It's been fun!!! (writing)

     Well it has been fun being in this course. To be honest this is probably the most interesting and fun class I've had at CCP so far. To be able to blog about the class, to write about how we feel about certain things, to be able to write about whatever we want, I've never been in an English class like that. This class was really enjoyable, I never knew how much went into textual genre, I didn't even know that textual genre was a thing and how important it is in everyday life. I am really glad that I took this course and had this class, there is a lot that that I am going to take with me into other classes that i have learned in this course.

Google Doc'athon (Writing)

     In the Google Doc'athon, we are commenting on each others questions and giving feed back to one another. I find this to be very helpful in my writing because I'm able to see what I'm doing right and wrong in my WP. All of the suggestions that I am getting is really helping me write my paper for the portfolio and revising WP1 and WP2. Also I find it to be helpful because I can give feed back to other people and ask questions about their writing and it kind of helps me with mine because some of the questions I ask I can think about for my own writing and the portfolio.

Disciplinary Veiws (Reading)

     In a few of our past assignments, we had to find a subject and then find articles, whether it be from a business or social science perspective, and then compare the two articles. I like doing this because as a reader, it is good to learn how to read from different perspectives to get an even more better understanding on a piece of writing. This has helped me to become a better reader and it has also helped me as a writer as well. I also like doing this because there were things that I learned about the subject that I chose and it was actually kind of fun to read about it and put it all together. I enjoyed comparing different disciplinary views the most out of all of the rest of the things that we had to do because it helped me broaden out my vision to how to read and why it is important to understand different pieces of writing from different standpoints. 

 

PB's, WP's, & Thlogs (Writing)

   In this course, I have been working on the PB's and WP's, and I have found that they really do help me understand writing. The PB's help me to discover different topics and analyze them in many different ways. It also helps me to take a look at different textual genres from a variety of perspectives and that has helped me a lot. Doing the PB's also help me with the WP's which are a bit more challenging.

     The WP's, however, I do find myself having a hard time trying to stay on track in my essays. Trying to tie our course readings, with different perspectives from different people, while still trying to make my argument can be a bit overwhelming. Though, the PB's have been helping me with that, they are like guides for me on the WP's. PB's have been really helpfully to me during this course.

     Writing thlogs also help me to get things off my chest, like talking about what I don't understand, or talk about certain things that I have a hard time with in this class. It also gives me a chance to talk about things that I do understand and what I'm getting better at. I think thlogs are probably the most helpful thing in this course and I'm glad to be able to use them as a resource.

Septa Strike!! (PB2B)

   The Septa strike was a very serious situation. Traffic was crazy, people who needed public transportation were having a hard time getting around, and caused a lot of commotion in Philadelphia. It was very sudden and very unexpected, and a lot of people were effected, some more than others. However, the ones that were hit the most by this strike are what is called, the "players", and I will be focusing on them.

     There are many possible players that were effected. College students, the disabled, those who can only travel by public transportation, the septa drivers, and even those who drive for Uber and Lyft. All of these players play a role in this situation: 

• College students that travel using Septa will have a hard time getting to class if they can even get to class. Classes being canceled or students missing classes are things that happened while Septa was down. 

• People who are disabled will have a hard time getting places like work or to go run errands. Just like regular people, those who are disabled also have things to go do and take care of. If they can't go and do certain things or go where they need to go, it can have pretty bad effects on their lives.

• The septa drivers were effected because, well, they were on strike because their benefits were getting taken away. Also during their strike, they probably were not getting paid or getting less pay because they were not working during this time period.

• People who only travel using public transportation were definitely effected because people have jobs and, or businesses to run. Certain appointments that people have made they probably did not make it.

1. Also certain businesses were effected during the strike. Losing customers and losing money was a factor in all of this.

• Uber and Lyft drivers were effected because since septa was down, they got more business and made a lot more money because so many more people were using both Uber and Lyft during this time period.

1. Other than the drivers, the people using Uber and Lyft were also effected because the prices did rise by ten dollars during the strike.

     These were all of the players that were effected during the septa strike.

Skimming & Scanning (Reading)

  Sometimes, I get lazy when it comes to reading. Reading word for word. Paragraph to paragraph. Sentence to sentence. When reading a long article, text, or even a blog, it can be a bit much to handle, well unless of course I'm reading something that a really like, than it is not really a problem. However, when I find myself reading a long article that I, am not a fan of, I skim or scan through the article in order to find the main point in the text.

     Skimming a text means to read a text quickly to get a general idea of the text. I use this strategy when I'm reading a text of some sort and I just want to find the the main point of the text without having to read it word for word. Next, scanning a text means to read a text quickly in order to find specific information and data, to avoid the stress of reading the whole text. I use this strategy for when I need to find important information within a text.

     Skimming and scanning are two strategies I use when I need to gain knowledge of a text quickly. This has helped me get through course readings faster than usual. It also helps me write my papers a lot quicker as well, this is something that will help me in other classes and I can take with me after this course.

Spotting And Evaluating..."Moves" (PB2A)

 In this project builder, I will be spotting and evaluating the moves of Will Greenwald in his article Brookstone Axent Wear Cat Ear Headphones.In his article, before he starts, he has a picture of the actual headphones at the beginning of his article. I call this the "Eye Candy Move". In some articles, people do not use pictures, but perhaps Greenwald uses this move to grab the attention of the readers and make his article look good. Next, under the picture, he has three columns titled "Pros", "Cons", and "Bottom Line" with details according to each title. I call this the "Pre-Review Move".

 He basically gives a short summary before the article even starts. He might be using this move for those who do not feel like reading and would rather not have to look through a bunch of details about the headphones. The last move that I would like to point out, is when he mentions that even when the base of a song is set to maximum and the volume is also set to maximum volume, the headphone speakers did blow out during the song. I call this the "Impressive Credibility Move". He uses this move to show what this item can do and why it is worth buying. Even though he did mention the good things about the headphones, overall, his article was more of a critical review, he mentions a lot of cons and negatives about the headphones.

