Directions
Dear English 203 Students,
Since this unit we are worked on the new media [facebook,. youtube, myspace] among other things, I thought we would make our reflective journal for the closure of unit 1, a blog.
I would like for you to write a reflective journal on one of the flollowing topics, publish your post on this blog, and then reply to someone else's blog posting. YOU SHOULD POST YOUR BLOG ENTRY ON THE DAY YOU SUBMIT YOUR PORTFOLIO, Monday, January 17. PLEASE PRINT OUT A COPY OF YOUR BLOG ENTRY AND INCLUDE IT IN YOUR PORTFOLIO.....
I will be posting an assignment description on Moodle shortly. Please read it before you submit / publish your blog entry.
Since this unit we are worked on the new media [facebook,. youtube, myspace] among other things, I thought we would make our reflective journal for the closure of unit 1, a blog.
I would like for you to write a reflective journal on one of the flollowing topics, publish your post on this blog, and then reply to someone else's blog posting. YOU SHOULD POST YOUR BLOG ENTRY ON THE DAY YOU SUBMIT YOUR PORTFOLIO, Monday, January 17. PLEASE PRINT OUT A COPY OF YOUR BLOG ENTRY AND INCLUDE IT IN YOUR PORTFOLIO.....
I will be posting an assignment description on Moodle shortly. Please read it before you submit / publish your blog entry.
You can upload your journal by clicking on post a comment.....
1. What are some of the problems you have encoutered this semester with your writing? What do you think you can do to resolve some of these problems? What are some of the successes? What can you do to replicate these successes?
OR
2. What are some useful language skills you have acquired or need to acquire for your major? How do you plan to achieve those skills.
1. What are some of the problems you have encoutered this semester with your writing? What do you think you can do to resolve some of these problems? What are some of the successes? What can you do to replicate these successes?
OR
2. What are some useful language skills you have acquired or need to acquire for your major? How do you plan to achieve those skills.
Evaluation Criteria:
Your journal will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:
Does it truly signal reflection of your work?
Is it genuine?
Are there any insights?
Is it properly formatted?
Does it use proper style and tone?
Did you respond in a meaningful way to at least one of your classmates?
Does it reflect a genuine looking back and thinking.
First of all, I would like to thank you for this course which I consider it my most preferable course this first semester.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I would like to expose my preference for the topics of the second unit over the ones of the first unit. The main reason behind that is that the topics of the new media and web 2.0 are topics that I encounter hundreds of times each day in my ordinary life. I found myself pleased in writing about these topics especially because we had access to outside sources where I can discover the subject from all its aspects and get it deep inside it. By this, I understand the subject I am developing and thus I can take my own stand and present my own judgment, either white or black, rather than being always “gray”. And since I believe that a neutral person is someone without odor or taste, and thus he doesn’t exist, I always tend in my writings to take a stand and support it with all the valid arguments. That’s what I considered my strength point in this course.
On another side, my weakest point in this second part was the oral presentation. Even though you liked it and gave me a considerable high grade and nice comments, but I think I failed big time in expressing myself orally. I wasn’t able to express all my ideas throughout words, maybe because my vocabulary isn’t wide enough, or maybe I prefer to express myself in writing. This is a critical issue I should work on to be able to give speeches and presentations in the future.
In the end, I would like to re thank you for this interesting course and for the beautiful ambiance that you created in class.
Sincerely, Imad S. Naim
We are done with this semester, done with English 203, but not done with academic writing; and thanks to you, this part of our education was covered and understood in an original and effective way.
ReplyDeleteIn my first journal, I exposed the fact that I am not good with reading responses. In Unit 1, I did improve a little bit concerning reading responses but that was it, I didn’t improve further anymore. Maybe it’s because I don’t like it and maybe it’s because I didn’t work harder to improve or both at a time. Also I still have my grammatical issues pending; I think it’s a matter of time and practice.
Many acquirements were achieved this Unit, such as building a strong argument, without logical fallacies and using the proper methods. I learned more about organizing our argument, choosing the right claims and developing them to prove my point of view. I learned about the different methods of arguing. And I learned how to critically read an argumentative piece of writing. Another important skill we acquired this semester was how to search the libraries’ databases which could help us very much in our researches, projects… in other courses as well.
