Esmir

Audience

esoba44 — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:36:33 +0000

The main audience for this weblog is my friend Alen (aka guma) and my tutor Julie (aka wifey).

Alen, you are one of my best friends. We went through a lot of difficult times. Even though it was tough time we always found something to laugh at. We used to play for the same team for a few years and used to be roommates as well. Also you are the one that used to translate anything from English to Bosnian while we were roommates. As you know, I learned German as my second language in high school. I never learned English before I came to the United States. You are the one who gave me dictionary, so I would be able to have at least something if not in my head then in my bag! I remember, the first word I learned from your dictionary was ‘hungry.’ Also my first sentence was “I am hungry.” Since we had went through the Bosnian War we both know how important is to be able to ask properly for food. I know for fact you will be proud that I can write anything in English. Now when I had the chance to choose my audience, I chose you to show you how much I improved. Not only that I had to improve in writing but I was able to with a few tips from my teacher Dr. Art to create this weblog. I posted all nine of these assignments so you can see what I accomplished, just from the one class. And remember, I am taking at least four classes each semester. I know most of the people back home say that school in the United States is really easy. So after you read all the assignment that I post in here, I will leave it up to you to judge and decide what it true.

Julie, you are the best tutor I ever had. I think there are a few things that make it easy for us to work well together through this and all my other classes. Since you were softball pitcher yourself, it makes it easy to understand my difficulties of managing time with athletics and classes at the same time. The other thing that makes it easy is that I told you more about myself than anyone else in America. You even learn some words in Bosnian because I taught you. This way you had the chance to understand how difficult it was for me to learn new language. I just want to say ‘STA IMA’ and ‘KAKO SI’ in Bosnian, so this way you will feel like you are bilingual as well! Not that long ago you finally realized that we do not have articles in Bosnian language. It makes it easy on you while dealing with proofreading my assignments. I really enjoy getting help from you and I learned a lot. This is one of the reasons that I want you to read my posts and my nine major assignments from ENGL 2311 taught by Dr. Art.

Proposal Report Summary Memos & Presn’t Handout (G)

esoba44 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:30:04 +0000

In my summary I explained how well we managed our project from the beginning to the end. Even though we just met a couple times outside of classroom we did all the parts on the time. I was very confident in my group. Once you can be confident in your group members it makes it easy to take care of your business. I think even our grades show that we did great job. Our grades from all the group assignments were very good. We still got a good grade even when our presentation was graded by our classmates.

In our presentation handouts we provided information that was not on the slide show. It supported the information that we emphasized in our slide presentation. The handout topic was “Why Should You Care About the BCS?” It was divided into three parts. The first part talked about financial problems that are connected directly to the BCS. The second part discussed how the BCS affects college enrollment. The last thing talked about athletic and how it effect smaller school with the same or better overall record were left out of bowls game.

Alen, this is my last assignment from this class. On one hand I am glad this class is over because I had to write a lot, and you know that I am math person. On the other hand, I am glad I went through a really tough English class. I had a chance to challenge myself and see how much my writing has improved since I came to the United States. I am giving you a chance to read all my assignments. Will you let me know what you think? To be honest, I feel proud of myself knowing that only four years ago I did not speak any English. And this is the chance to tell you thank you for the dictionary. It was my best friend for the first couple years! Now when I write I do not need your dictionary. I am really happy because of this fact.

Julie, I just want to say thank you deep from my heart for helping me with improving my English skills. You are the best tutor I ever had. As you know some of the people even call you my wife because we spent a lot of time together in Marsha Sharp Center (Student Athlete Study Hall place). I am glad you understand my difficulties, especially with my articles. I have told you that in the Bosnian language we do not have articles. One more time I just want to say thank you.

Formal Group Proposal Report (G)

esoba44 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:19:00 +0000

The fourth and main group assignment was the “Formal Group Proposal Report.” This is actually longest single group assignment that we had to turn in on the day of our proposal presentation. For this assignment we had a month to complete it. It is actually all the work that we did put together at the same time.

In this assignment we had to write ten to fifteen pages. It includes many different parts. Some of the things that were included in this assignment were job letter to Ms. Lee Bobbitt. She is the Student Government President at Tech. We also had to include a title page, table of contents, summary, general problem, how it can affect Texas Tech University, and tools that would help Ms. Bobbitt to have successful presentation.

