Final Blog 2

Dear Future Students,

            You picked a good, approachable professor for this class! The class was not too hard, and there was just the right amount of work assigned. There were three papers and a project throughout the semester, as well as blog posts assigned for most of the classes. A rough draft was required for every paper, which was very helpful in writing the final draft. We brought the rough drafts to class and peer edited. Even though peer editing is a bit awkward to me, I’m glad that we did this. I really recommend bringing your rough draft to class when it’s due because I got great feedback each time, and I truly believe it improved every one of my papers. The blog posts were a bit tricky for me, but they didn’t have to be. Since the blog posts don’t have specific due dates, it can be hard to keep up with them. I personally chose to put them off (hence the reason I’m submitting these late), and even though I knew I would get them done it was hard to catch up. I do not recommend being like me!! The blog posts are not hard at all and they don’t take much time unless they all start to pile up. They were also very helpful with improving my writing. Doing my blog posts as soon as they were assigned is probably the one thing I would change if I took this course again, so I highly recommend keeping up with them. Also, go to class. We did a lot of helpful assignments and read passages to prepare us for our papers, which really gave me an idea of what to do. If I didn’t go to class, I would have been much less prepared to write, and the major assignments would have been far more difficult. It might be hard to get up and go to class some days, but it’s worth it. Everything we did in class was effective in making me a better writer. As long as you keep up with the blog posts, go to class as much as you can, participate in peer reviews, and write the papers, you will do fine in this class.

Have fun and good luck!

Final Blog 1

            I like to think that my writing has changed a lot over the semester. We wrote an analysis paper, a personal narrative, a persuasive essay, and an ad campaign, so these consisted of very different styles of writing. Before this class, I have been used to writing strict high school papers. The topics had to be precisely what the teacher wanted, and I never enjoyed doing this at all. This semester I finally had more freedom to write what I wanted to write, and I found this very enjoyable. The personal narrative is the paper I enjoyed the most. I was uncomfortable at first, but I found it very easy to write about something that has meaning to me. Although I do think that my writing itself improved in this class, the voice and emotion in my writing definitely got better. Something that I found very helpful with my writing was peer editing. Even though it can be awkward to have other people read your papers, it helps a lot to get multiple opinions and lots of feedback on how to make it better. I also think that the blogs helped, as well as the brainstorming activities we did in class before starting a paper. Reading samples in class and writing multiple intros to my paper during one class really helped me. I thought that I had a good intro, but after writing a couple more I ended up going with the third one. Although I never thought I would say this, I think that giving the blogs a specific due date would have been more effective. I know that this is not true for everyone, but I personally procrastinate on assignments that can be put off, when assignments in other classes have a closer deadline. The blogs helped me a lot with my writing, I just did not do them on time due to a lack of motivation, but I wish I did. The textbook was also a very helpful tool in improving my writing. By seeing examples of the styles of writing being asked of us, it gave me a better idea of what to do. The first assignment, which was the rhetorical analysis, really helped me understand the concepts of pathos, ethos, and logos. I also liked the ad campaign. This was a laid-back, fun project, but it improved my persuasive writing at the same time.

G-Ma's Chips Group Campaign

Our group’s chip company is sticking with the name of G-Ma’s Salty Potato Chips. We think it is important to include grandma in our product because many people associate good cooking with grandmas. To make sure we emphasize the importance of grandma in our product, our motto is “Recipe as old as G-Ma herself!” This slogan is humorous, but it also shows that our chips stick to tradition and have been made the same way for over 70 years. Our logo furthers the importance of grandma by including a picture of her on a chip. We really want to emphasize the fact that our chip is all-natural. There are only three ingredients in our chips, which are salt, potatoes, and oil. Something that we are using to set aside our chip from many other chips on the market, is the fact that our bag is biodegradable. Not only are our chips made simply with natural flavors, but they are ecofriendly as well. Our chip bag will be brown and green to further the natural vibe of our chip. The logo will be in the middle, with “G-Ma’s Salty Potato Chips” at the top and our slogan on the bottom. On the back of our bag, we make sure to include a very simple “recipe” in three short steps to show again how simply-made the chips are. Our print ad is a notepad that is supposed to look like G-Ma wrote it herself, which gives it a homemade-style feeling, going back to associating grandma with good cooking. It is grandma’s checklist, showing once again how simple the chips are and how few ingredients there are. The commercial will start with grandma in the kitchen making the chips with her three ingredients, and then bringing them out to her two grandchildren. The grandkids will love the chips and ask what the secret to the great taste is, and grandma says, “sometimes simple is best.” Overall, our focus is on grandma and the tradition of the recipe, as well as the simplicity and naturalness of the recipe. We think that the ecofriendly, home-cooked, and naturally made points in our campaign will make it effective.