Okay. The last blog, I can do this. Wow, I already got distracted by watching all of my friends’ snapchats who are at Coachella…lucky them. So, what to do for my multimodal project…

I really would like to do a video of some sort with my GoPro, and maybe do some overlaying text because I don’t like the sound of my voice on camera. I also don’t want to bite off more than I can chew. I always get so excited when it comes to projects, and I want to do a super amazing job, but then I fall short of my expectations. For some reason I keep getting this idea of wanting to somehow turn Legitimate Peripheral Participation into a video of some sort. Like maybe videotaping something that I could speed up to show how it works. I do not know. I keep re-reading my “This is what I know so far” paper hoping that something will jump out at me. I need inspiration. I don’t know how to turn some of these articles into something awesome. Hopefully I can think of something sooner than later…

 

We have all had those overly thought out prompts that leave no room whatsoever for creativity. You know, the ones that describe exactly what needs to be done for the paper or project, what materials need to be used, and the teacher explains exactly what they DO NOT want to see. What if the teacher left everything entirely up to you to decide? You got to choose the way to present your information about a given topic, or maybe you get to choose whatever topic you want! You could write a paper, make a poster, make a video, sing a song, do whatever the hell you want! As long as you arrive at a goal, or are able to display meaning in a certain way, then you have succeeded.

I can see where certain aspects of giving a student complete control could go wrong. Even in class on Monday I was overwhelmed with the idea that anything could be created to teach someone about the Shipka article. Unfortunately, this blog does not do her much justice.

I’m excited to dabble with the concept of multimodality more!

The Wiley article was particularly interesting because of the recent discussions in class, and I have my own opinions on the use of the five-paragraph essay. Throughout high school I considered myself to be a proficient writer. I used to use the five-paragraph essay and get A’s, what more could I ask for? Of course, this should only be one way of writing a paper, and not the only way. However, I do believe that it’s a successful way of learning to write based on my own experience. For example:

The Jane Schaffer approach to writing can be useful to struggling writers when structuring an essay. Mark Wiley, a composition coordinator at a university claims that, “Several high school teachers whom I have spoken with who have been using the Schaffer method generally saw rapid improvement in the writing of struggling students” (63). I can remember taking English courses that introduced these same concepts when I was learning how to write an academic essay. It was especially helpful to follow the guidelines of what a “good” paragraph was. Even though I did not struggle much with my writing, I continued to use this method throughout high school and learned to put my own twist on it.

There comes a time when the student needs to learn other ways of structuring their essay and make it their own. But, how do you make something your own when you have been told throughout school that you can’t write well? Why would a student put that much effort into an essay only to fail? I think that the five-paragraph essay is a good jumping off point with learning to structure an effective essay, but it is not the only way to write a paper.

Observe the thing. Do the thing. Become awesome at the thing. Teach others how to do the thing.

In any given situation, whether it is school, work, sports, and so on, learning is always taking place. Most instances, we start off as bystanders and wall flowers, watching others actions in the given situation. Once there is a nice level of comfort we gradually immerse ourselves in completing tasks, most likely asking many questions along the way. Sooner or later, we gain the confidence needed to be independent in the task, however, we are never done learning. New conflicts and situations arise, or new people become involved. Anything can change what you thought you knew. Also, as a full participant to the community, there are now other people who need the knowledge you have obtained, and so they begin to observe what you are doing.

I think that Legitimate Peripheral Participation can pretty much be summed up in this sentence, “. . . learning is an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice” (31). We are always learning. Much of our group discussions have revolved around work related experiences of learning. One experience I have had is when I started working at Old Navy. They sat us down for an 8 hour orientation with packets of information to read and follow along with videos. It was the most pointless 8 hours of my life . . . thank god I got paid for that. I can honestly say that none of that information helped me when I worked my first day. There is no better way to learn something than to dive right into it. Just the same as if I went to Mexico without knowing any Spanish, I would learn it a lot faster by being there than if I was in a classroom.

When you do the thing, you learn the thing.

 

The Bartholomae article brought up many valid points which relate to the workshops of English 30. Although this reading was particularly painful to read, I found it easy to tie together the article and the internship. As discussed in class, Bartholomae states,” I am arguing, then, that a basic writer is not necessarily a writer who makes a lot of mistakes. In fact, one of the problems with curricula designed to aid basic writers is that they too often begin with the assumption that the key distinguishing feature of a basic writer is the presence of sentence level error.” This directly correlates to Rodby and Fox discussing the placement tests for incoming freshman. One test should not be the deciding factor, and even the students who do test low should not be excluded from the rest of their peers, taking no credit courses.

 

My voice definitely changes for different instructors, as well as whether I can be informal or not. This depends on whether I feel comfortable with the professor; otherwise, I am safe with my papers, only doing what I am asked. There have been many instances where I felt as though I was only writing to achieve a good grade on a paper, not necessarily to write the way I wanted to. I do consider myself to be a good essay writer, at least which is what all of my grades show. Often times, I have trouble writing blog posts or quick writes because I don’t have the time to mull over my thoughts and achieve an academic voice. For different classes I don’t believe that I actually change my voice. I honestly just write to get it over with and to get the grade. Some of the papers that I am most proud of, or that I have pulled out to read again are the ones that I was able to speak about my own opinion on the subject, not to just follow the guidelines of a prompt.

 

I completely agree with Bartholomae that some students take on the role of always writing safe, tidy papers. He claims, “It will be hard to pry the writer . . . loose from the tidy, pat discourse that allows him to dispose of the question of creativity in such a quick and efficient manner.” I even find myself occasionally sticking so close to the guidelines of a prompt, or out of fear of getting a bad grade, I steer clear of throwing in some creativity.