Plan: Digital Artifact

When it came time to start thinking about ways I could go about my digital video I took three things into consideration: 1. Sticking to something I felt confident and comfortable with 2. Making sure that the filming part wouldn't be difficult to do 3. Making sure I can get my point across to my audience. With that being said I decided to write about freestyle soccer and how it has grown in popularity. I have lots of friends that play the sport and I do as well, so I figured it'd be the best route to go. I wanted the feel of the video to be more lively, so for example instead of just doing an ordinary "on the soccer field" video. That I'd film in the streets of Sacramento and initially on campus as well. When it comes to the brainstorming of this project I think it is coming together pretty well, maybe just a few miner things that can be adjusted and gone into more depth like maybe having an introduction or story line, also due to a recent knee injury in a soccer tournament I cannot be in the video. As far as time goes, I am not too sure how long it will take to edit the video because my assistant coach is helping me edit it and add in some random moments of our team at games as well. In order to get a better understanding of the genre I feel that maybe I needed to be standing on the "outside" looking in because I can see such things like the thought process behind landing the tricks they are trying to do. Overall, my injury was a bit inconvenient timing but I feel the video will be successful and it will provide me with enough material to write my essay.

Plan: Research Essay

Oh boy! So this was certainly one of the more frustrating essays I have had to do, only because I did not understand the concept of what we were writing about at first. In the beginning I had no idea of what I wanted to research and I honestly had no idea where to start. It wasn't until one day in class there was an example presented of two cooking channels that produced step by step methods of cooking different dishes. One channel was more successful than the other because it was dishes of things that don't usually go together, for example the waffle sandwiches made with hash brown. So after that I went home and did some research of different freestyle soccer videos on YouTube. I am interested in this topic because I play soccer and I feel that freestyle soccer is a lot different because it's more about the technicality of tricks you can do, such as timing the ball just right for a dragon flare or having the perfect spin on the ball to do an around the world. It also grabbed my attention because it was educational in a sense to where not very many people know about freestyle soccer and how it is done. Some sources that I am going to draw from would be different freestyle YouTube channels and also tutorial video on how to do the different tricks that are applied in the videos. Perhaps looking at more interviews of players that enroll in the Red Bull Freestyle Tournaments. Hopefully my paper is strong enough with the examples from the videos.

Revision: Analysis Essay

In my analysis essay The Greatest Team You Never Heard Of, I felt it was an okay essay as far as hitting all the points I wanted to on the US Women's Soccer Team photo. During the revision process my peers pointed a few things that I could improve on in my essay. Other than the fact that I felt like my opening paragraph was sort of weak, I was missing a clear thesis statement that organized what i was going to be saying in my body paragraphs. Some things can be elaborated on to again make the length of the essay longer, for example I can elaborate on the certain rhetorical methods used on the image I chose. Also, since I know that Nike produced the image I can elaborate on things like why they chose this photo and how it affected the audience of people paying attention to women's soccer. The most important thing in my opinion would be adding the thesis statement to my essay because it literally sets the tone of the whole paper. I will be using all of the revision tips my peers have given me because it will help my paper become stringer and in the end it will help me to receive a better grade on my essay.

Revision: Persuasion Essay

As stated before, in my particular situation I had to have my cousin (a cheerleader here at Sac State) revise my paper. Though we do a lot of air headed things together I trust that he is knowledgeable enough to revise my paper and give good feedback.Initially I had him read over about two times or so, before I actually accepted my paper back. Again I do struggle with making my thoughts stretch into the needed length so I chose to have more details in order to body my explanations more. I also chose to add in maybe one or two counterarguments within the bodies of my essay only because not only does it add length but it shows that i can also be open minded to the other side of my opinion. I feel that it made my paper a better on because it made the language within my essay stronger, in other words it made my argument more believable.The only thing that i can say that I wish I was there on revision day so that I could have asked more questions regarding the content of my paper. There is still more to be done with my essay but i do plan on revising it more to the best of my ability without being repetitive.

