Greetings readers!
Getting this far in our New Media Composition class has been very interesting! So far in the class we've read through a few interesting writings. By far, I think the writing that I most connected with, was "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" by Anne Lamott. This reading discussed a writers struggles with putting pen to paper and actually writing what they needed to write. Distractions and just the overwhelming thought of what needs to get done stumps the writer on many occasions. I often feel the exact same way about my writing. There are things I might want to say, but I just can't get moving and put them down on paper. The writers goes on to explain how they remembered what her dad said to her brother regaurding a project that was due the next day on different types of birds. Her father told him "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." This means he needs to stop trying to do the whole project at the same time and just do it in chunks. The same is applied to writing. Instead of planning and writing out the whole thing in one shot, you should break it up into sections that are easier to handle. Using this method has brough some success, but not can seem to really cure habitual procrastination. This is the third time I've taken an English 100 class and each time seems to go the same way. The beginning goes by fine but as the semester goes on, I'll be a little late here, and forget to do some hoework there, and eventually I'm trying to write whole projects in one night, which is the situation I'm in now. I can only hope I keep up with things so I can get a B and finaly stop taking this class. This New Media approach was definitaly the most enjoyable of the three classes iv'e taken. I also really liked that we just read important sections of a writers work, and not just one entire book from one writer. This let us get many different perspectives on different matters.
The entire New Media proccess has made this class completely different from English 100 classes I've taken before. I feel that I liked this method better but it also gave me different challenges. Before there were a few big papers that needed to be written, each being graded for a final grade. With the blog posts there are a lot more things to write, but they are all smaller. At first this was very nice, easy bits of writing, but as the semester wore on I'd start to forget about assignments or just procrasinate too much and things started piling up. If I don't get a good enough grade thsi time around I don't know how I'm going to go on when I can't even finish a basic english class.
Because of this course, I look at writing in a slightly different way. I'm realizing that writing isn't just about writing papers and summeries and all the boring stuff, it's everything you write. I realise I'm a fairly good writer, as long as I have somethings to write about. If I'm interested in the topic, and it isn't something I have to make up I'm fine with it. I've written posts on different forums that are many many paragraphs, and even then I've had to cut them short because they were getting too long. I can write littel blog posts about something interesting I did that day or about what I plan to do, not because I have to, but because I want other peopel to know about it!
I'm planning on looking through my website and correcting any mistakes in the website layout and hopefully try to do a few blogs that I didn't finnish on time. I've been having some trouble with my blog posts not saving, so it's only half done, if that, when I look at it later. The only thing worse than writing a paper, is having to write it again because it didn't save.
Well, thats pretty much what has happened so far in My english 100 class, can't wait to do the rest of it!
,Ryan
Getting this far in our New Media Composition class has been very interesting! So far in the class we've read through a few interesting writings. By far, I think the writing that I most connected with, was "Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life" by Anne Lamott. This reading discussed a writers struggles with putting pen to paper and actually writing what they needed to write. Distractions and just the overwhelming thought of what needs to get done stumps the writer on many occasions. I often feel the exact same way about my writing. There are things I might want to say, but I just can't get moving and put them down on paper. The writers goes on to explain how they remembered what her dad said to her brother regaurding a project that was due the next day on different types of birds. Her father told him "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." This means he needs to stop trying to do the whole project at the same time and just do it in chunks. The same is applied to writing. Instead of planning and writing out the whole thing in one shot, you should break it up into sections that are easier to handle. Using this method has brough some success, but not can seem to really cure habitual procrastination. This is the third time I've taken an English 100 class and each time seems to go the same way. The beginning goes by fine but as the semester goes on, I'll be a little late here, and forget to do some hoework there, and eventually I'm trying to write whole projects in one night, which is the situation I'm in now. I can only hope I keep up with things so I can get a B and finaly stop taking this class. This New Media approach was definitaly the most enjoyable of the three classes iv'e taken. I also really liked that we just read important sections of a writers work, and not just one entire book from one writer. This let us get many different perspectives on different matters.
The entire New Media proccess has made this class completely different from English 100 classes I've taken before. I feel that I liked this method better but it also gave me different challenges. Before there were a few big papers that needed to be written, each being graded for a final grade. With the blog posts there are a lot more things to write, but they are all smaller. At first this was very nice, easy bits of writing, but as the semester wore on I'd start to forget about assignments or just procrasinate too much and things started piling up. If I don't get a good enough grade thsi time around I don't know how I'm going to go on when I can't even finish a basic english class.
Because of this course, I look at writing in a slightly different way. I'm realizing that writing isn't just about writing papers and summeries and all the boring stuff, it's everything you write. I realise I'm a fairly good writer, as long as I have somethings to write about. If I'm interested in the topic, and it isn't something I have to make up I'm fine with it. I've written posts on different forums that are many many paragraphs, and even then I've had to cut them short because they were getting too long. I can write littel blog posts about something interesting I did that day or about what I plan to do, not because I have to, but because I want other peopel to know about it!
I'm planning on looking through my website and correcting any mistakes in the website layout and hopefully try to do a few blogs that I didn't finnish on time. I've been having some trouble with my blog posts not saving, so it's only half done, if that, when I look at it later. The only thing worse than writing a paper, is having to write it again because it didn't save.
Well, thats pretty much what has happened so far in My english 100 class, can't wait to do the rest of it!
,Ryan