Essay 2 - Sources Homework

Source 1: Writing, Technology and Teens (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED524313.pdf)
Claim: Even though teens are heavily embedded in a tech-rich world, they do not believe that communication over the internet or text messaging is writing
Evidence: „
- 85% of teens ages 12-17 engage at least occasionally in some form of electronic personal communication, which includes text messaging, sending email or instant messages, or posting comments on social networking sites.
„- 60% of teens do not think of these electronic texts as “writing.” Teens generally do not believe that technology negatively influences the quality of their writing, but they do acknowledge that the informal styles of writing that mark the use of these text-based technologies for many teens do occasionally filter into their school work.
- Overall, nearly two-thirds of teens (64%) say they incorporate some informal styles from their text-based communications into their writing at school. 50% of teens say they sometimes use informal writing styles instead of proper capitalization and punctuation in their school assignments;
„- 38% say they have used text shortcuts in school work such as “LOL” (which stands for
“laugh out loud”);
-„ 25% have used emoticons (symbols like smiley faces ☺) in school work.
Analysis: The main reason teens use the internet and cell phones is to exploit their communication
features.Yet despite the nearly ubiquitous use of these tools by teens, they see an
important distinction between the “writing” they do for school and outside of school for
personal reasons, and the “communication” they enjoy via instant messaging, phone text
messaging, email and social networking sites.

Source 2: Internet Use and Reading Habits of Higher Institution Students (http://jeteraps.scholarlinkresearch.org/articles/Internet%20Use%20and%20Reading%20Habits%20of%20Higher%20Institution%20Students.pdf)

Claim: On close enquiry, one usually finds out that they are networking socially with friends, Reading dailies and rarely getting information in their various school courses. This seems to have reduced interest in reading of printed materials, vocabulary development, and general knowledge, broadmindedness which an individual gets from having a good reading habit.
Evidence: These evidence are base upon actual survey so the number are quite statistics.

Analysis: Behind each table, the author give out his own opinion on the table very precisely and professional. He also compares between tables of statistic to shown the reader the differences and simmilarities. 

Essay 2 - Brainstorm

1. What kinds of technologies are specifically the most beneficial to college writers? What kinds of technologies are the most harmful? Why?

- There are alot of technology out there that are benificial to college writers, but the most benificial one must be the laptop or desktop. These item are now one of the most important thing that a college writer have to have. These things help speed up the process of writing, help fixing any grammar or vocabulary mistake, or even revise it a bit roughly. The kind of techonology that is the most harmfulfor college writer in my opinion is the Internet. Although, the Internet is now a very valuable sources of information, but it also have a really large amount of false informations and article that was written just for fun and for credit. Those kind of articles or informations will really make a piece of writing crumble when the reader find out that the information is not true.


2. In what specific ways is technology a benefit or a hindrance to college-level, deep reading?

- Technology effect our "deep-reading" skill alot. A very simple example is my own experience. Eversince I came to America and try to adapt to the study style of this country, my reading skill have been deducted. Because in America, we always write and do our homework assignment on our computer, spending countless hours to looks for articles, sources that fits the topic the most and type about it. Being said, by having time to read so many article, I usually just skim and scan read to understand the whole concept of that article first and then read carefully later if it fits my essay's topic. From that personal experience, I think that technology is having a really big bad effect on your reading skill.

Critical Thinking and Technology

Critical thinking is a very key factor of education. It is so important in the process of studying, that every high school and college promote critical thinking and encourage the students to use critical thinking as much as possible in studying. Combine with the technology nowaday, critical thinking is becoming a very crucial aspect of life. Critical thinking is like a two headed-knife, it could damage the ability to do critical thinking but it also could make our critical thinking ability sharper. 

According to a research paper written by Tim van Gelder, a philosopher of the University of Melbourne, Australia (http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne01/pdf/papers/vangeldert.pdf), technology can have a possitive effect on the ability to think critically. To start the paper, Tim opens up with the a problem argument. He also stated that "Critical thinking is one of education’s most central goals and one of its most valued outcomes" and then, he talks about the cautions of being unable to think critically and why critical thinking is so important. In the main term, the author demonstrate out with numbers, datas, and through research that technology can somewhat improve and promote a person to think critical more, consider every possibility and option before making a decision. 

Exploring Key Terms

1. Neural circuitry: Is like a web or system of neurons inside human brains.

Meaning in the passage: After a long time of using the techonology and Internet, the brain strating to adapt and fix the original structure of the brain (Carr feels like it).

2. Staccato quality: Staccato is a "note" in Music that skip through or move through some other notes.

Meaning in Passage: After a long period of time, he strated to lose the ability to concentrate and started to skim read more than read fullly. He even give an example that he can't even reads "Peace and War".

3. Power browse: Is almost like a new concept or genre of reading in which people just skim and scan through everything they see, from the title, to the context and picture.

