Tag Archives: LISTENING

Dec 4 2015

Learning Through The Eyes Of a College Student

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I feel that my Commonplace blog is a good representation of my academic learning in regards to my writing. Many of the daily post reflect what I have learned from my previous mistakes and their ending result. In addition, I feel that it represents the realization that my writing is improving as the semester continues. To be more specific, my commonplace book shows the improvement in many skills to compose my paper. For example, I had several posts that discussed the importance of having a better structure and the use of examples. These two component were the areas in which I had made a goal to improve by the end of the semester. I think that while I was focusing solely on trying to be better in these areas, I gained some additional knowledge. With this being said, I feel that my commonplace book is mainly about these two topics with small assertions of additional learning moments. Every once and a while there will be a post about the significance of peer review and the different modes of writing accompanied with my personal opinions. I have really relied on the idea of peer review more this semester than I ever had in the past. I found myself learning from others work and their comment on my own work. I believe that the more I had my papers reviewed, the better my grade got. Also, I realized that I had been exposed to several writing modes when trying to better structure and use examples. It is not until now reading through my commonplace book that I truly realized how much learning I have been exposed to.

On the other hand, I feel that my commonplace book doesn’t represent my learning outside of my writing. As a student, I have changed in regards to things academically outside of the writing classroom. For example, I have become a much smarter studier for exams. Instead of studying the night before, I space out my study time. This also links to how I’ve become better with my time management. With joining a sorority and being involved in the Teachers of Tomorrow organization on campus, I have learned the necessity of an organized life.  In addition, I have learned to take advantage of the things on campus that are free and could benefit me in return. More particularly, going to the writing center with my papers has been something that I’ve really valued this semester. I have seen my papers improving in organization after having it reviewed by someone at the writing center. Also, going to the library to study. At the beginning of the semester, I studied in my dorm where there were tons of distractions. By using the library, I am more focused and tend to get things done more efficiently. None of the learning moments discussed above were reflected in my commonplace book. While I feel like it was a good representation of my learning experiences in my writing, I feel it lacked the other areas, subjects and elements of my learning this semester.

My final five tags within my commonplace book highlight my personal experiences and understanding of being a learner in college. The three tags that represent my writing experience is “struggles”, “composition” and “listening”. The tags “struggles” represents the value of learning from my mistakes and there being no shame in starting over or rewriting. In reaction to this, I feel that one of my struggles this semester is composing. The tag “composition” really highlights the many learning moments that focus on building, organizing, and developing ideas into a cohesive paper. Lastly, I feel my “listening” tag really shows how I have valued the thoughts of others. Through out the peer edit comments and use of the writing center, I understand the importance of listening to what others have to say. A part from my learning moments within writing a paper, I have two tags that demonstrate my further learning this semester. The first tag is “different modes”. This tag really explains my experiences where I was open minded, went out of my “comfort zone”, and not being afraid to try something new. The second tag is “analysis” which defines how I have drawn connections between each subject, used examples from my life to relate to topics I have learned, and being able to better explain myself in a more efficient, less repetitive way. Overall, my tags have reflected my learning not only in my writing, but in my general first semester of college.

Nov 11 2015

Op doc learning moment

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When watching these videos in class, I learned what I wanted and didn’t want in my project. Things that I know I want to include is a variety of colors and simple typeface. I want it to look like a classroom to further express the topic and it’s environment. In contrast, I don’t want my video to go to fast. I did not like the last op-doc because I found myself trying to look at the pictures rather than listening to the message. In addition, I want to have plenty of negative space in order to keep the visuals and audience in focus. Overall, I learned a lot about how I want my video to look like.

Nov 9 2015

Learning from others voiceovers

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I learned a lot today listening to my peer’s voiceovers. In particular, I understand the value of clear organization and appropriate tone. One of my group members had a strong sense of voice in his recording. He had peeks in his voice accompanied by many questions asked periodically. It kept my attention and allowed me to continue to think along with him. Also, I learned from another member the importance of having a clear and concise flow to the recording. All the evidence and points were good, but by not having them in a easy to listen order made the story confusing. Overall, I learned a lot from my groups voiceovers.

Sep 25 2015

Collaborative Thinking and Writing Response

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I think collaborative thinking and writing is very useful when analyzing something. Most of the time, the ideas others have will spark something I personally had not thought about. In addition to this, I think the more perspective and unique thoughts of other people enrich the material of your analysis. Overall, I like working together when it comes to understanding a piece of text.

Sep 21 2015

Literacy Guide Unit Reflection

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I learned many valuable writing techniques, development skills and analysis strategies through out the literacy guide assignment. I started by organizing my ideas and dividing the “must-haves” into each category. Once that was complete, I was able to refer to the previous homework activities in order to find examples to implement in my guide. For example, I used the three charts as a starting point for exploring The New York Times. The most helpful chart in particular, was where we used the “most popular” page to find three articles. I had a whole section of my guide dedicated to using the “most popular” page as a tool for navigating through the newspaper. I was able to use my previous analysis from the chart to expand on my new thoughts with the examples I used in the guide. This showed me the value of taking a specific idea and elaborating. I feel that analysis has been one of my weaknesses when writing so this technique of using my previous work was extremely valuable. While implementing the analysis to my examples, I realized that I was having a hard time covering all the “must-haves”. I had no problem with hyperlinking articles, clarifying a voice, and analyzing the different styles and preferences. What I did struggle with was finding the different article forms and modes that would cover each of the topics I had assigned to topic prior to writing. I found that I would continue to use news reports and multimedia pieces repetitively. I had to rewrite sections multiple times and spend a lot of time searching for the perfect example in something other than news reports and videos. Like with the “most popular” chart homework, I used my previous work, “One topic three ways”, to get a better idea of the different article types out there. At first this chart was helpful, but then I realized it was still lacking the elements I needed. It is at this point in my writing of the guide, I happened to stumble across the times topic page. During my search for the perfect example, this page within the newspaper was able to have multiple modes of information with a click of a button. This initial frustration led to this new discovery within The New York Times. In reaction to this valuable and helpful tool, I was able to create the last section of my guide. This moment was extremely valuable to me because I was able to learn a valuable organization skill through my own mistakes. Out of the entire project, this was my personal favorite learning moment. I learned an important lesson and was able in return to use it to complete the assignment. With this being said, I believe that my advice to myself from this particular writing task would be don’t be afraid to make mistakes and implement these struggles into a unique way in which can be used to complete the task at hand or in the future. Practice makes perfect and rewriting is not a sign of organizational or developmental weakness.

Sep 9 2015

Daily Write: Media in The New York Times

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Today I learned that The New York Times uses media to add emotion to their writing pieces. As my group and I discussed our different news stories, we concluded that we were drawn to the article because of the pictures and videos within the text. We also decided that the pictures provoked a variety of emotions. For example, at the top my article there was a picture of a young deceased child that had be swept onto shore by the ocean waves. This initial visual made me feel upset and horrified as to how something so tragic had happened. Had I not seen this picture, the topic of immigration wouldn’t be something I was interested in reading about. On the contrary to my feelings, one of my group members found the picture to be disgusting and unnecessary. She expressed her extreme dislike for the inclusion of the picture even to the point that she wouldn’t have wanted to read what the reporter had to say about the incident. That one picture changed the perspective of the entire article for each of us in a different way. In the past, I had not payed much attention to the effects of the visual media when reading an article. Overall, I realized that The New York Times uses visual media to attract and provide additional emotion to the reader.