Welcome!

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?

As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).

Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!

--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100



Monday, October 18, 2010

FRONTLINE: Growing Up Online

The video documentary Growing Up Online, from Frontline directors Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio shows the relationship thats kids have with the technology that they use. The video shows how kids today are relying on the social networking groups like Facebook and Myspace to communicate and connect with people and friends. Parents are worried about kids and being online because they dont know what their child is doing online. Kids are posting pictures of themselves for other to see that show them as the way that they want to be seen. C.J Pascoe says, So what teens are doing is going around and trying on these different identities- "I'm a Goth" or "I'm a punk rocker" or "I'm a surfer" or ""I'm this or that." And the Internet has allowed them to display that identity in a very dramatic and very succinct way.” Some of these online programs have gotten out of hand. One girl looks online everyday for new ways to stay thin with new diets and a boy committed suicide after chatting with a supposed “friend”. Parents have tried to protect their children by trying to get Facebook passwords from them or monitoring what they see or do online. Greg, a student at Chatham High School, says, “I could see when he was trying to track me, so I would just bring up, like, Britannica.com, something he would want me to be watching, I don't know, and I would just slide it into the little viewer that he would be seeing. And I would go on my way, do whatever I wanted, he'd think I'd be researching monkeys or something.” For Jessica Hunter, being online was a way to connect with people who considered her an outcast. In reality she was mocked and bullied but online she was the model Autumn Edows. There she posted pictures of herself and everyone was commenting on how beautiful and pretty she was. Her parents had no idea what she was doing all that time online. Cyber bulling is a bad part of online activity as well. Kids have gotten expelled for Cyber bulling and people have died because of it.

My own view is that the internet is a fun, interactive place to be and its useful. For instance right now im on Facebook talking to a friend while im doing my homework at the same time. Most of the time when im on the computer doing homework, my facebook is open also so I can talk with all my buddy's. The internet is also useful because its easier and faster to look up information and other things. For example if im going to my friends house then I can go to Google Maps and look up directions to the house, phone number, address, and other information. This is also bad because then the Cyber bullies and predators can also use this tool to find and harm others. I think that people need to learn about what is safe to do online and what they shouldn't do online. This would make it a lot more fun and safe place to be.

Michael Sperry

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