~The End of the Third Wave~

I decided on this entry title because I was thinking about my final paper for my history of women in the U.S. class and how on Thursday the prof was talking about the different waves of the women's rights movement, and I think that I also have similar waves of progress with regards to my writing. My senior year of high school was the first where I improved a lot and really started to put more weight in the practice of writing and my abilities. Then last year at PLU was the second wave where I learned a lot about writing and what's expected at the college level and just a lot of skills that I gained. And now academic writing for fall quarter 2010 is coming to an end-- the end of the third wave. I don't think I could say which were more valuable since the waves build off of each other. But if you disregard the fact that the third wave wouldn't have been as successful without the first two, I would have to say that so far I have gained the most upper level skills in the third wave.

I have really enjoyed the approach that Professor Thompson takes to writing and it's changed a lot of how I look at texts. The areas I probably made the most improvements in are disciplinary awareness and synthesis. So basically looking at the bigger picture is what I have made the biggest strides in. I definitely spent the most time revising papers this quarter than I ever have in the past. I remember all through junior high and most of high school I hated the idea of rough drafts and I thought they were pointless because I was intelligent enough to spit out something good enough on the first try. This was usually true, reinforcing my skewed notion, but now in academic writing I really see the value of drafts and editing. I found it helpful to have different due dates for drafts to make sure that I got each done and gave the appropriate amount of time to each stage of the writing process. I actually have my dad reading over a final paper right now on presidential accountability for torture (whoa, right?) because I know the value of a separate pair of eyes reading it over to judge cohesiveness and find errors.

All in all I have enjoyed writing this quarter a lot and I look forward to next quarter! :)

~Critical Thinking and Writing Skills~

Hmm... critical thinking. I love critical thinking and I'm pretty sure I do it almost 24/7. Except for about now where it's the end of the quarter and my brain feels tense and fried, so hopefully I can manage to spit out three awesome papers and then I will be good to go. I know that I can't give up now after all of the effort I've put into my classes this quarter. Anyways, critical thinking. I would say I am very comfortable doing this when reading texts. I can look at something in class, whether it be a book passage or a peer's essay and almost immediately form an opinion about the content and how effective it is in doing certain things. I can also look at texts in relation to each other and see connections and differences. I was able to use these skills a lot in class when we looked at essays as a group, as well as doing readers reviews. I was actually often surprised at how quickly I was able to do (what I think was) a comprehensive readers review on a peer's essay. I just read it through and then went back and made notes about specific things in the paper and was able to write a few paragraphs about overall themes and ideas that were hits or misses. I think this is a very good skill to have because analyzing texts are important and being able to do it quickly also enabled to me to take on extra credit reviews without having to worry about adding too much to my workload.

As for writing, I really have improved a lot in this area during my senior year of high school as well as last year. I was lucky enough to have some really smart teachers/professors who helped me a lot. I have always been a good reader and not a bad writer but probably not as good as I could have been. More advanced than my age level expectations certainly, but that's not how I judge myself. If I know I can do better or I know there's something better out there I'm not going to stop until I'm at the best I know how to do even if it's above what's expected of me. I expect more of myself. It's like when Professor Thompson and I had a conversation about my last paper and I had all these changes to make and the draft was due the next morning and I was like ahh how am I going to make all these changes? And she said don't worry it's just a draft I'm not even going to see it until the next time you turn it in, but I knew I couldn't turn it in without making those changes because I knew they had to be made.

~Close Reading and Research Skills~

I have always considered myself to be a critical reader when it comes to reading texts and analyzing things. So I think I came into this class with the skills to do close readings, but I definitely think I made strides in learning how to further synthesize sources and make connections that speak to the larger academic conversation. That's definitely what I would say I am taking away from this class the most is a larger understanding of disciplinary awareness and how to make arguments relevant and connected with the bigger picture. I sometimes found it difficult to balance close readings with skimming and just general reading when it came to managing all of my readings for all my classes. My other courses are higher level and had a lot of reading to do for every class and I ended up actually reading all of it. This is a little amazing to me looking back at how I managed to read that much, but it was probably allowed by my extreme focus all quarter on school, which, like most things, comes with good and bad ramifications.

