Final Self Evaluation: Moving Up

It’s not really in my nature to interject my opinion into a discussion. I tend to want to sit back and listen to the conversation. For me group conversations feel like they are continually flowing, rather rather than something with sections that I can enter my thought between. This becomes a problem in a classroom setting when I am being graded on class participation, which usually means a vocal participation in class discussion. When sitting in this class I tried to keep in mind that it was necessary for me to participate, even if it was difficult for me to do so. I think I was mostly successful in this. I did not participate as much as some other members of the class. But I think I participated more than it was natural for me to so. I say mostly successful because this wasn’t true everyday. My one-on-one conversations got better over time as I learned what were useful questions to ask, and good topics to speak on. I think I could have participated a bit more on-line, but posting tended to slip my mind for some reason. I think when I did post, and when I did speak up in class I added something valuable to our conversation (wow it was hard for me to type that). I am mostly focused on my own learning in this class. But I think that means that when I do contribute, in our large group discussions, online, and with my writing partner, because I am trying to make myself better the things I say are helpful for the people as well. 

I took my site sits pretty seriously. I went to the English house every week with the intention of being attentive. Usually when I am by myself outside (walking to and from classes for example) I feel the strong urge to listen to music. This urge persisted when I went to my sit sits every week, I had to force myself to take the earbuds out of my ears. It was always uncomfortable for the first few minutes. And when there was no music to not pay attention solely to the thoughts in me head we difficult for me. But I always tried to avoid doing that. That was pushing myself out of my comfort zone in a sense. I also chose a place where I know I wouldn’t be the most comfortable, physically. I was fully engaged when we went on our field trips, to the Harrington House and on our on campus geological tour. All of these out of class experiences helped my to learn how to see the world from different points of view. At my site sits I had to go to the same place every week and see it differently in order to come up with something new and meaningful to post. The two field trips allowed me to see the campus and the land around it from a more historical point of view.

One of the challenges I have as a reader is getting nervous that I am missing important information when I skim a reading. I have got more confident in my skimming ability as the semester progressed. I think that has come as a result not only of this class but of the copious amounts of reading that comes with college in general. The readings I enjoyed the most were the more traditionally non academic readings. I think there is an engaging energy that comes with the emotion and poetic language that the writes allow themselves to use to is not present in the some of the stiffly academic readings that we did. One thing I still need to work on is good annotating, and making sure I am making note of important information in a reading, and not just passages that sound nice.

The postings for my site sits didn’t really get much response. But the posts that I did separate from these usually resulted in some discussion. I also did a fair amount of commenting on the posts of others. I put a lot of thought and effort into each my web postings. The amount of effort that I put into my weekly papers generally progressed over time. But I think I usually worked harder on the papers that I revised, because I wanted them to be better the second time around. I think the quality of my weekly paper overall was pretty good, and improved over time. In my last meeting with Anne I realised that I tend to simply restate much of what I had been reading without bringing in much of anything new, or of my own into my essays. I think this comes, in part, from my tendency to agree with most things that I read. If the argument is well laid out and seemingly logical then I have a hard time see any flaws in the author's argument (this is also something that I have to work on in my reading). This is where I have moved to. When I started this year I don’t think my papers that required a thesis really had one that was arguable. Overall I have moved up, in my reading, and my writing and my ability to participate. I have become a better student in general because of this class.