Course Projects: Understanding the Ins and Outs

Firth, Katherine. The Different Stages of the Writing Process. 12/3/2013 via Wordpress. Attribution 2.0 Generic License.  

English 109H I expect to be a rather challenging but rewarding course, with a little of fun sprinkled in along the way. Here are just a few of my questions/expectations.

What I find confusing or what makes me nervous:

- I am not so much about these projects as I am nervous as heck to deal with non-conventional genres! I have never constructed a quick-reference guide, made a video essay, or even thought about constructing a postmortem. The video essay especially I expect to be my most challenging project, no matter the project.

Interested in/Excited about:

- I am the type of person that LOVES to argue my point, not that I have to always be right, okay maybe I'm lying, but I love getting into a nice heated debate over something I am especially passionate about. And I am actually really excited abut the video essay even though I find it rather intimidating.

Planning Ahead:

-I will definitely need to plan ahead for every project to RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH. The worst thing you can do going into any one of these projects is not having enough sound research to really back up your claims. I know right now that will be challenging for me because I sometimes tend to forget this aspect.

Skills:

- One skill I have which I feel relatively confident about is like I said before, my ability to argue. One English teacher I had in high school made us study and write rhetorical essay upon rhetorical essay and it made me really good at becoming an expert on a subject and finding a point of view that I could either completely build up or completely tear apart. The latter I find more appealing. However, this class structure is very different from any I have ever experienced.

Questions:

-As of right now, I do not necessarily have any question regarding the projects, but I am sure as I begin working on them and seeing what will take more time and what I find challenging as I'm working on them, I'm sure I will have a hundred questions.


Reflection:
Kathryn Russell
Payton Leahy
After reading a couple other students post about what they expect or are worried about in the course, I realized that we are all pretty much on the same page for each of our concerns, doubts, comments, etc. One thing we all mentioned was how this course will be very different and challenging compared to other English courses we have taken. We are also each a little concerned about some of the specific projects because coming from a traditional English background, we haven't really been exposed to some of these genres or project types yet and it is always going to be scary dealing with new material. Basically, I know now I'm not the only one slightly freaking out that I don't know much about some of these projects or genres and I at least have some company that will be eager to learn with me!