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Jeannie McGarity |
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As I look back on my semester of English 1102 with Professor Raynie, I can see that I have come a long way since English 1101. I have learned that there is always room for improvement and revising. No literary work is ever complete. It can always be made even better. There are many things that I never took into consideration previous to taking this course. I have definitely learned to prioritize my homework better and more efficiently. The first paper that Dr. Raynie assigned to our class was an argument essay. An important thing that I kept in mind when choosing my topic was to chose something that I am passionate about. The more passionate you are about a certain cause the better that you can argue it. I chose to argue for the spaying and neutering of animals since I have very strong opinions about this topic. However, I learned that you should not use your opinion to argue something. You are more likely to get your point across if you have solid evidence. I think that this assignment really helped to teach me how to get my point across which I can also use in real- life situations. Our second assignment was to do a research paper. It was not just a simple research paper where you look something up and summarize facts about it. We had to actually research a conspiracy theory that we had not formed an opinion about yet. This completely caught me off guard and intimidated me at first. I knew that I would really have my work cut out for me in trying to combine all of the evidence and really evaluate it for my paper. I chose to write about the moon hoax theory. I never realized how big of a conspiracy theory it really was until I started researching it. It was very interesting and I learned a lot on the topic. My opinion that was formed was that the Moon landing really did occur. There was just so much evidence to back it up. I gained a lot from doing this assignment and am now very thankful that I had to do it. This ended up being my best paper of the semester. I chose to use it for the website that we had to make for the end of the semester. In the middle of the semester we started reading the novel, Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut. It was written in 1952. It definitely is not a book that I would have chosen to read in my spare time, but I had to given that it was my assignment. Reading for school has never been a strong point for me because interpreting different meanings of books has always been difficult. I have problems trying to find the different meanings of things and symbols. It helped a lot that we discussed the book in class because it helped me to understand it much better. There are just so many different things that I would not normally notice or think of when reading a book unless someone pointed it out to me. The novel led to another assignment, which was a literary exegesis. This made the research paper seem like a piece of cake. It had to be the hardest paper that I had ever written in my life. I think that Dr. Raynie got a kick out of how nervous everyone was about the paper. Haha!! Professor Raynie was very good at assigning things that really put our cognitive thinking skills to the test. Another project that we had was to make our own website and have our favorite paper posted on there with all of the steps of the writing process. I chose to use my Moon Hoax paper because I thought that it was my best one. I made and A on that paper and was very proud of it. On my website you can find my outline, rough draft, annotated bibliography, and my final copy from the paper. I also put some jokes and pictures on my website to have it personalized more. This was my first time ever creating a website, so it was definitely challenging for me. Along with my personal web page, I also had to create a group magazine. Two other students from my class and I came up with an idea for a magazine geared towards women and saving money. With the economy being so tough right now it just seemed like the perfect magazine. I personally read those kinds of magazines so this web page really interested me. It was very neat working with the two other girls because we were all a decade apart in age. One of them was still a teenager, I was in my late twenties, and then the third girl was in her thirties. It was very cool to put all of our different ideas together. I think that our magazine turned out very well and if it were a real magazine, it could appeal to women of different age groups since it was created by women of different ages. The project that I stressed the most about was our power point presentation. I had never done one of these before so I was super- nervous. It was bad enough when I found out that we were going to have to stand up in front of the class, but when I found out that it was a power point presentation the nerves really started getting to me. Looking back now, I do not know why I was so nervous. It was not that bad at all. The power point program was so simple to use and I think that I did a pretty good job setting mine up, especially for being a first timer. I kept it simple and did not venture out into the complicated and extra flashy world of power points. We were asked to make handouts to go along with our presentations, which I really liked because now I have a good amount of handouts to use as study guides for the final exam. I was still super nervous about actually standing up in front of the class to do my presentation, but once I got up there my nerves went away. I think the fact that Professor Raynie had us all participate in group projects and discussions throughout the semester helped me to be more at ease with talking in front of everyone. We still have one more major assignment and that is the final exam. I am slightly nervous about that but have been studying my notes so hopefully I will do well on it. I really liked this class and have learned a lot from it. The more difficult assignments actually helped me to grow as a writer and in my thinking skills. I think that Dr. Raynie knows this and really wants for all of his students to do well in life and that’s why he assigns these “thinking projects”. I have learned that I need to have more confidence in my papers because every time that I thought I did poorly on a paper, I actually made an A or a B. I really had to take a step out of my comfort zone with the power point presentation but it helped me to grow as a student. Now if I ever have to create one of those presentations again, I already know how to. I really enjoyed this semester and think that dr. Raynie is an excellent English professor.
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