Moodle Responses and Replies

Response 1:
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Portfolios are a great tool for development in a various amount of different skills. They are an
organizational tool that not only helps keep a database for work but they are also a way of
being able to see personal growth through your work. Writing is a dynamic skill, so writers are
constantly improving and evolving their style of writing. Also writing is a cognitive process, so
as writing improves in a person so does their ability to process and output information.
Essentially what having a portfolio will allow in this class is for the writers to be able to keep
up with their growth as writers. They will be able to observe in what areas they have
improved, where they still need to work harder, and maybe even discover flaws they would
not have seen otherwise. Without a portfolio it would be more difficult to gather past work to
analyze and therefore growth would be less efficient.

Writing is a process, one that requires critical thinking and a strong grasp of basic and complex
grammatical skills. Creating a portfolio will allow me to accomplish a number of different things, all
positive to my growth as a writer and all related in one way or another. Having a portfolio will allow me to
become a more diverse writer. I will analyze my work so that my next piece will be different, I can explore
different strategies of expressing my writing while developing better writing habits and practices. Keeping
a portfolio will also allow me to see the changes in my thinking, I will see how my ideas are developing
and how they affect my process of writing. This will help me accomplish stronger premises and more
direct concepts.
Reply 1:
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I also look forward to seeing my writing at the end of the semester. The fact that this is a
continuous process is really encouraging because even if a piece is not that great we can use
that as a leaning tool to write something better next time. I have also completed portfolios in
past English classes but they have never been useful. I think the problem was that we were
just putting all our work in a folder and then never going back to thoroughly analyze it. So I
am definitely curious as to what direction this portfolio process is going to take.

Response 2:
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Developing an ideal writing class is very complex, there is a vast amount of things that go into
a class in general. Just to start off clear I would not like to teach a class that is too easy but I
also would not like to teach a hard class so I would teach and honors level English class. I
would use some of what my teachers in the past have used that I have found reasonable or
effective. As a basis I would almost always have the class reading a book, and the types of
books I would assign would all be different so my students get a broad understanding of
literature. Also reading different types of books is important because you must know and
understand different literary techniques to be able to use them in your own content. I would
have quizzes every week on the books relating to the plot and characters, and when we finish
reading the book I will assign an essay that has to do with analyzing the contents of the book.
I will have a peer editing session for the essays and I would make myself available to help the

students write. My grading would depend on a combination of grammar, content, and ability
to use diction, syntax, rhetoric etc. Like Belanoff said writing and how you interpret literature
is subjective, however it is clear when someone understands a concept and knows how to
elaborate on it coherently versus when someone cannot and my teachers in the past have
done an adequate job of grading my papers in that manner. Again as Belanoff talked about
my essays were graded in comparison with my peers and that is why I feel I received an
adequate grade.
Reply 2:
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It is absolutely true that papers are subjective and teachers can and may be biased when
grading papers. In my personal experience however whenever I received a good or bad
grade on an essay the feedback the teacher gave me was what I was expecting. There is no
proper way to grade an opinion and I feel like my English teachers never did that, they
focused on analyzing my use of diction, rhetoric, syntax etc. which gave me the sense that
they had a proper basis for grading my papers. And because my teachers graded me on this
my writing has improved. If my teachers did not grade my papers I would have no incentive to
change the way I write and therefore I would not improve. After all I know there has been a
dramatic change in my writing since freshmen year in high school to now.

Response 3:
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All English high school was and is for me personally is learning how to write an adequate
five-paragraph essay. Starting my freshmen year we wrote a different essay every week and
we worked on them every day. Sophomore year reinforced this, and when I took AP English
my junior year, it was still the five paragraph essay but on steroids, we had to have a great
thesis and make sure we had at least three points of irrefutable supporting evidence etc. My
senior year we were still doing the same thing, even though throughout high school some
English teachers told us that would not be the way we would be taught to write in college and
a teacher even once told us that professors complained freshmen students were not
prepared to write at a college level.

