Week Four’s material focused a lot on social belonging. After reading my Week Four reflection, I decided to email my classmates and invite them to socialize before class. Instead of sitting in my car by myself like I had the previous week, I would socialize with new friends. I exchanged phone numbers with John Patton and Courtney Huff through email. John mentioned how he wouldn’t be early to socialize because of work. When the clock struck 5:00 I kissed my wife on the lips and my 3-year old son, Arthur on his cheek. My 2-year old son, Simon was sound asleep in his crib.
“Hey Bubby”, I said.
“Yes, Daddy”, Arthur asked.
“Can you give Sai Sai a kiss for me when he wakes up”, I asked.
“Yes, Daddy”, Arthur said. “Can I come to school with you Daddy”, He asked.
“You will be going to school soon, Bubs”, I responded.
“Have a good night”, my wife Shannon said.
The door closed behind me. With rain dropping on my bald spot I pulled the hood up over my head and turned around to look at the front window of my home. While staring through the water as it poured down the windowpane, I witnessed a distorted image of my son was staring back at me. His lips mouthing the words “I love you, bye Daddy.” I said it back.
I hit the road. Traffic was rampant. I texted John Patton and Courtney to inform them as to how I was running late. Courtney texted back, “Ditto”, and John did not reply. He had earlier stated how he gets busy at work and sometimes cannot respond. I understand.
I parked out front of the stem, crossed the bridge and proceeded towards the doors. A female student walking ahead of me appeared to be talking to herself as she blabbed in her Bluetooth device. Nowadays it is very hard to decipher the lunatics from the lesser insane. She opened the door, walked in, let go of the door and proceeded to walk off and talk to herself. I gripped the handle, opened the door and looked behind me. There was no student to hold the door for. I walked to the elevator and saw an older woman, maybe in her mid sixties. We walked in the elevator. “Disobey”, she said.
“Excuse me”, I responded.
“That’s the mentality of most kids your age”, she said.
My face reflected confusion.
“Your sweatshirt”, she said.
“Oh… This shirt is a spoof on a clothing company called Obey”, I explained.
“You hear about that shooting at the community college somewhere down south”, she asked. Before I could reply she went back to talking, “10 people were killed”.
“No, I didn’t hear about that. People are quacks”, I said. We exited the elevator and I headed down the hall for class. I’m never wearing that sweatshirt again.
I walked towards the class. Anna and Courtney were outside. We talked about each other’s week outside of class. One of the kids, Anna babysits, got stung by a bee. I talked about a concert I went to the night prior. I found out that Courtney lives in Delaware. Ben came walking down the hall. He started asking us about our assignments. The conversations started to flow. To my surprise, John came walking down the hall. I was glad that he had joined us. We briefly talked about his job. Kayleigh came strolling down the hall. I mentioned to her that she missed a silent class last week. As we began to fill her in Professor Mangini came down the hall. “I’m talking tonight”, he said as he unlocked the door. We followed him into the classroom.
He went to the board and started drawing the T chart as usual. Tonight’s class agenda was on the left side of the T and our assignments due by next week were on the right side. For those who haven’t figured this out yet, the left side of the T can be used as the blueprint for our class reflection. The class started with Professor Mangini playing a video of Courtney video blogging. He expressed how great he thinks it is that we are engaging in dialogue on each other’s blog posts. He instructed us to comment on a student’s blog from his morning class. He asked us to comment using questions. We were directed to comment on the classmate’s name that corresponds to where we are on our class list. For example, I am the 9th person on our list. I commented on Jenna Hawkins’ blog, because she is 9th on the morning class list.
We reviewed the AMA assignment sheet. We were instructed to download the assignment sheet from the course page, and print it. Other resources on the course page that we were asked to review are under the heading “Rhetoric and Composition.” Mangini spoke about rhetoric and recommended that we read Rhetorical Situations. We were told to focus on ourselves as the speaker, our text and the audience who we are engaging, when we write our adaptive mindset essay. He told us to make ourselves our own audience at first. “Write for you”, Mangini said. “Think of the genre and media you will use; text, media, or a blend of the two. Think of tone.” Mangini said. “What is tone”, he asked.
Anna said, “Tone is your attitude in script.”
Mangini explained how his mother used to text him in all capital letters. “Are you mad at me, Mom?”
The purpose of our project is to inform or persuade through narration, exposition, description and persuasion. Any combination of the 4 is fine. The audience is the class (professor and students). The secondary audience is the individuals outside the classroom setting that have no prior knowledge of who you are. Keep this in mind as you write your prologue. In our prologue we must link the adaptive mindset sheet and include context as to why we wrote the AMA.
These are the 3 sections of the the essay:
1.) Prologue: My process
Who did I work with?
What is my adaptive mindset topic (please reference blog posts and link to the assignment sheet)?
Why did I choose this topic?
When did I compose my adaptive mindset assignment?
Where did I compose my adaptive mindset assignment?
How did I compose my adaptive mindset assignment (think technologies and revisions)?
2.) Project: Insert Title
Draft #1
Draft #2
3.) Epilogue: My product
What is working for me?
What isn't working for me ?
Focus on areas you want to revise and explain how to make the work stronger)
We were informed to create a Drop Box that breaks up the Prologue, Project and Epilogue.