Researching and using articles to fuel my own argument is another skill I feel like I developed in this class during the quarter. I feel much more confident in my abilities to take completely different articles and draw connections between them and use them to fuel my own argument. I have found that doing this requires careful reading as well as thinking outside of the box to be able to see the broader scope of how very different arguments can fit together and speak to a shared concept. I have also found that time is essential to this process in being able to take time away to think about how different aspects work together. I find that many of my ideas come to me when I'm laying in bed trying to fall asleep and thinking about a paper or an idea will surface randomly in my head when I'm having a conversation with someone about something completely different. Allowing my brain to "percolate" and work on my ideas is really key to being able to dictate a fully formed argument. It really ties back to what I wrote in a blog at the beginning of the quarter that a professor last year in my Four by Shakespeare class shared with us about writers block. When you sit down and try to write a paper and force it out you can experience a "block" where you can't write because your ideas aren't formed yet. This block, our prof told us, is really just your brain thinking and forming your argument even if you feel like you have writers block and can't think of anything to write in your paper. But when you allow your mind to take time to think and develop ideas you can fully form your thoughts. Recognizing this phenomenon has allowed me to recognize when I'm doing this and how it fits into my writing process so that when I am randomly thinking about something in relation to my paper or have an epiphany in a random conversation I get out of bed and write it down or find a piece of scrap paper and make a note to myself so that I can use it for my paper.

~When Inspiration Strikes~

It always amazes me what connections exist between totally different things in the world and I love it! The correlation between natural selection and revision totally makes sense to me. In both the strongest most attractive attributes get carried on and that's how people and writing improves itself. If you find something in your essay that doesn't work you're not likely to include it again because you already know that it's not functional, just like how natural selection eliminates attributes that don't function so that we are left with the best end products possible. Of course there's always mutations or mistakes but without them life would become boring and monotone.

When I revise my essay I plan to listen/read what the professor has to say about my paper and think about it for a day or so before I begin to revise my paper/pick which one I want to revise. (Although I am fairly certain I'm going to pick my second essay to revise and submit for a final grade.) It is of course useful to sit in front of my computer and work at my paper to edit and improve it, but I find that the time away from papers thinking about it and scribbling down random thoughts and improvements on scrap paper shoved in pockets is the most useful. I also find it helpful to print out a copy of my paper and edit it the old fashioned way with pen.

~Writers Memo for Essay 2~

Thankfully, I'm currently very happy with where my essay is at right now. It's a relief to know that my paper is in a good place and to be able to move on from it and concentrate on other school work. I put a lot of work and thought into it, but really what helped me develop it further than I was able to is discussing it with Professor Thompson. Seriously, if you are in our class and reading this, or in any other class, take advantage of office hours because (generally) your professors want to help you. I know it's kind of scary to do because there's the fear that you won't know what to say or will embarrass yourself but she is really good at never making you feel stupid about what you wrote and just working with you to pin point what you want to say and it's really helpful.

For my readers when you're looking at my essay keep in mind that I am under option 1, but I didn't really follow the prompt. I have my own thesis and use my blog along with different articles to support my thesis. The type of feedback I'm really looking for is general concepts of how cohesive the paper is as a whole and what kind of impressions you have about my argument and how effective it is in making you understand the paper. Maybe if after you read it through write a summary without looking at the paper of what you got from the reading. I also want feedback about how effectively I used my different sources. And finally, feedback about any areas where there is wording or phrasing that doesn't make sense or you think needs to be added to in order to clarify my intended meaning. Thanks and good luck!

