Reflection 4

So far for this project, we have only gotten to work on the evaluation part. We followed the outline for the evaluation that is posted under the ‘Project 3’ tab on the class blog. We got to the bullet point that says we are supposed to talk about the issue of the community and the ‘larger conversation’. What exactly is the larger conversation? (just a general question for Mrs. Jankens)

• Questions for Group: We are supposed to talk about relevant key definitions and a question i had was if we had any key definitions. I couldn’t think of any and wouldn’t imagine there are a lot because our topic is relatively straightforward. I was thinking about this because it would be good to define as much as we can to make sure our audience knows exactly what our topic is.
• Questions for Mrs. Jankens: I was confused about the evaluation because it said that the bulk of that evaluation was supposed to come from that one bullet point but i wasn’t sure what exactly what we write about. So far for this section, all we included was the closing times of places that were available around campus that allowed students to use their meal plans. Can we also include statistics in this section of Wayne State University about how it is becoming more of a non-commuter school or does that go somewhere else in the evaluation? One other question i had was about the proposal? Are we allowed to only have one solution? If there possibly are two solutions, can we include both or should be write about the best option? I was thinking about these questions because there could be multiple ways to fix our issue.

Working Bibliography

Brown, Lora Beth, Rachel K. Dresen, and Dennis L. Eggett. “College students can benefit by participating in a prepaid meal plan.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 105.3 (2005): 445+. Academic OneFile. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

“Dining Hall and Retail Operations Hours.” Michigan Housing. The Regents of the University of Michigan, 2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

“Dining Hall Options – Housing – Wayne State University.” Dining Hall Options – Housing – Wayne State University. Wayne State University, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

“Meal Plan Options – Housing – Wayne State University.” Meal Plan Options – Housing – Wayne State University. Wayne State University, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013

“SPARTY’S HOURS.” Michigan State University Culinary Services. Michigan State University, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

Williams, Lauren. “The meal plan: how savvy administrators make strategic derisions about the whore campus dining experience–because meal planning isn’t just about the food.” University Business Sept. 2013: 42+.Academic OneFile. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

Reflection 3

Throughout my I-Search process, i was satisfied with what i found out. After doing all of my research, i felt like i had a solid answer to my question. I found out many different characteristics that are used to differentiate players and that is exactly what i wanted to find out. A question that i was left with though was how can players improve to be like superstars? I found out many aspects like speed, strength, hang time, athleticism, and defensive ability but how does a player go about in improving these aspects? I was going to put this in my conclusion but i figured it wasn’t too important because some of the aspects like coaches, lengthy hands, or being tall are not necessarily things some one can improve in a offseason, for example.

What influenced my writing throughout the course of this paper was the peer response we did in class and also other people that i told my topic too. The peer response in class helped me identify a lot of stuff that was irrelevant. Anyone who read my paper crossed out some information that was either not needed or was repetition. After going back over my essay, i realized i did have a lot of repeated information. Other people helped me write my essay as well; it was like they were writing it for me. When i told people (NBA die hard fans) about my question, they exploded with information that really helped me include only the important parts of the articles I read.

My meeting with Mrs. Jankens was very helpful. I was able to develop a layout of my research so i knew what i was going to do at each step along the way. I was also able to fix up some small grammatical errors and some wording issues. Some questions i asked about were about the requirements of the essay like if we had to have an interview. I wasn’t 100% at this point if i was going to be able to connect with someone and get an interview done so i wanted to clarify that. Another question was about the layout of the essay. I asked whether i should keep a long quoted paragraph from the article or explain each sentence by sentence and got her professional opinion which i ended up using.

One reading that influenced my writing process was Peter Elbow’s article about reading aloud your essay. When i read aloud my essay, i noticed more mistakes than i did when i read it to myself in my head.

As a learner of this class, i would describe this as someone who pays attention in class and actively participates in discussions. A learner’s job in this class is to listen to what other people have to say their essay and also give feedback on other people’s essay. Receiving feedback allows you to improve your essay and giving feedback enforces recognizing the types of errors you shouldn’t make. A learner also should participate in the activities we do like the activity of combining sentences. I see the role of a learner as this because the goal of this class is to improve your writing ability. Also, this class is heavily based upon what we write and discussions in class.

I feel like i have overall improved at editing and revising essays by doing this essay. I learned to stay on topic and remove things that are not needed. I even recognized small grammar errors more often. Before this class, i haven’t written an essay since junior year of high school so i feel like this essay helped me get back into the groove of writing a structured essay about a specific topic.  I feel like i have become better at the research learning outcome. I learned to use the Wayne State library and databases to find scholarly articles in almost an instance.

