blog promt 2nd half #2

One of the main things that I wanted to look at was how people control their ethos on their personal "Profiles" on websites like Facebook.com. People join these web pages with the hopes of meeting new people as well as keeping in touch with old friends. The web page has become more than a place for people to stay in contact with one another. Facebook.com has become a place where people can control who they want to be, and what people think of them. A person can "tag" themselves as a vampire or werewolf and start "biting" other users as a form of invitation to the same application to add to their profile. Recent studies have shown that although the Facebook creators do not let anyone under the age of 13 use their website, it is very easy for anyone to lie about their age and create a profile that is based on a lie. There have been other studies that have shown the human brain can only deal with five close friends at a time. This study further proves that Facebook users who claim to have hundreds or thousands of "friends" is a lie in itself, thus creating a false identity. People can post their views, beliefs, and interests based on what other people want to read, with hopes that the user will gain more attention from other users.
For a presentation I plan to show the progress of my fake facebook person. By the end of my study I hope to show that my false identity has grown to the popularity of the everyday facebook user. I will add a good number of extra applications and join a few groups to see if that increases my popularity. I also plan to use a power point presentation to display the information I have found from my research. I will also have slides containing some of my own findings that I have acquired over the course of my personal study. This will include a survey of USCA students from different on campus groups (i.e. sports teams, frat's, sororities, and other organizations). By the end of the study I hope to find out approximately how many time the average students checks their facebook, how important the facebook account is to their everyday life, and how and why they chose their profile pictures.

Blog Promt

The USCA writing room is what Lundasford would catagorize as a "Garret Center". Lundsford says that a Garret Center as "internal, as inside the student." The job of this type of writing center is to help the student help themself. The help that is given in the USCA writing center is not to correct the student, but help the student realize and see their own mistakes. It is stressed everytime the writing center is even mentioned "they won't write the paper for you, but they will help improve your writing skills." That is something that I heard over and over again as I sat in the writing room working on a paper as multiple tour groups passed by. I personally have had bad experiances with the writing room staff talking down to students. My classmates on the other hand have had good experiances which makes me want to give it another shot. Some students don't feel they need help that writing rooms offer and others feel that they don't have enough time. Either way, the writing room is a good idea for students who would need help in their writing.

Blog Promt II

Writing can take many different forms and vary from assignment to assignment. Every teacher is different in what they are looking for in a writing assignment. While one teacher may want many sources, another teacher may want few sources and be more interested in what the student has to say. Personally, I try to figure the teacher out while they are talking about the assignment. I try to see what the teacher put emphasis on. Does the teacher seemed interested in what I want to say as a student or is the teacher more interested in how I can gather material and put it together? If the assignment is based on what I want to say and how I think, I can almost immediately start to think of what I want to say. If the teacher wants multiple sources, I will usually put the writing off till the last day or two. If the teacher is interested in what everyone else’s thoughts, then it shouldn’t take that long to put together. When the teacher challenged the students to think on their own, there in lies a challenge. Preparation for an assignment depends on what the teacher want from me. Personally I love the thought of being able to put what I think down on paper. Other people’s thoughts are great in research papers, but why assign a student to gather other peoples thoughts and exclude their own?

Supposed to be Oct. 3rd Post

The chapter starts off by questioning whether or not the audience should be a factor in what the students are writing. The model given in the chapter has writer, written product, audience, and response in a nice circle. The author stresses the that audience plays a role in how the students write. While Mitchell and Taylor feel that a students writing should be uniform and written to the audience, Corbett feels that a students writing should be free flowing and unlike other students writings regardless of what or who the audience is. He feels that the message should be expressed as the writer sees fit, not how the message will be best taken. There is also the idea of the audience invoked, where the student knows that there is indeed a reader but the student cannot write to the audience. The idea of knowing there is an audience but not writing to the audience gives both characteristics to both Taylor as well as Corbett.
The Chapter overall was worth reading. I strongly disagree with Taylor and Mitchells idea that the student should write to an audience. Students have to write to their teachers and this is no way to create a writer. Writing should be about expression of ideas and thoughts. Corbett makes a good point of students writing freely and expressing their message the way they want to. Writing in a uniform manner, and writing what the audience wants to hear is not challeneging the writer. This theory does nothing more than test the students ability to follow instructions. The chapter got me more frustrated than interested. But I guess the frustration is what kept me reading.

Blog Promt #4

Reading assignments that cover all of these bases are hard to come by. Most teachers really only cover about 2 or 3 of these requirements. Personally I feel that minority writing and poetry are some of the greatest material for students to gain knowledge. One of the poems that I would have students read as an assignment would be "Theme for English B". This poem looks at the time period in which it was written, so the students would be able to use this as a narrative on how minorities at the time felt once they succeeded in society. Students would have to look at the symbolism used in the poem to interpret the message the author was trying to get across to his readers. The assignment would get the students to look at why the author was trying to portray this message of struggle and acceptance. This poem would get students to look at the time period and see how that ties into the theme of the poem. This piece of work is something that most 101 students should be able to read and interpret with some thought process put forth. This is also a poem that is usually seen in most 101 classes as well. Students are usually asked to write about the poem and establish a theme. Which is what I would assign after reader the peom. As well as writing a short paragraph on why this poem is important to the time period and how that would still play a role in today's society.