ePortfolio / What I've Learned

This class has taught me much more than just how to write an essay.  It has taught me new ways to think about everything.  Before I came to this class I felt like I was stuck in the ways that my high school English teachers taught me, and quite frankly it has been holding me back in English classes since I started college.  This isn't your typical write a paper the way you're told to and receive an A, B, C,  D, or F kind of class.  This class required me to think way more critically then I ever have before in any English class.  We discussed some complex and difficult topics this semester and I found myself thinking farther and farther outside the box with each topic that came up.  I was constantly trying to force myself to go beyond the typical reasoning I would come up with for certain topics.  It worked quite well if I'm honest.  I even found myself using the skills I learned about thinking more critically and creatively in my every day life outside of the classroom.  I also learned that if I put my own opinions to the side sometimes, it can help me think clearer instead of my thought process being dominated by what I have always agreed with.  Now, this really helps me try to listen and understand other arguments that before I probably would have just attacked for being different from my views.  I think these skills that I learned from the way this class is structured will help me long after I finish taking English classes.  I have truly learned some valuable thinking skills that I can use for the rest of my life.

Image Source Link: http://www.gameplan-a.com/wp-content/uploads/fly-images/701/New-ways-of-learning-screen-shot-1440x9999.jpg

Rational Argument Paper

For our final paper in this class, we have to write a rational argument.  I have written many argumentative papers in the past where you either pick one side of the argument or the other.  However, this one is going to be different.  This kind of essay requires research into both sides of the argument and not necessarily choosing a side.  This is going to be a little challenging for me because I tend to be a very opinionated person and I am not afraid to admit that.  I am going to write about white hat and black hat hacking, and why each is dangerous, or not.  White hat hacking is basically hacking for "good" reasons.  While black hat hacking is hacking for "bad" reasons.  This is a broad topic and I will go into more detail later on, but I think this paper is going to be fun for me to write because this is something that relates to my future profession and it is super interesting to me.

Link to page the picture is from: http://clevercompute.blogspot.in/2015/09/types-of-hackers.html

"Post Election Stress"

People are acting like this election is literally the end of the world.  I understand that a lot of people obviously do not like the new President Elect, and that's okay and understandable.  However, he IS our next president now.  The only option this country really has is to rally behind him and stay hopeful that everything will work out.  I am constantly seeing people bash Trump, and I get it, but where I draw the line is people saying they don't want to identify as Americans anymore.  Are they serious???  Do they realize what they are saying???  This is absolutely 10000000% ridiculous.  How could you not want to be a part of this great country because of this?  One man can not change who you are as a person, stop acting like it will.  We need to come together as ONE nation, not millions of individuals who want to argue and cry about every little thing that doesn't go their way.  I am completely sick of this attitude that the world owes people something.  Sometimes you don't get what you want, or things don't go your way, but you know what?  MOVE ON!  Just keep going, don't let every little thing bother you so much to the point that you claim to not want to be an American anymore, which in my opinion is the one of the BEST things you can be!  I know this was kind of a very sporadic and random rant and I am not trying to offend anyone, but I just can't take everyone being babied so much.  Get fired up about this, but for the right reasons.  Let's act like adults, deal with what life gives us whether you think it is good or bad, and work TOGETHER for the best interest of our country instead of being individuals who are unwilling to open their minds and realize, this may not be as bad a situation as it seems.

Multimodal Presentation

This multimodal project really challenged me to think outside of the box.  When I started thinking of how I could make a video about my topic of favoring calling over texting, I had some trouble thinking of any ideas for a video.  I think the end result was fairly good at putting a comedic twist on my topic.  I feel like that is something I needed to do because I am not a very serious person most of the time, I love to laugh and be entertained so I thought I would attempt to entertain the class and try to make them laugh a little.  I think I succeeded in doing that.  One of the key things I can take away from this project is that a meme can speak volumes on a topic.  As funny as that may sound, it is absolutely true, when you pair a funny picture with the right type of music I think it really helps get your point across.  I hope you all enjoyed it, and I will provide a link to the YouTube video so you can look at it again or see my sources which are in the description of the video if you wish to do so.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/hgJ80gqCO9Y

"Text to Text | Colin Kaepernick’s National Anthem Protest and Frederick Douglass’s ‘What to the Slave is the 4th of July?’" Reflection

