Hardesty

Joshua Hardesty Mr. Neuburger English 102-106 16 May 2012 Final Essay: Reflections of Composition II This is my third time attempting English Composition II, and this has been my most successful attempt yet. In my previous attempts the class just dove into writing the research papers. Whereas, in this class we started with the one paragraph summaries and then we wrote the one page essays. I liked doing these one page essays the most because, we had time to work up to the large research paper and helped build my confidence with my writing. I liked how you introduced the research paper with the video A Film Unfinished it not only gave us a look into life of the Jewish people in the Warsaw ghetto, it also showed us what we were expected to find in our research, and you gave us a source to use when writing the research paper. In addition to the video you also had us watch survivor testimonies and these I did use when writing my paper. I would have never thought of using YouTube as a source for information on a research paper. When we started the research paper I was glad that we were given a topic of research and not told to pick a topic for our self. If I had to pick a topic myself it would have probably not chosen a topic with so many resources or one that there is so much information on. I also greatly appreciated all of the time that was given in class dedicated for research. The technology portion

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that was taught during this time has been really beneficial. I have used both Easybib and Diggo in each of my other three classes for keeping track of my sources and writing my works cited pages. With the technology I did enjoy the tweeting because, if it was a class discussion I probably would not have spoken in front of the class. Also I think the tweeting helped with everyone having an opinion, especially with A Case of Assisted Suicide, everyone was able to get their say in. If it was made as a classroom discussion then people would have been talking over each other and not everyone would have been able to say their view. Using Blogger was an interesting way to keep our projects and papers organized. Although I do not think that it is useful beyond that. Although, Blogger did allow us to leave our digital media projects for you to view in one place instead of jumping around to several pages on YouTube. I do understand the use of our personal blog so you can easily look at and grade the portfolio I just do not understand why you want everything twice, once in the class blog and again in our personal blog. Personally I have a problem with people reading my writing. The mixed media digital project was my least favorite thing we worked on. The use of Audacity and Windows Movie Maker was helpful and are both interesting tools to use. I found that finding a topic was the hardest part about that project, for me personally. The project was surprisingly simple after deciding on my topic. The instructions you gave to me helped in making my video. I also found that it took me much longer than I would have thought to make a five minute production; it took me about five hours to complete. Overall this class has been a better experience for me than previous attempts. I would like to think that the experience was due to the style of the class, slightly lax, also that I decided

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to take this course seated also helped. Taking the course seated helped me to be more focused and spend my time actually working on the tasks at hand instead of being a procrastinator with my work. The semester went well and I am very happy to finally finish this course.