Autumn 2010: ENGL110.01 Televised Scifi: 2010

Dear Future English students,

This English class has improved my skills as a writer and an analyst greatly. I have learned a lot in this class about analyzing movies, TV shows, and articles. With the aid of this class I am now able to formulate, research, and defend an argument, and look past the overall plot of something and find the deeper meanings within. I didn’t think I would be able to write a seven page paper about a TV show, but with what this course has taught me about the five analytical moves, I was able to write it quite easily.

I was very skeptical about the theme being science fiction; I went in thinking we would be watching Star Wars all class long. But giving the shows a chance and really looking at the plot, I actually became interested and pretty into some of the series. I ended up watching Battlestar Galactica for most of the episodes to write my blog and research paper about. The show is pretty action packed and the plot keeps you guessing and very entertained. I also hated writing papers coming into this class, but once I learned and was able to format arguments and organize a paper properly it came pretty easy.

For success in this class, you have to prepare yourself for a lot of writing, there are a lot of blogs, from talking about TV shows to blogging about whatever you like to tell people. For your big papers I suggest that you brainstorm really well, and find a topic you actually are interested in, this will make it a lot easier to write a seven page paper.

Sincerely,
Jesse McGinnis

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Dear English Students,

The theme of this class is Televised Sci-Fi. At first you may think “Oh no, I know nothing about sci-fi and I’m going to hate this,” but some Sci-fi shows you will end up liking and want to watch in your free time. Just wait and see.

In this class I feel there is a lot of repetition. You have to find themes, analyze everything and do lots and lots of blogs. The main thing that I learned when writing my papers is that I need to persuade my argument of the paper. I learned I have to elaborate on everything and to answer the question why with everything. Also make sure to support all of your facts.

This class requires a lot of time. So make sure you can manage your time well. Blogs are easy points and sometimes you will think there are too many, but don’t give up. Sometimes I would write a couple in the same night so that I didn’t have to worry about them again. Also stay up with the commenting. Don’t get behind because then you will have to take a lot of time at the end of the quarter to finish.

You really have to go to class. You need to be there to watch the episodes to be able to blog about them. So paying attention while in class is also a good idea. Also going to class helps you with your papers. There are exercises that you do in class that will help with parts of your paper.

So go to class, do your blogs, and pay attention and you will be fine in this English Class.

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Dear Future English 110.01 Students,

You are probably taking this class because you have to take it to complete a GEC. Well to be honest that is why I took it. I decided on taking English 110.01 over English 110.02 because I wanted to be able to express my opinion with support on topics rather than analyzing literature in my writing. English 110.01 lets you kind of choose what you write about and what aspect you want to write about; I mean I did not take English 110.02, but I feel you would only write about the analysis of literature which can only be in few different ways.

In this class our theme was Science Fiction Television, where we watched shows like Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse, and Battlestar Galactica. I personally did not find enjoyment out of watching these shows, and I came into the class thinking that wow this is going to be boring and lame. Little did I know, I underestimated the topic and came out with a show that I have been following the episodes of and am actually interested in. The professor shows you different shows because they know that not everyone is going to like one show, but chances are high that you will find a show you will at least find tolerable and slightly entertaining. She also has you blog about shows and your analysis of them, which not only helps you document your thoughts, but allows you to read and expand on other people’s thoughts through commenting.

You will write two papers, an Analytical Research Paper (ARP) and a Commonplace Paper (CP). Your ARP will be taking this theme of Science Fiction and analyzing it in your interpretation and connecting that analysis to the real world. Your CP will reflect off of that and narrow down to one point from your ARP and appeal it to your peers. These two papers teach you how to appeal to your projected audience and get your point across.

Hope the advice helps!