The most original thing in Unit 2 is the oral presentation, I loved the idea; it is creative, it breaks the routine of the old classic course which could become boring. Also for us students, it is a great opportunity to discover our weakness in front of an audience and our ability to communicate our ideas clearly to the audience. Our group’s presentation wasn’t that bad, you thought my part was short; it was because I was taking care of the technical part. I discovered that I need some more practice to be able to express myself without any problem like accent problems and word selection problem. Adding to that the fact that Unit 2 was very informative, I learned many new things about the new media; and the Unit 2 is far more interesting than Unit 1.
In general, Eng 203 was a great course, we learned, we had fun, we met new people and we acquired new skills. Let’s hope Eng 206 will be as good as Eng 203.
Thank you again for this motivating course, I hope you will get good students just like us next semester.
Yours sincerely,
Joe El Asmar.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIf some one asked me what was the best course you had this semester, it would be English 203 unquestionably. I can honestly say that I am not a big fan of English, not in school and not in university.But I do enjoy reading books and find it amusing.
ReplyDeleteI cannot deny I had some hard time at first, but with each session, I was learning the hang of it. At the beginning of the semester, a lot was new to me. The first unit was a very big challenge; a new way to deal with English, a new way to write academic essays, and a new way to respond to readings in class.
After the first reading response, I was honestly thinking to drop the course and take it some other time. But I did not want to give up from the very first start.
I keenly focused in class, and made benefit of every detail and mistake. That was when I starting reading books again, especially for Oscar Wilde and Paulo Coelho, and learned a way for enriching my academic English.
And this was what happened. With the beginning of the second unit, my hard work started to pay off; higher grades and a new motivation to develop my writing skills.
One of the things that really benefited me in this course was the oral presentation, because I knew what my weak points are and try to overcome my ‘stage fright’. In addition, the argumentative essay gave me a new opportunity to redefine my research methods and start to deal with databases and avoid plagiarism.
Although there was some bitter taste in this course, but it was worth it absolutely.
Thank you for making this course amusing and beneficial for everyone of us.
Yours sincerely,
Maya Ismail
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ReplyDeleteDuring the course of this semester and the course of English 203 I went through a course of sophisticated improvements in my English language. Improving at a skill involves seeing your success and more importantly learning from your mistakes.
ReplyDeleteOne of the problems I had was one which includes grammar. The reason I had grammatical problems was because Microsoft Word on my computer wasn’t doing the corrections. This was very beneficial because I learned to check over my own mistakes in a precise manner and I learned not to rely on Microsoft Word.
Another of my deficiencies during this course was my oral presentation. I had difficulty because I had been a little rusty with my social and communication skills in result of the slight language barrier I was dealing with in Lebanon. I was a bit nervous, and when I saw smiles on all my classmates’ faces which I interpreted with a slight sense of mockery, I felt even more nervous. I believe the smiles were because of my accent. I will not have so much trouble in future presentations because I think I should be proud of the accent I grew up to have, and I understand the grade I received.
I was successful in making it to class on time for the reason that I enjoyed the class. I was successful maintaining a proper relation with the prompts of my writing, I had the problem of not being able to do so as I mentioned in my first reflection, the goal of improving at this task was achieved. I was successful in maintaining a cleaner writing style and this is in result of the comments I received on my writings, the illusion that they were harsh, turned into a feeling of appreciation for the upfront directions towards the right path. I will maintain my relationship with my prompts in the future by thinking to myself what Miss Sinno would possible tell me. I truly appreciate the expansion of knowledge that you provided me with. I wish you all the best.
truely, nash hamadeh
To Maya,
ReplyDeleteIts good to know all of us enjoyed English 203. I understand the fact that the first unit was not as enjoyable as the second unit. The media is a more entertaining topic.I also had my oral presentation be one of my weak points but hopefully the both of us will improve. I think you really reflected on your semester in this course.
Farewell 203.
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ReplyDeleteHang on! This is about to get way too philosophical. Do NOT read if you are allergic to philosophy.
ReplyDeleteNearly a semester has passed since my first day in English 203. I must say, a lot has changed for me as a writer as well as a reader.
To begin with, no one can write without doing any reading. Not just any reading, but critical reading. That is, reading in between the lines of the text, putting a question mark on its every detail. During the first few lectures of the course, I learned the magic of pre-reading. It is dangerous to abruptly dive into a cold river on a hot day, you must descend slowly into the water. You can’t just jump off a building to get to the bottom, you must descend slowly on the stairs(or using an elevator, but I believe the former is more fun). Likewise, you can’t just grab a book, start reading, and expect to understand something without pre-reading. This method put me in the general environment of a text. It made me curious to read the text, and helped me read it as critically as required.
