Disclaimer: As the semester has been completed, it should be noted that my grades should be determined based on the quality of my work, not on my opinion of the assignment.
As the weeks draw to a close, I am concerned as to what may happen to this blog. Then again, we have not had many who have chosen to comment on our works, other than spambots. Specifically, we have received only 6-7 legitimate comments from other users who were not spambots or classmates, and even then, with spambots getting more crafty, I suspect some of our human commentators may have been bots (but that’s just my paranoia). When considering how many total users are on WordPress, this is a bit disheartening to know less than even 10 decided to comment, despite our extensive tags.
If nothing else, and unless I discuss certain conditions with my group, this will be my final post, as I seem to have lost my enjoyment and further motivation for this blogging. In truth, we were forced to blog, to make one reading response to a particular reading, which I loathed, and then post 4 more blogs per week. We were told blogging was supposed to be spontaneous, whereas in this class, blogging was forced upon us. Thereby, I lost the motivation to effectively blog here without feeling as though this was a strenuous chore. Hell, I even lost the motivation to blog in my own personal spare time for my own personal pages because we blogged way too much on this website. These 5-blogs-a-week exhausted me and turned me off to blogging as a whole. I already have a blog-like journal entry which I maintain on my DeviantART page, and therefore, I have no time for this WordPress blog unless I can be sufficiently motivated to remain here. Yet, seeing as how we don’t get any significant comments anymore, I feel my motivation to stay may have run out.
I read in Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” that a student will more often than naught abandon his creativity and personal freedom of writing in order to appease an educator or professor, especially when the professor assigns work that the student does not enjoy writing or when the professor does not understand or agree with the student’s writing style. This is not to say that I was in those straits all the time, but in recent weeks, I have found myself in such a situation, and I have considered the text which I read, and discussed it with other students.
At times, academic writing can be enjoyable, but the majority of academic writing is what I like to refer to as “forced writing.” Forced writing, in my opinion, is defined as writing which is, essentially, forced upon the student, and writing the student does not enjoy carrying out. Some examples of forced writing are academic papers of undesirable subjects and material, blogs in which the student is required to write (whereas blogging should be spontaneous), and reports made concerning subjects the student detests; all of which involve the act of a student abandoning his creativity and writing dry, dull papers in a specific style or on a specific subject in order to appease his professor and earn a passing grade due to the professor’s dislike for the student’s writing style or the nature of the subjects in which the student discusses.
Blogging for a class is a viable example, as it can be greatly exhausting. In the early weeks of the class, one may enjoy freelancing on the blog site and updating it weekly on topics the student enjoys writing about. Then, when the requirement to write in response to specific readings or otherwise academic parameters are leveled upon the student, those within the class suffering under such parameters may feel that blogging becomes a chore, something that “has” to be done rather than something the student “wants” to do. The motivation to blog on time may be lost, and students may find themselves laboring in order to post blogs which are being forced upon them.
In my case, I hate writing papers, especially when it’s for a subject I dislike. I also hate being forced to write a response to a particular reading I may have undertaken and did not enjoy. Hell, I hate reading responses in general, as reading responses are “forced writing.” One might say it’s how all academic writing is to be conducted, but does that mean that we have to drudge through our academic assignments like they’re torture? Does that mean that academic institutions can’t make their academic assignments as simple as blogging about anything the student may enjoy? Why is it that academics at times are delivered to the student without any motivating fun-factor involved? I want to be motivated to blog, not forced to do it within certain parameters for a grade. I don’t want to discuss a reading, I want to discuss my writing, because I find my writing more interesting than reading, and frankly, we were instructed to blog about our reading as our subject on interest.
I don’t like being told what I can and can’t write about. I don’t like being restricted, I don’t like being regulated, I don’t like being censored, and God help me and the poor man reading my work, I most certainly hate being silenced. In the greater principle of things, an American soldier fought and died today so we could exercise our right to free speech and freedom of expression, the right to write about what we want without infringement from higher governmental authority, so let’s exercise it while we still have the chance before the Constitution is used for some senator or president’s toilet paper. My fourteen friends in Iraq who joined the National Guard while in various college are all a testament of this.
Let us seriously consider for a moment exactly how many college students read. Hell, let’s consider how many people read in the first place. Out of those, consider how many actually enjoy it. Talk to people, find out if they read. You will find the numbers are minimal. My friends don’t read, I personally don’t read, not even for “pleasure,” because I don’t enjoy it, and I most certainly don’t enjoy writing reading responses or blog responses.
