Wilmarie's Weblog

Oh my GOD!!

Wilmarie — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:43:39 +0000

I actually got picked to present at the English as a Field of Change presentation thingamabob at my University! I only submitted my abstract on terms of “What if?” and I got picked . . . O_O* Other people will be talking about hardcore, ’serious’ literature, linguistics, morphology . . . and I’ll be presenting my project on fan fiction!! Not the same project, but rather an adaptation of the ways in which fan fiction may be used or beneficial in a classroom environment, particularly in a second language setting. But still, I am incredibly enthused and not a little bit intimidated by this. Hope I don’t stammer!!!

Related Research

Wilmarie — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 04:55:57 +0000

For another of my classes this semester, I researched and presented on an online community of a popular anime series. It was an interesting project from many different standpoints. First, there was the participation of several different people that might not have otherwise be connected. All that tied them together was their common enjoyment of the show. There were people from all walks of life, all regions of the world. Then, there was the collaboration of several people to make meaning of an established phenomenon. For instance, there were occasions where a topic was introduced, and some of the posters had limited knowledge of what was going on. Other users would then post more information on the topic, allowing for full participation from all members fo the forum board.

I studied the forums from the standpoint of an ESL isntructor, and looked at the way non-native speakers (or writer, as it were) speakers of English managed to compose cohesive messages int he forums. I chose several writers, ranging from ages 14 to 20, and from places like China and Mexico. I found several interesting results, like the emergence of patterns of participation, and how sometimes a writer could influence the subsequent posts, which would emulate the diction, spelling conventions and even the use of emoticons of the original posting. Another interesting subject I found was the appropriation and use of conversational cues in a written media. For example, some people used frequent emoticons to punctuate their words, typing up happy faces, frown faces, winking eyes, faces sticking their tongues out, etc. adding nuance to their posts.

One of the conclusions I drew was that students used scaffolding to fill those gaps in information they might have. They also followed examples; if someone posted with incorrect grammar, spelling, capitalization or heavy use of emoticons, subsequent posters would as well.

Another conclusion I drew was the importance of belonging to a community, of establishing a connection through a common thread, it being hte anime series. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that often, it was the non-native speakers of English that were setting the bar of understandability. I mean, I understand it’s the internet, but does that mean that, because it is a relaxed and casual environment, you’re going to make your writing obscure and difficult to understand because you don’t want to use any punctuation, capitalization, or decide to use abbreviations we don’t get the meaning to? That just makes the writing confusing and annoying to read.

Still, it was an interesting enough project to merit my wanting to research it further. One of the possible branchings of this research could be finding a forum with Puerto Ricans posting. As I explained in the project, the geographic proximity would allow me to gain a more personalized view of the participant as it relates to the real personality of the participant as opposed to the personalities they exhibit online.

This is just one more manner in which we could view the environment English language learners develop in and the impact it has on their growth as learners and as writers.

These are the postings I think represent who I am

Wilmarie — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:02:52 +0000

The postings listed here are the ones that I think best represent me as a a person at a crossroads, between what it is to be a student and how it relates to what it is to be a teacher:

Chapter in “Cross-Talk in Comp Theory” – Dec 14, 2008

Richard C. Raymond – Dec 14, 2008

Winds of Change – Dec 13, 2008

Writing Process – Sept 30, 2008

The Subject is Reading – Sept 20, 2008

I Want my Computer Back – Sept 4, 2008

Chapter of “Cross-Talk in Comp Theory”

Wilmarie — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:43:40 +0000

Inventing the University. Chapter written by David Bartholomae in text “Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader”. Ed. Victor Villanueva. 2nd Edition. National Council of Teachers of English: 2003.

This piece by Bartholomae reminds me of the Amy Tan piece Mothertongue, where Tan evaluates the foolishness of assuming that she needed to change the way she wrote English because of her audience, to seem smart enough or something equally vague and nonsensical. At the same time, I recognize that we use many different registers when speaking and writing. I am obviously not going to talk colloquial Spanglish slang at, say, a job interview. And neither am I going to talk about antidisestablishmentarianism to fourth graders. (and no, I don’t know anything about that hideously long word other than it is the longest word in the English dictionary – Mary Poppins doesn’t count) The way I talk to my students cannot reflect the way I talk to my kitten (who is insanely adorable and makes me go into paroxysms of ‘Who’s Mama’s good girl, you’re so cuuuute!!’)

She looks Russian, doesn't she? Hence, the name.

**Squeee!!**

Ahem! Yeah, so . . .

