Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Stuart McDonald - Journal #1


 Most of the writing I’ve done in my life has been of an academic nature, although I have done quite a lot of reading.  My parents started teaching me to read around the pre-school years, and onward from kindergarten I read of my own accord for enjoyment.  Once fifth grade rolled around, I became devoted to acquiring as many Accelerated Reader points as I could (my schools would test your knowledge on any book with the ‘AR’ sticker on it and award points based on your score).  At one point I remember reading all five of the available Harry Potter books in a few weeks’ time, which naturally netted me quite a yield.

 Fast-forwarding to high school, I ceased to read for leisure and became much more centered about learning technology and computer programming.  A few classes later and I knew what I intended to major in once I arrived at a university, which would be Computer Science.  I took AP Language and Composition and did fairly well on the prompts given to us, namely on the rhetorical analyses.  We also participated in Socratic Seminars on assigned readings, which, while a bit stressful, were good opportunities to hear what other people noticed in the literature.  I believe that taking this class along with AP US History bettered my ability to write thoughtful thesis statements and supporting arguments in the body of the test prompts in addition to other coursework.

 Currently, a majority of the writing that I do is of a technical variety, which makes me more confident with research-based composition as opposed to creative breeds such as drama or poetry.  My experience with fictional writing is rather limited, mostly stemming from a few assignments of past English classes.  I was thinking of taking up indie game development as a hobby if I could find a few others willing, which would certainly put me back in the business of creative writing.  At this point I feel prepared enough to handle the writing required of a college freshman, but hopefully 1106 will expand upon that and make it easier.

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