Schiappacasse 1

Natalia Schiappacasse

Professor Rieman

English 1103

December 6, 2010

Overwhelmed and Optimistic

First day of class, August 23rd, 2010, many things have changed since then; not only has

there been change in my writing, but in my personal and professional life as well. I look back

into my classroom daily journal, read over my past entries and look at my forum posts, I can see

a difference from my previous writings and as the year goes on, I am confident there will be

more and more. It is hard to change years of the same writing from night to day but after a few

weeks of constructive criticism and learning to ask for help, and not be shy, there can easily be

change.

As stated in the syllabus, I have tried to try to step out of my comfort zone and slowly

move toward other ways of expressing myself, through attempting to write a paper as a blog, and

even attempting to write in the form of a letter. I have learned that we, as students, do not only

need to be grammatically correct twenty-four/seven, but we can also add a little bit of creativity

when it comes to papers. As a class, we are being non judgmental and learning to listen to others,

as we agreed in the classroom culture document. We have posted forums where we are able to

explore the writings of our peers and at the same time comment on each other’s work; whether it

is to gain more understanding or to help each other. These methods of communication and

involvement have been helping the class become closer as individuals but as editors and writers

as well.
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Throughout this semester, I set personal goals for myself and as a class we set

expectations for each other through the classroom culture document and class syllabus goals. As

of this moment, I think that I have tried my best to fulfill the expectations required of me and

even though sometimes I know I slack off, I know that I put my all into the things that I do. As I

may have mentioned in my writing to explore, I know that one thing I do have a problem with is

procrastination. As I continue on with this semester, I am working on making that change but I

know that every time I go to class, I go with the readings done and prepared for class. As I

continue writing in my day book, and reading the assignments, I try to incorporate the lessons

and stories I learn from the homework into my everyday life; and in the same way incorporate

my everyday life into my writing.

I am, however, constantly challenging myself to improve grammatically. When I revisit

my day book entries and other works, I notice that my grammar is a tad flawed and I have

mentioned that this is something that I would like to be able to change as the year goes on. I am

not necessarily keeping a log of my grammar but every once in a while I catch myself on things

that should be in certain places, such as, commas, which are a huge problem for me because I

sometimes tend to have a million run-ons. However, the articles that I have read for class have

given me a different insight. There are many different views on the matter, ones that say that

grammar is important and others where it seems that content is more important. As a class we are

reading pieces that touch back on the subject and speaking with Dr.Rieman we learn that there

are teachers like Dr.Rieman who don’t mind a missing comma, while she also has said she has

colleagues who will mark the paper as an F if there is a missing comma. In the classroom goals

document, we set the goal of understanding academic writing is a complicated, multi-

dimensional task and as I expand on the subject of grammar, I understand this and know that as I
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continue to explore my curiosity in the subject, with my peers and professors, I will learn and

grow in my understanding of this complexity.

This moves me along to peer workshop and how much I appreciate it. Peer workshop

allows me and two of my peers to read over each other’s papers and determine the things that

could make our papers better; whether it is more creativity or maybe an interest in the topic

which they think I could expand on. Peer workshop has helped me see the little grammar errors

that I am trying to keep track of, but overall Professor Rieman was specific for us to look for

meaning and audience and tone first before looking at the other things. In our syllabus we

decided that we were going to be open minded and give constructive criticism and I feel that my

group has accomplished that goal and exceeded. We have learned not to worry about what we

think but rather learned to help each other out and use each other as resources.

One thing I look back on and really enjoyed was meeting with Donna Gunter. I had been

to the library a few times to work on homework and write a paper but I didn’t know about the

resources that we had. Even though we are supposed to be adults, it was nice to have someone

walk us through how to do certain things that we may have forgotten about since the last time we

had to write papers, such as, using good outside search engines or refining our search. Silly

things of that nature could make or break a paper. Speaking of help, Dr.Rieman also reminded us

of the writing resource center and the many ways they can help if one is suddenly hit with writers

block. They help with all stages of the writing process, such as, brainstorming and laying out

structures. I have even gone back with my rough draft and they were very helpful in helping me

look over the minute details I may have missed. I will go into more detail about this later in the

paper but, I have taken advantage of the resource center and from experience it was a big help
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and I know that this will not have been my only visit. It was great to discover the many resources

that we have at our disposal and learning to take advantage of them is one of my goals.

Looking ahead for the future; examining the preliminary inquiry question I have gone

back and forth trying to determine whether or not my topic is for me. As I have researched I have

come to the realization that grammar is not my strong suit and to write such an important paper

about it will be hard if I am not interested. As it so happens, languages as well as communication

tend to interest me a tad more. I have actually gone to the resource center and spoken about this

paper with one of the counselors. We began to brainstorm in the 40 minutes that we had and we

would just pick and pick at my ideas until I found one that I was truly satisfied with and the

question is, “How important are the conventions of grammar for effective communication?” I

feel a lot more comfortable writing the paper with this new question as opposed to such a broad

question that I had before. Another reason I know I was having a difficult time is because I was

looking at this paper in a completely different light than what Dr.Rieman intended. When I found

out this was the case I spoke with Dr.Rieman and she explained it like this, “It is not a research

paper, but a regular paper with research.” I began to see it like that and it has been easier to deal

with. I hope to further explore this topic and allow myself to discover some of the many answers

to my complex question.

In the next few weeks, I see myself finishing the semester strong by writing a great

inquiry question paper following all of the guidelines that have been provided. I would also like

to pass all of my classes with a B or higher. As I look toward the end of the semester and end of

year, I hope to gain more knowledge and look at it with optimism, realizing that I will soon be

finishing my first semester in college.

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There are so many aspects of English that are complex that I would love to understand.

As I grow I know that the writing and reading components are important for us as a culture to

communicate, and even though I may not be an English major, I know that without the proper

use of my tools and how to apply them I will gave put up my own barrier to the rest of the world.