Final Learning Blog

Throughout this semester in English 101 I have had many takeaways that I am sure will help me in my many years to come. Some of the takeaways that I will be highlighting are Peer Review/Feedback, Learning blogs, Group projects, Research designs/proposals, and genre constraints. All of these in some way helped me to better myself as well as be more open-minded, especially when it comes to writing papers.

Feedback is something that I don’t like getting all the time and something that I am reluctant about giving to others. Feedback is important because you might not see anything wrong with your work simply because you wrote it. This is where I learned how not to be skeptical to change. In this case change can bring about a better grade.

Peer review is something I really had to get used to. The first time around I wrote one word comments that weren’t very helpful. After I realized how important peer review can actually be I started to read my classmates work and give detailed comments to help them out. This was the outcome of reading an article about peer review in the Grassroots Writing Journal.

Example: I would put comments such as good, nice job, or I would just write I didn’t see anything that needed changing. After seeing the importance of peer review I made comments on things that I thought wasn’t clear and what things could be expanded on.

Reflecting on me was something I had trouble with during the beginning of this semester. I always found myself talking about how the class was structured instead of what problems I had and how I could fix them. By the end of the semester I was able to identify with what I was struggling with and better track what I have learned. I did this by taking more time on my learning blogs to actually track and explain my progress with concrete examples.

Group projects are my least favorite thing to do because I have had bad experiences with this. During Unit 2 I had a chance to enhance my communication skills. By communication skills I mean expressing my ideas clearly and being open to others’ ideas. This made the group project successful. So now I will have a strategy when I have to do other group projects.

Example: When our first group assignment was due we had to rush and finish it in class because no one in the group had talked to each other and no one did the assignment. After that mishap I started to open up and communicate so that we could divide the work and everything was clear.

 One of my biggest obstacles that I overcame would have to be completing the research designs and proposals for my project. This was a challenge to me because I had never done this before I usually just do the project; I don’t normally have to ask for permission on a topic and go into details as to why I chose what I did. From doing these research designs and proposals I learned how to be specific in explaining myself and also just what a research design and proposal entails.

Example: On the rough drafts of my research designs and proposals I had many comments saying that I wasn’t being specific enough. Reason being is that my instructor already knew what I was doing so I didn’t feel the need to go into great detail. During the revision stage I made sure that I went into enough detail so if anyone else besides my instructor was to read my paper they would understand it.

In conclusion, I have learned a great deal as stated in the paragraphs above. The most memorable concept that I have learned in this class would have to be the constraints that are put on certain genres. This was memorable to me because it gave me a chance to work with different genres and also break the rules of those genres. Working with different genres such as post-it notes, sidewalk chalk, and to-do list helped me learn that because something is said to have to be a certain way, doesn’t mean that you can’t put your own style to it. Also I learned that everything is not written the same each genre has its own rules.

Example: For the group project we changed the inside of a children’s book to have the content of a news article. When we showed the book to people they immediately acted as if we had done something wrong. They repeatedly said that it wasn’t supposed to be like that because no one had ever written them like that.

Proposal for GWRJ Article

. A general topic description

·         I am interested in writing on the genre of memos. From my understanding different memos can be written in different ways depending on the content being delivered. I have experienced writing a memo in my Accounting class senior year.

2. Describe the specific genre(s) that your article will explore (if any)

·         My article will explore business memos; talking about the jargon and the form of how the memo is to be written.

3. An explanation of the author's perspective (i.e. are you planning to create a personal narrative of your own experience, or to research how other people writer, or what?)

·         I am planning on writing about my personal experience of writing a business memo and also research how others say a business memo should be written.

4. Potential use of visual elements

·         Potential visual elements would be an actual business memo and also maybe another type of memo to compare and contrast the two.

5. Discuss your plans for citing research in your articles

·         I will probably cite my research by putting the actual URL and title of where my information is from.

10 Characteristics of GWRJ

1.      Introduction of what you are about to read.

2.      Short Biography of the author at the end.

3.      Includes pictures that help demonstrate the story.

4.      Talk about struggles that have been overcome (emotions).

5.      Easy to read.

6.      Detailed.

7.      Cited sources when needed.

8.      Catchy Titles.

9.      McDuffie broke hers up by using different titles when switching subjects while Shapiro wrote one long journal.

10.  Talked about things and people that influenced them.

Unit 2 Final Learning Blog

As Unit 2 has come to an end I am proud to say that I learned a lot and got a chance to do things that I haven’t did before. Coming into unit 2 I was skeptical about working in a group but once I was comfortable it wasn’t so bad and I actually enjoyed the experience. I enjoyed being able to bounce my ideas off my group members and getting their opinion. I also enjoyed not having to do everything on my own. Communication was a vital role in this unit. During the beginning of this unit there was little or no communication in our group so no one member knew what the other members were doing. This was a huge problem because when the first part of our assignment was due no one had done it and we had to put something together so that we can get credit. After this incident I worked on being more open and outgoing. My instructor played a key role in this transformation as well. The more questions the group had for her the more she made us talk amongst each other and come to an agreement. Once all of our kinks were out we then openly communicated with each other and stated which parts of the project we will feel comfortable doing. One of my major accomplishments of this unit would be writing a research proposal and research design. I had never done this before not even in my prior science courses. It was a bit of a challenge because I didn’t clearly know what was asked of me and after I completed it I still wasn’t sure that it was right. When we reached the research design portion I had to do research on my own of what a research design was because I had no idea where to begin. After going thru many different research designs I came up with my own. After a few revisions I finally grasped the concept of what exactly my instructor wanted. Things that I have never done before until unit 2 is actually conduct research in a form that was not your usual academic research paper. After conducting the research I learned how to track my results in something called the research findings. Overall the point of unit 2 was to see how society puts certain rules on genres and how they would react when you change those rules. I think it was very effective for us to see this by actually doing our own research on the genre of our choice. I chose to change the content of a children’s book to that of a news article. From my research I now know that if you change a genre to something out of the norm people will automatically think it is wrong. Just by changing the content in the book to long sentences with big words people thought that the book shouldn’t be given to children. Immediately after reading the book people was able to point out what was “wrong” with it. Although they could say what was wrong about it they could not necessarily tell me why those things were wrong. One individual actually said it’s wrong because no other children’s books are made like that. What I got from my results is that people are afraid to put society’s constraints aside because they feel like its only one right way to do certain things.