     There are some details he gives about the headphones. He talks about how the sound quality is not that great and that the speakers on the ears are not very useful. This is the "Establishing Why Your Claims Matter Move". In his article, he is basically giving a critical review on the headphones and was making claims that the sound quality is not great and the speakers in the ears were not to useful multiple times, but yet he does mention that the headphones do work well at high volume.

Reading Like A Writer (Reading)

     In this thlog, I would like to talk about how my reading has developed so far in this course. In this course, I am learning how to read like a writer. With this strategy, I can look at certain things from a writers perspective. This is something that I can take with me after this course and it will help me in other classes. This strategy has also helped me to get a better understanding on the articles that we have been been reading in class. I'm finding it to be a lot more effective compared to how I used to read.

     Reading like a writer has also helped me to spot certain "moves" that writers make in there writing. This helps me because this can help me with my own writing so I can make my own "moves" and use them effectively. When I read some of the articles that was given to me in class, I find myself being able to pin-point certain conventions a lot more quickly than I used to. Plus it's kind of fun to be able to find them and compare different ones together to see which the best out of them.

     Finally, reading like a writer has helped me with the course readings in class. When I first started this course, I was having a hard time in class, but after taking a look at some of the conventions we go over in class, I was no longer stuck and I was able to move forward in the class.

PB1B

     When reading a story or passage, people tend to look for different things and can read a story differently. On way a person might read is by skimming through the story just to get an idea of what it may or may not be about. It's a fast way to get a decent idea about a passage without having to read the whole story in one go. Another way a person might read a story is by scanning the story, trying to find important things like book titles, names, vocab words, words in italics, and so on and so forth. This is a great to gain a bit more information about a story or text when you use this way of reading. You could even read a story with a "read like a writer" type of mind set. You could look for certain things that helps you to get a better understanding of what the writer is trying to say in his or her story. Looking for certain moves that the writer made during this story and why did they do so. You could ask questions like, "Why was that move necessary"? or "What types of moves will I use in my writing"? or "What is the benefit of making moves in writing"? These are all good was to look at a piece of writing, it helps us analyze the story better and read in between the lines of the passage. 

     Now that I have given some examples of how to read a text, I'd like to pick a genre to use these reading methods in. The genre I would like to focus on is music, so, where could I go with that? What about music? What's the big deal? Well I'd like to talk about that. Dubstep is a form of music with base drops, techno and electronic sounds, and digital voice chops. Now a lot of people don't really know what dubstep is, so if someone was to go and look up what it is, they would take it to the internet and look it up. They might find an article about dubstep and try to look for key things in the article. They might skim the text just to get and idea of what this particular genre might be. Perhaps they might even scan the text to find key words or phrases like, "Electronic", "Robotic", "Base drops", "Hardcore", etc. Searching for these things can help a person get a better understanding on what this genre is.

     Reading is kind of like repairing a bicycle. Let's say for example that my bike has been, semi-operational. It has one brake that just doesn’t want to behave and all my attempts to fix it have failed. Why? Well it turns out that I haven’t been using the right tool. To get the bike working I need to use the right tool. And when it comes to reading, well, you’ve got to use the right tool—you’ve got to know what kind of reading to do.

     So basically what i'm saying, is that you also need to be mindful of the type of passage or text that your're reading and what tools would be more effective to help you get a better understanding. Like, I'm sure you would be looking for bars and statistics and logical explanations in a cook book. Yes the book will tell to how much you need for certain things but looking for equations and things of that nature you wouldn't find in a cook book.

     Learning how to read certain texts and using the different tools that are available to us will help us to get a better understanding on reading and writing and will make future texts easier to understand.

Super Smash Bros. Wii U (PB1A)

     Hey there! Today I'm going to be talking about a specific genre I love which is video games and the topic is Super Smash Bros. Oh yes, one of my favorite games of all time, this game will never get old to me no matter how many times I play it, but let's get down to it shall we?

     The Super Smash Bros. series was originally created by game developer  Masahiro Sakurai in 1999. The first installment of the series was Super Smash Bros. for the N64. This is where it all began, characters like Link, Pikachu, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Sonic The Hedgehog, Mega Man, Captain Falcon, Pac-Man, and Super Mario himself, and many more iconic are playable characters through out the series. Sounds cool right! Yea I know it does. But wait! There's more! In case you don't know, Super Smash Bros. is a multi-player fighting game that's family friendly and also played in tournaments. Sora Ltd. and Bandai Namco Games, with assistance from Tri-Crescendo, all helped with the development of Super Smash Bros., and the game was published by Nintendo.

     Now I know what you're thinking by now, "I thought this was a blog about Smash Bros. Wii U, not a back story and history about the game..." Well yes this is a blog about Super Smash Bros for the Wii U yes, but I thought that some of the extra stuff was quite interesting. But anyway let me get to the point. I've read a few reviews on this game and I've got to say, people have strong...opinions. Some say that It's the best one yet. Others say that it's to childish and is no where near tournament material like how Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl was. But I went searching high and low trying to find some decent reviews, and there's one that I find to be pretty good. The review I found was written by Jose Otero, an editor on www.ign,com. His review was just the basics of the game and things you should know about before playing. The other two that I found was on the Super Smash Bros website, which basically  just introduces the characters, and on Wikipedia...yes, on Wiki, it gives a more broad explanation. But Jose's review is straight and to the point and that's good.

     Well, that's it, my blog on Super Smash Bros. I hope you liked it! And if you didn't well that's okay too. Thank you for reading. (=^.^=)