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Thursday, December 3, 2009

What to Expect When You're Expecting the Un-Expected



New and current students are standing in the hall way of the Princess Anne building, at Tidewater Community College (TCC). You are waiting in line after spending the day taking placement tests and meeting with guidance counselors. You walk up to the computer and select your course English composition ENG 111 with Professor Paul Gasparo. It’s now official; the easy part of the sixteen week course is over, selecting the course. Going forward nothing in this class will come easy or without hard work if you want to get a good grade in the class. To pass this class you will need to be organized, self motivated and willing to step outside of your comfort zones.

Organization is going to be the best place to start this course. Over ninety percent of the items covered in the class can be found on the university Blackboard website. Blackboard is an online website that contains all the course material covered. The course syllabus, the course calendar, course texts, assignment prompts, and your grades are located on this site. The course calendar is going your best point of reference to keep up with due dates and class activities. If you miss a class for any reason, the course calendar will allow you to keep current with the class. During the semester various assignments will be posted on the Blackboard discussion area or announcement area. Be prepared to have a daily ritual of signing into your blackboard account and check for announcements and emails from the professors. The readings will be required for discussions in class.

Throughout the semester you will be asked to read over fifty different articles. The articles can be items assigned to read from the text book, web sites, or scholarly journals. Not reading them will prevent you from having full understanding and prevent the chance of learning something new. The professor reserves the right at any time to have a quiz on the reading material. Honestly the readings at times tend to be a bit cumbersome. A couple of the readings are hard to follow and painful to finish, but those readings are a small percentage. The readings from the text books require you to be self motivated. The professor will not check to see if you are keeping up with your assigned readings. No doing so will be transparent during towards the end of the semester when you write your argument essay. Good materials are presented in the text books during the semester. Being motivated to read these assignments will provide key insight on how to create and annotated bibliography and understanding rhetorical analysis keys, such as Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

The most important part to your success in ENG 111 with Professor Paul Gasparo is the ability to step outside of your normal comfort zone. Professor Gasparo will challenge you to read, think, and write in ways you may not be comfortable with. The professor provides you with new tools and understandings to take your analytical writings to a new level. Be prepared to do extensive research on a topic to write a paper on. A prospectus is another required assignment. A prospectus is a formal writing to request approval from your professor to research a particular topic. If the prospectus does not make you nervous then the thought of an annotated bibliography will. In an annotated bibliography you will site all the sources you find to use in your argument research paper. Talk about out of your comfort zone. You will you more special characters to complete this assignment than actual letters. Learning how to complete the above mentioned items is instrumental in completing the argument essay.

When the course finally nears the end and you can finally see the finish line in sight, please do not give up. Remember the easiest part of the course was merely registering for the course. Once you have completed the course you will have a strong appreciate on what to expect in a college level course. Good organization, self motivation to personally achieve the goal of passing the course by completing the course work, and not being overwhelmed by the challenges the professor places on you, are all part of what you will experience in Professor Gasparo course.


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