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This article by Caleb Corkery analyzes the use of literacy narratives as a technique to help transition students who aren't from our culture. Corkery argues, and I agree, that storytelling gives students a chance to change their identities. He cites an example given by Betsy Rymes, "Rymes claims that former high school dropouts can re-script themselves through narratives that eliminate their past identities" (51.) Also through literacy narratives, students can gain insight into their own cultural identities and through this awareness understand how one is "culturally scripted" or how their culture affects how they see writing and the writing community which they are attempting to join. One of the hindrances that Corkery mentions in his article is the difficult transition for writers who come from an oral tradition. A different consciousness accompanies oral thought. Citing two researchers who study the Athabaskan culture in Alaska, Corkery writes, "Because learning to read and write in the essayist manner is in fact learning new patterns of discourse, literacy for an Athabaskan is experienced as a change in ethnicity as well as a change in reality set" (61). While we might not have the opportunity to teach writing to an Athabaskan, we do have students that come from a oral culture. The African American community has a very deep oral tradition. While it may not be as extensive as the native tribe in Alaska, it still deals with a certain amount of ethnicity change.

Exploring the Role of Reformulations and a Model Text in EFL Students' Writing Performance Yang, Luxin ; Zhang, Ling The article by Yang and Zhang shares the results from a study of a three-staged writing task by ESL students in a Beijing university. The three stages are composing, comparison (of the reformulation), and revising. The students were asked to study and compose, in English, a narrative of a short picture prompt. The short narratives were then reformulated by a native English speaker, but still maintained the student's original meaning. The students then compared the two to "notice" the differences. The article clearly explains the many types of differences between the two texts; mainly language-related episodes (LRE) and content-related episodes (CRE). The students were also asked to compare their narratives with a model narrative. Though the students tended to focus more on the lexical issues, they were able to more clearly relate their current stage of English language learning with that of a native English speaker. This helped them to "notice the gap". I would recommend this to anyone focusing their attention on ESL learners.

I found this video actually looking for an informative video about students liking writing ---- goes to show that most students "hate" writing for multiple reasons. Many of the reasons in the control of educators. Teachers have the power to change the negative connotation students interpret writing to be - just an assignment, no further significance to, no interest to write ---- students should enjoy writing <<< school stems from learning through writing and reading ---- students want to write on things that interest them not pedagogical theories and research assignments. Students like to learn through their own eyes - students enjoy different genres of writing. Teachers have the power to enable their students in finding their interest in the writing realm. However, students should know the general rules and process of writing whether it be a narrative or research assignment, etc. Also, (as a teacher comments within the movie) - students don't always take blogs or social-media oriented writing forums with interest since self-representation is then transmitted into a educational institution. The video also covers the public's views on possible preventing of "writing hatred." This video also reflects the concept in the Casanava article in our class packet - teachers need to work on getting students immersed in writing through allowing their personal knowledge be combined with the values and lessons deemed by the institution they are writing for.