We have come to the end of the road for this course and this semester. We have had some “ups” and we have had some “downs,” but we still made it through. One final assignment that I would like to have you do is to write a letter to future students who will take this course with me. Here are the things that you should do within this letter:
- Give a general introduction to the class (What is this course about?)
- Summarize the course material (What did we do?)
- Discuss study techniques and learning strategies (What helped you?)
- Explain problem areas you encountered with the material
- Describe some things that helped and allowed you to succeed
- Describe some things that were not helpful (if any)
- What might you do differently if you could start this course again?
Be sure to address the seven (7) areas above.
Things to remember:
- Please be grammatical in your sentence structure
- Spell check and proofread your letter
- The letter can be informal
- Be sure to include your name and date
Mr. C
This blog/letter is due on/before April 21 by 11:59 PM and should be at least 500 words.
April 16, 2017
Dear students,
The course English 1313-01 Writing in a digital world is a class that enhances your creativity of writing through short stories and different assignments. This course will help one’s grammar and use of technology to create movies and stories. In this course, there wasn’t too many assignments that had to be turned in. The assignments that were given in this course was the End User Documentation, (which one should write a paper of a device or social network and construct steps according to the audience) The short story, (this assignment was a story that one had to write based on the writers’ preference) and lastly the movie trailer (this assignment was to basically turn the short story into a movie trailer.) Also, in the class there are weekly blogs. Dr. Cureton publishes a blog and then the students will have the opportunity to state their opinion based on the topic of the blog. There really aren’t any tests in this class but taking good notes and listening to Dr. Cureton speak will help make the course a lot easier. In this course, I learned how to create movie trailer. It was very hard at first because my computer wouldn’t download the app, but I eventually figured out how to make it work the correct way. Even though I thought I should give up with the help of Dr. Cureton showing the class many ways to create the movie trailer, it became a lot easier. Also, with just exploring the app from the phone and thinking of different ways to make the movie trailer look decent helped me get a 94 on this assignment. The short story assignment was easier than the movie trailer because it was based of the writer’s ideas. The only problem with this assignment is staying in past tense and not switching to present tense. Another thing that was difficult was making sure I didn’t have too many characters in the story because this would make it difficult to write and keep the audience from being confused. Dr. Cureton was the one reason why I succeeded so greatly in this class. With all the assignments, he would have an entire class period explaining how to do the assignment and then what not to do while doing the assignment. Also, he would show the class many examples from other students and this helped a lot. Another reason why Dr. Cureton helped me succeed was because the notes that he presented in class was self-explanatory and was extremely easy to understand. There really wasn’t anything that wasn’t helpful, anything throughout the class was helpful. If I was to do take this course again, I would proofread my work about two times before submitting it, to make sure the grammar is correct, the paper is in the right format and make sure it’s in the right tense. I would recommend this course to anyone who needs an English class for college. It is the best class and it also, makes people think differently about English. At the beginning of the course I was dreading it because I thought it was just all papers and notes that I had to do in the class. As the course went on I realized there is so much more to English than writing a paper or essay: English is based off ones’ creativity. Take the course students, you will love it!
Sincerely, Celisha Francis
Dear Future Students,
English 1313-02: Writing in a Digital World is a course that gives students the opportunity to be creative in writing through multimedia projects, portfolios, and other assignments. In this course, we have completed four assignments which were the End User Documentations, Short Stories, Movie Trailers, and Prezi Portfolios. The End User Documentation was an assignment given to students to write an instruction manual on a piece of technology of their choice. The only problems I had was citing and adjusting the images throughout the text. I have never had to cite an image before so it was a challenge for me. The short story was an assignment where students had to create their own short story based on their liking. The main problem that I had with this assignment was how to end my story. I did not want to have a good story, but a horrible or rushed ending. The movie trailer was an assignment that was based off the short stories that students decided to write about. The main problems I had with this assignment was the cutting and trimming of the videos. Students had to create a movie with the events that occurred in their short stories. Some of the videos I used were long and I only needed one particular scene out of the whole video or clip. Lastly, the Prezi portfolio was a writing portfolio that students had to create using online presentation software (Prezi), to highlight their growth as a writer throughout the course during the semester. This portfolio included all of the assignments that we have done and technologies that we have used throughout the class. Creating the Prezi portfolio was a challenge for me because it was my first time using Prezi. It seemed very difficult until I actually started to play around with it and got the hang of it. Also, we had weekly blogs that were due every week on Friday. Usually, the blogs were on a specific topic and consisted of multiple questions that students had to respond to with a minimum of 250 words. In this course, we did not have any study material because there were no quizzes or test. However, Mr. Cureton’s learning strategies were the best. We did not have PowerPoints to copy notes from like a typical professor would. Instead, he engaged with his students by verbally saying all of the things that we needed to know for a particular assignment. He would repeat it if necessary and also he gave examples of each assignment which I thought was really helpful and beneficial. It allowed students to see what to and what not to do. These are also things that helped and allowed me to succeed. One of the most important things that helped me succeed was Mr. Cureton’s feedback and criticism. If he did not give me that constructive criticism then my assignments would not have been what they were without him. He helped me earn the grades that I did on every single assignment. To me, everything in this course was helpful. I learned how to use new technologies that I did not know existed. Recently, I used Windows Movie Maker for another class to edit a video that I had to do for a project. I am taking what I learned in this class and applying it to others because it is useful. If I had to start this course over again, I do not think I would do anything differently. Overall, I do believe that any student who takes this course will enjoy everything that we did and Mr. Cureton will probably end up being one of your favorite professors!
Sincerely,
Kiera Anderson
Dear Future Students of English 1313,
In the course English 1313 which is also called “Writing In The Digital World” is about using digital and print to emphasis writing. On the first day of class we went over what we will briefly do during the course from the syllabus. Also Dr. Cureton instructed us to write 5-7 words that we thought about when we heard “English” creating a “Beginning Of the Semester Wordle”. The first assignment we did was called “End User Documentation” we created user instructions on a technology that we knew, for an example I did: How to download an app on IPhone 6. In the assignment we were instructed to write directions but, to also incorporate pictures that corresponded with the directions. A problem I faced throughout this assignment was not having enough directions. Next, we did a “Short Story” this assignment was to create a short story on anything of our choice while also incorporating English elements such as dialogue, and point of view. My short story was called “Battling the Beast”. Throughout this assignment I had a hard time being able to use the dialogue and trying to keep the story interesting and realistic. Our next assignment was to create a movie trailer corresponding with our short story we created. During this assignment we used tools such clip converter which help us convert YouTube clippings from previously made movies, IMovie or Windows Movie Maker which help us develop the movie trailer as whole. I struggled with this assignment because it was hard for me to find good clippings that corresponded with my story, also making sure that the movie trailer got the synopsis of the story across without telling too much of the story. Another major problem was trying to get all the characters to be the same. The last assignment we had was to create a Prezi final about all the things we did this semester throughout the course, what we learned/problems, and what tools we used. While, working on this assignment I mainly struggled on using Prezi because I never used it before. So, being that I never used this website I used YouTube and asked others to help. Just like at the beginning of the semester we were instructed to choose 5-7 words about English again for the “End of Semester Wordle”. On the last two days of class we will present our Prezi’s and show our movie trailers we created. Also, throughout the course we were assigned weekly blogs about different topics that had to be 250 words. One thing that helped me throughout the course was when we turned in our rough drafts Dr. Cureton wrote down comments on how we could better our assignments and how we did so far. He also made us do peer reviews on each essay this helped because we also had another person’s point of view of our work and vice versa. Some things that allowed me to succeed throughout the course was turning my assignments in on time and meeting criteria. If I had to start the course again I would not change much about what I did because I had A throughout the semester, only thing I would do is try to score higher than what I already did on some my essays/assignments. If I had choice when taking English again I would choose Dr. Cureton as my professor.
Sincerely, De’ja Hemmingway
Dear future students,
Regardless of what the intro says, you are no longer future students, the time is now. So, students, you are probably sitting in Mr. Cureton’s class right now, wondering if you should drop this course. I am not going to tell you that this is a great class, or that it is an easy A, because that would make your decision easier. I don’t want you to take this class because it is an easy grade, but because you enjoy writing and you want to learn ways to improve your writing. So instead of telling you to take this course, I am going to explain why you should not drop the course, so just sit and listen or read. This course English 1313-02 Writing in a Digital World, will provide multiple entertaining ways to present a project. It is literally digital writing, we used apps like IMovie, Blogger, Prezi, rather than writing boring papers or using PowerPoint. We expressed our ideas and got creative. There are for major assignments: End User Document, a shorty story, a movie trailer and finally a Prezi. The end user document is basically like a manual, you create your very own step by step manual, about ether an internal or external piece of technology. Everyone know what a short story is, you create your own and then you make your movie trailer. For the Prezi, we had to include each individual assignment into our presentation. We had to describe what it was, how we used it and the problems we had when we created each project. Unlike the traditional classes, there were not any test or quizzes, and I feel as if I have learned more in this course than my entire high school career. A learning strategy that I would like to give is, be open-minded and don’t be afraid to let your creativity flow. Also, do not be afraid to express your likes and dislikes, take time to discover all your resources, so that your project can be the best of the best. These blogs are also a part of the course, my biggest problem area was remembering to do them. Instead of doing them when Mr. Cureton sent out the reminder, I would put it off, and eventually I forgot about the blog. Not doing the blogs can seriously hurt your grade, I am speaking from experience. The class is not hard, all you need to succeed is self-motivation, dedication and the education. However, something that did not help me succeed was that long walk to EJones every Monday and Wednesday, that’s where the motivation came into play. If I could redo this whole course I would make sure that I wouldn’t miss any blogs. I would also get a planner so that I am more organized considering I had five other classes that were based upon presentations rather than papers.so, students I hope I didn’t bore you but enlightened you and pointed you toward the right direction.