For this assignment I contributed by writing the summary part. This summary has three parts. These parts are “What is the problem,” “What we want you to do,” and “Why we give this to you.” The other thing that I did is the research part. I was assigned to find some specific articles that are against the BCS and hand it to my fellow group members.

Alen, this is something that we never did back home in our school. You probably do not know this but, a lot of classes here have group presentations. It is a nice experience and I think it would be useful in our education system as well. It helps students meet other classmates. You also get to work with them on the same assignment. I thought only that teamwork was only in sports. But I have learned that this applies in classes and in the business world.

Julie, I know you know all about our group project. But, what you do not know is how our education system in Bosnia works. As I already mentioned when talking to Alen, we do not have group presentations. We get our grades by going in front of the class and answering our teacher’s questions. Maybe that is why group projects and presentations in America do not make me nervous!

Formal Group Proposal Report

Proposal Rough Draft and Progress Memos (G)

esoba44 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:09:23 +0000

The “Proposal Rough Draft and Progress Memos” were our third group assignments. In this assignment we started to write our proposal rough draft which is basically extending on our previous assignment, our outline. In this assignment we went into more detail than we showed in our outline. Basically we just wrote about the problem, audience, and goal.

The second thing that we had to do were individual progress memos. In this assignment we were supposed to say specifically what each of us is working on and what other group members are doing to contribute to our final project. I was in charge of the summary of our proposal. I also did the research for our proposal. I got the numbers, facts, and opinions that the rest of the group used to do their parts. Before we started project I was not familiar with BCS at all, but once I started doing the research part I learned a lot about BCS and all negative stuff that comes with using that system. I think this was a really good way to learn something new that everybody around me is talking about. I never paid attention before because I did not understand.

Alen, this BCS is a really weird thing. I know you like all these new technology and robots movies. So, to make it easy for you to understand the basics of the BCS system I will just say like computer rock in this system, if you know what I mean. It is just like from moves and stuff from future where computers have the power over the people. To me this almost sounds the same. It actually has two human votes present and a computer, but sometimes computer can be the one that makes decision if one football team will go to postseason or not.

Julie, I am sure you do not know a lot about BCS system either. You played softball in college and do not really pay attention to football. That is just like our female group member, Emily. She did not know what the BCS was before we started this project. I will encourage you to read my explanation that I just wrote to Alen, so you will have an idea what the BCS is about. I know you used to be pitcher for Texas Tech University and that you are a fan of basketball, but I do not know how much you know about football and the BCS. I think this post would be as beneficial for you as it is for Alen.

Proposal Rough Draft

Esmir Progress Memo

Vandever Progress Memo

Seymour Progress Memo

Proposal Outline and Progress Memos (G)

esoba44 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:52:30 +0000

The “Proposal Outline and Progress Memo” was our second group assignment. After our first group assignment which was the “Proposal Plan Memo,” we had to write an outline for our project. In this project were supposed to emphasize the problem, chose the audience, clarify goals, and explain our formatting. Our topic was The BCS – A System Worth Speaking Out Against.

This was one of the easiest group assignments that we had to do. On the other hand it actually meant a lot to us because we split the work while creating our outline. Also, we were able to know what exactly each group member would be able to do and when it would be done. The other thing that we had to do is to write individual progress memos. Our first individual progress memos were inconsistent. Dr. Art told us about our inconsistency in our progress memos. I think this is a good thing we knew that we had to communicate before we wrote these individual progress memos. This way we will escape inconsistency.

Alen, I want to tell you that this is the best group that I worked in during the five years I have been in college. It reminds me of our team back home when we were played together. The only different thing is that I knew the rest of my group members for a couple months from being in same class, and I did know you and rest of our teammates for at least two or more years. I felt really good chemistry between my group members as we would say in basketball language.

Julie, I know you were happy because I stopped bothering you with asking you for tutoring help. As you could see from what I wrote to Alen, it seems I fit well in my new peer group which is my ENGL 2311 group. But now and then I had to meet with you, so you could proof read my individual progress memos and to see how I am doing with my other assignments from my other classes.

