So here it is, the final Works In Progress post of the year and of this class L
Let me start off by saying that I have thoroughly enjoyed these two semesters and I am truly going to miss this course, at least my classmates and of course the awesome Billy Saas (I think I can do without the work). I really enjoyed the two semester set-up because that allowed me time to get settled and develop a closer relationship with the prof and the other students in the class than I would have had it been only one semester. This closeness is very valuable and not always easy to find at a university with 40,000+ students and I feel really lucky to have had such a wonderful experience my first two semesters at PSU.
I must admit that English has never been my strongest point. I did just fine in high school but most of the time I didn’t really enjoy doing the work because most of it felt the same to me: read a book, write and essay, read another book, write another essay. This would be why, when senior year rolled around, I opted to take two different semester-long courses with various focuses instead of the A.P literature course.
This would be why the first day of this class I was intimidated. I hadn’t taken a serious English class in more than two years and I didn’t know if my writing would be up to par with others in the class or with what would be expected of me, especially knowing that it was an honors course. I decided after our ice breaker on the first day when Billy asked us , who we would punch in the seconds before dying if we were falling off a building, that I should probably stick with the class. I have never, in the past 8 months or so regretted this decision. I may have groaned a few times (okay maybe a few more than that) with each new writing assignment we were given and yet I made it through each and every one of them. I even enjoyed writing most of them. I found them challenging and I will admit that before this class I had never written a paper longer than five pages so eight seemed pretty ominous. To be honest, eight pages still seems ominous when I think about writing them but I have learned that when I take the time to sit down, plan out, do research and write, the pages flow out of my fingers as they hit the keys on my laptop (this is if I like what I am writing about).
This leads me back to the assignments themselves. I greatly appreciated the variety of assignments this course offered. It wasn’t just, read a book, write and essay. The first semester my favorite assignments were the paradigm shift paper and the video project. I enjoyed these because they were the biggest challenges of the semester and thus the most rewarding. I had a tough time writing the shift paper and I wasn’t 100% satisfied with it when I turned it in. Even so, I think it was a testament to how my writing had developed throughout the first semester.
I took great pleasure in the video project for several reasons. 1) I had a FANTASTIC group. This was by far the best group project experience I have had to date. Everyone worked hard and cared about the finial product. We wanted to make an excellent video, not just something to turn in. 2) It was a learning experience. Excellent work takes time. Boy did we put it in. The hours spent at the library were long and sometimes tiring but they were also a lot of fun. 3) I also learned that group work does not have to be evil (at least not all of the time) and that it can be incredibly rewarding.
If I don’t cut myself off I will just keep writing and before I know it, this post will be longer than my persuasive essay. I am going to try and round out my thoughts but I realized in writing this that I have so much to say so bear with me a little longer.
If I could sum this course up in a few sentences I would say this: RCL 137H and 138T has greatly shaped my first year as a college student. It was most likely the most challenging class of my first two semesters and thus extremely rewarding. It has helped me develop my writing skills and personal writing style. It has also helped me to become more confident in my writing ability and made me want to push myself to continue to improve.
As much as I loved this course I do think it could be improved. I would love to see more speeches added to the curriculum. Although this might sound like a death-trap to some, I see the value in learning how to stand up and speak in front of people. Although we got some practice, in retrospect, I feel we would have benefitted from more speech assignments as well as more training and practice.
Another thing I felt could be improved would be more technology training. We were given some training in the library with the research assistant, the one button room and podcasting. These are very valuable and I am thankful for having been exposed to them. The thing we lacked was I-movie training. I say this because we didn’t get any training for this and this is the medium we had to use for our video projects. It would have been great to know more about I-movie and its basic functions before jumping right into the project.
So I think I am going to cut myself off here.
I’ll miss you guys next semester and I wish you all the best of luck in your studies. Hopefully our paths will cross again!