Sincerely, Ria Faggart
19 April, 2017
April 20,2017
Dear Future Students,
In the course English 1313 also known as " Writing in a Digital World" gives students an opportunity to be creative in writing and make English fun. We had six assignments in class Beginning of Semester Wordle, End User Documentation, Short story, Movie trailer, Prezi portfolio, and End of Semester wordle. On the first day of class we were told to write down seven words that came to mind when we thought of English which we used in the beginning of semester wordle. The next assignment was the End User Documentation where we chose a technology that we felt like we were an expert in and taught a general audience step by step how to do it my technology was How to Create a My Player on 2k17. The third assignment was the short story for this assignment we had to make a story about whatever we wanted it to be about had to have 4 characters or less, we had to stay in past tense. The story had to be five to seven pages. We then used the short story for our next assignment which was the movie trailer which is where we put our stories in a little three minute trailer basically showing what our story would look like if it were a movie. The next assignment was the Prezi portfolio which is where we made a presentation about all the assignments and what we learned from them and problems we had with them. The only way you can you fail this class if you do not put in the effort and do the work, the only learning strategies I can recommend you is to come to class and pay attention. The things I struggled with were writing papers because that has always been a downfall for me, I learned the for that is to read as much as you can and that will help you to become a better writer. This class is nothing but projects so it is very easy you just have to actually do the work, but if I were to do this course over I would come to class more often because it helps. In closing you can do anything you put your mind to, just work hard and most of the time you will get the results you expect good luck to you guys
Sincerely, Cameron Lee
April 20, 2017
Hello writing in the digital world student!
I hope you are exited about the course that you have enrolled yourself in because this journey is going to be eventful. You will learn a lot about how to improve yourself as a writer using the evolving technology of today. In this course you will blog each week about relevant topics that are meant to make you think critically as well as become more aware of your ideals that you have about what is going on around you in your society. To be a great student you need to be prepared. To be prepared in this class you need to have great time management. Learning how to balance your other classwork with the assignments of this class is essential. Starting a schedule or using an alarm are good tips that may seem trivial but will help in this class. In addition to blogging every week about relevant issues of today, we created stories that we brought to life using technology. We created a short story where we made a movie trailer for and imbedded it in a prezi presentation that allowed us to see our personal growth. We did evaluations on each other and helped each other improve. We did two wordles about how we saw English in words. One was done in the beginning and one at the end. We did a end user documentation where we talked about technology we thought we had the most expertise in. We constantly had a project to do that kept us building on what we were learning. The thing that was most challenging to me was time management. I just seemed to struggle In balancing all the responsibilities that I have on my plate but it only helps me in the end to address the issue as it transfers to other areas in my life. I think that everything that I learned I can apply in the real world in some fashion. I learned so much about myself and about technology in this class and I know you will too! The prezi portfolio at the end of the semester will show you how far you have come. I really enjoyed writing the papers that we did in this class because it showed me that whatever you write about is going to have an element of yourself in the paper. That you leave a fingerprint in some way. If I could change the hands of time I would have improved in the areas of my struggles sooner. I would have taken this course sooner as the things I learned I wish I had known well before this semester! I hope that you look at the challenges you are about to face in a positive light even if they are extremely difficult. This positivity will help you push through the challenge. Know that whatever is the challenge it will only improve you in some way. Blogging every week was therapeutic for me. I helped me take a stand and become more aware of how I felt about issues that I had not thought about. Maybe it will do the same for you! Taking this course with Professor Cureton as my instructor was rewarding because he gives it to you straight. A fair and honest critic is who you need when you are developing your craft. Take advantage of it! Ask him what you think needs to change about you or your assignment to be better it will help! I have done this several times and realized how wrong I was or what I was missing! Its good to move out the way of the train...I am excited for you guys because with every struggle comes great reward. This class will have moments of struggle but hard word brings great reward!
Sincerely Zalonda Woods
Dear Future Students,
Writing in a digital world is a course that allows you to use creativity. The course is about writing using technology and using tools that you may have never used before. It is a great learning opportunity for any student of any major. Not only is it a writing class but it teaches ways to present information to others. The first thing we did was the End user Documentation. The purpose of the assignment was to teach an audience how to use a software or a hardware. The second assignment was to write a short story. This assignment was fun because we could write about whatever we wanted so it gave you an opportunity to think outside of the box. This assignment was important because we would be turning our short story into a movie trailer. The next assignment was converting our short story into a movie trailer. This assignment was great because I had never done anything like it before, it was a different experience for me. It was fun to take clips from YouTube.com and Vimeo.com and learn how to cut and arrange those clips to fit my short story. This assignment took a lot of time and effort and was another chance to be creative in this class. Our final assignment was the Prezi, which was new for me. It is a website used to make an interesting presentation and is a little confusing if you haven’t used it before. For this class you don’t need a studying technique and everything you learn will be from hands on experience. If you are a hands on learner, this class is great for you. I’ve learned how to use prezi and I have also learned how to make a movie trailer. All you need in this class is a brain that is willing to learn and be creative, no studying needed. While working on the short story assignment i had trouble with staying in past tense. Once you get in a writing zone you start to ramble and may forget the assignment, make sure you take a few breaks to go back and look over the paper every now and then to catch those mistakes. With the movie trailer had trouble making sure my title screens weren’t too far apart and timing the music with the scenes and also making sure that the music would fit the story being shown. Some things that helped me succeed are getting the help of some of my peers, getting someone else to look over my assignments for feedback even outside of class, and time management. For this class time management is everything, that goes for any class really. If I could start this course again I would do most of the same, the only thing I would change is making sure I went over assignments thoroughly before turning them in. This course was a great experience for me and I feel future students will feel the same joy and excitement that I did.
Sincerely, Daunte’ King
April 20, 2017
Dear students,
Digital World Writing has to be one of the simplest classes in the English department. This class is not hard at all, I believe it is more interesting than freshman composition. You will learn how to do many things on your computer that I did not really know about. Such as, windows movie maker, clip converter, and also learn more information about the applications you are using today on your phone. There were only about 5 simple assignments the whole semester. With each assignment, you get a good amount of time to work on it as well, they are not all back to back. If you decide to take this course you have to have good time management. You will be given an assignment that wont be due till about 2 weeks later. So you really about to just be chilling until like the last week, but you should not. I say as soon as the assignment is given you should start working on it that day to get a head start, and will not have to cram that last week. If you do that technique you will not have to stress about your grades. The more you take your time the better your grade will be. Mr. Cureton will also assign you to do feedback letters. Feedback letters are letters you will do after every assignment and you tell Mr. Cureton all your problems and what you like and dislike about the assignment. This is rare in most classes. Most professors don’t really care about what you think about assignments. So this really makes it easier for future classes, so my feedback letters might make your class easier than mine you never know. Besides the five assignments he will also give you blogs to do every week. The blogs will help you grow as a writer, and make you feel more comfortable with writing. When you continue to write every week it builds up your writing skills and you do not realize until probably the end semester like I did. Mr. Cureton is not going to give you boring topic to write about either. I cannot even think about one topic that was not interesting. If I could start this class over, I would. Just because when he gave an assignment I started on it that day and wait a minute to finish it off. I would advise you to go ahead and finish it off that day or even he next day. I was not a procrastinator in this class but I feel like I could have done better by not spacing out my work like I did. I should have been very more consistent with the work that was giving to me. Overall, this class was not hard at all, you will most definitely learn and grow as a writer. I recommend all students to take this class. If you decide to take this class I also recommend you take it with Mr. Cureton.
Sincerely,
Ashanti Richardson
Dear future student(s),
Within the ENG 1313 course, or Writing/Digital World, you will have the opportunity to learn different writing structures. There is so much more to English classes, than just writing a basic book report. In this course, we were very hands on with digital writing. We had four formal assignments. The first assignment was constructing an EUD. And EUD is an End-User Documentation, or just a really detailed manual. I had never heard of an EUD prior to my being in this course. The second assignment was writing our very own short story. This assignment taught that detail matters, just as the first assignment did. Both assignments were tedious, but were, in my opinion, more interesting than writing a report. The third assignment was challenging, yet fun. We had the opportunity to create a movie trailer for our short stories we had come up with. The final assignment was creating a Prezi Portfolio. This assignment was basically a Prezi presentation that documented our growth over the semester. My only issue with this assignment was that I had never used Prezi before. Therefore, at first it was a little challenging.
