Darby Holman
University of Cincinnati
ENGLISH 2089
Projects
This semester I enrolled in the Honors Seminar of English 2089. This class was very nerve-wracking for me in the beginning; one of my high school credits counted for English 1001, so this was my first official college english class. However, looking back on it, this class has strengthened my confidence in my writing abilities and was the perfect transition into college composition.
WHAT?
This seminar was experimental for my class, since the order of projects was different than it had been in the past. In general, the semester revolved around the choice of a discourse community, any community that has specific members and communication processes. The community I had chosen was eSporting, specifically communication within eSport Tournaments.
For our first project we created a proposal for what we were going to study over the course of the semester. This can be found under Discourse Community Proposal. Next, we did a rhetorical analysis of any text relating to the community, found under Rhetorical Analysis. After that we did a genre comparison using three different genres found in the community, which can be found under Genre Comparison Analysis. Lastly, we compiled all of the information we had gathered over the semester into a final project that we got to choose ourselves. This final project was displayed like a science fair in our classroom over the last week, and we had students and guests come to learn about our journey.
SO WHAT?
Throughout the class and with each paper we wrote I learned more about writing and improved my skills. Before this class I had no clue how to even format in APA style, but now I am confident in my ability to write in college. Not only am I confident in my writing, but I am confident in my creative abilities. For my final project I created a mock video game cassette, which showed myself that I can be creative and I can put my ideas to work.
NOW WHAT?
After this class I want to start writing and reading more. This has renewed my love for composition and taken away my nerves for writing. I am very interested in a possible career in journalism, and this class has made me want to look into that further. I think being a writer about science and the natural world would be a great job for me after my college career. I am very grateful for my time in this class and for the opportunities I now see for myself.
