I feel as though Project 1 was a very big challenge for me.
Back in high school I only wrote essays after reading a book or based on a
certain topic chosen by the teacher, where as for this essay we had an extreme
amount of freedom in choosing a place to analyze, how we analyze it, and the
lens in which we viewed the place of our choosing. Also, in high school our
papers were not based observations, basically there was a right or wrong
answer, whereas with this essay it is more of an opinion in what has been seen
and analyzed by the student. In my opinion, I may not have reached the level of
analysis that was expected of for this paper. It was difficult for me to make a
observation that was unexpected and that not everyone would notice. I probably
could have gone deeper with my observations, but it was extremely difficult for
me to go beyond the point of the surface. I feel like I did well on the paper
for the most part, and aside from uncovering some hidden meaning in my ‘place’
I think my paper was sufficient. I learned that observing and analyzing a place
are a lot more difficult than one would assume. It was very hard for me to not
get distracted while observing, sitting somewhere for an hour just watching was
sort of boring and therefore easy for me to get distracted. I also need to work
on not procrastinating until the last minute. I have always struggled with this
and definitely have realized that procrastination is not the way to go,
especially in college. I think that procrastinating really hurt me and my
writing process in the way that I did not have sufficient time to write all
that I needed to in my paper. The skills I gained form this project are to work
efficiently and in a more timely manner, as well as gaining the observational
and analytical tools needed to view a place through another lens. This can be
extremely useful outside of the university, especially for a job or in order to
get a job. Being good at observing what is around you is an extremely important
tool. Also, this project can help in learning about the campus. For example, I
probably would have never observed so much of the Newman Center if I wouldn’t
have had to do it for this project. Also, by reading other students
observational notes on their blogs I learned better observational skills and
also about the places in which they observed. Overall, Project 1 was
challenging, but it was also helpful in learning to write through another point
of view, as well as learning how to properly observe a place.
This being the first essay of our young, college careers, I thought it was very relevant to compare it to what we all experienced in high school. We were all forced to step out of our comfort zone and had no prior milestones to look back on for guidance. I have to assume every beginning college student is aware that their classes will be different than high school, but what kind of a reassurance is that? Simply knowing that it will be different offers no supportive details, so I think it is safe to say we were all nervous.
ReplyDeleteConsidering I don't have access to your actual essay, your blog posts are all I have to judge your writing, so pardon my comments if they are inaccurate or misconstrued. It seems to me that you are dead in the water before you even start your writing. You have an apparent, lack of confidence in your writing skill and I would strongly suggest you change that. When I write, my goal is to do everything possible to make my writing stand out from the pack. Try thinking in a positive manner about what kind of project you can produce next time around.
The mind is a powerful thing, you know!
Thank you for admitting that you struggled with time management. Procrastinators unite!
ReplyDeleteI really liked how open you've been on this blog post. It's interesting to see how different this class is from your high school experience. My high school experience was very literary-driven; we had to write essays to survive, so I got used to writing at a young age. With you, it's as if you're discovering a new side to writing that you didn't expect to encounter. Open-ended assignments, time-consuming projects, and opinion pieces. This is what makes college so exciting! It sounds like you followed the assignment enough to get a decent grade. I think you're going to make some progress with this project under your belt. I would like to focus on something you brought up. You said your paper was the result of analyzing a place through another lens. I'm not sure if that was the ultimate goal of the assignment. Using your own lens to analyze a place, makes the paper wholly yours. (Using your own lens and observations, nobody can argue with your views because YOU viewed them.) Incorporating Vanclay/Austin/Goldberger was only a tool to use their points to back you up. I'm not sure if this makes a huge difference, but I hope it gives you something to think about.
Truly college is so very different from high school and it definitely takes time and work to get used and adapt to the changes. Furthermore, I too had great trouble in my observations. Sitting for an hour does present great hard ships from distraction. The way I overcame the distraction is that I constantly continued to write everything I witnessed and saw in the area. Just do not stop writing, open up your mind and let all the information flow in and at the same time try to keep up with the information by continuously writing. Some of the observation may not be important in your view, but later when you are observing your notes at a different point in time you may find some sort of small inspiration. In turn helping you with your paper and finding more subtle details to find analysis to write about. Moreover, procrastination is also a big obstacle in my life. The trick I have found to pretty much help keep it at bay it to be organized. If you set deadlines for yourself that are actually earlier than the ones set by the class and you stick to it you will inevitably get the job done at an appropriate time. Then with the reaming days before the actual class deadline it is much easier to correct all your mistakes with an already written paper. The great thing about our English class is that it already does this for us by having rough draft due dates earlier than our final drafts.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with everything you have said. Writing in college is so much different than writing in high school. I have never had to write an analysis before, and I have never had the opportunity to write something before with this much freedom, so I was not necessarily prepared for this assignment. I have never even heard of a lens before a few weeks ago when I learned we had to use it for our project, so I had no idea how to use it. I feel as though the workshops probably helped a lot for students to understand exactly how to do the assignment correctly in order to receive a good grade on it. Next time I'm a little confused on our assignment, I think I'll go to the workshop in order to get a better understanding. Also, I agree with what you said that observing can help in the future, so I'm definitely going to try to pay more attention to things. ...anyways, on a side note, I think the theme to your blog is super cute (: haha
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