In Class: Free write

When you're given the chance to write about anything, you kind of jsut sit there and think wow, but there's so much on my mind right now, how could I choose what to start out with? Anyways, i'm starting to get a little stressed about finals week and all the exams and papers I have to torture myself with but that's okay because once I get my degree, this will all be worth it. I am still also thinking about the cartoon I have to make for my groups topic for the Unit 3 project. I have a few ideas, I just hope they're good enough. Okay so don't judge me but I went and saw 17 again with my family and it was hilarious. Not saying that because Zac Efrons in it. I don't really care for him. Well, lets see I hit the snooze button like 8 times this morning but still managed to get to school in time...crazy. I have to go get some shots today to update my shot record for nursing. I'm kinda dreading this appointment because I have no clue how many shots I have to get and for some reason, shots reeeeally hurt me. I have extremely sensitive skin as it is and getting shots makes it worse...plus I usually get sick the day after. I can't wait to go to my boyfriends fraternity formal. It's going to be awesome and it was fun searching for a dress to wear to it because he helped me pick it out. So we ended up with a red dress and I got some black heels to go along with the dress. He then went out and bought a black shirt and a red tie so we would somewhat match...like it matters. I so need to go get my ring cleaned, I have so much soap scum and lotion underneath the stone in my ring and it looks all cloudy and gross :/. I'm so lazy....Hope today is good and I hope your day is even better!

Proposal

Well it’s about that time to choose our topic. Last week our group made the decision that we were going to argue against the bill that would allow students on public university campuses in Texas would carry handguns. Students would have to have their Concealed Handgun License and must be 21 years old. I think that this is a scary proposition. I also find this a little daunting because I would not like to be in a class with a student who receives an F on a test and has a Glock 9 mm in his backpack. I have always believed that one of the scariest situations in college would be someone with a gun on campus who is mowing down students in front of the library. Also, carrying a gun in a backpack would not be too different from the Plaxico Burress case when he was in a New York nightclub and he shot himself in the leg with the pistol that was in his pocket. You just never know when a gun may go off. For our visual argument we are planning on doing a series of signs that would be read as students walk. This message would be conveyed in five or six signs placed in a row that could reach a high amount of people because of the amount of activity that occurs on campus. Also, one argument that could really help us convey our message would be a list of student’s names that have been killed on college campuses. This could also be used in a paragraph form and may be more effective.

In Class: Visual Arguments

1. What overall impression does the visual text create in you?
This question is that the book asks you is a little tricky to answer because everyone sees an image in their own way so it would be hard for me to explain how I saw an image if someone completely disagrees with what i'm saying. Using visuals in general can be a task in itself because when the author or whoever it was that made the visual has to pay attention to what kind of message the picture might send to others or if it might offend some people or maybe they didn't use the right font size & type, blah blah blah. To me, the picture on page 420 shows five people standing in what looks like a line-up with the caption underneath stating The Usual Subjects, instead of Suspects. They all look like normal average people that would not cause a threat to anyone, but the fact that they are all not smiling in the picture makes you feel like you don't wan't to be close to them, especially with the background the way it is.

In Class: Free Write

When I read the chapter last night, it was pretty much full of all of the information that I already knew about. What I mean by that is that I pretty much already knew how to make en effective argument due to having to analyze so many different arguments in this class. It's all about how you put the information together and how well it can work to make an effective argument, but you must pay attention to the details within your written argument. I had no idea though that punctuation was a major influence in creating an effective argument but I did already know that grammar and word choice was because if you can't even spell the words, why even waste your time trying to convince someone if they can't even make sense out of your argument?
Also, when I was reading about how sentence structure, I had no idea that the style and the way you compose the sentence could have such a strong impact on the readers/audience. Not only does it matter on how you start the sentence but also the length, as described in the chapter. When starting a sentence, you never want to start it the same way you started the previous sentence. I have always had a problem with that and reading this chapter helped me better understand how i'm supposed to write and compose my sentences.

Again, I knew about how to write paragraphs and arguments but that's it. I didn't have any knowledge of how it was done. so reading this chapter really helepd me in a sense to become stronger with my writing.

