(CM 1145) Overall Opinion

     For my final blog post I decided to do my overall opinion of the course. I definitely recommend that anybody take this course.

     Now I’m not going to lie, it has a very fast pace and there is a lot of work to it. We were given two assignments to finish per month, so in total there were seven assignments, one research paper, and this blog. It took a lot of time, patience, and dedication but it was worth it. This course tested my writing skills and took them to another level. I’ve never heard of a rhetorical analysis or causal argument before taking this course. I had no idea how to write either of them but that’s the point of writing courses. They allow you to broaden your capability and they test you. I learned to trust in my writing and to try new things, even if it’s scary. I wouldn’t have been able to do that without this course.

     I also learned the definition of team work. I did an assignment with my classmates and I had to put complete trust into them. I didn't like the assignment aspect of it, but I did find the "team effort" very effective. I used to be petrified of group projects because there would always be one person who didn’t pull their weight, but this course changed that. It might be really cheesy to say, but I learned a lot of things that I can take with me throughout my life. I learned how to communicate with people and I learned proper grammar. I was terrible at both grammar and punctuation but I truly believe I improved. I even improved with the MLA format, if that’s even possible. I wrote a lot of essay’s this semester that had to follow the MLA format and eventually I got the hang of it. My first two attempts were pretty awful, but my third attempt showed improvement. 

     My favorite part of CM 1145 was when we were to write an emotional appeal. This allowed me to bring an important issue to the light and convince my audience that there was another way to look at the situation. I learned that there was different ways to write emotional appeals and I found that writing a story is the best way to pervoke feeling. Overall, this assignment was my favorite.

     I definitely believe I improved as a writer because of this course. If I was given a second chance and I was to choose between CM 1135 and CM 1145, I would choose CM 1145. 

(CM 1145) To Lie or Not to Lie? - The Doctor's Dilemma

 “Should doctors ever lie to benefit their patients-to speed recovery or to conceal the approach of death?”

     Take this situation; a forty-five year old man went to the doctor for a routine check-up before going on vacation with his family, and the doctor found cancer in his brain that would kill him within the next six months. Should the doctor wait until the man gets back from his vacation so he can enjoy it, or should the doctor tell him right away and ruin his vacation? In my opinion, it doesn’t matter what the situation or circumstances are; it is not right to lie. If the patient finds out later rather than sooner, they will feel betrayed and mislead and they will probably disown their doctor. There are a lot of benefits for telling the truth, for example it helps patients cope with their illness and helps them tolerate pain better. If doctors lie, a patient who is extremely ill will be unable to make decisions about the end of their life. This could include whether or not to be admitted into a hospital, have surgery, or who to spend the remainder of their life with. Doctors need to realize that time is everything. 

Should adopted children be told about their biological parents? 

     I definitely think they should! When the child reaches a certain age it is the parents’ responsibility to tell the child where they came from. They deserve to know who their real parents are and why they didn’t want them. If the adoptive parents fail to do this and the child eventually figures it out, they will feel very hurt and betrayed. I understand the parents view; they don’t want to hurt the child or worry them but at the same time, all lies come out eventually. The truth hurts but so do lies.

     I was in a relationship for two and a half years and I thought I was in love; what we had was not love. After a year of dating, he began to change. He started to lie constantly and make up excuses for everything. There was one night during the summer when I wanted to hang out with him because we both worked during the week, and night time or weekends were the only time we could see each other. I asked him to hang out and he said no because he was sick and that he just wanted to relax and play x box. I understood completely so I told him that was alright and we could just hang out another night. So the next day I was at the mall and I ran into some of his friends and they told me they saw him at a party at someone’s cabin and he was drinking. I was really hurt by this because he lied to me and this wasn’t the first time he did it. I kept giving him chances but he just kept wasting them.This may sound like a stupid reason to get upset but if you don't have trust in a relationship, than you don't have a relationship. Eventually we broke up and honestly, I’ve never been happier. The truth always comes out in the end so you might as well get it out in the beginning. I was heart broken when the truth came out but I was hurt worse because of the lies. If it wasn’t for the truth, I would still be in a pathetic relationship that had no trust.

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." -Albert Einstein

if only everyone's nose grew when they lied...

