Major projects 2nd half of Eng 109

Major projects 2^nd half of Eng. 109

Everyone will do the following three assignments: 1] a learning analysis essay, 2] a personal success page of Internet resources in the form of an annotated webliography, and 3] a webfolio in which to post your major works on the Internet. That will be three of the four major projects for the semester.

Fourth major project: You will choose between the "one-pager" (numerous topics suggested below) or making an oral presentation to your 109 class or in another class.

Learning Analysis Essay, draft due Monday 3/26

1 Pgh. re: The VARK and your VARK learning preferences profile
1 Pgh. re: The HBDI and your HBDI learning profile
What do the profiles mean and what do they indicate to me about my learning preferences and styles?
About 3 pghs: 1] analyzing the teaching styles of your professors (most professors teach in the styles they prefer to learn), and 2] discussing how you have adapted or are adapting your learning styles to those teaching styles.

Annotated Webliographies

These will focus on researching on-lines resources that will help YOU specifically to be successful in all of your classes. This project will include researching sites that help you to develop or maintain the “soft skills,” i.e., the life skills that everyone needs in order to manage stress, time, money, relationships, etc. A good place to start this project is to look at your "Personal Rules for Success" that you wrote in journal entry 22, and focus on what you need more information about, or more help in doing, in order to follow your own rules for success. For instance, if one of your rules is to always get things done on time, then you are saying that you need to practice good time management; you can find countless resources (web sites) which provide excellent time management techniques.

Webfolios

Your major projects will be posted on the Internet in a website that I call a webfolio, an electronic portfolio demonstrating your knowledge about how to be successful and your skills using the Internet as a mass communication medium. Articles about webfolios are published at the On Course web site and in the VCCS on-line journal Connecting: Teaching with Technology in the VCCS. Take a look at what some of your predecessors did for their English 109 webfolio projects in the previous two semesters: Spring 2006, and Fall 2006.

From the smorgasbord of assignments below, choose just ONE.
It will be EITHER a "one-pager" (a very short essay) OR an oral presentation.

The "One-pager": You may choose to write on one of the many Success Essay topics below, OR to write a Reflection Paper on one of the journal entries or success topic discussions (These will be very short essays of 250 to 300 words, approximately three or four brief paragraphs.)

TNCC Success Essay, option one: What would you like to have known about TNCC on your first day here? Topics can be related to career exploration by attending Career Development Workshops, or they can be about Student Success Seminars, going to the Career Center for support services, any of the offices that support academic success on campus such as Financial Aid information, TRIO, Writing Center, Tutoring Center, ACL/Library, etc. The topics can focus on campus activities or the President’s Cultural Scholarship program, any sort of function or activity provided by the college to help you and all TNCC students to be successful.
Life Success Essay, option two: Topics, alternatively, can be related to the life skills which are the focus of the individual chapters of the book, the “soft skills” which are applicable to your success in college and are also applicable to your success in your careers and in your personal life. You have written about these in your journals and may be able to easily revise an entry into the one-page essay. If you want to start with a new or fresh idea to write about, here are some topics to consider related to the chapter themes of the On Course book.
Reflection Paper suggestions, option three: You may want to re-visit one of the On Course Chapter topics that you have written about extensively in your journals and revise the entry into a one-page essay (three short paragraphs). For example, there was wonderful insight in many of the short reflection pieces written about putting the puzzle together ("I do my life as I did the puzzle") that you may want to share with others by revising into a one-page essay. Go through your journals and look for your most motivating or revelatory entries, and choose one to revise into a one-page essay.

Oral Presentation: Academic Experts (option four)

For this assignment you and I will agree on the topic that would be most useful for you to research for your own success, for instance, a sticky editing problem which is causing you to get low grades or evaluations on your essays in writing class, such as run-on sentences. Or, instead of an academic hard skill, you could search some resources to help you improve a life skill, or a “soft skill,” that you need to work on. The topic will be mutually agreeable and I’ll agree to it based on the benefits you derive from learning it well enough to teach your colleagues about it. A good place to start this project, also, is to look at your "Personal Rules for Success" that you wrote in journal entry 22, and focus on what you need more information about, or more help in doing, in order to follow your own rules for success.

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