Anticipating *Essay* Questions for SPA 301 & CER 221

Hello all!

Phew... okay let me just say this: I had quite a difficult time with the TECH assignment this week, stay with me on this one. This week was all about exams and how to prep for them. Believe it or not, I found that I won't be having any exams in ANY of my classes. I take three art courses in which I am graded solely based on projects; no exams, quizzes or essays.

So, I really had to challenge myself to find a way I could adapt these exam prep strategies to help me in other areas in my courses. I decided to adapt the "Anticipating Exam Questions" to fit my courses. I dug into my Ceramics syllabus and remembered I am required to write an essay on a ceramic exhibition & lecture that I must attend at the end of October. I also thought about my Spanish 301 class, and although we do not have any exams, we write a lot, so I am certain we will be having a graded essay sometime during the semester.

First, I will explain what I did to anticipate what to write about for my response to the ceramic exhibition and lecture. I checked my syllabus to figure out exactly what I needed to prep for:

Key topic: the artist, Nan Smith. Knowing the name of the artist

ahead of time is great! Now I can research and get an understanding of who this artist is before I dive right into viewing the exhibition in person. Fortunately for me, Nan Smith has a website; one that is easy to navigate and holds a ton of information:

I didn't have to go far to get a grasp on her style and aesthetic. The home page features a large slideshow of beautiful images of her work. By clicking on the different links on the site, I was able to read her bio, browse through multiple galleries of her work, and even listen to interviews with her! I feel that I now have an understanding of Nan Smith that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten without doing this quick research. I now feel prepared to go into the exhibition and lecture with both opinions of her work and also an open mind to hearing and understanding more. Thinking about the things I retained from the research, I have multiple ideas on what to possibly write about, even before I have seen the exhibition and lecture. Stress = nonexistent with this essay.

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I used a different method to prepare for an essay in my Spanish 301 class. Spanish 301 is all about literature. We read multiple stories a week and sometimes even create our own. We have a blog and a facebook page; it's like our own digital classroom. So, to prepare for an essay in SPA 301, I used my notes and questions from our blog.

For example, here are some notes for a couple of stories we read:

Sorry it's all in Spanish! Basically, the notes identify key points in the story; plot, characters, conflict, and themes. By identifying these points, I can be prepared to answer any essay questions. I can be confident in knowing the essay questions will most likely be about these points because in class my professor stresses that we understand these points.

I also used questions prompted on our blog to prepare for possible essay questions. I screen shotted the blog and in photoshop I highlighted the questions to focus on.

The highlighted part is basically asking how different adaptations of literature relate to each other, in this case it was a film adaptation of a short story. I decided to focus on this topic because it can relate to multiple pieces of literature that we read in class.

Overall, this adaption was not easy. However I think I was successful in creating something that will be useful for when I want to do well on an essay. I feel great knowing I have a good preparation for these essays so far in advance.