Portfolio Updates

I just read the email from Jenn in full text and realized I was supposed to post something regarding my portfolio. I didn't see that part before. D'oh!

Anyway, I have everything organized for the portfolio including rough drafts that were peer edited and such. The essays that will exist in my portfolio are:

• Descriptive Essay because I enjoyed writing this essay and felt I did really well on it, but ALSO because I still didn't do MLA properly and I think it is a nice way to show my progress with MLA over the semester.
• Research Essay as required however I would put it in there anyway because I did feel like a better writer and that the transition with MLA is visible in that paper.
• Reflective Essay

As for my reflective essay I have a good outline and just want to finish my Event/media review to include into the reflective essay before moving forward. 

-AA

Video Project

Follow this link to see our video project for English 121 at Front Range Community College!

(the Google Slides would not embed nicely, this link works better)

Don't be too harsh! :)

-AA, CC, SW

Research Paper Progress: Favorite Paragraph

Prof Jenn asked us to post our favorite paragraph from our research paper thus far. While it was tough to decide which is most appropriate, I thought the following was a decent glimpse into what I am writing about:

Our current medical system is a soup of concepts and methods which vary based on age, pay-grade, employment status, and citizenship. In 2013, The Affordable Care Act presented the idea of a UHC to our country, with a lack of support. The goal, for 44 million people to enroll in health coverage, brought results of only approximately 4.2 million enrolled. Lisa Szczepanski, MD, of Kaiser Permanente Boulder, believes that universal health care is “a health care system that provides quality care to all individuals regardless of their ability to pay”. When wondering the reason why there could still be 38 million uninsured, research showed that the average healthy citizen pays more than $150 per month for a mid-level health plan (NBC Washington). Thus, the Affordable Care Act is a great start in recognizing health care as a necessity for all, but not so “affordable” after all.

yeah, why? image via 

-AA

Solo Blog Review #2

Since I missed out on a group effort Monday, this is my review of the blog: bloggin4eng121.blogspot.com on my own!

To me, this is a clean, well-put together website. Some may think it is boring and lacks color, but I prefer the text to be clear, organized and with fewer distractions. Of the other blogs in our class I looked at, this one appealed to me most.

What made this specific group draw my attention? They post on a regular basis, with few missing posts. Each new post has a clear headline with contributing authors immediately beneath. I think I like that better than at the end. There are few grammatical errors and the content is well built and not sloppy. Every post has an image which is appropriately sited.

The overall structure of the page is organized and easy to navigate. The contributors are easily visible as are the archived posts. I do wish there was a short tagline, image, or "about-me" to introduce me to the authors, but other than that I enjoy the design.

The writing of the posts is also entertaining. The use of exclamation points, structure, appropriate punctuation, and quotations shows that each author takes their time in their posts. The book reviews clearly show they read the content.

Criticism is light here, but there is one author who doesn't have any individual posts, only group posts. They could be doing reviews and other assignments on hard copy or has trouble using the website, but it is one down-side of the blog.

this blog reminds me of fresh air || image via

The clean lines, and lack of chaos of this image is like that of Bloggin4Eng121's blog. It is easy to focus on, you get the point, and it is appealing to the eye. The colors are pleasant and it is definitely a photograph uploaded digitally. You can almost feel the breeze and smell the grass!

-aa

Review of wordexplosions.blogspot.com

Wordexplosions.blogspot.com is one of the many class blogs in Jenn Zuko's English 121 class. The blogs purpose is to be used to post class work so that class mates peers can read each others works and benefit from the input that the other students may have. While the blog fulfills the requirements set for it in terms of content as a class blog, the variable layout and clashing nature of the default view is distracting and detracts from the overall experience.
When you first pull up the website to said blog you may be surprised. This is most definitely not your average blog. Instead of your standard vertical orientation, the authors have decided to create a flip card layout. This would be fine if the authors had not also included seven other designs. This is not a sufficient design because each post changes depending on the orientation you choose. For example, some of the flip cards are left blank and without a title when in fact they do have titles when viewed in classic.
The blog itself leaves the reader questioning which format was indeed intended to be viewed. The layout severely ruins the readers view of the blog and cuts into its quality. The blog as a whole is not all that bad but the content clarity and organization drags the all over quality of the blog itself down.
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(The visual is an example of one of the many templates that blogger offers. The one pictured above is called snapshot.)

