Você está na página 1de 6

The overall message that I intend to send with my writing portfolio is the growth as a

writer that I have experienced. Throughout this course I feel as though I have been able to
expand on my writing and develop my abilities as a writer that I previously lacked in. I decided
to revise my first major writing assignment because I felt as though it was lacking in a sense and
could be improved. I'm sure I feel this way because it was my first writing assignment but I'm
certain that there are areas in which I can improve my earlier writing assignments. For both
revision assignments my goal is to focus on the mechanics of the writings. Having read back
through them they seem a little rigid and could use some touching up on how the sentences
read. I haven't really decided as to how I plan to write my reflective essay yet, I'm sure with time
I will eventually figure out how I want it to read.
The most meaningful moments for me as a writer throughout this course is
actually sitting down and completing a paper that was assigned. For me writing has always been
a struggle, be it from distractions and outside influences, or the most troublesome problem, the
dreaded “writers block”. Sitting down to write has always intimidated me and so actually being
able to complete the assignments is a sense of accomplishment for me and with there being
several papers throughout this 8 week class it has really helped me to develop and grow as a
writer.
I like the concept of peer review as a whole. This is because (at least for me) it isn’t
always easy to see if there are any faults with a writing, and having a fresh set of eyes on the
paper to help “lead” you in a direction to better either a sentence or paragraph is a very useful
tool. As for the difficult portions of the peer review, my problem is giving the feedback that can
be useful. Similar to the week 4 peer review, if I read through the paper and it reads well in my
eyes it becomes difficult trying to give the feedback. The peer review was to help with the
editing of a paper and not finding things that can be useful to the other writer is the most difficult
portion for me.
The challenges that I hope to address as a writer in any upcoming classes that I complete
is my self-afflicted challenge of procrastination. Procrastination has been the bane of my
existence since starting this class, mix that with writer block and it becomes very difficult for me
to sit down and write. In upcoming classes my goal is to do assignments early and sit down and
write!
Below is a compilation of my writer’s journals from week 1-6 in order for you to see the
progress I have made in my writing.

Week 1
I will never forget the time when I first learned how to birht a calf on the farm. I was a very
young child, no younger than the age of 7 but we had a cow that whas struggling to have its calf
due to hiplock . I was following myfather around andhe had a tooll that consisted of 2 hooks
with hand grips and chains that are meant to go around the feet of the calf. My father got down
behind the cow which was laying down due to exhaustino and proceedee to wrap the chain
around the front hooves of the calf. My father attched the 2 hooks the the cnaing and sat down
on the ground behind the cown. In order to get enough force to help pull the calf from thte
mother cow myh father placed his feet up on the buttocks of the cow and when she wehent to
push he assisted by pulling on the calf at the same time. This was the first time that i remember5
seeing this performed as a child and i will never forget how it was done for it wasn’t long (i was
about the age of 14) when i had to do ith myself.

I will never forget the time on the farm when I was about 6 or 76 years old when fell through a
hole in the haybarn floor and broke my leg. My older brother, my twin , and i were climbing up
and down a 4x4 that was sticking up a service hole that was placed in the floor so that my father
could work on the engine of the trucksan d tracktors, well when i got to the top of the so called
“mountain” i ended letting go of the rope a little to quci k. I unfortunelty fell around 7 feet and
landed sidways on a sledghyammer that was everso conveniently placed in the way which ended
up s napping my femur in half. As i lay there on the ground with all the cows around my father
heard my yelling for help so he ran to my rescue to whcih he took me to see my mother who is a
nurse. She told my father that it is deffinetly is broken and i was immediately taken to the
hospital wehre they needet to reset the bone. From what i remember they put a bunch of
novocaine patches on my my leg and proceded to pull and push it, from what i was told is that
my father almost past out in a bed next to me because he couldn’t bear to see me in pain.

