Journal 6

SMOKING KILLS

BEST MOVIE EVER

I'm so tired that I want to sleep like a fat cat!

ENG 111-BM: Journal 6

THE BEST RAPPER ALIVE

journal 6

my dog is the smartest guy i know.

Don't we all wish we could change the past?

Ghosts freak me out..

Spiders Suck

journal 6

Still a Bearcat fan.

my thoughts tend to sound better in books I didn't write

second place hurts

Lebron fans

July 9th was a terrible day.

Journal 6

Appalachian > Michigan

enough said :'(...

Journal Six: Post Secret

Journal #6

post secret

My Motorcycle!

GIRLS CAN DO BETTER!

I love my roommate!!

Best Friends from middle school to today

Journal 6

Create your own PostSecret card. Don’t worry about sharing your deepest, darkest secrets- you can make something up, or share something silly. You don’t have to create a digital masterpiece, or even put your text on top of the graphics. You can just post a visual, and type the accompanying text underneath. Have fun with this, but please try to keep in mind all that we’ve talked about in class. To get you started, here’s mine:


Due: Thurs Oct 28

Midterm Self-Assessment

I think that I have progressed in my writing abilities. Looking back on how I went about my past papers, it seemed like it was very difficult in order to write. I think that I have been focusing on the tools that i need in order to just plain write better. One thing i want to work on is figuring out how to get my point across better. If i am able to convince my reader of my point, then i think that my writing will be much better.

Journal 5

I think my writing has improved since the start of the semester. I have learned many new styles and techniques. I never realized how much of a role rhetoric played in writing. I have tried to improve the clarity and strength of my writing since the beginning of the class. Some of the things I need to improve upon is how I cite my sources in my writing. This has has always been something that I have had to work on and I hope to improve this skill in the second half of the semester.

Journal 5

As a midterm self assessment, I think that I am doing well in this class. I seem to do better in this class than my previous English classes in high school. I like this different kind of writing - the inquiry assignments - even though it can be quite challenging. I never really liked writing that much before, but this class has been an interesting type of writing for me. My favorite essay so far is Inquiry 1. I really liked writing about a rhetorical moment. It was something that I could relate to because I had had experience on the topic. I like the other topics and the writing too, but it is a little difficult to analyze an argument, especially on the opposing side. I feel pretty good about how I am doing in this class, and I can't believe we're already beyond midterm!

Progress

From the beginning of the semester until now, I feel that my writing style has improved greatly. I have learned about the uses of rhetoric and how to support/appeal to different audiences. As far as expectations go, I still need to improve on proper MLA citing within my writings. This english class has been a bit different than my past english classes in high school, in regards to what we write about. Previous assignments have corresponded primarily with readings in texts or books, while the assignments in this class I feel make me form more of my own argument not analyzing someone else's views. Overall, I am happy where I am so far in this class and feel that I am improving and strengthening my writing throughout each assignment.

journal 5

The midterm conference was a good chance to go over how I have been doing this semester. So far, I am doing much better than I have in my recent English classes. I don't know what the difference is between this year and past years but it does seem like my writing is much stronger. Maybe it is the fact that I am putting more effort into these papers but whatever it is, I’m glad that it’s working. Although I haven’t really changed my writing style or process, I am managing to do better this year. For the rest of the semester, I want to continue to improve my writing. The main parts of my writing that I want to improve are my introductions and conclusions because it seems like that they are always the weakest part of my papers so I want to try to make them stronger in order to have a good flow to my writing.

Midterm

I feel that my writing has changed a lot since high school. I'm not sure if that is because we're doing a different type of writing (aka not reading a book and then writing about it) or if being in college has changed how I write things. I feel that I have accomplished a lot in terms of writing. I have learned a lot about rhetoric. I need to start keeping up with the work (aka journals) to make sure I accomplish the grade that I wish to receive. Currently I realize that I need to put a lot of time into the research paper since there is a lot of information that I need to look through and make sure that it is right for my topic. I enjoy writing this research paper because it is helping me learn how to write a research paper and is helping me discover my personally challenges throughout the process.

ENG 111-BM: Journal 5

ENG 111-BM: Journal 5: "Midterm Self-Assessment: Consider your progress at this point in the semester. What have you accomplished? What do you still want to improve..."

