reflective paper blog

Throughout the duration of this course I have come a long way in broadening my skills. I have gained experience with many different forms of media and learned many different techniques along the way. This course helped me build a stronger base when it comes to my all around knowledge of media and writing. I had the opportunity to learn and experience things I, either, never knew how to do or even knew what it was. Now that I have expanded into new ways of communicating it will make many things for the future easier for me.

Some of the things we covered in this class that I have never done before are blogs, letters to the editor, wordles, genres, and a pod cast. All of these things surprised me and were much easier than I had ever imagined they would be in the past. I think before I took this class, if I didn't know what one of these things were, or just simply didn't know how to do it, then I would stray away from doing so. I wouldn't have taken it upon myself to want to get to understand these new methods because I thought it would be too difficult to learn. Walking through things and having good directions has made all of this very convenient for me. This class made me have the initiative to have to learn how these things work. Looking back on it now, I’m glad I have more resources and a better understanding of how, when, and for what type of media or writings these different methods should be used for.

Blogging is something I've always heard other people talk about, but didn't really know what they meant. To me it was one of those things where I knew what it was, but would probably never do it or have my own. Before this class I had no idea how to access a blog, how to create my own blog, or how to even post on a blog. Blogging alone increased my knowledge in different methods of communication and this is only one of the things I'm taking away with me from this class. Now, since I've created my own blog from class, I can keep mine running and still have an active blog site. I believe I will use this on my own and keep up with the blog postings. Not necessarily every week or about a particular topic but just making sure I keep making updates.

My favorite project over all of the others was doing a pod cast. This is one of the things we had to do in this class that I have never heard of before or never thought I would do one for that matter. Something about the audience not being able to see my face made it a little easier for me. It was like I could be someone else and actually I did create an alter ego/different personality and I was Marcus for this pod cast. Nobody knows when you make a mistake because you can edit what is already recorded or you can always start over. Making a story line and creating a plan for the order of events and the idea we wanting to get across to the audience was fun. We decided to make ours more of a sports radio show type thing when really, someone could use a pod cast for anything. This would come in handy for many different things and I can see this being useful to me in the future. Learing how to do a pod cast didn't only turn out to be a lot of fun but it will be very beneficial to me as well.

Blog post 10

This class has been an eye opener for me. I enjoyed it because I learned alot about the use of genres in writing papers. I enjoyed the blogs the most because I just got to write from how i how feel with no limits. I think learning the different genres is what made the class stand out because in other writing classes you don't get many selections of writing styles. The blogs gave me a chance to show my sense of humor which I find valuable because you don’t usually get to do that with other forms of writing. I also got a chance to write about more serious topics and give a lot of information in the two blogs: Not as Easy for Minors, and 9/11s Effect on Immigration. With those two writings I got a chance to do plenty of research and had to decide which things were the most important pieces.

Reflection Rough Draft

This portfolio is a collection of interesting writing experiences for me. As an English and Communication Arts major, I usually do two very specific types of writing. Writing for English classes is focused on close reading and analyzing thematic aspects of literature, and how the words on the page illuminate the greater concepts within the text, literary movement, or society. For Communications, the writing is centered around dissecting visual texts and looking at why decisions are made and how those decisions impact the rest of the text, and how they exemplify a certain style. Both “genres” are analytical rather than creative, and they both involve taking a closer look at someone else’s work and attempting to decipher their intentions. With this in mind, the writing I did for this portfolio was different than what I am used to.

Through the semester, I took some liberties with my writing because I am normally confined by certain expectations for my other work. Because we got to choose a topic that was interesting to us, it was often difficult for me to remove my own opinions from the work we were doing. Normally, I don’t get to choose to write about anything I want, so that was a new experience. It ended up being a little more difficult than I anticipated because I do not normally analyze baseball in the way that I had to for this class and project. I read articles about it, but I do not normally search for government and academic sources to back up the knowledge I pick up at espn.com. Also, when I am not specifically analyzing a text, and even sometimes when I am, it is very difficult for me to remove my personal voice from my writing. Even if I did not explicitly talk about my White Sox, or my thoughts on various players or issues that I discussed, my voice often comes out in any words I write on the page. I think this is most explicit in one of my early blog posts. Not only do I begin it with a nice little anecdote about my life, but you can just hear me throughout the entire post. It has everything that I bring to the table in my normal speech—sarcasm, humor, and a little bit of line crossing. I am still very proud of this blog post. I enjoyed writing it, and enjoy reading it back today, but I understand how this type of writing does not work for every assignment and every topic.

I think that my RP3 assignment shows a transition between that type of writing and a more genre focused type. It is on a topic that is extremely interesting to me, immigration in baseball, so the entire thesis of the paper is based on my personal opinion towards the subject. Since I watched a documentary film as one of the sources, I took the parts that pulled me in to use in my paper to draw in the audiences. In that way, some personal choice and voice impacted the reading of the paper. However, as the paper went on, it became more focused on the research and transformed into a more expository piece. I can see how having sources from ESPN and other sports websites doesn’t exactly make it strictly academic, though, but it was very difficult to find sources that fit this topic outside the sporting news world. For my revisions, I found a government-issued memo that amended the laws for athlete’s p-1 visas, but since my argument was more centered around h-2b visas for minor leaguers, I had to reframe part of my argument to explain what this memo means. After explaining it, I’m trying to show how this new law is another advantage for players who have already made the league, and there is still work to be done to share the wealth with minor league players.

