High School, I don't miss this. #WRT3 #twitterive #6wordstory

Visiting my cousins’ high school, Gateway, this week was something that I viewed as quite strange for me. I haven’t been to a high school for over five years; revisiting one was almost like retracing my footsteps in a strange place that I’ve never been to. The school was totally different from the high school I went to but also totally the same.

The building layout was quite pristine. Having white and red brick with a blue roof, showing the schools colors. My high school in West Deptford was mostly one floor, except for two entrances that led to a cramped upstairs hallway. The brick on the outside of my high school was all red, showing no school colors. These were some of the ways in which the schools differed, but in some ways they were still the same; filled with young teens.

Seeing all the younger kids walk around school grounds did not enact a flashback of my high school days as I thought it would. Instead it caused a feeling of unfamiliarity, watching a group of kids pass by my car as I sat parked out front waiting made me realize how out of place I was. There were teachers or aids in coats scattered through out the parking lot. I had no idea what that was about, maybe it was a new rule, to make sure the kids got on the buses safe? I couldn’t think of any other reason. Looking out the window to my left I noticed some of the kids were looking at me in astonishment. Probably thinking “Isn’t that guy a little too old to be at a high school?” this caused me to grow impatient. I immediately pulled out my phone, calling my cousin and telling him to hurry up so I can go on with my day. That day I realized how everything had changed and high schools were no longer what I thought they were.

This is a bit different then what Wendell Berry wrote about in “Native Hill”. Berry’s account seemed to be about the connection we have with certain aspects of our world. Almost the exact opposite of what I stated above. Although there were certain things that rang out to be true in Berry’s writing. It seemed that he wanted to make us think about things that were once present in our past are no longer here and gone forever. That’s what going to a high school made me realize about myself, that little kid getting on the bus, that will never be me ever again.

I find that I have some concerns about the twitterive assignment. I’ve been trying to think of certain ideas of where I should be doing my “place”. So far I’ve come up with my old shore house that we sold last year.  When I was younger this was a place I went almost every summer with family so it does hold some sentimental value in that case. I could probably link old family 

Besides that as years progressed I saw my self distancing from the shore house, finding it boring and not really a place for someone like me. In fact, in the last couple of years I actually began to loathe it; having a summer job there took up too much of my time away. I hated leaving my real home and friends to go down the shore and work by myself, it was not a good time. Now this might be a decent subject for the Twitterive but I have no idea how I’m going to write tweets that may involve this for class. What everyday activities in my life can I tweet about that can also be linked to my past at the shore? I want to do something that will flow easily but linking this with my twitter statements will be sort of hard. It’s going to be tough. I’ll give it a shot.

    In today’s society, if you’re young and knowledgeable enough, you’re probably in the loop about what’s going on in our world of technology. Which means every morning when you wake up (if time permits) you immediately go on your computer to see what’s going on in the world. Most people will check their personal websites first, looking at Facebook or Twitter, so they can respond to any new “comments” they might have received.

     Personally, if I have the time, when I wake up I’ll go on a forum called “Reddit”. It’s basically a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. Meaning multiple people will post news stories/jokes/gossip on which others can read and comment. So I’ll scroll through Reddit with a hot mug of coffee before I even start my day. Reading all the new headlines and stories and having a laugh or two at other Forum member’s personal jokes. After, I’ll check my personal websites, like Facebook, proceeded by a quick glance at any new emails that might have come in from school or friends.

    Having forums like Reddit and personal sites like Facebook and Twitter causes a personal impact on my worldview. It lets me see what others are talking about. On Reddit, I’m receiving a communicative view from people all over America and Europe. It causes me to see communication from a different perspective, widening my personal views in my writing. Personally, forums like Reddit make one more aware of their surroundings; while sites like Twitter/Facebook/Myspace are more intimate. Causing one to pick and choose which person may view their profile.

    Another mode of communication that is becoming increasingly popular today is texting. Almost everyone and their 5-year-old child have some sort of cell phone that can send and receive texts. Texting is again, like Facebook/Twitter/Myspace, only more personal. It becomes more personal in the fact that  “Facebook friends” are not necessarily real friends. Meaning one does not call or text, nor even have the number of many “Facebook friends”. Texting is such a personal thing that I doubt it would really affect ones writing anymore than a slight distraction, like a dog barking. It’s used as a more personal way of conveying information to family and/or friends.

