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! :)
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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.
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