Monday, December 14, 2009

Assignment #2

You Gatto Tough it Out

I found the article Against School, by John Taylor Gatto, to be a very interesting yet opinionated read. It is obviously apparent that John Gatto is very against the public school system and if he could have it his way, homeschooling would be just as acceptable. He made some very valid points, but there are many large advantages of going through the public school system that John Gatto seemed to have forgotten about or chose to leave unaddressed. John Gatto seemed to have a very negative outlook on the schooling system which may have blinded him from some of the important factors of the public system today. I will now bring a few of them to your attention to hopefully at least bring light upon some of the advantages it gives you.

Gatto began by giving examples of a few historical figures who have come from the nontraditional education system and still contributed greatly to our society. He named George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln to state a few. I do agree with him that these men were very intelligent for their time and have had a large contribution to molding the future of not only America, but the world as well. What I do not agree with is that it supports his argument whatsoever. Of course there will always be the geniuses of their time who stand above the rest and lead the path for others to follow, but what about all of those who don’t. You can always name people that have succeeded but would that help if a fact came out that only 1% of nontraditional scholars actually succeeded? I made that number up but it goes to show that it is very likely that the success rate of public schooled graduates will tend to be higher than the latter. The reason their schooling system was not as grueling was because they did not have as much information to teach. We have come a long way from then and we can now learn what they discovered for us in a week’s worth of time in high school. If it weren’t for our school system, how would we have any of the advancements we have in science and medicine that we have today, especially at the rate that it is progressing. With all of the information and technology available today it would be illogical to claim that someone with great life experiences would be able to stumble upon a treatment many of the viruses and bacteria out in the world. In less than a year since the outbreak scare we have found a vaccination for H1N1, which was first produced by a Swiss company named Novartis AG . I would be willing to bet my life’s salary that these scientists came from a very demanding schooling system.

I would now like to move on to Gatto’s use of Inglis’ six basic functions to discredit the public school system. The fourth function is quoted as follows:

“The differentiating function. Once their social role has been ‘diagnosed,’ children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.”

This to me is a harsh spin of the truth, and I hope that as people read this paper to themselves they step back and challenge the writings in their head to make their own decision instead of conforming to the harsh opinions of Inglis and John Gatto. I feel that this statement is entirely un-true. When I was in school I always had the option of which class I could take, according to my skill level. Even though I qualified for all of the upper classes, I always had a choice from the beginning to perform at my highest potential. You may think, wait a minute, that’s what Gatto said because you were put in certain classes to set limitations on your potential. But really it was you who put yourself in classes and those who could not handle the higher classes went to the lower ones because they were too hard for them. They were failing the tests and obviously not ready for that next level. Also, if you were not ready for the tougher classes at a young age, it never set your path for the rest of your school career. You could always try again the next year, and if you really wanted to push your potential you would study over the summer to prepare yourself for the leap the next year, so it was never pre-decided by someone else, but it was each individual who ultimately controlled their fate.

Now for one of the main advantages to going to a public school that has gone entirely unaddressed. Now that I am nearing the end of college and beginning to flirt with the adult world, I have realized that there is one thing that can either take you very far or shadow your intelligence and skills, no matter how educated you are. That one trait is social skills. No offense to any student that have been homeschooled because this does not apply to all homeschooled students, it is just an observation I have made from all of my encounters with homeschooled students. Even though some claim that high school is very harsh on some students because of the social networking that takes place, it truly prepares us for the real world. High School may be harsh for some, but the real world isn’t full of candy and dandelions. High school is a major growing stage for all people. It teaches each individual to handle bullies, criticism, and negative motivation. Although this can be tough, it truly teaches us how to handle the sour aspects of life and how to grow from them. It teaches you that sometimes you have to take action to better your environment and stick up for yourself otherwise people will walk all over you. It also promotes a healthy social lifestyle, which is one of the top qualifications in the real world. Now that I am nearing the end of schooling and beginning to prepare myself for the leap I have been hearing all sorts of stories and advice from some of my peers who are a little bit older than me. What I am learning is that your social skills may be rated higher than education in some examples. They say if two people are applying for a job and one is a little less educated in the other, but has social skills where the other one can hardly interact with the interviewer, the social one will be hired nine out of ten times. Social skills promote cohesiveness and creativity in the working world as well as higher team moral. Without being but through the gauntlet of the social schooling system, one will have a difficult time adapting when they are in their twenties.

