Lesson 5

1) Which of the techniques for generating ideas for essays has been most valuable to you? Why? Give an example.

Of the techniques I used, I preferred the Pro and Con "because" clauses because it made me think about the negative and positive of a stated thesis. It was fast, it put a lot of facts down in an organized fashion, and looked nice.

2) Which technique would you choose not to use again? Why?

I didn't like the idea mapping because it's not something that's easy to put on paper and I like writing in full and explaining sentences, not short, choppy ideas.

3) What have you learned about the writing process and/or about yourself during this lesson?

I have learned an awful lot from the writing process. In the past I wasn't much into writing rough drafts or sifting through things and thinking them out, I would just bolt head first into a project and usually become pretty frustrated. Now I know how useful pre-writing is.

4) What questions do you have about anything that other students might respond to?

Hmmmm.... Is there any way to make idea clustering simpler, or less confusing? That's pretty redundant isn't it?

5) What have you learned about the textbooks we are using for this course?

The textbooks. There are three of them: A Writer's Reference (Hacker), Rereading America, and Writing Arguments.
A Writer's Reference is basically a book stuffed full of information about proper writing, listing, formatting, and basically anything you would ever need to look up about proper writing. Great book!
Rereading America looks to be a book full of essays and stories to challenge thinking, it's a melding pot of different ideas, theories, and view points. Certain essays are selected for assignments and some of them are pretty interesting. I don't always agree with what some of the authors are saying, but I don't have to agree with something to learn from it.
Writing Arguments is very detailed about how to write out a proper and effective argument. Sometimes it's pretty heavy reading and I have to go back over passages, but once I see how it applies it's much easier to understand.