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Final Draft
Grayson Walloga
Mat Wenzel
ENC 2135-15
26 April 2018
Good Times
Interesting and distinct opening that is in no way similar to other openings which often start with general phrases that everyone uses. I want to open my reflection like this because I think it encapsulates my experience with this class. The way we talked about genre was different from how I learned about it in high school. I did not realize how broadly you could define a text, and how you can apply different genres to the same text. I had a blast working on the three projects, especially the last two, because I got to write about something different from what I usually write about. Just like my opening statement, I wanted my community to be different and distinct from what everyone else was going to write about.
For Project 1, I talked about the gaming community on Xbox Live. Initially I was not sure if I could choose this community because they did not seem like a community that could be covered. I was worried before I decided to cover this community because I have not really been a part of that many communities. I am not in any clubs here a FSU, I have not played any sports since I had surgery back in high school, and I did not really want to join a club just for an assignment. I thought about writing my paper on my ice hockey team, but I felt like that was so generic and boring. I figured no one would talk about some dumb video game community so I choose that instead. I wanted to write my paper on my community and not just a community that I had technically been involved with. I got the idea of connecting my community with masks and personas because I was thinking about how different I was in all the communities I was in. I liked doing Project 1 because it helped me think outside the box in terms of what a community was, and it also helped me better express how I see myself.
I wanted to pick an even more outlandish community to do for Project 2 and 4chan was the obvious winner. I do not think that I could have written about a community like 4chan back in high school, especially since I went to a Catholic high school, but that is what made me enjoy writing about it. I know you said that Project 2 was going to be the hardest Project, but I honestly loved every minute of working on it. Every time I saw something on 4chan, I would immediately think of all the ways I could incorporate that into my paper. I was a little scared when we were doing on conference that you would tell me I needed to switch communities or write about something else because I felt like writing about 4chan was so…unacademic. That is not to say that I did not do any research or anything, but assignments usually are not that fun and I loved working on my paper. There are still some things I would have liked to change about my Project 2, but since I had gotten an A on both of those projects I figured I should just focus on other stuff.
When you started talking about Project 3, I was somewhat concerned. You made it sound like it was going to be an easy assignment, but I was completely dumbfounded for a while. I did not know what genres I would do, or even what community I wanted to cover. I was not sure if I should cover 4chan because I figured some people in the class would not like that. In the end, I figured that no one else was going to do a community like mine which was a sign from God Himself that I should go ahead and do it. I started working on an ad that featured a bunch of memes and people that came out of 4chan. I am not a graphics designer and I do not have photoshop, so I was concerned that the finished product would look cheap and unfinished. I worked pretty hard on that ad and I am very proud of how it turned out. I decided to make a PowerPoint on some of the trolls done by 4chan because it was those trolls that made me want to pick 4chan as my community in the first place. I figured it would be fun to sit down and talk about some of the hilarious hijinks pulled by those lovely people. I genuinely had a great time working on Project 2, so I thought it would only be fitting for me to write a thank-you letter to 4chan.
I guess I will end this reflection here before I go over the word count by like one thousand words… again. All in all, I loved this class, I had a great time working on all the Projects, and I really liked the way you taught class. Side note: I am only saying that so that I can get an A!