Overall what helped me throughout this course, was pairing up with my peers. Sometimes even after Professor Cureton explained something I didn’t quite recall how to do it, or I didn’t understand. I could easily turn to my neighbor, and they would answer my questions. Another thing that helped me throughout this course, was to not procrastinate. The assignments were very tedious, therefore it’s important to have a plan when completing the assignments.
We rarely took notes, but when we did, it was helpful that Professor Cureton told exactly what we needed to know. It also helped me having access to tools, like examples of assignments, on blackboard. Professor Cureton provided everything we could possibly need on blackboard. He was great at providing examples and the guidelines to assignments. I would consistently refer to these tools when working on an assignment.
I also benefitted from the peer reviews. It was good having feedback on your progress on assignments. My classmate’s comments would help me to understand what I had done well on so far, and what I needed to improve on.
When in class I also found it helpful to take note of the common mistakes Professor Cureton found with assignments in the past. This helped bring attention to certain areas in my assignment.
If I could start this curse again, I would probably go to the Writing Center more to check for grammatical errors. I always seemed to make careless mistakes as such in my assignments. I would also have tried to step more out of my comfort zone when writing my short story. If I would’ve gotten my thoughts more under control, and got past being so lazy, I could have had a really good story.
Overall, I really enjoyed this course. I feel as if I am a more versatile writer. This course challenged not only my writing skills, but my tech skills.
Well wishes,
Lauren Mitchell
4/21/2017
Dear future students,
You are now enrolled in Writing in a Digital World. Are you interested in writing or are you interested in improving your writing? In this class you will learn how to create your own short stories, and how to make a movie trailer based on the short story. So make sure you pick a storyline you can make a trailer out of. One of the ways I studied was by going to read other short stories to see how authors fit so much detail into a story where they didn’t use many pages. I learned the best in this class when Mr.Cureton had the good and the bad examples for us to look at so we would know what not to do. I had some issues when it came to procrastination and when I had to make my short story into a trailer. It didn’t really come out like the story but I feel like if I were to make a movie about the story that’s how the party scene would’ve went just because the party was supposed to be the part of the story where he has fun but ultimately realizes that he was better off with the friends he had in the beginning. Some things that helped me were being able to do all my work in the library where I could focus. One thing I would do differently would be to make sure I got all my work done on time and finished it ahead of time so I could have Mr.Cureton check it before it was due.
Sincerely,
Keenen Weaks
Dear future students,
Writing in a Digital World allows students to enhance their writing skills by completing a variety of fun assignments such as End User Documentations, Short Stories, Movie Trailers, and finally a Prezi Portfolio. In the End User Documentation you are assigned to create an instructive manual for any form of technology or software of your choice. Not being able to use 1st or 2nd person was the only challenge that I had in this assignment. This assignment helped me to properly order my thoughts. The short story assignment required you to use different techniques and skills learned in class. It wasn’t too complicated due to having a say on your topic. Some complications that I did have was slowing down the conflict as well as adding and leaving out certain detail. I realized I got excited when I got to the conflict and sped the story process up way more than intended. I also noticed that I didn’t have enough detail in the story which can interfere with the imagination or visual for the readers. When noticing this, I went overboard and added too much detail. I then had to figure out what was important to the story line and what was not. In this assignment I learned many techniques such as different narration skills, and better editing skills. Once we finished the short story we had to create a movie trailer based on it. When Dr. Cureton announced we’d be creating a movie trailer I had a mixture of feelings. I was excited that I’d learn how to create my very own trailer but nervous that it wouldn’t come out successfully. When I got started I shortly noticed it would be hard to find scenes that matched my blind character. Students keep in mind not to create a short story with many uncommon characteristics unless you want to record your trailer which is a totally different ball game then adding existing clips from other movies or television shows. In this assignment I learned how to properly convert, transfer, and merge clips. Above anything I now know how to create a real movie which is awesome, I would have never imagined creating a movie trailer in an English class. All of these assignments were unique and different but had a couple things in common. These assignments allowed me to open my mind and expand my thoughts, it also helped improve an abundance of skills, making me into a much better writer than before I stepped foot into this class. Another reason for improved writing skills has to go to blogger! The class was assigned to create a blog each week. The first week was a small hassle to reach the minimum of 250 words, and now it’s a piece of cake. I’m writing a 500+ word blog with ease and I’m so grateful to have come this far! Most important Dr. Cureton has helped me succeed, he has given me all the material to achieve this class! Everything that he said according to assignments or just important things in general I wrote down. To study or while completing assignments I reflected it upon everything I wrote down and learned. If I could retake this course over I’d defiantly go to the writing center. I had grammatical issues and I could have easily gotten those taken care of by getting my assignments reviewed by someone in the writing department! Overall this is an excellent course to take. I wish you all the very best!
Sincerely,
Jasmine Sanders
April 21, 2017
Dear students,
The course English 1313-01 Writing in a digital world is a not a hard class to take you will just need to pay attention and follow directions. If you attend class every day and do your blogs every week then you will have no problem passing this class. You will also need great time management skills and learn how to balance your free time. Trust me a due date will sneak up on you and bite you in the tail if you don’t manage your free time and keep up with your due dates. This class will teach you how to make movies, write blogs, and use a more updated version of power point. I would recommend this class for people to take. It’s a great class and teaches you a lot new things about technology. You will have a total five big assignments throughout the semester in this class. It doesn’t sound like a lot but each assignment has multiple steps to them, which means it will take up a whole semester to complete them. Some learning strategies for this class I was thought was doing a peer review sheet, that help me out a lot when it came time to write a short story or make a movie trailer. The only time had a problem doing assignment was when we I had to make a movie trailer. The reason I had a problem is because I wasn’t use to using the different tools he provided us with to make a movie trailer. But eventually I got the hang of it and started to become easy to me. I’m glad we did that assignment because now I know how to make movie clips and convert audio and videos. I’m also glad we did an assignment using Prezi because now I more familiar with the software and will start using is when have to do a power point for different classes. Some things that allowed me to succeed in the class is being there every day, if you weren’t there every day you would get behind on work. What also help me succeed in this class was doing my blogs every week. If weren’t for my blogs my grade would probably be real low because my class work grade isn’t all that. Hopefully by doing this blog it will save my grade little bit because I just took a huge “L” on an assignment. Which goes back to keeping up with your due dates. Somethings I might do differently if I could start over the course is pay attention more and do less talking. If I had payed attention more I would probably have a A+ is this class. But because I didn’t do that my grades on formal assignments were pretty low. Also I would change where I set at in the class because they also had effect on my grade. But overall this is good class to take and if I could I would take it over it again.
Sincelery,
Darius Burley
Dear, Future Student in Mr. Cureton’s Class
The course you are about to take (Writing in the Digital World) is about using today’s technology to communicate things in writing or other media outputs. You will learn a couple of different things. One of the things you learn is that you learn how to make a movie trailer using the short story you make before that initial assignment but I will explain what the short story is about later in the letter. Another thing you learn how to do is write an End User Documentation (EUD) which is basically a way of teaching whatever audience you may be talking to how to do something dealing with technology, whether it be hardware (PS4 Consoles, Xbox 1 Console, or a Mac computer) or software (Apps, Instagram, or any other social media). This is all for the intention of teaching someone how to do something. You also do a fictional short story that must be 5-7 pages and has to follow Freytag’s pyramid which Mr. Cureton will tell you more about in class when you get to that point. These four assignments I explained so far are the big assignments, you also have smaller assignments that he gives you weekly. These weekly assignments are very easy and simple to complete. They are blogs that you have to reply to in 250 words or more. They take about 20 minutes to do. They are easy grades. Now I would now like to take about your study habits for this. Let me start off by saying that you cannot have a last-minute attitude in this class. You can’t think that you can do any of those big assignments in just one day because you will seriously stress yourself out. I am warning you now so you know later. That is the worst possible thing you can do in this class. You will not succeed. Some of the problems I encountered within the material is grammatical errors when I was writing about something and other things as well. I will say that my classmates and Mr. Cureton helped me a lot within the class because he gave us peer review sheets during our big assignments to so we could figure out what changes we would need to make our assignments at that point in time. I do not feel like anything I learned in that class was not helpful. Honestly, this was my favorite class this semester and I am going to really miss it. I enjoyed the whole atmosphere of the class as a whole. My favorite assignment in the class was the End User Documentation assignment. I say it was my favorite because I got a A on it… which was the highest grade I got in his class. If I could do anything different in the class it would be… doing that one assignment that I missed because it would have made my grade higher but other than that I enjoyed the class and would not do anything differently.
