- What do you find surprising about the course outcomes?
- What do you find confusing about the course outcomes?
- What do the course outcomes tell you about academic writing, and how is this different from or similar to writing you do in other contexts of your life?
Welcome to my first Writer's Journal! While I'm excited to start writing these journals, I am also nervous and self conscious of where I am right now as a writer. I desperately want to improve my writing, but challenge terrifies me and I have a deep fear of looking "dumb" or "stupid". Even though I'm coming in with these emotions, I'll push forward and try to deliver good content regardless. I hope whomever is reading this enjoys the journey as much as I will.
The most surprising thing for me about the course outcomes are that they are so much more about changing how we think rather than learning something new. While it is important to be learning new things, knowing "how to think" will influence how we learn. This is why the course pushes on knowing what the Habits of Mind are, which encourage openness, curiosity, engagement, etc. This is just a quick overview of what I personally found surprising about the course goals.
Perhaps the most confusing thing to me is the whole idea of "good writing". There is the writing that is "good" in the technical sense; that it follows correct grammar and makes an effective statement. But then there are the other conventions of writing such as style and feel with descriptions and rule breaking that can also be defined as good writing. With this context, I ask; how do you tell what is good from what is bad? Is it purely subjective? Do enough people need to agree on good writing for it to be so? What is good writing? (This is where I think understanding Rhetoric knowledge would help to understand good writing)
The course outcomes aim to answer these questions. Learning English in school growing up, I was taught more on how to fine tune my grammar and sentence structure. Of course those basics are still important, and it's an area I still lack in (since I never paid attention in class), but this course offers a fresh approach to learning, where critical thinking and understanding yourself as a writer are the goals. It's a change for me, but a welcome one. Thank you for reading my first journal, I know it needs some work but hopefully you'll see an improvement with subsequent journals.
The most surprising thing for me about the course outcomes are that they are so much more about changing how we think rather than learning something new. While it is important to be learning new things, knowing "how to think" will influence how we learn. This is why the course pushes on knowing what the Habits of Mind are, which encourage openness, curiosity, engagement, etc. This is just a quick overview of what I personally found surprising about the course goals.
Perhaps the most confusing thing to me is the whole idea of "good writing". There is the writing that is "good" in the technical sense; that it follows correct grammar and makes an effective statement. But then there are the other conventions of writing such as style and feel with descriptions and rule breaking that can also be defined as good writing. With this context, I ask; how do you tell what is good from what is bad? Is it purely subjective? Do enough people need to agree on good writing for it to be so? What is good writing? (This is where I think understanding Rhetoric knowledge would help to understand good writing)
The course outcomes aim to answer these questions. Learning English in school growing up, I was taught more on how to fine tune my grammar and sentence structure. Of course those basics are still important, and it's an area I still lack in (since I never paid attention in class), but this course offers a fresh approach to learning, where critical thinking and understanding yourself as a writer are the goals. It's a change for me, but a welcome one. Thank you for reading my first journal, I know it needs some work but hopefully you'll see an improvement with subsequent journals.
Works cited:
Calcifer1. "My Street Looked like the Beginning of the Apocalypse, Yesterday. Thought You Might Enjoy." Reddit.com. N.p., 15 June 2015. Web. 22 Jan. 2017.
Calcifer1. "My Street Looked like the Beginning of the Apocalypse, Yesterday. Thought You Might Enjoy." Reddit.com. N.p., 15 June 2015. Web. 22 Jan. 2017.