Indeed nobody can create pure original artwork. All the things we “create” are a mixture of the things we have seen. That is, our experiences. After the process of reading and gaining experience, it became time for me to integrate all I read into a work of my own. At first it seemed like a challenge, and that’s why I was eager to do it. I had read that texts as powerfully as my mood allowed me to. They became a part of my “thought library”. They became ideas I could express anywhere and in any way I wanted. In other words, ideas I could improvise on. However, I would not be able to finally achieve writing skills until I used them in my first essay “When Cinderella met The Gorilla”.
During the second part of the course, it was mainly the same thing all over again, however this time I had to use information from my own resources. Practicing this form of writing over and over again throughout this course helped me finally gain the skills of a writer. However I still haven’t become the writer I want to be. There still remains so much practicing to do. I plan to continue where I left off in English 203. I plan on doing more critical reading on my own, and trying to integrate new ideas into my writings.
Sincerly,
Ahmad Itani
When I registered for the course, I thought it will be a normal English course similar to what we used to have in the high school. At the beginning of the course, I had the same feeling. We just make readings and writings in class or as homework, in addition to the normal discussions in class. However, after few classes had passed, I started realizing that the course is more than what I thought. It’s not just reading and writing that I know.
ReplyDeleteI got to know a new type or concept of reading known as critical reading. This critical reading consists of three main phases, which are: previewing, reading, and evaluating or critiquing the text. In the past, I used to make only the second phase, which’s reading the text directly, but without competing it as I should. That’s why my readings used to be superficial.
In critical reading, I learned to preview the text I want to read first in order to take an overview about the text before reading its details. This process helps me enter in the mood of the text. Then, I start reading the text but different than the way I used to. Now, my reading is a critical reading. So I underline important ideas, circle key words or unfamiliar words, and even write marginal notes while reading. Finally, after I finish reading, I think about the ideas mentioned in the text and discuss the notes I wrote or thought about during reading. This whole process of critical reading helped me a lot in understanding the texts more deeply.
Another thing I learned in this course is how to be more methodical in writing my essays. This is achieved by prewriting where I learned how to organize my ideas and classify them before I begin writing. Also, I learned more about prewriting or drafting strategies like brainstorming.
The most important and new concept I learned till now in this course is the synthesis process. This process consists of synthesizing a text of my own based on several texts I have read before. This means I integrate all the information I had read into a work of my own. This process seemed to be so hard to me at the beginning. But after I learned the critical reading process, it became much easier to me to do the synthesis process. I realized then that this skill is so important for writing, where I depend on several resources and integrate them in order to get a new text. Moreover, I learned in this course how to make in text citations in order to avoid plagiarism.
Another thing I learned in this course is how to make a successful teamwork in order to answer given questions or achieve a certain requirement. I learned more how to discuss issues and share ideas and thoughts amongst teammates. I liked in this course the organized schedule given to me with the syllabus at the beginning of the course. It was really helpful and well-planned, in addition that it helped me make an overview about everything I will cover and make in this course during the whole semester.
Sincerely,
Bilal Itani
To Imad,
ReplyDeletePersonally I faced the similar trouble concerning oral communication. Sometimes it's not about having vocabulary, it's about knowing how and when to use it. Knowing to express yourself with the little words you know is much better than memorizing an entire dictionary and not knowing how to use it.
At the end of this semester, I do think that this particular course was enjoyable, beneficial and increase my interest in so many subjects according to many factors.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned in the previous reflective journal, the excessive work was a bit challenging, and by the end of unit 2 it didn’t get any easier. I found a hard time trying to reflect my arguments without being slanted. Learning how to avoid fallacies was very beneficial, knowing that I was a victim of generalization myself. I do think that my style in writing improved since the beginning of the semester, yet some of my ideas were hard to get to the reader and sometimes misunderstood. I think the only way to get through this is by practice more writing argumentative essays. Furthermore, grammatical errors were an important issue that I tried to decrease as much as possible by keeping my sentences short and straight to the point.
I think dealing with interesting subjects, and having a general knowledge about them provided me with valid variety of points and ideas to support my arguments. Being successful in organizing my essay and my ideas is something I consider valuable, especially in writing scientific reports required in my major. Eventhough it needed a bit more of coordination, I did enjoy my oral presentation while talking about a familiar subject such as activism and the new media. Knowing that it wasn’t my first performance in front of an audience, I consider it a valuable experience.