Sincerely , Ja’Maree Warren
4/21/17
April 21, 2017
Dear Future Students,
English 1313-01: Writing in a Digital World is a course that is designed for students enhance their writing skills through a digital world. It focuses on 4 main assignments such as the End User Documentation, creating your own short story, turning your short story into a movie trailer, and then putting all that you learned into a prezi portfolio. Throughout this course one is expected to turn in a blog every week, consisting of topic given by the instructor, Mr C. During the beginning of the course, Mr Cureton asked us the question “what comes to mind when hearing the word english or writing?” He then gave us a notecard to write down 7 words that came to mind when hearing those words. Towards the end of the semester, we were then asked the same question again and had to provide 7 more words that came to mind. These words created our 2 wordles that were used throughout of prezi presentation. Our first major assignment was The End User Documentation. This is an assignment where we were asked to pick a specific technology to explain in detail, step by step. During this process, I felt as if the only problems that I ran into was me beginning to leave steps out. I then had to go back in and make sure that I had each step listed correctly. Once I did, everything began to work out perfectly. Next, was the short story. Before writing, I was very unclear of what to begin to write about. Then once I thought of the perfect topic, it was very hard for me to find a good direction in which to go in. Mr. Cureton was very helpful in assisting me on some ideas as well as some of my peers. I was then able to effectively write my story and it came out great! After that, it was time for the movie trailers. I think that this was the hardest part of the course because it can get very frustrating. What was helpful for me in this process was My Movie Maker because it was easier for PC users. We worked with clip converter, a site which helped us convert video clips into our movie. Each trailer had to consist of 2 minutes. This was very hard for me because I was not really able to find clips to very well match my storyline. A classmate was able to help me find a movie in which tied to my storyline. Without us being able to find this movie, it would have been hard for me to succeed in this assignment. Lastly, is the prezi portfolio. This assignment comprised of us generally explaining what we did during the course and highlighted our growth as writers as well. It focused on each section and counted as our final exam. There was a grade for doing the assignment as well as presenting in front of the class. We had to show that we were confident in what we put forth throughout the course and just show all of our writing experiences as a whole. I really enjoyed this class because it has made me a better writer. I tend to take each one of the skills that I had been taught and use it throughout my career and future classes. Some of the skills that I have learned were fixing run-on sentences, using the proper grammar, and using better choices of words. If I was not suggested to take this course by my advisor, I would have never became the writer I am today. If I could take this course over, I think I would change the way I managed my time. If I would have managed my time better, my work could have been 2 times better. Overall, this is a great course and I would recommend it to anyone trying to work on becoming a better and effective writer.
Best Regards,
Tenasia Nelson
Dear Future students,
Well you want to know what's “Writing in a digital world” is about ? Well pretty much the class helps you improve your writing to a college level and make you think deep into your assignment . You have four major assignments through the semester which is a short story , movie trailer, end user documentation assignment, and portfolio prezi. I think learning how to use third person words instead of first person helped me a lot throughout the semester. The first paper that we turned in I failed because of using first person words and in college you have to learn how to write from any point of view and topic. So the next paper we did I had an idea of how I was suppose to write it. The second paper that we did was create a short story about anything you wanted to write about, the only rule was the page length requirements were five pages long and have three characters in the story. Figuring out what I wanted to write about was half the battle because the story had to be long enough for multiple series of events to happen and make sense. I had a problem with not confusing myself with the dialogue while coming up with the story, that was the most difficult part of his assignment. To make it easier with writing your paper is going to the writing center . I made the mistake of not going to proof my papers and I easily could of got an A or B instead of getting a C and D of my two papers. Take advantage of Hill Hall for any of your english assessments, they are here to help you. Also throughout the semester you will have to do a blog once a week , do not miss them they will bring down your grade tremendously. The blogs are only 250 words and he post them on Sunday, you have till Friday night to complete it. The third assignment was to create a movie trailer from the short story assignment. You have to bare with it if you're not good with computers , but I was lucky enough to know the software to use because it's part of my major. Just do the best you can and ask as many questions that you need to your classmates and professor. The last assignment was a portfolio of the previous ones, just asking what you like about them and the struggles of them. The unique part of the assignment is you present with prezi with a theme you picked. When the class present it will be cool to see everybody's different thoughts and their interest from the theme they picked. This class is what you make it at the end of the day, you will be good if you show up to class everyday and ask questions if you're unsure about anything. I wish I would attend class more, I missed important information and would fall behind in work.
Sincerely, Omar Jones
4/27/17
Brian Manuel
4/21/17
Instructor/Professor: Cureton
When I first heard of the course Writing in the Digital World, I thought it was going to be a difficult class. Then I found out that it really is not as hard as thought it was. In this course, we had two written essays which is great, and we learned how to make a movie trailer and also a Prezi. There really were not any other assignments besides doing a blog which is super easy. There really was nothing I did not like about this class besides walking to the classroom. As for the teacher Mr. Cureton, I had him the previous semester and I really like how he teaches the class. Our first assignment was easy. We had to write an essay on how to do certain things. We could choose whatever we wanted but it just that we would have to explain how to do or work whatever we picked. Now our second assignment was just a little bit difficult only because I had to write a short story. The last time I wrote a story was back in middle school, but this time I finished the story. The third assignment was just fun, we had to make a movie trailer for our short story. I have never made a movie trailer until this class. Finally, we had to do a blogger every week or so, and it required a short response that was due on Friday at 11:59 pm. So, as you can see there really is nothing to worry about when taking this class. To be completely honest I did not learn any new study techniques because I had Mr. Cureton the semester before, so I basically already had all the notes for the class. It was fun because while everyone else had to take notes I already had all the notes. There were a few problems that I ran into with some of the assignments. For our first assignment, it was just taking apart to the controller and putting it back together without messing it up. Then my second assignment was just that it had to be between 5-7 pages long, I do not like writing essays if they are over 3 pages. My final problem was my movie trailer and all that was getting certain clips to not cut off or switch in the middle of a sentence. One thing that did help me was being able to reach out to my teacher and get a response quickly and fix that problem in no time. Compared to other teachers we would have to email them and that would take much longer than I would like because some teachers will not check their email until the next day. There really wasn’t anything that wasn’t helpful, everything was good. If I was to take this course over again I think I would just do more to improve my grades towards my essays. I feel like I could a way better grade compared to what I have now.
P.S I wish you a great summer and thanks for a good year.
Sincerely Brian Manuel
Dear Future Students of English 1313-01
The course English 1313-01 Writing in a Digital World is a class that improve students speaking and writing skills, creativity skills in group discussions and individually. New assignments were giving that included digital presentations, documental designing, and creating a short story with an movie trailer. Students organize, develop, and discover many things during the experience. The first assignment that was given during the course was the End User Documentation, (which one must write an essay on any type of software or hardware, serving the purpose to inform the readers and presenting the information effectively). Secondly was the Short Story, (which was an assignment/essay given to allow students to communicate their thoughts and evaluate their ideas, by giving the audience a realistic story and making it more interesting). Thirdly was the Movie Trailer of your Short Story, (Turn your short story into a Movie Trailer that looked real, also this gave students the opportunity to work with and become more comfortable with experiencing the different technologies). Fourthly, Mr. Cureton posted weekly blogs in blogger that allowed individuals to express their feelings on the topics that are given for that week. We never had a test or exams in the class but he recommend that you write notes because Mr. Cureton doesn’t like repeating himself if he has said it plenty of times in class, he also gets upset if he has warned you about an issue and the next essay you make the same mistakes, so pay attention. My personal learning strategies are: If there is an issue and you don’t understand the material go to Mr. Cureton to ask question during the class time because he will explain anything enough for the person to understand. He reminds you about the bloggers so you should do them right away when its first posted to avoid having to worry about missing the assignment or turning it in minutes late. The main problem I had during this course was how to create the short story and without that I was not going to be able to complete the final movie trailer. At first the websites that Mr. Cureton originally gave us was not working on my computer, so I had to ask friends and family members could I use their macbook or computer to complete an assignment for class. But that did not stop me from finishing the final project of the assignment. The class is not hard, as long as you stay dedicated from day one and actually put all your effort into it and not procrastinate on the assignments your grade will stay at an A. Making your own calendars and make note on each assignment and due dates. There are a couple things that I would do differently if I could start over. I would start by doing all the blogs as soon as they are posted instead of waiting a day before, also typing the whole 150 words instead of shorting myself. I would turn all assignments in on time to avoid the late penalty.