I just want to say again this maybe the easiest major assignment that we had to complete. We had the chance to learn from our mistakes. As my basketball coach told me and my teammates after we lose a game: that is the best opportunity for us to learn from our own mistakes. So, I think we can use that strategy in this group setting as well.

Proposal Outline

Outline

Reese Progress Memo

Seymour Progress Memo

Esmir Progress Memo

Vandever Progress Memo

Proposal Plan Memo (G)

esoba44 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:28:46 +0000

The “Proposal Plan Memo” was the first group assignment that we did. There were three other people in my group. We had to come up with a proposal and put that and some research together. Before this assignment, everyone in the class had to come up with a proposal idea. Dr. Art put us in groups and we had to pick one proposal. We picked Grant’s proposal to persuade Texas Tech University Student Government President, Lee Bobbitt, to make a presentation to the University President persuading him to speak out against the BCS. This assignment started us off and we divided all the work up.

I did the problem summary. In this section I talked about all the current problems with the BCS. I also described what the BCS is. Alen, this would be helpful for you to read because you probably never heard of the BCS. I know this is a fact because we do not play football in Bosnia. We do not have a system like this for any of our sports. The other part I worked on for the group was the research. I was in charge of looking up facts and numbers on the BCS. This actually turned out to be helpful for me because I learned about the BCS.

The way we did this assignment was nice. We would meet for the last thirty minutes of class. We would divide the work and decide who would do certain things. Everyone would bring their part to the next class period and we would put it all together. This was really good for me because I did not have to meet outside of class. You guys know how busy I am with basketball and I do not have a lot of time in the evening to work on group projects. Julie I bet you were happy that we started a group project because you did not have to help me a lot. I did most of this work by myself and got more confidence in my English abilities.

This assignment was helpful because it gave our group a plan. It listed all of our deadlines and showed what everyone would be doing. I like to have outlines for assignments. This helps me with planning. I also got to know my group members. I am pretty quiet in class and this was a way for me to meet some of my classmates.

Proposal Plan Memo

Instructions Analysis (Oct 23)

esoba44 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:23:52 +0000

This assignment is the “Instruction Analysis Memo.” I had to expand the instruction selection memo and include the results of the user testing. I divided this memo into sections like “Audience Analysis,” “Document Effectiveness,” and “Usability Testing.” This makes the memo easier to read. This assignment called for the same things as the instruction selection memo. I added test results from testing my classmates. This assignment had to have more words, so I got more detailed with sections like the “Assignment Summary” and the “Audience Analysis.”

This assignment was more fun than others because I got to interact with more people. It was also pretty easy because it was a lot of description. The one problem I had was a lack of time. It was around this time that we started official team basketball practice. We practiced everyday for three hours. On top of that we had conditioning and individual practices that we had to attend. My tutor, Julie also got very busy with her job. The softball team had a coaching change and she had to work from very early in the morning to very late at night.

Even though there were a lot of challenges, I was still able to turn this in on time. One critique that I kept getting was that my sentences were too long. I wrote a rough draft of this assignment and handed it in to Dr. Art. He told me that I needed to write shorter sentences. Julie and I edited my memo and it looked much better. One thing I do not like about these assignments is the word count. It makes me feel like I have to add a lot of words to each idea. This is what makes writing short sentences even harder. I understand the need for a word count, but at the same time it is very limiting.

My favorite part of this assignment was the “Audience Analysis.” For the most part, this section was up to my interpretation. By reading the instructions, I had to decide what age group, what language is spoken, and the social class the audience fit into. My least favorite part was the “Document Effectiveness” section. This took me several drafts to understand. Because of the language barrier I did not really know what and explicit or implicit goal was. Julie had to explain what this meant several times before it actually sunk in.

Instructions Analysis

Instructions Selection Memo (Oct 9)

esoba44 — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:20:09 +0000

The third major asignment that I have to post on here is the “Instruction Selection Memo.” I selected instructions for a digital video camera. I picked these instructions because I have had this camera for three years and I have actually never read these instructions. I thought this would be a good time to learn more about my camera.

In this assigment I had to do two things. The first thing was to figure out who my audience was. The second thing was to do testing on this audinece to see if my projections about are right. For the audience part, I had to chose an age group for my digital video camera. Also, I had to predict based on the instructions who is able to buy this camera. This means I had to decide what social class would be able to purchase the camera. This part was based on commen sense and my own opinion. The other part that was more interesting was the testing. I had to find at least a couple people that fit in my audience group and do different tests on them. This was supposed to tell me if my predictions were right or wrong.

