W131 - Retrospective  

 

As I was in my room working on my writing project for this W131 course, I was not confident at all. As for Pratt's article "Arts of the Contact Zone", the article was really long and I feel like there was a lot of discussion for this article. If I was, to be honest, I don't even know what the article was about. But, then we did a skimming assignment, I started to pick up and a few words in the article. In the discussion assignment reading and responding to Pratt's "Arts of the Contact Zone", we were responding to the A, B, C, and D questions. I didn't know how to respond to the following questions such as when it asks, how does Poma use the genre to engage his audience, I was lost. I tried to read the whole article but, I couldn't finish it. Then after I did the skimming assignment, I started to realize that skimming helped by grabbing their attention and that Poma was rewriting Christian history and his genre includes a fictional one. For my final portfolio, I revised project 1 which is the film review, and project 2 which is the feature style narrative. Since I revised my projects by reading a comment from my professor after she grades the projects, I learned a lot. It sure helps me revise my project and it really helped me know what I need to work on. I learned what I should do next time to make it better.

 

On October 5th, I had to read My Terrifying Night by Jennifer Percy. I really liked the article because it was so interesting and it's a mystery to find out what happens next. The assignment was to respond to Jennifer Percy's "My Terrifying night." There are so many things that happened in the article and a lot of people end up passing away. Sharif said, “because of all the dead people.” (Percy 1). ​This reading helps me understand the experience of being there and seeing all kinds of things that I'm not sure if she is ready to see. While reading this article, it reminded me of my mom telling me about the times when my siblings, my parents, and the villages have to run away from the Burmese military into the forest to sleep. They were able to live in Thailand Refugee Camp. I remember my mom telling me that every time when they heard a gunshot or the news of the Burmese military come into town, that's when they know they got to run. If they don't, they will get killed because when they come, they rape, steal, kill, and burn down Karenni's people's houses. There was never peace since they want to get rid of the Karenni people and take control of their independent state (Kayah State) in Burma. While reading My Terrifying Night by Jennifer Percy, so many people get killed and that makes me sad. There is so much life ahead. People getting killed reminded me of my people. There are still so many Karenni living in Kayah also known as Karenni State in Burma where they are originally from. There are also a lot of people living in Thailand Refugee camp but, cannot travel or work outside of the camp, since, we don't get a passport or no such thing as Karenni passport. We were grateful that we get to come to American even though we have to start from scratch. Reading Jennifer Percy's article is so touching and sad because in the article, it also talks about how there were victims of abuse and a pregnant school teacher was hanged. They threw her body away near a foreign base and left them there to die. Most importantly, after I did this assignment, I learned to cut and paste quotes from Percy's article. 

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Throughout the semester, we watched this documentary video named, "The Branded". We had to participate in the discussion for I believe a week or maybe two. I lack writing techniques and ideas on how to respond. There are times I had to rewrite the responses multiple times. I would have to go back and delete the response to edit it. After I watched, the Branded documentary and participated in the discussion assignment, I learned to recall the moments in the documentary and stayed on topic for the discussion. It helped me learn discussion skills which I lack in. I learned a lot from other students on how they respond to the question. With this discussion assignment, I could practice my writing skills, and reading from other students helps me learn whether I understand the question or not and that helps me think about a rewrite with new ideas, not copying their idea but, it helps me rewrite with a new answer. This helps me stay attentive and focus on what the question is asking. 

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One of the projects we had to do is to research something similar to what our immersion experience is going to be. I came up with music, and we had written about the film review. With this film review, I had never written a film review before so, I was more concerned about my ability to read with great confidence. I was looking for a documentary and found one on Netflix called, "Quincy Jones" that was about his personal life that kind of related to music. I gathered some articles saved on my computer, and some, I saved the URL on my phone so I can find them anytime I need them. This research has taught me how to find a review article from the New York Times that is similar to the documentary I watched for the film review. With this research, I was able to copy/paste and explain. I was able to learn to highlight, reread, skim, and annotate what is important. "Most of all, I was able to read with confidence". Writing a film review without having a lot of ideas to write about or simply don't know what else to add to my document is like learning how to walk out of the room in the dark without tripping or falling. 

 

As for my Immersion experience, I listened to music for one week to see how music makes me feel. That helped me learn to discover new music. I did a one-hour session each day and every day, and each day the music was different. Throughout the session, I learned to listen closely. If the music was uplifting, it made me feel happier. I learned that music can affect me. After that session, I would listen to more music and explore more music. I feel like it would be great for anyone who is down to listen to uplifting music. Since I learned that music can affect me a certain way, if I were to listen to a sad song, that probably will make me feel sad, even more, sad if I'm already sad. Overall, I learned that music is powerful and that it can affect our mood. 