~Progressing With Essay 2~

I have been so focused on essay 2 that for the first time, I completely forgot to do my blog entry :(. I'm really mad at myself for forgetting since I haven't missed any others. I forgot to put it on my whiteboard for homework and I only thought of it because I'm working on my essay right now and I was thinking about my blog and about to look at it and then I realized I should have made an entry for this morning. Dang it. Anyways, better late than never right? I will compensate by commenting on everyone blogs I am following instead of just two.
I am working out my essay right now... sitting in starbucks... listening to paramore. So far I have written my intro and I just worked out how to organize the rest of the essay. I am planning on first discussing West's argument of how blogs showed different social languages and such and then I'm going to incorporate evidence from my blog to show how I did the same thing and it allowed for deeper learning. Then I'm going to discuss my third article and also incorporate it with my blog which is really where my argument will be articulated, so I might end up switching the order. I really don't know, I'm just going to wait and see how it plays out as I write it. I'm struggling with getting my ideas out of my head and clearly articulated, but it's the good kind of struggle where I'm working through ideas vs having to come up with ideas. The hardest part is making this into an essay, because in my head my paper should be layed out like the articles we have been reading. So I'm having issues making all of my thoughts and different parts of my argument form a cohesive paper. That will probably be the biggest problem for me besides the actual argument, hah.

~Examining The Article To Be Used In Essay 2~

The article I found to use in conjunction with West's is "Blogging: Self Presentation and Privacy" by Karen McCullagh. I found this article through the UW article search using the boolean terms we discussed in class.

Summary: The article focuses on examining how much bloggers value online privacy and how safe they expect information posted online to be. McCullagh concludes that her findings support the idea that bloggers either accept privacy risks or "employ mechanisms to protect [their] privacy" in order to "work on their self-identity."

How the author supports the argument: McCullagh uses the findings of an international online survey of bloggers that she facilitated to support her argument. She employs the use of tables showing percentages of responses to certain questions to prove consensual agreement (at least through the people surveyed) of what she is arguing.

Connections between the reading and my research: The aspect of privacy per se is not exactly central to the argument I am planning for the second essay, but parts of this article I think will be very helpful information. Mostly relevant is the argument McCullagh makes that since self-identity can only be developed through social interaction with others, expressive privacy and reflexive formations of self-identity are connected. This can be applied to classrooms vs blogs where the amount of assumed privacy differs because of my argument that there is a cognitive disconnect between academic material done and submitted in class and online blogs used to write or evaluate academic material. And, further, that this disconnect allows freedom of expression which (as evidenced in my blog) facilitates deeper learning.

BTW, what I just wrote is a perfect example of my argument because through just sitting here typing out my thoughts without fear of immediate evaluation, I expressed my argument in the most clear way I think I've been able to so far.

~Analyzing a Personal Blog Entry~

For this exercise I decided to analyze my blog entry titled "My Presentation." So basically I'll just list what I found and evidence that supports it.
**Socially Situated Identities:
~Confident authority on personal work
   -proposed changes weren’t for changing information but rather “reconsidering the groupings” 
~Tech savvy
   -scrolling heading
**Discourse Models:
~Academic material should be significant and concise  
   -"delete my last slide", "didn't feel like it was important enough" to be included, no extraneous rambling in blog post 
**Situated Meanings:
~"didn't feel like it was important enough"
   -reflects conscious effort to keep work concise 
~language- no slang but liberal use of "I" and contractions
   -blog post is academic but still informal 

~Reflecting on West's Article~

The first thing that I want to say about West's article is that I think it's funny. It's amusing how teachers study their students and experiment on them, haha. And a warning to keep in mind with professors! But I definitely understand the impulse and I don't think there's anything wrong with it- if anything it adds to the learning environment. I think that West's article will be a helpful reference when we are having to dissect identity information out of our own blogs. It's hard to objectively look at yourself like that without drawing on other information that we obviously know, so having some strategies like those discussed in the article will be helpful. Besides all of that I think the article is interesting, blogging certainly creates a more informal atmosphere for students and allows more of a free-flow of thoughts. But something to think about is if academia is transforming into this informal objective conversational place, will other aspects of discipline and traditional forms of schooling be lost? What might schools look like in the future? Everything online? Virtual teaching? No more textbooks? Something to think about... :)

~Feelings on Essay 1~

Essay one feels like a great start to this class. I feel fairly confident about my essay and that I was able to effectively conduct research and revise my essay. This was somewhat reassuring because I recall listing research and revising as weak areas for myself at the beginning of the year, but after writing this first essay I feel much more confident about my abilities. I feel like I was able to extract information from the blog that I followed and once I had my rough draft finished; I was able to come back to it more than once and make significant improvements to the content. Papers such as this can always be improved upon, but I feel positive about where my paper is in relation to how far along in the class we are and what is expected of our papers so far.