Sincerely, Aquay-zia Bishop
April 21, 2017
Dear Future Students,
In writing in a digital world we learned how to incorporate different types of technology with our writing and composition. These technologies included Moviemaker, Prezi, Clip converter, blogger, and Microsoft processing system. We used these to help create Short stories, movie trailers, and write in End user documentation. A good way to study for this class is to go over the notes you take in class and try to incorporate them into your work. After let someone review it whether it’s a peer, the instructor, or someone in the writing center. All these extra opinions and critiques will only provide to be a great for your paper. Some things that helped me succeed were staying on top of assignments. It’s good to start an assignment as soon as it is given because this lessens the probability of being overloaded with work. It also allows time and opportunity to clear up any confusion about the given assignment. Some of the things that helped me throughout this class was the remind app and how it kept me alert on assignments and needed information. Things that were not helpful were the page requirements on papers. Besides this what I would do differently is take more advantage of the writing center. This is because there are a lot of talented writers that are willing to help with papers and projects. Overall this class is great because it incorporates writing with media, and presentations. The moviemaker presentations was the most interesting thing to me because we had to learn how to convert the clips we found online. This was so we could save them to our computers. In which we saved those files to add the movie trailer. We learned how to splice the clips and add nice animations, subtext, and music to make it flow more efficiently. It was hard to find clips and adjust the trim so things like music and transitions correlate efficiently. The craziest part was that the movie trailer was supposed to correlate with the short story we had made earlier in the semester. The short story had to be five pages which I happened to hate. However I did like the end result. Creating a short story of my own was different but cool I chose a semi-relevant topic so it was interesting creating a fictional story that featured a real life issue. My interpretation of teens trying to cross the border alone it felt so unique that when I got to start to make as if it were a motion picture I was excited. Also the end user documentation was cool because I got to give my own opinions on things I’ve learned while using Instagram. I was able to give detail oriented steps on how to break the internet or better yet make your projected goal when posting on Instagram succeed. Altogether this class helped enhance my knowledge and skills in these areas therefore I recommend it to future students.
Sincerely,
Xavier Brinson
Dear Future students,
English 1313 “Writing in a Digital world” is a class that you can be creative in your own way but follow certain guidelines. The creativity part of the course is what makes the course better. Many times, in a typical English class most teachers only want you to write papers and you may can only get a little creative but with writing in a digital world you get to use technology and make it different. You learn new types of technologies to use within the class, like using IMovie or movie maker you learn quickly how to edit clips which is something new to me. Mr. Cureton never gave out a bunch of assignments you just make sure you get them done. One problem I often had was making time to do his assignments because my schedule for school was often busy. In this class, we made an End User Documentation (Instructions on a technology of your choice), a short story (a short but creative story that reached a climax), and a movie trailer (based on the authors short story), as well as the weekly blogs. Thing that helped me was the in class, discussion with peers during the assignment when they got to review over my work. Getting help from your peers on input helps to change thing also getting feedback from Mr. Cureton on what else should be added or changed. My areas that I often had troubled in was just timing when it came down to doing assignments. I often would be overwhelmed with other classes and I would put all my English assignments on the back burner. I’ve never been never a big writer so I would have minor grammatical errors in my papers, so that’s something I tried to work on throughout the course. Staying in tense during my short story was hard. Like I mentioned before getting peer feedback, helped me to be as successful as I could in the course. Also, I ended up making a bunch of friends from my class which I would often times get help from them on my assignments and vice versa. I didn’t find anything really wrong with this course or that would hold me back from writing, this class only made me better throughout the course. If I could start this course over again and change things, I would start by actually managing my time a little wiser. Being more on top of all my assignments would be one major thing because I often would forget about my English assignments since I had time to turn them in after other things were due. More creativity would be one thing, because I feel like if I would have thought more into my short story it would have been much better. All together this course is good and fun and helps you to be a more creative writer. Taking this course helps you also find more resources to use in other courses.
Sincerely,
Jasmine Gadsden
Dear future students,
The course ENG-1313 is writing in a digital world. Writing in a digital world is a class where your creativity, and writing meets the digital world. In this class you are given a few writing assignments, but it some way it involves you using technology, so always remember to bring your laptop. We were given three big assignments such as, The End User Documentation, a Short Story, and a Movie Trailer. Your final exam is a Prezi portfolio, that consists of all the assignments that we have had throughout the course, what they're about, what you learned, and what problems you had. A strategy that I learned while taking this course is to make sure to ask questions and read your prompts carefully enough, so that you understand it. I'm a procrastinator which made me run into a bunch of problems in this class. It seems like I would start the assignment when it was given but I would wait to finish the assignment 3 days before it was due. Writing my "Short Story" was a struggle because I had to make sure I was doing my dialogue correctly and making sure everything made sense. I started to get carried away with my story because I had too many characters and I started making it up as I was typing instead of following my outline. The last problem I had was trying to figure out how to work the prezi software. Prezi is a software that I have never used before and if I had a choice I wouldn't use it again, because it's too confusing. Some thing that helped me succeed, was when I would finish my paper I would take it to one of my friends and let her edit my paper so that when I turn in the final product I wouldn't have excessive mistakes. I really find doing the "Peer review" sheets for the class very helpful. Peer review sheets is a paper that has a serious questions for one of your peers to review your assignment with. One thing that I loved was the notes about the assignment and the examples that Dr. Cureton showed us. The notes really helped me out with each assignment because while I was typing most of my assignments, I would pull up the notes and make sure that I was following those format, and incorporating everything that was in the notes, in my writing. The examples were beyond helpful because he gave good examples and bad examples, so that we know what to do and what not to do. Oddly I found that me taking the "Thinking and Writing critically" course to have helped me because it taught me how to enhance my literacy skills and to think more deeply about a writing prompt.If I had to take this course over again, something different that I would do is not procrastinate because I do my best work when I finish my assignments early.
Sincerely,
Brittany White
Dear Future students,
Writing in the digital world helps students to enhance their writing skills and to have better understanding on what it means to become a better writer as a whole. In the course of writing in the digital world you will learn how to write for better understanding and you will learn that different technologies do matter. In the course you will tell about how different technologies has become better and how they are taking over in society while telling step by step instruction on how to do a certain action with technology. You will write a short story about how whatever you want just to show your creativity and what you can come up with that will be interesting to everyone. You will make a movie trailer on your short story that will make everything come together as a whole, people can get a better understanding on what your short story was about. You will also create a Prezi that will explain everything that you have learned and done in the class thus far. What helped me the most with this class this semester is honestly the criticism that my professor gave to us every time we were working on something we would have to turn in a rough draft. that will give him something to look at to see where we are going. Giving us feedback on what we were doing wrong will really make you look at writing in a totally different way because you may get frustrated and want to give up because it can get tough but if he points you in the right direction and tell you the do’s and don’ts it will make everything easier. The problem areas that I’ve had with this class is that I be ready to give up when I can’t come up with creative stories that are also attention grabbers and the audience I feel would be interested in. I also struggled with time management and how some of my work came out because I edited things at the last minute or I made silly mistakes that could have been avoided all together if I had just slowed down and proof read carefully. Some of the things that helped me succeed in this class is making sure I have an understanding on what has telling me to do differently and better proof read, stop making silly mistakes that don’t have to be made. There was nothing that really didn’t help me to succeed in this class it overall helped me. This class is one of the best to help with better writing papers and using technology to tell a story that is interesting and grabs everyone’s attention. I would do so many things differently in this class, with my short story I would do better editing all the way because it was honestly horrible and with my movie trailer I will take some things out and put better things in. With my Prezi I will make sure in incorporate everything that is needed. I would ask more questions for understanding and make sure that everything is great and not just exceptional. This is the class to take that really helps with bettering yourself.
Sincerely: Batiana Sowell
April 21, 2017
Greetings future Writing in a Digital World students,
It has been my joy to be able to embark on this journey this semester. I have truly enjoyed majority of the assignments we have completed in this course. I’m sure you will enjoy them as much as I have. English 1313 Writing in a Digital World is a class that will allow you to further your writing skills through untraditional technologies. By that I mean, using a variety of different technologies that you wouldn’t use in an ordinary English class. For example, some of the technologies that will be used during your semester in the class is Windows Movie Maker, Prezi, and so many others. Even though this is an English class, there aren’t many assignments that are assigned. The assignments that the class were assigned were straight forward. Although going into some of the assignments, they seemed as though they were going to be pretty tough. Having to create a movie trailer and a short story on my own, seemed so freighting at first, but overall the assignments were pretty reasonable. Along with your major writing assignments, Mr. C publishes blogs every week that we must respond to. This allows students to be able to express themselves through their responses. During my semester in this class there wasn’t anything that I had to study for. There are no test or quizzes. Your grades will all come for your major assignments and small things that Mr. C incorporates throughout the semester. One main skill or technique that you really have to be proficient in is paying close attention to detail. During the semester, you will notice that Mr. C is big on detail and he notices everything. The small things will make your grade. I struggled somewhat in that area, but by the end I grew from it in a sense. Going over your work a little at a time will help with this issue greatly. Mr. C is a great professor, and I will recommend him to anyone. Throughout my years of English classes, I haven’t found many English teachers who knew what they were doing. I can ensure you that Mr. C is one of the greats that I have had. With that being said, he helped his students the best way he knew how. With the assignments he assigned, and some of his small lectures there was always a teaching point that students could grow from. Towards the end of the semester I slacked off a little, still ending up passing the class with an B… but what I would do differently is not slack off so that I could receive my A. Also, if you miss class and you miss something that was stated in class he won’t repeat it for you. You will have to ask a classmate for the missed information. It’s always a good idea to attend all of your classes anyways. Overall you will enjoy this class very much, and you will enjoy Mr. C as your professor. I wish you all the best of luck in all of your classes this semester.