Reading Response 6

Peck, Flower, and Higgin’s argument includes the concept of community literacy, which they define as a search for an alternative discourse. They talk of a Community Learning Center in Pittsburgh that helped the community there develop public connection and conversation. They argue that community literacy creates equity between the university and the community through learning, writing, and speech practice. Discourse is used in their argument to refer to language and the available roles, motives and strategies that support a transaction. They propose 3 different discourse visions including cultural literacy, literacy of social and cultural critique, and community literacy. Cultural literacy would minimize difference within a community. Literacy of social and cultural critique addresses issues of power and social relationships among the community. Community Literacy supports social change and intercultural conversion, provides a strategic approach for decision-making and lastly, inquiry of conflicts, assumptions, and practices between communities. They argue that this doesn’t just involve bringing together different people but to study their assumptions and beliefs.

Some community-based collaborative projects for Project #3 could include tutoring elementary school students. There are many elementary schools in Detroit that offer tutoring and we could tutor kids on math, english or science. Another community-based collaborative project could include landscaping for a public areas around Detroit. I went to Redford Public Library to volunteer for landscaping and a group of us really turned the place around. For this project, we could  volunteer for a similar activity and write about what we did to help out and what was required.

Reflection 2

• I actually like the way my essay sounds. The main reason I like the way it sounds is because in the sections where I analyze the knowledge I got from each source, it actually sounds as though a sports analyst could have said. I included basketball terminology but I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing. On one side, it adds to the voice of my essay but on the other hand, people who are not too familiar with basketball won’t understand some things I said.
• When reading aloud my essay, I noticed some things I didn’t think sounded right. An example of this was a couple sentences that were in passive voice. I changed a lot of these sentences to active voice just because it sounded a little better.
• The essay sounds like academic me. It sounds like every other essay I’ve written. I actually wish it sounded a little like a debate of back and forth facts of LeBron vs. Michael so I might change the orientation of some sentences to see how it sounds.
• While I was writing my draft, I got carried away with watching YouTube videos of NBA stars. In these videos, a lot of sports analyst would talk in the background while highlights are showing. This is partly why my essay has a lot of basketball terms. Also while I was writing my essay, I told my friends about my topic and they started arguing about who the best player is so this actually gave me some stuff to write about as they were arguing.
• Other things I noticed in my essay while I read it aloud were irrelevant sentences. For me, it was easier to notice unnecessary information because I noticed the subject switch. For example, on the first page, I talked about how I bought NBA 2k video games and how these games ranked players. I actually decided to remove this part of the essay because I didn’t think it was too necessary. This helped to cut down some of my essay. In my revision process, I plan on reading over my essay multiple times and seeing what is really relevant. All three people that read my essay in class said that I was repetitive in some areas and may want to cut some things down.

Peter Elbow’s article was about how our mouth and ears help in the process of revising any piece of work. I realize that many things it says in the article are actually true. When I read my essay aloud, things that sound funny are easily recognizable, just as it says. It is easier to make things sound like ordinary speaking language after reading it aloud. For example, i had a sentence that read “these players were the ones that would facilitate the offense” and i thought this sounded way too professional so i changed it to “these players were the ones with the ball most often.” Also, Elbow mentions that the “ear is good at hearing the annoying clang of repetition.” I also found this to be very true because when I read my essay, I noticed that I used the word “improve” a lot. I used it multiple times and I started to notice it so I changed one to “better” and another one from “improving” to “becoming a better self.”

Connecting to Fulwiler’s article, there is no discourse community that i could identify to describe my writing. Fulwiler writes that he also can’t identify any but his discourse community usually determines the topic of his writing. Fulwiler analyzed a couple of his private and public writings to try and find his voice. This essay has the same voice as others that i have written but it is has a different voice from something i may write to a friend in a text, a letter, or in person.

I-Search Research

After learning about using the library research tools, i decided to look for some information on my topic using the databases. I accessed the CQ Researcher and Gale Opposing Viewpoints Databases through the English Research guide. On both of these databases, I browsed for topics but couldn’t seem to find much. CQ researcher had a “Arts, Culture, and Sports” tab but there was nothing about basketball. I then went to the Academic OneFile database and used the advanced search. At first, i included the keywords “Professional Basketball Players” & “Good players” and didn’t find much important stuff. I knew it was unimportant because when i read through few of the articles that came up, it was mainly about statistics of NBA players and just news of the different moves NBA teams have made over the summer. I went back to the advanced search and put in the keywords “NBA players” and “superstars” and this is where i found some useful information. I found a couple news article debates on which players are better than others. It lists things i need in my paper like the types of characteristics of players and what they do to improve.