So what was so good about it? Well like the text says, it is a way for students to begin to
understand how to format ideas and be able to create coherent and comprehendible arguments and
premises. So it is a great starting point, so why is it bad? Because that is all that is learned in high school
English, the five paragraph essay is what high school is limited too. I remember whenever we would read
essays in class and thinking to myself Uh this is not what we were taught an essay looks like. So
bottom line is this structure not only limiting, it is also gives students an inaccurate perspective of what an
essay should be.
For myself as well as for the authors breaking out of the five-paragraph pattern means
being able to organize your thoughts and ideas in a way that benefits your writing style. The fiveparagraph pattern makes a lot of people hate writing, so breaking out of this pattern allows people to find
their own peace in writing and format it in a way that helps their creativity flow in a sensible manner.

Reply 3:
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Through most of high school I didnt know there was a way to format essays other than the
five-paragraph format which I did not find out was false until my junior year of high school
when our teacher made us read an essay and it wasnt in the five paragraph format. One of
the best things about this type of format is that you dont have to think of the format just the
content so it makes it easier to write like you said. I also definitely agree that breaking out of
this format would allow the writer to concentrate more on their writing and therefore have a
better essay.

Response 4:
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Throughout my high school career I have learned about and studied many different types of
genres. Hopefully by now I think I have covered almost all genres, but there are some we
studied much more than others so I have familiarized myself pretty well with them. I have
familiarized myself with satire very well, the most notable satire piece I can mention is A
Modest Proposal by Johnathan Swift since I studied it twice in two different English classes. I
learned it my junior and senior year of high school, I understood exaggeration and context
are important for satire. Rhetorical features of satire include sarcasm and hyperboles, a great
place to find satire on the internet is through a satire news site called The Onion like the
author mentions. I am also well acquainted with tragedy thanks to Shakespeare. Anyone who
has read Shakespeare knows that he loves tragedy as much as English teachers love
assigning books by Shakespeare so I have learned tragedy thanks to him. Components of
tragedy include conflicting romances and every important character in the book dying.
Another genre I am familiar with and the one that I enjoy the most is comedy. Comedy is a
category you can see incorporated into just about anything and that is why its so great. Its
also definitely the first genre I ever learned about. There are different types of comedy
depending on the audience but generally anything thats funny and has some sort of
humorous context works well

Reply 4:
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I also learned almost all of the genres I know from school. If it was not for school I would
most likely have heard of the different genres but I would not understand them on a deep
level like how I understand them now. I also know a lot about different types of music genres
and I have learned about almost all of them on my own if not being introduced to it by a
friend.

Response 5:
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Proof reading is an essential step in writing any sort of paper. To proofread is to go over your
paper one last time and check that everything is spelled correctly, there is correct
punctuation, and that the content is in order and makes sense. Not proofreading could result
in all of the above things going wrong and then some. It is important to check you do not have
two off the same words like two the because that can ruin the tone. Another thing that could
ruin the tone of a paper is mixing up two words like instead of saying affect you say effect.
Another thing that could go wrong is a sentence that does not make sense because the
person was typing too fast because that has happened to me, sometimes I have to read over
a sentence I wrote several times to decide whether it actually makes sense or not. The
reasons above are the reason why I always proof read my papers after I finish writing them
even though after I finish writing three pages the last thing I fell like doing is read over
everything but I always do anyways because I know it could be vital to my grade to check for
errors. I have never had to deal with any of the consequences of not proof reading because I
always make sure to proof read my papers more than just once.

Reply 5:
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The video was definitely funny and like you mentioned you could tell just by the title of the
video that it was going to be something funny. Most videos that have to do with English
papers and proof reading are usually excruciatingly boring and long but the video did a great
job of both getting the point across which was that spell check can sometimes back fire and
being funny so that the viewer is entertained. One thing I did not mention that you did was
that often people can forget to match up all their tenses which can sometimes make a paper
confusing.