Thursday, March 5, 2009

English 111 with Paul Gasparo


My third and hopefully last attempt at completing english 111 at tidewater community college was very different from my past attempts.

The papers i had to write were pretty much the same , but the material covered was ertirely different from any other english class I have been in. Class discussion replaces boring lectures to engagae the entire class in thw writing process. Everything you need for the class is online. Course texts, assignments, prompts, and rubrics are all online and waiting whenever you need them.

The interesting texts covered in the course opened my eyes to things beyond just writing styles, MLA formatting, and grammar. In the course we watched documentaries that examie social issues that would not be covered in a regukar english class. The videos always sparked good class discussions that really help you to get to know your classmates. Knowing your classmates is important in an english class because you are comfortable sharing your writing with them. On Blackboard you will also find tons of interesting text not covered in the course but availible to you if you want it.

I would recomend this class to anyone looking to take an english one 111 class. If you ar like me and need something different from the perdictable standard english class; this class may be for you.You can visit my professor's blog at www.instructorzero.blogspot.com
Note to Mr Gasparo: Thanks a lot for sticking with me during this course. I hope to see you teaching a 112 8 week course next semester or maybe even in the summer.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Revised Diagnostic Essay


Alex Manley
Revised Diagnostic Essay
3 November 2009


My Most Interseting Job
“Hi, I’m Alex with Home Solutions of Virginia; we are out speaking with all the home owners in the area who still have their original windows and offering them a free estimate on our line of beautiful and energy efficient replacement windows.” If you are a home owner in the Hampton Roads area there is a chance that you’ve seen me before on your doorstep giving that pitch. During the summer of my senior year in high school I worked as a door to door canvasser pestering people to sign up for a free estimate on replacement windows. This job was my first experience in the field of sales and I quickly learned what a dirty business it is. My job was to be the friendly high school kid out to help you out with a free estimate to maybe improve your home. “Even if you’re not in the market to buy now, let us come out and educate you on some of the options out there”, I would tell people. By this I really meant let one of our salesmen come out and pressure you for a few hours until you either get mad a kick them out or give in and buy windows from us. It didn’t matter to me; I got paid by the number of appointments I set up.
The best part of the job was that all of my friends worked there. After a short briefing everyday at the home office we would pile into each other’s cars and head out to the designated areas we were given. Some days we wouldn’t knock on a single door. Instead we would head to one of our houses to hang out and get paid doing it. After the day we would head back and tell our bosses,”Man that area sucked, cross it off the map.” We just saw it as swindling the swindlers. After a while working there we started to realize that we were getting cheated out of our commit ions. Perfect leads would end up “no sales” or even worse “no pitches” which we didn’t even get paid for. When we called the homes back ourselves we would find out that they had bought windows weeks ago. Despite our occasional slacking off, our canvassing team had the best stats and was making the company more money than all the other company’s locations. One by one we all quit after realizing how we were being ripped off and shortly after Home Solution’s of Virginia Beach location closed its doors.

Image from:http://www.smoothharold.com/good-salesman/

Diagnostic Essay


Alex Manley
Eng111-N53B
DIAGNOSTIC ESSAY
I do not know if I could pick the best job that I have had. I can however choose the most interesting one without a question.
During the summer of my senior year in high school I worked as a door to door canvasser offering home owners free estimates for replacement windows. Probably the best part of the job was the knowledge I gained in sales and dealing with people. People that more often that not were not happy to that I had interrupted whatever they were doing when I knocked on their door.
I got the job thru a friend of mine I knew from school. He told me how the job had good hours and that he was making good money giving out these free estimates. The job didn’t sound too hard and I decided to go check it out. The next day I went to work with my buddy. When I got there a manager gave me a sheet of paper with a sales pitch on it and told me I had 30 minutes to memorize it, and then I would have to give the pitch to him. I guess I did well enough because I started work that day. I started off following my friend up to doors to see how he did it and when someone was interested I would write down their information. After doing that for most of the day, I finally worked up the courage to try a house myself. The first house I went up to I somehow signed up for the next day and I thought this could be a perfect job for me. I showed up for my second day a few days later I found that the house I had signed up got new windows for the entire house and I had made $250 already. More of our friends started working there, and after a while almost half the canvassers were friends of mine. We had tons of good times. I
As it turns out I am not the best salesman, I only had three or four more sales in the seven months I had that job. I quit the job when golf season started up for school, but in the end the job gave me some great memories and life lessons that I work soon forget.