Guidlines for Final Reflection Letter
1) Titling affects who will read what I have wrote; therefore a title is important in reaching out to a specific or broad audience.
2) The feedback I write can be very useful to others so take the time to fully list the streghts and problems in the person’s paper and fully expand on your reasoning with details and suggestions.
3) Linking with number 2, the feedback I recieve can be very beneficial. I should be open-minded to what someone else has to offer me becuase in essence this is my audience and what they think or interpret my words as, might be the same as someone else so their thoughts are important.
4) I have learned to organize my points better. Switching around paragraphs and sentences can help reogranize my thoughts into understandable peices rather than just throwing my ideas on the paper when they come into my mind. A lot of times my ideas connect with one another but they are in seperate parts of my paper because I wrote them in the order that I thought of them rather than creating an outline of my thoughts and putting them in an organized order.
Finishing The Wall
We are going to finish the movie now to see how our opinions have changed and to keep the conversation going. We all were discussing how confused we were at first then we wrote a paper on the topic and the conversation ended. It’s a good time to reopen it and see what else we can get out of it, and how many different perspectives there are.
The relevance it has for us now is we are going through a war of our own, maybe not one that is as involved but maybe the same feelings are lingering?
Disagree Posts
I disagree with Metalcircus’ post the most mainly because they said, “should be relying more on other students for help, and this is a major networking tool that is not being widely used at Umass. ” [metal circus] I don’t think we should have to rely on other students for help. I do think it can be a good thing but it shouldn’t be something we need ro have our writing grow. I think personal growth can come from experience and feedback even if it is just from the teacher. I think this Wiki is a good way to get feedback but it’s a price to pay, to learn and go through all of these steps, rather tahn just switching hard copies from class to class.
Something I did not like was, someone said, ” The fear of thinking your being too cruel or maybe to kind to someones paper is alleviated by using blogs” [shorty763] I dont think any feedback should be cruel, and maybe people will be less constructive and maybe crueler knowing they can hide behind a username.
I still also dont understand why we can’t do this same exact work on paper, most people are saying how using the internet is easier but I think switching papers back and forth would give us good feedback if not better. I know when I read the paper for feedback I gave it more time, instead of when I read things online and I get distracted and I’m constantly staring at a computer scream. A junior said, “Writing as a Communication because it is a written text, the reader learns something from it and takes the knowledge they already have, pertaining to how students have previously guided through the internet, they try to interpret it and can critic the written work.” [confusioniseasy] I don’t see how they made any point at how the text online is better than traditional written text?
In addition I don’t see how we do need the opinions from other classes, or why it has to be online and we have to learn all these new things, when class time could be better used to explain the assignment rather than how to navigate to it. “ Some assignments involved trans class collaboration, implying Steph’s belief in a more communication and dialogue oriented structure rather than just a standard teacher-student phenomenon.” They gave no evidence as to why we needed the trans class collaboration, yes for feedback, but why between classes and why do we need the internet to do this? [RocketsRedFlair]
Metal Circus “Oh, You Know, Summary, Analysis, Political Stance”
Weblog Posting
U of Massachusetts 31 October 2007
Shorty763 “I love the smell of critiquing in the morning”
Weblog Posting
U of Massachusetts 1 November 2007
Confusioniseasy “Opinions”
Weblog Posting
U of Massachusetts 1 November 2007
RocketsRedFlair “A safe internet addiction, to the UMass Wiki”
Weblog Posting
U of Massachusetts 1 November 2007
Ghost Writer..Good or Bad?
I agreed most with KMB04′s post called “There is always pros and cons”
I feel that there is a point to this UMassWiki but I almost feel that we are using the majority of our time learning how to use all the technical internet stuff. I feel like this class is a mix of writing and computer applications and I see pro’s and cons to the situation. “However in an intensive writing class like this I think that maybe we should focus a little more on the actual act of writing rather than spending entire class periods learning how to get around the UmassWiki website.” [KMB04] I don’t feel like this is the class I signed up for and I am really learning what I would really like to learn but I appreciate the possibility of learning something new and expanding my technological knowledge. I also see the benefits of having my work posted for many to read. It allows me to gain a lot more feedback than I would in a traditional classroom. I’m not only receiving feedback from my teacher and classmates at my level but students that are in between, The benefit of the juniors giving feedback is I would probably regard their feedback higher than my own classmates becase I’m not trying to figure out who the person is or judging them by what I’ve seen in class.
Also I liked Ciaobellla’s “Feedback-Freshman” because it re-iterated my point how anonymous feedback is probably the best; when they talked about the blogs and posts being conversations, and a quick way to calrify points if needed… “The use of the blogs and the wiki creates an ongoing conversation between bloggers.” [Ciaobellla] Comments are ussually friendly and aren’t meant to discourage you so they are usually helpful.