Alen, as you know I never had digital video camera before. It is a funny story how I got it. Actually, I got this digital camera for free. All I had to do was to fill out a survey on my environmental class back in my junior college while I was still in Florida. And, I was the lucky one that was chosen to win a $100 spending card from Amazon.com. It was kind of funny but at the same time I was excited because for the first time I did not have to pay for something. To be honest my digital camera looks pretty fancy. I thought I would need to read more than just the basic instructions to be able to use it. But, I just read the basic ones, and I was able to use my digital camera.

Julie, I know you did not know how to help me with testing part, but good thing Dr. Art helped me with some tips so I was able to get creative on my own. Actually it turns out my testing was pretty interesting and successful. In the end, I remember you were proud of my ability to create stuff on my own.

Instruction Selection Memo

Formal Memo

esoba44 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:26:24 +0000

This is my second assignment for my weblog portfolio. This assignment is called a “Formal Memo. “ We had to write a proposal to a specific audience. There had to be clear goals and it had to be written in an appropriate format.

I wrote a memo to an administrator who I want to accept me into my degree program. I listed three reasons why I should be accepted into the program. These were that I am an international student, I am a student athlete, and I would be more diverse. I also described the areas I would like to study while majoring in University Studies. The three areas that I would like to study are Broadbased Business, Exercise and Sport Sciences, and Personal Development/Social Sciences. As you know, business and sports have always interested me. I want to make a career out of this one day.

Alen, I want you to read this and see how much better my English has become. All of these memos helped me practice writing and thinking in English. I feel like I can communicate with people so much better than before. I also want you to see what my major is and what I am studying while I am in the United States. This major probably looks weird to you because we do not have anything like this in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Because I am doing work in so many areas, I will be able to get a good job back home.

This was one assignment that I turned in early. I thought I would get extra points for turning it in early, but this was not the case! Instead I got feedback on this assignment. I got a 93 percent on this assignment and I deserved it. This took me a long time to complete and I worked on it with my tutor, Julie. I wrote as much as I could on this assignment and she corrected my mistakes and helped me come up with new ideas.

Overall, I really liked this assignment because I got to research my degree plan. I always knew what I was studying, but not in so much detail. I actually used this assignment as a proposal for my degree plan. My academic advisor thought it was good, and would be helpful. I gave it to her so she could help switch me from a business major to a university studies major.

Formal Memo

Resume & Job Letter

esoba44 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:16:21 +0000

This is my first major assignment for my weblog portfolio. The name of this assignment is “Resume & Job Letter.” I used a resume I had to make in one of my business classes. I just updated information and made changes to things like my address and phone number. I also had to write a job letter. A job letter is supposed to introduce me to an employer. It also shows the employer how interested I am in the job and requests an interview or phone call.

I wrote my job letter to Duke University basketball and Coach Mike Krzyzewski. To work for Duke would be a great job! I did research on the program and Coach Krzyzewski and found out we had some things in common. We both played for Coach Bob Knight.

This assignment was pretty easy for me because I was a business major for two years. I took a managerial communication class and in it we had to write job letters. This assignment also let me research basketball. This is something I am familiar with and love doing. It also got me excited for finding a job in basketball when I graduate. The one thing I find difficult when writing job letters is being so direct. Back home we do not just jump into things and this sort of thing is usually done in person. It took me several times before I could write short, direct sentences that I did not feel were rude.

Julie, I know you enjoyed helping me with this assignment because you were a business major and you really like basketball too! We got this done pretty quickly which I know you like too. You did not have to help me too much because I remembered what we talked about regarding job letters from when you were my tutor in business classes. I am proud that I remembered something and I actually got to use it again.

Alen, you would probably like reading this job letter because you play basketball. I know you are also a big Blue Devil fan. You would be so jealous of me if I got to work with Duke Basketball and your favorite coach! Back in Bosnia we do not do job letters, so this may look odd to you. In America job letters are a good way to let people know who you are. It is a lot like an introduction that you do on paper to someone.

Job Letter

Resume