Danielle

The Great 6700 Stoner Conversation

 Post-class Discussion Reflection  No Responses »
Dec 082015
 

As I reflect back on our many class discussions throughout the course, one conversation in particular comes to mind. Those in the Wednesday night class know this to be the “Stoner Conversation” we held regarding if you can think in the absence of language. As I was babysitting my 2 and a half year old, and 8 month old nephews over the weekend, this conversation came to mind. I can see my 2 and a half month old acting as a sponge, every word he learns he finds some way to use it, even though he does not know what it means. However, you can see he is absolutely thinking about it.

I found some information from professor Peter Carruthers at the University of Maryland that sheds some light on this in a different way than what we had discussed in class:

“There is a spectrum of opinions on the role of language in cognition. At one extreme, philosophers like Michael Dummett have argued that thought is impossible in the absence of language; and social scientists influenced by Benjamin Whorf have believed that the natural languages that people grow up speaking will have a profound influence on the character of their thoughts. At the other extreme, philosophers like Jerry Fodor, together with most cognitive scientists, have believed that language is but an input/output device for cognition, playing no significant role in thought itself. Peter Carruthers has steered a path in between these two extremes. In his 1996 book,[1] he allowed that much thought can and does occur in the absence of language, while arguing for a constitutive role for language in conscious thinking, conducted in “inner speech“. In his 2006 book,[2] this position is broadened and deepened. Following Antonio Damasio, he argues that mental rehearsals of action issue in imagery that plays a profound role in human practical reasoning, with inner speech now being seen as a subset of action rehearsal. Carruthers now argues that the serial use of these rehearsals can issue in a whole new level of thinking and reasoning, serving to realize the “dual systems” that psychologists like Daniel Kahneman believe to be involved in human reasoning processes.”

Looking at my nephews, I am aware that in one case, he has no language, while in the the other case his language is limited. But, I can see that they know images, and in some sense this type of action rehearsal that Carruthers describes, meaning the two and a half year old knows how to do certain things, or perform certain acts in the absence of language. There is thought there, just no language.  I would be interested if anybody else had opinions regarding their own experiences with children in this sense.

 

The Digital Transition

 Post-class Discussion Reflection  No Responses »
Dec 082015
 

For my tech tool, I chose to examine the Hemingway Editor App, and this program values concise and simple writing. This program is certainly a product of the ideological landscape that currently surrounds writing. Previously, any type of writing was viewed as an art form, and it was valued for its complexity. This concept conjoins with the art of handwriting as well, which required the writer to take their time.  While these aspects are still valued in some regards, mostly everything is typed now and the amount of information as well as the pace in which we, the audience, receive this information is rapidly increasing. Most of society no longer has the time to read a two page email or letter describing something that can be said in a couple of sentences. And why would we want to? That type of writing is left for the creative writers and the readers of novels. Society now functions at a fast-paced stamina, and if what you are reading does not convey the point quickly, it is left behind.

This got me thinking about my students and how they value reading and writing currently. Unless it is for class, the majority of their reading consists of 140 character twitter posts or random hashtag collections under Instagram photos. Since they don’t use Facebook anymore, they don’t even run the risk of reading a lengthy political or sociological rant from a friend or relative that I know I am at least accustomed to. This generation lives their lives through pictures now. They create these photo landscapes of their lives , capturing every selfie and memory they possibly can. Hand written diaries have been replaced with Instagram accounts, and conversations have been replaced with SnapChat. It will be interesting to see how progress in the field of digital humanities will be shaped by this and how it will shape our students.

 

Easy Bib Dilemma

 Classroom Praxis  No Responses »
Dec 082015
 

I think my students have collectively decided not to learn or adhere to MLA formatting. No matter how many times I mark their citations as incorrect, doc them points, and exhaustively discuss it in class, they remain careless.

I came into class one day with a set of my own various books, anthologies, magazines, and printed electronic articles, along with several copies of the MLA handbook. I divided my students into groups, handed out the supplies, and told them to give me the Works Cited entry for each source they were given. It was a miserable failure at first, then it became a contest, and by the end of the class my students were engaged, having fun, and to my bewilderment, coming up with the correct citations.

Before I dismissed the class, feeling triumphant in my success, one student asked why they had to learn this when they just use Easy Bib. I had to then explain to the class that their Easy Bib citations were consistently incorrect, and I had been taking points off on their papers because f this. Needless to say, she was not pleased with my response and proceeded to roll her eyes at me.

Now at the close of the semester, I sit with her final essay in front of me, and I am taking points off from her paper because she is still insisting on using Easy Bib for her citations. Stubbornness, or stupidity? Perhaps both?

This is not to say that many students did not benefit from this activity. However, it still astounds me that the negativity from one students has the ability to outweigh the positivity from several.

Mix it Up!

 Classroom Praxis  No Responses »
Dec 082015
 

When researching Indiana University’s FYC program, I found it interesting that students have four different class options: Elementary Composition, Elementary Composition – Basic Writing (for those who need more help), Elementary Composition- Multilingual (for ESOL students), and Projects in Reading and Writing ( more intensive and geared for those pursuing a major in the writing field). While FAU only offers ENC 1102 AND 1102, I found that through group work and peer review sessions, I was attempting to fulfill these categories in my own classroom setting.