~Learning from Essay 1~

This first essay was a great personal learning experience for me in that I learned a couple new strategies for improving essays. The presentations that we made were helpful because as I was looking at how to explain things in my paper on a slide; I came to the realization that these explanations should be included in my paper as well to make it easier to understand. So now when revising future papers I can employ this strategy of pretending that I'm having to explain the content to someone else and then editing the explanations into my paper to help make connections for my reader. Another very helpful part of my revising process for this essay was meeting with the professor to look over my paper and discuss any problems or questions I had about certain parts. Not only did it give me several great ideas on how to improve my paper but I got an insight into how the professor reads the essays and what she looks at/for. I write best when I'm in comfortable clothes and usually in my bedroom sitting in on my bed or at my desk. I don't usually write at a specific time of day- just when I have time and it's quiet and hopefully when I'm wide-awake. This may sound strange but there's a specific type of mood that I have where I write best. Not necessarily a mood as in emotions, but just a kind of thoughtful mindset that is productive to my writing process. It also has to be really quiet so I can focus so I almost always have my door shut and a fan going to block everything out.

~They Say, I Say~

A few key elements in They Say, I Say really reverberated in my mind as things to pay attention to in my paper and to check when I am revising. One of those elements is making sure to present information in the natural order that readers process it. This is important because if the content of the essay is out of order it can make the information, no matter how well thought-out and written it is, confusing to the reader. Another crucial part of writing an effective paper is finding the correct balance between writing academically and using your own voice. Fully academic essays run the risk of coming off as boring or just an endless string of big words instead of someone's actual thoughts and opinions. Perhaps the most important aspect, especially of the essay we are writing right now, is use of metacommentary. Metacommentary is essential to a good essay because without it all you would have are reasons and evidence, when the explanations and deeper-thinking are the most vital parts of a great paper. So for all of the reasons discussed above, I'm going to make sure to pay extra attention to these elements in my paper.

~My Presentation~

After practicing my presentation I decided to delete my last slide because I didn't feel like it was important enough and that if I kept it I ran the risk of exceeding my time limit. After my presentation I am going to rethink the organization of my paper to make sure that the elements in paragraphs all connect together and are important enough to be included. Strengths from my presentation I would probably say were speaking loudly and clearly, making eye contact, and showing the connections between evidence and identity from my blog. Changes I would make include reconsidering the groupings of some of my information, and having the slides show on my laptop not just up on the screen so I could have shown the blog website like I had planned when I was discussing the appearance and pictures.

~Using Blogging in my essay~

To incorporate Blogging into my essay I have found a few parts of the book from my notes on the readings that I think would work well in supporting my argument and adding credibility and interest to my essay. The first quote I found that I can use is to quote the claim that "on the Internet, everyone is famous to 15 people" in my first body paragraph where I discuss how the blogger wants people to be impressed by him. This way I can use the quote as further evidence to back up my claim that he uses his blog to build an impressive self-identity. I can also use a quote about "dear diary" writing and how blogging is a social genre where people write to their audiences. That type of quote would probably fit best into my intro paragraph.
I'm a little relieved to have so easily found some quotes that fit into my essay because I usually take the opposite approach of finding some good quotes that support the argument that's in my mind and then building around them in my essay.