Pre-writing: Persuasion Essay

During the pre-writing of my persuasion essay not very many ideas ran through my mind. I started by searching the web for persuasive essay ideas and still could not find anything worth going into detail on. I sometimes listen to music and sort of wait it out to see where my mind takes me, however that wasn't working either. It wasn't until my next shift at work, when a couple of my co-workers were debating on whether skiing or snowboarding was harder on the knees. (Seeing as we all work at Soda Springs Ski Resort) there was a pretty even amount of opinions on both sides, then I knew that I found my essay topic. I am not too sure if I have any rituals when it comes to writing, I pretty much just brainstorm on paper and after that I begin writing once my ideas are organized and as clear as they should be. The only difficult part for me is making my ideas stretch into the length that the essay needs to be without sounding repetitive. One thing that helped me in class would be one of my peers whom said if I am struggling with having enough information then I should try to throw a counterargument in my paper and that will help it in length. The work shopping days do help when they are attended, but in my case I had to have my cousin read through my paper and edit. Overall the persuasion essay was a good starter paper.

Background

To begin, my family is of the lower middle class from southern California. I was raised by a single mother with an older brother by two years. As far as family goes I was raised to put family first and I was raised to live by two main morals (okay maybe more), but for the most part it was to always be real or honest in any given situation, also to have manners and know that everyone comes from the same background. I graduated from high school in 2012, however I did not return back to school until Fall of 2014 as a freshman here at Sac State because of a hiccup in my transcripts after graduating. Even though I returned to school technically two years late I am still trying my best to not let my age get to me because I am right where I need to be. My family was never one that flaunted what they had or anything along those lines, I was taught to cherish what I have and work for what I want. Some things that I enjoy doing would be staying active with friends, spending time with family traveling, and most of all I love playing soccer and have played my whole life. My feeling toward writing is sort of a mutual feeling because although I do not enjoy it as much, I sill do it when needed. Writing, in my opinion, is a great way to express your feelings and sometimes to just brain storm on ideas. My past experiences with writing weren't too bad, I can manage my tasks a hand however, elaborating on my thoughts to reach the amount of pages needed is what I struggle with really. Like I said before my feeling toward writing is mutual, because I write when I need to not so much as a hobby or for fun. I suppose I feel his way because I am not much of a reader either, I am more of a visual/vocal person so my 'go to' isn't to pick up a pen and write. The type of genres I have written in would be fictional, nonfictional, persuasive, bibliography, etc.. My favorite type of writing would be fictional because you can use your imagination and create a story or series of events rather than just gathering information and rewriting it on paper. I feel that when a person is able to be free and express themselves in an imaginary way or original way i gives them more room to open up. Sometimes the fiction can become a reality if only dream it enough. My writing process usually starts with an outline first. I try to analyze my 'rough draft' on paper before typing it out because as I said before I am a visual learner so visualizing it helps me to stay organized. The connection reading has o writing would be grammar and the way the writer catches the readers attention. I think reading can help a person be able to cognitively process words and put them into an image as well as helping the reader to be able to organize their writing properly.

WorkShop: Persuasion Essay

The day of our peer work shopping for he persuasive essay we wrote went okay in my opinion. It was nice to hear the feedback of the person reading my paper because it was a different perspective and they had different ideas of what we could add or take away from our papers. I am the type of person hat can accept constructive criticism and make something out of it. So I was pretty appreciative when Carli said I needed to add an extra counter argument to my paper because it was unclear to her as to what exactly was being counter argued. I also gave me the time to reread my paper at a slower pace to exactly determine where I could fit in the counterargument which helped me find minor grammar mistakes within my paper. The workshop worksheet was also helpful because it made sure that the writer was still on topic and each reason was conveyed clear enough for the reader to understand.

My First Blog

When it came time to create the outline and background of my first blog, I sort of dug deep and thought about which background image spoke to me the most. After gazing through the 'sporty' ones I figured I shouldn't go with any of those because everything in my life revolves around soccer or some kind of outdoors activity. With that being said I thought outside of the box and went with one that spoke to me in a different aspect, for instance I went ahead and chose to go with the 'galaxy' background image because to me there aren't any limitations on what a person can dream or aspire to do in life or any situation. I enjoy pushing people to their limits and helping them reach goals they never thought they could reach; sort of like being someone's muse. As for my purple header I chose that one because both of my grandmothers like the color purple (it also matched with the background) and in a sense it's like keeping them close to me.