Wednesday, September 5, 2012

 
In order to be able to even start the paper I had read the article on “TV’s Negative Influence on Kids Reaffirmed” over and over until I completely understood what Jeffery McCall was talking about and what point he was trying to make. After reading and understanding the article I was then asked if I agreed or disagreed with what he was saying and I also had to support my decision with facts.  In high school I had been asked to do this type of writing before, but I have never been asked to be as detailed as I was asked to be this time. Because of the fact that I had experienced this type of writing before I somewhat knew what I was doing and how I was going to start my paper. When I first began to write this paper I was just a little helpless freshman in college on the first day of my first ever rhetoric class, with that being said I was a little nervous and anxious. I think that this affected my writing because I was scared to mess up and I was afraid that Ms. Jarmer would be extremely strict on how she wanted my paper to be and I would be asked to leave the class.

                Before I even read the article or began to write the essay I knew that my audience would only be one person and that person would be Ms. Jarmer. That made me even more nervous than I was before because I was now making my first impression on somebody that knows nothing about me…and she was going to be judging me on how well I can write. I assume that Ms. Jarmer has read the article and knows about the topic fully. If I was asked to re-write this paper or if I even had the chance to re-write this paper I would do things a lot differently. I would have asked questions about the article that I was asked to read because now that I wrote a paper about it and had it graded I don’t think that I had a clear understanding on what Jeffrey McCall was trying explain to us. I also don’t think that I put enough time into my writing. I was writing to get done instead of writing to try and get accepted into a class. With that being said I think that I can say I wasn’t satisfied with the piece I had written and I need to change some things in the future.
Kamaren Cole
words 425

2 comments:

  1. Anxiety is a huge role in our poor writing. So I agree with you. We're so worried about the teachers overall decision that it's all were really concerned about. Not to mention given the pressure of writing a good essay to get in to the class or not is tough enough on us let alone the teacher. In high school which was 4 years ago for me I rarely did this type of writing but in grade school we did. Never did we ever have to be so detailed which was a huge flaw of mine. I was so lost in this paper I didn't even know where to start. I'm sure now though we will all calm down and be a little more stress free the more we write.

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  2. As if the first week of college wasn't enough to make someone emotionally unstable, this paper definitely did not help. I, like you, felt like the helpless little freshmen that had no idea what college would be like. In high school I could write my paper the day before and receive an A. We were never asked to find the thesis, without it being the first couple sentences of the paper. Everything about this assignment made me want to complete it even less. The thought of writing my first college paper and getting told it wasn't good enough, was terrifying. I knew it was serious, but for some reason the fear made me procrastinate. If I could do this essay for the second time, I don't think anything I would have done would be the same. Getting out of the same habbits I had in high school will probably be the hardest part of this class. Everything I was ever told is now the opposite. I'm still even intimidated by this next paper, but I hope by the end of this class that fear will be gone. My goal is no longer just to get an A, but to learn how to be a better writer.

    -karah
    206 words

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