I began the semester by getting to know what majors my students were pursuing, and after the second essay I had a pretty good understanding of their individual writing abilities. For group work activities, I would put my ESOL students together, and put the students with similar majors together, or I would put my students that needed extra help together. For peer review I would do the opposite and mix everyone up in order to give my students perspectives outside of their own bubbles.

This strategy seemed to be really effective as the humanities majors forced my engineering students to think of things not discussed in their groups and vice versa. My ESOL students could come up with ideas as a group and have native English speakers help them to articulate their thoughts, and my weak writers had more guidance in their essays when the stronger writers in the class edited their papers.

All in all, I think taking the extra time to create specific groups and pairs for students during these activities is very beneficial.

Finding the Balance

 Classroom Praxis, Pre-class Reading Response  1 Response »
Oct 282015
 

In response to the fourth question, I find this concept of dealing with ideology in the classroom incredibly difficult, and I couldn’t agree more with the concept of knowledge being an arena for ideological conflict, not only between my students, but between my students and myself. As Berlin states “there are no arguments from transcendent truth since all arguments arise in ideology,” however, trying to force my students to understand this concept when it comes to their own writing is daunting. If they haven’t experienced something themselves, they tend to not have an opinion on it, and just shut down. If they do have an opinion, that is the only opinion and there is no seeing something from another perspective, as their own personal ideologies are rock solid. When a student of mine does have an opinion, I always try to dig deeper into discovering why they have that opinion, and along this journey, the more I ask them “why,” the more I find I am imparting my own ideological assumptions onto them.

Rather than have the next essay focus strictly on bullying, I am opening the prompt up to involve social change on a number of levels, from racism, sexism, the poverty rate, and so on. I am finding that the topics they choose to discuss reveal their own ideologies surrounding what is most important to them, which will lead to a better paper. Also, in the drafting process, I find the points that I ask them to analyze more reveal my own personal ideologies surrounding their topic, and the whole process becomes an ideological interrogation, which can either be productive, forcing them to think outside of their box, or detrimental, as they just parrot what I say and the paper then becomes a reflection of my own ideologies.

Not sure how I should feel about this…

 News Item  1 Response »
Oct 142015
 

As this news applies to all of us, I thought it was fitting to share and discuss.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/florida-house-committee-approves-bill-allow-guns-college

What I found interesting, and perhaps not shocking, was the last statement: “The Sunshine State received an “F” grade and ranked 32 out of the 50 states in the most recent annual scorecard published at the end of December by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The letter reflects the southern state’s weak gun laws, which do not require background checks on private sales, and allow for the purchase of assault weapons.”

If the state itself doesn’t even require background checks on certain sales of guns, how are schools going to possibly regulate who is allowed to carry and who is not? Also, are teaching going to be allowed to carry weapons? Can I bring my assault rifle to my freshmen comp class? Not that I have one, you know what I mean.

What does everyone think?

 

Passive Reflections

 Weekly Recap  No Responses »
Oct 142015
 

Looking back on midterm reflections, I can say that overall they were a success. It was a great chance for students who needed to discuss specific things on their papers with me to do so, since evidently getting a student to actually visit you during office hours is like having a root canal. However, what I did notice is that not many students actually came prepared with questions based on my comments left in the margins. After many students failed to take my comments and corrections on their rough drafts into consideration, I’ve begun circling errors, but not giving exact corrections for some things on their papers, especially if I know we spent a lot of time on it in class. Anticipating many questions regarding my non-specific comments, I was braced for an onslaught during one on one conferences. However, my hopes were crushed as students just sat across from me and passively listened to my explanations. What I got instead was the comment “I didn’t know we had to do that on every paper.” Rather than coming to see me to find out what went wrong in their paper, or discuss ways to improve, they choose to continue making the same mistakes, and I’m not sure why. I know this sounds rather pessimistic, and I would like to stress that this is not the case for every student. I’m just astounded at the differences between when I was sitting in freshmen comp as an undergrad myself, and the behavior of my current students. BLOWS MY MIND!

Rethinking the Text

 Classroom Praxis, Pre-class Reading Response  No Responses »
Oct 142015
 

“To be blunt, I must be sure not to ‘teach’ these texts (in the common sense of the term), but rather to ‘have them around’ to wrestle with, to bounce off of, to talk about and talk from, to write about and write from. Again: not feel we must be polite or do them justice. In taking this approach I think we would be treating texts the way academics and writers treat them: using them rather than serving them” (74)

While I attempt to do this in my class, and I stress the importance of using the texts to create and support your own argument, I find most students still fall under the category of “serving them.” Their thesis statements just seem to be reiterations of the author’s claim, and no new thoughts are formed. If no new thoughts are formed regarding the matter, how can they actually enter the conversation the texts have created?

I think I have found a way to counter this dilemma in the classroom setting during peer review, by forcing them to think of their own papers as the text, since the majority of them are just summaries anyway, this works out. If their own papers become the text, then the classroom is the writing community, and their papers begin to form a conversation amongst themselves, and their peers become their audience. For essay two, some students agreed with Restak while others agreed with Samuel, and I put those people into pairs. The conversations the erupted from this disagreement led to some new generation of ideas that they hadn’t previously considered, and their papers drastically improved. They began to consider themselves as writers within their own community.

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