The midterm conference that we had last week helped me see the progress that I have mad in this class-to be honest I think I have made tremendous progress in the class. When I was enrolled in this class I did not know that it would be all about writing and improving how we write. Tell you the truth I had some background in writing which I am thankful for but I have also accomplished some more writing techniques in this class. Some of the things that I have accomplished are free writing. The journals that we write now and then helps us free write and that is a great tool for writing because if you can get thinks into writing-no matter how crappy it is-then you can go back, edit it, and make it a masterpiece. The other thing that I have accomplished in this class is analyzing rhetoric and going in depth to see the meaning of things rather than looking at the general picture. Today’s society is full of media, ads, etc. telling us what to think so being able to analyze these things helps us become better citizens. Yes there are things that I still want to improve-in life you can never have enough knowledge. I would like to find ways to improve the content of my writing without being redundant and also at the same time engage the reader. I would also like to improve the style and diction of my writing. So overall I am excited about where I stand in the class but hope to achieve more by the end of the semester.

How's it going?

Over the course of the semester, I learned more about myself as a writer and different ways to develop my techniques and to keep evolving myself to become better. The papers that I have written haven't all been my best pieces of work, but the criticism has made me more aware of the same mistakes that I kept making. I believe that the first step in improving oneself is to first recognize that there is a problem. Only after that realization did I start to think more deeply about the ways I can stop merely describing a topic and replace that with well thought-out analysis that actually means something to the reader. I hope to never settle at one point in my writing career and say, "This is the best I can be." I always want to develop my style and skills and the only way to do that is to keep writing.

Midterm Assessment

So far this semester I have been surprised with the writing that I have done. In high school I was an average writer. I have always been clever with words but I have never been able to structure an essay and prove a point during one. Receiving A's on both papers was honestly a surprise because I am not used to those grades in English. I think this may be due to the stress on the writing process and also the time that I've spent on each paper. Since we only have five papers this semester, I have spent more time on them than I normally would. In conclusion, I am pleased with my performance thus far and will attempt to keep the A streak going!

Midterm Assessment

So far the first semester has been going pretty good. It got off to a rough start with my grades and am currently trying to dig myself out of a hole, which is very time consuming. I hope to get better with managing my time between homework and a social life better. This I'm sure will lead to better grades. I still haven't declared a major yet, but I'm a little closer. What I've accomplished has been completing my first college course, which I got an A in! I have not skipped a class on purpose, but slept few a couple by accident. I still hope to do this first semester is finish my classes strong and bring the grades up, while also learning more about myself through the college experience.

Journal 5

As a midterm self assessment, I think that I am doing well in this class. I seem to do better in this class than my previous English classes in high school. I like this different kind of writing - the inquiry assignments - even though it can be quite challenging. I never really liked writing that much before, but this class has been an interesting type of writing for me. My favorite essay so far is Inquiry 1. I really liked writing about a rhetorical moment. It was something that I could relate to because I had had experience on the topic. I like the other topics and the writing too, but it is a little difficult to analyze an argument, especially on the opposing side. I feel pretty good about how I am doing in this class, and I can't believe we're already beyond midterm!

Journal 5

I feel like this has been a very productive semester so far; I've learned a lot about the rhetoric situation and also how to analyze it. Additionally, I've learned about internal citations and proper how to make a bibliography without using an online website. So far, I've become much more confident with my writing abilities and also with sharing my work. For the rest of the semester, I would like to continue improving on my conclusions, which is something I struggle with. Additionally, I would like to continue learning more about the rhetorical situation.

After my midterm conference it did really help me to see where i stood in this class. I think I have done pretty well so far. I have accomplished learning how to use rhetoric and how to write papers using some of the rhetoric appeals. Rhetoric seems to be a popular topic in my other classes so it was helpful to have already learned what rhetoric is and what the three rhetoric appeals are. Also I have accomplished writing my first college paper along with a few others and I did pretty well on them. I think I still need to learn how to organize my papers a little better. Along with working on my organization, I need to figure out how to cut my papers down, length wise. So I need to work on figuring out what details are important and what details aren't and how to identify that about the topic I am writing about.