The article  "Text to Text | Colin Kaepernick’s National Anthem Protest and Frederick Douglass’s ‘What to the Slave is the 4th of July?’"  by  Kate Harris and Tracey Barrett, does a fairly good job of investigating the reasoning behind Kaepernik taking a knee and causing so much controversy throughout our country.  The authors of this article provide excerpts from other writings regarding this type of issue, and try to relate them back to the current situation of people choosing to kneel during the national anthem.  Let me start out by saying that I 100% DO NOT support this in any way shape or form.  Now, I understand where the argument is coming from, and I understand it is their right to do this, but in my opinion, just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should.  I especially do not support this kneeling during the national anthem spreading to high school athletes.  I feel like for the most part they are doing it because they see celebrities doing it, not because it is something they actually believe in and I think this is wrong of them.  I just don't see how someone could kneel during the national anthem, sometimes even right in front of member of our military holding a flag.  To me that is blatant disrespect.  I think a better alternative to this could be a whole team walking out arm in arm displaying unity instead of having just a few individuals who want to be just that, individuals who aren't willing to unify the country, but instead push us farther into a divide.  These are just my opinions take it or leave it.

What I've Learned

I have learned quite a bit while working on this documentary summary paper.  One of the major things that I have learned is that writing a paper is about more than just getting a good grade.  I have never dealt with the "holistic" grading system before.  I think this system is better than just having a set rubric that is the same for everyone.  Grading this way gives credit for the effort put forth from the very beginning stages of the paper all the way to the final draft.  It will show your professor how much effort you have put forth to improve yourself as a writer from where your first draft started.  It grades you on more than just being able to write the way teachers tell you to.  It also grades you in your ability to understand why and how these processes are important and how you use them in your essays.

I have a few things I need to do to improve my summary project.  I know there are parts in there that are too long and can be left out.  I have a really bad habit of going on and on when writing summaries as I have mentioned in a prior blog post.  I also have a lot of past and present tense issues in my paper right now.  I was using past tense way too often, and now I need to change those past tense words to present tense.  I also think I might have analyzed the documentary in some areas where I should not be doing that at all in this paper.  I know for sure from quickly reading through some areas that I have run on sentences that can be shortened and or made into separate sentences.  There are also a few gray areas from the film that I might need to explain some more as well.  Overall I think it is a strong summary, but it isn't perfect yet.

Lewis' Parking Problem

Its no secret that Lewis has a HUGE parking problem.  My first class is at 8am MWF so I pretty much always get a spot.  I get to campus on those days around 7:40 just to make sure I get a parking spot in the lot I want to park in.  If I arrive any later than 7:50, there are literally no spaces left.  There is really only one good way to solve this problem, which is to build parking lots up.  What I mean by that is build multi level parking garages.  There really isn't a whole lot of room to build outwards for most of the parking lots on campus that I typically use.  The only logical thing to do is to go up instead.  I know they would be able to afford it with how much they charge for a parking permit, and how many students have to buy one.  So I say building up is the answer to all of our parking problems.

Documentary Summary Project

This weekend I typed a rough draft of our documentary summary project.  It was honestly harder than I expected it to be.  I chose the documentary film titled Who Killed the Electric Car?.  This decision was pretty much a no brainer for me because I am a huge car guy.  The documentary was super interesting, I didn't even know electric cars existed before the ones I have seen for the last ten years or so.  The documentary was about a hour and a half long and contained a ton of information, facts, and stories from a lot of people who were involved in the electric car field during the late 90's and early 2000's.  The hardest thing for me was trying to be concise when summarizing the documentary, because I tend to have a bad habit of rambling on when I write, especially in summaries, and with that being said I'll stop here.

Something that has really been bothering me lately is the ongoing disrespect and war on police officers in the United States.  Police officers make the ultimate sacrifice every single day to keep us safe.  They say goodbye to their families every day not knowing if that would be the last time they will ever see them again.  For people to be just killing random innocent police officers because they are upset about an incident that happened with another police officer is absolutely insane.  Taking that police officer's life when he had nothing to do with what you are upset about is the most cowardly act.  It actually disgusts me.  Now, I am not trying to sit here and say there is no such thing as a bad police officer, because there absolutely is and those officers should be punished appropriately, but the vast majority of police officers in this country are great at their job and their number one focus is to serve and protect the community in which they work.  I constantly try to find ways to thank police officers I see for their service, and I recommend you do the same, because they deserve to be recognized, not shunned.

The "This is Water" video really stuck with me after we watched it in class the other day.  It is a semi comedic approach to a real issue that everyone fights with on the inside from time to time.  The images and words spoken together really made the video interesting to watch and although it is a generally short video I found myself watching and listening attentively for every second it was on.  This video makes you understand the importance of just taking a step back from everything serious and think of things differently for a change.