Blog #10 Final Blog

For me most of the texts were very helpful and full of new ideas, and topics that really opened me up to something new. I was never able to compare literacy to video games and teach history through baseball cards, but the three that stood out most for me were:

Bean was definitely one of the most important, as well as the one I got the most useful information out of. Bean's ideas were all about intergrading writing and active learning into the classroom, and that is something that I really think is a big part of being a teacher. He breaks down things like What does it mean to know Grammar, and What teachers across the curriculum need to know, and I think these things are really important because if you're going to enforce writing across the disciplines, it's first and foremost that the teacher knows what they are talking about first. He devotes his whole fourth chapter to being able to deal with grammatical mistakes, and to be able to teach and correct these errors you must be familiar with them yourself. I also like it because it's geared strictly for teachers and faculty of all subjects, it's an aid to all who have any interest in incorporating writing into their classroom, and is filled with information needed to get the writing in and to get it done right.

The next text I found really important and looked at as something I would use in my classroom is Young's Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum. Maybe because I had to present on this text for my Theorist Card I was able to take a closer look and really dive into the work, but I found some of his methods really helpful. The think I took most from this text was the way he breaks down writing to learn into sections: Discovery thinking, Invention, Audience, Personal Language in Social community, Teacher as Mentor, Personal Knowledge, Forms: Journals, Notes, Rough Drafts. And he breaks down Writing to communicate into: Critical thinking, Revision, Reader-based prose, Audience-distant, Formal Language of Discourse Community, Teacher as Evaluator, Contextual Knowledge, Forms: Essays, Reports, Business Letters. These are assignments I would definitely use in my classroom they are good for any discipline and a great way to break down writing to learn and writing to communicate in an effective way.

This next text I didn't think I would like as much as I did, nor did I think I would want to use this in my pedagogy, but as the semester progressed I thought it would be pretty cool to incorporate this into my own classroom someday. That is The Non-Designer's Design Book, and the reason is because I think it is a great idea to get not only your student , but yourself thinking about making website for courses. This book is a great tool for those who don't have any experience with this topic, and it really breaks down the basic CRAP principles in a not so difficult way.

Overall Reflection on using the texts in the classroom:

Bean is the easiest transition into the classroom because it's a teacher's guide to bring writing across the curriculum into your own classroom, so you chose what you want to put in and you incorporate it. I would most likely be teaching in a writing environment so getting it in there will be simple, the hard part is getting it in there in a fun, helpful, and effective way. One thing I think I will definitely be bring into my classroom will be students keeping a personal blog.

Young had great ideas from bringing writing into every discipline, but what I will take from Young is using the two separate ways to write in a different way. I will take the writing to learn assignments and use them as some low stakes writing, such as the journals and drafts. These won't be graded and can gives students the opportunity to improve. I will use the writing to communicate assignments as high stakes writing, such as essays and critical thinking, and these will be graded, and will be the improvements of the low stakes writing.

Williams will be a little tricky to use, but I definitely want to get it into my classroom, even is we do small assignments like designing campus event flyers and business cards for their future endeavours. I just want to put this in my syllabus because I think it is so important for students to know this kind of technology in a world where it is so significant.

Blog #9 Discussion Board Reflection

Reflection:

I think this method of discussion boards is really great. I would most definitely bring this into my classroom, and the reason being is it's not just the teacher telling you what's wrong, and answering your questions. You can have conversations and ask questions to your peers, which I think is a really great way to see what page everyone else is on and what they are thinking about the reading and about the subject matter at hand.It also help to see if you've missed anything and sometimes reintroduces what you've already read, and makes you go back to look at it and maybe understand it a little better the second or third time around. I'm all for classroom discussion boards!

