In this video by Michael Wesch many point of views about different topics are being expressed by a large number of college students in a classroom. All the topics though have to do with school in some way. Like one student pointed out that only 18% of her instructors actually know her name. Another student pointed out that her average class size has 115 students. That means that an instructor can almost never work one on one with a student. Another student in the video describes how only 26% of the readings she does are relevant to her life. If a subject that students are studying isn’t relevant to them then obviously the students will find it useless to them and feel forced to learn what is being taught. Another student buys hundred dollar textbooks that he doesn’t even open. The video goes on with facts like those that describe the vision of students today in a typical college classroom. At the end of the video the class instructor writes on the blackboard “writing on a chalkboard forces the teacher to move. What are missing are photos, videos, animations, and network”. A person can either see that as a good thing, or as a bad thing.
This video is called “A vision of students today” because that is exactly what it is. I believe that these students in the video are trying to reach out to an audience as large as possible to be heard on what they have to say. They express how they feel about the education system in the United States. The education system we have today is not working for them very well. The number of students in a classroom is too big, students spend money on things that aren’t needed, and technology is being misused. I think these are some of the factors that motivated the students to participate in this video to try and reach out to be heard on what they strongly believe in. This video has almost 4 million views on YouTube which means that these students are getting their points across to many people. I wonder though if they will actually influence enough people with this video to actually change the school educational system we have today. I personally agree with what most students in the video said.
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
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
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