Midterm Reflection

At this point in this semester I think I’ve really discovered my voice as a writer. I’ve written other papers this way however I’ve never used my personal style of writing in a research paper. I think that writing all papers in this way has really helped my writing process. Now that I’ve discovered this voice I don’t struggle as much coming up with words to express what I’m trying to write. I think one of the best compliments that I’ve received about my writing is that I take a personal experience and open it to a larger audience. I really think that this class has helped me to develop this skill. I’m really satisfied with my writing but if I could work on one thing it would be my grammar. I often type my papers quickly and forget to go back and check my spelling and grammar. With my dyslexia it’s definitely a bad idea not to go back and look for these mistakes yet I still do it.

Midterm Reflection

Midterm is that point when I have to decide for myself if I'm doing well enough. Probably the hardest thing for me to do is self-evaluation. I think I can say boldly that my writing skills are improving. Already, typing essays are becoming more and more manageable, my thoughts are much more clear, I feel like I can write both more concise and more descriptive than ever before. But, a really big part of what I feel like I have improved on is my overall knowledge of and the use of rhetoric. I can adjust my thoughts about anything to reflect on the rhetorical side. Commercials, arguments with friends, and teachers all show a little bit about what they want and how they try to persuade. You just need to be able to interpret their use of pathos, logos, and ethos. Never before have I felt more in tune with those aspects of language and persuasion.

Some things I want to start improving on are the normal things such as procrastination, better grammar, and more interesting style, but what I would really like to do is become a better story-teller. I don't know if that's a goal for this semester but I think it's really important in keeping an essay flowing, and gluing each reader to my papers.

halfway

Although I was rather worried about this class before the semester started, I've found it to be one of my favorite classes. In the past my English classes jumped all over the place and never allowed us to focus on one specific thing. I think that focusing on just one paper at a time has really helped me, and shown myself that I'm capable of doing well on a paper if I take the time and concentrate on the task at hand. Because of my boost in writing confidence, I feel as if I enjoy it more now, too. The one thing I could still work on is my organization. I have a super hard time writing formally and in a thought - through organized way ... I always end up typing up the entire paper and at the very end don't know where I was actually going with it. I'm definitely working on it though ....

Journal Five: Midterm

At this point in the semester I am very happy with my work and my progress in this class. Going into this class I was worries because although I love to write and English is my favorite subject, was concerned about how I would do in a College level English course. Now that I am halfway through this class I feel very confident in my ability to write well, and enjoy the writing we do for class. I think I have accomplished my bad habit of procrastinating by not doing my papers last minute. Often times I try to complete my drafts earlier rather than later. One thing that I still want to continue to improve however is the language I use in my writing as well as getting better at work cited pages and parenthetical citations. Overall I am very happy in this class.

Midterm thoughts

When I first started this class I was not sure what to expect. I thought of horror stories about college students having to write papers almost every day. I also thought about having to write long papers that were 10 pages single spaced and things like that. Now that I have been through half of this class I know what I can expect the assignment to be like. I really think that this class has helped me become adjusted to college life. The work load is not to hard, but its not something that you can do without putting effort into it either; I think it is a good amount. I think that I have learned a lot about myself as a writer as well in the class. I have learned a lot about the techniques I can use for different types of papers as well as incorporating commercials and videos into my assignments, which is a lot of fun. I do still want to improve on my participation in class. I find it hard since I am not a morning person to get into an 8:00 class and participate. Although I am paying attention and always thinking about the topic we are discussing in class I just like to listen to other people's thoughts instead of stating my own. I think a large cup of coffee is in order for the remainder of the year...

Journal Five

I think that at this point in the semester I have learned a lot about college level writing and I have also learned a lot about what I am capable of accomplishing when it comes to my writing skills. I think I have progressed a lot from where I was in high school and I have learned a lot of the technicalities of writing a college level paper at Miami that I did not know about in high school. I think that I have learned how to push myself and really understand the topic I am writing about and how to put my words onto paper. I would really like to improve on some little things like making my papers more clear and concise and really getting my point across to the reader. I want to be able to write a paper and have full confidence in it, knowing that it will have exceeded the goals I set for it when I began writing. So far I'm really enjoying English and everything I am learning has definitely reaped a lot of benefits that I know I will use in all of my other classes for the rest of my college career.