Sincerely Aaliayah Raynor.
Dear Students,
This Writing/Digital World course is a course where you learn to use both digital writing and print. At the beginning of the semester in this course, we wrote down seven words that came to mind when we thought of the word “English.” Our first assignment was the End of User Documentation where we had to explain or give instructions on how to utilize something, such as an app. Then, we learned more about when and how to use narratives, as well as block quotations. By applying what we’ve been taught, we were assigned to the short story assignment, where we created a fictional short story to utilize point of view, plot, past tense, and as well as the block quotations. Once we finished that assignment, we were obligated to create a movie trailer that would portray as a visual representation of the short stories the class created. We used YouTube, Windows Movie Maker, and ClipConverter as contributors to the assignment. I struggled on the assignment because it was hard trying not to use the same film for the whole assignment. After that assignment, we were introduced to Prezi, which is more of an advanced version of the normal Microsoft Office PowerPoint. It allows you to use any background image you choose to and zoom in and focus on each powerpoint/prezi slide. I’m actually a fast learner, so nothing, in my eyes, really helped me much because I actually learned as I was in class. But, there were some problems that I encountered. My biggest problem I believe I’ve had this semester in this course was with my short story assignment. When it was first assigned, I had no clue as to what I would write about, who or how many characters I would have, and where I wanted the setting of the story to be. The more the dates of that assignment was due approached, the more it pushed me to think longer and harder on what I wanted to talk about (I mean, it is a grade). Overall, I believe that I did a good job but I know that I did not give my all on that assignment. I honestly wasn’t giving my all on most of the assignments, I was just focused on passing this course with a decent grade. Mr. Cureton gave great, detailed assignments and explained them very well. So, it was hard not to understand his assignments. I also had help from my friend that worked in the Writing Center, and a friend that was well-acquainted with creating videos. What I would do differently if I could do this course again, I would create a better time-management schedule to where I wouldn’t have to rush last minute to complete assignments. I would ask for help more often, if needed. But, overall I would really focus more on all assignments from day one until now so that I would really give a full one-hundred percent effort when it comes to the assignments.
Sincerely, Brittany Lynch
Dear future students,
As a fellow ram looking to find a way through generation education classes or even those tough, stressful major classes, I understand the abundance of course work one may have. It’s a new semester and you don’t know what you signed up for and all you can go off is the course description and/or someone else’s input on Writing in a Digital World. Whether some say it’s easy or hard, don’t base your decision to drop the class off other opinions, make your own choice and partake in your experiences with the class. As a person who’s taken two courses with this professor think you should know is that this course and Professor Cureton will help broaden and take your writing skills to a new level you didn’t expect to attain. When you think of “digital world” the first thing that comes to mind could be simply technologies; that is a brief description of this course. While taking and engaging in this class, you will be asked to use various technologies and writing strategies to complete papers, blogs, movie trailers and presentations. Professor Cureton is an engaging, energetic, and intriguing teacher that will not ask much of you but what he will ask is for you to put the best effort and hope for you to gain something from his teachings. His calm demeanor and coolness about him is what us as college students want; constantly enthusiast as supposed to talking us to sleep. He wants to teach and help you get to wherever you want to go so come to class. In this class, you have four main assignments; end user documentation, short story, a movie trailer, and a Prezi as the final presentation. In the end, all these assignments tie together with the trailer being based off the short story you choose to write about and the Prezi is a combination of all the assignments molded into one with a theme of your choice. Everything assigned is what you want to do and say if you have the correct grammar and follow all criteria per assignment. Mr. Cureton will tell you the reality of the situation and is big on listening to what’s being presented so when in class pay attention and don’t sidetracked because you might miss something important. Something to be aware and attentive to is blogs; you must type a response to a topic of Mr. Cureton’s choice almost every week. It is easy to forget about these blogs, I was victim to this, so when he sends a reminder out or lets you know when it first opens I suggest doing it immediately. What helped me the most was having him before in a class and getting that comfort for how he operates his class but for those who haven’t, I recommend doing every assignment on time, engaging in class and that you’ll put yourself down the right path to achieve an A. Lastly, just pay attention to the little things and ask for help because he, being professor Cureton, has been by far one of the most helpful and best teachers I’ve had in my 4 semesters at Winston.
Dear future students,
This English course 1313-01 Writing in a digital world is a class that helps you with doing English assignments using technology. During the course we did three big assignments, first assignment was End user documentation, the second assignment was the short story, and then the last assignment was the movie trailer. The first assignment, I did mine on how to do face recognition on Snapchat. The second assignment I did was a short story on how this girl Anna went missing because of some family problems. The third assignment was a trailer based on the short story. For each assignment we had to have a peer review sheet which a colleague will answer questions regarding your assignment. During this course I didn’t really have anything to study so I didn't have any study techniques. But for learning strategies we used remind.com which texted us about upcoming dates such as due dates, and what we're are doing in class that week. My study strategies also included writing everything down from the beginning of the course to the end to help me remember what I have to do through-out the semester. Which helped me a lot during the semester. During the semester the only problems I had was creativity and not knowing what to write about. The movie trailer was probably one of the hardest assignments because you have to take clips from YouTube and convert them into movie clips in order to use them for your movie trailer. At first I had no clue on what I was doing because I never did anything like that before. But after I got the hang of it I knew what I was doing. The outcome of my trailer wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to go worst then what I was going to do but when my creativity came out. Mr. Cureton actually help me succeed because he's such a good professor. Remind.com really helped me succeed because if it wasn't for it, I would've forgot to do a couple of assignments. There were actually no assignments that didn't help, all the assignments that we did actually did benefit me, and helped me become a better writer. I still want progress as a writer and get better as the semesters go by. I did hate writing papers and still do, I don't do great on the, but I don’t do absolutely terrible on them I normally do average on them. If I could change anything I would change me waiting until the last minute to finish a paper. Also from the beginning I would remember to do my blogs because I have forgot to do a couple of blogs which is bad because there is almost a blog due at 11:59 on Friday's, so I don't know how I be forgetting about them. But otherwise this has been a great course to take and this professor is great.
Sincerely, Asia Fields
Dear future ENG1313 students,
The ENG 1313 course is a Writing/Digital world class that is taught by Mr. Cureton. The class last for an hour and thirty minutes and you’ll meet twice a week. The assignments in this class are writing based and you mainly use a computer to complete them. Every week you will have to type a 250 fifty-word response to answer Mr. Cureton’s weekly blogs. There are four major assignments during the stretch of the course. Unless your class does something crazy, you shouldn’t have any quizzes or test. The first assignment is the END User Document. The objective of this assignment is to make an instruction manual explaining how to do something with any piece of software. For example, I did my project on how to set up a Facebook account. All I had to do was explain how to make a Facebook account. I didn’t have to talk about designing or making friends on the account. This may sound simple but simple mistakes can be made during the assignment. You must remember that whomever you’re making the manual for may be completely new to this software or this type of technology completely so you must explain EVERYTHING. For the second assignment, you have to write your own short story. I will warn you now DO NOT waste time on this assignment; you will regret it if you do. When you think of a topic for your story make sure it is something that interests you and something that you feel that you can make a complete story off. Please remember that a short story is only five to seven pages so don’t put too much information in it. For example, try to keep the character amount to around four and try not to get too deep into all of their life stories. Before you start writing, get an idea of the directions you want to go in and plot it out. This will help out in the long wrong and will help you write the story much smoother than you would if you were going straight of the dome. During the third assignment, you have to make a movie trailer based on your short story. This assignment truly may be the most complicated of them all because you have to go on YouTube and find videos that you could use. You’ll have to use a software called Windows movie maker to make the trailer. Movie maker will take some time to get used to but you’ll get used to it. Finally, you’ll have the prezi project to do. All this project is a presentation that describes your whole semester in the class. You’ll have to explain all three of the assignments you did previously and talk about some of the technologies. Some questions will also be asked about if you feel that you have grown as a writer or not. This class requires you to put your best foot forward and use your brain. Mr. Cureton, in my opinion, isn’t boring so the class should be interesting.
Dear future students,
The course “Writing In the Digital World” taught by Mr.Cureton is a course that provides you with more information than the course description explains. This class teaches you how to use various technological websites,softwares,and others in ways that are connected to the assignments given by professor Cureton. This course will allow you to express yourself in different ways especially creativity.