Blog #6 Letter to Falyn with Reflection

Fayln,

Here's what I think about the readings for this week--McCarthy says that "as a student goes from one classroom to another they play a wide range of games" (pg. 126). Then he proceed to explain that David thinks that every classroom has a different set of rules to make the grade. I'm thinking shouldn't any classroom have the same credentials for writing? I know that writing for science and writing for literature is a totally different topic, but shouldn't the writing style at least be consistent as far as structure and grammar? After all a research paper is the same all across the disciplines, only the subject matter would be different. As she says writing in college is something you have to adapt to, I don't think I agree with that. It is something new from high school writing as far as the language and level of intellect, you should be able to tell the difference between college students paper and a high school students paper, do you agree? I think McCarthy had an accurate method of establishing David's writing process across the curriculum, the observing and interview, as well as analyzing the text (pgs. 128-132). I think the Table on page 131 was really great for his evidence as well. Is there anything you think McCarthy should have done that he didn't?

As far as Berlin, I had a hard time following his whole writer, reality, audience, and language idea. Then he breaks thinks down more in to the four groups: Neo-Aristotelian or Classicists, the Positivists or Current-Traditionalists, the Neo-Platonists or Expressionists, and the New Rhetoricians. I do agree with his idea about the New Rhetoricians and how it is the best for the students, I think anything the teacher does in the classroom should be at the students best interest. The whole idea about the Reality Aristotelian scheme and Aristotle being communicated with with language serving as the unproblematic medium of discourse (pg 767), I'm not sure I fully agree with that. Is it because Aristotle's rationalistic idea of language that Berlin talks about on page 768? I'm a little confused about this article, do you have some insight? I didn't really like the philosophy twist in it.

To tie in Bean, who I think has really great points, he thinks that the amount of errors in college work should be eliminated, and that begins in grades 1-12. If a college student is making these mistakes, who should get the blame? The teacher, or the careless students? Maybe we should take the McCarthy approach and analyze a student to see where the errors are originating from, is it the grammar, is it the structure, or is it everything, in which case how did the student get this far? Bean says improvement of a students' grammatical competence in writing is a difficult task to achieve (pg 54). Why is it so difficult, and what can teachers, and future teachers take from that? What can they do to increase the chance of improvement? What grades do you think this should start?

Reflection:

I actually really like this assignment because not only can you ask questions and respond to the readings, but you can also get inside for your peer, to see where they are at with the readings, if they agree/disagree, or maybe they understand something that you don't. I would most definitely use this assignment in a classroom for the reasons I listed above, but the most significant reason would be to see a peer response of the reading before class discussion, it give you and idea where others students are with the readings and compare.

Blog #5 Response to Falyn

Falyn,

Also, like you, I agree with Young in saying that WAC is students using written language to develop and communicate knowledge in every discipline. I don't know if you need a separate program, like Young says, to coordinate amongst all teachers. I think if each teacher focused a little bit of writing into their lesson, the message would come across. I think it would make it harder for teachers if this separate WAC program was created. The whole point of WAC is to incorporate writing into your classroom, is it really the same in you make it a separate program? I think implicating WAC in their individual classroom would be more effective. WAC is writing across the curriculum, therefore, no curriculum would be almost canceling itself out. I believe a curriculum is necessary, but if a science teacher gives a research paper, and a student doesn't site references and has more than a few grammatical and spelling errors, the teacher should consider those mistakes and not grade entirely on the content of the paper. Then the next time around the student would be more cautious of their mistakes. Just that alone would bring WAC into the classroom.

When you ask what does "writing to learn privileges the learner's language and values, and writing to communicate privileges the reader's language and values?" I think Young is saying that when you are writing to learn something you gain knowledge of language and the value of writing, when he says writing to communicate privileges the same thing, either way you are gaining a better idea of language and values. Writing to learn or writing to communicate both together give you a higher learning.

As far a remedial students, I would definitely set up after school help, or maybe a little extra time on a topic in class that they would be having trouble with. I do think diagnosing a writing problem right away is crucial, if it goes unattended, like any problem, it's only going to get worse. Device drills, like Rose says, and maybe some handouts would be a great way to give the student more practice.

When Rose says that to be literate, you need to be acquainted with letters or writings (pg 352), I agree, but disagree. I agree with you when you say it's much more than just knowing letters and reading and writing on their level, but in a way you do need to be at least acquainted with letters to be considered literate. However, being literate is an extremely broad term.