    To begin, I would like to go over some of the things our W/R/T class did on the first real day of class. To begin, we started talking about the ins and outs of Weebly and how exactly to publish our blog. Not hard! Then we moved on to talk about grading contracts, writing a quick blog entry to further discuss our personal feelings towards the idea. I stated in my previous blog that I personally liked the idea, because of reassurance of a decent grade. As written in Danielewicz and Elbow’s readings, the grading contract is like a safety net to good student’s who may falter from doing over-the-top work.

            We later discussed the readings from Davies and Merchant, which was mainly about blogging and the conception and challenges that come with it. Most people in the class, like myself, seemed to like blogging as opposed to the old-fashioned paper and pen. It just makes everything so much easier for the student; since today’s age is all about the Internet.

            After class I read Penskys article titled, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. In which I was asked if I was a digital native. Well for those of you reading my blog right now, you probably already know the answer to that question; an irrefutable YES! I remember being around 5 or 6 when my family got our first desktop computer. It must have been at least ‘94 or ’95 when my father brought home our first Gateway Computer. I was foaming at the mouth to use it; since my brother had talked up all the different things one could do with a computer.

Back then; computers came with multiple games that one could select for their new desktop. So after my dad hooked up and installed all the wires and ports, I sat down and went straight to work. First downloading AOL (which took forever because we were on dial up) and playing 3 of the 12 video games that came with the Gateway. Ever since then, there’s never been a day where I didn’t look at a computer screen at least once. If that doesn’t make you a ”Digital Native” I don’t know what does.

As computer’s evolved and progressed, I did as well. When I graduated High School I went to Gloucester County College where I majored in Web Design. Here I picked up on the basics of html and even some programming. After learning the fundamentals of web design, I moved on to Dreamweaver and fell in love. Having something write the code as you design a web page became quite progressive. As now they’ve invented a much newer/better version of Dreamweaver to be installed and tinkered with. I can only imagine what’s changed from 4 years ago, when I majored in web design.

Not all people are digital natives like myself though. A lot of my recent teachers were a bit of Digital Immigrants. Most teachers don’t even know how to work blackboard on the University site. Some consider changing blog entries that should have been done online, to being worked on with pen and paper. Thus comes the question, should I learn these instructors old habits or should the instructor learn my new ones? If you ask me, it should be a little of both. It’s always good to know how to do things the old fashioned way, as well as the new. Personally, I believe everyone could benefit from understanding how to use both methods.

    I believe that grading contracts are a good way to get students to fulfill requirements that are important to what they’re learning in class. It also causes students to feel less stressed about what they have to do because they know as long as they meet the core requirements listed on the contract, they’ll receive a B. Contracts show students that if they meet these requirements that they can earn a respectable grade in the class. I find that having the instructors power over course requirements is much more appealing to myself than the instructors power over grading my writing. Writing is basically an art form.

    There are many different styles and kinds of writing that people do. Some writers are more professional than others and thusly have a different kind of style when writing. Being graded by what you personally write on a paper shouldn’t be graded as harshly as doing or not doing the assignment. So having a teacher that has power over grading your writing will cause you to care more about what you’re writing than actually doing the assignment. I believe if you do the work correctly and do everything the teacher asks, then it should not matter as much what you specifically wrote about.

    In the past my writing has been graded by both methods listed above. In High School and my freshman year in college my writing was graded with the instructor being highly critical of the inners of my writing. Meaning the technical aspect was of more importance than actually fulfilling the assignments needs.  It caused me to stress and worry that what I was writing wasn’t really fulfilling there needs because the feedback was so limited. In college I sort of slowed down with my writing and began to write more creatively. My feedback from professors was much longer with more detail, so I could actually see where I was going with my writing. This caused me to highly prefer a lot of written feedback than just a little.

I do not become highly defensive when critiqued on my writing as most. This is probably due to my Writers Mind course that I took last year. In that class we were given a grading contract that stated something along the lines of “as long as you do the work, you WILL get an A”. So I did the work to the best of my abilities and when it wasn’t done to my Professors standards, he told me. I did not mind this because I knew I was still getting the proper amount of credit for the assignment even though it wasn’t perfect. Overall, I believe grading contracts to be a safety net to catch students who may fall.

My name is John Coolen, I'm a junior at Rowan and majoring in Writing Arts. This is my first blog post