Featured videos: language, literacy, writing

Reading Together

Perusall logoWe’ll use Perusall to annotate and read together. Link here to Perusall. Instructions for joining on the Assignments page.

Calendar: link here

Author: Anthony Mendoza

Basic as hell paragraph format

Basic as hell paragraph format

After reading and discussing Wiley’s article in class, I couldn’t help to agree more that the 5 paragraph essay format is a basic and uncreative way to write.  Im not saying the standard paragraph format isn’t useful in fact it’s a great example on how to help students how to write in the early stages of writing but thats where it ends. The format is a “stepping stone” because it helps students understand the basic elements of writing. I know personally from my experience, that was the way i was taught how to write up until I took ap English my senior year of high school. It was definitely any eye opener for me because it writing enjoyable for me. When I’m able to add my personal voice or opinion in my papers, I get a huge satisfaction.  For that reason, I get bored when asked to write papers with out my perspective because most of the time its already been said before.

Active Theory in motion!

Active Theory in motion!

Ok so from my understanding of Russells’s article and applying the active theory to my internship ( The ESL Center), the mediational tools that I can think of right off the bat would their computer, dictionaries, books and writing utensils. As Russell puts it “Texts are tools for carrying on some activity and they vary with the activity” (423) . According to him, these resources serve many different purposes depending on the tutor and student objective. For example, a student could walk in needing help on their term paper ( their objective) we (the tutors) would try our best to help them succeed in that aspect (our objective)  maybe it’s looking up credible sources or correct spelling.  Interaction would consist of receiving feedback from each other and making sure student is engaged during the session.

Blog 2: Some Cool Title Goes Here

Blog 2: Some Cool Title Goes Here

One term that comes to mind when I think about my style of writing is knowing your audience. That in itself helps your writing be more concise and focus because you have an idea what your audience wants to hear or how they will read your writing: at least that’s how it is for me. That being said, there’s also an element of awareness involved. By keeping these two terms in mind, you tailor your style of writing accordingly to your intended audience.

Though I agree with most of the points in the article “Metaconcept” there’s one that I feel indifferent about. In section 1.2 Lunsford states, “the advent of digital age and online literacies has blurred the boundaries between writer and audience significantly, the points of the once stable rhetorical seems to be twirling and shifting and shading into one another’.’ Does she mean that it’s difficult to categorize rhetorical elements found in digital literacy? I think now more than ever the rhetorical triangle is useful because of the mass information that we’re exposed to on the internet.  We use that triangle to help us understand why or why not videos or advertisements are successful. I don’t know maybe I’m totally wrong but that’s how interpreted it.

Intro

Intro

Hello everyone one, my name is Anthony Mendoza, I’m twenty-four years old and starting my senior year here at Chico State. I’m majoring in English Education and pursuing my TESOL certificate. I would like to teach abroad for a little and come back to teach at the high school level with more experience and after hearing some of the stories in class my mind is made up. Plus it’s good a reason to travel and see the world which is what I would like to do someday.  I attended Yuba College before transferring where I jumped around majors before making English my focus.

During my down time, I like to compose music on my laptop, write poetry, read  graphic novels and watch movies. I’m also kind of a gamer nerd, I enjoy RPG games and fighting games like tekken for Playstation four. I grew up in a small town outside Sacramento called Olivehurst and I’m  the first one in my family to go to college.  I want to finish school and help my parents out for all their support they have given me. What I’m hoping to get out of this course? Well getting to know you guys and most important how to be a great and effective tutor for students.

A normal day for me regarding literacy is me checking my social media, which is more than I like to admit but hey its quite resourceful and entertaining!  I also check my email frequently and text friends and family members. This is something that through time has helped me hone my digital literacy skills which I hope they improve even more by the end of this course.

As far as Szwed’s journal goes,  I agree with some of his points, he gives us insight on what it means to measure literacy. The truth is we simply can’t measure it in a traditional sense because literacy comes in all types of ways. “I would expect not to discover then, is not a single level of literacy on a single continuum from reader to non-reader but a variety of configurations of literacy, a plurality of literacies.”(424). There isn’t just one category for literacy and would be unfair to put people in one category when measuring their literacy skills.  Literacy has many different variables from cultural backgrounds and locations. For example, someone who doesn’t read books could be excellent in reading sheet music or video games that offer multimodality in many creative ways. Literacy means something different for everyone.

This is something that I didn’t really think about till last semester in my intro to literacy class but in hindsight makes sense.  Literacy comes in different styles and cannot be measured in a out dated way according to Szwed.