conclusion

This was my first time using blogs in English class to communicate and share ideas with classmates. and I thought that was really successful. Although I failed to post something on a blog everyweek, I thought it was a really good opportunity to communcate with classmates especially for people who does not like to talk much in class. Another advantage of the blog project was that I not only improved my English writing by writing everyday but also by reading others' posts, I learned about many advertisments, politics and social lives of the US.

Where my paper is going.

My paper is going along fine. Since our last post, I have been to the councelling center for Law at the Lincoln Building's room 270 where I was able to obtain lots of useful information on the different kinds of majors offered at the University of Illinois for someone who is interested in Law. I was also able to obtain information on the differenkinds of classes offered for students to obtain this major. In the beginning of this project, I started ooff with the question of what posssible Law majors are there and whether the path or major you choose can make the differenc in deciding what Law school you get into or whether your sucessful. Since I planed to major in Psychology, I also wanted to focus on what impact this major could have in the future as I went to Law school. Would the things I learned in this area of study be helpful in some of the skills and traits which are necessary for a lawyer. Through my research, I have found much more than I expected. I was able to find information on why it is that people tend to take the paths which they take. I also have learned that the University of Illinois offers up to 57 different majors for pre- law students so there is a lot of flexibility in the area in which you choose. I also learned that the major which students typically choose, relates to the kind of Lawyer which they want to become. In my case, I found out that Psychology who most be use by a criminal lawyer or family conflict lawyer, one who handles divorce or custody. I haven't really been able to find books other than the ones that are instructional and advisory but I have been able to advise from students both in pre-law and those in Law school. This has been an interesting project experience since I am learning some of what I've always wanted to know. - AveMaria Okolo

Comments about Blogger

Who would’ve thought that searching almost anywhere was a skill required? Obviously, it has been important for our continuous blog posts on the class blogger. Yes, I can say that I have done more analyzing than ever before. The many different posts have opened my eyes to many things. Not only has it been improving for me, but it also seems the same for fellow students in the class as well. It was quite intriguing to look into the interests of others while exploring those of my own. The blogs were sometimes the spot to even brainstorm potential topics, not particularly for this class but maybe another. Writing is one thing, but looking at visuals seems to increase my writing much more. We simply started with the 10 things I observe. This particular blog post has been a way to transfer those subjects in my subconscious mind to my conscious mind, in a sense. Then from there, I was basically a mini investigator looking for the most interesting yet hidden things that existed. At first, I wanted to choose topics not so obvious, but over the weeks it has become completely natural to write. My objective became to analyze a subject that I supported or one I wasn’t so much a big fan of. It wasn’t simply writing in a journal; it was more like improving my academic writing. I didn’t feel pressured to use “impressive” writing that may not make any sense what so ever or just wasn’t my writing style. This was a pretty smart idea, and it should be continuously used maybe for your other classes, Jon:)

~Krystal Wilson

Conclusion

Due to my sense of optimism, I try to find something “good” in most situations. The question at hand is do I believe that the blog was helpful? I can honestly answer this question with a yes not just because of my optimistic views, but because I see a difference in my writing overall. I can say it was helpful as a result of my writing improving tremendously within this class and in others. At first I though the blog assignment was just another assignment but later I found joy in doing in. I enjoyed writing a blog so much that I even began doing it independently. I believe writing a blog was helpful to me because it was good practice to just freestyle and create work that could be informal, fun, and most of all creative. The blog assignment also introduced me to reading my classmates writing and learning how other people think, analyze, and interpret things. In essence the blog was quite interesting. To particularly focus on the work that I have done I can say that I tried to “think outside the box”. I was calmer and relaxed to write because it is so different than traditional academic writing. I have written about various advertisements, thing I observed in the world, buildings on campus and off, political cartoons, and the comics that is found in newspapers. The first blog was designed to get us thinking about this blog project, so we wrote about ten things I notice mainly on campus and in the area. I like the way the first assignment was specific because it allowed us to be creative when given a prompt as well as when writing freely. One of my favorite blogs is about advertisement which I would have believed was the most cliche. It wasn't though, I found an ad on the internet and analyzed it in detail. I used this same analyzing and detail throughout the semester. Now that the blog has ended I can reflect on the accomplishments and be encouraged to continue write for my own leisure.

