Logan Christiansen Eng. 102-106 Mr.

Neuburger 16 May 2012 Technology, Tools and Experiences English has always been a topic that I feel most comfortable with, mainly because it allows me to be creative while still learning and expressing knowledge. This English class enhanced my writing with practice and new techniques. Most English classes are generic or follow a set of assignments that everyone is used to. While this may be helpful for some, it does not help one learn new techniques. This particular class has taught me many new things as well as helped me to grow and expand my own writing. At the beginning of the semester we started with reading short stories and writing about them. Initially this led me to believe this class would be just like all the others. I quickly learned that I had room to improve and learn new things. Although I was familiar with thesis statements and analyzing other peoples writing I did not have it down to a science. After several corrections and some deep thought about what our instructor was asking for, I finally realized the true importance of a good thesis statement. It tells exactly what one is writing about and what the writing will tell you about in one concise statement. By first summarizing stories and then analyzing them I got a feel for what each story was really about and gradually improved on conveying my thoughts about it. This was an effective tool to help me analyze and would also come in handy with research. I have never had a class that focused so much on technology. At first I thought there was nothing new I could use for writing and English. I was wrong, but in a good way. The tools

used in this class were always effective and can be applied to almost any writing class I may have in the future. Using a blog in the past was always tedious but I learned in this class that it is a tool that can easily be used to store any and all work. It made my writing better organized and easy to review. Websites such as diigo and easybib are invaluable and I will most definitely continue to use them for research and works cited. The only project that I ever disliked in this class was the digital story. I did not feel it was extremely necessary or helpful for later college classes. Although my hatred of this project may have stemmed from the technical difficulties I think even if it had went perfectly smooth I may not have learned much from it except for how to make a movie. I like the idea of a digital story, but I would always prefer to write, especially since English is a favorite of mine. The research paper we were assigned in this class was much easier to understand and a good starting point. With diigo available and a topic that was interesting and valid I felt that it was an assignment that would help anyone get the feel for a research paper. I found that there is always room for improvement and citing sources is very important. When writing research papers later on in my college career I will come back to this class as a template for how to research, store, and write my paper. This class was worthwhile and I learned much that I will need to know later on. This is what I expect from a core class and hope that I have many more classes like it. Thank you for a wonderful semester and teaching the way it should be done. There is always more to learn, but if everyone teaches the same thing then we will be forever stuck in a rut.