I do not want you to think I don’t agree at all with some of Gatto’s claims of conforming students, but more to show the more optimistic outlook on our system today. I feel it’s safe to say that without the advancements we have had as a byproduct of our education system we would be greatly set back into a much more primitive lifestyle. I feel that there are always negatives to every situation or experience but until someone comes up with an option where the marginal benefit is greater than the current situation we should take advantage of the fortunes that we have available to us today. There are many countries without a solid school system and there is no comparison to the lifestyle we are blessed with because of it. There are many children who would give everything they posses to be given the chance to go through our school system today, so everyone should take a step back and be grateful for a system that has spoiled us.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Assignment 3

Colleguide: The College Guide to Writing

Getting Started:
We’ve all been there, you’re sitting in front of the computer and as far as your concerned the English language seems more foreign to you than tribal noises. Nothing seems to make sense and sentences are not being formed. This is where you begin writing those things down. That’s right you read this correctly, write them down. According to Shitty First Drafts, by Anne Lamott, you must begin writing somewhere, and because you will be revising later it is good to start writing because it will make your brain start to work and you will not only get some good sentences out of it but you will have made a blueprint to go back and build later.

Time:
Although this goes without saying, allotting enough time to thoroughly write your paper is the first step to successful college writing. I have learned that cramming the night before does not conduct creative writing. Sometimes it may be difficult but if you can start early you will be rewarded in the end.

Revision:
Now is where you graduate from middle school revision to real world revision, at least that’s how it felt for me. If you have the same basic understanding of revision that I had then you are under the impression that after you write your paper you run it through spell checker. Then you re read the paper and amend any wrong words that you used that the spell check may not have picked up, and if you have enough time, throw in a couple educated words just to spruce things up. This is a good start but you are nowhere near completion. As I stated in the previous section titled Time (please read first if you have not already done so), you have written only the first draft to your paper, using only your initial ideas and thoughts. Experienced writers claim that your first draft is just a starting point where your ideas form. From there is where you can respond you your ideas and elaborate on them so that you can restructure your paragraphs entirely.

Voice/Audience:
Say that you are watching your favorite television program and all of a sudden the moment you’ve been dreading has arrived, the commercial break. All of a sudden, before you can find the remote, this deep powerful voice comes on and you are immediately hooked. It is soothing, yet stern and keeps you relaxed the entire time. Before you know it you have just watched an entire All State car insurance commercial and for some reason you are tempted to follow the company even though you don’t know why. Well, I can tell you that it has a lot to do with the voice.
Even though you cannot auditorily express yourself through writing, your voice is equally important and you can express it through your tone and involvement in your writing. Nobody would want to listen to a screechy or monotone voice in person, so why would anyone want to read something with no personal involvement. When writing you must make the reader feel that he or she is actually listening to you speak. You must engage yourself in the writing, show emotion and interest. If you are not interested in your own writings, what makes you think they will be. This is not to say that you should not use sophisticated or academic terms, just throw in more common phrases every once in a while.
When writing I suggest that you try and get yourself into the topic and that you want to personally teach them or tell them a story as I am now. Show your passion and give your opinion every once in a while to show the reader that you are still there with them. A reader can feed off of your emotions so you need to use them to draw them in, this will make the reader feel more interested strictly on the fact that they are sharing an experience with you.