Reading Response 5

ACTIVITY 2.1 – Ten different genres i read include the Biology Textbook, Powerpoint Lecture Slides for Biology, text messages, e-mail messages, Calculus Textbook, Nutrition Labels on various foods, The synopsis on the back of video games, online articles like yahoo articles, NBA News articles, and various flyers around campus.

The biology textbook is not an easy read. The way i read this book is by sitting down with my laptop and having dictionary.com open. I get ready for big words to look up. I look for bolded words because this usually indicates an important key concept. I also re-read because usually i get confused the first time so i read it back slowly. I look for pictures as a guide to help explain the content.

Reading text messages is completely different compared to formal textbooks. Reading text messages from a friend is usually short little sentences or 1-2 word replies. In texting, a lot of people use acronyms for everything. When i read text messages, i read these acronyms as acronyms. What i mean is that if someone says “lol”, i read it as “l-o-l” and not “laugh out loud”. When reading texts, acronyms usually automatically register in my head as what they stand for even though i don’t read them like that.

The Calculus textbook has a unique language because it is a math textbook. When reading that, i get ready for symbols and a bunch of numbers instead of big words. There are specific math phrases that i say in my head like instead “x to the power of 2” i just read it as “x squared”. In addition, even though some things are abbreviated like “lim”, i still read them as the full; “limit”. When opening this book, i don’t read everything but only the problems that were assigned; i skip straight to the problems i am only required to do.

Activity 2.3 – A group that i belong to is my friend group which is usually the group that i used to do any sort of activity with. Some words that people in the group use is ABCD, “down”, “ball”, and “PCEP”. ABCD was the name of our group when we performed a dance so now when we want to talk about something that is about all of us, we just say ABCD instead of each individual member. The reason we use this is just because it is an easier way to reference all of us. “Down” is in our vocabulary book is that you want to do something. For example, someone might say “Are you down to go to his house” which means “do you want to go to his house”. I don’t know why we say this but i think we got it from a movie and started saying it just because it sounded cool. “Ball” is another word for basketball. If someone asks to play ball, that usually means that they want to play basketball. The reason we say this is just because basketball is almost all of our favorite sport so basketball comes to mind even if you just say “ball”. PCEP is the schools we went to. It stands or Plymouth Canton Educational Park but PCEP is an acronym that says that we went to the 3 school campus. Really, these words all have a common reason; to describe we’re lazy and don’t feel like typing/saying the full saying.

Reading Response 4

Merriam, in Chapter 5, gives good strategies to use while conducting an interview. For my I-Search paper, i was actually planning on interviewing someone and if i do, these strategies will be very helpful. I was planning on interviewing friends who are big NBA fans and also some of my uncles or aunts that grew up watching some of the NBA legends. I would ask about certain things players did that stood out. In the text, it goes through many things like types of questions to ask and to avoid, making up a set of questions before the interview to be prepared, how to begin, and basic interaction during the interview. Good questions to ask include hypothetical, ideal position, and interpretative questions. These types of questions usually require the respondent to give more information than basic yes-or-no questions. When making questions for the interview i conduct, i will keep this in mind. Making an interview guide of questions is also another thing it says because it helps the interviewer feel confident and also have questions ready at hand. As new interviewers, a good strategy it also mentions is to conduct pilot interviews. This is a good way to test out questions and gain confidence. I might be able to use this to my advantage by interviewing a few people i know before the actual interviewee. In all, it goes over strategies to get the most information like having the respondent give you background information before the interview, tips on interaction like being respectful and nonjudgemental, and ways to get down data like videotaping/audio record the interview or just take notes.

Chapter 6 was about being a good observer. For my I-Search question, what makes someone be considered a “great” basketball player?, I planned on watching NBA games and youtube videos but these tips can still be helpful for me if i go to the gym and watch people play basketball. Observation, as it says, is the best option when behavior is being studied because it can be observed firsthand. Other things to observe include a physical setting, people, interactions between people, conversations, etc. The three steps of actually getting data involves entry, like getting permission, data collection, and exit. There are different positions an observer could take like being complete participant, participant as observer, observer as participant or complete observer. In my case, i could be a participant as observer, where i actually play basketball with people i observe, or a complete observer in which i stay on the sidelines and watch others play without them knowing. Getting down data is also key in observation. Field notes are taken on the spot but they must have descriptions and details for later use. For me, descriptions and details will include the kinds of moves that players perform, the type of shots they take, and how many points each player makes. Also, notes on the environment of the gym like how many people are there, what exactly are they doing, just shooting around, or actually playing a game.

