My whole life I have heard several times that my education is one of the most important parts of my life and what we will do in the classroom will help me prepare myself for what I will be doing in the future. In the video I watched called “A Vision Of Students Today” Michael Wesche’s students expresses their concerns about college and what they’re gaining from the experience so far. From what I was observing in the video there was a lot of struggle going on with many of the kids. For example, there was a girl who held up a sign saying something along the lines of, having an average class of 115 students. The problem I found with what the sign said is, the fact that if you have that many students in your class it’s almost impossible to have one on one time with the teacher. So if you’re struggling in a class with 115 students or more you’re not going to get the help you deserve to get for what you paid. Another student also expressed how they felt about the costs of school. He held up a sign saying how he spends money on books that he’s never used. In most college’s that’s typical, they make you spend your well earned money on books and tools you will not use or use as much. Spending your money on new college text books can also lead to bigger things such as college debt. In the video a girl expresses that she will be 20,000 dollars in debt after she graduates because of the education she is trying to get. But if you look at the bigger picture of the situation you’ll realize that most of the students are spending more of their free time on other activities like talking on the phone, emailing, or spending time on facebook. I believe if class sizes were smaller, tuition was cheaper, and books were cheaper or maybe only certain books were required for each class then we would have a better college experience.
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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