Thursday, December 3, 2009

English 111, what a sememster! (Course Reflection)

Coming out of high school, I was ready to embark on my journey as a college student. Part of this journey required me to take English 111 my first semester at Tidewater Community College. Boy was this going to be a breeze I thought. I had been in honors English classes throughout my high school career, and new that a basic writing course at TCC would be super easy. To my pleasure, the course itself was not very challenging at all.

I found Mr. Gasparo’s class very un-motivating for me. I’m not saying he is a bad teacher or anything, I just didn’t feel motivated by his teaching methods. During the whole semester I felt as though it was a slack class and I only had to show up and do the work and get it turned in on time. In reality that’s how it was. But aren’t most college courses like that too? My mistake was making a presumption that I could procrastinate on the assignments and just do them the day before they were do (heck, that’s what I’m doing right now with this course reflection). My life as an English 111 student would have been so much easier and less stressful if I hadn’t done this.
Mr. Gasparo really did teach me a few things I hadn’t know. We learned about rhetorical appeals in his class. I had no idea what ethos, logos, or pathos was before I stepped into his class. I sure am thankful for learning those concepts in his class. I learned how to make my writing effective at arguing and persuading during his class.

Mr. Gasparo himself is a very nice person. Not everyone gets his humor, but that’s ok. The class either laughed with him or at him, who can tell the difference? He’d walk in to class every day with wheeling his little teacher basket thing with stickers stuck to it (I have to say though, it made me smile when I saw a rebel alliance sticker on it!) and comment on the fact that we are always so quiet. The class itself was quiet in the beginning, but he made sure we worked in groups and got to know each other, which made peer reviewing so much less awkward. I’m thankful for that too, because I hate having people read my work.

Another thing I found I hate doing is presenting. Oh, and all of the computer stuff. Well, minus this blog. I have to admit I thought doing a blog for English class was kind of lame. To my surprise, I have come to the conclusion that it is not. I actually enjoy blogging. I even started my own personal blog! Everything we do in the class is connected to the internet somehow, especially the homework. Which brings me to another thing I disliked about the class— the homework. All the homework assignments were tons of readings I found boring and irrelevant to the class. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Some of the other students and I would discuss or dislike for the homework. The part we hated the most was printing out every assignment we did. Boy was that a nightmare! Thank God for free printing in the library.

My advice for anyone taking this course is to do your homework. All the assignments pertain to class, even if you don’t think so. So much of our homework had to do with healthcare. What in the world does the current healthcare issue have to do with an English class?!?!?! Tons! We used the healthcare readings and other assignments to help with our writing. We watched the film Sicko in class and learned all about rhetorical appeals. It was an ingenious way to teach us! I have to give Mr. Gasparo props for that!

Advice for those people taking this course, do your work! Also, you might want to not have the same outlook on this class as I did. In the beginning it might seem like a piece of cake course…but as the semester goes by you learn it’s not! Don’t find out the hard way like I did.

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad you're blogging or doing any kind of writing outside of the course.

    ReplyDelete