Lesson 5 Journal Entry

Is anyone else having a problem with starting on a lesson? I know that I have been having a difficulty in comprehending what is required for writing either the essay or argument. I do not know if it is because I have not been in school for a while and I just have to get used to doing essays again, or that my brain has finally decided to quit on me....lol.
I have found the freewriting and idea mapping techniques very useful. I like the way I can just ramble on in the freewriting and I can come up with ideas that I would not have come up with doing any other technique. I also like the idea mapping because it helps me see graphically what I am thinking, and helps me structure my essay better. The journalist questions are also a technique that I have done that has helped me. When I think up a Who, What, When, Where, Why, or How question, it helps me to put it into a search engine and I can search sites that fall withing my subject line. However, I do not like to do the believing and doubting game. I find it hard to start my thinking process for this and end up getting lost in my own thoughts.

*What have you learned about the writing process and/or about yourself during this lesson?
I learned that I am getting better at prewriting. I am also learning and understanding more of all the steps that need to be done to finish a lesson. The thing that I have learned about myself is that I needed to concentrate more on my writing and focusing on my formatting. I still have some more learning to do.
*What have you learned about the textbooks we are using for this course?
I find that the Writers Reference is very helpful with all the different formats and citing that I need to learn. I also find that I have learned a lot about how to argue and the structuring of an argument that I never would have thought about from Writing Arguments.
*What have you learned about your instructor's expectations of you?
I learned that she expects me to learn from my mistakes and correct them. I have also learned that she expects me to make a mistake on something that we haven't gone over and that she explains in the grading what I did wrong so I can fix it in the next lesson.
*Comment on any problems you had with outlining.
The only problems I had was figuring out which outline to do with each thesis. I had to swap some  around to make sure the outline I was using worked with the information.