Meaning in Passage: This phrase in the passage meaing just like the meaning I stated. It is like people are trying to go online to read in a "power browse"way, it's like people are strating to move away from the traditional deep read from the old time.

4. “Efficiency” and “immediacy”: Through Dictionary, "Efficiency" is the effect, the after results and the "Immediacy" is right away, instantly.

Meaning in passage: These two phrase purpose that the way people read have change.people are not aiming to understand the reading inside and out anymore. When people read, they just want to know the overall story, meaning of that article or piece of writing to make time quick and effective.

5. Nietzsche: Friedrich Nietzsche started as a philologist, his writing is very deep and thoughtful, more than the usual writing.

Meaning in passage: In the passage stated that he was saved by a type-writer. He was having headache and all sort of pain and difficulties when he was writing. The show that the technology have save effort, time and energy to write more with less skills.

6. Malleable: This words mean that "a thing is easy to change or to break through"

Meaning in passage: The passage said that the brain is a very easy to change obstacles that will get tolerance if you use to much of anything. Techonology is not an exception.

"Is Google Making Us Stupid"

"I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle." 

Explanation: In this example, Nicholas Carr had have trouble concentrated on reading books that he didn't used to have. He now can hardly concentrate in "a book or a lengthy article". He just felt like doing something esle after reading a page or two. 

"For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets’reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link."

Explanation: After the Internet was born, Carr have utilize the Internet everyday. He described it as "a godsend to me as a writer". Now, he doesn't have to go to the library and spend a few hours there per day to read and take notes of books. He could just click a few click and there we go. The Internet have effected the thinking aspect of human. We are starting to grow lazier, we are starting to think that the Internet is way better than books because it doesn't consume as much time and doesn't consume as much money. 

"Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”

Explanation: This explain more specificaly about how the technology and Internet change a man. This also show how convinience the Internet is. 

"Literacy Practices" Survey

1. How many books do you read in a year? What kind of books are they?

- I read approximately about 1.5 books per year. I mostly read articles, not books.

2. What’s the last book you read?

- The last book that I read was "The 3 Little Piggy"

3. What is the longest essay you have ever written?

- The longest essay I have ever wrote is the "Essay 1" from my ENGL100 class that I just handed in 3 days ago.

4. What do you tend to read on the internet? What are your online reading habits?

- I like to read articles that is about young teenagers these days, about technology, about some interesting films that I like to see. I read about 3-4 articles per day

5. How many texts / Facebook posts / emails do you send in a day? How many words do you think you write in a day or a week?
- I write about 3-4 posts, comments, email per day. It is about 100 words.

6. When you text / make a Facebook post, how much time do you take? How much do you proofread what you wrote?
- It only takes about 2-3 minutes for each post in general.

7. Overall, how much time a week do you spend using technology?
- About HALF of the whole week.

 

Week 3 - Day 2 Homework

—       What is the most important vocabulary/key terms that we have learned so far in class? List as many terms as you can think of (at least 7) and write a one-sentence definition after the term (e.g., genre). Also, list which source discusses this term.

1. Genre: An easy and understandable definition for genre could be any type of writing. 

2. Critical Thinking: Is to evaluate a situation and make the right choices. 

3. College Writing: College Writing is a higher level of writing from High School which have alot of differences from High School Writing. 

4. Sources: The Sources for you writing and essay have to be accurate and up to date. 

5. High School Writing: It is kind of like a lower level from College writing where you have to follow a structure of 5 paragraph essay, 

I can only remember 5 of them. 

Essay Grading Criteria

What kind of genre of essay is essay 1? What is the purpose of the essay? (Write a short paragraph).

In my opinion, the genre of essay that essay 1 is an exam essay genre, or a persuasive essay. The reason being, this is really not a lab report and a creative genres because, it just state all the facts and try to convince people to do these things. The purpose of this essay is being to inform the reader about the safety of camping and demonstrate how to stay safe when camping.  

Based on our discussion of college writing, what should this essay be graded on? What categories would make sense? Why?

1.       Vocabulary – The more academic words a person use, show that that person is serious about the writing

2.       Structure – How is the general structure of the essay, does it have topic sentence, does it have concluding sentence for each paragraph,…

3.       Length – It depends on how long the teacher wants. If too short, minus some scores.

4.       Grammar – Are all the tenses correct, are they all properly used.

5.       Sources – What are all the sources, are they reliable, are they recent enough to be a reliable source?

Homework on Holiday (1/20/2014)

1. Kelsey Diaz never directly mentions critical thinking or habits of mind. What’s a passage (a few sentences – section) from her text that relates to critical thinking / habits of mind? How so?