Interpretation:
Throughout college you will be asked numerous times to write papers on different subjects or readings, most of them will be unfamiliar to you and to fully understand them you must research and be able to comprehend the readings. As I am sure you know, this is not always that easy. However, I have learned a few things I would like to pass on to you. When reading an article it is very easy to stick with the parts you understood and skip over the rest. This may be comfortable, but a world of comprehensive papers await you if you take the next step. When reading a passage you must re read the sections you did not understand, pausing after each sentence and rewording it in your head as if you are taking notes to show yourself that you understood it. If you can slow it down like this and decode the complicated sentences you will gain a better understanding of the readings. When you are through, re read the article in its entirety so that you can get the true flow and cohesiveness of the information. This may take an extra thirty minutes, but when you are through you will save double that time when trying to put it on paper. You will have a full understanding as well as a connection with the author and his thoughts, which will make things much easier when it comes to the analysis.
I truly discovered this when I wrote a paper on a chapter of Ways of Reading, where Bartholomae and Petrosky gave me advice similar to this. When I wrote about it, it actually forced me to practice the act and I was able to come up with my own strategy, putting together many of the things they told me. A quote they used by I.A. Richards which really drew my attention was… “Read as though it made sense and perhaps it will.”(p.10) This helped me not get as caught up and when I would re read the section I would have somewhat of a pathway pre formed in my head.

Monday, November 9, 2009

In class freewrite 11/9/09

Guide to Writing Ideas

I would like to write about some of the things I learned from "They Say, I Say." I would also like to talk about how to revise a paper and what I learned about that from our initial readings in class. Another thing I was to write about is how to crack down on the thesis statement and make sure it is very clear what I will be writing about and the purpose of which I am writing. I would like to talk about my personal growth throughout my semester and how I learned from my experiences in this class.

Monday, November 2, 2009

11/2/2009 In Class Writing

1. Writing for school is different than the other writing I do because it usually follows some sort of guidelines and will be graded more on how I follow them than the impression the reader will have of me after they read it. When I write for school I am not worried about selling myself in any sense to the teacher, I am strictly writing to make a good interesting paper. Where as when I write for a job interview or email a teacher for help I am selling myself in a sense. when i write those papers or applications I am trying to make the reader have sympathy towards me as a person, not necessarily in a bad way but in a way to make them want to help me. When I write a paper for school I am not worried about what the reader thinks of me as a person afterwards but more that they enjoyed my paper and it was formatted well. I worry more about correct punctuation, which sometimes takes the personal connection out of the paper.

2.I feel that teachers most want to see good format, punctuation, grammar, and context. I feel that a free write is not what they are looking for but more an example to show them that you know how to write and not necessarily an emotional connection to the paper. I'm not saying emotional connections will not enhance the paper but I feel that I have found that the formatting and basics are most important to them so they can feel that they are teaching you to write "correctly".

3. I feel like teachers mostly want to have the paper flow smoothly. If you can get the reader into the paper and have it flowing nicely without getting them caught up on certain parts it will better the overall perception of the paper after they are done reading it and thinking about the grade and wont draw as much attention to some of the context errors you may have made.

4.I'm not sure if I am a good academic writer, I feel like I usually get good grades on my paper but most papers I write I end up feeling like I am trying to please others rather than please myself. I guess I would say academically I am a good writer but im not sure how good of a writer I am when I just write for myself because I rarely do that.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Environmental Scholarship Paper

The one word that can sum up my influence on pursuing a career in business is the ENVIRONMENT. It may seem like an odd connection to the business world, but that is what has inspired me today. I never actually drew the connection until I had already decided to pursuit business.

What got me started in the direction of business was recycling, but is not in the way most would think. I have always been intrigued by using another person’s trash as your own treasure. I was constantly purchasing items on eBay before I realized that as a job I could help others sell their old goods instead of throwing them away. I proceeded to make a webpage called ebjorn.net and began selling items on eBay for people for a small commission. This way I could gain personal profit while saving people money, keeping landfills from overflowing, and slowing down the production rate of new products that would eventually end up turning to waste.

I then realized how enjoyable it was running my own business and that someday I could make a living by helping others and stabilizing the environment because being green friendly is very important to me. There are many ideas that I have stirred up from this, like starting a restaurant that is entirely green and organic. I am from Santa Cruz which is a very environmentally green friendly/hippy environment and a completely green restaurant would be easily accepted. Not only would the food be organic, but the energy used would be renewable and everything in the restaurant would be recyclable. Including the chairs and everything else I could. I have read that you can even print with soy based ink which sounds pretty cool.