Blog #4 Letter

Falyn,

After finishing this weeks reading, these are my thoughts and questions. I had a little bit of difficulty reading Britton physically and mentally. His theories about these poetic discourse and it being the language of literature(pg 154), I don't know if I really believe that the poetic function is dominant in everything . I would agree maybe that the form maybe found in all discourses, but as far as it being dominant, I'm not so sure. Also, I like the question he poses--What are the factors that shape the literary works as a whole? I was also very interested in the section called The London Writing Research Project. In the section he discusses the research him and some colleagues had done. Taking children's writing and analysing it into questions. And then he breaks that down to Transactional and Expressive types of writing( pg 158). This, to me, ties into what the editors of WAC for the New Millennium say in Chapter 1. They are introducing Writing Across the Curriculum as an educational reform movement(pg 1), but is that what it really is? Britton wants to separate the literacy and non literacy discourses (pg 151). WAC is meant to bring them together. Bean (pg 1-3) also talks about this WAC movement in the classrooms. If so many people are trying to bring writing into all the discourses why is Britton trying to separate them? What could be his reason for wanting to? Bean makes great arguments by saying teachers in other subjects don't know the English subject matter as well as there own, so how could they teach something they don't know fully about? Maybe Britton would agree with this. My debate against that would be if you're teaching any subject you should know at least the basics of every other. Wouldn't you want a well rounded teacher? Let me know what you think.

Joey Scarpa

Blog #3

Pratt: I use this term to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in context of highly asymmetrical of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today.

Scarpa: Here Pratt talks about this idea of contact zones, places where people, as well as cultures, interact and meet. She uses this term to remodel the idea of contact zones in your own home and in teaching as well. She used the example, which I think is amazing, of her son and his friend trading baseball cards, this could be their contact zone. Their meeting point to share and interact through this hobby. She explains how her son learned about racism and the great depression from behind home plate, his contact zone was able to put him in place where he could understand racism and the economical downfall through baseball. He was probably able to see Jackie Robinson's struggle into the Major Leagues and understand, maybe better than the underground railroad and Harriet Tubman.

Russell: The academic disciplines have taken little direct interest in writing, either by consciously investigating their own conventions of scholarly writing or by teaching their students those conventions in a deliberate systematic way.

Scarpa: Russell brings up a great point here, we even discussed it in class. Should writing only be taught in English class? I think that students handing in a lab report, history papers, and research papers should be held to the same standards as far as grammatical and spelling (to some extent). It's hard to have a different set of rules for each class as far as writing, because soon enough you're going to get used to not getting graded on the little things, and you let them slide in the papers where it matters the most such as a literature paper or an English assignment. These teachers from other subjects should equally enforce the English rules to keep the student constantly worrying about making sure they're not making these mistakes. Russell mentions this "literacy crisis," and by this I think he means exactly what this quote is saying, that other teachers, besides English, don't have any interest in teaching writing, they can't be bothered, and this is part of the cause. It's only getting worse, I know people studying to be teachers right now who don't know the difference between there, their, and they're- the roots go deeper. Do we really want these people teacher the children of the future?

Gee: So thinking and reasoning are inherently social. But they are also inherently distributed, and more and more so in our modern technological world.

Scarpa: Following this statement, Gee makes a really excellent point. He says that we use various tools and technology to do some of our thinking for us- Great! I love this, and was really hoping something like this would come up because I think it's so totally true. I do, but don't agree with Gee when he says we don't need to know everything in our field. While I agree it is difficult to know everything, but if you're only in one field lets say linguistics, I think you should know the most you could about linguistics. I don't like that he just settles, and says that if he doesn't know something about linguistics he'll ask another colleague, but what if every colleague though that way, then who would know the answers? This also bring us another topic regarding using tools and technology to think for you. Spell Check for example, I'm not totally against it, I'd be a hypocrite if I said I was, because I use it as well, but to an extent I like to challenge myself. I'm sure I could be a totally nerd for saying this, but I like to figure out the spelling myself first, just so I know, and my last resort is to use my spell check. I think it is a great tool, but very harmful as well, spell check isn't going to be on the SAT's or the English Regent, or on classroom exams, so what happens when I child looks for that crutch, and it's not there? Is the teacher going to grade them well for trying, even if the words are totally butchered? I think helpful tools are necessary, but when did people get to lazy to use a dictionary? I think one of the goals of teaching to make sure they can think for themselves without outside tools and technology for thinking- it's great to get ideas and brainstorm, but how far will technology go before it's actually doing the work for them?

