

This picture shows how I tried to switch writing styles on October 4th.  I tried writing with the "Lydia Davis" style of writing.  I tried incorporating short, choppy sentences, and questions to get my point across.  As you can see, I wasn't the best at it!  Editing and peer editing was pretty easy and successful for me.  I believe I gave a lot of interesting points and suggestions.  I also received just as many helpful points and tips.  When editing my work I had a few goals that I wanted to get accomplished, these were:

• Completely understand my writing, and which direction I'm taking it.
• Try different styles of writing.
• Work on better intros and conclusions, and ways to experiment with my writing.

I would say that I accomplished these 3 goals.  The only one that I feel like I could have had a better handle on was the first one.  I feel like I could have gotten a better understanding of my writing then I have now, but that's my personal opinion.

 

Overall I would say this literacy narrative assignment was extremely helpful.  It wasn't just a normal essay that I was just trying to get over with.  It actually required some thought and input from others on how to make it my own writing and not just some boring, factual essay.  While writing this essay  I learned the true difference between revision and editing.  I also learned how to play with my writing, and not use the basic style for an essay, but switch it up and make it interesting.  My final conclusion from this literacy narrative is more of a opinionated one, but still important nonetheless.  I have learned that writing an essay does not have to be a template or pre-designed event.  Writing an essay can and should be a reflection of your feelings, emotions, and experiences!

 



Ethnography Project Update and Questions!

I want to talk more about my group's ethnography project, and also ask some question that may help us out.  So as of right now our group decided to go with making a video for our ethnography project.  We decided to have sort of a compilation of information, interviews, and discussions to give a deeper meaning to our topic, architecture.  Do you all think a video like this would be boring?  If so, what would make it better?  Our project on the other hand is coming along well.  We each have a our own sub-topic and have already started investigating them on a deeper level.  I would have to say that our topic is pretty interesting though.  By doing this project I have really begun to step back and look for deeper meanings in everything I come across on a daily basis.  I think this ethnography project is really cool, and I can't wait for you all to see our video!

Ethnography Project Updates!

My group's ethnography project on Architecture is coming along well.  We have decided to focus our attention on three main topics which are, architecture within academic buildings, general buildings, and within the classroom.  I think this is a good start for us because we all have different focus points to dig into while bringing our project back to the central topic.  I think our idea of creating sort of a compilation video to provide answers to our different questions will be a great.  The only problem that we may run into is finding out how to use the movie maker website that Lacy sent to us.  Somehow though, we will make it work, hopefully!  Wish us luck!

Annotated Bibliography

• Pizzato, Mark. Personal interview. 1 Nov. 2012.

I plan on conducting this interview some time soon.  This interview is important because it will help me understand more significance behind Robinson Hall.  I will also conduct this interview to stress the importance of architecture, and how architecture can affect a classes style of learning.  In this interview I will ask question of how teaching in this particular classroom in Robinson Hall may be different from teaching in any other classes.

• Manship, Lacy. "#freehand1101." Map. Ed. Kedric M. Wright. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

This map created by Professor Lacy was very useful in choosing which building would be better to analyze specific architectural differences, downfalls, and improvements.  When using this map I noticed that all of the buildings on this campus have their own unique shape, which made it much easier to choose which building to look closer at.  In choosing Robinson Hall I noticed that it's shape is not as unique compared to other theatre buildings.  This map was very helpful in helping me recognize this.

• Diao, Dr. Yuanan. "Professor Interview." Telephone interview.

This interview will be used as a contrast interview to my other interview.  This specific professor teaches math in a lecture style classroom, and I would like to find out if this is easier or hard to do.  In this interview I will ask specific questions about the architecture of the classroom, and if he believes it helps or hurts to effectiveness of his teaching.  The usefulness of this interview is to use as a control group to my previous interview of Professor Pizzato.

Remapping the Map!

After sitting down with my Architecture group we came up with some pretty neat things that relate both literacy and architecture.  While sitting down in Atkins library we created a list of things that ties architecture into literacy.  On our list we wrote:

• The specific ways in which the buildings are set up.
• The way the buildings are situated on campus.
• The actual insides of th buildings.
• Specifics within the buildings, like artwork or etc.

This list helped us realize how architecture can positively or negatively affect literacy in many different ways.  In the updated overlay version of my map I added different classroom layouts.  The different classroom layouts can affect literacy greatly.  A lecture style classroom versus a intimate smaller size classroom changes a person literacy history dramatically.