Journal 5

Midterm Self-Assessment: Consider your progress at this point in the semester. What have you accomplished? What do you still want to improve?

Due: Thursday, Oct 21

Three Perspectives

Me: I really like the layout of this advertisement. The black and white in the backgroud help the viewer really focus on the athlete, which is the main focus of this ad. I think it is one of those pictures that says a thousand things and it definitely has some meaning. I can tell that China has a lot of pride for the Olympics and the sports they partake in. They are very passionate about their athletes and those who represent their country. This ad not only looks cool, but gives off a very cool meaning.

Lady Gaga: This ad is kind of boring. There is barely any color and it looks very depressing. Even though it's about sports it could still have some more fashion added to it. I do like how all of the children are reaching up to the athlete like he or she is their icon or hero, kind of like how I am for my fans. However the ad is boring and I wouldn't pay much attention to it because I am not a sports person and it seems to uninteresting for me.

Aunt Tanya: This ad is really depressing. The children in the back look like the only thing they have to hope for is those athletes who are representing them; like it is their only connection to other countries. The children look so dependent on the athlete. It is very sad and I think Adidas should have reconsidered how they advertised their products.

King Library

I thought the tour of King Library was very helpful. I used the library a lot when I was home so getting to know where everything was at King was very beneficial for me. I really liked the online Library site; that will definitely come in handy when I need to find books for a research paper for any of my courses and I am unable to make a trip to the library. I really enjoyed the tour and it was not as boring as I thought it was going to be. It was informative and the librarian made everything very easy to understand. I also like how everything is very accessible at King and that I can reserve books at any time and from any library. One thing that I really liked was how their computers have both Mac and Windows. That was so cool!

OMG Shut Up Response

I feel that Koehler may have exaggerated a little bit when it came to texting and how it affects the English language. I think that anyone who texts, adults or teens, know when to use text-style writing and proper English writing. No one is going to put "lol" or "jk" in his or her paper for a class. No one at a business meeting is going to say, "O-M-G." It is common sense that no one is going to do that. I feel that Megan was a little harsh and was very judgmental. She was almost yelling at the audience, not so much presenting her opinion. I think that this essay was too obnoxious and made me not really believe what she was trying to stand up for.

jkjkjkjklololz

I believe that her position on the topic of texting being damaging to the English language is a very probable one to take. Obviously the overwhelming majority of teens and even adults abbreviate things and use the shortest spelling of a word, despite its incorrectness. Personally, I believe that she went about the argument a little to subjectively and it felt like she was merely using her word against mine (and the rest of the readers). She could have avoided this by using more credible sources and keeping her blunt opinion more concealed and stuck with the facts. Personally, I am someone who hardly ever uses abbreviations and truly thinks about what I want to say before I text it out. I even go back and make sure that it makes sense and catch any grammatical errors I may have made. So from that sense, her argument is the opposite of how I text, but I can definitely see where she's coming from because I see it a lot with my friends. However, it just depends on the kind of person you are and how much you feel the need to be grammatically correct on a regular basis. Overall this can come off as a subjective topic, but by better analysis and research, she could have made a stronger argument toward the goal of her paper.

Journal 4

In this essay, Koehler discusses that texting is harming the English language. I do not agree with her, even though she does make several points. She claims that the full meaning of something can't be understood with texting abbreviations. Her example of a text version of Hamlet isn't really a good example because who would want to shorten Hamlet's famous words? Those lines are so famous and memorized all of the time, so I don't think that anyone would really even consider texting that play. She also describes when the idea of text messaging was created and how it came about from the English language. She says that we have to even abbreviate the length of our messages because most phones can only do 160 characters. My phone can do 6-160 character messages, so I don't really have to abbreviate my length of message too much. The reason that texting is quick is because there is a lot of abbreviations. If we had to conscientiously think about "proper" grammar while texting, texting wouldn't be quick or popular anymore and people would have to try to find some other means of communicating quickly. There are many styles of writing which makes life interesting. Life would be very boring if the only way we could write was the "proper and formal" way. It is wonderful to have a broad range of writing styles from formal research papers to texting. These are all types of writing, just different ways of communicating to certain people in certain ways. We will never loose our English language because we are always forced to use it whether we are writing a paper for school, reading a Shakespeare play, applying for a job, or writing a novel.

