Blog #6 and Reflection

Dana,

I also enjoyed reading this week’s articles and chapters by different authors. They all were extremely enlightening and an easy read. Even though the McCarthy article was a bit lengthy and it hurt my eyes reading it from a computer screen I found that the most interesting. Mainly because it told a story instead of stating facts or giving us demands. The articles that most interested me were McCarthy’s A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing across the Curriculum, and Bean’s Engaging Ideas, chapter four.

McCarthy’s article was long, but like I said it as very interesting to read. McCarthy raised certain question that myself as a college student deals with on a daily basis. As you know McCarthy does a study case on a boy named David, and follows him through each of his college classes and observes David’s adapting style to each professor and what the professor’s requirements are. I really liked the quote you picked out when you added in your letter David said, “first you’ve got to figure out what your teachers want. And then you’ve got to give it to them if you’re gonna’ get the grade. And that’s not always so easy.” I like this statement because I go through the same experience as a student and learner myself. I completely agree with McCarthy when he ways “college writing is a process of assessing and adapting to requirements in unfamiliar academic settings”. Writing is definitely a process; it requires many steps to the actual final product. In that process you are assessed by your teacher and classmates

McCarthy says that you need to lean the languages of each class and each professor and he goes to show us how David is learning new languages in each new class, he must define and master the rules of use for written discourse from on classroom to another.

To answer your question Dana, I do believe that this a big task because you have to constantly separate each of your classes and think about them at separate times. You must use each of your professor’s rules and abide by them if you want the grade.

When speaking in terms of Bean, chapter four of Engaging Ideas gives us tips for teachers to follow to help make their classroom run much more smoothly. Kind of like a “how to.” He first mentions active learning, then gives us tips to keep teachers’ workloads manageable, and then how to grade your students. Bean believes ways teachers can save time marking and grading students is by creating scoring guides (rubric). I found these tips to be very helpful. I definitely agree with you by saying by giving your students grading criteria it will limit your work as a teacher but also let the students know exactly what you are looking for to receive the grade they want.

When discussing Bean’s techniques for grading students' work, I enjoyed reading this.. I especially like the tips when he says to be legible when commenting because I have had professor’s handwriting all over my paper in which I could not read it! I also agree with the over commenting because this could lower your students self esteem and also overwhelm them.

Over all, I agree with most of your statements Dana, and I definitely enjoyed this weeks readings. I think McCarthy and Bean both helped me as a teacher and also a learner. They both have quotes that will stick in my head.

Reflection on the “Letter Blog”

I completely enjoyed this Blog. I prefer to have written this Blog over the 2x journal any day! I think that by reading what my writing partner thought about the articles and readings really helped me understand more of what I read. It made me look at things in a different way and I liked how I was able to comment back and had the freedom to agree and disagree.

I think for sure that this letter writing could work effectively as a writing material or assignment in a classroom. It gives the assignment a more personal feel, which is not so overwhelming for the student. It has more leeway and is not an assignment they would be stressed to do. Also, I feel when you are writing a letter it gives the person a chance to add their feelings, and as a teacher I know this could be interesting to read. I will definitely add the Letter assignment into my future classroom.

Writing as a Tool..Blog #5

Dana,

I need to start off by apologizing for the delay on my blog! I had a tough weekend to get through with family, my job, and well, you know the rest. I was also working on our Theorist Card which is completed! And I know you were working on our Power Point Presentation to go along with the Theorist Card.

I want to comment on both Bean and Rose when they discussed “writing as a tool”. I certainly agree with this comment. When I think of tool I think of it as an instrument that helps you fix or do something. To me writing can help you do many things and can fix many of your academic problems. Would you agree with me on that? To me Bean was arguing that that writing is more than what is on paper. It is more then a grade, or more then spelling and grammar. It helps you in different ways.

When it came to reading Rose's article I found it both enlightening and also confusing. He explains that writing courses are "viewed with a curious eye" because they are seem "remedial" (342).I disagree completely! If it as not for writing courses then where would the structure of writing be taught? If a writing course has a “remedial” tone to it, it is only because the students in that class need extra help. I feel that removing writing courses from the curriculum gives students a huge disadvantage. What are your thoughts upon my opinions?

Sincerely,
Rosemarie Civitano

The Letter...Blog #4

Dana,

I found your letter to be extremely insightful and it helped me out in understanding our readings on a different and deeper level. I want to start off by saying that I agree, the readings this week were overwhelming for me. There was a lot of information I learned, a lot I found insightful, and some information I already knew, and some I just did not understand.

I found your comments about the Fulwiler article intriguing because the issue of students writing as they speak is something that is an issue within class rooms of all ages, and grades. The quote that you pointed out to me that Fulwiler said was “Most people write letters in their natural voices: first person pronouns, contradictions, personal asides, digressions, humor, slang, expletives…I prefer dashes to semicolons, ellipses to transitions, sometimes sentence fragments, other times endless sentences” I also happen to agree and disagree. I have always been a huge fan of the “letter”. I was one to never show my feelings but tell them, and I would always write letters to express how I was feeling. There were some letters that I have written informally that took upon a language of a natural voice. But then there were letters I wrote that needed to be formal.

As a teacher I would encourage students to write letters and I would have them write both formal and informal letters. I would assign assignments that deals with having them write a letter to their friend or someone they want to tell something to (in an informal language). On the contrary I would assign something that they need to write a formal letter to someone important, or a company. It is very important to learn how to write a letter that is written in grammar that is acceptable.

Within the reading by Emig he says that "talk leans on the environment" which I believe is true. If we go by the statement in which Fulwiler said that we can say that some of the letters that children write will not be acceptable English. Some children grow up in an environment that they are faced with people using improper grammar everyday. There fore they will speak the same, and write a letter the same way.

When Bean said “Good writing, I like to tell my students, grows out of good talking-either talking with classmates or talking dialogically with oneself through exploratory writing (7)” I believe that this is true. I have to agree with Bean by saying what I believe in “practice makes perfect.” By practicing good speech and getting used to proper English you are basically forced to write that way because you do not know any other way to speak.

I have to say that I found your letter to be written formally but still have the tone of informal speaking. So you can mix the two! I enjoyed reading your letter and definitely liked reading your thoughts and opinions on quotes you pointed out. I look forward to taking our discussion further.


Sincerely,
Rosemarie Civitano