In the duration of this course during the spring semester, we completed four assignments. During the beginning of the semester, we did an assignment called a End User Documentation (EUD). The instructions of the assignment were to write a paper, in third person, that instructed someone how to use something electrical whether it was software or hardware. Issues that I encountered while working on this assignment were not talking in first or second person, and being as detailed as possible when giving the instructions. Next, we completed short story assignment, which was creating a short story based on your preference. The issues that I encountered while making my short story was, coming up with a plot for the story, talking in the past tense, and also grammar. Then, we were assigned the Movie Trailer Assignment which was to download either Windows Movie Maker/Imovie to create a movie trailer that went along with the short stories that we wrote prior to this assignment. The problems that I encountered while making my movie trailer was learning to navigate the software, finding clips/movies that went along with my story, and also turning in the assignment to the flash drive. Finally, the last assignment that Cureton gave us, was the Prezi portfolio which was to create a prezi presentation that was compiled of all the assignments and technologies used while finishing all of the assignments. The information that he assigned to us was basically reflecting on your writing journey during the course that was based on a theme of your choosing. The problems that I had while completing this assignment were actually using the prezi software because it wasn't like using Microsoft Powerpoint. Another issue I had was adding my movie trailer and actually getting it to play. Learning strategies that I used while completing this course are write down everything and ask questions when in doubt. Study techniques I used while taking this class is to just sit down and actually get to know the technologies that are used in the class because they can be a bit difficult when you first use them. For example, when we first used the windows movie maker, I didn’t know how to cut/trim videos but I eventually learned to navigate the software. Some things in the class that allowed me to succeed in this course were having the openness of professor Cureton. He is a very effective instructor but his teaching methods are more relatable and relaxed instead of being uptight and tense. Some things that were not helpful were the grades not being posted in Blackboard which is the software we used to see assignment postings and other needed information. If I could start this course again, I would not procrastinate my work and complete it as soon as it was given. I hope you enjoy this course as much as I did. Good Luck!
Sincerely,
Kamya Leftwich
Dear Future Students,
The English 1313 course “Writing in a digital world” is about using media and technology to put emphasis on writing. The technology that you will use during this course will help you evolve as a writer in the digital world. This is truly one of the best English classes because not only do you have a professor who is a great teacher but because it is about technology that we use. The first assignment was the End User Documentation which is basically an instruction manual. You choose a hardware or software program you consider yourself to be an expert in and explain the instructions on how to use it. The short story assignment was my favorite because I could write about anything that had an interesting story line. My short story “Sinner of the Pulpit” was about a pastor who is abusive towards his wife however his wife meets an old friend who is a lawyer and eventually divorces her abusive husband and starts a new life with her friend. The difficulties I had with this assignment was that I had to come up with a cohesive storyline that was interesting to write. After this short story assignment, we then had to make a movie trailer based on our short stories. I enjoyed the movie trailer project because it made my short story come to life. The difficulties with this assignment was finding clips to match what was happening in my short story. Also, keeping the same actors and actresses throughout the movie trailer was difficult. Our final assignment was to create a prezi portfolio that showed our growth and work that we had accomplished during this course. I’ve used prezi before but I prefer PowerPoint because of its simplicity to maneuver. The Prezi was by far the most difficult assignment because you must carefully plan it out to execute it 100%. Mr. Cureton helped me succeed in this class because he was very engaging with us and was always available to help us if we need it. It also helped that he gave feedback on every assignment and told us what needed to be fixed and corrected. If I had to take this course all over again it would be with Mr. Cureton. Some things I would change would be procrastination on assignments, and doing all the blogs. Overall I really enjoyed this course and would gladly do it over again.
McKenna Rendleman
April 21, 2017
Dear Future Students,
This course English 1313-01 is about making you an overall better writer while using today’s technology. Using the technology makes the class fun, but just because it’s fun doesn’t mean you can slack up. It’ll be a good class if you just follow the directions he gives. If you don’t this class will have you worried to death. All of the assignments were about or were done using technology such as the EUD document, Short story, Movie trailer and the PREZI portfolio. In the EUD document we had to write a brief history on a technology and give instructions on how to do something using the technology we chose. One of the most challenging things about this assignment was that we couldn’t use first or second person. Also some of the pictures I needed for this assignment I couldn’t find on the internet. So I ended up having to use screenshots and uploading them to my computer. The 5-7 Page short story we had to do was actually fun. It was on any topic of your choice. I know it sounds dreadful because of the page’s. Once you get started and get into the story you won’t even notice the length of the story. The movie trailer is connected to the short story. It involved using multiple movie clips or just internet clips and putting them together to make a short scene. This assignment was probably one of the hardest one because it was hard to find certain scenes from movies that you needed. The PREZI portfolio was a portfolio about all of the things we have completed this semester. This portfolio also had to contain 3 brief definitions about the technologies we used and how we used them. The technique’s that MR. Cuerton used were very helpful. Some teachers will just give you an assignment and not say anything else about it. He actually makes sure you’re doing It. By making the class bring in a rough draft, usually a week or a week in a half before its due. Then Let’s your peers review the work and see what they have to say about it. During this class he gets a copy of this assignment himself, to let us know what we have did wrong. So when he does that it gives you an opportunity to fix everything before it’s due. Then by the final draft you can get a good grade. Him going over these assignments is what helped me. You notice a lot more once you get someone else to go behind you and look what you did wrong. If I could start this course all over again, the only thing I would change is procrastination. If you procrastinate you’re going to be up the whole night before an assignment is due. I feel that if I would have started the assignments earlier, I would have had more to fix what I had messed up. So doing it at the last minute eventually made me stress more and more about the grade I was going to receive.
Sincerely,
Jarvis Canty
Dear Future Students,
This course English 1313-01 also called Writing in a Digital World is a class to help students with their writing more creatively through many assignments and projects. During this we have done many assignments. An End User Documentation was the first assignment we done. This assignment was to type a paper listing the steps to set up a certain device or social network. We also wrote a five-page short story on anything we wanted to choose. We also did a movie trailer and the movie trailer was based on the short story. With every assignment, we did, we had to type a one page feedback letter informing Dr. Cureton on how we felt about the assignment and things we liked and disliked. Posting blogs was a weekly thing for this class too. We had multiple blogs we had to respond to and tell how we felt about the topic. The blogs had to be 250 words, submitted every Friday by 11:59 p.m. Our final assignment was a Prezi. In the Prezi, we had to talk about all the assignments we had to do throughout the semester and talk about what we went through during the assignments and what we learned. This class didn’t consist much of quizzes or tests, I felt that this class tested our creativity more than anything. Taking notes and just listening will get you far in the class. The most challenging assignment in this class was the short story. Writing papers was something I struggled with before this class, I hated it. With the notes that was given and just listening got me a long way, so after times when I felt like giving up I didn’t and I ended up writing a good paper. With just going to class everyday also helped with this class. Dr. Cureton spent some class periods with just explaining the whole assignment and showing previous assignments on how it should or shouldn’t look. We also had class periods when just worked on the assignments in class and he helped us. One thing that I did like about this class, was that with all the assignments we had a chance to submit rough drafts before we turned anything in. These rough drafts helped a lot especially with my short story. Dr. Cureton corrected things that I didn’t know needed to be corrected or grammatical errors I had, that I didn’t see and that was helpful. There wasn’t anything that didn’t help me in this class. When I first got into this class I dreaded it. I wanted to drop it the first day, all I thought we was going to do was type papers, read books and have a whole bunch of tests and quizzes. Now I’m glad I didn’t drop it because I learned so much and it was a good course to take. This class has taught me that it’s way more to English than writing/typing papers and reading books. This class has tested my creativity and made me think more outside the box. If I could retake the course I would do it all again and not think twice about it!
Sincerely,
Jaishea Lashley
Dear Future Students,
The course English 1313-01 Writing in a Digital World is a class that helps you to express creativity when it comes to writing and learn different technology to improve your writing experience. During the semester we used blogger to post blogs that answered a question or respond to a statement that Dr. Cureton posted, we did this weekly for a grade and it allowed the class to express their opinion on a topic. Other assignments we did that required technology includes the creation of a Prezi and an iMovie. Prezi was used for an end of the year presentation that summarized all the assignments we did and the technology that was used for them. IMovie was used to create a movie trailer for a creative short story that we wrote, it allowed us to explore how to work new forms of technology such as clip converters or finding video clips on YouTube in order to make our movie trailers more interesting and realistic. We also wrote short stories which allowed us to be creative in making a story about whatever we wanted to while working on becoming better writers. Another assignment we did was an End User Documentation where each student wrote a step by step instructions manual on how to use a certain social media site or application, it was a fairly easy assignment because our society uses social media on a daily basis. This course helps you to explore different ways to become a more creative writer by using different technology and thinking about ways to make a writing assignment stand out from other ones you have done before. As far as studying and being successful in the class it is important to make sure that you take good notes and pay attention whenever Dr. Cureton is giving notes or showing examples of assignments. It is important to pay attention to the examples because it shows what we should or should not do whenever we do our own. A struggle in this class was trying to think outside of the box and make my assignment or project stand out. It was hard whenever we wrote the short stories and made the iMovie to think about a story line that would be interesting but realistic. It was difficult to think of a good plot, also it was difficult finding a good amount of movie clips to put together to make the trailer. Things that helped me to succeed is that Cureton gave us feedback on our rough drafts of assignments which helped to make sure that it was improved before it was turned in for a grade. It was also helpful receiving peer reviews on assignments because it was constructive criticism from people with a similar mindset or awareness of what was expected in the class. Most things in this class were helpful, especially since there are chances to fix things and make them better instead of automatically fail. This class was interesting and helped me think outside of my comfort zone, if I could retake I would make sure I kept up with the due dates of assignments better and made sure that I completed all my assignments to the greatest ability possible. This class made me a better writer, thinker, and helped me to become more creative. Good luck and work hard if you are planning on taking this class, be creative and think outside the box.