Additionally, students may become infringed upon when certain classes require them to create particular web pages, which require the student to input his real name. In my class, we had a discussion about online privacy, and how to better protect oneself. Therefore, I refused to put my full name into the web pages we were assigned to create so as to better shield myself from malicious intent. On that note, I’ve got enough personal web sites to maintain already, such as my DeviantART page (which allows me to blog anyway) and my custom Wikipedia pages, as well as several message boards that I am already involved with. Those with Facebook and MySpace pages already have their hands full with their custom-made pages more so than having the time to create Netvibes and Diigo pages that I feel are useless to me since clicking a link in my favorites bar is faster than going to Diigo, and Netvibes is useless to me since I prefer my Firefox tabs.
I also considered how many students actually read assigned readings, especially when considering that the PDFs which contain the readings can sometimes number beyond 20 and even 50 pages, all on very small font. No one has time for that, not when they’d rather be doing other things, such as writing about subjects they enjoy.
I’m a writer, and I’d rather type my stories rather than read a PDF that I’m going to forget in the next two hours after reading it. This seems paradoxical, since I dislike reading, but as a writer, I expect my work to be read. Then again, I enjoy reading my own work more so than academic reading, and frankly, if one doesn’t want to read my work, he doesn’t have to, but by God, no one has a right to stop him from exercising his choice to write and read what he pleases.
Some who have written in the heated manner in which I have done so have questioned whether or not an academic official could affect one’s grade for having that student express his opinions. I’d have to say that no professor can legally lower a student’s grade even if that professor doesn’t like what that student has to say. I once had a high school teacher for a typing class give me a B as a final grade instead of an A because I finished my work faster than anyone else. I typed faster than all other students using my own style of touch-typing, which she authorized, and therefore finished ahead of all other students. Hell, I even typed faster than the teacher, and she still lowered my grade because she didn’t like how fast I completed my work! Now, things are different. No professor on God’s green earth can lower a student’s grade based on personal opinions; only the quality of that student’s academic work determines the student’s grade, and if a grade is lowered because of bias against a student’s opinions, there is going to be problems hell to pay.
So, in the end, I hate forced writing, I hate less-than-enjoyable academic writing, I hate forced blogging, I hate reading, I hate reading responses, because they are not engaging; to get me to write, I have to be motivated and inspired to write. If you force me, expect dull, bland, unmotivated or falsely-motivated results, but if you motivate me, if you let me write about what I care about, if you let me write regarding my work, hell, if you let me write my work, you will see me shine.
Forced Writing
October 6, 2008
Disclaimer: As the semester has been completed, it should be noted that my grades should be determined based on the quality of my work, not on my opinion of the assignment.
As the weeks draw to a close, I am concerned as to what may happen to this blog. Then again, we have not had many who have chosen to comment on our works, other than spambots. Specifically, we have received only 6-7 legitimate comments from other users who were not spambots or classmates, and even then, with spambots getting more crafty, I suspect some of our human commentators may have been bots (but that’s just my paranoia). When considering how many total users are on WordPress, this is a bit disheartening to know less than even 10 decided to comment, despite our extensive tags.
If nothing else, and unless I discuss certain conditions with my group, this will be my final post, as I seem to have lost my enjoyment and further motivation for this blogging. In truth, we were forced to blog, to make one reading response to a particular reading, which I loathed, and then post 4 more blogs per week. We were told blogging was supposed to be spontaneous, whereas in this class, blogging was forced upon us. Thereby, I lost the motivation to effectively blog here without feeling as though this was a strenuous chore. Hell, I even lost the motivation to blog in my own personal spare time for my own personal pages because we blogged way too much on this website. These 5-blogs-a-week exhausted me and turned me off to blogging as a whole. I already have a blog-like journal entry which I maintain on my DeviantART page, and therefore, I have no time for this WordPress blog unless I can be sufficiently motivated to remain here. Yet, seeing as how we don’t get any significant comments anymore, I feel my motivation to stay may have run out.
I read in Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” that a student will more often than naught abandon his creativity and personal freedom of writing in order to appease an educator or professor, especially when the professor assigns work that the student does not enjoy writing or when the professor does not understand or agree with the student’s writing style. This is not to say that I was in those straits all the time, but in recent weeks, I have found myself in such a situation, and I have considered the text which I read, and discussed it with other students.
At times, academic writing can be enjoyable, but the majority of academic writing is what I like to refer to as “forced writing.” Forced writing, in my opinion, is defined as writing which is, essentially, forced upon the student, and writing the student does not enjoy carrying out. Some examples of forced writing are academic papers of undesirable subjects and material, blogs in which the student is required to write (whereas blogging should be spontaneous), and reports made concerning subjects the student detests; all of which involve the act of a student abandoning his creativity and writing dry, dull papers in a specific style or on a specific subject in order to appease his professor and earn a passing grade due to the professor’s dislike for the student’s writing style or the nature of the subjects in which the student discusses.