(CM 1145) Causal Argument

     My class was given another assignment, but this time we are to write a causal argument of our choice. Now, I have never heard of this and I’m still confused by it. All I know is that they start with a question, such as: Why do some people cry when they laugh? Do magazines impact teenage girls? Does the media glamorize teen pregnancy? After you find a question, you must formulate a claim and somehow link it together by saying A is caused by B because of C. So for example, if I was writing my argument on "Do magazines impact teenage girls?" I would say anorexia and self image is caused by fashion magazines because of the media. Anything along the lines of that would work. The area that I have trouble doing is the work cited page. It has to follow a certain format and for some reason, I never get it right and it’s extremely frustrating. I also don’t know what to include in the body of my argument and how to make it flow coherently. I have my topic but I’m still really confused on what to do. I haven’t even started writing it yet and it’s due on Monday. I can tell you one thing, this definitely isn’t one of my favorite assignments.

(CM 1145) Transitions and Coherence

These are two things that have been drilled into my head since the beginning of high school.  Every English midterm and final exam I have written has had at least one question on coherence, and one essay that had to include transitional terms. After I wrote my grade twelve final, I thought that was the last time I would ever have to answer questions on coherence; I was wrong. When I got to college, it appeared again. It was here when realized how important coherence was, and it’s a shame I didn't realize it sooner because maybe if I had I would have received better marks throughout high school. I used to think coherence was just a pointless question that took up space on exams; I didn't think it had a purpose. I realize now that it is not just a question but it shows up in every form of writing. It shows consistency and it logically places and connects words. It is not something that you can omit from your writing because it links everything together and makes the words flow in unison. In a similar fashion, transitional terms also do this, but in my opinion, they are more difficult to use than coherence and I tend to lose marks in this area. It wasn't until I got to college when I started to understand how important the two of them were. This seems to be a familiar trend; I didn't realize how important certain aspects of writing were until I took the two English courses CM 1120 and CM 1145.

 I wonder which aspect of writing will change my perspective next. 

(CM 1145) Rubric

     This may seem like a stupid and pointless topic, but in my opinion it is extremely important. The CM 1145 Rubric is more than a piece of paper with a grade on it; it is a teacher. It displays your strengths and weaknesses and shows you the areas you need to work on, just like a teacher would. It contains a list of criteria that must be met in your assignment, this includes: form, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, thesis statement, transitions, etc. To the right of this list there are five categories that express how well you displayed each criterion. On a scale of one to five, one would be poor, two would be fair, three would be satisfactory, four would be strong, and five would be excellent. This allows you to see which areas you excelled in and which ones you lacked in. For example, on one of my assignments I received a five for my style and tone, but I also received a three for my punctuation. This told me that punctuation was an area that I needed to spend more time on. If it wasn’t for the rubric, I wouldn’t have known that.

     Your overall mark is also listed on this sheet, as well as the teachers overall opinion of the assignment and suggestions on how to improve. This is incredibly useful because during your next assignment you can focus more on those areas and hopefully receive a better mark. In high school when I would write essays, the teacher would just make comments throughout the paper and on the final page they would write our grade. Personally, I don’t think this teaches students anything. They need to be able to see where they went wrong so they can fix their mistakes. This is part of the writing process, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”. Without the rubric, students wouldn’t know which areas to try again, therefore they would not succeed. 

This is not true at all! Here is a list of benefits from using a rubric:

• assists teachers in being fair, accurate, and consistent in their marking
• helps teachers define excellence and plan instruction so students can achieve it
• aligns curriculum objectives and evaluation  
• it creates consistent expectations for students among teachers in a school
• clarifies the teachers expectations
• supplies the student with feedback on how to improve

The only disadvantage that I can think of is that the creation of a rubric takes time. But I ask this question, should time be the reason a student doesn't succeed? 

(CM 1145) Rhetorical Analysis

     Have you ever been given an assignment that you've had mixed feelings about? My class was given an assignment last week where we have to perform a Rhetorical Analysis on an editorial. We were given a list of questions which make up the body of our analysis, and we also have to include a bibliography. I decided to do mine on “The War Against America; The National Defense”. This is an article that was written on September 12, 2001 by The New York Times. It just talks about how the nation needs to increase its security and defense systems so there won’t be another event like 9/11. The article is very interesting but I don’t know how I feel about this assignment; I’m torn. I like trying new things because it allows me to grow as a writer but at the same time, it frightens me. This is the first time I’ve heard of a Rhetorical Analysis, so the thought of actually having to write one scares me. What if I don’t format it right? What if my answers aren’t correct? What if it’s not long enough? All of these questions are going through my head and it’s affecting the way I write it. I need to stop worrying and just write it. If I get a bad mark than I’ll know that is an area I need to work on.

"Do one thing everyday that scares you"

-Eleanor Roosevelt