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1. What skills have you learned in this class and how might you apply them to writing in your career or future college courses?
I now know how to blog! I came into this class a primitive caveman spending my days hunting and gathering but now I am an expert at putting my silly and/or offensive opinions all over the intrawebz! After doing these blogs I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how all of the assorted internet media I have enjoyed over the years is created.
2. How have the readings in the class affected you?
Bartleby got me interested in a 17th century murder mystery that I knew nothing about. I have read Moby Dick once and listened to two different audio versions and I always found Melville's writing style super interesting.
White Noise annoyed me to a point I thought was unimaginable and I some how held it together and didn't build an armored bulldozer and rampage through town square. I would suggest anyone who questions their mental well being threshold give it a try. You should probably have a handler near by to keep you from doing harm to yourself or others. I don't think I will be reading any DeLillo in the near future.
Oh boy Swift's A Modest Proposal was a laugh riot. Easily the most interesting of all the required readings for this course. I couldn't help but think of the awesome Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man while reading it. Could Jonathan Swift have been an alien invader from a distant galaxy trying to convince primitive humans to offer up their delicious children to the invaders? I think so.
3. How have you met the learning outcomes for the class (which can be found on the syllabus)?
I think the standout on the syllabus is "interpret and analyze text" I really had to read over and/or listen to things multiple times and pick out all the things I thought stood out as having significant meaning.
4. How has your writing or your writing process changed?
I didn't change my process much. I took way more notes on the materiel that I wasn't as interested in. I have like three full pages of notes on White Noise. Knowing ahead of time what is coming at you was very nice. I could just look at the next weeks assignments and see what kind of questions I would have to be answering and take lots of information down I thought might come in handy.
5. What were your challenges in the class? How were you able to overcome them?
I have always been pretty good at doing things I didn't want to do especially if I was paying to do them. I am not a big fan of reading. I like to be moving around and doing things and I always found it hard to drive and turn pages at the same time. An easy way to combat this is with Audiobooks. Boy howdy do I like audiobooks I just put it on my MP3 player and hop on my bike and take off on a trail somewhere.
Here is a link to Audible. It is a very nice source of all things Audio. It isn't just Audiobooks you can also find neato stuff like interviews and ye olde tyme radio shows.
I think that the learning objective, interpret and analyze text is the biggest learning objective in the class. It was the one that made you really think about the text and break down the readings. I am not a big fan of reading either, I like to be busy doing something not sitting still. But I actually enjoyed the readings in this class so it wan't too bad.
ReplyDeleteI too came into this class with absolutely no experience or know how of blogging! This has been the one thing I can honestly say I full understand. I still have issues with analyzing of things and understanding of "satire" and all the other forms we learned. I have the concept, but not the full know how. Good luck in the future!!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your writing style and wish I had come to your blog earlier in the semester! I'm too uptight (afraid?) to add all that pizzazz to my writing coursework, but you definitely seem to enjoy blogging. I should have taken notes like you on White Noise. I finished the book in time to write the blog post a few weeks back, then hadn't touched again until the week the final was due. Lots of time spent searching the text for quotes and trying to remember the chronology of the plot that I could have added to the back end revising.
ReplyDeleteAs for reading and driving: try the Kindle app if you have a smartphone. You can make the text big, and then all you have to do is tap the screen to turn the page (much easier, you would agree, than to physically flip a page). And please, don't take me seriously.
Carson,
ReplyDeleteWhen I first came to this class I had very little knowledge about blogging and could not understand why people did it in truth. But after taking this class I sort of enjoy blogging, every time I would read a blog post of your I found myself laughing so good job on that! I felt the same way about Swift’s work, I could not get into it at all and his form of satire and writing just did not keep me interested in the essay at all! I have never used an audio book before, but now that you mentioned it, it seems like a great idea that I will look it! Good luck in your future classes!
Cason, thanks for sharing this week in your blog. I can relate to many of the points you made. Your honesty and directness were refreshing. I like your colorful description of reading "White Noise." I found it a challenge, especially for having to write an essay about it. So the first challenge was in reading it, then to find deeper meanings to some of the madness was the next obstacle. All-in-all I think we all survived, maybe a little wore down, but hopefully a little wiser for it all. Also, your point about audiobooks, completely relates to me. I am not a good reader either, and prefer to be doing other things. So I have discovered audiobooks to be a great tool. The challenge becomes in finding things you want to cite. You hear what you want to cite, then you have to go find it in the hardcopy book. Anyway, good job and have a great summer.
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