We have been working with Mary Pipher's book Writing to Change the World In order to see the craft from a writers perspective. This was truely inspiring as it changed my perspective on writing. Most of my life I have been thinking of writing as finishing a task. An answer to a teachers question or filling out a form of sorts. Pipher has made me realise that the joy of writing comes from having something to say. Before I start writing I now start by asking myself. "What do I want to say?"
English 1A
On this page you can find information about my assignments from my six week English 1A online course at Pasadena City College. It has been a tough ride with the work load of the accelerated course crammed into six weeks but it also had the advantage of letting us truely dive into the subject of reading critically and composing well written text.
I often have a lot to say. In our book A writers Reference by Diane Hacker, I learned that I have to structure my writing in order for my readers to clearly understand my point. I also learned the value of sources. I compare sources with when I hear one of my friends make a blatant statement and I find myself asking them "where did you hear that?" For me sources are the same. We need them to lend authority to our argumments and to help us explore the subject that we feel passionate about. Until this course I have always used google or libraries to find sources but our teacher, Professor Ogden, urged us to use the PCC library database to find sources. At first I had to learn how to navigate it but once I found it it was almost addicting. The Opposite Views database was especially interesting to me because I am intrigued by how people look at the same subjects different ways. It was very helpful in understanding the debate of the usefullness of the No Child Left Behind Act that I was researching for an essay.
What do I want to say?
"The only source of knowledge is experience."
- Albert Einstein
Lastly I have become familiar with Reading Critically, Writing Well by Rise B. Axelrod. From a student's viewpoint writing is at first only about ensuring correct spelling, learning how to form a coherent essay with a thesis, body, and a conclusion. We concern ourselves with sources and grammar. The next and new step for me was learning how to design different kinds of essays. The essays that we studied and then attempted to write oureslves were: Timed essay, literacy narrative, autoboigraphy, argumantative essay, and problem solution essay.
What I have learned will benefit me in many ways in my life. First, I will be able to take english 1B as this class is a prerequisite, but more skill related is the knowledge learned that I can apply in my job. I feel more confident when corosponding through work emails. I am also in the process of writing nine vocal books. I have learned a lot about documenting work and structuring my writing for coherency which has given me the confidence to go through with the assignment. Lastly, the writing skills from this class will benefit me in all my other college classes. They all require some form of writing and I want to be clear and well understood in my ideas and arguments.
In the toolbar you will find the link to my SLO (Student Learning Outcome) Pages. Each describes my learning outcomes for this course and I have included an artifact that shows my understanding and application for each skill.