- The passage: "How often do you read any serious writing that has...Don't do it in college, you professor will most likely laugh at you". I think, this passage present a sence of critical thinking because it didn't say exactly why you shouldn't do this in college, it just give you a trick question and you have to think of an answer to understand the general idea of the situation. Another passage that express the "critical thinking" factor of this piece of writing is "You must analyze the content of your source, not just read it,...you are the one that have to prove what you have learned".

2. Also think back to our discussion about the “thinking” in our sample essay. Yesterday, we said the five-paragraph essay that we examined wasn’t college level, not only because of its structure, but also because of the type of thinking. Why did we say the thinking and subject matter were not college level?

- The subject matter is not at a college level because it is not academic enough to be a college levels. What kind of college levels class would teach you how to prevent ourselves from danger when camping except "Camping Safty Class" or "Camping Medical Class". The topic of a college level writing should contain some critical thinking into it and some what a large scale matter, like "How will this effect the global?". That will engage the college students to use critical thinking more and force them to think criticaly.

3. How have we used critical thinking and habits of mind so far in our class?

- As far as I see, we have used the critical thinking technique to analyze the usefulless of a "Paper clip". Also, we use it to analyze the essay genre and the dos and don'ts in each genres.

 4. What critical questions do you have about the class?

- I just have 1 question about the class. So, we are going to write about college writing through out the whole quarter or the topic will be change depends on the chapter that we are on. That is the only question I want to ask before stepping in the 1st essay

"This isn't what we did in High School" - Donald A. McAndrew

1. In your own words, what are some of the differences between college writing classes and high-school writing classes, according to McAndrew? (Write at least one solid paragraph).
First of all, being in college, the atmosphere is way more relax and fun. It is a class where you are an individual and you are expect to express your ideas and thougth about each and every topic the teacher gives, not just sit and take note like in High School anymore.

Secondly, the class activities are all different due to the standard of a college writing class. We have active disscussion where all of the student who are in that class have to participate and give idea about the discussion's topic. The class also have friendly questions each day for each student so that the professor can know the students more.

Thirdly, there is assignment. The assignmnent in college are very diverse and not like in High School. It require high focus and research in order to achieve good grades, not like in High School where you just need to give some idea and opinion about something and consider it done. Also, the instructor won't give you "diamond-cleared" instructions like in High School, you need more clarification, come and ask the instructor.

2. In your own words, define participationist

Through reading McAndrew writing, I come to understand that "Participationist" is an action to take part in, to "participate" in, to discuss on a specific topic that you want to engage on, want to have knowledge on. That is how you learn and achieve knowledge, you take part in anything you want to know and try to gain as much as possible through it. 

3. In your own words, define social constructionist

Constructionist is actually a very interesting role in the class. A constuctionist is to keep the conversasion going on topic, the language to go smoothly. It is like a leader of a group but in a broad general way. 

4. In your own words, define psycho-sociolinguist.

Psycho-sociolinguist is like a language master. The other 2 group concentrate on alot of things, but this group, only concentrate on getting us a big and broad picture of language itselft. 

Homework for 1/15/13

1. What does the title mean? What does it tell us about what this document is attempting to lay out?
- The title "Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing". I personally don't really understand the word "Postsecondary" mean, but I think that this generally talks about the format of a good piece of writing, the way to achieve a good piece of writing in college. 

2. Who produced the document?
- Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, and National Writing Project

3. In your own words, what are “habits of mind”? Which of the “habits of minds” bolded categories makes the least sense to you / do you want us to go over in class? Choose one category.
- Habits of mind is basically the most effective way to study of an individuals to make that individual success in the professional education life. 
- Metacognition

4. In your own words, what is “critical thinking”? Which bullet point makes the least sense to you / do you want us to go over in class?
- The ability to "CRITICAL THINKING" is the ability to evaluate a situation, to think about the causes and consequences of each choices and give out the most CRITICAL choice.

- Ability to compose in multiple environments

5. In your own words, what does “developing knowledge of conventions” mean?

- As I understand from the reading, "Developing knowledge of conventions" is trying to look up some general rules of writing for you to follow, some dos, some don'ts of writing that you have to strictly follow. 

 

The 5 Questions

1. What kind of racism are you talking about?
2. How long does this essay have to be? The minimum length of the essay?
3. When is the due date?
4. How many points will this essay be in the final grade?

"Enjoying Your Camping Trip" - Answers

1. The kind of genres I think this essay belong to is an "Exam Essay". In highschool, most of the essay I write is this kind of essay. The only different is that I didn't have to cite any source back in Highschool because the copyright rules in Vietnam is very fuzzy and not clear like in America. Some interesting topic that I have wrote about are "Chirldren rights on something",

2. Through reading this essay, I don't think that this essay is a college level writing essay. First of all, this writing don't have an exact genre or style. It just talk about an experience that the author have been through. One more thing, the sources are not specific enough for the reader and they are in the middle of an essay, made the essay and paragraph looks so messy and not clear.

