Introspection Time!

This is one of those crazy-nostalgic moments when I come to the end of another term and find myself speculating about everything. Good term? Bad term? Why, or why not? How did I do? What do I need to do better next time? All those sorts of good questions. Here is a breakdown of that evaluation, presented through the structure of our lovely learning outcomes.

• BYU-Idaho. I'm still glad that I'm here in Provo and not there... but they do have a pretty good learning model! They have three nice key phrases- Prepare, Teach One Another, and Ponder and Prove. All of those together demonstrate self directed learning. Key word: SELF DIRECTED LEARNING. This was crazy! Class preparation initially included reading Rainbows End, but after that was much more focused on our individual research. Rereading The Scarlet Letter, writing blog posts, doing scholarly research, toying with media tools, talking to social contacts. In the classroom, it was great to talk with my cohort and classmates. I could share what I'd learned, share insights that I'd read in their novels, offer opinions, help them talk out ideas. And they did the same for me! I usually came out of class with quite enough material to ponder, and could then go home to do follow-up research on more media tools we'd discussed, or do a blog post based on thoughts from class. 

Then and Now

So. Ya'll. I just want you to know that whenever I feel the urge to say that word, I really really wish I was from the South.  (That was so not relevant to this blog post at all.) Just so ya'll know.
But to get down to real business. Anyone out there ever been a college student? Or a high school student? Or written a research paper? Or any kind of paper? Well, I have been (or done) all of those things, and I have something to say:
IT IS TIME TO EVALUATE THE WAY WE WRITE PAPERS!! I am tired of the age old model- I want more than just to take an assigned topic, search for sufficient scholarly quotes to support my claim, and then chuck some words on a page. That is what I did all of winter semester, and it was painful. Luckily, I've learned a few things since then. Mostly that any terrible experience that I have is probably my fault. (After all, I am the one that decides just how I write my papers.) Aside from that, though, I really have seen a change in my perspective on the good ol' 10 pager. Let me explain just what I mean by sharing the following story:

I will never forget how that felt-- hunched at the kitchen table, staring at my laptop,  my roommates sprawled on living room couches with thick textbooks. It was getting late, and I was getting emotional... Every passing minute seemed to tell me how POINTLESS that paper was. There was no purpose, no passion, no applicable audience to which I could write a paper about dumb tone and voice in an old British play. And that is when I lost it. After rambling to my roomies about my disappointment in the English discipline and how I had begun to doubt my chosen major, I buckled down and wrote the paper. What else could I have done?