Blogging for a class is a viable example, as it can be greatly exhausting. In the early weeks of the class, one may enjoy freelancing on the blog site and updating it weekly on topics the student enjoys writing about. Then, when the requirement to write in response to specific readings or otherwise academic parameters are leveled upon the student, those within the class suffering under such parameters may feel that blogging becomes a chore, something that “has” to be done rather than something the student “wants” to do. The motivation to blog on time may be lost, and students may find themselves laboring in order to post blogs which are being forced upon them.
In my case, I hate writing papers, especially when it’s for a subject I dislike. I also hate being forced to write a response to a particular reading I may have undertaken and did not enjoy. Hell, I hate reading responses in general, as reading responses are “forced writing.” One might say it’s how all academic writing is to be conducted, but does that mean that we have to drudge through our academic assignments like they’re torture? Does that mean that academic institutions can’t make their academic assignments as simple as blogging about anything the student may enjoy? Why is it that academics at times are delivered to the student without any motivating fun-factor involved? I want to be motivated to blog, not forced to do it within certain parameters for a grade. I don’t want to discuss a reading, I want to discuss my writing, because I find my writing more interesting than reading, and frankly, we were instructed to blog about our reading as our subject on interest.
I don’t like being told what I can and can’t write about. I don’t like being restricted, I don’t like being regulated, I don’t like being censored, and God help me and the poor man reading my work, I most certainly hate being silenced. In the greater principle of things, an American soldier fought and died today so we could exercise our right to free speech and freedom of expression, the right to write about what we want without infringement from higher governmental authority, so let’s exercise it while we still have the chance before the Constitution is used for some senator or president’s toilet paper. My fourteen friends in Iraq who joined the National Guard while in various college are all a testament of this.
Let us seriously consider for a moment exactly how many college students read. Hell, let’s consider how many people read in the first place. Out of those, consider how many actually enjoy it. Talk to people, find out if they read. You will find the numbers are minimal. My friends don’t read, I personally don’t read, not even for “pleasure,” because I don’t enjoy it, and I most certainly don’t enjoy writing reading responses or blog responses.
Additionally, students may become infringed upon when certain classes require them to create particular web pages, which require the student to input his real name. In my class, we had a discussion about online privacy, and how to better protect oneself. Therefore, I refused to put my full name into the web pages we were assigned to create so as to better shield myself from malicious intent. On that note, I’ve got enough personal web sites to maintain already, such as my DeviantART page (which allows me to blog anyway) and my custom Wikipedia pages, as well as several message boards that I am already involved with. Those with Facebook and MySpace pages already have their hands full with their custom-made pages more so than having the time to create Netvibes and Diigo pages that I feel are useless to me since clicking a link in my favorites bar is faster than going to Diigo, and Netvibes is useless to me since I prefer my Firefox tabs.
I also considered how many students actually read assigned readings, especially when considering that the PDFs which contain the readings can sometimes number beyond 20 and even 50 pages, all on very small font. No one has time for that, not when they’d rather be doing other things, such as writing about subjects they enjoy.
I’m a writer, and I’d rather type my stories rather than read a PDF that I’m going to forget in the next two hours after reading it. This seems paradoxical, since I dislike reading, but as a writer, I expect my work to be read. Then again, I enjoy reading my own work more so than academic reading, and frankly, if one doesn’t want to read my work, he doesn’t have to, but by God, no one has a right to stop him from exercising his choice to write and read what he pleases.
Some who have written in the heated manner in which I have done so have questioned whether or not an academic official could affect one’s grade for having that student express his opinions. I’d have to say that no professor can legally lower a student’s grade even if that professor doesn’t like what that student has to say. I once had a high school teacher for a typing class give me a B as a final grade instead of an A because I finished my work faster than anyone else. I typed faster than all other students using my own style of touch-typing, which she authorized, and therefore finished ahead of all other students. Hell, I even typed faster than the teacher, and she still lowered my grade because she didn’t like how fast I completed my work! Now, things are different. No professor on God’s green earth can lower a student’s grade based on personal opinions; only the quality of that student’s academic work determines the student’s grade, and if a grade is lowered because of bias against a student’s opinions, there is going to be problems hell to pay.
So, in the end, I hate forced writing, I hate less-than-enjoyable academic writing, I hate forced blogging, I hate reading, I hate reading responses, because they are not engaging; to get me to write, I have to be motivated and inspired to write. If you force me, expect dull, bland, unmotivated or falsely-motivated results, but if you motivate me, if you let me write about what I care about, if you let me write regarding my work, hell, if you let me write my work, you will see me shine.