1 Madeline Tate Mr.

Neuberger English 2 102-102 21 July 2012 Class Response Final When entering English II I was by no means thrilled. I was simply enrolled in the class because it was a general education requirement. When seeing my instructor for the first time I was shocked for some reason. His appearance reminded me that of my grandfather. As the days went on and I come to know him better his personality matched that of my grandfather as well. Mr. Neuberger is a truly caring man who wants the best for his students. His teaching methods were unordinary. I must say this man is much more technically inclined than the average teenager. This is definitely saying something in todays society. In this class we set up and utilized several different accounts including Blogger, Twitter, Easybib and Digo. Each of these accounts served a great purpose for the class. Each day when class began we would log into blogger, created a new post under our portfolio folder and wrote what Mr. Neuberger called a free write. There were three basic rules to the free write: Dont stop writing; dont worry about spelling and punctuation and lastly DONT STOP WRITING! This daily assignment proved to be beneficial. Looking back on my free writes I have greatly increased my word count. Not only did the free write assignments give me the opportunity to increase my word count but it served the purpose of a journal in my life. On the free writes I was able to express my feelings and tell all about the events that were happening in my life. It also served as a venting method for me. My favorite part

2 of the free write was searching for a picture to match my mood. Blogger in general was a great website that allowed each of us students the ability to submit assignments without the hassle of printing everything out. After being assigned readings I really liked how we used twitter as a discussion board. It gave everyone the opportunity to respond to the reading, leaving no one out on the discussion. Before this class I had heard a lot about twitter but had never personally had an account. The first tweet I posted made my day by allowing me to log into Facebook and tell all my people that I had just tweeted my first ever tweet! Sites such as Easybib and Digo were great for siting sources and shortening websites. Another resource that was very useful was our class test book called the class reference guide. Any questions I had about formatting I was able to refer to this resource. The resource was not cheap but I do believe that it served its purpose well and that I got my moneys worth of use out of it. After reading short stories from the class text book Power of Language, Language of Power we were assigned response papers. The response papers consisted of a oneparagraph response to the story. When first hearing the assignment it sounded like a breeze. After getting started on the assignment it was very time consuming. Meeting the requirements of the response paper wasnt easy. The length couldnt exceed 216 words while including a thesis statement along with two integrated quotes from each of the stories. After the response paper was returned I found that my hard work and writing had been butchered. One of the responses that I received from Mr. Neuberger was my writing was too wordy. I do realize I have this problem when writing and I have been working

3 extra hard to correct the bad habit I created. I enjoyed each of the short stories we were assigned they each had a great underlying meaning. During this course we were assigned a research assignment. When seeing the assignment I wanted to drop the class, no lies. I had never written a research paper with such great length before. Little did I realize after getting started it wasnt as hard as I expected. We were assigned the topic of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was an event that I had very little knowledge about. Any other research paper that I have been assigned in the past I was able to pick my very own topic. When I was given the opportunity to pick my own topic of course I picked one in which I was very knowledgeable about making it easier to write a paper. After writing a twelve-page research paper over the Holocaust I realize the true meaning of a research paper. Not only was I writing a paper to me the class assignment requirements but I was also gaining knowledge on a very important event in history. Being able to incorporate pictures into our research paper made it livelier while emphasizing the meaning of the paper. I do realize that Mr. Neuberger wanted best for his students and wanted to see each of them succeed but one thing about the class that was kind of frustrating was deadlines. Assignments were given and on the same day due dates were announced. With it being summer and not having a whole lot of time to complete assignments I do realize it can be hard. I was able to keep up with a 40-hour a week job and carry a full class load during the summer. At times it was very challenging but I was very proactive with each assignment. I had to have the mindset that everything was due the next day just so I would sit down and get the assignment done. On the other hand there were many in the class who choose to skip class for various reasons. After missing one three-hour class an individual is definitely

4 going to be behind. I believe that one of two things need to happen, assignments need to have a running deadline, meaning that an estimated time line should be given to the students of when an assignment should be completed but the assignments all need to be in by a certain set date. The alternative solution would be to give a penalty to those who turn papers in substantially late. I do realize that the summer course is rigorous but it is for all who take it not just some individuals. To me summer courses are a privilege and made for those who are more driven. If an individual is not willing to put in the time and effort I dont believe that they deserve the grade. Over all English II with Mr. Neuberger was a great course. Summer of 2012 was my first semester at Ozarks Technical Community College (OTC) and I have really enjoyed it and it has been a great experience. The classes were small in comparison to my classes at Missouri State University (MSU) where there are 200 plus students in a class. I have enjoyed my experience at OTC so much that I will be attending full time during the fall semester while also attending MSU. It is for the caring educators like Mr. Neuberger that makes my learning experience worthwhile.