Project Three: Reflections on the Semester

Intro

While my time in this class was short and brief, so short in fact I still can’t remember its proper name, I learned and reinforced some valuable skills that will aid and guide me through the rest of my writing career.
Personal growth

In the time I had in this class has lead me to develop personal habits that allow me to complete my objectives, such as chunking a massive writing project or research project into manageable chunks to complete in time. Before having this class, I would leave the work pile up for the last two days to cram in to work. Now I have learned how to time manage.
I have also learned to keep said deadlines. Falling behind one can easily escalate to loosing time and losing more deadlines, which is a vicious cycle.

Research methods

I learned few new methods in this class, but I did reinforce several I already knew. I learned some new resource catalogs, and that Wikipedia is not a legitimate source. I also learned how to properly give credit through source citation MLA style.
Writing process
My writing process hasn’t changed since high school, but I have reinforced it, and polished it. My high school English teacher was a brilliant man, and his system has pulled me through.

Writing and reading as a discipline

I never really saw this as a discipline, but when I think about it, it takes discipline to produce good writing and to be able to read beyond the obvious message of an article. One must follow guidelines, which I reinforced in this class.
Course information/involvement
The information I received in this course was not much new, but reinforcement of what I already knew. The few new things I did learn were through research on my own time for the course, which is where I got my involvement in.

Overall summery

In conclusion, this class helped reinforce several things I already knew, and as such will be using these techniques in future writings. This class helped me strength my research skills, along with my time management skills. It also helped me properly annotate, and dig for information.

Why Are Students Not participating in Class

Student’s do not participate in class

In today’s classroom it is evident to both students and teachers that students falter at participating in class, if they do at all. This can be catastrophic for learning in most cases because the student could not be paying attention and passing it off. This needs to be looked into and studied. Finding the source of the barrier to participation is crucial if we want to help students succeed. The research that lies here is pertinent to said subject for it delves into this question in hopes of helping a larger research. What drove me to find an answer was what I experience in my classes. Many times a teacher would ask for a class opinion, and after a minuet of waiting for someone to answer the teacher would give up and continue. This happened over and over, and I could not find an explanation.

Previous Findings

Reasons for lack of participation
I am not the first to delve into this subject. Previous researchers have found some reasons of why this could happen. Some researchers conclude that student’s believe they’re not expected to participate in class. Other research has also concluded that students don’t feel they have to participate in the conversation because they aren’t involved in the conversation. Some students are just shy and this affects their participation. Other students are just plain scared of being wrong. So what can we do about this?

What Has Been Tried

The teaching center in Washington university says that “On the first day of class, explain what you see as valuable about class participation”. This would dispel the student’s believe they’re not expected to participate, and establish early on a sense of need to participate. They also say that “Students will be more engaged if they believe that you perceive them as individuals, rather than as anonymous members of a group. Encourage students to learn one another’s names, as well; this strategy will increase the possibility that they will address one another by name and direct their comments to one another, not just you.” Finally, Successfully engaging a student to participate help them flow into the conversation, and helps ease those shy students in too. Margie from Bright Hub suggests to always find something right with a student’s answer, but this does not mean you should accept an incorrect answer, just rephrase it so the student doesn’t feel bad and continues to participate. Amanda McAndrew also comments that “may find that student responses are more thoughtful when they have been given more time to process information and form clear ideas” These are good strategies, but how are the students themselves acting in class from their perspective? These all work from the teachers point of view, not the students.

Survey

I decided to use a survey for this investigation because the sheer number of student data needed would have rendered interviews too long and tedious, causing my given time frame to not be enough. The content of my survey was to establish to who it was directed to, get a glimpse into their mindset, and single out their own reason of why they didn’t participate or pay attention in class.

An error I committed in my survey was not allowing more room for self-expression. I had some open ended questions, but most of them were limited to simple answers, and did not get elaborate answers which I hoped for. Perhaps I should have rephrased several of my multiple selection answers as well, as I tried to create a comical atmosphere to lull the student into a sense of comradeness in hopes of true answers, I got the opposite. I saw evidence of erased answers just to choose the comical one, even when the two answers were polar opposites. Unfortunately, I was not able to achieve completely true answers, since the tested were influencing their answers to what they thought were the right answers, and not what they actually did. A few questions to throw them off their tracks would have helped.