Vidhee Patel

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Dear Future English 110 Student,

If you are reading this then that means I am already dead… Not really, but what it does mean is that you are starting English 110. The number one piece of advice I can give you is to keep up with your blogs and comments. Nothing is worse then getting to the end of the quarter and realizing you only have 30 of your required 100 comments done. Trust me. It’s not fun at all. Second gem of information I can give to you is do not, I repeat, DO NOT put off your research paper and Commonplace paper until the night they are due. I have a bad habit of procrastinating and I just made it way more stressful then it should have been. If you are also a procrastinator, I suggest you do anything you can think of to get over it so you can work on these papers. Other than that I just have to tell you not to write off whatever theme you have for the class. My theme was SciFi shows and I admit that I instantly assumed that it would be stupid and boring, but it was quite the contrary. I even found a couple shows that I watched whole seasons of outside of class. All I am saying is that you should go into your English class with an open mind regardless of what your theme is. This class can be as fun or as boring as you are willing to make it. It has made me a much better writer and analytical thinker and I am sure it will do the same for you.

Sincerely,
Bill D.

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Dear future students,

I want to wish you luck in English 110. It is a good class that you choose your own grade. When I say that you can choose your own grade, I mean that you can easily get an A if you want it. My first advice is do the blogs all in advance. Do them ASAP and same with the commenting. Those are all easy points and can affect your grade. I also recommend that you go to the writing center at least once for each paper even if you write even if you don’t need to. That is a half of a point for each trip and the class is out of 100 points so it is worth it. Also, do revisions, they will really help your grade too. Overall this is a great class if you do all of the work. Think of topics ahead of time to write about so that you can be on top of things. Write your papers as soon as you can, and don’t wait till the last minute to write them. All of these things will help you succeed in English 110. About the blogs, they are long and tiresome. 43 blogs is a lot of writing so be smart, don’t wait till 11pm to start writing all of them. As for the 100 comments, I would also recommend that you get those done early. It suck to have to do half of your comments in the last two days of the quarter.

With that I wish you all the best of luck,

Garrett Leeson

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Dear future student,

Welcome to English 110 with Leslie Chambers. If you are worried you will not like this course, because it is science fiction or because of all the blogging, do not be. Before taking this class I would have never thought I would be able to sit down and appreciate a science fiction television show. But I have actually discovered a couple series that I enjoy. If you are not a scifi fan you may be surprised to discover how much science fiction is based on reality. It’s not just about robots, aliens, or other things; it is also about humanity and ethics. One thing science fiction does a lot is bring up the question “what if?” and really makes you think.

At first I was overwhelmed by the idea of having to write a blog almost every night. It seemed it would be such a burden, and the fact that everyone in class could see it also scared me. In time you will see that it is not bad at all. The nightly blogs are not there to scare you; they are there to help you get over your anxiety for writing. The fact that people can comment on your blogs and you can comment on theirs is also nice. Being able to communicate with one another and give my opinion was helpful in improving my writing skills.

As long as you don’t slack off on blogging and commenting and put a good effort into your papers you will do fine. I hope you enjoy this class as much as I did. Good luck and have fun!

Morgan

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To Leslie’s Next English 110 Class:

Good Luck! Make sure that you stay on top of all of your assignments. You’re going to get a lot of things assigned to you, and it is easy to forget about them. I recommend writing your assignments down, because I guarantee that if you don’t, you are going to forget some of them. If your subject is the same as ours (science fiction), you are probably not going to like it. I mean some of you probably will, but if you are like me, you will not like the subject. Try to give it a chance, or at least don’t let the material make the quality of your work go down. Just try to get through the material and the episodes of science fictions television that you will watch regularly. Make sure that you choose an interesting topic for your two page draft (you’ll know what that is soon). The rest of your papers are going to deal with the same topic, so make sure that it is something that you feel comfortable writing about. You’ll do lots of blogs, and at least two more papers on this subject. Even if it something that you enjoy talking about, I am almost certain that after writing the assignments you are going to be very tired of your subject. That is where I am right now as I am doing revisions for my papers. Most importantly, I recommend looking through the episode list to find a television show that you are actually interested in. It may be hard (it was for me), but it will make the class a lot easier if you can relate to whatever it is you choose to watch. For some of the girls in the class, I would recommend watching Dollhouse. After watching a few other shows from the list, this is the one that I finally decided was most interesting. You are going to watch a good amount of episodes, and it is torture when they are ones that you find horrible. Lastly, KEEP UP ON YOUR BLOG COMMENTS! It’s too easy to forget about blog comments, but you will kick yourself if you realize that you have 100 blog comments to make during finals week. Again, good luck!

