THLOG FROM THE FROG

Ok so I'm basically just going to rant about anything that related to Writing 2 this quarter and I hope that will suffice for the "what I learned..." part of the prompt for these Thlogs.

Well I have to say  this was the most challenging course I had this quarter and I have definitely, at points, had difficulty keeping up with the class... (Mostly because Eagles fans are far from interesting. Just kid... Weeeeeeell. Maybe just your cause at least.) I can honestly say that this class has allowed me to walk out a new man, an 18 years old but kid at heart.

Well I have to say I have learned so much from this quarter (yeah I hope you know I have learned all about moves, conventions, genre, etc.). I have learned from the weirdest of things. From your emails where you type words certain ways to add your voice into writing. For example instead of writing well I wrote weeeeeeeell because one e in opposed to 10 e's is a big difference.

I can honestly say that this class completely changed my mind about writing and I want to thank you, Zack, for doing that. The structure of the class made it to where I could free-write to complete activities and not always have to use second order thinking. This really allowed me to better organize my ideas when writing my essays by knowing consciously that I will use two different forms of thinking to complete an essay.

Overall, these are just a fraction of the things I learned because there was so  much! Thanks for everything Zack. I'll definitely come back and blog every time the Cowboys beat the eagles (btw this is a move I made in not capitalizing the e in eagles haha).

Thanks and goodbye... Z.

number 9

As Writing 2 comes close to its end it was only right that we did what we should have done at the beginning… let me teach the class.

Sike, I wish.

With a short week we had our presentations on our only day of class in Writing 2 but I can say I learned. This week’s presentations were really helpful because they were able to refresh my mind on different topics like citations, works cited, sentence structure, FANBOYS, and other topics. Some of these topics were review but for a lot of topics I learned something new. One rule that I found especially weird and never had I seen before was the use of semicolons in sentences that list cities like this: Santa Barbara, California; Miami, Florida; and Austin, Texas.

I not only learned about the topics with each presentation but the presentation itself was a lesson. Seeing others present only allowed me to see what I could have included in my presentation to make it more effective. I learned that even the smallest of details matter when performing. Some details that I learned to pay better attention to in the future are making sure I work more collectively in a group, making sure I do a better job at understanding what entertains my audience, and being more original in the format of the presentation.

Overall, the presentations were very helpful and entertaining! I loved this activity.

T

So the week of the final WP? What?! Did the day finally come?
Well, this week was definitely a stressful one and rightly so because like the Zack said "the WP3 will be the hardest". So for my WP3 what made it the most difficult was reading and making sure I was answering the prompt. For my previous WP, I was not as happy with my grade and a big portion of that seemed to be due to not following the directions completely so for this WP I had to make sure I was. First I started knowing what I was going to do with a YouTube video and honestly I did it because I thought it would be a new challenge that could be fun. However, I ended up finishing the whole video before I found the translations I made from the scholarly article to the YouTube video and so what I learned to do was to make a better outline for my projects with specific answers to all parts of the prompt in the outline before I even start creating a project. Another thing I did notice with this project was that we definitely had to focus on conventions and moves more importantly as I focused on creating a whole new genre that would have to at least fit some of the "probably expectations" the audience has.
Overall, I had a great time creating this project and learned a lot!

log(Th)dx

This week in class we were preparing for the WP3 and so like always we first do our PB3a. In our PB3a, we were supposed to give a plan for what we would do for our WP3 and I came up with the topic relationships and how they have changed over time. I am really excited to work on this project and as I am creating my project I see how you, as you once said, "this project will need to you to focus on conventions and/or moves in great detail with this project as it is definitely necessary.
Overall in class on Monday, I really enjoy the activities and free writes that you have us do to better understand WP3 because before that I was very confused with what the project need us to do. Also, I am very excited to do my project now after the feedback we got on our blogs from both Zack and other classmates. They were a great help in ultimately deciding what I would do while still following the prompt. Time to finish this project and learn as I create my final piece!

Pb3A- "MOM! GIRLS! PROM!"