Several things kept my interest in this course. First of all, the subjects weren’t traditional in fact they were related to the evolution of technology and recent issues. Second, the class group discussions, the interactions and the conversations made the course friendlier and interesting. Finally, I do think that the personality of the instructor did add a harmony into the course.
Sincerely yours,
Chafic Najem
I'm not going to say that this was my favorite course, but what i loved the most about it is that even though we had to work really hard throughout the weeks, it was one of the easiest courses i had.
ReplyDeleteUnit 1 was rather boring and the subjects felt like we were repeating the same things all the time. Unit 2 was much better, maybe because we were talking about things we are living with at the moment, things that are a big part of our lives, and even though we had a lot of reading responses, i liked what we were arguiing about.
I happen to love writing but i don't really give it the time it needs, and this course helped me with that and made me realise that i should focus more on writing, and even if it isn't a big part of my major, it is something i will always use in my career later on.
The main problems i faced in this course were the amount of work we had to do as homework, i wasn't at all expecting this much work in an english course, i thought it would'nt be much different from what we had in school, but with time i adapted to the situation and considered it preparing me for other courses with even more hard work.
I liked the debate we had in class the last few weeks and i think we should have done more than that because it drew everyone's attention and they all had a saying in the matter.
I'm hoping Eng 206 will be as fun as 203,
Sincerely yours,
Rouzana El Boustani
To Joe,
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you about having more academic writing to do, because you know what they say “it’s not over until the fat lady sings”. Concerning your limited improvement, your reason was the same as mine not to perform that well in unit one. I didn’t like the topic that much, but I say to you what I said to myself, sometimes you have to do things you don’t like. As for your grammatical issues, I would agree with you and advise you to give it the time and practice it needs because it’s important for your progression in AUB to have good grammar. Not to constantly criticize you, I like your praising of the second unit, and in my opinion it’s appropriately placed. The second unit was a success to most, if not all, the students and most of us enjoyed it more than the first unit because it was more ‘hands on’ especially with the oral presentation. I’m glad you enjoyed the course this semester; you’re standing in a long line of admirers.
To Chafic Najem
ReplyDeleteI believe it is very good that you were able to enjoy the course and the material and subjects discussed during the semester. It is also really interesting that you were able to relate your life, and experiences to this course and have also a backgroung information about the matter discussed.
As for the argumentation difficulties that you encountered, I beleive they were difficulties that faced almost everyone in class. But it is really good that you still tried to do your best trying to fulfill the requirements of argumentation. After all, trying and will are the very first steps to accomplishment and success!
To Rouzana,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that this course is easy, but it does really require a lot of hard work. Nothing in life comes easily. You should work hard in order to get what you aim to get in life.
You are right concerning the fact that unit 1 was not as interesting as unit 2. Unit 2 had us more engaged in the texts since the ideas we dealt with were things we face in our everyday life.
Some people may think that English is 'useless' or doesn't really help, but in fact, I am sure that you will be using the basic tools that Ms. Sinno has taught us in English 203 in your future career.
You are right that the debate that we had in English was very interesting and attracted most of the students' attention. I really enjoyed being your debate partner. :)
Good luck!
Hiba Bou Nasr
To Bilal
ReplyDeleteBilal I found that your reflective journal reveals many similarities between us. We both thought that English is an easy course that doesn't require much effort; however, after all it's good that you realized your weakness and worked hard to improve your skills. I believe as you said that we have learned important strategies to improve our work in other subjects as well.
Good luck
English has never been my number one asset. On the contrary, it has often been one of the biggest challenges I face everyday, especially that I attend an American University where one is expected to be at least fluent in this basic subject. Well, I am not. I struggle with the writing as well as with oral expression. I have difficulties when it comes to be elaborate in regards to vocabulary, to writing a paragraph on the go without having to think twice of each word placed on paper. I also have difficulties expressing myself orally, addressing my peers without the fear of sounding ridiculous! No need to say that the more these negative ideas go through my mind while trying to formulate a correct sentence the more I freeze; and the more I freeze the lower are the numbers of times where I do dare addressing others with this foreign language (which shouldn’t be so foreign any more after all!)