I'd like you to discuss your group job title and description. What role are you playing in the group? What are your primary responsibilities? How will your role help the group function efficiently? In addition to answering these questions, please list your other group members (mainly to help me keep track of everyone!).

My group job title contains more than one job. The first job I have is to be the group's reporter. This pretty much means that I will record everything that is said, every website we might go to and jsut in general everything that my group does during class. The second job I have is to bring a checklist to make sure everyone is on track and that everyone is during their share of the group work. The third job I have is to be in charge of the poster, if that's what my group ends up doing. Since i'm pretty creative with hands-on activities, I thought it'd be best if I was in charge of the poster.

As being a part of the group I too have to put in my share of the work which means that on top of my jobs I will need to come to class prepared.

With keeping track of what all we do during class, it will help my group if we need to go back and revisit a certain website to get more information that we did not get the first time due to any reason. As for the checklist, the job speaks for itself. The checklist is there to keep me and the other group members on top of everything and if they forget something than next class they will have to bring last weeks material and the current weeks material.

My group members are: Shawna Marcus, Will Christensen, and Erin Lorenzen.

In Class: Doing all the work

Group work to me is always dreadful. I always try to avoid getting together and working with others because some people never do the work and then make up excuses on how the material got burned or their cat ate it...true story. I never take pity on them and will usually make a point in front of the class during our presentation time that they did nothing for this presentation. Humilation is my goal for that eprson because if they never learn their lesson, then they're going to be that person who works in the office and never gets anything done or never likes to do the work because it's "too hard". I'm honestly petrified about getting into groups and doing work with others because I feel like I can never rely on the others to do their part. I have been in soooo many groups where they think that i'll do all the work and they'll take the credit. I know there are people out there that actually give a crap about school and their classes and i'm hoping that my group for unit 3 is just like that. I honestly am not too afraid of this group work because all this class we have done nothing but writing and making sure we have our assignments in class with us on certian days and I think that helps all of us become more responsible in a way.

MYYYY ideal group work: Of course the perfect group would be the group that did what they had previously agreed to and won't back down from what they said they were going to do leaving the restof us scrambling to figure out what's going to happen to our grade!! I hope that everyone does their work and that we come up with an awesome topic for unit 3 because honestly, if we don't come up with anything that seems interesting to me, my work might not be so good. I'll do my part of work no doubt, but it just might not be that great or it might not even make sense at all! So 1. My group members should do their work and 2. The topic should be interseting

Different roles of group members:
1. One person will keep a check-list of all the peoples names in our groups and if they completed their assignment or not so in the end, if someone didn't do their work, the professor will know.
2. One person might come up with what genre they want to focus manily on or what genre they work best with.
3. One person might even come up with making goodies or something for the class so they don't fall asleep in the middle of our rpesentation, even though it's only 15 minutes long...I have ADHD, I might jsut dose off in someone elses....
4. One person might, like Amanda Irvin said, be in charge of making up the title. The title to me is a pretty big deal because all throughout high school, we aLWAYS had to have a title to our paper...even if it was just a few paragraphs. I just feel like people should get an idea of what they're about to read.
5. Every grouop member should keep a folder of all the work they've done so as to credit those who did their work.

In Class: Reflections on first post

On my very first post, I didn't really say much. I guess that's due to the fact that i'm a very structured type of person and just writing what ever I wanted about myself sort of overwhelmed in a weird way. I feel like I have more to say now that I have been typing away 90% of the time in my spring semester and I feel more comfortable with writing too. I used to hate english class whether it was in elementary school, 6th grade school, middle school or high school. The teachers were always so mean and spiteful and that really affected my motivation to learn how to write better, plus my future career doesn't require alot of writing : ). I think it's a little weird to look back at my old post and read what I put up. I seem so cold and distant in my blog and that's not really me, I just watned others to take me seriosly.

Anywho ( as my boyfriend says ), Matt's parents are coming down to Texas again for a few days and so i'll probably need to go and visit with them since I don't think they're comfortable with me yet. I think it's because Matt is the most religious one out of all of his siblings and i'm sort of, oh what's the word...wild? I honestly think that they're scared that i'll corrupt Matt or something...pretty funny if you ask me. Anyways, i'm just thinking about my advisors meeting later on this afternoon.
Have a good day!