Welcome!

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?

As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).

Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!

--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100



Saturday, September 25, 2010

Zach's Intro

Hey everyone,

I am Zach Vanderhaak, and I am a Senior at Lynden High this year. I have lived in Washington my whole life. I have moved a few times in my life; I have lived in Blaine, Lynden, and now live out in Blaine again. There isn't a lot to do in Lynden, but it can be pretty fun when you can find the right people to hang with.

I did Running Start this year because I believed I needed that extra challenge in the classroom. I also wanted to get a head start on college, and be able to start my career earlier. I am planning on becoming an Elementary Teacher. I have been working with kids in my church for 5 and a half years and love every minute of it!

I am the oldest sibling out of 5. I only live with 2 of my sisters though, I was adopted at 3 weeks old. I live with my sisters Katie and Jenna. Katie is the closest to my age, she is 16, and a Junior at Lynden High. Jenna is 12 and in sixth grade at Lynden Middle. My to blood siblings names are Jorjah (pronounced Georgia) and JJ. Jorjah is 11 and in fifth grade, and JJ just turned 5 a few weeks ago. I finally got to meet my birth family a month and a half ago. It was so much fun! I have seen them 2 times since and am planning on going down to Renton, which is where they live, this coming weekend.

Thanks for reading!
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