Sincerely,

Sarah

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Dear Future English 110 Student,
      English 110 may seem to be merely a prerequisite and graduation requirement, but it is actually a lot more than that. It is necessary in order to broaden your writing skills for college level courses. Even if your class is assigned a topic that does not interest you, there are countless aspects for each topic and you are able to put your own twist on things to create a more specific subject that better holds your interest.
      My personal advice to you would be to obviously meet all the deadlines and requirements of the class in order to get a good grade. To further your success in this class, I suggest that you also pre-write before you begin your writing assignments. This will definitely help you with getting your ideas out there by brainstorming. Pre-writing will also greatly help you with formatting and organizing your papers, which is very important in college writing. I believe that one of the best ways to achieve these things would be to create an outline of what you will be writing. This definitely helped me throughout my writings for this class. Another suggestion that I can provide to you would be to think about what you want to write about when given the choice rather than just choosing a random topic. While everything should relate back to your course theme, you are usually allowed to really expand on this. An advantage of choosing something that you find interesting would be that you will be able to write and research more and also enjoy doing so, which would make this class a lot more enjoyable for you.
      I hope that you found my suggestions for this class to be useful and I wish you the best of luck with your assignments and writings.

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Hey English Students of the fall quarter.

I hope your first day went well. We were asked to write you a blog about how the quarter went for us and include any advice for you that we could think of. First of all do the blogs, even if there a day late, it’s a great grade buffer. Also for your ARP and CP papers, find something that you really like, it makes it a lot easier to write a paper about something you like than about something you despise. Also visiting the writing center can seem like a pain and a waste of time, but in the end it would have been better for me to go there while I was first writing my papers, that way I wouldn’t have to rewrite them in the first place. The grading seems like it’s going to be a cinch to pass, but you will be surprised. Also commingling should not be left to the end, if it is 5 blogs a day helps. Also if your board one night watch an episode for one of your future blogs, that way when you’re in a jam, it’s really nice not to have to write a blog about a show that you also have to watch.

As a writer I think that I have learned to integrate quotes more. I have also gotten a lot better at writing analytical, and with all the blogs that I have done I have also gotten a lot better at writing in general, especially with summarizing and questioning. Good Luck in your fist quarter at Ohio State, I loved mine, and continue to enjoy my time here!

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Just so you know, this class is a lot of work . . . but it is also really fun! I am sure when Leslie told you guys the theme was SciFi some of you rolled you eyes and though how uninteresting this class was going to be. Well, my number one piece of advice is: give SciFi a chance! It’s really great once you start watching it. Sure, you’re not going to like every show she asks you to watch—I didn’t either. But, on the other hand, you are going to find a show or two you really enjoy. Dare I say it, you may watch the shows when they aren’t even assigned.

If you would like my opinion (a girl who never watched SciFi before this class), I suggest you watch Dollhouse and Firefly. Well, if you’re a girl who likes cheesy shows or movies you may like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Whatever show you end up liking, totally immerse yourself in it and try to understand what the show is telling you. TV shows aren’t just made up randomly by people for no reason; you should go ahead and accept that fact. TV shows are made to portray an important message to the audience—to get the audience thinking.

While all that is good and dandy, I’m sure you probably don’t care. At this point you’re thinking, “Well, Jamie, that’s great. Now why don’t you tell me how to get an A?” Well, luckily for you, it isn’t too terribly difficult to do well in this course. The best way to keep your grade is to do the blogs. Yeah, compared to the other classes you have a lot more but that just means you also have less papers. I love having a lot of blogs, because you are in control over them. If you do the blog, you get credit; Leslie doesn’t take off for grammatical errors or anything like that. In this class, I felt like I had control over my grade. So, just show up for class, do the blogs, watch the shows and you should be good to go.

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My name is Bryn Webster, and I am a high school senior. I decided to take the early college path and finished my high school’s courses in two years. I’m telling you this because if you’re a freshman on campus, this will probably be one of your first classes too. I’ve learned a lot about writing and analyzing during this quarter, but the thing that I learned the most about was myself. If you are taking this class in the fall quarter of 2010, you’re starting a brand new year on campus. You’ll still be figuring out who you want to be and what you want to do. This class is a great way to start asking those questions.

