This week, I started my first online graduate course and completed my first week of writing assignments. I was nervous about starting school again since it has been almost two years and because my first class was a writing course. I don’t consider myself a good writer or to put in other words, I find it hard to be a creative writer and figure out where to start. Regardless, I was also looking forward to taking a course that focused on writing for interactive media because I noticed that this was something I was lacking in experience when I started looking for new jobs.
We had a number of reading and writing assignments this week. The first was the introduce yourself writing or post, where we had to write three separate posts on the discussion board introducing ourselves to the professor and our classmates. This assignment was interesting to me because the act of introducing yourself is such a simple task but one that could be done in so many different ways. The first post didn’t have any guidelines or rules while the second one made us rework our first introduction by preparing, answering the W5 questions, organizing and then rewriting. This was not only an interesting way to make us practice the writing process, but it also helped me improve my first piece of writing. The third and final post had us revise our second introduction by writing it in third person and reducing it to no more than five sentences. Overall, I think this quick writing assignment was a good introduction to the course and a good way to remind us of the revision process.
The readability of web content assignment and critique, along with the readings, were also an enjoyable way to introduce us to writing for interactive media. The first and second chapter of On Writing Well by William Zinsser were both insightful and short to read. I enjoyed the contrast between the author and the surgeon in the first chapter. They had different views on the writing process but both of them showed us that there isn’t a certain way we should feel or go about writing and that everyone has a different experience. I agree with the author when he says that rewriting your work is always important, but disagree with his viewpoint of writing being something that you have to just do regardless of how you’re currently feeling. If you aren’t feeling motivated, it will affect your writing, and taking a break can help, as the surgeon mentioned. Lastly, the readability assignment was a good way to get us thinking about how to format our writing for the digital space while the critique allowed us to read and interact with what our classmates found. All in all, I look forward to learning more about writing for interactive media throughout this online course!