Course Projects: My Worries

Adams, Shane. "Working from home" 05/09/08 via Flickr. Attribution Generic License.

  

 After carefully looking over four main upcoming projects of mine: The Controversy Postmortem, The Rhetorical Investigation, A Public Argument, and The Reflective Self-Assessment, I have come upon a few worries and comments in regards to their summaries. What types of worries or comments do you have from these four projects?

What are you most confused by or nervous about in regards to the four major projects?
    The most worrisome part of the four projects overall is the feeling that I may end up choosing very difficult genres for each of the topics, so that by the end of the semester I have to make do with a hard format to a relatively simple topic of reflecting on my semester as a whole. Another worry for me is within the Rhetorical Investigation project, conducting the primary research will be difficult for me, as finding people within my field to interview will be difficult to me. The last struggle I see myself having is preparing for the video essay and podcast and gathering the required equipment. Using video and sound editing software will be new to me, and I hope I’ll be able to effectively use those tools. 
What are you most interested in or excited by in regards to the four major projects?

   I am very interested in doing research on the controversy or the public argument, as learning new opinions has always interested me, and I always try to examine both sides of the argument, so learning about these projects should be fun. I am also excited to learn the previously mentioned video and sound editing software, as I enjoy computer hardware but would like to get into the software aspect side of things, and become a more rounded person. 

Based on your understanding of the major projects, what are the elements of this course that you have to plan ahead for? How will the coursework described in the four project assignment sheets challenge your time management skills this semester?

   I will have to effectively plan on who to interview for the second project, and also find the proper equipment for the two audio/visual genre depending on where I use them. I will have quite a hard time with time management, as four weeks between the projects leaves plenty of time to procrastinate while each project requires plenty of research, which I will have to plan for. 

How has your past English coursework in high school or college prepared you for the challenges of this course? What skills will you bring into the course with you?

   Past English work has made me a fairly effective arguer, researcher and essay writer, as I have written arguments and plenty of essays requiring research, while it has left me lacking in the audio/visual area of skills. I am fairly tech savvy with computer however, and I hope that helps me overcome the lack of video skills I bring into the semester.  

Do you have any questions about the four major projects that haven't been answered by the assignment sheets? What do you still want to know?

   I would more like to know the opinion of our teacher of how he might layout the genres for each projects and what type of requirements are usually put on a video essay or podcast that would make it effective in presentation to a class environment. 

Reflection

   Looking at other student's posts, I find that we all share many of the same worries. In Nick Hernandez's, I found that I related to his worries about time management and workload this semester, as four major project will be a change for my work pace compared to high school or other courses this semester, 
   Glancing at Joshua Smith's post, I see I am not alone in worrying about the two audio/ visual assignments in the genre, seeing as both the video essay and podcast will require video and audio editting, which are completely new to me. 
   Seeing how similar my classmates reacted I know I'm not alone in my worries, and I think we can all learn a bit from each other in how to tackle the situations we face. I think my writing process may need to incorporate more time into it seeing as everyone is worrying about time management, and I know that will also be an issue for myself.