Sincerely,
Brad Richardson
Dear Students,
The English course that you are about to partake in is one that is definitely a unique one. It is not like your other general English courses, rather it incorporates a digital aspect. You will be learning how to apply digital components to English assignments. The first assignment we were required to do in the semester I enrolled was and “End Documentation”. Students had to create an instructional document to explain potential readers how to operate an item, application, or piece of technology. This assignment was a great introduction to what the course is about. We also had to incorporate pictures into the document to better enhance the paper. Our next assignment was to create a short story. With this, students were required to create a short story on any subject they so well pleased with a minimal of 5 pages. This might have been my favorite assignment due to its creative freedom. The next assignment were the movie trailers. Students were required to adapt their stories into a theatrical movie trailer with a minimal length of 2:30. I personally had experience in film making so this assignment was definitely amongst one of my favorites as well. After we were done with the movie trailers, we came upon our last assignment which was our Prezi portfolios. In the assignment students were required to create Prezi based on their experience this course. This assignment was definitely an interesting one considering I had not previously used Prezi for any of my presentations. This course, overall, is not a difficult one. Some of the techniques I used in class proved to be very helpful to my success. One of those being utilizing a planner or schedule. This way you can stay up-to-date with any assignment or blog you have. Trust me, being behind on your blogs is somewhere you don’t want to be. Another tip I would recommend is bringing your laptop to class every time you have class. A lot of the assignments (if not all of them) are done on a computer. Considering the way this course is set up, it requires you to be very engaged digitally. During some classes, Mr. Cureton may require you to bring your laptop to work on assignments in class. I personally believe, though, that bringing your laptop to every class will be highly beneficial. Some of the problems I came across with most of my assignments was coming up with a good concept. A lot of the assignments gives the student an ample amount of creative freedom. This means that before you can even start on an assignment, you have to first conjure up some sort of direction you want to take. This is especially true with the short story assignment. It literally took me days to figure out exactly what I was going to write about. But once you find out your concept, the rest you should not find as difficult. Honestly though, if I were to start the course over again, I would not do anything differently. I missed out on a couple of blogs, but other than that I thoroughly enjoyed this course. I hope that whenever you take this course, you will enjoy it as well.
Sincerely,
Damari Wharton
Dear Future Students,
This English course 1313-01 is called Writing & Digital World. This course is a course that teaches students to write effectively in print and digital environments. Throughout this course students will do writing assignments that include narration, description, exposition, argumentation, and research. Assignments given in this class range from blog posts, multimedia storytelling, and digital research projects. This course is worth 3 credit hours. We had a total of 4 assignments within this course. First it started it out with the End User Documentation, this assignment we had to write a manual on any software or hardware device. The next assignment is the Short Story. Here is where we had the option to make up our own story but had to be careful because it also went along with the next assignment. The Movie Trailer was our third assignment, this assignment called for the short story to be made into a movie trailer. Every week there was a blog post that you had to do with a minimum of 250 words (make sure you do 250 because the professor would take points off). Techniques and learning strategies that should be thought about when taking this course is to always be on your assignments. This course doesn’t really require much studying but it does require attention and time management. This course has assignments that you cannot afford to wait till the last minute to do. Trust me, I would know. The assignments within this course are easy if you come to class but if you miss out on days then you will be lost so just go. Some problem areas that was experienced was being on top of my assignments. This could’ve been easily solved but we all different. Anyways, if you plan on taking this course have your head on straight and just be on top of your stuff. It’s not a hard class it just requires you to do your part. If you do your part you will be straight. Some things that helped me to succeed in this course is going to class, asking questions, and staying one step ahead. I cannot stress it enough to be on top of your work, getting behind in this class is not good at all. There wasn’t anything that wasn’t helpful, Mr.Cureton did a great job of giving us a clear understanding of what to do in each assignment. If I had the choice of taking this course over again, I would do my work once given that way I could give to Mr.Cureton so that he could proofread it to see if I can make a higher grade on that assignment. I would also pay attention in class more because not paying attention didn’t help me at all. When I signed up for this class I was kind of hesitant because my roommate took the course and she was struggling but it was a whole different teacher. I can honestly say that Mr.Cureton is a great teacher and I am glad I chose this class.
Sincerely,
Kacy Edmondson
Dear future students
The course English 13-12 is a writing in a digital in a digital world course that will improve your reading and writing skills as the semester goes on. Also, this course will require you to use your critical thinking skills a lot. The first assignment that we did is called “End User Documentation”. The directions of this assignment were to write about a social network application or a technology device. You must construct the paper based on the type of audience that you’re writing to. The next assignment that we had to complete was “Short Story”. We had to make up our own short story and make it at least 7 pages. The following assignment was called the “Movie Trailer”. This assignment was to turn our short story into a movie trailer using some type of movie maker application. While completing this assignment, we had to complete peer review sheets on each other’s work. Every week Dr. Cureton posts a bog on blogger.com, Students must comment their opinions on these blogs by the due date. During this class, it is very important that you have your full attention on Dr. Cureton when his in front of the class going over assignment directions. The last two assignments of this writing in a digital world class is the most important assignments. First you must complete a Prezi about all the past assignments and technologies you will use in this writing to a digital world class. After you complete the Prezi you then will have to present the Prezi to the class. These two assignments will count 15 percent to your final grade in the class. I advise you to work on the Prezi as soon as it is assigned to you. Creating a movie trailer about your short story was the most interesting assignment in my choice. Being that the movie trailer is to be made up of our short story, I had no problem of finding videos to match my short story. The problems I had with the movie trailer assignment were converting videos into a short enough length to be movie trailer. Clip Converter is a website that I found out about that converts YouTube videos into the length that you need them to be. When choosing a topic for your short story make sure that it’s a topic that will provide a lot of accurate and clear understanding information so that you can construct your paper based on the directions given to you. Things that were not helpful to this class was missing in class work days. It is very important that you come to class everyday even if it’s an in class work day because you will miss out in the attendance points. When there is an in class work day I suggest trying to get as much work done as possible doing that class period. Over the time that you’re working on assignments throughout the semester you will see how important the in class work days really are.
April 25, 2017
Dear future students,
In the course English 1313, you will do most assignments that are done technologically, hints the name Writing in a Digital World. This class will familiarize you with different ways to contribute to the class through technology as well. Most concepts we use throughout the course, could possibly be beneficial in the future or in other classes. In this course, you will complete an EUD Document, Short Story, Movie Trailer for our short story, and a Prezi. In the EUD Document, you had to choose a type of software that you wanted to teach an audience how to use, I chose Snapchat. This was a great assignment because it’s an assignment that most students probably aren’t familiar with. This assignment also teaches students how to appeal to specific audiences. The Short Story was an assignment where you got the freedom to choose a story you wanted to write about that was in past tense. Writing this story is good for this class because it gives students the opportunity to use their creative minds. The only main guidelines we had was making sure we keep it between 5-7 pages and that we use Freytag’s Pyramid. The Movie Trailer that we created for our Short Stories was another good assignment for the class because it REALLY brings out everyone’s creativity. The movie trailer in my opinion was the most difficult assignment of the semester because I couldn’t figure out the characters, music, or structure of my movie trailer. It had to be between 2-3 minutes. Once I got the hang of how to use movie maker, it became a lot easier for me to decide how I wanted to go. The Prezi assignment was an assignment where you make a cool presentation demonstrating how far you’ve come in the semester and a look back on the past assignment that we did throughout the semester. The Prezi was a good project to do because you sometimes don’t realize how far you come until you take the time to go back through all your past work. Blogger was a new technology that we used in this class for me. Blogger is when your teacher posts something for the class to read and give their feedback on by commenting for the class to see. Mr. Cureton would post a blog every Monday for us to have done by Friday once a week. What mainly helped me in this course was having Mr. Cureton as my teacher. He was so informative and patient. He made sure that there wasn’t anything that we didn’t know or not understand and that is appreciated. He made sure helped us as much as he can. There really wasn’t anything that didn’t help me succeed this semester. Something I might’ve done differently is coming into the class with an opened mind and not thinking the worst. Me not being good at English, I just knew this class was going to be the death of me, but now that I’m finished with the course I must say I enjoyed every minute of it.
Sincerely,
Kiana Terry