In selecting the appropriate discourse, the correct tone and register we use in any given situation, we come face to face with another hurdle for writers: the matter of audience. There is much debate on the subject of audience, as reported by classmate Jeniffer. Some theorists claim that audience is important to a writer, should guide the writer into creating a piece that is important. And yet other theorists suggest that audience shouldn’t matter, that in thinking of writing for an audience creates a barrier between the writer and the finished product, that a piece of writing created for an audience is not truly authentic. Both sides matter, of course. One cannot write everything the same manner, just as one cannot simply produce a piece based solely on audience, losing individuality.

The key is a balance between audience and individuality, between empathy for the reader and honesty with the self. I think this only gets better with practice, and with interest in part of the writer.

Bartholomae states in page 628 that “the writer who can successfully manipulate and audience (or, to use a less pointed language, the writer who can accomodate her motives to her reader’s expectations) is a writer who can both imagine and write from a position of privilege.” Simply put, a writer who understand who the audience is, who can use this knowledge, is one who can push the audience’s buttons.

Teaching the section I currently teach at RUM, this semester I encountered freshman students at the University, students whose experience in writing essays has been either very personal and casual, or the exact opposite, very formal and functional. I encountered students who were so used to having a question, a specific set of guidelines to define audience for them, to aid their writing, that when I gave them a free-topic essay, they essentially freaked out. They had no idea how to work in defining their purpose, in constructing their conception of audience.

I tried to get them to think fo themselves first, to figure out who they were as writers before considering audience. Their frst papers were very casual, individual, with contractions, abbreviations, slang words. Then I tried to get them to write for an academic audience, citing texts and providing sources, refining their language.

As happened to Richard Raymond in my previous entry, I have had some failures with some students who see writing as something formulaic, as a means to an end and nothing else. But I harbor the hope that for the majority of the students this semester, that they see that they do not need to trade in their originality to connect to an audience, and that they do not have to settle for writing formulaic, safe papers that only satisfy the audience but are regrettably forgettable to them.

Richard C. Raymond – “When Writing Professors Teach Literature: Shaping Questions, Finding Answers, Effecting Change”

Wilmarie — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 21:59:45 +0000

Earlier in the semester, I presented on Richard C. Raymond’s “When Writing Professors Teach Literature: Shaping Questions, Finding Answers, Effecting Change”.( CCC 59:3 / FEBRUARY 2008. 473-502) I truly enjoyed this article because I think that all too often, the students we work with in Puerto Rico exhibit many of the same traits of the students encountered by the article’s author. Raymond spent January through July 2003 as visiting professor of American Studies at the University of Shkoder, Albania, one of the poorest countries in Europe, oppressed by communism and corrupt politics.

Like many places in which politics restrain freedom of speech and control what is taught, schools suffered from the ‘banking’ method of instruction. ‘Banking’, as defined by Paulo Freire, is the concept of teachers depositing knowledge into the empty vessels that are the students. The students are passive, not participating in their own education, and the material taught is not necessarily relevant to the students, but it is safe. It does not challenge the establishment.

So imagine Raymond’s surprise when, as an American citizen used to speaking his mind, to living in a democratic society, suddenly found himself in a society just recently throwing off the shackles of communism. He encountered a situation many of us can relate to: overcrowded sections, students who were unaccustomed or even afraid to make suggestions, and he used an interesting technique: an impromptu mix-and-match grab bag of pedagogies, of theories of instruction, and create a hybrid method that in the end, gave students a voice. He used problem-posing theories, social rhetoric, and an equal balance of process and product, never focusing on just writing, and never centering on just reading.

One of the things he used that worked was tying events in literature to the social context the students were living in, making literature relevant and using its themes as writing prompts for the journals they kept. And while the students didn’t all participate in class, the journal entries were thoughtful and expressive, demonstrating that they related to the readings in meaningful ways.

Teachers should give students the freedom to make up their own topics, and they should also open themselves to the students. The example given is the author’s personal essay responding to Emily Dickinson’s “Because I would not stop for Death” by remembering the grieving process when his father died. (486-488) this was easily the most emotional part of the article, how the author opened himself to the students, describing the pain and confusion he felt when he lost his loved one.

Another important discovery the author made was just how important feedback was to these students, who had so far been indoctrinated into working individually, that ‘helping out’ is synonymous with ‘cheating’. He also discovered that self-enveloping (close-reading), as opposed to the appropriation of a work of literature, was a better mechanism to describe personal situations and thoughts. Students would use Dickinson to understand death, Walt Whitman to understand the desire for freedom.

The author, in all fairness, kept a journal much like the students did. In his journals, however, he didn’t write the same assignments as his students, but rather observations of his methods, how the things he tried out worked with the students. He wrote: “I thrilled to watch and listen as they taught each other and began taking responsibility for their country.” (492) And in a very real way, the students also took responsibility for their learning.