Quality Criteria Blog Review

The Ratings of Wordexplosion.blogspot.com

Continuity of Focus: 10 - There are no posts that are tangential to its purpose as a class blog.
Content Clarity: 6 - Not all posts have titles or visuals, content is fairly clear otherwise.
Organisation: 8 - Due to the multiple views the authors have enabled for their blog, the organisation of the website can be somewhat muddled.
Design: 8 - While there are many views available, the fact that the authors did not choose a view themselves muddles the intent of the authors insofar as design is concerned.
Amount of Relevant Info: 10 - As a class blog used in the posting of assignments, all information and articles posted are relevant to that purpose.

The Ratings of Engcouger.blogspot.com

Continuity of Focus: 10 - There are no posts that are tangential to its purpose as a class blog.
Content Clarity: 8 - Each article has a title and visual, but some articles are broken up into multiple posts, making it more difficult to be certain which title and visual goes with which article
Organisation: 8 - The blog is fairly well organized, with a linear structure that allows easy viewing of articles. However, some articles are fairly long and are not truncated with a link to read more, making it more difficult to navigate the blog.
Design: 7 - The various authors of the blog apparently did not come to a group decision about the structure of their articles, and each is markedly different, detracting from the overall appearance of the blog.
Amount of Relevant Info: 10 - As a class blog used in the posting of assignments, all information and articles posted are relevant to that purpose.

The Ratings of Aka121.blogspot.com 

Continuity of Focus: 10 - There are no posts that are tangential to its purpose as a class blog.
Content Clarity: 9 - Each article has a title and visual where appropriate, and the articles are self contained as a single post each, making them easy to follow.
Organisation: 9 - The blog is well organized, with a linear structure to allow for easy navigation, and the articles are kept to a reasonable length so one is not left scrolling through a single article for an extended period.
Design: 8 - The blog is very simple, but each article appears to adhere to a single standard of appearance, giving the blog as a whole a more well designed feel.
Amount of Relevant Info: 10 - As a class blog used in the posting of assignments, all information and articles posted are relevant to that purpose.

The Ratings of Bloggin4eng121.blogspot.com

Continuity of Focus: 10 - There are no posts that are tangential to its purpose as a class blog.
Content Clarity: 9 - Each article has a title and visual where appropriate, and the articles are self contained as a single post each, making them easy to follow.
Organisation: 9 - The blog is well organized, with a linear structure to allow for easy navigation, and the articles are kept to a reasonable length so one is not left scrolling through a single article for an extended period.
Design: 8 - The blog is very simple, but each article appears to adhere to a single standard of appearance, giving the blog as a whole a more well designed feel.
Amount of Relevant Info: 10 - As a class blog used in the posting of assignments, all information and articles posted are relevant to that purpose.

The Ratings of AIRR234.blogspot.com

Continuity of Focus: 10 - There are no posts that are tangential to its purpose as a class blog.
Content Clarity: 7 - Not all posts have visuals where one would be expected. All posts are titled and content is otherwise fairly clear.
Organisation: 8 - The blog is fairly well organized, with a linear structure that allows easy viewing of articles. However, some articles are fairly long and are not truncated with a link to read more, making it more difficult to navigate the blog.
Design: 6 - Due to the color choices the text can be somewhat difficult to read, and several articles violate standard formatting by being right-justified or otherwise eccentric, detracting from the overall design of the blog.
Amount of Relevant Info: 10 - As a class blog used in the posting of assignments, all information and articles posted are relevant to that purpose.

Nuclear Bogeyman

After going through our group's thesis statements intended for the research paper, we chose the thesis statement intended for use by Corey Chaves. In his paper about the fear-mongering and misinformation behind the blocking of nuclear power proliferation, he posits that "Though most people find the specter of nuclear power to be a terrifying one due to media influence, research suggests that it is actually safer and less polluting than any other form of electrical power generation." We chose this thesis statement because it was the strongest argument and the one thesis statement that was structured for use in an essay rather than simply an idea to use for the construction of a thesis statement.

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