Thoughts! Opinions! Interactions! / Thlog 4

This class, especially on Wednesdays, always catches me in the middle of a very long day. It’s this two hour limbo between my major science classes and work. However, it does break up the monotony very characteristic of my weekdays. Rather than sit in a class with 800 other students and have information thrown at me, I get to interact with others! I get to have feelings and thoughts! I am asked questions— and I am expected to think about it! It’s a nice period of time to interact with other intellectual beings and their thoughts, ideas, etc..

The activities this week taught me quite a bit.

• The highlighting exercise was definitely the most helpful in allowing me to see how exactly I structured my essay and what I could do to make it better. I realized time and time again how much I needed to add more evidence (quotes, references, etc.) in order to add validity and substance to the essay. Essays flow much smoother and make more sense when you provide concrete evidence to analyze! Everyone thinks differently. Laying out all your cards (aka the evidence) allows others to follow your train of thought, preventing any confusion that may occur.
• In terms of entertainment, I very much enjoyed the murder mystery activity. It’s one thing to sit around talking about genres and analyze them together, but this was more than that! Not only did we put in practice the application of genre by writing within a genre provided, we also heard and provided feedback regarding the activity. Fellow classmates commented on what we did in order to realistically portray the situation at hand, and told us what we could have done to improve. It was a fun activity, and I think the immediate feedback really helped consolidate the advice given.

Overall, this week was no exception to interactive methods that I love. I picked up great ways to really look over and analyze my essay and see it from a more objective point of view, something I have always been terrible at. Furthermore, I recognize the usefulness of these techniques and will definitely carry them to the many more classes I plan on taking.