When first given the task of journaling in the Commonplace Book, I saw it as a burden and just one more thing that I had to do every week. As the semester went on, I realized that sometimes writing my thoughts out into posts helped me develop ideas, learn how to approach new assignments and gain an understanding of what I had read that past week. There are five tags that I chose to use in my Commonplace Book; Impact, Resilience, Learning Through Reading, Helpful Lesson, and Structure.
The tag Impact is meant to label the journals that had impacted my life in some way. In addition, this impact could have been big, small, bad or good. Over the time of journaling in my Commonplace Book, I came across several impactful readings. One being an article on the Sigma Chi Fraternity on Campus. This directly impacted myself, because I am also part of the Greek Community. Seeing that there are Title XI problems within my own community opened my eyes to the degrading of men and women within the Greek community. Also in this post read about loneliness, which impacts lives every day. Reading this article, I saw how much you truly need people who care about you in your life. Once reading this article, I promised myself that I would appreciate the people who surround me with love more often. Through these readings, I learned that impactful reading doesn’t always have to be academic but can be found all around.
The second tag I saw as a good demonstration of my posts was resilience. I use the tag resilience in the sense of pushing through even when I have hit a wall. This includes, but it not limited to my writing or somewhere in my life. In the reflection called Thought on Argument Paper, it is clear how much I struggled with deciding how to develop my writing. At the time of the post, I was stuck on what information to include and how to organize my paper to where it was fluent to the reader. This continued to be a struggle for myself throughout the whole assignment. However, I did not let it stop me from developing an idea and trying different ways of organizing my paper until I found a way that helped get my point across. This was one of the hardest assignments that I had to push through on. In fact, I sometimes would just want to give up. At times during my conferences, it was determined that I would have two different papers in one. I did not let this discourage me. I was able to develop a paper that I am proud of today, even if the grade wasn’t the best one this semester. I now know that I need the characteristic of resilience throughout these next three years in college.
Learning Through Reading is the next tag that I used to describe my posts. This tag relates mainly to the weekly reflections where I read articles from the New York Times and write my thoughts throughout the week. Writing about the articles and things that I had read that week helped me actively read. Learning Through Reading is when I would gain new knowledge after an article I read that week whether it was in The New York Times or in another class. The entry that best portrays this tag is the entry from March 7th. In this post, I learned how much reading a peer’s paper can help my own paper. After reading over another student’s paper on the same assignment it helped me recognize elements and strategies that they used in their paper that could also help me with my paper. I would never have thought that I would learn so much about an assignment. Sometimes, I would gain a different viewpoint or perspective from another student writing. This showed me that not only is it beneficial to the student who wrote the paper, but also to myself because reading helps you learn and realize things you didn’t know before.
Throughout this semester, I have learned many Helpful Lessons that have helped myself improve and become a better writer. In addition, in my Commonplace Book, I included the tag Helpful Lesson. A Helpful Lesson were the posts that contributed to my growth and understanding. The most helpful lesson learned during my journals was the library lesson. During class, we went to a presentation at the library to become more familiar with the library technologies and its research tools. Once knowing how to navigate my way through the library’s great resources, it has helped me in my classes. Now, whenever I need to research or have a reliable source on any type of topic, I know exactly where to get it. Another thing that was great about learning about the libraries resources is that now I do not have to worry about the source not being reliable. This newly gained knowledge through a single lesson really demonstrates how something so simple can be so helpful across my educational experience.
Structure was common tag when discussing my writing. Ever since I have had to write papers, I have struggled with structure. However, throughout this semester, I have developed a lot as a writer. Looking back at the semester now, I feel that it has become much easier to structure my papers through the different assignments we were given in this class. One of the most difficult papers that I struggled with its structure was the argumentative paper. In the post Struggles with Argumentative paper, I reflected on what I needed to overcome to start my assignment and the structure of the paper kept stumping me. This paper was especially difficult in that department because I was not accustomed to including research, my point of view, and a counter argument all in one paper. By having to overcome my struggle with structure, I believe it has made me more prepared to structure more complicated papers that will be in my future.
Looking at the semester as a whole, the Commonplace Book helped me a great deal within my academic and personal life learning moments. I was able to use this website as an outlet to organize and analyze my thoughts about the various assignments I was given. By pushing through the obstacles that I faced within my writing and life, I believe I have become more prepared for what is to come. Not only have I improved in my writing, but also in other parts of my academic learning. The Commonplace Book has trained me to actively read, look deeper into what I am doing, and push through the struggles that I face.