Starting tomorrow and for the rest of the week, we will be meeting in individual writing conferences. Instead of attending class at our usual time, you should be meeting in the Writing Center and meeting with me. Remember to get a verification from the Writing Center tutor that you had a conference.
According to my blog, I only have 19 followers, when I should have 50. At our conference this week, I will let each of you know what you are missing and what your 'grade' is so far in the class. If you have fewer than 10 posts on the class blog, and fewer than ten posts on an individual blog, you will be in danger of not having enough points to submit your portfolio. By the end of this coming week, you should also have two essays in good shape for inclusion to the portfolio. Hopefully, you will be all caught up before November 1.
See you this week. s
Erika Jaimes
ReplyDeleteTR 11am
Reading Response #5
In class we read an article on "What’s the matter with kids these days?" by Amy Goldwasser. Before we read the article, I thought I knew exactly what she was reading about. Kids, or teens, are problems and are in need of help. Similar to many other articles about this topic. While she read the first part, I confirmed my suspicions about the paper and was about to ignore the article. However, as we got further into the article, my view point changed.
The article was not about how kids had problems that need solving, it was the adults. Finally, there is something that does not aim the problem at the kids. The author explained how adults need to be the ones to open their eyes. Kids are writing and reading more, but in a different way then the adults did in the past. Change of medium (I think this is the work? It could be change of material) does not change anything. If one uses a keyboard instead of a pen it does not matter because words are still being written onto something for someone to read.
Though the article was short (then again it could be long since we stopped every now and then) it had lots of facts to support there view. Support is very important if one is to argue their point.
Reading Response #6 by Alyssa Fraijo:
ReplyDeleteThis week is conference week again! Conference week means another essay to conclude and revise with the teacher and the writing center. The essay we are working on is called an autoethnography, which is a biography-like essay pinpointing a certain “background” in your life. An autoethnography can also be about a certain group that you are, or have been once apart of. My autoethnography is about myself growing up as an athlete, specifically a basketball player since the age of five. My essay discusses the life lessons learned, along with important factors such as friendship and time management skills that benefit me today.
Three pages deep, it was time for my conference with Susan. As she read my paper aloud, I sat back and carefully listened to see if I could hear any mistakes or revisions that would need to be made. It is quite different hearing the paper aloud, rather than just reading over it. I prefer this style because I could actually hear what needs to be corrected and what needs to be taken out. As she went over corrections with me, I noticed that a lot of my errors come from simply organization of my paper. For example, if I am stating pros and cons, it needs to be formatted correctly with listing pros or cons first, and the other second. Also, simple punctuation is what I need to pay attention more to.
What I got from this meeting was another point of view from someone other than myself.
In order to get a full review of a paper before turn in, you need to let someone read it and critique it, because that will give you an idea of how the paper sounds to other people.
Susan concluded I had a great paper but still needs some tweaking. Overall, the conference went really well and I enjoyed getting help with my paper; especially from the person who will be grading it in the end.
During class one day we read a short paper/article titled, "What's the matter with kids these days". It started out by discussing the flaws of my generation. The author describes the kids of today as lazy and uneducated. Statistically, she announced, the kids of todays generation are significantly less educated in the realms of literature and art. She says we know less about these fields than any previous generation in recent decades. Honestly, I would not argue with this statement. Of course, there are plenty of brilliant minds and educated souls, but it seems to me that my generation lacks something that previous generations have withheld. Just take a look at today's music. I hear the tunes being played on the radio and think to myself, how do people like this music, how do people think this is good, how did this band or artist ever become popular? The article then goes on to explain the negative effects of computers and television on the lives of those in my generation. However severe the effects of sitting on couches and staring at screens all day, the author states that the internet has made us avid readers and writers, because of all the reading and typing we do off of a computer screen.
ReplyDeleteConference Week is back ! Weeks like these are very helpful for students because it gives you time to meet with your teacher outside of class. I also love conference week because it gets my time to take advantage of the Learning Center. I find it helpful that the advisors in the writing center use their prior knowledge to advise me in constructing the perfect portfolio. Today's Conference was pretty interesting because it involved another student in my class. As she read her paper aloud in front of me and my teacher I quickly realized I had a lot of work to do. I am not confident about turning in a portfolio but I am sure the outcome will be reasonable. If I had to take English 200 I will not be upset because I will need to extra advising to learn how to write in Standard Academic English. I am proud of my progress so far so that it all that matters.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate all the opportunities for meeting with you and conferencing about our essays we have had in this class. I know that I have not really been keeping up… and that some of these opportunities have already been somewhat squandered, by me. However, even though I barely had a rough draft at the time of this first conference, being able to meet with you, one on one really did help me get a good sense of direction for where I am going with my essay. I believe that when I met with you first, we discussed my outline and very rough draft of my first position paper. As you may remember, Susan, my position paper was on Creationism being taught in addition to or instead of Evolution/Science in public schools… Initially I was going to argue that it could be integrated or taught in public schools. But, upon meeting with you, I realized that I was arguing that side of the argument for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t actually feel that it should be taught in public schools, and you could tell that. You seemed curious as to why I would argue the opposite of what I felt. And I told you that I found more stuff on the internet in support of teaching creationism then I did against it. You sort of laughed at this and eventually you convinced me to go with my gut and argue against creationism being taught in public schools. You helped me formulate the nuts and bolts of my argument and referenced some good historical events that are super relevant to the topic. I can’t explain to you how much these conferences have helped me. I am the kind of student that won’t really speak up if I am having trouble or am confused about something big in class. So, the opportunity to meet with you privately really helped me get a good game-plain going for all three of my essays. