Insight for the Midterm Exam

The questions that we worked on in class yesterday have given me a broader range of ideas to write on for our midterm exam. The quetions brought to light the purpose for an author's particular piece of writing and the choice of register they use to communicate with their audience. Because of these questions I also have a greater understanding of why certain essays have different formats. For instance, why an essay doen't have an opposition or rebuttal or even a concession. And if they do contain these paragraphs, what is their purpose. Overall, these questions have helped push me in a direction where I feel like I have a greater understanding of why people write, and how I am supposed to interpret their piece. I also feel that I have a greater ability to relay this information in a clear and concise manner.

My Group Experience

During the exercise in class on disecting Dave Eggers essay To Serve or Fail, I found it difficult to try and distiguish between the concession and the opposition and rebuttal. I did find, however, that working in a group definatley helped me to understand the differences once I knew what paragraphs they were. I also found that in the essays that we have read in class that being able to distinguish between the different paragraphs is going to be a tedious task just due to the fact that not all the parts we were trying to find are going to be in every essay. I did find this exercise helpful and interesting though just because it helped me to understand a writers argument. This also provided an outline for me so I didn't have to keep reading the essay from beginning to end four or five times to get their point. All in all this exercise was fun and informative.

What made the biggest impact

I found that the previewing technique made the most impact in preparing me to read either of these essays. Reading the biographical data at the beginning of each of the essays gave me more insight into what i was about to read and definatley peaked my intrest. After doing so, I found myself more inclined to read A Modest Proposal just due to the fact that I already had heard of Jonathan Swift through Gulliver's Travels, and had childhood memories of this story. I also found it particularly interesting that he was ordained in the Church of Ireland and that this essay may have some religious implications, which, again I am very interested in. All in all, I think that the previewing technique will be one that I use before I read anything that may possibly interest me.

Writing for the audience

Practicing writing paragraphs in English 100 has readily improved my writing skills by showing me how to write to immediatley grab the audiences' attention, and how to make my arguments more clear and concise. To immediatley grab a person's attention is usually the job of the introductory paragraph, and I find that using a suprising fact or even a paradox is enough to perk their curiosity. For example, using my last blog as a reference, most people are not aware of the nursing shortages in B.C. But pairing that with the fact that some schools are not willing to honor credits from other Nursing programs and actually make it harder for existing LPN's and diploma RN's to get into the BSN, is a suprising fact for most readers. When writing a thesis it usually comes at the end of an introductory paragraph and forshadows what main arguements will be in the body of my essay. Thus, making it easier for the reader to distinguish what my solutions to the paradox are or what my ideas are on the suprising fact include. This also makes it easier for the audience to read because it keeps my thoughts in order and keeps me from going off on a rant, and I do have a tendency to do that. But by going back and reading my thesis statement, it keeps me on track and to the point.

A question that I have encountered in another class.

One of the big questions that I not only heard throughout the Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)course last year, but as I have ventured out into the work force as a nurse is, "Should the LPN program be extended to two years instead of 12 months?" This opens alot of room for debate from both sides of the arguement. On one hand, in the next five years Interior Health will be losing a copious amount of nurses, RN's and LPN's, to retirement and the nursing shortage will be worse than ever. So the 12 month LPN program gets nurses out in the work force fast and effeciently. On the other hand, the LPN program tries to cram two years of the RN program (16 months) into 12 months for their students. The 12 months also includes practicum time, so really the time in class spent learning concepts is less than that. Another issue with the 12 month LPN program as opposed to a two year academic one, is that almost all of the classes taken in the program are not transferable to the Bachelor of Science Nursing (BSN) program at the University of B.C. Where as if it were a two year course, LPN's could take more prerequsite and transferable courses, instead of having to go back and do upgrading before even being able to apply for the BSN program. For the benefit of BC, and for that matter, Canadian Healthcare I feel that this would be a great question for debate.

My Experience Revising Paragraphs

It has been a long time since I had to revise another students writing, and I am finding it somewhat difficult when I don't really have alot of information to work with and am pressed for time in class. Ten minutes to go over and help develop another person's work seems a bit rushed. I am finding the whole process easy to understand but just need more time to work with the ideas that are handed to me. Having to work in pairs to do most of these assignments also makes it a little more difficult with the time issue. I find that there is enough time to discuss how to organize the paragraph, but not enough time to actually get it all written out and developed. Personally, I would like to have more time working on developing paragraphs on my own in class. I would find that more beneficial to my education.

Problems Facing New Students

A problem facing new students with starting the school year is the online registration process. So a student gets accepted into college, gets the letter in the mail stating that he or she needs to put down a deposit of $200 to keep their spot in the program. Along with that letter it states that they need to go onto the class finder application of the schools website and choose their classes, then be available to register for them either online or at the school on a certain date in the near future (in the letter it states that it is recommended that students register online). As a returning student to Okanagan College, I found this process particularly confusing due the the fact that I registered for all my classes online. My computer and I were all set and ready for the one o'clock registration time that I was alotted, and everything seemed to go well. All my classes were available and the schedule I had made up for myself fit perfectly. After that, I was logging in to myokanagan almost everyday to see if anything had been cancelled or changed with my classes. It wasn't until two weeks before I started classes that I logged on to myokanagan that saw that my status for a few classes had changed, but did not tell me why, just a little note beside the class name that I couldn't decipher. Well, of course I was not able to get any answers online, so off to the registrar's office I went. There I was told that I didn't have some biology or math credits that I needed, even though I had just graduated from the Licensed Practical Nursing program at O.C. not seven months before and all the prerequsites were the same for both the programs, and for all the classes I had enrolled in. Everything was eventually all sorted out and there turned out not to be any problems with my transcripts, but you would think, that if I registered for classes two months before the actual classes even started, why would it take the registrar's office five weeks to tell me that there was a problem with my transcripts. I would have thought that registering online for classes would be easier, faster, and would alert myself and the resigtrar of any problems with-in the first two weeks of registration, instead of waiting until two weeks before classes start when I might not have been able to get things sorted out if the problem was bigger.