Keeping up with blogs

Keeping up with blogging has been a little bit of a challenge for me lately. I have felt a little overwhelmed with the workload I have had from all of my other classes. I'm sure everyone can relate to that on some level. However I am excited to get back into blogging more regularly. I feel like blogging is a nice way to express my opinion on many different things. I enjoy this because I feel like this is the only class I am currently enrolled in that allows me to do this. There are so many things going on around us right now, such as the presidential election, that have been weighing on all of our minds. I think it is great to have a space where we can all feel free to share and in a sense, vent a little bit. It's a good way to unload some of the thoughts going on in your head, it can get a little crowded up there sometimes.
                                              

Multimodal Microtheme

Writing the microtheme was a little more tricky than I had originally thought. I was fortunate to have a really clear idea pop into my head that gave me the inspiration to write the microtheme quickly. However, once I had my microtheme revised in class, I realized that it needed to be more of an open ended question rather than voicing my opinion on the subject. With this critique I think I went in the correct direction from there. Once we got to the multimodal microtheme was when this project got a lot more interesting for me. (Here is my multimodal)

I felt that getting to make a creative version of what I had already written was a lot more rewarding and interesting. I had never really made a video like this before, and it was fun to explore and play around with the content to see what I could do. I was able to take an idea, a problem, that is very common today and put it into a creative form that everyone could understand. I think this drew up a hobby or interest that I never knew I had with making videos or just little projects like this one. With this project I really enjoyed how every person got different messages and ideas from the images shown or the clips shown in each multimodal presented in class. It was cool to see the intended message from the authot/creator, and then see how everyone else responded and what messages they got as they watched. I think this project was really interesting and it is something I can see the value in knowing how to do because it can be applied in real life situations and be very effective!

To-do List for Documentary Summary

So far I have gotten about 75% of the way though writing my entire summary. These are a few things that I know I still need to do in order to have my final draft ready.

1.) Finish writing the entire draft. (missing the last 20 minutes of the film)

2.) Add more detail about the documentary into my first paragraph/first sentence.

3.) Revise each paragraph to eliminate any extra information or repeated information.

4.) Make sure that the key scenes in the documentary are the ones I've spent the most time on and make sure that everything is in chronological order.

5.) Filter through the paragraphs to make sure I was really descriptive of what was said and what was seen in each specific scene so that the reader can picture what is going on. 

6.) Have someone peer edit to have a second opinion on my writing and to catch any errors.

7.) Make all corrections and put together the entire final draft. 

These are the things that I am sure I need to do in order to have a well written final draft. I'm sure along the way of completing these things I will find other minor things I could do to improve my final draft as well!

Homework Leads to Internet Wandering

This weekend I feel as if the only thing I have been doing is homework for hours on end. I get up and go to work in the morning, and then I come home and I sit down to do homework for what seems like an eternity. Usually I get quite distracted and end up in the really weird realms of the internet. 

                                                                                                                                                      

As I was being my normal distracted self, I actually came across a very interesting photo on Facebook that had a quote that stuck in my mind about a very touchy topic we see all over the news lately. 

                           
                                                       

"If I say my house is on fire and you say 'all houses matter,' well that may be true, but all houses aren't on fire right now. My house is."

As I read this quote I kind of thought of it as a good way to look at the situation from a different point of view. This made me think about how the statement "all lives matter" is very true. However it does not deal with the direct situation at hand. In picture we see someone tending to the house that is not on fire, and this would not even remotely fix the situation because even though that house "matters" it is not the house in need of desperate help in that moment. I think the same perspective can be taken when it comes to the saying "All lives matter." Yes, that is true, but where do we need to focus? This photo and quote has been stuck in my head for about two days now so I decided to share and see what some other people may think about it!

Keep the River on Your Right

I have not yet watched this documentary but it is the one that I have selected to do my summary paper on. I chose this documentary because when I initially read the description I was a little bit intrigued and turned off at the same time by the content it contained. This only made my curiosity grow more. I decided to Youtube a preview for the documentary to get a little bit more of an idea of what I was getting myself into. After watching this short video there was no way that I was not going to watch this documentary. It sparked too much interest and in the weirdest way. It's like something odd you see and initially you're like "oh god" but you just can't stop looking. I really look forward to watching the documentary and getting the full story!
 

Social Media as a Platform for Rhetoric

I believe that social media can come in really handy when it comes to rhetoric. It can be a useful platform to get a point across to many people and quickly at that. Especially in a world where now most people are spending hours a day on the internet anyway. The example we used in class, using twitter to get a quick message out that students/faculty are not happy about the parking situation, is just one example of how this can be used. I've also seen many different kinds, One example I can think of is when people are unhappy with products they have bought from companies and they send out a message with pictures and these posts become viral. This gets the message out to so many people and to the company as well usually within minutes or hours. This is really powerful in my opinion.

This Is Water 

This was my first time watching the video "this is water," and it sparked a few thoughts in my mind while I was watching it. It is not a hard concept to grasp that your perspective and the way you think is ultimately up to you, but it is a lot harder to actually practice this choosing on a daily basis. The video made me think of all the day to day situations I find myself in. I, just like most other people, find myself in the default setting a lot of the time. The video kind of inspired me to be a little more aware of that and to try to choose to think differently or have a different perspective on the little annoying situations we all find ourselves in. I find videos like this to be really interesting because they speak to all of us on a personal level and make the experience of learning concepts we cover in class that much more enjoyable.