Week 3

In his article What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One –and How Can We Get Students To Join Us?, Michael Kleine attempts to explain to English teachers how to teach their students to do research and write on their own rather than just copying information out of a book. He argues that students are not doing enough research before they begin to write research papers. They are just looking in books and in articles to copy sentences to get the paper done. She wants students to learn to write papers themselves and to write at a higher level, as well as enjoying what they are doing.

 

I think I could connect this article with Rosenberg’s article because I think the research process could be a difficult thing to tackle and her strategies might come in handy when trying to complete research for an assignment. Kleine and Rosenberg might agree on the fact that it can be difficult to interpret different articles and thoroughly understand them. Kleine could then put into his article to teachers that maybe the teachers should explain this technique to their students. It could make the research portion of research papers an easier task to complete and then maybe students would be more inclined to do thorough research themselves, instead of just copying it.

 

I think the research plays a significant role in the interviews because as Kleine found out, many of his colleagues reported doing research before they wrote. In my understanding, research was one of the most important parts of the research writing process. I can agree for myself that much of my research was done just so I could get my paper done. I wouldn’t say I was copying the information but I was scanning the books quickly for information that I might be able to use in my writing. The differences here are that the professionals did research for the purpose of writing. They really did want to learn about the subject they were writing about. I think they did this because as Kleine said they wrote out of interest, so the research was something they wanted to learn more about. As in my writing, the paper was for school so I didn’t take the research portion as seriously as I could have. The topics weren’t necessarily something I wanted to learn more about therefore my research was not as in depth.

 

My opinion on this article is that it was a hard article to read. I am not entirely sure I understood the article completely but I felt it was interesting. At the same time, it was hard to comprehend and hard to keep focus. I think Kleine did some interesting research about the writing styles of people from different areas of teaching. He found that teachers from certain areas have different ways of approaching the research and writing processes.

Method

For my method part of the project, I simply took notes about my thoughts. Before I started to write, I typed out everything I was thinking about writing about. This helped me get all of my thoughts down before I forgot any ideas. Next, I would just organize them into some type of order. For this project it happened to be chronological order. I found this helpful because the notes were right in front of me as I was typing the paper. I then could add anything to them even if I was in the middle of a sentence or paragraph. This method works for me very well and I plan to use it again.

Week 2

In her article Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources, Karen Rosenberg attempts to explain to students how to read and understand a scholarly journal article that you might have to read for a class. She argues that it isn’t as easy as it looks to most people and some of the main topics might not jump out at you. She says a student should understand the reason for reading the article and it will hopefully give a hint as to what the main topics are for that particular article.

 

In previous articles, I have always attempted to understand the section titles to try to figure out the meaning of the following paragraphs. This strategy worked for me because it gave me a type of preview or heads up for what I would be reading. It would prepare me for what I would be thinking about. Sometimes this strategy didn’t work for me because it did just the opposite. Other times it misled me or gave me no information as to what I would soon be reading. I would definitely recommend this strategy to friends because for the most part it was a successful strategy. I think a section title can tell you a lot about that section. If I were to amend this strategy, I would think deeper about that the section title is saying because sometime I just glanced at it without really thinking about it. I would try to understand the title to my best ability in hope to understand the reading better.

 

Having a conversation with a text, to me, means engaging yourself in what the writer is trying to say. It means that instead of just simply reading an article, you should see yourself making the point made in the paragraphs or maybe decide if you disagree or agree with the writer. Another way you could have a conversation with a text is to try to believe the writer is explaining their point to you, to make it more personable.

 

I thought this article was somewhat interesting because I never thought of reading a scholarly article in the way that Rosenberg talks about. She made it seem less intimidating to start to read something that you don’t understand. Also, she made a point to make sure you understand the reason why the professor is asking you to read this and I thought that was a very interesting point. I think most students just read the readings they are assigned and do not really pay attention to the reason as to why they are actually reading the article.

1-16-13

In her article Sponsors of Literacy, Deborah Brandt attempts to explain to students the history and importance of literacy and how it has become so necessary in society and how individuals achieve such high levels of literacy through many different sponsors. She argues that literacy has come so far from what it has started as because in the early days of reading and writing only wealthy, white males could have the privilege of literacy. African Americans along with many other races and women were not given an opportunity to learn how to read and write. Today, anyone who can afford an education may receive one, including races of all types.

 

5. Branch was a European American who was the child of a professor and a real estate executive. He had much access to sponsorship because both of his parents were well off. In his school, they had computers hooked up to Stanford University and when he was 12 he was given his own computer. He was being taught to read and write by parents as well as in school and he was practicing literacy on his computer. He also had the opportunity to go up to town and explore the stores and learn about new things there.

Lopez was a Mexican American whose parents both had a degree from a technical college. Her father worked as a shipping and receiving clerk while her mother worked at a bookstore. The city was much farther away from them so they did not have the privilege of going to town so easily. Her siblings did not know how to read and write therefore she taught herself. She had the advantage of getting books at the bookstore where her mother worked.

I agree with Brandt because I feel that citizens of different races and lower classes had a more difficult time finding the education therefore could not provide a suitable education for their own children.

 

1. I have a situation that is in between both Branch and Lopez. My parents were able to afford an education for me, like branch but they were not wealthy and did not receive a college education, like in Lopez’s situation. I had access to computers and reading materials that I could practice with. My primary sponsors were my school, which taught me religious literacies as well as academic literacies, and my parents who also helped me with my academic and religious literacies. I think these literacies are adequate considering I have done well in school as well as overall in life.

 

I felt that I learned much information from this article and that I can agree with most of what Brandt has explained. It was interesting to learn about how far literacy has actually come because I think many people take advantage of their language and education. I appreciate taking time to read about where we started off as a society. I learned that there may be many other literacies out there that I could possibly have the opportunity to learn about.