The article also explores the difficulties and differences in educational attitudes. For instance, some literature professors refuse to teach students how to write, for it is the job, they say, of composition professors; instead, they set out to cover as much material as possible, expecting students to use prewriting skills learned elsewhere as they read their assignments and write their papers. (496)

One of the things that make this article so effective is how realistic it is. It does not sugarcoat anything; but rather shows the facts that sometimes, not everyone becomes self-evolving – out of the 28 students Raymond had, 2 failed and 5 passed with marginal grades. You can’t help everyone. Not everyone takes to the educational techniques we might employ in a classroom, however effective they may be to all the other students.

“Best Practices” chapter

Wilmarie — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:37:47 +0000

Karchmer-Klein, Rachel. Best Practices in Using the Internet to Support Writing. Chapter 11 of Best Practices in Writing Instruction. Ed. Graham, Steve, et al. Guilford Press:2007.

Ah, Internet. A tool both revered and reviled, comforting and threatening.

Dramatic, huh?

But seriously, though, the Internet can be all those things and so much more. Proper use of the Internet may provide the user endless valuable information that can help define a topic, clarify doubts, gather information, and research proper formatting techniques, all free of charge on most sites.

Improper use of the Internet, however, is a tool of distraction, of meaningless meandering from one topic to the next, chatting with friends, even downloading music or movies, God forbid.

It can promote creativity, once a student realizes the breadth of information pertinent to the topic, or it can promote laziness, sloppy writing, once a student realizes that with a simple ‘Cut’ and ‘Paste’, s/he has a professional-looking paper.

However, the article explores some of the better qualities of the Internet, such as how it promotes agency, once a student feels responsible for the text produced and posted online, and how students feel motivated to write a better final product once they know their work will be posted online. A third good point for the Internet is the interactivity of it, something I agree with and explore more in depth in my Multigenre Project.

The author mentions WebQuest as means of instruction and of developing writing excercises, but generally speaking, most of the tips and websites suggested in the reading are more geared towards a younger audience, with many of the projects oriented for fourth and fifth grade. Some of them are fairly simple, but I think they would take well to a bump in complexity, in particular the autobiographical and collaborative exercises.

I never really thought of building a class website until this semester, when another of the TA’s used a Facebook group for one of her classes last semester and had tremendous success. I built one group for each of my sections this semester, and I have to admite, the Internet group has its pros and its cons.

Pros include scaffolding, students helping each other out when one isn’t sure about a date or an assigned essay topic. It was easy for me to supply the materials for class, as all I had to do was provide a link to the sources. I could also link to websites I thought could be useful for students, and encouraged them to do the same.

Cons, on the other hand, go back to what I said before. Students procrastinated on looking up the articles posted, and would invent an endless variety of excuses for not having read, despite the fact that the material had been posted for several days.

I think I need to refine this some more, as I intend to use it next semester.

I Rule at Trivia Quiz Games!!!

Wilmarie — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:44:06 +0000

Yeah!

So, I’m talking about one of the keys in Hairston’s article, my previous entry. One of the keys was to teach strategies for discovery, to let students generate content. I do this often, with various degrees of success.

I will use a search engine and type something, usually springing from the dreaded Wikipedia. I use it as a point of reference, branching out to research and follow the leads the articles give me. But Wikipedia is a disease!! I mean, I want to research something about William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, and end up reading something about the Japanese samurai code of honor, Bushido, in something like four clicks of the mouse.

And if you’re remotely like me, with the attention-span of squirrel on crack, then you’ll spend a lot of time doing inane, irrelevant research to the topic at hand. But I have found that this free-form research, once I can tighten it down to just click on the terms related to my task, is actually very helpful, especially if I’m stuck, because I can see information related to the topic.

And because I am an ironclad, certified-to-win-at-least-$500-dollars contestant on Jeopardy!

Winds of Change – by Maxine Hairston

Wilmarie — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:33:25 +0000

Hairston, Maxine. “The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 33, No. 1. (Feb., 1982), pp. 76-88. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-096X%28198202%2933%3A1%3C76%3ATWOCTK%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H

The ‘winds of change’ alluded to in the reading’s title stems from the paradigm shift that gives cause to new modes of thinking in order to solve problems which, much as time and audiences and students, change with time. I agree with this wholeheartedly – I understand that today’s students are a different audience than they were 20 or even 10 years ago. Once the established paradigm, the formula for solving a particular problem, doesn’t suffice or doesn’t cover a particularity, then it’s unstable, and has to evolve.

The article goes on to explain how paradigm shifts are the ones truly responsible for the acceptance of most scientific theories concerning phenomena, but only once the previous paradigm is at a crisis state of failure, not being enough to explain satisfactorily the shapeshifting values concerned. This is a bit frightening, and once it has to do with education, it becomes even more so. We have to wait until it just doesn’t work anymore, until students are not getting the full value out of their education, until they are learning outdated methods to solve archaic problems with obsolete materials, and then we’ll recognize that it’s time for a change?!