OMG SHUT UP- responce

I thought that Koehler had a really interesting topic for her argument; it was definitely very original and something that all teenagers can relate to. I would agree with her argument too. When ever i edit other student's papers, I see them use grammar that they would use in a text message in their formal paper. For example saying "thru" instead of "through." While her topic had a lot of potential, I don't think she did a great job supporting her argument. She seemed to support her argument through her own ideas instead of real critical support. Understandably, there isn't much information and research that has been done on this topic, but she should've chosen a more well-researched topic for her paper.

OMG Shut Up - Response

I liked how Koehler began her argument with a famous quote. It did a good job of transitioning into her claim by grabbing the reader's attention. However as far as forming a persuasive argument, I think her sources could have been more reputable as well as more supportive of her theory or claim. I thought her mini-survey was a good idea but only asking a few friends wasn't really conclusive. She would have needed a much larger cross-sample. Overall, I was not entirely persuaded by Koehler's writing but given the lack of concrete data, I believe she has a good theory.

journal 4

Koehler makes her argument by citing many sources including interviews with her friend. I do not think her argument is effective though. I don't think she presented herself to the audience very well because she immediately mentions how she is constantly correcting her friend's grammar. This statement caused me to look at the rest of the essay in a negative way and I was kind of annoyed in some ways with the way she presented her arguments. The essay would have been more convincing to me if she would have appealed to both sides more fairly. I understand that she is against textspeak or at least thinks it is hurting the english language but she could have done a better job at appealing to the people she was trying to convince to use better grammar.

OMG shutup

The overall argument Koehler is trying to make is that "textspeak" has a major negative effect on our grammar and literary skills. I really liked how she generalized a few questions, and then later going back and answering them. This type of essay was effective in my opinion because I liked how she did the question, then answered them right away. She got to her point in every paragraph, and that's extremely important when convincing someone. I also thought it was very interesting and effective that she interviewed her peers via texting. I thought that was so unusual, and I would never of thought to do that; so I thought it was very creative and original.

"OMG Shut Up!"

In Koehler's essay she uses many of the argumentative methods that we have been taught. She starts off with a general question that will allow her to answer it in depth with different ways of answering. She starts off each paragraph (or most paragraphs) with questions that relate to the general question followed by answers. Then she interviews people to help prove her side of the argument is correct. This is very effective because it helps her make her argument with factual information, or at least other sources that will prove her point. It is effective because in the end this was a very well written essay.

Journal 4

In my opinion, the essay was not very effective in proving the author’s point. There really was no research with the paper besides for the interviews that she had with her friends. There wasn’t enough there to convince me that texting was making our skill of the English language worse. Also, I have not even noticed that people used all those abbreviations when they send text messages. That could mean that this was not that big of an issue to write about unless she just did not take the time to do the research. I would agree that the language used in text messages is completely different than the actual English language. However, people should know the difference between when to use informal language(similar to texting language) and formal language(used in school papers and other formal occasions). Therefore, it doesn’t seem likely for it to cause a drastic change in one’s ability to use the English language. Overall, it just wasn’t a good topic to use and it translated into a paper that failed to convince me.

Texting

Koehler is trying to make a point that texting is negatively affecting our youth. This is because the literacy and grammar skills that we use in real writing are not the ones that we would use during a text. However when I text, I always spell everything out. I don’t use “idk” for “I don’t know” or shorted words such as “gr8t” for “great”. She really only uses logos to express her points because there is no real ethos or pathos. Logic is her only tool. I don’t think she gives a good argument and I don’t agree with her. Texting is a form of communication that is made for shortened and fast responses.

