Sunday, January 27, 2008
My Dogs
My essay topic is about fishing with my dogs. I decided on this topic because I have a picture of both my dogs as the background. One of my dogs was killed by a car right before break so I have been thinking about her a lot and so I figured that I would write about some time I spent with my dog Abbie and my other dog Bear. Both of my dogs mean a lot to me and I haven’t ever written a paper about them so it will be a new and interesting paper topic. I always wondered why they liked to sit there and watch me fish since it is different than when I take them hunting. Overall I feel this would be a really good paper topic.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Writerly Roles
There are two major “writerly roles” that I use in my everyday life. The first one is the Facebook/text message writing in my every day life. While the other type is academic writing, consisting mainly of note taking and writing papers. While I do write letters, this is not an integral part of my “writerly role".
Facebook and text messaging serve several purposes. A Facebook messages are very informal and are not a way to communicate a pertinent message, especially since some of my friends check their Facebook wall once every few days. An example of this is when my sister sends a message saying, “hey I haven’t talked to you in a while, how are you?” That message means that she either she doesn’t care about talking to me or more likely she was busy and only had time to send a quick message, which I also occasionally do. Text messages are also like Facebook messages but more direct and urgent. When I text somebody it’s usually to ask a simple question with a simple answer, or it is not important enough to warrant a phone call. Text messages differ from Facebook messages in that I use Facebook solely for friends whereas I text both friends and family. When I text my mom or dad I do not use the abbreviations that are standard for my generation, since neither my mom nor my dad understand what “idk” means. An example of a text message I would send to one of my friends is “what r u doing?” whereas if I were to send that to my parents it would say what are you doing?” Even though my parents are smart enough to understand what the former says, I use the latter since they are a different audience than my friends. Text messages and Facebook are more appropriate for communicating with my friends and not my parents, which I would use a more formal writing style.
In school the two main forms of writing are notes and papers. While my notes are generally short hand, my papers tend to be more formal and contain more complex and coherent sentences. When taking notes, the teacher might say, “In 1865 the Civil War ended,” while I would write, “1865 civil war over.” Since they are my notes, I know what the teacher said and am just saving myself time. Even though the writing style is different from how I write papers, the context in which I am writing is in an academic setting. When I write a paper, I am taking my thoughts and formatting them for an audience instead of taking what someone says and formatting it to what I think. Using the same example as above, if I were to write a paper on the Civil War, I would say, “In 1865 Grant accepted Lee’s surrender, which signaled the end of the Civil War.” Since this is for an audience in which I have to sound intelligent, and so if I were to write just what I had in my notes, I would sound like an illiterate fool.
The type of writing style that I use is dependant on who my audience is, even if I am using the same medium to write. A text message to my mom will be written differently than a text message to one of my friends even though I am communicating through a text message. My audience is the deciding factor in my style of writing whether it is a Facebook message or a formally written paper.
Facebook and text messaging serve several purposes. A Facebook messages are very informal and are not a way to communicate a pertinent message, especially since some of my friends check their Facebook wall once every few days. An example of this is when my sister sends a message saying, “hey I haven’t talked to you in a while, how are you?” That message means that she either she doesn’t care about talking to me or more likely she was busy and only had time to send a quick message, which I also occasionally do. Text messages are also like Facebook messages but more direct and urgent. When I text somebody it’s usually to ask a simple question with a simple answer, or it is not important enough to warrant a phone call. Text messages differ from Facebook messages in that I use Facebook solely for friends whereas I text both friends and family. When I text my mom or dad I do not use the abbreviations that are standard for my generation, since neither my mom nor my dad understand what “idk” means. An example of a text message I would send to one of my friends is “what r u doing?” whereas if I were to send that to my parents it would say what are you doing?” Even though my parents are smart enough to understand what the former says, I use the latter since they are a different audience than my friends. Text messages and Facebook are more appropriate for communicating with my friends and not my parents, which I would use a more formal writing style.
In school the two main forms of writing are notes and papers. While my notes are generally short hand, my papers tend to be more formal and contain more complex and coherent sentences. When taking notes, the teacher might say, “In 1865 the Civil War ended,” while I would write, “1865 civil war over.” Since they are my notes, I know what the teacher said and am just saving myself time. Even though the writing style is different from how I write papers, the context in which I am writing is in an academic setting. When I write a paper, I am taking my thoughts and formatting them for an audience instead of taking what someone says and formatting it to what I think. Using the same example as above, if I were to write a paper on the Civil War, I would say, “In 1865 Grant accepted Lee’s surrender, which signaled the end of the Civil War.” Since this is for an audience in which I have to sound intelligent, and so if I were to write just what I had in my notes, I would sound like an illiterate fool.
The type of writing style that I use is dependant on who my audience is, even if I am using the same medium to write. A text message to my mom will be written differently than a text message to one of my friends even though I am communicating through a text message. My audience is the deciding factor in my style of writing whether it is a Facebook message or a formally written paper.
Being a Better Writer
I believe that I can learn to write well through experience. I feel that if I just write my writing will improve over time, as long as I have someone to tell me what works and what doesn’t. I personally learn best by doing, and so for me to really learn how to write well I just need to write. Also reading a well written book, paper, or article helps me because I can use it as a guideline for my writing. Being able to see what a written paper is and then taking what I see and applying it to my writing really helps.
