Darius Barner ENGL 1101 July 17, 2013

While there were individual activities we participated in class, most of our brainstorming and ideas came from participating in groups. This was exceptionally good for me because I learned how others felt about my writings and it gave me insight on how I can improve my writing. When I first came into class, my expectations on group work was slim to none. That changed when Ms. Ingram assigned us to our groups two days into class. My group mates, Nick and Isaac, helped me better understand my papers and writings. They gave me ideas and criticized my work in a good way that encouraged me to become more detailed and elaborate. Since Ms. Ingram assigned us to our groups, we have been giving each other great advice for our final paper that we are working on. Our previous group meetings consisted of us reading each others work and commenting on it in a positive tone. It was meant to be positive because it was not our paper so we could not really critique it and tell them how to write since it was their own style of writing. I have learned so much from these group meetings including, teamwork, communication, and ideas. Although people would say that high school and college are similar, they are different in many ways. Once students come to college, their whole prospective about college changes. In college, you have more freedom than when you are in high school. When college life hits, the amount of freedom you have from home is crazy. You can go and do whatever you please without the constant bickering and questioning from your parents. Another difference is the work load. When I came here I was not expecting the amount of papers that were dues in such a small time frame. In high school, we had two weeks to type a paper and turn it in. In college, you have at least two or three days to type the same paper plus a no late work

Darius Barner ENGL 1101 July 17, 2013

policy. In high school, you could turn in the work up to three days late, but it is different in college. School lunch and college dining options differ also. Lunches in cafeterias in high school were bland and had no type of taste. I, for one, hated the lunch until Thursday, which was chicken bites and French fries day. College dining is so different in that they have local restaurants and fast food places on campus for the students. High school and college differ in many spectrums. When coming to college, I already knew that I had to be responsible for my own actions. My mother would tell me, Im not going to be there when you go to college so you better get your head together. I now know what she means because ever since I got here, I have been washing my own clothes and taking out my own trash. Although I have been doing the same thing at home before college, it is more surreal when it really has to happen to you. I do not mind washing my own clothes because I do that at home. Paying for it increases the responsibility because you have to watch your own clothes and make sure you get them from the machines. Taking out the trash is a major thing too because nobody wants a dirty room. I recall taking out the trash a couple of times due to the overflowing. It is not as bad as it seems but home training was the key factor in teaching me that taking out the trash and washing clothes was important. Based on the list we made in class, I could delete a few things from it. Everything on the list is good and the ideas reflect my ideas; I would not add anything to it. One thing I strongly would delete from this list is the Athletic Differences. This does not pertain to me at all because I am not an athlete. Their schedule is completely different from mine but we are all

Darius Barner ENGL 1101 July 17, 2013

required to attend Study Hall. The athletes have to wake up at five in the morning and attend football workouts until seven, go back to sleep for like an hour, wake back up and go to class. This does not affect me in no type of way so I would delete this from this list. I would also delete the bullet point about High School being free. I disagree with this because high school is not free; it takes out of your parents taxes. This means that our parents pay taxes on our schooling. In order to go to school, parents must pay which is similar to the college level. In college though, the cost is exceedingly greater than high school. These are some of the things I would delete from this list. I have always struggled in high school writing throughout my high school career. It seemed like writing was not my strong suit until my last year of high school. I did not know the writing process and revision of papers but I tried my best to understand the concept. When I arrived to college, my professor taught me the process of writing my papers efficiently and effectively. I learned that writing is not about set rules but freely writing about your perspective on things and going in depth on how you really feel about certain things. I am really engaged in learning how I can improve my writing skills and plan on participating more in class activities and asking questions and giving more feedback on my peers papers. It is fairly easy once you get the hang of writing and revising. A key concept that I feel confused about is curiosity. I feel like it is irrelevant to me because I am not curious about anything in my course of study. I am more of an experience first type of person in that I dont become curious about things I feel are predictable. Curiosity strikes in my English class when Ms. Ingram says that we are going to form into

Darius Barner ENGL 1101 July 17, 2013

groups and talk about our papers that we are writing. I am curious about this because I do not know what is in store for me in these groups, nor do I know what somebody is going to say about my paper. This is when I feel like my curious side comes out. During the second half of the semester I plan on changing this by participating more and better comprehending the tasks. I can participate more by answering more of Ms. Ingrams questions and contributing more ideas to my group meetings so I do not end up being confused on some things. Comprehension can help me better my understanding of the tasks because I can learn more things and use my knowledge to solve certain questions I have for myself. My response on my first question relates to my fifth response because it shows a development period. In my first response, I stated that working in groups have really influenced my development in college so far while my fifth response I said that I struggled in writing. This is a development period because in my fifth response I have problems writing and my first response later helps me develop my writing skills. As a group, I like working with other people, inputting ideas and coming together to find a solution of how we can better our writings to obtain more knowledge. As soon as I joined a group in English, I have personally seen my writing skills improve day after day. Right now, I am happy with my writing but I want to learn how to better word my sentences and correlate certain things to other topics. As of right now I do not have any questions for this class. However, I am ready to write more and share ideas with my group and the class as a whole. Poetry is something I like to

Darius Barner ENGL 1101 July 17, 2013

write so will we do anything involving that? I would really like to do a couple of assignments on structuring a poem that relates to UNC Charlotte or our class groups.