3. I think this as a gerneral writing is a decent piece of writing because they use alot of high level vocabulary and the explanation of this essay is clear. But, the author needs to think again about the way to cite the sources that they use.

Answer the Question for the reading "Seven Ways High School Prepare You for Failure"

1. The writing style that the author describe does not really match my country writing style. In my country, Vietnam, I used to be studying in an International High School where we have English Native Teacher come from all over the world. They use English books from America to teach us English, so the writing style is a little bit different. The writing assignment is smaller, much shorter. It was also the same for the writing genres, we only write a few genres like "Creative Essay" or "Persuasive Essay". We have never write a Lab Report before because whenever we walk into a Lab, the teacher always give us handouts to fill in what the experiment is about and how it goes.

2. If you let me compare the Writing in High School with the writing now in College. I would prefered the writing in College more. One of the reason being in High School, I am one of the best student in English and the Essay in High School is very short. I can't fully express all I want to say in the limit of just 250 words, so sometimes, I have to shorten or cut of my idea and that would make my essay sound weird. The kind of writing I like huh? Well, I really like the "Creative Writing" with no limit beacuse I can create anything I think of and make up story for them, so far, I have had 3 successful creative story and I really love "Creative Writing".

Homework - 4 type of essay genres.

1. Persuasive Essay
- A persuasive essay is an essay that you present facts, informations, your own idea and opinion on a matter to persuade your audience that the way you take the matter is right.
- You can only TAKE on side because it could make your audience confuse if you support both side.
- Even if you take 1 side, still talks about the other side a little bit to not show out the bias personality of your essay.
- The format of the essay is:
        + Paragraph 1: Introduction on what you will be persuade your audience about and be sure to include your thesis statement that state your main idea and give out your direct opinion
        + Pragraph 2 + 3: State your reason why you support your ideas with 2 powerful and strong reason and some example or experience to support your idea.
        + Paragraph 4: Talk a little bit about the opposite opinion side to make it not look like you are biased.
        + Paragraph 5: Conclude

2. Narrative Essay:
- A Narrative Essay is an essay that describe a story of you or other people.
- It have to follow the time-space continuum order and doesn't jump from this to that so quickly.
- The story have to make sence in some way to other people too, not just to you.
- You can't you second person subject in this kind of essay.
- The format of the essay is:
        + Paragraph 1: Introduction to the story. Talk about the time and places that the story happen and try to lean a little bit towards the body of the story. Must have transition sentences or words to lead to the body.
        + Pragraph 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6....: The body of the story, talks about the main event of your story. Remember to concentrate on the tense.
       + Paragraph "Last": The Conlusion of the essay. Have to conlude the story and once again tell your experience on the story.

3. Lab Report:
- Lab Report Essay is a type of essay that inform the reader about the details, process, data, outcome, results of an experiment that you did.
- The format of a Lab Report Essay:
      + Tittle: You need to inform people on what you are doing with the experiment. Don't name your Report someting peotic.
      + Abstract: An overview on what you are doing and how you are going to achieve your goal.
      + Introduction: Talk about "Why?" you chose this project and how will this project teach you.
      + Materials and Methods: Talks about what you did. What kind of material you gather, how do you manage to gather those material, what have you done to the raw material that you gather.
      + Results: Talk about the detail results that you get. How many result that you get, Are yo statisfied with that result
      + Conclusion: What you learn from the experiment, does it prove the goal you set?

4. Exam Essay:
- An exam essay is basically could be all of those above.

When I was young, I always want to write a biography about myself like all the great one did. When I went to GRCC and studied ENGL 100, my first essay that I have to turn in is to talk about myself so I am really excited.

My name is An Thien Ha and I am from Vietnam. My name, if you understand Vietnamese means “Blessing from the Sky”. I am currently 17 years old. I have just came to America a few months ago so I am still adapting to the vast cultural environment of America.

In Vietnam, I live with my family, my mom, my dad, my grandpa, my little sister and my little brother. It was not a really big family in Vietnam but it was the best family ever. They encouraged me to go to America to get a better education system. My father used to be studying abroad alot and he is now really successful as a Professor of Marketing and Travels. He is one of my inovation to study here. 

Talk about my own life, I am now currently a student at GRCC. Something about me that could interest other people is that I really like superheroes movies. They just fasinating and I can understand them pretty well. Do I have a girlfriend? Yes I have a girlfriend and we have been going out with each other for nearly 3 years. She is really beautiful and cute no matter what everyone esle said. I love her with all my heart.

My goal of education is being to get a Bachelor degree from America in Human Resource Management to find a better job in Vietnam or maybe I could even get a Master Degree here.

When I have free time, I usually play League of Legends. I am now currently lv 30 :D And at Rank V Silver, working my way up to Gold :D My most played Champion is Udyr Spirit Guard :D 

That is all about myself.