Well hi there,
My name is Max Long, I’m from Cincinnati (east side, of course), and I transferred here last year from The Ohio State University. I’m studying media arts here at OU, with a focus in video production, specifically writing, concentrating on the 30 minute sit-com format. My go-to life experience I like to share is my time spent as an expat in the UK. I lived there with my family during 7th and 8th grade, and I was fortunate enough to be able to travel around western Europe, and meet some good friends at school. For some reason I really click with Scandinavians.
I tested out of my early composition class at OSU by using some AP credit instead. I have taken analytical Brit Lit in college, but we read the same things I read in high school - Beowulf, Chaucer, and of course Shakespeare. I don’t dislike analytical stuff, but I’m really a fan of creative writing, so it would have been more rewarding to generate some content instead of analyze it. I find English classes are always more effective and interesting when there are class discussions, but that Brit Lit class seemed to cast a mind-numbing mouth-breathing thrall over my peers, so it wasn’t that fun.
I like the emphasis on technology in this class, especially surrounding the issues of authorship and ownership when people collaborate amorphously and anonymously on the internet. I also like using two words when one will do... it. I’ve always had positive experiences when classes have a blog aspect to it - I like being able to post and comment on discussions on my time. I’m also a Wiki-nerd, my idea of wasting time on the internet is playing Wikipedia-choose-your-own-adventure; if something blue looks interesting, I’ll click on it.
I haven’t studied rhetoric in a while, so I’m really looking forward to filling out my knowledge about persuasive communication. I’m looking forward to the discourse community ethnography, as I’m interested in seeing how language forms group identity, especially when the group forms virtually on the internet (browsing is like driving, people have an additional degree of separation between themselves and others in their community, making them act a bit more ‘raw’). I don’t worry much, but if I had to choose one, I guess I hope we can do something creative, even if it’s a small assignment.
Max,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this entertaining and informative post. I like hearing about your other experiences with english classes and your thoughts on the course design. The collaboration that happens in communities on the internet IS making people in my field re-think concepts of authorship. But the academic standard is very much still focused on individual authorship because it relies so much on individual assessment. Really interesting stuff. I think you'll certainly get a chance to write about these ideas either in assignment 2 or 4. As far as the creative writing idea, I'm tempted by your suggestion. I'll think about it. I'm taking a poetry workshop from Mark Halliday this quarter. Maybe we can do Haiku on twitter? What genres / forms of creative writing do you like? Welcome and good luck in the course!