What I find really helpful becoming a better writer is the comments that teachers give back. This feed back is helpful because I not only have another person telling me what works, the person knows more about writing than I do. I have found meeting with my teacher about my writing is usually very informative and this lets me understand what I am doing wrong. In this respect the teacher acts like a coach, but instead of sports, he or she is coaching me in writing.
I also find it helpful to read articles and other people’s essays so I can see different writing styles that might benefit me but I would never try otherwise. Also reading books has helped me in my writing because it exposes me to a variety of writing styles and reading also helps me find out what makes a good and a bad sentence. Seeing different types of writing I find is a very good way to further my writing skills.
What I find really helpful becoming a better writer is the comments that teachers give back. This feed back is helpful because I not only have another person telling me what works, the person knows more about writing than I do. I have found meeting with my teacher about my writing is usually very informative and this lets me understand what I am doing wrong. In this respect the teacher acts like a coach, but instead of sports, he or she is coaching me in writing.
I also find it helpful to read articles and other people’s essays so I can see different writing styles that might benefit me but I would never try otherwise. Also reading books has helped me in my writing because it exposes me to a variety of writing styles and reading also helps me find out what makes a good and a bad sentence. Seeing different types of writing I find is a very good way to further my writing skills.
Why I am taking this course
I decided to take this course mainly because it is required by the school. That having been said, I do hope to improve my skills as a writer so I can better communicate with other people. Ben Hale, my senior year English teacher, told me that a well written letter can have a greater impact than verbal response, such as a letter of thanks which is more powerful than just thanking someone. Also as more and more communication is done through email, the ability to write a well written email becomes an ever more valuable skill.
For the most part I have found personal narratives to be one of my preferred essay topics in high school. This is because a personal narrative is about me and so I don’t have to double check to see if what I am saying is actually true because it’s about me. Also more informal types of writing, like saying what I thought about a movie, was something I enjoyed in high school because it allowed me to be opinionated, voice my thoughts, and use whatever voice I found suitable for the subject matter. I feel less pressured to write some witty complex sentence in these types of essays as I do when I write a formal five paragraph essay, though I would like to be able to write both types of essay with equal proficiency.
This semester I would like to improve my formal writing skills. I have the problem of sometimes being too broad in my body paragraphs so I would like to be able write a well focused paragraph that has substance to it. Lacking substance is why I believe my paragraphs in a formal essay can be deemed too broad. I feel, when writing, that the more details, however loosely connected, the better since I used to get points deducted for not including enough examples. Though I am beginning to overcome these writing “habits”.
My English teachers in my junior and senior years at boarding school really helped my essay writing knowledge come together into a better, more efficient form. Instead of assigning readings on the proper use of grammar and handing out a strict set of guidelines on how a paper should be written, they would just give me a paper topic and tell me to write a formal or informal paper and in a sense turn me loose to write. The feedback they gave in comments on the paper and in writing conferences where we met one on one let me know what worked and what didn’t so hopefully the next time I could avoid some of these mistakes later on. In those two years, my writing went from decent to good, in my opinion at least. Having someone tell you that one sentence is crap while another sentence that you wrote is good is a lot better I found than just being given an example of what good and bad sentence is. Overall I find that learning from my mistakes is sometimes most helpful way to improve my writing.
I understand and agree to the terms of the syllabus.
For the most part I have found personal narratives to be one of my preferred essay topics in high school. This is because a personal narrative is about me and so I don’t have to double check to see if what I am saying is actually true because it’s about me. Also more informal types of writing, like saying what I thought about a movie, was something I enjoyed in high school because it allowed me to be opinionated, voice my thoughts, and use whatever voice I found suitable for the subject matter. I feel less pressured to write some witty complex sentence in these types of essays as I do when I write a formal five paragraph essay, though I would like to be able to write both types of essay with equal proficiency.
This semester I would like to improve my formal writing skills. I have the problem of sometimes being too broad in my body paragraphs so I would like to be able write a well focused paragraph that has substance to it. Lacking substance is why I believe my paragraphs in a formal essay can be deemed too broad. I feel, when writing, that the more details, however loosely connected, the better since I used to get points deducted for not including enough examples. Though I am beginning to overcome these writing “habits”.
My English teachers in my junior and senior years at boarding school really helped my essay writing knowledge come together into a better, more efficient form. Instead of assigning readings on the proper use of grammar and handing out a strict set of guidelines on how a paper should be written, they would just give me a paper topic and tell me to write a formal or informal paper and in a sense turn me loose to write. The feedback they gave in comments on the paper and in writing conferences where we met one on one let me know what worked and what didn’t so hopefully the next time I could avoid some of these mistakes later on. In those two years, my writing went from decent to good, in my opinion at least. Having someone tell you that one sentence is crap while another sentence that you wrote is good is a lot better I found than just being given an example of what good and bad sentence is. Overall I find that learning from my mistakes is sometimes most helpful way to improve my writing.
I understand and agree to the terms of the syllabus.
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