Reflective Letter
Writing
As said on the second day of class, this was my second time around for Writing, Research, and Technology. I knew I had to step it up because I am graduating this month. When I decided on writing arts as my major, I was expecting a lot more writing and not as much reading. Reading is not my strong suit. I am a really bad reader. I understand the words, but comprehending it is where my slump is. When I responded to some of the readings this semester, I had trouble. I didn’t know what to write, and what I did write did not make sense to me. There were times where I looked up words or went on to my peer’s websites to see what they got out of the reading; just to make sure I was on the same page with them. When I do understand something, I can write nonstop about it. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you; I still am not a great reader. This class did not help with my reading ability. This class did help me; however, with developing other means of communication. We designed websites, used twitter, and blogged. I felt a sense of freedom when writing for this class. I enjoyed it a lot more then the first time I took this class. I am hoping my writing and reading get stronger as I get older and start a career. As a future journalist I need better reading skills. My advisor told me that I should read sections of the newspaper everyday and that if I don’t understand something, to look it up online. I think I might take him up on that. I do not like being 22 and have poor reading skills. It’s kind of embarrassing…
Research
Thanks to a little invention called the internet, research had become easier and easier. This class as the name says, makes you do research. The first time I took this class, I did a report on Germany. I have always wanted to go there because I am 70 percent German. I wrote about the sports there and the food they eat, and just demographics. The collaborative research project this semester turned out so much better. Erica Zolinas and I worked really hard to make this project a success. We did a project on raw milk. We really wanted to do something completely different. We interviewed to sources to help us out, both were raw milk advocates. We then looked at the opposition and wrote about that as well. Our project, I believe was a huge success. We presented our project on Thursday April 28 and it seemed like everyone liked it. Since we knew nothing about raw milk going in, we had to conduct a lot of research on our own to help us get an idea of how to go about this project. I learned more than I thought I ever needed to know about raw milk through all the research we conducted. It was useful information and actually makes me want to try raw milk for myself.
Technology
Twitter. I thought I get rid of using this technology in Professor Wolff’s module in Intro to Writing Arts. I’ll be honest; I hated twitter when we first started using it in this class. I am still not a huge fan. I must say however, I used a lot more this semester than ever before. I tweeted mostly about hockey (Let’s Go Caps!) but I also wrote assignments in my twitter feed, so that I could check that if I forgot my notebook. I used hash tags (#) and tweeted to my peers and Professor Mangini with the @ symbol. I might keep twitter for a little longer. After using it for a whole semester, I am seeing the benefit of having it. It makes checking up on the Washington Capitals blogger easier.
We also designed a website on Weebly for this class. After a semester of being tortured with how to use all the software on weebly, I think I finally figured it out. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but I am not great at using technology. I think when I started this class, I put my technology as a 2 or a 3, and I am about the same after this class. Weebly pretty much spells out how to create a website. It really is not difficult. It just does not cooperate all the time which is where my problem was. When I finally was able to play around with some of the “stuff” it was actually pretty fun. I put a gallery and a slideshow on my twitterive. Weebly is great because if you mess up, you can always delete it just as easy and do it again. I might hang on to my website too. I worked pretty hard on it.
I really did enjoy this class a lot more than the first time around. I am not just saying that, either. The first time I had my meeting, I was not doing good at all. I was averaging probably a D. I realized that I needed to pick that grade up. I completely overhauled my twitterive, I started creating my own posts on raw milk, and I played around with weebly to make my website as nice as I could. With the work that I did since mid-term I think I picked my grade up to at least a C+ or a B-. I was really stressed this semester with a mixture of sadness. This class and my others were really hard, and trying to work through them with my eyes on the prize of my degree was tough, yet exciting. I am not looking for pity, but we had to put my 11 year old dog down in March and it made it really hard to concentrate in my classes. Also my grandfather died on Christmas in 2008 and I think knowing that he won’t be there for my graduation kind of made it difficult to focus. I think I got better as the semester progressed, so I hope we can settle on a grade that we both agree with.
Thank you for everything!
