ENGL431fosen

Mitra places computers in walls all over the world to see how children with react and how they can learn from them. The results are amazing. Children are able to use the internet to learning answers to questions not even in a language they can understand. They work together with peers to browse the internet and research based on their background knowledge even if it is slim to none. This proposes a huge question....do we need teachers to teacher certain things or can students figure out the answers and test the same if not better by working with peers using the internet?

So pretty much this article emphasizes the idea of the connection between the flow of writing (creation and invention) and excercise. The mentioned excercise that helps resolve writer's block is running, but the article also hints at aerobic excercises in general can help cure this issue. So long as the physical excercises do not require "attentional processes" but rather allow the mind to 'free' itself, high-exertion work outs can hold benefits to get those creative juices flowing.

Day's article discusses the various beliefs and habits that contribute to writer's block. Many of these beliefs include sets of rules that are heavily rigid and grammatical rather than content. Day suggests that writers that go through their writing with little rigidity and skimming over the editing process while writing is a preventative strategy to overcome writer's block. This article brought into view the point that, most of our writer's block comes from rules that disrupt the flow of writing and content. For the most part, students hang on to rules that are grammatical or structural plans that attempt to perfect writing on the first draft. I think this can be valuable to teachers because when we identify the cognitive strategies preventing students from writing, we can instruct them how to overcome those strategies to develop ones that help students with writing.

In this short little section of a book review on "Overcoming Writing Blocks" that was published in 1979, Paster highlights 2 techniques of the 75 mentioned in the book. One is called the "spoke outline," which today we call mind mapping. The other is called "letter to a friend" in which the writer sets up a sort of letter that drifts the discussion toward what the writing assignment is and what the topic should be about--detailing how far work has gotten and any ideas that have come up in relation to the assignment. This 'letter' is completely disposable and it just meant to be used as a prompt for discussion in order to get ideas flowing in such a way that a writer can use to describe the assignment and work to another person. Many people these days just simply talk to other people about their assignment and spur ideas from discussing their topic, rather than writing an imaginary discussion in a letter that is never meant to be sent. Will look for the "Overcoming Writing Blocks" book to gather more of its 75 techniques.

This article analyzes the linguistic dynamics of the stylistic literary voice, its bound-factors, and its application. There is definitely a much more technical approach to defining the stylistic voice; but it is actually quite interesting to read about the way in which voice is a matter of "appropriateness", instead of "grammaticality". Joybrato also uses poetical references to strengthen and accentuate his linguistic evaluations; furthermore, his dichotomies of 'literary stylistics' reveal an aspect of writing that cannot necessarily be easily seen. He even mentions the applications of today's technologies and their capacious depth of containing writing. This is article is beneficial to those trying to identify their, and/or helping others, realize their own entity of the stylistic literary voice they contain within their literary composition/cognition. Although the article slightly wanders into the plains of prolixity, I would still recommend extrapolating the information that catches your eye.

If you're studying for a test, putting on background music that you like may seem like a good idea. But if you're trying to memorize a list in order -- facts, numbers, elements of the periodic table -- the music may actually be working against you, a new study suggests. I want to find information on listening to music in the classroom, specifically the English 30 classes. I find the constant playing of Pandora to be distracting and I want to know if it's detrimental to the English 30 students learning, etc. So far I've found issues with listening to music and memorization, but not necessarily as it relates to writing workshops like the one I'm interning in now.

Let's try to stretch beyond CNN reports, which most often are quick and superficial.

I posted an article earlier about WebQuest, but this article goes more in depth about what WebQuest is and how a web-based teaching method can promote learning. Not only do students work by themselves but sometimes they collaborate in groups, WebQuest also provides a fun way to get students involved and thinking. What I really liked about this article is that towards the end the authors also address the challenges in having a web-based method of teaching. This article is really well thought out and covers a lot of ground in good detail.

The author of this article uses the critical perspectives of Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of language and Lev Vygotsky's theory of language learning to examine the polyphonic texture of writing workshops, the dialogic classroom, the teacher's role as writer and authority figure, and the student's search for voice and role. So, she decides to participate in and observe (two students in particular) an introductory composition class in order to explain the polyphonic texture of workshops. In the end, she concludes stating that "we must resist reductive descriptions of our students' development as writers. (…) each writing workshop will compose a different "polyphony" of disparate elements which each student will appropriate and reshape in different configurations" (171). Unfortunately, you will have to log in as a member to view this article. It can also be found in Chico State's e-library.