Maybe you’ll find that writing and literature just aren’t for you, and that’s OK. Hopefully, this class will still teach you the basics, like how to write analytical research papers or grammar. Or maybe you’ll just learn a little about televised Sci-Fi. Who knows, Leslie could get you hooked on Firefly and Dollhouse and V just like the rest of us! However, if you’re like me, you may discovery that you actually enjoy English 110. Going into this class, I knew that I liked non-fiction writing. I didn’t realize how much writing would help me figure things out, or how it would help give me that extra boost of confidence.

At first, blogging and writing research papers was daunting. I’d never written to a crowd of complete strangers before, and I certainly didn’t know what the teacher wanted from me. But there’s a first time for everything, so don’t procrastinate just because you’re afraid to take the first step. Soon, that 250-word “blog about anything” won’t be so difficult. You may even find yourself, well, finding yourself! Look at this class as an opportunity to write about personal, passionate topics, and this quarter will go by in no time. If you’re like me, it may even go by too fast.

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Hey New Sci-Fi'ers

I took this class last quarter and if I'm being blunt, I should say that I got an A. But i think that's because I had a realization most people didn't, and because I learned "how to write" back in high school. If you're someone who likes Science Fiction even just a little bit, don't think this topic... Science Fiction... is the focus of this class. Leslie loves science fiction, but more than that, she's going to ask for you to improve your ability to write. In high school, I learned how to take an idea and put in on paper. That was good then, but now Leslie asked me to do something different with my writing this quarter. She told me to make my ideas convincing and she taught our class what are the effective methods we can use to pull readers to our side of an idea. You'll see that that whole idea is the reason why you look at Commonplace and use the ARP to build up to the CP. Leslie's not looking for grammatical prowess and she doesn't want to read something that "sounds smart"... she wants you to think of idea and write a paper to tell how you go to that idea or argument and then she wants you to back it up. Don't think that any of your ideas are good or bad. I learned that it doesn't really matter what your argument is, just that you can support it. This class is one that is hard to be successful in given that there are only nine weeks to learn what a 'compelling paper' is. Ask Leslie what she's looking for... a lot. You're not going to learn everything by picking up the pieces yourself. Take your papers to her and work through them with her. Writing convincing works is complicated, everybody always needs help and there are always critics there to show you no paper can be perfect. Just try and make them your best. AND WRITE GOOD COMMENTS.... it's how you get extra credit...

Jake

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Dear Future English 110.01 students:

You may be asking yourself, is our course theme really Science Fiction? Do I really have to write four blogs a week, and make a total of a hundred comments by the end of the quarter? Do I really have to also find time to write a seven page analytical research paper, and another 2 to 4 page paper after that? Although this may be a bit overwhelming at first, as it was to me, this course really isn’t that bad at all.

First, you only have to go to class twice a week, and the episodes we watch in class are actually pretty good, and I’ve gained a new respect for the Science Fiction genre. You will find that the shows depict real life problems, and the directors seem to be masters of their craft. I’ve never seen such accurate depictions of our society in any other genre of television. I never thought I’d end up watching every single Firefly episode. You will probably know about this show after your first class. The papers aren’t too bad either. The analytical research paper is broken into three parts. First, there’s the two page analysis. Next, you have to integrate a secondary source, and finally you have to write the entire paper. My advice is that when you go from the two page analysis to the secondary source integration, that you rewrite your beginning with a thesis and argument in mind. Also, you may want to rewrite everything when going from your secondary source integration to your final paper because your thesis and argument may change. This will save you time in the end.

All in all, it was a fun class, and if you don’t grow to like the Science Fiction genre like I have, you definitely will grow to respect it. I wish you the best of luck in this class.

Gregg

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Dear future English 110 Students:

You have to take an English course your freshman year, and I suggest this one because it wasn't bad at all. Each teacher gets to pick their own subject, which I didn't know before hand, but is something that I think is cool. So, you may not have the same material as your friends who have to take the class as well. Our subject was televised science fiction, and at first I was horrified to hear this, but in the end I realized that the subject doesn't matter, because almost all times that you have to write a paper in college it isn't a subject that you get to pick, but rather that is assigned. This class really helped me hone in on my writing skills, I had good ones from my high school, but with some constructive criticism I realized how to make my writing better. The only thing I would suggest is to give your all into your assignments from the beginning of the quarter because before you know it you will have lost points that you thought wouldn't be a big deal but are because there are so few grades in this course. Also, I always would recommend to pick topics for your papers that actually interest you, because the more you like what you are writing about, the better your writing will be. I wish you all the best!

