Saylor English Composition

The following link is to the reading assignment for a basic writing course I'm taking at Saylor.org because for some reason I have the notion that I'm going to complete an English major over there before entering grad school so that I am fully refreshed from three years of insufficient reading, and too-sufficient drinking and drug use.

I tried to copy and paste the bit that I liked but it distorted the text. I'm saving it here because I like the questions that Charlton includes at the end. I've also taken notes on my Notable app, under Saylor ENGL001.1. I'm happy I am enjoying this course so far even though it's just a refresher and I'm taking a similar one on Coursera.

"Understanding How Conversations Change Over Time" by Michael Charlton

While I'm here, I suppose I'll record that I plan to do about one subunit a day with a day or two off here or there, or about 1-2 hours of work. It will take me a very long time to get through the major, as this one course alone is projected to take 103 hours, or just over two and a half full-time (40hr) work weeks with no breaks. I'm going to try to speed up the process, though, since I've taken many intro comp courses.

Also, a reminder to myself to curb the excessive note-taking. One summary per page/section should suffice.

Fantasy and Science Fiction Reading List and Notes

The reading list below is for the Fantasy and Science Fiction course I'm taking at Coursera which so far looks like it's going to be the most vigorous course so far at an estimated 8-10 hours a week for 11 weeks. At least it's not for credit and I won't lose any money if I am not able to keep up at any point. Anyway, the specifics can be found upon login at Coursera, and links to the books that can be downloaded.

The real reason I created this post, however, is because I was struck by a section entitled "Reading Advice" written by the professor, Dr. Eric Rabkin.

"Reading Advice
Should you read the works for this course as they come up each week or in advance? Different people work best different ways. I like to read slowly, underline, write in the margins, and make up an index to a work when I've finished reading it. For me reading in advance often works nicely because I can, just before the moment when I need to discuss the work, review the underlinings and the index to fully refresh my memory and get an overview of the work. For other people, particularly those who don't take extensive notes, reading quite close to the moment of discussion or of writing about the work is crucial. I think individuals will need to judge for themselves which way to read for this course."

He also later states that one of the things a student will learn in this course is how to read more deeply. Lately, I've been considering that I need to read more closely, and I guess I had figured that "deeply" came along with closely, but after reading his advice and thinking about it for a bit longer, I don't think that's true. I need to approach literature and any text more closely AND more deeply. We can always become better, more thorough, readers.

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The Syllabus

1. Grimm — Children's and Household Tales
2. Carroll — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
3. Stoker — Dracula
4. Shelley — Frankenstein
5. Hawthorne & Poe — Stories and Poems
6. Wells — The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, "The Country of the Blind," "The Star"
7. Burroughs & Gilman — A Princess of Mars & Herland
8. Bradbury — The Martian Chronicles
9. LeGuin — The Left Hand of Darkness
10. Doctorow — Little Brother

Well, I guess I'll just leave this right here...

Since this journal is already created, has an apt subdomain, and has yet to be utilized, I've decided that I will use it for the purpose of organizing my thoughts and resources for the free online courses (or MOOCs) I'm taking as well as for the process of replying to graduate school.

I don't anticipate that anyone else will find this blog interesting, but it may possibly be useful for anyone looking for additional discussion or viewpoints on certain readings. It also might be beneficial for anyone considering a MOOC or two, as you'll be able to see some of it unfold. I'm currently enrolled in 7 of them, for the record, although we'll see how many I remain in when mid-October comes around.

A Note About Inspiration: Since I first read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin I have been obsessed with his daily schedule and have tried many times to make one of my own. Ultimately, I hope this blog facilitates the creation and implementation of a more permanent rough schedule of my own and serves to save some time that would otherwise be wasted on multiple organization attempts and searches and who knows what. Here is B. Franklin's schedule if anyone hasn't seen it:

I appropriated it from here: http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/2007/07/benjamin-frankl.html which, serendipitously is the website that inspired a book that I recently downloaded. Hopefully I will have a chance to peruse it at a later point.

Outline:

I plan to sometimes only provide links to relevant resources, possibly with a summary, in order to just have it saved somewhere. I realize that this is basically the same as a bookmark, but I rarely remember to check my bookmarks for saved pages and including them on a blog confers a bit more import upon them.

Other times, I plan to write out notes or thoughts regarding the reading selections or class discussions. This is either to flesh out my understanding, express an argument, or even just keep them for later.

Lastly, I would like to have an place to go where I can find everything in one spot, instead of having some on Google Drive, some in physical notebooks, some on my iPad, some in the books and who knows where. This is especially true for my graduate school applications, because I really need to start working on the personal statements and all of that pretty soon.

MY FIRST REMINDER: Ask professors for recommendations and call for transcripts around the same time I sit for the GRE.

So now that I've got the statement of intent out of the way, I can go ahead and jump right in, and that I do plan to do! Thanks for reading, and although I'm doing this as a reference myself, please comment if you find something useful or want to discuss anything! It would be great to know that there are others around as well.