I am the working man. My name is Joe Cook of Zanesville, Ohio. The high school I attended, Maysville Local, wasn’t known for its grammatical strength. I started my OU career in the fall of 2008 during my senior year of high school at OU Zanesville. My major is Civil Engineering with a focus in environmental and water management systems. I work uptown at Century National Bank as a teller and am also a research assistant for the Civil Engineering department. I’m active in the American Society of Civil Engineers as the current sophomore class representative and in Engineers Without Borders as the Vice President. I also hate promoting myself, so to that end I’ll move on.
As mentioned previously I started my OU career in 2008 and unfortunately that is also the last formal English class I’ve had. My professor was one Michael Nern. I recall him to be a self proclaimed cynic. The class was 151, but being at a branch the class was not challenging. His class was very cut and dry with little discussion or interaction between students. To put it bluntly, 151 was one of the most boring classes I’ve ever had. I gained valuable research knowledge, but my creativity was stifled. I would like to see an incorporation of more fictional writing in 151. Personally I enjoy writing short science fiction stories. Unfortunately I don’t see sci-fi happening in 308j.
The course peaks my interest from a societal standpoint, as I wrote sociatal, the computer corrected it to societal. Personally I read a lot into others’ grammar on social media sites to judge their general level of intelligence. Spell check seems to be the superficial makeup of writing today, sure it looks nice, but no amount of spell checking can make an essay beautiful or well structured. I like the fact you’re class will let us take a look at these things, but I’m also afraid because it seems as though you have no prior experience grading essays involving these issues. Unfortunately I signed up for this class because it was the junior comp. class that fit my schedule and I’m here solely to fulfill my tier requirements. I’m glad the issues are interesting and hopefully a level of challenge and creative freedom will come with your course. Time will tell.
This is my blog for 308j. The class has given me my first introduction to blogging. I hope this goes over well.
Joe,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this intro post. I liked hearing about your experiences with 151 even if it was " one of the most boring classes." I think we can make 308j interesting and exciting by coming to class prepared to talk about the readings and having real discussions about the course content. I'm sorry to inform you that you're presumption about sci-fi is correct. We won't be writing any fiction in this course. But I would recommend you to take a creative writing course where you could do so. OU has a great creative writing program with a top-notch faculty. The grammar/tech debate is a fascinating one. And I think it relates to this first reading so be sure to bring it up on Monday when we talk. Finally, your apprehension about grading is something very important to me. I think it's smart of you to realize there might be some complications with assessment when we undertake an experimental essay. There's a short section on "evaluation" in the assignment document, but I plan to come up with something more evolved before the final draft of the assignment is due. I want to get your opinion on it, so I'll be sure to make room in the schedule for that. Thanks again for voicing your concerns.
Welcome to the course!