-Tawana Daniels

My Time On The Blog

This blog was a cool thing this semester. I liked the fact that we all had one blog page because I have never done this within another class before. The only problem is that I struggle with analyzing things such as pictures, readings, and advertisements in a rhetorical matter. Within this aspect, I wish I were a better writer, and better at noticing more than what I visually in front of me. I just think that when I am not highly interested in something, I tend to do average. I have tried to break this chain because my senior year English teacher in high school and my first semester Rhet teacher have told me that I write better when I tend to relate the topic to myself. Also, I think that the idea of the particular blog posts we had to write about had more to do with general ideas, instead of the main focal points of this class. Even though, I was not as enthusiastic about writing in this blog, I had a good time reading what my classmates wrote. It gives me an inside look as to how my peers process their thoughts into their writing. I think that the future students who will take this course will appreciate the things that they will learn, and carry it with them forever. I will do the same. Overall, great teacher + great class = great semester!

-Farrah Janvier

Final Comments on Blogger

I really enjoyed writing blogs for this class. Not only was a fun experience, but I also got to see real life applications of the writing and the English world used in everyday things. You always hear people ask, "When am I ever going to use this?" when it comes to some facets of school work, but by doing a blog every week, it made us aware of our surroundings and how writing is used in all aspects of life. You couldn't be oblivious to the outside world, but instead had to pay attention to your surroundings to see how text was used on an everyday basis. Another reason I enjoyed doing the blog was because it gave me the opportunity to learn more about my classmates. Searching for text every week showed what people's interests are and what they pay attention to whenever they are outside of school and the classroom. It also allowed me to take interests in what others found intriguing about text. Some posts about what people had found over the past week were quite eye-opening. Some of the posts, I would never have realized writing was part of their post. I recommend continuing to use this aspect of class for your future classes. It isn't a lot of extra work because you just have to pay attention to the outside world and it can be done by simply looking around when you are walking to your next class. Text is everywhere in this world and is very important. This blog allowed us to act on our curiosity and form opinions on the meanings of the text we had found during our explorations.

-Thomas Callahan

That's Blogtastic!

I think that this part of the course was something the entire class could have gained so much from, but not all of us (myself included) chose to do so. I'll admit that most of my blogs were pretty rushed, and that my favorite was probably the first one I wrote because I actually thought about that one for a substantial amount of time before I wrote it. I do not think that has to do with your emphasis on the blogs or teaching style at all. I think it had more to do with my general issues with academics this semester, which coincide with many freshman on campus. Many factors around the university cause academics to sort of be pushed to the side during this first year, but in general most come out of that slide to find a medium that is beneficial for all parties. I think that we could learn a lot from an activity such as this. Maybe that is because I enjoy writing, anytime I put thoughts down on some sort of creative medium usually results in a better understanding of the topic as a whole, as well as my opinion on such a topic. The visual aspect was great as well because it is something not everyone thinks about, and it was a message that grabbed me throughout the course. Rhetoric does not end with words, everything around is can be considered rhetoric in one way or another. In other words, great activity, great class, hopefully more students appreciate it in the future.

Sincerely,

Brad Vonck

Coming to an End...

As I looked at the previous posts I had done throughout my semester; I noticed that I had improved on analyzing a certain subject. Even though I still continue to struggle with sometime making a valid rhetoric analysis. Still, I believe that these exercises I learned how just not to talk about what was going on in the photograph, song, or short video clip. Just by being able to write about what we see and what that means has helped me during the writing process of my paper. Now, I am able to explain how give a clearer explanation in my writing. Since I am exercising my writing skills about 3-4 times a week. I really liked the new addition of the blog compared to last semester because it allows me to look at an image in the world and analyze it. I liked how we did not have any real direction in the blog, but we were just told to come up with a deeper meaning then just describing it. Like what is the purpose of this building and how that affects society.
Overall I truly enjoyed this class; I liked how that I started to improve on my writing. This is the first time that I felt that I got good critisim on my writing and I'm learning how to change that. I believe that the writing assignments, reading assignments, and papers were sometimes better it was only for my own good. Thanks for making writing as fun as possible with the paper topics. THANKS AGAIN JON!

- Sophia Damtew

Final Post

The blog assignment is perhaps one of the most fun and out of the box assignments i have ever had in any of my writing classes. This I say with all truthfullness. many aspects of these little assignments made it enjoyable for me. for instance serching through the internet to find one interesting image gave me the opertunity to see plenty of images that either i found hilarious at the time or that really shocked and made a deep inpact upon me. an example of this would be the street sign blog that i posted which was related to imigration which was kind of funny I admit but wrong in so many ways. another aspect of the blog assignment I enjoyed was actually writing my opinion on what I thought it ment and how I thought it was relevent. this allowed me to exprece myself and think critically about things i normally would just ignore. the final aspect that really made the blogs worth while was reading what other people had found. Actually i think this was my favorite part of the entire class.