Reading Response 3

The Postman and Weingartner text was about the standards and curriculum of learning. As i understood it, they are suggesting a new technique for teaching. They describe that in old education, students are taught to “ventrfloquize”. Students are basically taught to memorize and repeat what the teacher says. In this way, they learn the voice of authority. What they don’t like about this is that no thinking and questioning occurs within the student. In their new question curriculum, they developed broad questions that get the students thinking and discussing their thoughts. In this way, they develop more questions themselves while they discuss with their classmates and the knowledge they gain is through their questions. The knowledge that students learn in schools is based on how they perceive it which is why everyone learns in a different way. They propose that if students are  responsible for coming up with questions and seeking answers, they will start to see connections and relationships that no one has ever seen before. Their curriculum doesn’t have a wrong or right answer; it is simply fueled by students asking useful and realistic questions. Because they come up with the questions, they will be driven to find the answers. The reading by Macrorie is about a type of paper called I-Search. The chapter starts out with a story of how his wife researches about any question she has. Next, it goes into a I-Search paper written by Kathy Stacknik which was about her adventures as she toured a firefighting station. After the story, Macrorie goes into the process of writing an I-Search paper like developing topics to write on, talking and interviewing experts, the content an I-Search paper should include, and documentation involved. Basically, Macrorie believes that the habit of researching his wife has should be used in school research for writing papers. To connect both the articles I read, they both proposed ideas in which students could change their way of learning. One question i had about Postman and Weingartner’s reading was that a lot of the questions they asked were very broad like “what is change?” and “what is a good idea?” These types of questions don’t really have a specific answer because it depends on someone’s opinion. How do you assess whether a student is right or wrong under these circumstances? How would the grading process be like?

For the I-Search paper, I am thinking about choosing a question related to Hinduism or about a holiday that we celebrate. This readily came to mind because i don’t know too much about Hinduism and also i don’t know the meaning behind most of the holidays we celebrate. When it comes to religion, there are a broad range of questions to be asked so i thought it would be a good topic. Also, as Macrorie was saying to talk to experts, i would have easy access to experts because a lot of my friends and family members are very religious. On a different note, i was thinking about doing a question related to optometry because although i want to study it, i don’t know as much as i wished about it and this would be a great opportunity to find out a lot about it.

Reflection 1

• When I first started out creating my About Me page, I thought about things i could add that will add to the page that will make it look appealing and interesting to read. I thought about things like pictures to add, the format of the text, how long I wanted the writing part to be, colors of the background and other things. I tried to include pictures that made sense with the text and not just random things. Since i talked about family, Diwali, and my performance for IASA, i thought the 3 pictures i put up were appropriate to use in my About Me page. After looking at the examples of About me pages in class, I felt that my page was really long so i cut down some information. I tried to include only information that i felt was right to the point in describing who i am. As for customizing the actual page, i chose black and red because they are my favorite colors and they are good colors to make the page appealing.
• The first thing i did when i started writing for this project, i first thought about organization. I decided that i would put an introduction paragraph first as a way to make it an actual about me page. Since there were 3 topics to include in this project, i made each of those its own paragraph to have a total of 4. After that, i sat down and made a list of primary and secondary discourses i wanted to write about. I made a list of subtopics and stories i could mention as well as a way to organize each paragraph by its main points. After that, it was just a matter putting my ideas on paper and formalizing it.
• My key influences while writing this project were my experiences, free time activities and friends. My experiences really influenced what i wrote because whatever readily came to mind were good memories and important to me.  Free time activities the organizations i join and clubs i am in, i thought really have shaped who i hang out with and are my friends. My friends were also a key influence because they gave me ideas on what to write about when i was stuck and they helped me with revising and editing my project.
• This project has really helped me towards the “writing” learning outcome. Since i haven’t written done any writing assignment in over a year, it helped to get back into the thinking process and writing process of writing papers. Organization is a big thing in projects and this project helped my organization because i had to write in paragraphs and not just one long block of text. Content and detail is also something this project helped me with in the writing process. For example, when i described the reason we go to the temple, i had to give some detail about what we do and why we go. I had to think about what really is needed in the paper and what stuff to cut out. I cut out a lot of stuff like a long story of my parents and some different papers i wrote for my writing experience because it wasn’t really getting to the point; it was just background information. When explaining events, clubs, & holidays, i had to give some background and detail information so that also helped my writing process.