~Writing Conferences~

Today was my group's writing conference where I presented the first two pages of my paper and basically outlined what my argument is going to be. I don't feel like I got a lot of feedback but maybe I'll get more after I read the copy Prof Thompson wrote on and next week when we do the readers reviews. Mostly what I know I need to work on in my paper is my thesis. My first draft has my thesis about half-baked but I need to add something that says what the elements say about identity, not just what I'll be looking at. After listening to feedback other people got I also plan to go back through my essay and make sure I'm making connections for my reader and supporting everything that I say. Also I want to make sure that the points I'm bringing up are valid and I don't say anything off-topic that doesn't need to be there. But I don't think I have anything like that in my paper, I didn't have problems getting to the required length so there's not really any padding in it. I just discussed everything I thought was relevant and wrote enough to form my argument and get my point across.

~I found a blog!~

I'm excited to have found a blog to research! It is probably the most perfect blog I could have found for the topic (networking, communication, blogs) that I was interested in because it's a blog on social media. I think it says something that a blog by someone in New Zealand could be useful for a topic like this, it contributes to how expansive the Internet and technology in general is.
I found my writing proposal helpful in starting to learn what aspects of the blog we're researching to examine. I believe that proposals also help to get your mind, subconsciously and consciously, thinking about your topic. I learned this from a professor I had last year who said when people think they have writers block it's not because you're stuck or can't think of anything to write, it's because your brain is still thinking and processing and exploring. Ever since I heard this it has helped to make me more aware of my own thinking and sometimes I catch myself offhandedly thinking about a class or a project in the very early stages and I now recognize it as my brain forming thoughts and ideas about the topic.
Soon we will start commenting on each others blogs in the topic groups we are in. I might not get as specific feedback because I'm the only one in my group with my topic- everyone else is doing music. But maybe it will be helpful to have objective feedback from someone not researching the same thing, who knows!

~Interesting Passage in Blogging~

"As blogs become more and more common, they may develop more conventions that make them less susceptible to these anxieties about truth and fiction. We may also see more blog narratives that are explicitly fictional and that never attempt to fool their readers" (Rettberg 126).

What Rettberg is addressing in this quote is the issue of bloggers who essentially make-up characters and stories and blog about them without informing the reader of their fictitious nature. Since journal like blogs of this nature are generally truthful of people's lives and real situations, readers become emotionally invested in the blog and then subsequently feel tricked and betrayed when they learn that what they have been reading is not true.

I find it interesting that people use blogs this way when by the very nature of a blog it's purpose is to share opinions, learn about a specific topic, or record personal thoughts and emotions. Blog writers are aware of their audience (or potential audience) and write in a way conscious of the fact that it most likely will be read by others. People exploiting this fact is taking that a step further, by fabricating stories of human interest these bloggers are not only editing their lives to appeal to readers, but inventing experiences separate from their own to gain more readers and generate more feedback. This adds a whole new level to the narcissism of blogging.

Rettberg, Jill Walker. Blogging: Digital Media and Society Series. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008. Print.

~Writing&Research~

My interests include music, my dog, musical theater, reading, and children (babysitting, teaching). However, none of these constitute the particular type of blog I would prefer to study. I've never been one to write a blog or be interested in blogs, but from the reading we have done so far in "Blogging" I find the way people share information and communicate through blogs very interesting. Being a part of the generation of advancing technological skills I feel like I should probably have a better understanding of how blogs work. I am definitely aware of a similar type of information network on facebook and how it operates and the benefits (and negative effects) of having vast networks to share information over. I would like to study a blog about blogs, or about networking and information sharing. I hope to learn more about how blogging functions and how people use it to communicate. This holds personal interest and I also believe it would be helpful supplemental material for the course. I have been searching for blogs on communication, networking, and blogging but have so far been unsuccessful. I'm not sure what I want to write my paper about yet, I will have to look over my notes from Blogging and see what has caught my interest.

~As a Writer I am...~

Always in the drivers seat. I choose how smooth or jolting your ride as a reader will be.

Creative to a fault, I have to be sure not to let my sentences spin out of control.

Constantly changing, making u-turns and going in reverse to improve.

As a writer I am... myself.