I thought this article was a good fit on the path I, believe, I will be taking for my inquiry project ----- student efficacy within an English workshop. The article, written by James Williams and Seiji Takaku, covers the basis of workshops much like Rodby and Fox did in our packet article; however, the article instead of focusing on the structure of workshops focused on the students' efficacy and the effects it may have in order for a workshop to function as it was intended to - to help students better their composition skills in and outside of the English classroom. The article also mentions research done on students within "remedial" workshops and realized "...students had self-efficacy beliefs that did not match their writing performance .... their overestimated sense of efficacy was related to a lack of appropriate, correctional feedback in high school as well as to the tendency among high school teachers to praise and reward students for merely participating in the writing process rather than for producing good work" (3). I thought this statement was interesting because I find it to be true, especially in my experience with not only my internship at PVHS but also with my experience, this year, in Eng 30 workshops and my tutor sessions with second language learners. Sometimes educators focus on participation and the actual process of completing an assignment rather than making sure the student is adequately learning and putting into practice what is being taught/learned. The article also acknowledges the workshop characteristics that may affect students' self-efficacy in the first place. "In the U.S., the majority of writing centers rely on peer tutors" (4). "Some staff include graduate students, but only 3% of 4-year public universities employ professional tutors, that is, persons with an advanced degree" (4). This was a keynote since it reflects on the Casanave article from our class packet ---- to what degree can a peer be considered an actual peer

In this article, L. Brent Igo researches the differences of both the competence and the beliefs views (two views which constitute self-efficacy) across three educational levels (high school juniors, college freshmen, and college juniors). He explores the idea of motivation for students to adequately learn. "Students who are confident in their ability to be successful on a specific task are likely to be motivated to engage in the task." Students are less likely to be engaged and interested in fulfilling an assignment when they lack confidence in that what they know is actually useful to completing such a given task. The nature of the task as well as an individual's prior experiences can determine one's self-efficacy within the classroom. --- this could be because of past experiences within previous classrooms and/or the lack of proper teaching/feedback from previous teachers. A teachers' feedback could also affect a student's perceived competence - the way in which the feedback is structured or what it focuses on could explain why students don't pick up on certain areas of composition as much as others.

This article goes into great detail about how the physical classroom should be designed. O'Hare makes two big distinctions between lectures and discussion-based learning, and how lectures do not encourage a community of active learning because students are not facing each other. However, when students are facing each other, it is much easier for a discussion to happen between the students. To make this possible, O'Hare discusses seating arrangements, lighting, blackboards/chalkboards, projectors, and desks that can properly satisfy student needs.

This article is written by Cheryl Hogue Smith, a professor of English at CSU Bakersfield, about teaching writing to students considered "basic writers." Smith discusses the difficulty of getting basic writing students who are "woefully underprepared for college-level reading and writing tasks" to learn to be better writers. The solution, she claims, is to teach writers to be critical thinkers and "less fearful performers of academic tasks." She talks about how students come to her class from all different backgrounds with all sorts of different perspectives and ideas. A lot of her students have no confidence to write in the college level and so have no interest in it as well. The article attempts to solve this problem. Smith's idea is to teach the students to better value their thinking so that they have more of an interest in their writing and eventually, more confidence.

After much searching, I was able to find a book that was written by an educator from England about her varying experiences with excellent writers that had a difficult time adapting their writing style to the expectations the West. Helen Fox, author of "Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing, analyzes the effects of culture and the problems this cultural influence causes when students try to adapt their writing styles and personas to that of Western academia. Problems include; focusing on a group instead of emphasis on self, a mindset geared toward a focus on the past instead of a focus on the future and a circular approach to writing instead of a linear approach. Fox investigates these issues and other cultural effects on the writing process.

Kimberly De Vries writes about the differences in writing between Chinese students and American students and the expectations of Western academic institutions. She compares Western writing to "mathematical plainness" and argues that there is a cultural bias that exists. De Vries writes, "My experience with American writing practice has led me to conclude that in America, clarity depends not so much on using a particular form, but rather using the form expected by the reader. Thus clarity is entirely dependent on cultural expectations..." (1). This article was interesting to me because I have several Asian students in my workshop. I'm trying to understand the motives behind some of the errors they make while writing. It's difficult because much of the research deals with wether they're using their L1 to help organize their thoughts and simply translating them into L2 (which usually results in a complete lack of clarity. In fact, at times I didn't know what whole sentences meant) or writing by using L2 only. De Vries also relies on research by Robert Kaplan who has documented the effects of culture on writing practices. De Vries writes, "Kaplan contended that writing teachers needed to understand that culture produces different styles of argument, rather than flawed thinking. If we are not looking for it, we may miss an unfamiliar pattern of argument just as we may miss an unfamiliar sound in a foreign language" (3). De Vries believes that American scholars value a certain "style" of academic writing -- a style that represents only a small part of all the writing that goes on in the world today. "As this work goes on, we now begin to see that many characteristics of 'good' writing that were once perceived as universally true, are actually very much influenced by culture" (6).

