LAST BlOG

As our blogs come to an end I would like to talk about what I have learned in the English classes that I have taken with Stephanie. I can’t even count how many times I had to revise my papers through out the year. Although those revision processes have indeed helped me grow as a writer. That is because I used to have my whole paper completely marked up by Stephanie and now when I showed her my last paper she barely marked it up the mark ups were just minor things. I do have to say that my writing now compared to my writing from senior has greatly increased as well. Last year I would hand a paper in and it would take me about 2-3 weeks to get it completely revised. Now it only takes me about 3 days and just a little bit of help instead of a ton of help and a ton of time. Next, I would like to talk about how when we started these blogs I would absolutely hate doing them. But, we have done so many from both semesters I was able to discover that I can think outside of the box. What I mean by that I was able to think about my self as a writer and was able to talk about out of the regular topics towards the end of the 2^nd semester. For example my whole blog on how college advisors and how they really don’t help students out at all. So with all that said I think it is safe to say I will do just fine when I have to have to write papers at ISU.

ACT

Today I am going to talk about how I think that one’s ACT score should not determine how well they will or will not do in college. This is so stupid why should ones score of a test, have such a big influence on where they can go. I say this because without a decent ACT score you do not have very good selection on where you can attend college at the university level. Say, if someone is a horrible test taker and gets good grades throughout high school but can get into the college of his or her dreams because he or she got, say a 17 on the ACT. How is this fair at all? They have worked their butts off for the past 3 years to get those grades and all their dreams are shot down basically because they didn’t do well on that one test. I remember when I took the ACT some of the stuff that was on the thing, I had not even learned yet. This really bothered me because if I would of learned it I would have got a better score, which potentially have got me into a better school. So couldn’t it be the high schools fault for not keeping up with the material that may have potential to be on the ACT? I just think that it is really dumb how much colleges look at one’s ACT score, it should be a number of things that play into ones admission to the college. To sum it all up, I think there should be a better way of getting into the college of your dreams.

The Troubles

Today I’m going to talk about what troubles me the most in writing now days. One thing that I have noticed this semester about my writing is that every topic I choose I can hardly find any research on. I don’t know what it is, like I want to choose topics that interest me but are not over used one’s, you know what I mean? I guess I must be looking them up wrong or something. So that is one thing that grinds my gears, the next thing is trying to get through the endorsement groups. It has been difficult I most say, our class is pretty good at them and they have helped me fix a lot of my mistakes. Although, sometimes I feel as if they are too strict I mean I know they have to be. But I just feel sometimes that it is a little much. Any who that would be the second item, the next thing that really gets me, is that for some reason I cannot get the concept down of rhetorical précis. I mean I know how to do it but for some reason I cannot get the right wording in there. So to sum up this whole semester I feel as if I have learned a lot about wording and making good sentences because that is one of my biggest issues. Last semester what really got me was my sensory detail, which I think I got down so hopefully the remaining of this semester I will be able to get down this whole wording situation.

All right today I am going to talk about hunting. So, if you don’t like hunting you will not show that much interest in this post. Everyone knows that the state of Illinois is broke and the government is trying to do what ever it can to get money. Now, one way they are doing this is by raising the prices on all outdoor activities. Let me explain, to hunt, fish, and trap you must have a permit or license to do so. Now, if the prices of those go up not many people are going to want to get them. My boy Devin said that his deer permits cost him and his dad an extra 50 dollars for everything they needed. You may think so what people wont get them no big deal, if the prices go up. But, if you look at what will happen when people don’t buy them and don’t go hunting or fishing it could be a huge deal. The reason for this is because the reason we have hunting and hunting seasons the way they are is so that we are able to keep the animal population under control and to keep diseases under control. If the deer and animal population get to big that is when diseases start to form and spread. In time this will all come back in hurt the people because it will get them sick. Anyways not many people seem to think of it this way so it might be a crazy concept to think about if the prices of permits and license start to increase.

Feedback!!!!

I get all kinds of feedback on my writing. Most of the time it is good but sometimes it is pretty bad I must say. I think my main problem in writing is that what I think is good may not be very good in other peoples eyes. One thing people say about my writing is that, the content is good but my grammar is horrible. I am constantly revising my papers because my sentences never flow right or I have comma in the wrong spot. Another, thing people always tell me is that I need to work on my thesis statement more. I always think I have a good thesis statement and it makes sense to me but no one else. Although besides all the negative things about my papers there is some good that comes out of all this. Last semester Stephanie opened my eyes to see that my wording of things was kind of dull and I need to spice it up. So, if you were to look back on the writing I did at the beginning of the year and look at the stuff that I write now. I think you will be able to tell that I have greatly improved on my sensory detail words. Which have greatly improved my papers. In the endorsement groups this semester everyone has really worked together on not really bring people down but to help them get through the paper and do it well. Last semester we would peer edit with people and when I got my papers back it was like they really didn’t care and none of the stuff they said really made sense. So, I believe all the positive feedback people have been getting back from the groups has helped the class greatly.

Types of Writing

There are so many different kinds of writing. I have only done a few of them but ever since I got to college mostly this class it made me realize that there is a lot more to it then one may think. For example, English 111 is based on argumentative writing did you think that there was a whole book on how to write argumentative papers. I certainly did not know that. That is one kind of writing that I have done thus far this year. Another kind of writing I did back in the day I used to keep a journal of sweet and funny things that that I learned and good things that happened to me that day. I find this kind of free writing just kind of writing about whatever. I really don’t do that anymore I kind of got lazy. Although, anyone that uses Facebook such as myself is basically free writing, because you are writing whatever you want and don’t really care what people think. Also, have you ever found yourself writing for another class and really don’t put that much effort into making it into a well written paper as you would for an English class. I certainly do I think it is because most teachers are just looking for if you got the content down instead of grading it like an English teacher and most students realize this. Now, Im not saying everyone does it but I think that good amounts of people do not put that much effort into it. Anyways, I just wanted to highlight some of the writing I have done and its not very much but I can defiantly I have got a lot better in English since I have been writing in college.

College Advisors

This week I will be talking about my experiences with College Advisors here at ICC. I know a fellow classmate talked about this in the last blog but this is a big issue. Let me explain why something needs to be done. At the beginning of this semester my advisor had put me in a math class that I had not even tested into nor did I have the prerequisite to. Now does this seem right? NO its not because I was in that class for a couple of weeks and I had no idea what was going on. I would have never passed it because I do not have the experiences that I need to do so. Not only did he put me into that class he told me that I would do fine in the class. I felt that I was very misadvised and luckily there are some good advisors out there that helped me get through this problem, which was really nice. This has nothing to do about ICC but when I called to set up an appt. with my ISU advisor he was not very passionate about his job at all. I had many questions for him and he hardly had anything to say. Now, I just feel that advisors need to take there job a little bit more seriously considering we are paying thousands of dollars on the classes they put us into. I also believe that if we are paying this much money they should be more than happy to help us instead of acting like it’s a big pain in the butt that we need help.