Blog 8 make up...

As the president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers i think we need to go in a diffrent direction to help this organization. many people will not understand what im doing at first but in the long run this is the best decision for this team right now. after a lot of deep thought i have decided to sign the first african american baseball player in the major leagues. i was looking for a curtain type of player. they had to be athletic, hard worker, and a person that people could respect. none of those things had color to it or a name but now it does. his name is Jackie Robinson and he will be the next great player and human being in this league.
Many know that im a religious person and i think that GOD woulnt disagree with me when i signed him so thats all i had to deal with. of course i know im going to get critized for this for years but i am willing to except that and at the same time i had to get a player that would be able to deal with the things Jackie is going to have to deal with. going up to bat being booo by everybody in the crowd and mostly likely having things thrown at him. its going to be even worse when we go on the road with hotels and travel plans but i really think i got a person that will be able to deal with that even though the average man would not able to
this is just my statement later i will doing a live interview with Howard Cosell many of you might not know him but you should know him in the near future i also think he will be a great anouncer. i will be open to any questions about why i decided to do this or anything that comes to mind or if you have any questions about Jackie i will be open to answers those as well.
ok that was an introduction to what i was going to do but it will end up being a first person interview with Branch Rickey (thats who i was in that press confrence) and he will be interviewed by Howard Cosell one of the best announcers in that day

blog 6 make up...

i would have liked my podcast to reach an athletic audience or a political audience because it had to do with both sides weather it was sports or politics. since baseball has become a world wide sport i think the topic of immigration in baseball is a key topic to talk about and give the audience a since that baseball is not just a game for a lot of players and families. i would try and put this on sports sites like espn.com and national news like cnn.com in the sports section and maybe get it in some kind of world wide site but the best place would probably be youtube in this day and age. its a sports radio show so espn would be the best way to get this out.

the way i turned my argument to a audio to appeal to the audience was use a real life radio show "mike and mike in the morning show" and make my own up so that people could relate to it if you have watched it or listen to it before. we called it the "Marcus and Stacey in the morning show" we did our own re enactment of the show and put the points from my immigration in baseball into the show and discussed it with the other person in the show.

in the show i wanted to put a big emphasis on informing the audience what kind of things cuban defectors have to go through just to get a chance to play in america and the risk they take. not by them just having to escape there country by way of an unsecured boat thats probably made by someone thats not a professional, thats a big risk but another problem would be theres not many cuban players that make it big and end up making a lot of money at the end of the day so they are taking a big risk by coming over here leaving there family and there country.

i did a radio podcast so there weren't any visuals but i used the theme song from espn at the beginning for the show but i couldnt find the mike and mike shows song but there on espn so i figured that would be fine. the most difficult part of the podcast was trying to stay on the main points and not ramble on

Blog 9

For our multi genre essay we have chosen to discuss the role of African Americans in baseball. With this topic we can cover a variety of things such as, racism within the sport, contract issues, youth involvement, etc. I would say our main goal is to get baseball (MLB) involved with inner city communities by funding little league organizations, maybe give some tickets to the inner city kids to get then to become fans of the game and just provide some role models for those kids. I personally plan creating a collage which has pictures of past and present African American greats from baseball. Also, i plan on making a letter to the president of baseball, Bud Selig, just to explain why I think he should take a chance in getting baseball more popular in the urban cities.

blog 9...

In our mixed genre we decided to go away from immigration in baseball and go back to just blacks in baseball and how it first started. Im doing the diary part of it with Branch Rickey where im doing an interview of him through Howard Cosell one of the most famous commentators in the 50s through the 80s. I take quotes from Rickey Branch i found on the internet and make a fictional interview between the too its really in depth and i think will really inform people if you didnt know who either of these people were.

i wish i could have had a chance to cover the cuban defection part like in the last couple papers because i would have done a 1st person diary through the eyes of el dique when he was lost at sea for 3 days which i went over in my rp4 paper. im also doing the mixed genre part of our paper im going to take pictures that we found and put them on there. im also going to take qoutes from famous players or players like Jackie Robinson or Willie mays that had great significance. we have a youtube video from Ryan Howard that he discusses black baseball players in baseball.

kevin will be doing something similar so i will try not to over lap wuth what he has planned. it wont be like a regular paper its going ot be a lot of things put a page. pictures that re relevant and the wordle we learned how to do in class. our topic has been an issue for a while now with african americans in the majors dropped from 27% in the 70's to 9.5% in the present day but hasnt been brought in the public until a few weeks ago when tori hunter went out of his way to say that players from other countries arent better than black players there just cheaper to sign. Ozzie Guillen went on to counter that and say thats all cuban or latin american players know so thats why they do it and are good at it. were trying to fit that into are project because i feel like thats the biggest and hottest topic out there right now.