The survey

After having handed out 50 surveys, I received 45 in return. This is sufficient to catch a glimpse and support most of my findings. This survey was constructed in 3 sections, knowing the target, level of participation, and finding the cause of distractions. There were filler questions to set the subject in the mood of responsiveness.
Knowing the Target

There were 5 questions in this section; age, gender, class, and credit hours +class time. My data shows that the majority of my subjects were between 18 and 19, with a 2 younger and 2 in the 30’s. There were 28 males and 17 females. Only 5 were sophomores, while everyone else was a freshman as expected in an introductory course. Also as expected, most students had 12 credit hours, very few had more.

This helps establish the subjects I am testing, these are introductory college students who are just starting college and are new to the system, with very few older subjects. This concords perfectly with what I assumed.
Level of participation

I used this to establish the student’s mindset into how they study. I asked how they would rate themselves in participation and attention in class. Only 3 gave themselves bad scores, while the rest at least paid attention.

This doesn’t go well with my research, because the opposite is usually true, where only few students participate while the rest lollygag. I expected such though, because people will raise themselves for moral boosters.
Cause of distractions.

I left this are open ended to I could get specific responses to my objective. Responses ranged texting, boredom, daydreaming, and electronic devices like laptops. When asked what would help captivate their attention, among the serious answers people responded such things as music, multimedia presentations, and hands on material. Among more unserious answers, from what I consider to be because they were distracted, unraveling their previous answers, where things such as “huh”, “a chicken running around” and variants.
This concord with some of my findings, things that would captivate their attention is need. I expected more personally from open ended questions; unfortunately some students did not take the survey seriously.

Graph

These are the raw numbers from my survey, questions that were open ended are not shown here.

Age	16	17	18	19	20	27	38
#	2	1	26	15	1	1	1

Gender	male	female
#	23	24

grade LVL	Freshman	Sophmore
#	42	5

# of credit hours	male	female
#	23	24

Attention span	a	b	c	d
#	21	24	1	1

Attention span	a	b	c
#	1	42	4

In conclusion

Based on the findings of my research, I have concluded that research so far has been on the nose and assertive of what is going on in the minds of the students. Newer college students are easily distracted, and have to be motivated to participate, and stripped of distractions.
These results help fortify what is already there, and delve deeper into the mindset of the student to see what causes these distractions. The student has to be challenged into continue in the course, they feel as if it’s too easy, slack of, and fall behind. This information can be used to further the study of how to captivate students and help them participate in class.


Margie. "Improve Class Discussions." Bright Hub. N.p., 15 Sept. 2009. Web. 27
Nov. 2009. 49007.aspx>.

McAndrew, Amanda. "Students not participating in class? Try discussions in
CULearn." ASSETT. N.p., 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 27 Nov. 2009.
.

The Teaching Center. "Increasing Student Participation." The Teaching Center.
N.p., 2099. Web. 28 Nov. 2009. increasing-student-participation>.

Today's learning environment is worse even if better equipped.
The present state of the learning environment is certainly improving from where it has been. We have gone to where teachers educated a room with children of all ages to several specialized teachers for each subject for every age group. Yet, even with these advances, students seem to be learning less than ever before. Dropout rates are higher, those who do make it through high school may not even go to college, and those who do make it may have troubles getting through. So why is it that even with the advances in available resources is it that students still fail at advance in their academic career? My thesis would be the environment the students grow up in has more to do with how they’re taught. A child with an environment promoting education has more of a chance of succeeding in said career than a child who grows up in an environment hostile to education. I know from experience that if I had grown up in a household that wasn’t as vigilant and more lax in the situation of education, I wouldn’t be in my current location, and in a less advantaged position. I have my parents to thank for this, their firm hand to keep me on course and stern voice to help me along the way. In fact, just like Haas and Flower demonstrate, they have become the voice I hear when I’m reading, I use them to guide me in rhetorical situations.

In today’s society, there are plenty of opportunities for the child to succeed. With the “no child left behind act”, every child has to have a chance to succeed, money is put into schools for new equipment, teachers are available to students after class hours, new technology is developed, yet the students don’t take advantage of this. Scholarships are given for hard work and perseverance in academic related activities, yet, only a select few take advantage of these. Why do only a select few take advantage of them, while the rest don’t? Again, the nature of their upbringing has a big role to play. I have seen who use the equipment not for their academic use, but for recreation. They use the money spent for education for their entertainment, because at home that’s what they can get away with.