In this article, Oura discusses authentic materials and task-based lessons in ESL instruction. The more I read about motivation in the classroom and successful skill learning, the more I read about authenticity and  task-based lessons (as well as a couple of other things not explicitly covered in this article). Though I've many authors talk about these two topics, this article stands out for it's clear and concise explanations and included examples. Interestingly, the examples aren't authentic tasks for any class I foresee teaching, but I can see their value in other courses.

This source details the author's experience of teaching a course called 'Experimental Writing' to college seniors. Using several chapters from the book Free Play by Steven Nachmanovitch, the instructor introduces the topic of play as an important element of the course. Having read the book myself I think that it is a worthy read, and it has influenced my approach to academic projects by widening my perception of my action as not just reactionary study toward a grade, but play within a field offered by the instructor where success and failure are accepted as process and there is no fixed upper limit to achievement. In other words the writing is can be thought of as a kind of 'funktionslust' a pleasure of doing, not simply an action toward an objective. To create motivation within students requires that they let go of the dire seriousness that school is associated with; school is something to be completed out of necessity not something that can offer individuals new insight to themselves, or the aspects of themselves that have been suppressed by conformity and fear. The author does not entirely endorse the use of Nachmanovitch's text in 'traditional writing classes' because the text discourages many of the elements that are at hand in the traditional approach to teaching (like writing for a letter grade). I chose to be an English major because I felt the most freedom of expression within my English classes; I was offered a choice of what topics to engage with. But increasingly specific expectations from teachers handcuffed my raw creativity. Even so, I think that an increased degree of freedom within writing classes would boost student enthusiasm. The question then is how do we increase the freedom of expression for students of basic writing, where there are necessary modes of measure for the articulation of the chosen subjects (other than simply allowing them to choose their subjects)? To what degree does the rubric shape student identity by for

This is an interesting review/exploration by Jill Parrot of Eastern Kentucky University of David Foster's book "Writing with Authority". Parrot explains that Foster's book compares and contrasts the German university writing systems with American ones to examine the effects of each on a college student's confidence and self-efficacy in writing. Foster's thesis begins, "Undergraduates should learn how to write as knowledge-makers, developing the capacities for self-direction, long-term goal setting, and cumulative, recursive task development and writing," thus setting up the focus of the study. He argues that while there are pros and cons to each country's academic practices, the German system's focus on gradual development and self-direction with frequent interaction and discussion in the early stages helps to create a more long-term oriented view of the writing process and to establish the students as authorities on a topic that they may spend a great deal of time with. Without having access to the book itself, this article serves as a very thorough analysis of the text and I found this to be very informative.

A collaborative article of Patricia McCarthy, Scott Meier and Regina Rinderer, this article explores the idea of self-efficacy, or rather a student's perception of their own self-efficacy, in relation to writing competency at the college level.They explain that students who estimate their writing abilities and effectiveness to be quite high perform accordingly, and that this holds also for students who estimate their abilities to be quite low (the Pygmalion Effect in action). While this comes as a surprise to few, these authors further explain that of a few key factors, namely perceived self-efficacy, anxiety, locus of control, and cognitive processing methods, while all affect the quality of writing produced by students, self-efficacy proved to be the strongest predictor of student performance regardless of the other conditions in their studies. Students who become used to a process of accurate and frequent self-evaluation, both of the final product AND of their abilities separate from the product, may develop a more accurate and more proactive view of their writing competence and their later work may reflect this.

This article is geared more towards translation but I've found that many of the same principles of translation can be applied when trying to write academically. We are doing nothing more than trying to translate our thoughts and complex ideas and put them into the language of academic writing - usually a foreign language to us. Because I am writing on cultural barriers to academic writing, I thought it would be useful to see how other minds work. In this way we might be more empathetic to our students and it might aid our diagnostics as well. The author, Dirk Siepmann, compares the academic writing of English, French and German. "For a long time the idea has been around that the 'spirit' of a language exerts a formative influence on its speakers and writers" (Siepmann 1). This influence is something that educators need to be aware of when teaching writing. How can you help transition students into a different academic writing culture without making them give up their own? Siepmann also discusses what he refers to as "Intellectual Styles." He calls these the "Saxon", the "Teutonic", the "Gallic" and the "Nipponic". He has derived these terms based on writers' ability to organize thought, target audience, relationship of writer to audience and other criteria. The author also talks about the differences in learning systems and what is expected in those learning systems.

When reading student work, I often come across misspellings like "u", "cuz" or the annoying lower case i. It's crossed my mind a few times that these mistakes are because of an increasingly technology dependent world. This article discusses the links between the digital age of writing and the academic world of writing. Can one exist with the other? The author suggests that students use things like texting as another form of writing they must learn how to do, just like creative writing or science writing.