Balderdash1′s “Responding to the response on my response” Explains how some people would not like their writing to be read. “I know, being a introverted person, that I would be mortified to have my writings shared with others.”[Balderdash1] I do agree with this so an extent because I feel like my writing will become a little inhibited when I know it will be shared with such a large audience. I would be less llikely to connect things to my own life. Also if anyone is like me they are constantly trying to figure out who each person and, so I do not feel like I truly am annonymous. Esspecially since I already know who each blogger is in my own class.
My favorite post was that of Hippo86 “the devil-wiki” because it opened my eyes the most. I think by doing this anonymously also can backfire because what is it setting us up for? If we can’t take criticism from someone then how well are we going to do in our future careers. Is there never going to be a boss that critiques performance, or for my career, parents that confront teachers? I think it mide be sheltering us from something that is inevitable and that is learning to deal with feedback face-to-face and being able to get something from it. They state this clearly when they said, “If we can’t benefit from feedback in a formal setting now, and heavily depend on a response coming from ‘Casper’, then we are not properly preparing ourselves for what the future holds for us; for the real world.” [Hippo86] Getting used to this system of anonymity(?) can in a way hurt us.
KMB04 “There is always pros and cons”
Weblog posting.
U of Massachusetts. 30 October 2007
http://kmb04.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/there-is-always-pros-and-cons/
Ciaobellla “Feedback-Freshman”
Weblog posting.
U of Massachusetts. 30 October 2007
http://ciaobelllla.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/ff-feedback-freshmen/
Balderdash1 “Responding the response on my response”
Weblog posting.
U of Massachusetts. 30 October 2007
http://balderdash1.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/responding-to-the-response-on-my-response/
Hippo86 “the devil wiki”
Weblog posting.
U of Massachusetts. 30 October 2007
http://hippo86.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/the-devil-wiki/
Peer Editing
Steph noted that I needed a lot more details in my responses. I would tell the writer to improve then be very vague on what exactly to improve on. If I just tell them that there were small mistakes and I fail to explain each of them, then I’m not really helping. Next time I edit a paper I’m going to take examples from the text to show which part I’m talking about.
Steph noticed that I found the writers intention and commended them on making that come through in their paper. I stated that the introduction made you feel like you got to know Marco and it made you want to befriend him which was the point of these introductions. It was very clear that he was showing Marco in a positive light and he strayed away from saying anything negative about the person and I noticed that.
There was one section I was asked to improve on and that was when I wrote about the strengths of the paper and gave no specificity. I said “He sticks to a common theme” but I never said what that theme was and why is was a positive. Then I referred to the humor of the people and I just said that I liked it, I didn’t say why or in which parts.
In conclusion if I put more detail into my responses and backed up my thoughts with evidence from the text then my peer editing skills will improve and hopefully be of some use to the writer.
Are You Dare?
Do You Dare? –> Do you take risks?
Are you Daring? –> Do you go beyond the norm?
Daring? –> What is daring to you?
You Dare? –> Are you ready for this?
Dare –> A challenge for the reader
Soitos
Andrew, Christine N, Wing
Feelings/thoughts
-a little monotonous, the point was clearly across yet the author was still repeating the same information.
-it was an interesting argument
-it’s becoming socially acceptable for guys to care about clothing
Effect on Reader
-Made you aware of the trend/reporting information
-Made you observant to your surroundings and see if in fact the text is true
Clear Sense?
-Very clear on point and theme
-Gave many examples to back up their findings
Strategies to Borrow?
-Use of popular culture as evidence
-Quotes as evidence to support points
-Very clear with points, easily comprehended
Art Objects
The author does research by going around Amsterdam and looking at all the galleries she could and she stares at paintings looking for different interpretations. She stimulates my mind because I can relate to toe steps she was saying when she talked about where her mind went when she was looking at art. That is probably the succession I would go through if someone made me look at a painting for an hour. Also I am uninterested in art liek she is. I haven’t had my”Eureka” I want to go find and appreciate art moment yet, but I was am in her originial situation. I was particularly struck when she talked about how she looked at people who didn’t appreciate art as ignorant and was unhappy that she herself was one of those people at one point. That made me believe that maybe I am ignorant to a lot of things and my lack of an open mind towards art is causing this ignorance.
Biographies
I was one of the chosen ones whse biography was read to th class. My initial reaction was a little negative at first because I wasn’t sure I wanted the whole class knowing these little details abot my life. As i thought about it more I remembered that this paper is posted on the web and is public to everyone anyways. Also I thought it was good becuase this paper showed the contrast of my first impression to my real personality. It was a good way for people to get to know me beyond what I looked like. I did think a little more notice would have been better but that was my fault becuase I didn’t check my comments on the wiki. In defense of someone else who would’ve been not okay with sharing with the class I did feel a little pressured because my paper was planned for the class and I didn’t want to ruin anything.
