Blog Assignment 2

For my writing I chose to analyze a past paper that I had to write for my online music class. Even though my current major at USM is Exercise Science I have yet to write any papers that relate to my major. This is why I have decided to write a paper that was assigned to me in my online music class. I was assigned a paper that wanted me to relate most of the music terms and eras I learned in class and compare and contrast them.

When writing my paper I had to consider which musical terms I knew the most about and how I was going to explain them. I feel that this paper was honestly one of my least motivated works that I had to finish. The reason I was so unmotivated was the fact that I have no musical background and am not particularly fond of learning music terms and writing a paper on them. One other issue I had with this paper was the fact that my reader was a teacher whom I have never met. This made it unclear on what the teacher was expecting and did not give me clear points in which I was intended to cover. The instructions were very vague and basically asked me to discuss any musical terms I learned and have at least five hundred words. The grading scale on the paper also did not give me any clues on to how I was doing on my other papers. For example, my first two essays I wrote for this class I was given “A’s” while my third one I was given a low “C” and I wasn’t given very clear explanation of why I was given such a low grade.

Looking back at the paper I think there were definitely many different variables that affected the outcome of my paper. Some of those variables included my motivation to write the paper, my feelings about music, the time frame in which I had to complete it, my actual knowledge of music terms, and lack of classroom interactions.
The motivation to complete the essay was very low because when I decided to write the paper I actually had acquired very little knowledge of music and retained little information from the readings we were assigned during the semester. I also wrote the essay about an hour before it was due, so I took little time into considering the format and structure of the essay. I basically wanted to just finish the class so I put together a small essay which included the vague information about music that I knew. I partly blame my lack of knowledge due to the lack of classroom interaction. It was an online course in which I was do weekly readings and take a small quiz on each reading. I didn’t retain very much information because it was a very weak strategy of learning music.
Overall I feel the paper could’ve been a lot better if most of these factors were given a little more consideration. If I felt like I wanted to write the paper instead of being made to write the paper it would’ve been better.

Blog Assignment 1

Hi my name is Jonathan Cu. I am an Asian Amerian student here at USM. I graduated from LBHS (Long Beach High School) in 2006. Some sports I enjoyed at LBHS included cross country training, track team, and weight lifting. This is my third year of college and my current major is exercise science. This is, however, my first year attending school at USM. My two previous years of college were spent at Ole Miss in Oxford, MS. I transferred schools in order to be closer to my home on the coast. In the future I hope to get into the chiropracting program at the Parker College of Chiropracting in Dallas, TX.

I have very little experience in writing and honestly feel it is one of my weak points. Even though I only took this class because it is required, I am hoping that it will help improve my writing skills. This includes my grammar, writing technique, and structure of my essays.

Some examples of writing I have done in the past include a few research papers, speeches, and short story essays. In my past work experience I have never been required to write any documents or papers. The only documents I have written for a general audience was for a speech class I took last semester in which I had to write up a 10 minute speech for the class.

A good example of when writing "broke down" for me could be my journal entries in a philosophy class I took in the past. I had to interpret certain writings of past philosophers and basically write an essay for each one. I thought I did a good job on most of them but did not get the grade that I thought I deserved. I think that I didn't write to please my teacher and should've taken time to see what he was expecting in my writings.

To be honest I haven't found a type of writing/document which I enjoy doing. Writing has never been a fun experience for me and I usually find most papers to be difficult because my motivation to write them is usually very low. Hopefully this class can help me restore some motivation or give me some confidence in my writing. I do hope to get a good grade in this class but my lack of experience with writing makes me doubt that I can earn an A but I will hope for the best.