The first time I had heard of this course, AWD, was probably my freshman year when I was looking over my degree audit and saw it as a required course that had to be completed to graduate. After successfully avoiding it for two years, I decided I might as well take it over the summer before beginning classes again in the fall. A choice I made, honestly because I did not want to sit through 12 weeks of an english course if it was miserable. So by condensing it into the 6 weeks over summer 2 I hoped for it to be less drawn out and keep me engaged. After signing up for this course and waiting around for it to start, I realized my roommate for summer 2, Pauli would be in this class too. While I did not really have much of an opinion formed on the class before starting it, I knew I was excited to take this class with someone I would see everyday so if I happen to be confused about an assignment or just needed some advice I would have someone to talk too. Also, when your roommate is in the same class as you, you’re forced to wake up and actually attend so that was a good decision.
After the first class, which I was expecting to be dry, boring, and drawn out; but it was the complete opposite as we happened to be missing our instructor; I was excited to see what the next day would be like. Once we got our syllabus and went over our weekly agenda I was honestly excited to see what this class would result in. I have to say that all of the assignments have been extremely thought provoking and completely different than what I expected from a standard, required, AWD class. Since I was not taking the major specific AWD class I was a bit worried that it might be difficult to apply my field of study to the papers, however Charlie made it extremely easy for us to work around that. I definitely felt as though each assignment helped me explore not only my field of study a bit more, but also the touched on types of writings that I have not really had to do since coming to college. While it was quite fast paced, and had a high turnover in terms of assignments I think this was extremely beneficial to me because it made me learn something in class, or talk about something and then go home and work on it right away.
In terms of the structure of the class, working in groups was really beneficial as that is how a lot of our future professions will be. We won’t just be interacting with those in our discourse communities but also those that are from completely different ones and getting a quick glimpse as to how to write with someone from a different background was very helpful. I found it interesting to hear projects from all the different types of people in the class as they all had very different backgrounds, and this also helped me open my mind to different types of writing that occurs all around us. It was also cool to get to do peer reviews that didn’t just involve someone telling us what was wrong with our paper, but offering us advice and guidelines as to what could be done differently.
In terms of personal reflection, I was really excited to take a course in which papers had actual comments on them for why we got the grade we did. My past courses have not been like that, with the professor just updating your grade and not giving you any reasoning behind it. Being able to see where I needed help and what I could work on definitely was a highlight of this course. Also, taking on assignments that could very well be asked of me in my future profession and learning how to structure and research them was another thing that I picked up while being in this course. I definitely think that AWD has expanded my ability to look at the big picture when thinking of a paper but also being able to focus on specific things such audience and information when having to write it. I am looking forward to the end of this course, as I am sure I will have the start to a very interesting portfolio.
I definitely agree with you that I feel I'm getting more out of the class than I had expected. Between the peer reviews and Charlie's input, it's nice to get a better idea of what you as a writer need to improve and to understand how you may have to write in the future for your field of study. The lack of time to work on assignments has been difficult for me, but reading your post makes me think there is something to be said for being immersed in the material simply because it's necessary. I guess it might have helped us compared to those who have taken the class in the Fall/Spring, for assignments that require it we didn't have enough time to look at more than the big picture. So not being able to be so distracted has actually helped me when I think about it.
ReplyDeleteYou also have me excited to work on portfolios, which I cannot believe is right around the corner.