We’ll use Perusall to annotate and read together. 
Experiences or rather…. hamburgers?
Okay so I’ve had a pretty unusual and crummy weekend which stopped me from doing this blog up until now, but hey, its Sunday and I’m expecting the day to go much better than the past two.
Believe it or not, but I was locked out of my room for hourrsss by my own roommate Friday night… but in my kitchen?? Yes you heard correctly, in my kitchen. Apparently the dorms are seriously into safety and I couldn’t even “break in”. I was going to call the lock out people in the front office but I decided I would wait because I had another option. Option 2 was simply waiting for my other roommate to get home so I can get back into my room through a shared restroom. Sadly enough, I waited until 4 a.m. until she got home to finally get into bed. PHEW! I was locked out with only my phone and a dead laptop. My phone proved to be useless for the blog site..
Now Saturday night, I was prepared to write the blog post but the internet was out all night. “This is just great!” My literal exclamation.
Okay well, now to start off the blog post. I decided to just write out my experience with the 5 paragraph essay and my writing experiences throughout college and such. I haven’t written an actual essay of any kind in so long. But I always say that and I feel as if I might be lying. I actually have written a 5 paragraph type essay in my Junior college which I feel is probably the worst thing since I have no experience in any kinds of other writing. I took a prerequisite English course my first semester and then English Comp (ENGL101) my 3rd semester. In the first class, we were still following the 5 paragraph system which I was fine with since I was just out of high school. We did learn different types of writing paper styles such as analytical, persuasive, etc. Except for the very fact that I didn’t realize that that class was very fast paced because it was an 8 week course. Yea I was happy I got over it faster, but not much stuck.
Now a crazy story about my English Comp class, we all sort of just passed that class by default because the teacher was really going through a rough patch and was getting fired by the end of the semester. We did probably one essay and it was a book review of sorts on the book Fight Club. So what did I learn there you ask? Possibly nothing at all.
Now that I’m in university here at Chico State, it’s so weird because my Junior college didn’t help me set up for anything! So my first semester here which was only last semester, (Fall’16) I found myself following guidelines very strictly, looking up HOW TO’s on google and ways to write and Analysis paper on a book. That’s the only paper I have written so far.
I feel like everyone in this class is so much more experienced with English papers and formats than I am because I had a crappy education with a somewhat flawed system. This is technically my first actual English class since I just decided to add on the TESOL and Linguistics minor. I hope I can learn more about writing in general so I can become a better writer and sound more inclined to be part of the English family here on campus.
Sorry for the ranting! But those are really all my experiences.
“Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” -Hamilton
4 Replies to “Experiences or rather…. hamburgers?”
So glad you wrote this! I’m wondering if your blogs are so awesome because you have not been as jaded or exposed to writing in English classes? Perhaps this gives you some freedom because you aren’t as worried about a particular structure? And oh my gosh…here’s hoping your Sunday is better! I had a strange week last week too. Must be something in the air, or more likely, water.
I can relate to feeling below par compared to classmates when it comes to writing and other things English majors pride themselves on. I always say if I could write an essay as well as I work at my job, I’d be famous or more realistically an A student. I think you said you were an Asian studies major…so I’m sure you will have to write some research papers coming up soon, or some Asian literature analysis essays examining the different aspects of Asian cultures. Which sounds much more fun than being an English major to be honest. I agree with Kim that it’s probably for the best you haven’t wrote much five paragraph essays in college, you aren’t corrupted like me. Teachers, heck people in general, tend to like things that stand out and are different. Your blogs are a perfect example. So keep at it, you can only get better at writing.
I realized how contradictory it is to have the importance of the essay in academia, but then to not be supplied the classes of practices neaaecary for such until reaching a class at a university. However, your post also illiterates how many resources are available online.
I realized how contradictory it is to have the importance of the essay in academia, but then to not be supplied the classes of practices neaaecary for such until reaching a class at a university. However, your post also illiterates how many resources are available online.