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



Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Online and Teenagers

Is the online world appropriate for teengagers? Is the use of the internet exposing the future generations? The answers come from the video source, Growing Up Online with Frontline producers Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio.

Growing up online poses many questions for the teens that are on the online web for hours on end. They interview a girl, Jessica Hunter who had been teased all through life from the awkward stages through being perceived as being goth. She creates a new life for herself online and names her new identity Autumn Edows. Autumn is a girl wears under garments, large amounts of make up and has a beautiful body. Jessica feels better because people are commenting, “You are beautiful. Beautiful picture.” Jessica has a new self esteem! Jessica does get in trouble and has to delete all photos but in the end her parents then supports her and she creates Autumn again. You can be anyone you want to be online.

The video shares comments from parents, teens and parents. One teacher explains that kids have a hard time with essays and writing due because it is, “hard to focus.” The teacher is right in the way that online is a distraction and writing papers is distracting.

A parent explains,”I am worried about online predators. My girls are beautiful what if some man says I want her.” There are online predators but as one woman points out, ”the sexual solicitation is mild. One guy might say, hey baby. Most kids will just delete the friend or say good bye to the person that is talking to them.”

The narrator says,” the largest generation gap since the rock n’ roll.” The online society with facebook or myspace ranges from adults all the way down to the preteen generation, but that doesn’t include the essence of online games for elementary school kids like “webkinz or club penguin.” Where is the grandparents in all this? Technology is way over their heads these days. Teenagers rarely can talk to the grandparents because they are so busy talking to the thousands of friends they have.

I agree with both sides of the equation. Parents do need to step up and ask for passwords of their kids but in a respectful way. Teenagers do need to know there is a risk to what they put online and that future employers will look the person applying to see what is credible. I believe teachers need to step up their game if they want to relate to kids. The online realm is real and teachers need to use it in the classroom!

The online realm isn’t really apart of my life. I love the games and ways to talk to friends online but I’m not a fanatic. I scan facebook maybe once a month, use the internet for projects, and research. I upload some photos but will not expose myself.

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