So, I think Im gunna get the failstick. But its a good essay

[theindigothief]

Reflective Essay
Over the course of the past three years I have been putting a lot of time and energy into helping my community of Sherburne, New York. Between being an active blood donor and helping start and run a community-based thrift shop, I have spent much time helping communities that I have been a part of. As such, I did not take as much from the service-learning aspect of the course as many of my peers. Given, it is always nice to help out people in need . . . I just felt that the time we had available was limited and could have been better focused elsewhere. There were a few issues I had with the overall basis of the course but in the end the experience and time devoted to the class was both worthwhile and meaningful.
At first, I found this course to be quite interesting for it was attempting to spark change where change is needed the most . . . amongst the youth. Over the course of the class I became disgusted with the amount of propaganda set fourth by some of the lectures. Perhaps the one that I disliked the most must have been when random classmates were asked to portray various people from throughout the social hierarchy. It sickened me when people tried to claim that Wal-Mart pays its employees minimum wage and has no feelings for its many workers. Such a statement is born out of ignorance and unfortunately people henceforth would take it as fact. The truth is that Wal-Mart pays incredibly competitively and actually compensates more than many of the other entry-level jobs available. Of the four people that I know that at one point was employed at Wal-Mart, all of whom had a starting hourly wage that was far above the minimum standard set forth by our state. I feel that my prior understandings pertaining to some of the various social and economic issues that were talked about in class really detracted from what I aquired from the class.
For much of the class the main focus was on education and how education and the persuit of higher levels would equate into success. This can be seen with how much of the Van Duyn project was handled. While I do agree that venturing off to college is great and amazing, it does by no means equate into the socio-economic freedom that many of us(current college students) believe. I feel that this is a very superficial way to address such a problem and actually was very uncreative in scope. Education alone does not translate into success, and every single overqualified employee of the many companies in America quantify this.
Moving onto a topic that was handled more positively, Professor Sindell did point out an issue that often times goes unnoticed. She laid the groundwork for one’s audience and how often-times one’s audience is not at the same level as one would think. This was displayed quite vividly over the course of the letters to Van Duyn. Fifty students had to take a correspondence with fifty fifth-graders. This allowed the college students to attempt communications with someone of a different reading comprehension. This adds a lot to the process of writing, for often times people like to assume that their audience is peer level in ability. My attempt at addressing this issue was to use overly-simplistic sentences and syntax, such as: “So, did you like us coming to your school? It was pretty fun. Hopefully it gave you some ideas for what you want to be. Your teachers seem pretty cool too.”
The rest of the connected questions at hand are very loaded and restrict the writer(myself) into a position that one would rather not be in. I feel that there were places where one could have walked away from this course with much information. Unfortunately the culprit would have to be a lack in time available. One thing that could have been worked on was a concrete way to improve rhetoric. For after all, Freshman Comp. typically tries to strengthen this area of writing. Being as I am not a professor myself, I can only speculate as to how one would go about integrating rhetoric into a course such as this. There were glimpses, but nothing tangible that one could walk away and apply to any other future course. Perhaps an easier to implement feature to this course would be the use of our in-class essay. Using it, one could have had clear aims and goals set forth by the professor and could even undergo a self critique at the end of the course. This would have gone a long way in allowing for the expansion of the writer.
In conclusion, I am sorry for this essay is far different then what I was going to initially write. At first, I was going to write a paper that directly addressed the task set forth. But unfortunately that would not have been a truthful evaluation of the whole process. Also, that would have been superficial and a waste of both of our time. There are many ways to dissect an essay for the worse, hopefully one will look beyond such imperfections and notice that for a true evaluation . . . I had to focus on some of the negatives and only briefly address the successes of Van Duyn. After all, I am sure many of the other papers will be on such and it was you Professor Sindell that suggested that I need to take the road less traveled and not be as superficial in scope. This essay is me trying to be as such.

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[theindigothief]

Ugh, sorry for the lack of paragraphs . . . it didn't copy/paste em in there.

Oh and the subject was supposed to have an "I think" after it. It comes off as supremely arrogant the way its written. Silly character caps.

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[Red Squirrel]

I used to HATE writing essays. (used to, because I'm not in school anymore )

"please write a 10 page essay on why shakespeare chose the phrase "to be or not to be" instead of "not to be, or to be" in his book"

Yeah, ok, whatever. Then "write a 2 page story about anything you want"... the 2 page story I can actually use my imagination, and can easily write 10 pages, but restricted to 2, the shakespeare essay I have to BS my way through and use ms Word line/char spacing tactics to try and make it to 10 pages. Bah i hated English class! lol

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[theindigothief]

I hear yas. But I mean she wanted our opinion and said and I quote "Do not simply tell me what you think I want to hear!"

So yeah, I had that disclaimer at the end. Hopefully she wont fail me too bad.

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[Red Squirrel]

hahaha yeah it IS your opinion.

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[Nexus Graveheart]

One good thing about history essays is you do get to say your opinion and use your imagination, in some respects, unlike many other subjects.

Of course, there were times when my professor and I disagreed (I still think he lowered my grade because of it.)

But after my first two years of college, essays and papers never bothered me anymore. I think I either got good at writing them, or I got good at bullshitting. Either way, it got me through 4 years. It got even better with my last paper, when I got to pick any subject in any era of history to write about.

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[DOCTOR THUNDER]

never underestimate the importance of quotes and pictures. There is no other way you can skip 1/4 of a page and make the prof think you are doing a superior job.

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[Red Squirrel]

LOL I was bad with quotes, but I was very creative in sneaky to the point where it did not really look like I'm abusing anything.

Combine the power of these elements:

- page width:
- page header/footer size
- letter spacing:
- font size/type if allowed to choose
- quote formatting: such as adding a border that wastes like 3 lines all around
- bulleted lists are your friend
- lot of pictures and quotations - always quote an extra sentance at start and end of the key quote, bold the key quote (bold takes a bit more space)

There may be more, but those are the ones I remember.

The size related stuff, you need to only change it slightly, it should not be visible when you see - but after 10 pages, it makes a difference.

Oh and if you're allowed to double space, take advantage of that by going 2.3 instead of just 2. This is pure gold, if you are allowed to do this.

Archived topic from AOV, old topic ID:1928, old post ID:12549