Williams: Our eyes like to see order; it creates a calm, secure feeling.

Scarpa: I think this is a nice way to bring alignment to life "our eyes like to see order," it's simple, but true. If you were to look at a page and and things were all over the place, you know the title was in the middle and the sub-heading was to the left, and another link was more to the middle it would just be crazy too much going on, but when we see thing aligned and in some kind of organized order you feel better, and you know that the page is done right done professional.

Reflection

I think the style of these journals is really great, you get to see the authors thoughts, and then your interpretation of what you read, it's also a great way to highlight the things you did read, and the parts that stuck out for class discussions. I think its a good way to see what the students feels about the readings without having to have everyone explain it out in class. It's an effective assignment, I would definietly use in the future. I just think its really great for keeping track if you're reading more than one book, or article because it is hard to remember who said what, and where you read it; so, yeah, I think it's really great source to refer back to.

BLOG #2

Williams: physical closeness implies a relationship (pg 15)

Scarpa: I think this a great term not only in the context of design, but also in the classroom as well. I also like that she keeps saying that the above statement is also true in life. If you're learning something about world war II, your not going to say something about President Obama, the two ideally have nothing to do with each other, except they are both important things in history. And as far as real life is related to the quote, if the same people are always near or next to one another they are going to be classified as having some kind of relationship whether it be friendship or a couple. As Williams said about the flowers example, if they are grouped together we are going to assume they have something in common as opposed to the other list were certain flowers are separated to show that they are different than the others.

Gee: Past experiences serve as guides for how to proceed in new situations (pg 72).

Scarpa: I think Gee makes an amazing point with this statement. No matter what new experience you come across something will trigger and old one whether it be for comparison or some kind of learning from your mistakes situation. Everything in learning involves some kind of guide, chemistry has the periodic table, english has a dictionary or thesaurus, math has rulers, calculators, history has timelines- every subject has their own kind; so when something new is learned you can go back to the old guides as a reference.

Gee: The human mind is a powerful pattern recognizer (pg 88).

Scarpa: By pattern recognizer, I think, Gee means taking notice or new things and processes. This whole concept of "self teacher" meaning trial by error, you try and tear the cloth book, it doesn't tear, you try and tear the paper book it does tear. We store this information and store associations and patterns. Then with one association comes many more, soon the child realizes you can read this object as well, as Gee says on page 89. This is super important in developing learning skills, as a child you see something in a cartoon or in a book, and then you see it in real life and put 2 and 2 together, for example I used to babysit for a 2 year old boy and a four year old girl, I would read with them and watch T.V. I went on vacation to italy during the time I work there, so when I was telling them that my little sister was going to watch them for a few days because I was going to italy, the little girl said to me, "you're going to italy like toot and puddle," which is a popular Noggin television show were two pig travel the world and learn different cultures. I thought it was amazing that she put the two together. These shows are like a gateway for more learning and associating these objects and places for children.

Gee: Concepts are never set and finished. They are like a large tree that always seeks to rise higher but that must always send into ground deeper roots.

Scarpa: If you stop to think for a minute, "what is a concept," it's an abstract or general idea. Can you ever really finish a concept? No. They make concept cars, concept art- they are never really finished, the mind conceives an idea and leaves room for improvement or change.

Gee: Our experiences in the world build patterns in our mind, and then the mind shapes our experience of the world, which, in turn, reshapes our mind (pg 91)

Scarpa: I love that Gee says "reshapes our mind," because to me he means that experiences give the mind a whole new outlook, a whole new idea. Let's say you are so scared of heights, you're just scared of the whole idea of it, but you decide to over come that and go on a roller coaster or look out the window of a tall building, and you realize that it's something amazing, that you've been missing out the whole time. What did it take for you to realize it? Doing it, putting yourself out there and experiencing it, therefore reshaping the entire idea of what heights is all about- it's as simple as that, but such a great way of putting it into words.