The traditional paradigm is not all bad, don’t get me wrong. The assumption that writing cannot be truly taught because it is something inherent in a person is one I can agree with. Anyone can write. The mechanics of it are taught in preschool. But whether any person can write well, write text that is meaningful and not just informative for the reader, that is something else entirely. I do, however, disagree with the notion that all writing is linear. This is something I mentioned previously, how we are supposed to teach the writing process and ask students to do brainstorms, diagrams, charts and any other type of prewriting technique before launching out into the essay itself. I myself don’t write like this. I just barge in and write my essay, using the computer to drag text back and forth if I decide the paragraph doesn’t really work at it’s current location. I only use some of the techniques for prewriting if I’m actually stuck in what I’m doing and need to kind of re-shuffle the topics I’m writing about.

Another of the concepts afforded in the article is the way professors and teachers are using outmoded models tfor teaching, and this is so true it’s depressing. Depressing, because it is just a terrible waste: a waste of time, a waste of energy. Time that could be well-spent learning new modes, learning how to stay current, is nonetheless squandered in one-on-one conferences and prewriting exercises.

Now, a change is positive and destructive at the same time. On one hand, it changes things and ends up geared towards a more productive stance than before. On the other, it creates distrust in the established educational theories. I mean, if this doesn’t work anymore, what else is broken? It almost reads like a divorce, the way the article describes it; How did it go wrong? Was it something I did? Is anyone else having asd much trouble with the current models of teaching, or is it just me?

However, there is no need to despair.

Many of the keys and characteristics for the teaching of writing posed by Hairston include making writing holistic, teaching students to find purpose, to write across several rhetoric disciplines, and teaching students to see that writing, more than a means of isntruction, can also be a means of entertainemnt and self-discovery, something that if you’ve read my mutligenre project you know I agree with.

I Want my Computer Back, Pt 2

Wilmarie — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:27:02 +0000

Ok, so I did some more soulsearching, and I realize that, like Sandra posted before, Google is making us lazy.

Remember how I posted about my changing attitudes toward literacy, all the way back in September (I think)? Well, here’s some more insult to the previous injury – my endless whining about my computer.

Right now, I’m doing my Master’s degree in English education, so I am sometimes exhausted by the sheer amount of work to be done. I don;t have to read chapters. Now, I must read books. And I don’t do a report, or a simple essay. Now, I do 30 minute presentations and 15-20 page papers. It all hinges on the careful balance that might be hard to find. I remember doing very little studying in high-school – I was fairly bright, and the only classes that gave me trouble were history (too many important dead people to remember) and science (Damn you, Periodic Table!!).

So, imagine my surprise when I entered University, and immediately found myself in an environment where, not only did the Professors not hold my hand, but I actually had to put effort into what I did.

How rude, right?

So, I adjusted. I changed my outlook, and found that I really liked the challenge.

I wasn’t the only one to enter the University: my mother entered University too in order to begin and complete her Masters in Nursing Sciences.

Imagine, carpooling to college with your mother.

She’s even worse with a computer than I am, and she would dictate her essays and projects to me, and I would type it all up for her. We entered nearly violent debates over our confusion about MLA (the format for language and humanities classes) versus APA (the format for science classes), so that we each inverted formats – Mom would hand in a nursing assessment in flawless MLA, and I would hand in a report on Macbeth in impeccable APA.

Awkward.

But despite everything, we worked together towards a common goal, a completion of a college degree. We did it: I graduated with a BA in English, Literature track, and Mom got her Masterrs in Nursing.

She severely outstripped me, and I cannot imagine the effort it must have taken her. It was easy for me to act put upon whenever she asked me for help doing Internet research, formatting a research paper or taking out an inter-library loan. After all, I wasn’t a mother of two, with a full-time, 40+ hour a week job and a husband, was I?

Scratch that – I am awful. I admire my parents. I think they have taught me a lot more about the value of education, the desire for self-improvement, literacy, independence, than anything I’ve ever experienced. They have shown me what it is to be truly driven to a goal, and stick with it and work it out until you have what you came for, and not give up.

Disclaimer for my Research Multigenre Project

Wilmarie — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:46:17 +0000

This project solely represents the opinions of Wilmarie Cruz Franceschi, and is not meant to gain any profit other than a grade. None of the text included in the posts may be used without my express permission, and any similarity to existing people or institutions is purely coincidental.

Illyria, Dalmasca, Final Fantasy, Mowgli, God of War, Edward Cullen, fanfiction.net and Harry Potter do not belong to me, obviously. They are the intellectual properties of Square Enix, Stephenie Meyer, J.K. Rowling, Rudyard Kipling, and other minds much more fertile than mine (that’s why I used them!)and I am in no way intentionally impugning on their creative rights.