Environmental Influences on Learning Environment
Many things surrounding a student affect the student’s psychic and tendency to learn. The first to come to mind when considering this aspect would the person’s upbringing, mainly supplied by their family. The family’s moralities have a big impact on this. A family who is dedicated to education will more likely raise a child that excels in his academic career. A big aspect that also affects this is the culture said family lives in. For example, in most Asiatic countries society focuses on the individual helping the community, not like the vice versus seen here in the western world. The individual is expected to excel in order to provide for society, and pressure is upon them to achieve this. Finally, the individual’s social status unfortunately can affect their education. While it has been striven to make an education available to every child, some can’t take advantage of these. An immigrant child will sometimes not go to school simply because he’s not in an area long enough for him or her to attend. Moll and Gonzales states that “ much of the household’s knowledge is related to its origins and, of course, to family members’ employment, occupations, work, including labor specific to household activities.”

The person’s background or history can influence their learning abilities. A child whose has a background of scholarly ancestors could be more strived to maintain the name they were given at birth. Then again, a child who lives in a poor environment may be incited to escape their past and make a name for themselves.
Lastly, their learning environment also influences how they learn. It may not be as easily observable things like the teacher methods, but the environment itself. If a student is in a lethargic environment, he will feel as such, and no matter how easily available information is present, he will soak it up at said pace. On the other hand, if a student is in a setting readily at attention to learning, then it lends itself to the psychic of the child to be ready to soak up the information.


Learning Begins at Home
My theory is that student’s learning capabilities are not only dependent on their learning environment, but in their living environment as well. A child who grows up in an environment that promotes learning is more responsive to learning. For examples, Asiatic cultures such as japan and china place emphasis on exhorting of learning of knowledge and personal self-improvement. The minimum is not their goal, above and beyond is their minimum. This is why with such dedicated households, the Asian population is said and seen to be on top of their academic progress. The American families, on the other hand, emphasize on how the individual child is special and not their end result. From that stems the mentality of a child that doesn’t exhort himself because he’s “special” just like everyone else. With that mentality, dropout rates are high, the number of student’s in college are low, and people really don’t seem to mind, because they’re still special. They don’t question the learning environment or the information they receive, they simply don’t inquire to learn. Brown suggests the opposite of this to be benefactor, inquiry based learning is not only enhancing to the learning process, it changes and builds character. Gillam also pitches in with this, stating that a copmplacentness does not benefit a student, rather that he should join in with class participation and strive for greater things than “just his best” when Gillam states “peer readers (or listeners) must draw inferences, make predictions, and construct meaning in a text rather than "receive meaning from it." But this won’t do because the child is complacent with what is at hand thanks to the psychology taught to him from birth. My proposition is to shift focus from improving schools to improving families, because even thought that is till important, education should start at home.


It Would Work, if We Co-Operated
This plan in practice will work no questions about it. Where it’s already implemented, children are succeeding, advancing head on over those who don’t have this mentality. The impact it has on the learning environment would e enormous, schools will no longer have to put as much focus on keeping children in schools, but put focus on providing materials to students. They will be willing and at attention to learning, and want information, not wanting out. The only thing holding this back from happening is conformity and lethargy of the American public and their resistance to change.


Diagram



Works Cited
Brown, Heather. "Walking into the Unknown: Inquiry-Based Learning Transforms the
English Classroom." English Journal 94.2 (2004): 43-48. Pdf file.

Downs, Douglas, and Elizabeth Wardle. "Teaching about Writing, Righting
Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning “First-Year Composition” as “Introduction
to Writing Studies”." CCC 58:4 (June 2007): 552-584. Pdf file.

Gillam, Alice M. "Research in the Classroom: Learning through Response." The
English Journal 79.1: 98-99. JSTOR. Web. 15 Sept. 2009.

Moll, Luis C., and Norma Gonzalez. "Lessons From Research With Language-Minority
Children." Journal of Reading Behaviors 26.4 (1994): 449-455. Print.

Hass, Christina, and Linda Flower. "Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the
Construction of meaning." College Composition and Communications 39.2
(1988): 167-183. STOR. Web. 23 Sept. 2009.

Brief Introduction:

This writing Gillam has done, unlike previous articulate articles, drives the point home in a short and concise manner. It has the usual case studies, examples of remedies, and enough information to support their claim.