Journal 4 Response

In the essay, "OMG Shut Up!" Meghan Koehler writes an interesting point of view on texting and its effects on the youth's literacy skills. She claims that it will be a huge negative impact on our culture, and it is slowly destroying the language. She brings up this is a serious topic because it was in the news, and did a lot of research on the topic giving her some credibility for her work. Also, she interviews four individuals on their opinions and how texting has effected them. In general, I think she makes a very lame point. All of her examples have been very extremes of textspeak, and her main points are coming from four people who may or may not be heavy texters. But what I did notice, was the similarity of two things. If texting is to alter the language from people forgetting rules and new ways of communication take over, than wouldn't that be very similar to the original Shakespearian quote that she uses in the beginning. She claims that the original meaning is lost, but also a new meaning is born. Just as English and language has always been. Is she sad we don't use the old Latin and Germanic roots? Another point is that there is a much more extreme version of textspeak. It is called leet speak (or 1337 5P3@|<). This is a much more complicated version of what upsets Koehler, and is much more commonly found online in forums and chat boards. Adapting this type of language does very little to effect the English language. Yes, it still does but it is not ruining it. I think that she needs to explain why the current form of the English language is superior and why advancing culturally is a bad thing.

ENG 111-BM: Journal 4

ENG 111-BM: Journal 4: "Analyze the argumentative methods in 'OMG Shut Up!'. How does Koehler make her argument, and is it effective? Why or why not? Due: Tuesday,..."

The issue that Megan Koehler picked is interesting and it becoming more important in our society as technology improves. So when I read her writer's memo I was interested on how she will present her case and what method she will employ because her research is the same as ours. She used a couple method to argue her case. Firs she makes her argument that text messages has a negative impact on the English language-that it causes people to ignore the rules of grammar and this in turn can lead to people forgetting the rules, especially with future generations to come. Her first method of argument was to employ ethos in her paper to make her argument credible. She cited some articles that backed her argument that texting is interfering with our grammar structure. Then she interviewed her friends via text to emphasize her point-which I think was creative. It proved her point when most of them agreed that they ignore grammar rules when they text and that they would occasionally used text-speak in their conversations or formal papers. Overall I think it makes her argument effective because she pointed out real life situations that almost everyone would agree with and she also included articles that had done research about the topic which gives it credibility.

Journal Four

Before reading Megan Koehler's "OMG Shut Up!" I was very interested to see what she had to say about texting and the way it has affected all that are involved. After reading it however I was a bit disappointed because I wasn't that impressed with her argument. I think she had a very good points and makes her argument by using a little ethos, pathos and mostly logos. Nonetheless though, she did not use nearly enough. I think this topic is one many people are interested in because it is currently very controversial yet she did not have much outside support and did not have facts to back up her case. For this reason I did not think her argument was effective. I think this topic is interesting, but there really isn't enough information to make this reading interesting.

Journal 4

Kala Coffee

I thought that Megan Koehler brought up an interesting argument but, I did not feel that she used pathos, egos, or logos enough. She did use logos, but not as much as she should have. Also, she said that it was not easy finding research on this argument and if that was the case she probably should not have chosen this topic in the first place. Also, she says that according to research but, does not say what research which did not make her very credible. I do not agree with her either, because i feel like it makes me even more cautious of grammar mistakes when I write my paper to make sure that brb, lol, or g2g, and a list of others words or phrases like that are not in my paper. I also think that she makes a few grammar mistakes like our and out and I also make a lot of grammar mistakes, but I am not constantly criticizing other people's grammar. I think an argument like this is being a bit over dramatic, their text messages. We all know when to be informal or formal and when its acceptable and not acceptable. Some language is used for papers and other language is used for papers, speeches, etc. If you do not know when its acceptable to use informal language by now your grade probably would have reflected that and would have given you an extra hint by the horrible grade you received on your paper. Her paper or article lacked serious research, and I do not think that she supported her evidence using ethos, pathos, or logos very well.

Journal 4

In "OMG Shut Up!" Koehler is trying to get across the point that texting is making a negative impact on the English language; personally I did not think this argument was effective. Throughout the essay I thought she was repetitive about the things the author was saying and I also thought that she did not incorporate enough research in her argument. She also would say things like "based on research" and she would not note where she got that research from; that is creating a fallacy in her writing, which is making it less effective when reading it. As for my own personal experience I do use a different type of language when I text people, but I also benefit from texting because I use word on my phone which makes you have to spell things correctly to make it work properly. This helps my spelling...which is not so good, therefore I am benefiting from the texting that I do. I do agree that some people take their texting language into real life, but rarely do I see that in people's writing. In conclusion, I think people are not receiving a negative impact from text messaging and I think this reading was not effective.