Sincerely, Kathryn

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Dear English 110 students,

Welcome to English 110, your first year writing course. If you’re anything like me, you are probably dreading this course because it means that you have to write papers, something I am not very good at. If so, get rid of those thoughts. Come into this class with an open mind and it will be much more enjoyable. This class will be an opportunity for you to strengthen your old skills and develop new skills.
Although I was not the biggest fan of science fiction coming into this class, I enjoyed watching some of the shows. I encourage you to open your mind to this topic as well, because you just might find that you like it! If you know before viewing an episode that there will be a connection to the real world, then it will be easier to pick out. It was hard for me at first to draw these connections but it gets easier with practice. Some of that practice comes from watching the episodes and blogging about them. Speaking of blogs, there are a lot of them but don’t let that get to you. They are not as bad as they might seem. A 250 word limit is not a lot and the topics are relatively easy to write about. Use Blogger as an opportunity to practice so you will find your formal papers much easier to write.
My last piece of advice is to find a lot of possible research ideas in case you find that one doesn’t work. This will make your life a lot easier when it comes to writing your papers.

Sincerely,
Nichole Geraci

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Dear Future English 110.01 Student:

I am sure you guys and girls must be wondering how this class is going to run and what troubles and difficulties you might have to face as the quarter goes on. I have heard about different English 110 sections from friends and I myself have taken it before this quarter, but unfortunately had to drop it because of personal reasons, but I can assure you, this class was a bliss as compared to the other English 110 classes. You would never imagine that you actually have to watch TV show episodes in class but not read boring articles!

I normally never look forward to a long 1 hour 48 minutes class but this English 110 class taught by Leslie Chambers is different and real fun. As I said we watch tv shows in class and that too all that obviously relate to our class topic and we can so easily relate those episodes to our chosen Analytical Research Paper and Common Place topics.

Our class topic was Sci Fi, so we watched episodes of the TV show Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and Caprica.

We had a total number of 43 blogs for this blog, and most of them were about the episodes that we have already seen in class or have been assigned to watch at home. We had some discuss anything blogs too! So don’t let the fact that we have to write 43 blogs bother you. Its really not as time consuming and tedious as you may think it would be.

Overall this class was awesome and you are sure to enjoy this one!

All the best and have fun!

Abhi

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Dear incoming English 110 student:

I don’t like writing and I’m not good in writing at all, but I have to take English 110 since it is required. I thought it would be a tough class for me, but it turns out to be OK, comparing to other English 110 sections.

I’m not a big fan of science fiction, but I felt lucky when I was informed of the class topic. Some of my friends are having topics like American dream and cultural difference, which means they have to read boring articles and we watch interesting TV series. The TV series, except for some episodes that we will watch together in class, is your own choice from the primary source list, so you can pick whichever you are interested in.

I think I am becoming a better writer because I now pay more attention to the overall flow of my paper and grammars after taking English 110. There are only several things you need to accomplish for this course: the blogs, commenting, primary source paper, secondary source paper, ARP final paper, and Commonplace paper, and editing. The only one assignment I thought was hard is the ARP paper because it is a long paper, but Leslie will help you on that, so no need to worry about it. Editing and peer-review are the parts I like the most of this class. I can read articles written by my classmates and comments on them, which not only helps me to think critically, but also helps others to improve their writing skills. For other papers, if you follow the five movements mentioned in the book Writing Analytically, you will get a good grade.

Overall, English 110 is not a hard class and I hope you enjoy taking this class.

Sincerely,

Bingling

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Dear Students,

Welcome to this interesting course—English 110. In this class, you will have a good time enjoying the science fiction TV shows, getting used to write a every-day blog, and beginning to be familiar with a new staff—Commonplace. Before I took this course, many of my friends told me that this course was very tough and complicated. After experiencing this course, I find it is interesting. Though it may be hard to get a good score for your paper, the design and process of this course is very good.