ReplyDeleteSo, to be more specific in regards to the problems I faced during this fall semester and that pertain (a new word I learnt not so long ago!) to writing, I could point out several difficulties. First, I must say ideas weren’t coming to me easily. Indeed, when one is thinking about things and issues in his mother language (in my case Arabic), and wishes to translate those in English for instance, weirdly enough, it just doesn’t seem that right! And to start thinking in English in order to avoid the translation fiasco, one has to be “familiar” with the language to say the least. Which brings me to the second problem: comprehension. One shameful thing I dare to admit is that I have troubles understanding texts fully. Eventhough texts we encounter in this course are straightforward and collected into one interesting book especially conceived or students’ usage, I still cannot say it is easy for me to comprehend a text with all the small details and the witty reflections that others would automatically and “effortlessly” get. Needless it is to hence highlight my difficulty in putting the proper words at their place, without sounding too “boring” on paper.
However, I do have some good news (at least to myself): I am indeed finding it easier to decipher all what this beautiful language contains! Practice makes wonders! Actually spending 2.5 hours per week listening to the teacher explain to the class and debate several topics with my classmates have made me grasp more and more words and expressions. I have become more and more familiar with it and the more I am exposed to it, the better I become at it. Needless to say that those many assignments we’ve had during the semester obliged me (not that I’m complaining or anything…!) to read loads of lines (sometimes more than once!) that made me both understand the meanings and
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ReplyDeleteTo Abed,
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I want to praise you for being honest with yourself and with everyone that takes Eng 203. You presented and discussed your situation in a very frank way. I think many others have also suffered from your problems with language because they were educated in other languages(mostly french or arabic). But because you identified your problem you were able to improve in it. All it takes is time and effort and you had both:) well from what i have seen, i must admit that your english is pretty good, it is better than many people who are english educated! so dont be too harsh on yourself. If you continue reading and writing at this pace, it won't be long until your fully develop the ability to grasp those witty ideas 'effortlessly'!
best of luck
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ReplyDeleteAs the first half of the semester had elapsed, I got to understand more what English 203 course is all about. It is a course that merges critical thinking into your writings. By learning how to write different types of essays, we had to integrate different class readings and try to relate them to our prompts. I faced some difficulties during this semester, yet I managed to overcome some of them. The remaining problems that I might still be encountering are up to my perseverance in improving by trying to apply what I learned from class.
ReplyDeleteDuring the first semester, I tried to work on my weaknesses starting from the first day after we had received our first reading responses. I got a “check plus” on my first reading response. I wasn’t pleased at all with my performance! The major problem was that I wasn’t addressing the prompt properly. I decided to try to sort out my ideas before writing in order to organize my thoughts. This has shown improvement in my result during the second reading response. However, in the first draft of my first essay, I think I fell into the same problem where I had some irrelevant ideas. Yet, I worked hard on fixing a large part of the essay that improved it to a great extent. I think I did a good job there.
However, there is no limit to where and when a person can improve. The second half of the semester was another chance for me to improve and try to avoid the problems that I had to deal with in the first semester. I didn’t have difficulties anymore in using the ideas that I needed for the different topics that I had to write about. However, I was faced with a new problem. I had to perform an oral presentation in front of the class. Even though, I love writing and it’s another way of expressing myself, I used to hate oral presentation even at school. I think this is because I am a shy person by nature. But, I can’t simply say I hate presentations so I won’t do them. Iam a Civil Engineer and I might have to do several presentations in the future. If I don’t learn to present my points in a proper way, this might have a negative effect on my career. Therefore, English 203 gave me the opportunity to try to test myself once again. I think at many times during my presentation I was somehow nervous and afraid of not presenting well. This has definitely affected my performance. Yet, I tried to manage and control myself as much as possible in order not to jeopardize all the work that we have done as a group.
I had some other successes on the level of critical reading. This has helped me write better reading responses and essays during the second half of the semester. The topics that we read were easier to grasp. Thus, I felt much more involved in the readings. I wanted to improve in the second half of the semester. So I wrote summaries and analysis of the different texts that I we had read in class which I included in my portfolio. By critically evaluating each text, I had all my ideas sorted out on paper. I could refer to anything I want whenever I needed it in my writings. This is why I think my first draft of the argumentative essay was much better than that of the expository type.
In the future, I am going to work on improving my language. No matter how advanced a person can become at a certain level, he can still improve in many ways. I am going to do so through continuous reading. Moreover, I am going to try to control myself during presentations and benefit from Ms. Sinno’s advices concerning this topic since oral presentations are very important in my domain.
This was a wonderful course because I had to learn my weaknesses in writing and at the same time I had the chance to improve what could be done better. Moreover, the things I learned in this course don’t stop here. I can apply what I have learned in other courses and hopefully in my career when I become an engineer in the future.