Final Blog (Wobble)

When I look back over this course there were many times when at first I was confused but then I just took a moment and tried to figure it out and I usually could. However I think there were a couple places this year where I really did Wobble.

The first place that I wobbled was during the process of writing my literacy narrative. I had my idea and I knew what I was going to write about. But after my first draft and having my group read over the draft I realized that no where in my paper where I talked about how this experience had affected my literacy. So that was a moment of wobble, actually a period of wobble because it took me till about the time I wrote my final draft to figure out how to incorporate literacy into the narrative. The real issue or wobble that I had after I figured out a way to incorporate it was "Am I doing this in the most effective way?, Does it make sense when I put it like this?, Does this sound good?, Will it keep people interested in my story?"

The only other place that I can think about when I might have "wobbled" was when I was trying to figure out how to go about the Ethnography Project. This moment of wobble was not that bad becasue when I was stuck on what questions to ask during the interview, or who to ask, or even how to ask the questions, there were people in my group who had the answers to all of these questions. They were the ones who kept me from wobbling too much on this project.

Literacy Narrative Reflective Blog Post

When Lacy first gave us the assignment to write a Literacy Narrative that was telling a story it took me all of 5 seconds to decide that I wanted to talk about my week at Blue Ridge Leaders School in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

The intial writing of the Literacy Narrative was when it became a little more difficult for me to talk about Blue Ridge. I had many ideas of what I wanted to do with the paper. Whether it be writing it from my brothers perspective of when I came home or talking about it as a metaphor of a ship but nothing really connected to how Blue Ridge affected my Literacy. I could talk about how it changed me as a person and how it affected my attitudes toward life and other people but I still couldn't make the connection with how this  had anything to do with my literacy. So when it came time to write my first draft I just ignored the concept of Literacy and just wrote down all the things I wanted to say about Blue Ridge and my experience. The one major editing technique that I used was going through the intro to the story and making sure that it grabbed the readers attention. https://docs.google.com/document/d/16XXUVGOj8cUWij0XytDqNW82-8IFezDJx7cbDtWUaro/edit










After going through my original draft and reading all the comments that my group members left as well as doing the revision strategy of re-reading my intro to make sure it grabbed people I realized that I had a lot of work to do on this paper if I wanted to get a good grade. Nowhere in the paper was how the trip had affected my Literacy so I knew I needed to start there in order to make this paper better. So for starters I completely added a whole new beginning paragraph which focused more on the concept of literacy and what it meant to me, which I think really gave the reader a new perspective on literacy. So that was one way that the revision strategies helped me. Then during one class period Lacy had us write a couple editing goals our paper and the final draft. My editing goals were to come up with something for the conclusion and to watch out for incomplete thoughts. After I went through my paper again looking for these things I completed a conclusion that I think is good and tried to tie up thoughts that I thought might be somewhat incomplete.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1By4jxyff-vA3NdkVNDzVha7gJ3bQmD0KU7-K0pHGOtk/edit


I think when I look back at the whole process it is really interesting to see how when I started there was so much missing from the paper to when I finished and I think that this paper completely conveys everything that I was trying to say. It was really hard to figure out how to incorporate the change in my literacy through this experience but with the help of the editing tools that we did in class, the comments my writing group left, and the comments that Lacy gave me everthing just fell into place. I wrote my Literacy Narrative about Blue Ridge because it is definitely one of those times in life that puts things into perspective for you, it really makes you realize what is important in life, and I just wanted to share my experience with everyone.

So heres my final draft if anyone wants to read it.......
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XLouN2wR8tU78PDrpGbNvO67WX2LNg-R14oA3WY9x0c/edit

Final Ethnography Post

When we were first given the Ethnography assignment I wasn't really sure that I understood what it was we were doing. But when I walked around and noticed all the different graffiti around campus I started thinking about how much can be taken from the various forms of art. I have always enjoyed looking at art and thinking about the many symbols/themes/feelings that can be taken from each piece. I also really respect art as a form of expresson. So when it came time to pick a topic I knew that I wanted to do something focused on art, so picking Sculptures as the focus of my Ethnography Project was probably the easiest thing about this project.

The thing that I really liked about this project was how easy it was to revise our work. When it came down to it we never really revised the work. We simply revised our ideas. We went from just discussng sculptures to interviewing people, to a video discussing sculptures, to finally having what we have. I also really enjoyed doing this project with a group of people because 1) it really helped with the revision process because we could really feed off each others ideas, so if we were stuck on an idea/thought, there were 3 other people in the group to offer input. 2) we all worked really well together. All our ideas flowed together so this project went by relatively smoothly. 3) it was just nice to be able to collaborate rather than have the entire project to do by yourself.

When it comes down to it, I would much rather do a project like this rather than write an essay. I think the collaboration between 4 people really enhanced the quality of the project. You can see this collaboration in our google document. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wib3IBwH0WabP-I_lY946EP4ovXVsnF7pzYTWroscNA/edit I think it was a quality that couldnt be captured in an essay, especially with a topic like sculptures because sculptures are in turn visual so the power that these pieces convey couldnt be captured simply in words, there has to be that visual aspect.  

 The only other thing I have to say about this project is that I wish we had done more like it. I really enjoyed doing this project.