-Fernand

Semester Blog

Doing a blog every week was tough for me. I like the idea of the concept that everyone can read everyones, and somewhat get to know eachothers personality a little bit. The part of this assignment that I didn't like was finding interesting images with rhetoric. I think it would be better if there was some type of prompt. But not a prompt from a reading. Maybe just a prompt that says go here and look at this or go to this website and give us your thoughts. It was tough for me to find interesting images because the only camera I have on campus is a disposable camera...not great for posting online. I often found myself just looking for images online instead of getting out there on campus and looking. I think that the internet makes it too easy compared to finding our own images. I really did like posting on a blog, but I would like to post about a different subject. Overall I think the blog post should be kept in this course.

Isaiah

Final Blog

I have kind of mixed feelings about the blog assignments. I feel like they were good in the fact that it was a different kind of writing, more informal and you didn't have to worry about having to do structured writing which is big for me because I hate to do that. I think it helped me quite a bit in actually analyzing pictures, text, or anything you see visually and actually dig a little deeper and really find new ways to look at things. I think it somewhat carried over into the classroom setting and into our papers. On the other hand it was kind of hard for me at first to find good visual text and have something to write about. Traditionally it has been hard for me to be good at analyzing anything that isn't really straight forward. Sometimes I found it hard to come up with very much to say about certain visual text and spend alot of time trying surfing the net or walking around to find something worth writing about. However, I do feel that this was a good experience for me and helped me become a better writer.

-Will

Blogger Reflection

When we first started to do the blogs on Blogger, I was lost and didn't what to do and as a result, I waited until someone posted something up and look what they had done then find similar things. I realized it does help me in terms of discovering the meaning or the messages hidden inside the picture or message itself. However, although I can try to see or understand the deeper message inside, finding a way to express it and write it on Blogger is a whole different story. Sometimes I know what the images or pictures are trying to say but I just can't seem to find the right word to describe it. But overall, it is fun and interesting seeing what people put up but I just don't feel that Blogger is effective enough. It does get you to think critically and by having us put up a weekly post helps us to think of it critically and also how to put it down on paper. However, I just find it tedious and never seem to look forward to it. Maybe that is because I have to go out and find the actual blogs myself.
Thinh

Better Writer

Have the blogs affected my ability to interpret the visual materials? Yes definitely. I believe that by doing small blogs i improved my skill of research and explication. One of the reasons for that is the fact that blogs forced me to look at objects from a critical perspective. I remember doing this one blog where i was looking on an image of 8 year old kid with machine gun and a teddy bear backpack. I was fascinated with the external conflict between those two items. I found that there is more to visual art than meets the eye. But what i regret and contemplate oftentimes as foolish is an extent to which we had to look into details of things and reconstruct them instead of accepting them for what they are.
Did blogs made me a better writer? I don't know. There is more to being a writer than the ability to write, in my own personal view. I know though that blogs gave me practice necessary in order to achieve that destination.
What i like above all is probably the process of publishing a blog. Starting from scratch and building a cohesive argument, providing visual and textual support. I look back and see the evolution of my writing. Then i can look on what i have improved on, and what i have to strengthen. And overall it was a fun easy experienced that did not require me to sweat my ass of with all the other classless on the back of m mind :)
Valera Chekmazov

"Bling"

by: Jackie G.


In our society there are quite a few unwed mothers/parents out there. Even though this is as common as a leaf falling from a tree now a days people still seem to be completely amazed by it. I actually found this image on another bloggers page ( . this is the website in case you want to check it out yourself), and this person seemed to be completely disgusted as am I, from the billboards context. This is what the other blogger had to say "I ran across this billboard during a recent trip to north-central Iowa. I don’t think there are words that can describe how I feel about its message or its design, so I present it to you as a “moment of Zen” if you will." I'm just shocked to know that this is not a phony billboard and that they actually send these types of messages out to people. This image makes pregnancy seem like a horrible thing that a woman should be ashamed to be. NO ONE should be able to decide for a man/woman when the right or wrong time to have sex is. The government especially should not be able to make those or even advertise those types of decisions.

Virtual Haircut?

One day when i was on Youtube looking at new videos, i came across this one!  I used it with my headphone and it sure does make you feel like you are getting a haircut.  As the person talks, you feel or have a sense of where they are.  I listened in carefully and figured that they manipulate the sound, basically have background music or the kind of background noise one would hear at a barber shop on one side of the ear then amplify the person voice talking on the ear but not too much that it hurts the ear.  It also made me realize that one can mimic the sound of a plastic bag being put over someone's head by using static noises.  If you guys have time..Check it out!  -Thinh