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteDuring the week of Dialogue on Race I attended the event "Politics Terror and Resistance: A teach in on Latin Immigration." We discuss different areas of issues with immigration, then got into groups the expand and write out our thoughts on posters. The first issue we cover were the media's problem with immigration. They explain that immigrants are taking our jobs, bringing crime and poverty and are corrupting school systems. Illegal immigrants are using up our money and are not contributing back. The media describe them as "sucking off out society." Although these are all issues of how they affect America we must bring up the question of why they are coming over here? Latino's are coming over the border in risk of their lives to live in poor conditions with low pay jobs. Conditions being not the rewarding yields that the ways they lived previously were even worse. Also, what jobs are they even taking? A common complaint of Americans outlook of immigration is that they are taking out jobs. The jobs that immigrants work in are low pay and conditions, most likely on fields. What kind of American really wants that kind of job anyways. The name illegal alien alone give a bad association with these people. Rather then giving them a title that describes a creature from space illegal introducing, people need to label them as undocumented workers. Another possible reason for leaving could be the lack of resources. For example, if their water supply is polluted and they cannot afford or locate fresh water, they would flee to the states. Water is vital to life and society; there should not be any blame for trying to enter for this reason. Environmental protection policies vary much in Mexico than in The United States. They could be lacking laws that ensure clean water and lack of other pollutants. I enjoyed the structure of this event by not just a two hour factual lecture. We got into groups and used our own minds together to come up with questions. This method is more effective by using your brain to critically think about an issue. Groups were filled with people with different knowledge and backgrounds which brought a lot to the table. We gained environmental, political,and health reasons for Latino immigrants crossing the border
ReplyDeletePeople also do not know what type of government runs Mexico. Do they have human rights? How about personal freedom? These are all questions that do not cross the minds of most Americans. During this event we to did not know the answer to these question, but at least brainstormed all the reasons for leaving. Knowing the answer or not informed me of all the possibly reasons for why they are leaving. People need to open their eye outside of this closed American bubble in order to realize world problems. If Latino's are risking their lives and the lives of their family there has to be a liable for leaving their country. They are uninformed of punishments of entering the United States, all that it is their mind is that it will be better.
During the week of Dialogue on Race I attended the event "Politics Terror and Resistance: A teach in on Latin Immigration." We discuss different areas of issues with immigration, then got into groups the expand and write out our thoughts on posters. The first issue we cover were the media's problem with immigration. They explain that immigrants are taking our jobs, bringing crime and poverty and are corrupting school systems. Illegal immigrants are using up our money and are not contributing back. The media describe them as "sucking off out society." Although these are all issues of how they affect America we must bring up the question of why they are coming over here? Latino's are coming over the border in risk of their lives to live in poor conditions with low pay jobs. Conditions being not the rewarding yields that the ways they lived previously were even worse. Also, what jobs are they even taking? A common complaint of Americans outlook of immigration is that they are taking out jobs. The jobs that immigrants work in are low pay and conditions, most likely on fields. What kind of American really wants that kind of job anyways. The name illegal alien alone give a bad association with these people. Rather then giving them a title that describes a creature from space illegal introducing, people need to label them as undocumented workers. Another possible reason for leaving could be the lack of resources. For example, if their water supply is polluted and they cannot afford or locate fresh water, they would flee to the states. Water is vital to life and society; there should not be any blame for trying to enter for this reason. Environmental protection policies vary much in Mexico than in The United States. They could be lacking laws that ensure clean water and lack of other pollutants. I enjoyed the structure of this event by not just a two hour factual lecture. We got into groups and used our own minds together to come up with questions. This method is more effective by using your brain to critically think about an issue. Groups were filled with people with different knowledge and backgrounds which brought a lot to the table. We gained environmental, political,and health reasons for Latino immigrants crossing the border
ReplyDeletePeople also do not know what type of government runs Mexico. Do they have human rights? How about personal freedom? These are all questions that do not cross the minds of most Americans. During this event we to did not know the answer to these question, but at least brainstormed all the reasons for leaving. Knowing the answer or not informed me of all the possibly reasons for why they are leaving. People need to open their eye outside of this closed American bubble in order to realize world problems. If Latino's are risking their lives and the lives of their family there has to be a liable for leaving their country. They are uninformed of punishments of entering the United States, all that it is their mind is that it will be better.
Of of the speakers at the Dialogue on Race event told a story of her best friend that was forced to leave the country. Her friend was forced by the Mexican government to leave her family, drop out of a university and go to live in Mexico. The way in which she told this story sounded like an auto-ethnography. It had great emotional appeal, some one very closely related to her that was taking away and tangles in Immigration laws. This opened a whole new door to me about the contribution and unfair treatment of Latino immigrations into the United States. I was aware that people living in Mexico are often in situation that they have to leave to America, but cannot. People risk their lives to come to the states to live in bad conditions and work for low pay. However, I was not aware that someone that had been living in the states with citizenship for half their life could be forced to move back. This girl had to drop out of all her university classes half way to the semester. She was forced to leave with such little notice that she did not get a chance to say goodbye to may friends, or email professors informing them that she would be leaving the country. She was sent away without knowing how long she would be there for, and she has already been there for two years. Although this is not my culture, I am able to explain the effects immigration laws have on this girl, and the lack of knowledge people have on this subject.
ReplyDeleteAmericans just want all undocumented workers out without thinking about why they risked their lives to come here in the first place. In this case, a Latino American was forced to move back to Mexico, and to this day, is still not allowed to leave. There are without a doubt cases like this nationwide that Americans must be informed about and address.