End of class

Baby Marius and me <3

My two beautiful children: Verity and Marius

Verity and my dad. She loves Grandpa!

This class has been such a ride! I really feel privileged to have shared this part of my life with so many amazing people. I've learned so much and had so much happen that it seems I am a completely different person on this side of class than at the beginning. I know that the future holds so many wonderful things and rich experiences for me and for everyone else is this class; I can't to experience them! I wish everyone the best and hope to "see" you again!

Heidi

Writing

With this course coming to an end I feel that I have learned and accomplished quite a bit. I love to write research-type papers and so, far from being daunted, I was actually really looking forward to the prospect of another writing course. In fact, the other course that I have had this term is Technical Writing. I have to admit that I don't enjoy technical types of writing nearly as well (probably because I'm writing about building sidewalks!) but it's interesting to learn. I am hoping to eventually go into research for nutrition in which case I would have to do a fair amount of technical writing in the form of grant proposals and such, so I figure I had better find out now if I absolutely hate it. I have a feeling that I will like it better when I am writing about something that interesting me and does not involve construction and building codes!

All in all I have really enjoyed the writing that I have done here and look forward to doing much more of it. I hope that I will be able to take a writing course or two that involve analyzing other written works as well, since that is something that I have always enjoyed. I can't wait to do more writing!

Heidi

Blogging

The blogging that I have been required to do has been interesting seeing as I have never done any blogging before. I always wondered who would want to read my musings about my life and what is going on in it. I really prefer writing that is objective as opposed to narrative, so the formal writing in class is far more favorable to me than the informal writing that a blog requires. In that way I am not at all surprised that there are not a huge number of comments on my blog. Personally I don't know that I would want to read my blogging, so I could hardly expect other people to want to read it.

For that reason I highly doubt that I will be continuing my blog after this class is over. It has been interesting, but honestly I would not be posting if it were not a part of the grade. I would really rather use social networking sites like facebook than blog.

Heidi

Peer Reviews

I just thought these pictures were adorable . . . The first is my son Marius who is now 1 month old and the second is my daughter Verity who is now 22 months. I can't believe how time flies!

But, about peer review. I actually really enjoy having my classmates read and critique my work, because they often give such a different perspective than a teacher would. I've gotten so many interesting ideas, some of which I've used and some of which have just been filed away for future reference, from having a variety of people read and comment on my work. When I was in middle and high school, my siblings and parents and I used to print out all of our pieces of writing for class and pass them around the family. Everyone would read everyone else's work and write on it in different colored pens. It really helped, especially since we were at different levels of writing (except my twin sister and I). My twin and I still email projects back and forth to get extra feedback. She just graduated from University of Maryland with a degree in English, so this is really beneficial for me.

As far as peer review in classrooms goes, I really enjoy that as well. I like reading other peoples' work because it lets me see all the different ways of approaching a subject. I've found that, even when the prompt for writing is very specific, there can be a huge variety in how the papers are approached and the style in which they are written. I know that my own style has been molded at least partially by what I have read in the works of others.

I am looking forward to reading a few papers in this class as well as seeing what others have to say about my paper!

Heidi