I will never forget the time on the far when I was around the age of 6. My older brother Garrett,
my twin brother Jacob, and I were playing what we aptly called “mountain climber” due to the
nature of what we thought we were doing. My brothers and I were up in the hay barn that was
littered with holes due to the years of abuse it suffered from the heavy machinery lugging around
the hay and the fact htat some parts were roughly 100 years old; but there was one hole in
particular we were playing in. A fairly large hole my father used to service the engines for the
equipment had some long 4x4 lumber sticking up out of it and my brothers and i managed to tie
a rope to the wall near te lumber. As I was climbing up the rope i got tothe top and let go a little
to early and didn’t manage to grab on to the edge in time, i plummeted the 7 feet to the floor
beneth and landed on an ill-placed sledgehammer. The sledgehammer ended up breaking my
femur which immediately cause me to scream for help. My father which thankfully was in the
barn at the time heard my cries for help and rushed me over to my mother who at that point had
been a nurse for 10 years. My mother unable to leave work told my father that it was broken and
needed to be re-set and to take me to the hospital to which my father quickly rushed me. I
remember laying on the bed in the hospital as the nurse (a family friend) put novocaine patches
all over my leg to try and alleviate some of the pain. When they reset the bone i let out a scream
that from what i was told almost cause my father to pass out because he couldn’t bear to see his
son in pain.
Week 2
● Where do I attend School?
▪ Currently I am attending Park University, I am also enrolled and have
taken a class thru Minot State.
● Where do I work?
▪ I work on Minot AFB within the ESS section that is attached to the 5th
Security Forces Squadron.
● Where do I live?
o What city
▪ Currently I live in Minot ND, but as my Mother always said, home is
where the heart is, so I’ll throw in that I am from North Canaan CT.
o What neighborhood?
o Do I live in a dorm? An apartment complex? A shared house? My own house?
▪ I live in an apartment complex with my 1 roommate.
● What is my major?
▪ At the moment I’m just attempting to finish out my CCAF for criminal
justice, but that isn’t the major that I intend to have in the end, as for what
major I intend to have I would need to put a lot more thought into it.
● What is my intended career field?
▪ Currently I am just intending to retire from the AF, but with the current
climate I would like my career path to be that of an informational one that
revolves around electronics.
● What clubs do I belong to?
▪ None.
● What sports teams do I play on?
▪ I don’t play on any sports teams.
● Where do I worship or attend church?
▪ I don’t worship at any church but when I was growing up I attended St.
Joseph’s parish in North Canaan.
● Do I identify as part of the military? If so what branch?
▪ I do in fact identify as being part of the military, as for the branch I would
say that I am a part of the Air Force.
● What activities do I participate in regularly?
▪ Irrelevant.
● At what locations do I frequently find myself? (i.e., grocery store, library, farmer’s
market, the gym. Etc.)
▪ The locations that I find myself at the most would be at work and at home,
anywhere in-between would have to be the grocery store.
● What is the largest group I am a part of?
▪ The largest group that I am a part of would have to be Security Forces.
● What is the smallest group I am a part of?
▪ The smallest group that I would say that I belong to would be my family.

The community that I plan on digging deeper into is going to be the Air Force.
● What makes someone a member of this community?
▪ In order to be a member of this community an individual needs to be
willing or to commit, or has committed to in the past, to serve the country
under the branch of the United States Air Force.
● How do I know if someone is a part of this community?
▪ They wear either the Airman Battle Uniform’s (ABUs) or have a Velcro
strip that says U.S. AIR FORCE.
● What makes someone not a member of my community?
▪ They either never enlisted to the Air Force or they currently serve in a
different branch.
● When did I first join this community?
▪ I first joined this community in 2013 when I decided to enlist in the
military.
● How is the community organized?
▪ No comment.
● Who are the formal leaders of my community? Who are the informal leaders?
▪ The formal leaders would be the President as well as the Generals
currently residing over the Major Commands. The informal leaders would
be the individual supervisors that help to mentor and shape every Airman.
● What sub-groups exist within my community?
▪ There are the different career fields within the Air Force that any Airman
could become, I for example am Security Forces.
● What are my community’s common interests and concerns?
▪ The safety and security of the United States.

Language used by the community


● What kinds of language do members of this community use?
▪ Everyone comes from different backgrounds so the language is very
diverse, but a lot of common dialect is used such as the phonetic alphabet.
● What words, phrases, terms, or slang are unique to this community?
▪ Most of my experience is with one of the sub-groups of the Air Force, and
that would be with Security Forces. A lot of the phrases are job related.
● When did I first learn these words, phrases, terms, or slang?
▪ The first time that I learned the phrases utilized in Security Forces was
during technical training. A lot more was learned when I arrive at my first
station.
● How does the language this community uses help to bring the community together?
▪ I wouldn’t say that it really helps to bring the community together, but it
does help individuals relay information easier.
● What does the language used by this community imply about what the community
values?
▪ Unknown
● What happens when a member of the community makes a linguistic mistake?
▪ Usually a few jokes are made, but it is a learning experience for the
individual and they are taught from the mistake.
Week 3
In discussions of Wikipedia©, one controversial issue has been that Wikipedia© is an unreliable
source due to its open to the public nature, where anyone has the ability to edit a given topic. On
the one hand, it’s understandable why teachers would be weary of students only using
Wikipedia© for it has been shown to have misinformation within its contents. On the other
hand, Wikipedia© has hundreds of thousands of visitors daily that are constantly reviewing and
editing subjects in order to update articles. Others even maintain that Wikipedia© can’t be
reliable because the articles are formed from a consensus, where the majority agree on a bit of
information, therefore it must be true. My own view is that Wikipedia©, if used correctly, can
be a stepping stone towards further research into a given subject.