Article Critique:

I entirely agree with this article because anything you do in writing is going to help you in your own skills. This reminds me of something that, while not pertinent to English, is almost exactly like this. In high school, my friends and I would play video games competitively, and I mean really competitively. I would record our matches on a VHS, and I would study players and review their plays, see where they were making flaws and mistakes, and report back to them on how to improve their game strategies. They would, in turn, do the same for me. Eventually we started attending tournaments, and needless to say, we were placing pretty high.

Just like this, reading and reviewing your peers writing will help you master the art yourself. You see where the mistakes are, you know what to avoid, and you know what you can indo to spice things up. What I found most interesting though was how a student at firsts stutters when reviewing, and then has to return to add or confirm his previous review. I now know it was to be expected, since as reviewing goes along, additional knowledge is gained which can make put the writing in a new light. I know I’ve done it myself as I’ve read the articles assigned.

My source has more than its eloquently concise pattern in common with the article by Gillam. It presents the same thesis, and gives even more data to further prove the point that Gillam is trying to get across to its viewer.

Brief Conclusion

These articles couldn’t be any closer to the truth, a universal truth. As the cliché goes, practice makes perfect, and since reviewing and revising is like practice, doing so can make anyone better. Whether it’s reviewing a paper or running combo drills with friends, revising and reviewing kicks in critical skills pertinent to the field and reinforces them.


International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. July 2009. Center for Excellence in Teaching at Georgia Southern University 9/17/2009 http://academics.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/v3n2/articles/PDFs/Article_GunerselSimpson.pdf

Rhetorical Reading Strategies and Information nodes and association

Haas & flower’s article on rhetorical reading gives some enlightening information that although obvious, showcases an aspect in reading and writing in a scholarly form. this information is almost ingrained into normal reading styles, but takes studying in order to master.

I found myself being constantly upraised as I read into this article, because most of the techniques described were rules I learned or picked up in school. I remember building correlations of the content in my head of personal experiences to the current selection I was reading, and I still do. I even built an imaginary character talking to me as I read this, as if I had a person talking to me 1 on 1. I am surprised that this is supposedly the higher form of reading, since I have always tried to truncate such thoughts because I believed my mind was wandering. Not only this, but the section of nodes of information got to me. I could especially relate to this because I learned of it in psychology, where the human brains makes nodes for information to remember later, and this fit so perfectly into what the article was talking about. I still remember some information from early childhood because of these nodes, although most of it is just Dr. Seuss.

My outside source was chosen on the basis that it packed all the information I needed into a concise and readily understandable way. It agreed on most points stated in the article, creating associations, finding more than one meaning, on finding purposes, it was basically the article, but the dummy version. I strongly agree with both sources, using rhetorical strategies will make critical writing a synch for anyone, I know from personal experience that it has for me.

I believe this article has only affirmed what I have already been doing for my school English carrier. I can’t help but remembering my high school English teachers as I read this, it brings back everything they have taught me.

UBC Writers’ Workshop 07-May-2007 The University of British Columbia 9/12/09 http://www.writingcentre.ubc.ca/workshop/tools/rhet1.htm

Theory of writing and where it should be taught

Brief Introduction


Douglas Downs and Elizabeth Wardle’s “Teaching about writing, righting misconceptions” brings a valid and interesting point into the light of education in a bombarding yet thorough manner, if maybe in an intricate dictation that proved difficult for the majority of the intended audience. Their research is solid, and advocates several remedies to the transgressions made to the stereotype of the First year composition course.


Article Critique:


This articles main point was an eye opener for me. It demonstrated something to me that I had seen but never actually put thought to. In my previous English courses, all I was taught were syntaxes and proper methods of writing an essay, and only recently was I taught how to inject meaning into my words. This article proposes theory of writing, which I hadn’t fathomed until I trudged through its cryptic lines, which were worth doing so because I now know the dangers of using a single form of writing for all academic areas.

One thing I find myself questioning on this article is their claim that the form of syntax shouldn’t be taught in First year Composition. If it isn’t taught there, where would it be taught? My logical answer would be to take a day from the target course and teach it there, but would a biology teacher, or a psychology teacher, teach English? My English teacher taught me how to criticize a poem, but he didn’t prepare me how to write a lab report.


Brief Conclusion


This article has opened my eyes to a new view which would have bypassed me without a thought. On forward from today I shall think to myself as I write,” am I saying anything in this text, or am I just writing to fill the page?” I wont be shy about it, I’ll exhert myself to fill the pages with content, not syntax. Not only this, but i will do my part in dispelling the myth of FYC being a course to teach structure and not theory of writing.