Paraphrase Required - Word by Word

ENGL 607

William Gribbin

Running head: JOURNAL ENTRY 4

JOURNAL ENTRY 2

With the final exam out of the way this is the final assignment left to complete. At this moment I feel a personal weight slowly lifting off of my shoulders with each word that I type. If is a good feeling to be almost done but a scary one for what lies ahead as I prepare for my next course. I look forward to moving on and am thankful for all the experiences this course has afforded me.

After getting off to a rough start, especially after coming off of a long break from classes, I think I slowly hit my stride over the course. Really getting into the reading and videos and forums made me reassess my perceptions on teaching. It was good to somewhat be in front of a classroom again for the micro-teaching project and realize that I still have some nervous habits to overcome. Discussing critiques with my peers and viewing their videos and hearing their stories really helped give me some perspective of other methodologies as well as see others with experience still have some issues in public forums and how they overcame them.

In regards to my own writing pedagogy, I know I have some room to improve and I will always take the necessary steps in order to do so. The readings did give me some saving grace in my own beliefs in that many writers and teachers have a strong disdain like I do for simply grading to standards and really want to see students thrive and come into their own minds and styles and writing. I could really feel the passion they felt and understand the psychology of some of the writings; I used to be a psychology major so I always love diving into the human mind and seeing how people think and learn. Overall, I feel that this course has opened my eyes and truly prepared me for the challenges I have ahead in finishing my degree and what I need to do in order to be the best educator I can.