I feel something like this would build a very good relationship with the community, which as you know is very important for marketing. I could become an importance to the world as well as supply others with opportunity to make money is this receding economy.

Essay #1 Final Draft

In the book Ways of Reading, Bartholomae and Petrosky talk about how students interpret readings into their own thoughts and writing. Bartholomae and Petrosky show an example of a student writer who was given the task to write his own experience of the “banking” concept, as told by Freire. He writes a well thought out paper of all the things he could relate to after reading the banking concept one time through. He uses good examples and the paper is very easy to follow, especially coming from someone who has not read the original banking concept from Freire himself. When the student was asked how he prepared and carried out the task of writing the paper he was quick to respond, “I read through the Freire essay and I worked with what I understood and ignored the rest.” (p. 13). This leads me to the basis of my discovery.
Bartholomae and Petrosky were completely fine with this process for writing the paper, as long as it was for the first draft. They then spoke of how the student writer wrote the passage as an individual example, but Bartholomae and Petrosky argue that “…Freire argues, is bigger than the intentions or actions of individuals.”(p. 14). That quote shows that while the student wrote some of his own individual examples, Freire was talking about the education system as a whole. Bartholomae and Petrosky then asked the student to re-read the passage and focus more on the sections that were complex to him. The revision was astounding to me. Even though they showed only a small portion of the revision, it showed that he had really taken Freire’s words to heart and that he was manufacturing his example more into a sample, backing up Freire’s claims rather than just an individual example.
Bartholomae and Petrosky gave praise to the student from the beginning. They stated that it was a good paper before I was able to read it and formulate my own opinion. To them, it was a good start for a first draft. It was not until after we had read the passage that we were able to get the full input from Bartholomae and Petrosky. I tried to soak it in the first time I read it before I had someone else’s opinion in my head, and before long I was dreading what would come next because it seemed like a replica of my writings. Luckily Bartholomae and Petrosky praised it afterwards, but stated that it needed a lot of revision. As it has been recommended throughout the Ways of Readings, they wanted the student to go back and re-read the text, focusing on the more difficult parts. This showed that Bartholomae and Petrosky really felt that the student had left out the importance of the argument and was just going with the basic facts. This is where I had to take Bartholomae and Petrosky’s advice into my own hands and re-read their comments on the paper to see what the real meaning was that was hidden inside their complex vocabulary which I breezed through the first time.
Bartholomae and Petrosky noticed that the writer did a good job at quoting Freire and using it in his paper for the parts he understood. They claim that doing this can give the appearance of understanding the paper but takes away the writer’s need to do any real in-depth look at Freire’s text. According to them, it becomes “unnecessary.” (p.14). This is a looked down upon because it prevents the writer from moving out of his comfort zone.
While reading this excerpt I found that I really agreed with it for the most part because it hit so close to home. As I said earlier, while reading this short essay I felt like I was reading a paper of my own. This lead me to be skeptical of what would come next when Bartholomae and Petrosky critiqued it because I felt as though I put great effort into my papers and nobody wants to believe that they do things the wrong way. However, I am still glad I read it because Bartholomae and Petrosky opened my eyes to an entirely new way of writing, a way that nobody had ever shown me before.
The first thing I learned, even though I’m not happy about it, is that when comprehending a difficult reading I must re-read it a second time to get the full understanding of the paper. Bartholomae and Petrosky found a quote by I.A. Richards which drew my attention… “Read as though it made sense and perhaps it will.” (p.10) I tried this out for a little bit after that and it actually helped a little but not enough to only read it only once. However, what it did help me with was getting the flow of the paper a little bit so that when I re-read it and focused on the tougher parts it helped bind the reading together for me.
Another one of Bartholomae and Petrosky’s points was that the writer just went with the undemanding parts of the reading and what he understood, and dumped the rest. This sounded like me exactly, even so much that before I started writing the paper I was just going to go with the parts I understood, until I brainstormed my paper and realized what I was going to write about. I realized that I could not just write a paper on the parts I understood the first time if those main points contradicted that approach in the first place. I now have realized how important it is that I pay close attention to the book when I realize that I am getting lost, rather than just spacing out until I get to the next part. I must re-read those sections slowly, pausing between each sentence and re-word it in my own head to make sure that I understand it, just as if I were taking notes in class and not just mindlessly copying things down that I didn’t understand. By taking what I have learned from Bartholomae and Petrosky I have now enacted my own rule, combining some of the advice they gave me. The first time I go through a passage I will re-read the sections I don’t understand slowly until I understand them. Then, once I am through the passage I will be commentating on, I will re-read it in its entirety so that I can get the whole flow of the paper together, helping me glue the pieces together without any rough edges. This will not only solve the problem of going with the easiest parts, but it will increase the knowledge and information that I put into my papers as well as store into my brain for overall increased intelligence.
Now, after all this re-reading and focusing we are finally finished with our…gulp…first draft. This next quote is where I could really relate to past experience. “It may not be as finished as it might need to be later in the semester, but it is writing where something is happening, where thought is taken seriously.” I have never really had a teacher tell me to take my first draft and then re-word it completely, but I really like how this student essay turned out. It showed so much relation to the context, even though I had never read the original context. It explained that no draft is a bad draft, just as long as it’s not the final draft. Sometimes you just have to start somewhere to get the mind working and then you can work with what you have, revising and rewording your original ideas.
I learned a great deal from reading the beginning of the book, Ways of Reading. I am glad that I was issued the assignment to write about my finding because if I had not written this paper I would have never analyzed the advice that was given by Bartholomae and Petrosky so closely. While researching my main points I was forced to use their own advice to critique and analyze their own writings. It showed me that I not only had to understand what they were talking about, but turn it around and use it myself to complete the assignment. It really challenged my brain to put the advice to work, which in turn caused me to better understand the findings. I hope that I can use these new techniques in the future to better my writing and hopefully you can as well.