Kristin Garwood
As said on the second day of class, this was my second time around for Writing, Research, and Technology. I knew I had to step it up because I am graduating this month. When I decided on writing arts as my major, I was expecting a lot more writing and not as much reading. Reading is not my strong suit. I am a really bad reader. I understand the words, but comprehending it is where my slump is. When I responded to some of the readings this semester, I had trouble. I didn’t know what to write, and what I did write did not make sense to me. There were times where I looked up words or went on to my peer’s websites to see what they got out of the reading; just to make sure I was on the same page with them. When I do understand something, I can write nonstop about it. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you; I still am not a great reader. This class did not help with my reading ability. This class did help me; however, with developing other means of communication. We designed websites, used twitter, and blogged. I felt a sense of freedom when writing for this class. I enjoyed it a lot more then the first time I took this class. I am hoping my writing and reading get stronger as I get older and start a career. As a future journalist I need better reading skills. My advisor told me that I should read sections of the newspaper everyday and that if I don’t understand something, to look it up online. I think I might take him up on that. I do not like being 22 and have poor reading skills. It’s kind of embarrassing…
Research
Thanks to a little invention called the internet, research had become easier and easier. This class as the name says, makes you do research. The first time I took this class, I did a report on Germany. I have always wanted to go there because I am 70 percent German. I wrote about the sports there and the food they eat, and just demographics. The collaborative research project this semester turned out so much better. Erica Zolinas and I worked really hard to make this project a success. We did a project on raw milk. We really wanted to do something completely different. We interviewed to sources to help us out, both were raw milk advocates. We then looked at the opposition and wrote about that as well. Our project, I believe was a huge success. We presented our project on Thursday April 28 and it seemed like everyone liked it. Since we knew nothing about raw milk going in, we had to conduct a lot of research on our own to help us get an idea of how to go about this project. I learned more than I thought I ever needed to know about raw milk through all the research we conducted. It was useful information and actually makes me want to try raw milk for myself.
Technology
Twitter. I thought I get rid of using this technology in Professor Wolff’s module in Intro to Writing Arts. I’ll be honest; I hated twitter when we first started using it in this class. I am still not a huge fan. I must say however, I used a lot more this semester than ever before. I tweeted mostly about hockey (Let’s Go Caps!) but I also wrote assignments in my twitter feed, so that I could check that if I forgot my notebook. I used hash tags (#) and tweeted to my peers and Professor Mangini with the @ symbol. I might keep twitter for a little longer. After using it for a whole semester, I am seeing the benefit of having it. It makes checking up on the Washington Capitals blogger easier.
We also designed a website on Weebly for this class. After a semester of being tortured with how to use all the software on weebly, I think I finally figured it out. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but I am not great at using technology. I think when I started this class, I put my technology as a 2 or a 3, and I am about the same after this class. Weebly pretty much spells out how to create a website. It really is not difficult. It just does not cooperate all the time which is where my problem was. When I finally was able to play around with some of the “stuff” it was actually pretty fun. I put a gallery and a slideshow on my twitterive. Weebly is great because if you mess up, you can always delete it just as easy and do it again. I might hang on to my website too. I worked pretty hard on it.
I really did enjoy this class a lot more than the first time around. I am not just saying that, either. The first time I had my meeting, I was not doing good at all. I was averaging probably a D. I realized that I needed to pick that grade up. I completely overhauled my twitterive, I started creating my own posts on raw milk, and I played around with weebly to make my website as nice as I could. With the work that I did since mid-term I think I picked my grade up to at least a C+ or a B-. I was really stressed this semester with a mixture of sadness. This class and my others were really hard, and trying to work through them with my eyes on the prize of my degree was tough, yet exciting. I am not looking for pity, but we had to put my 11 year old dog down in March and it made it really hard to concentrate in my classes. Also my grandfather died on Christmas in 2008 and I think knowing that he won’t be there for my graduation kind of made it difficult to focus. I think I got better as the semester progressed, so I hope we can settle on a grade that we both agree with.
Thank you for everything!
Kristin Garwood