Writing with the templates that were provided for this week’s writer’s journal was a somewhat
enjoyable experience. Most of the time I spend writing any given topic, I sit staring at the screen
unable to even begin thinking of how I’m to draft a sentence let alone a paragraph. The
templates that were provided made the experience a lot easier due to the fact that I only needed
to plug and play with little bits of information in order to finish the sentences. At first writing
this seemed a little daunting and difficult but as I started to understand how the template was
meant to sound it made writing easier. In the future I believe that these templates would be
useful for use because I wouldn’t have to think as hard on how I would want to word sentences
around a given bit of information.

Week 4
If I had to say one word about my experience this week with the peer review it’s that the
premise of it as a whole has been quite “Fruitful”. I do believe that if utilized correctly and taken
seriously the peer review is a very useful tool that will help both the writer of the review and the
writer of the document. The reason that I view it this way is because the individual having their
work reviewed gets to see some pointers that may help them to increase their ability as a writer.
For me as a the one doing the reviewing it helps me view works or papers somewhat critically,
which I can then incorporate into the reviewing of my own writing. The process for writing my
letters to classmates, like most writings for me seemed daunting at first, maybe because I don’t
generally critique another person's writing. However, once I understood how the prompts were
to read it did make the task a lot easier. The most helpful part of the peer review was being able
to get a fresh set of eyes on my paper, and seeing what another person took away from the way
that I deliver a message. I haven’t really experience anything that wasn’t helpful from the
review process so as a whole I do believe that it can be a helpful tool for writers both within or
outside this class.
Week 5
Most of the prompts I won’t be able to make a comment on, due to the sole fact that upon
writing this no one else has submitted to the discussion page. However, I will attempt to write
about my position on Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” as well as if my perspective
changed at all as a result due to the discussion (which I will substitute with Carr’s article). When
I read thru Carr’s article there where many points that stuck out to me, as a matter of fact I
almost didn’t want to read it in order to prevent myself from being influence prior to writing my
own position as to whether or not I believe google is dumbing down the populace. Carr’s writing
seemed to jump around a bit, for me it made it a little difficult when he quickly changed tones
within the writing, at first he seemed to be arguing against google making to what I thought was
the assertion that it was in fact following the title of his piece and making us stupid. However,
halfway through his stance seemed to be shifting towards a more positive light and that was that
it wasn’t in fact making us dumb, but instead changing the way that the human mind processes
information. As for if my perspective having changed due to reading his article, I would have to
say that at the moment I still remain where I was, I don’t want to give away too much for I
wouldn’t have anything to write about for the major writing assignment. I will allude to the fact
that I still believe that google (or other major websites), while it might not be dumbing us down,
is managing to strip away the ability to focus for extended periods, something that Carr himself
touched on. I’m merely speaking from personally experience, and I would have to research as to
whether the brains attention span is decreasing due to the internet.

Week 6
While my story doesn’t get to the point right away, and there is a lot of build up to the end
narrative for my writing prompt, what I want the reader to take away is that you should always
remain level headed no matter how good you are at something. The purpose was to give an
experience that could connect the reader. I’m certain that everyone has at one point in their life
hesitated and that is the experience that I decided to utilize, because it is a relatable one. What
one needs to remember is to keep a calm and level head and keep pushing forward no matter
what, and that was what I was trying to get at with my story.
If we were to keep pushing forward with the idea of hesitation and what could come of it there
are many possible outcomes to any scenario that we think of. Think about a promotion at your
job, on paper you are good enough to do it, to go further than the rest and be better, however a
little voice in the back of your head quietly says “what if they don’t pick you, what if you’re not
good enough” so you end up not speaking up for that promotion. Long sentence I know, but that
you never know unless you try, and hesitation is something that prevents individuals from
seeking what they truly want, or from succeeding. What I learned from Richard was to do my
best not to hesitate, sure even to this day there are still times that I hesitate, and I regret it,
because I know that if I just followed through with whatever it was it would have worked out
better than had I done nothing.

Você também pode gostar