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For Project 3 which is Multimodal discourse. After I did that project, I learned to document what I did on Wix correctly. Although I still needed help, I learned to realized that Wix is so fun to create. Their design choice comes in a variety and in many different colors. On August 31, 2020, we watched TedTalk, The Power of Believing That You Can Improve. I read the transcript on the bottom written out word by word on what Carol Dweck said. I watched the video and it was so interesting. She was talking about what they would do after a failure and how they would feel. When Dweck asked, "How are we raising our children?"(Dweck). I couldn't answer her question. There are so many right and wrong answers. When we think it is the right answer, other people could think it is wrong. After I watched that video, I learned that "This process praise creates kids who hardy and resilient" (Dweck). We must praise wisely and not only to the talented kids or intelligent kids but to other kids as well. Those kids who tried hard needed praise as well even though they are not as perfect. I learned that after responding to this assignment, even though, it wasn't perfect, I learned to reflect and improve little by little. W131 course was really fun and I learned a lot especially the discussion assignment. The multi-Modal project, film review, and especially immersion experience has been the best. 

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Works Cited

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Dweck, Carol. “The Power of Believing That You Can Improve.” TED,

 

      www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en.

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Percy, Jennifer. “My Terrifying Night With Afghanistan's Only Female Warlord.” The New Republic, 14 Oct. 2014,

     newrepublic.com/article/119772/my-night-afghanistans-only-female-warlord-commander-pigeon.

Pratt, Mary Louise. " Arts of the Contact Zone." MLA. Modern Language Association, 1991. www.jstor.org/stable/25595469?seq=1.

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(Draft) W131 - Retrospective

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12/09/2020

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As I was in my room working on my writing project for this W131 course, I was not confident at all. As for Pratt's article "Arts of the Contact Zone", the article was really long and I feel like there was a lot of discussion for this article. If I was, to be honest, I don't even know what the article was about. But, then we did a skimming assignment, I started to pick up and a few words in the article. In the discussion assignment reading and responding to Pratt's "Arts of the Contact Zone", we were responding to the A, B, C, and D questions. I didn't know how to respond to the following questions such as when it asks, how does Poma use the genre to engage his audience, I was lost. I tried to read the whole article but, I couldn't finish it. Then after I did the skimming assignment, I started to realize that skimming helps me get the general idea of what the article was about. It helps me look for the main ideas. It seems like Poma engages his audience by grabbing their attention, and that Poma was rewriting Christian history and his genre includes a fictional one. 

​

Throughout the semester, we watched this documentary video named, "The Branded". We had to participate in the discussion for I believe a week or maybe two. I lack writing techniques and ideas on how to respond. There are times I had to rewrite the responses multiple times. I would have to go back and delete the response to edit it. After I watched, the Branded documentary and participated in the discussion assignment, I learned to recall the moments in the documentary and stayed on topic for the discussion. It helped me learn discussion skills which I lack in. I learned a lot from other students on how they respond to the question. With this discussion assignment, I could practice my writing skills, and reading from other students helps me learn whether I understand the question or not and that helps me think about a rewrite with new ideas, not copying their idea but, it helps me rewrite with a new answer. This helps me stay attentive and focus on what the question is asking. 

​

One of the projects we had to do is to research something similar to what our immersion experience is going to be. I came up with music, and we had written about the film review. With this film review, I had never written a film review before so, I was more concerned about my ability to read with great confidence. I was looking for a documentary and found one on Netflix called, "Quincy Jones" that was about his personal life that kind of related to music. I gathered some articles saved on my computer, and some, I saved the URL on my phone so I can find them anytime I need them. This research has taught me how to find a review article from the New York Times that is similar to the documentary I watched for the film review. With this research, I was able to copy/paste and explain. I was able to learn to highlight, reread, skim, and annotate what is important. "Most of all, I was able to read with confidence". Writing a film review without having a lot of ideas to write about or simply don't know what else to add to my document is like learning how to walk out of the room in the dark without tripping or falling. 

 

As for my Immersion experience, I listened to music for one week to see how music makes me feel. That helped me learn to discover new music. I did a one-hour session each day and every day, and each day the music was different. Throughout the session, I learned to listen closely. If the music was uplifting, it made me feel happier. I learned that music can affect me. After that session, I would listen to more music and explore more music. I feel like it would be great for anyone who is down to listen to uplifting music. Since I learned that music can affect me a certain way, if I were to listen to a sad song, that probably will make me feel sad, even more, sad if I'm already sad. Overall, I learned that music is powerful and that it can affect our mood. 

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Multimodal discourse -  course goal (help document them correctly)

need more _ * add ICE-ICE

* You should even quote yourself as you comment on what you learned

*add quotes to from readings 

*Before/after - cut /paste??