Although my mother has absolutely nothing to do with WP3 or Writing 2 in general she would always tell me, “The more freedom I give you the more you get in trouble!” This of course was not true but I believe the quote better applies to Writing 2 and that is because with the more freedom I get in choosing a topic the more I struggle to come up with a topic I am familiar with that I will enjoy. However, for my WP3a I came across the article CHANGES OVER TIME IN TEENAGE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS: COMPARING THE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1950, 1975, AND 2000 and after being exposed to the large amounts of articles and videos on teenage relationships I felt that I really would like to work with the conventions of different genres related to this topic.

            For my WP3 I will be choosing option 1 in which I will use this article and focus on the results of the study (the changes over time between sexual relationships) and transform them into genres for both a younger and older audience. For the older audience I was thinking of a couple options (1) to make a magazine article that could be found in a magazine like Parenthood and explain the proper steps for parents on how to give their child the “sex talk” with the ever increasing rates of teenage sex or (2) a conversation through text messaging between the parents and their son or daughter with prom approaching. The purpose of this conversation would be for the son to convince his parent’s that times have changed since they went to Prom (in 1975 one of the years studied in the scholarly article) and so he wants an extended curfew and other liberties that did not exist before.

            For the younger audience I also have a couple options that I would enjoy constructing. The first would be a letter in which I will pretend to be a teenage boy around the age of 16 and his happy anniversary letter to his girlfriend. This will be a handwritten letter meant to go along with the present that the boyfriend got the girlfriend and it will use both the conventions of a normal letter and also include the cheesy, corny social media posts that teenagers tend to post on their special days. Another options would be to make a Youtube video that teaches teenage boys how to get girls (which I am worried about considering my video editing skills and considering the fact that to this day I still do not know girls). If I stick with this option, the video will focus on using the conventions of a more satirical Youtube “how to” videos rather than a serious one to better appeal to the audience of teenage boys.

            I have yet to make a choice for which I will choose because I would like to study each new genre deeper in order to get a feel of what conventions would better fit my writing style. Overall, I’m excited for this assignment.

Thlognight

Writing 2 was definitely one big headache too and no it was not because Zach talked smack on the Cowboys all week (the clearly superior team and winner of tomorrow's game) but I definitely struggled writing my WP2. I think my biggest problem was finding out exactly what form I would like to use for my essay, whether I would compare one thing in all three essays or whether I wanted to pick the most important parts of each article to analyze. Ultimately, I chose finding common conventions of each essay and contrasting them according to their discipline Another unique writing style that I decided to use I found casually surfing the web and that was using humor in the first and last paragraphs of my WP2 which i used as a tactic to involve the reader deeper into the paper (which I guess I could call one of my moves too).
Overall, I feel like this week was very stressful; however, I learned a lot about the writing style that I would like to carry and began testing out with a WP2, an assignment I ultimately was very proud of!

the internets

• What are some "moves" you see in these videos? 

A list of things i noted from these videos were:

-very detailed directions

-the painter clears up any confusion

-acknowledges that we are beginners with enough information about painting 

-gives context(like in evergreens) like when he says there are 500 branches in an evergreen

-spoke in a simple language (not painter vocabularly)

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• How do these artists describe what they’re doing?  What do the artists refer to while they describe their work?  What do they talk about?  What do they direct our attention towards? They take every step of the painting process for their trees and how exactly they come to their final product. Often times, the painter likes to point out (like in the first video) that the painting might look ugly as you draw it; however, by the end of the drawing the different moves combined will make up the picture. 
• How would you characterize each artist's style, and what impact does their style have on you (a viewer/audience member)?  How have these artists chosen to portray their subject matter?  Each artist has their own unique way of not only drawing the trees but, for example, in the last video how they interpret the tree on to their canvas. So, I was able to relate with certain artists and not others. Besides that, the artists each carried a very similar tone while explaining what they were going to draw. The style's of the artists, besides being unique from each other, can vary from very illusional to structured full of close detail. The simple language that the artist uses and often very simple forms of painting too make it easy as the audience to follow. However, I also have a unique style when drawing so I felt like I connected more with Rob Ross who often takes a very traditional way of drawing.