Unit 2 Half-Way Blog

Coming into Unit 2 we were informed that we will be completing a project on genre juxtaposition and how it affects certain genres. I had no idea what genre juxtaposition was.  After my instructor introduced exactly what it was and gave us examples I thought how interesting this unit will be. For example post-it notes. When you think of post-it notes you think of short statements, incomplete sentences, personal, and somewhere private you will look. In terms of genre juxtaposition if we changed one of these standards such as posting these post-it notes in public places or writing an essay on them how would people react? This also ties into when we talked about “correct” or Standard English. Standard English is a set of rules that are passed down year after year that alters the way we view writing. After reading an article by Autumn Jackson I learned that just because many people follow certain rules when it comes to writing doesn’t mean that it is necessarily correct. I also learned that sometimes it’s best to stick to what society has named Standard English, but there are certain genres where it’s alright to put your own style and personality in your writing. For this unit we will be working in groups I wasn’t thrilled about this at first. After meeting with my group and brainstorming ideas I felt more open to the idea. I realized that I have to be open-minded because they will rely on me as well as me rely on them to complete the task at hand. The first day we started working in our groups I referred to everything as my work instead of our work. As my instructor helped me realize this I quickly made sure that I include my group members when speaking. Last but not least, the purpose of this unit is to see how people react to things they wouldn’t normally see and I am excited to come up with a specific genre and start conducted research and see if my prediction of the outcome will be the same as the actual outcome.

genre juxtaposition ideas

Jordan, Renae, and Andrew

We are stuck between the genre of apologies and a to do list

• Apologies- Tone and location is what we will change. Usually they are sympathetic and private so we were thinking to put them in a public place and making it not as nice as they would normally be.
• To Do List- We were thinking about putting our own personal to do list on notecards and posting them all over campus.

Evaluating the Standard

Evaluating the Standard

1.     When a person speaks or writes in Standard English, what exactly does that mean?

·         When a person writes in Standard English they are simply following the rules and guidelines to writing. They are making sure that everything they have written is grammatically correct. When a person speaks in Standard English they are speaking in a way that they think is that right way to speak. They are using certain terminology that they feel is correct even though language change throughout different genres.

2.    How do you think this particular variety of English became the standard?

·         I think this particular variety of English became the standard because it was most frequently written and spoken so everyone just assumed that it was the right way to do things so they set these “rules” in place.

3.    Should a student use a dialect other than Standard English (or even a different language other than English altogether) in the classroom? If so, in what particular situations (speaking, writing, reading, use of technology, etc.) are non-formal English appropriate?

·         Depending on the class should a student use other dialect other than Standard English. Most teachers prefer that students use the Standard English dialect because it is easier to grade them this way because there are several books on how a paper should be written. If you have an open-minded teacher I think students should use different dialects to show their flexibility and you might be able to relate to others in this way of learning. This could be in terms of speaking, writing, reading, and sometimes technology. Non-formal English is appropriate depending on who you are interacting with and if they are open to the diversity of language.

4.    What makes someone a good writer? What kind of things do they do when they write? (This can be things like how they organize a paper, what words they use, etc.) List a few.

·         A good writer organizes their paper, are very strategic when it comes to stating their main points, transitions well (the paper flows), and makes the reader see exactly what they are talking about. When a good writer writes they follow the traditional writing guidelines as well as put their own style in the writing, consider the audience who will read the paper, and do not lose themselves in the paper (writing what they think they should write instead of what needs to be written).

5.    You think that someone is a bad writer. What are some things that this person does that make them a “bad” writer in your eyes? List a few.

·         A bad writer does not take the time to spellcheck their work, writes their paper at the last minute, scrambled ideas, unorganized, and does not write a draft first before starting on the paper.

6.    Are there times when a person you meet doesn’t speak “correct” English? What does that person do that is “incorrect”? List a few things

·         Honestly I do not pay attention to if people are speaking correct English when they are talking to me. Long as I can clearly understand what they are saying and the point they are trying to get across, correct English is the furthest thing in my mind.  This is partly because I myself talk different when I talk to certain people, my English change automatically based on the person, event, and situation at hand.

7.    What particular types (or genres) of writing should students be doing in elementary and secondary school to prepare them for college and the work force?

·         I think that students in elementary and secondary schools should be learning how to write particular genres such as business memos, articles, and memoirs to prepare them for college and the work force.

8.    Does Standard English=correct English?

·         No Standard English does equal correct English because you can write something in a different way and it still will mean the same thing.