Difficulty Paper #2


I found the article Against School, by John Taylor Gatto, to be a very interesting yet opinionated read. It is obviously apparent that John Gatto is very against the public school system and if he could have it his way, homeschooling would be just as acceptable. He made some very valid points, but there is one large advantage of going through the public school system that John Gatto seemed to have forgotten about or chose to leave unaddressed. This will be addressed later on in my review of the reading.

I would like to begin with Gatto’s use of Inglis’ six basic functions to discredit the public school system. The fourth function is quoted as follows:

“The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.”

This to me is a harsh spin of the truth, and I hope that as people read this paper to themselves they step back and challenge the writings in their head to make their own decision instead of conforming to the harsh opinions of Inglis and John Gatto.I feel that this statement is entirely un-true. When I was in school I always had the option of which class I could take, according to my skill level. Even though I qualified for all of the upper classes, I always had a choice from the beginning to perform at my highest potential. You may think, wait a minute, that’s what Gatto said because you were put in certain classes to set limitations on your potential. But really it was you who put yourself in classes and those who could not handle the higher classes went to the lower ones because they were to hard for them. They were failing the tests and obviously not ready for that next level. Also, if you were not ready for the tougher classes at a young age, it never set your path for the rest of your school career. You could always try again the next year, and if you really wanted to push your potential you would study over the summer to prepare yourself for the leap the next year, so it was never pre-decided by someone else, but it was each individual who ultimately controlled their fate.

Now for one of the main advantages to going to a public school that has gone entirely un addressed. Now that I am nearing the end of college and beginning to flirt with the adult world, I have realized that there is one thing that can either take you very far or shadow your intelligence and skills, no matter how educated you are. That one trait is social skills. No offense to any student that have been homeschooled because this does not apply to all homeschooled students, it is just an observation I have made from all of my encounters with homeschooled students. Even though some claim that highschool is very harsh on some students because of the social networking that takes place, it truly prepares us for the real world. High School may be harsh for some, but the real world isn’t full of candy and dandilions. High school is a major growing stage for all people. It teaches each individual to handle bullies, criticism, negative,