I was a person who set my goal of writing as try to finish a paper following rubrics. After taking this course, I am now trying to be a good writer. Leslie really helps a lot to improve my writing skills. This is also what I will recommend you: talk to your teacher as much as you can to improve your writing.

Also, as I have said, this is an interesting course. So, don’t treat your homework as burden. Try to enjoy it. The TV shows are very interesting and the cp articles are worth reading. If you treat them as homework, you will find you are tired of doing so many assignments. This is what I did at the beginning of the quarter. I was almost complaining everyday that I can so much homework to do. However, when I try to explore how these things can be related to my paper writing, I find they are so helpful and not boring at all. This is much more interesting than the teacher just give you a topic to write a 7 page paper.

I hope you can enjoy this course and get a good grade.
Sincerely,

Xuyi Chen

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Dear Future English 110.01 Students,
As a freshman at The Ohio State University, you are required to take an English course. I recommend the 110.01 course instead of the 110.02 course, mainly because it is less on a reading and literature basis.
During this class, I learned a lot about a different kind of writing. I would not necessarily say I improved as a writer, because I do not think I did. My high school’s English department is ranked nationally so I did not really need any help there. However, I did develop better in the areas of integrating quotes, and writing introductions and conclusions.
The course theme kind of changed my mind about science fiction. When I found out what the theme was, I knew I was doomed. Even though I still do not like science fiction at all, I learned different areas of the subject, and found out that it was not just about robots and aliens. I thought this subject was really hard to write about, especially since you had to base your research on an episode.
However, I learned a lot about writing in an analytical style, which was never really taught to me in high school. The book, Writing Analytically will help you a lot through the course of this class and learning how to do certain things. My advice to you is to actually read this book and not blow it off, mainly because it is mostly to help you and not just to bore you. I would also advise going to The Writing Center a few times a quarter. Not only do you get extra credit by going, but it truly does help you a lot. I made the mistake by only going during the last week for revision, and now wish I would have gone a few more times during the quarter.
I hope that this has helped give you some sort of outlook for English 110.01. I wish you the best of luck next year.
Sincerely,
Ali Kaufman

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Dear incoming English 110 students:

English 110 is a required class that every student has to take. Most students take it there freshmen year of college. English 110 prepares student for future writing courses, along with other classes that have writing assignments. English 110 is composed of four projects: an Analytical Research Paper, a Common Place University paper, an editing phase, and maintain a blog. Each of these four projects relate to your class theme. My class theme was science fiction. When I heard this I wasn’t too thrilled, but it ended up being ok.

The Analytical Research Paper is based on a source your teacher proposes. You first write a 2 page analysis of your source. In this two page analysis you learn the 5 analytical moves. Next you write a 3-5 page source integration paper. During this phase you learn how to conduct online research using the online library. You then learn how to properly integrate quotes. The next phase is completing the full 7-8 page paper. This project makes you a well rounded writer.

Then second project we did was the Common Place paper. This paper is written for other college student and is only 2-3 pages in length. The common place paper has to have an argument. Your job is to make the argument timely, compelling and relevant. This paper develops your skills as to writing to an audience. It also helps you learn how to write in a compelling manner.

The third project was being an editor of other student’s commonplace papers. This helps you learn how to strengthen your editing skills. I now know how and where to look for errors, as well as giving critical feedback about those errors.

The final writing project was to maintain a blog. Our class was required to write 43 blogs, which is about four a week. These blogs must be a minimum of 250 words and relate to a topic given by the teacher. The blogs got me into the habit of writing, and made it easier for me to start writing an assignment.

I hope you enjoy taking English 110!

Sincerely,

Matt

Autumn 2010: ENGL110.01 Televised Scifi

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Extra Credit for Commenting

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Extra Credit for Commenting

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Extra Credit for Comments

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Extra Credit for Comments

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Extra Credit

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Extra Credit for Comments

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Extra Credit for Comments

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Extra Credit for Comments prior to 09/28/2010

Monday, September 27, 2010

Letters from Last Quarter's Students: Spring 2010 Letters