Writing as a recursive process – I consider myself to be in the middle of this novice to mastery trajectory.

             The photo to left shows my  annotation skills before I learned how to annotate a piece of literature. Pure writing on paper with no real organization to it. Nothing highlighted, few marks that have some meaning to them.

        This photo shows my annotation skills after many classes with Professor Frank and SASC writing appointments with Eric Down. I’am actively annotating this piece of literature to look back and see major concepts, important ideas, and questions I came up with from the text to better understand it. This shows substantive change on annotating a script. Another example of substantive change but from reduction is my literacy narrative. Below is a paragraph that exists in my peer review draft but not in my final draft. From the class discussion and peer comments, I realized this paragraph has nothing to do with myself learning how to read, It’s more about taking up space. I’ve learned to re organize paragraphs that more effectively develop the written project, with help through peer review.

“My Aunt passed away from cancer refusing to ever get tests done or accept medication. I never knew her that well but I appreciate the big impact she had on my life. The 2nd time i went to San Antonio was to say goodbye to her. She was always so positive about everything, and transitioned this positive mindset to her own living body. When she was terminally ill she was somewhat happy about it. In her mind, the sooner she left this life, the sooner she can start her next with God. I will forever remember her as someone that had the passion to help other people. I believe the best type of people are the people that want to help other people.”

Integrate Ideas with those of others- I feel as if I’am half way between Novice and Mastery with this learning outcome. Passages of Gee and the transcript of Cuddy I’am able to analyze these texts and interpret through annotation and class discussion what Gee or Cuddy is saying. Going in depth of what Gee talks about  for example when he says“You can’t be let in the game” How we have an in class discussion about this and comparing it to Cuddys talk . I’am integrating my ideas with Gees ideas to either challenge Gees viewpoint, agree with it, or dissect it and compare his idea to Cuddy’s. My response to Gee’s claim that you can’t just be let into discourse.”This showing his stance on the restrictions of joining a discourse, his view is that you can’t just be let into a discourse after “missing the apprenticeship.” An example of this would be that you can’t be let into a social group if you didn’t hang out with them. Amy Cuddy’s passage basically says the lower end of society “one’s with no resources, no technology, and no status and no power” are the type of people that would benefit the most from a power posture.” I state what I think about Gee statement and his stance on it, then I bring Cuddy into it to provide further evidence to contradict Gee’s opinion. I show I’m able to select quotes I find interesting that are in need of discussion or response. I provide proof that shows I can presenting textual evidence that confirms or complicates one’s claim.

 

Active Reading, Critical Reading, and Informal reading response- I believe I’am 4/5 of the way to Mastery on this learning outcome. An example of this is in Gee reading day 1 pages 5-7. A question I received as part of this assignment was”As important as Discourses are for Gee, however, he explains that they are not “bodies of knowledge” that can be taught: “while you can overtly teach someone linguistics, a body of knowledge, you can’t teach them to be a linguist, that is, to use a Discourse” (7). How, then, does one become a linguist (or nurse, biologist, lawyer, sports announcer, etc)? Find a direct quotation from Gee on which to base your response. What in your experience would support Gee’s claim, and what if anything would complicate it?  My answer “By experiencing and doing the action is the best way to become a linguist, for example hands on training like someone who’s in trade school. Any sort of internship or apprenticeship where your required to do what your being trained for. For example Gee says he doesn’t believe anyone learned a second language from just being in the classroom. You gotta go out and talk to people and interact. That is something in my experience that holds true. I went to Greek School in Seattle  when I was younger and every summer my mother would take my brother, sister and myself to Greece. Where of course we interacted with everyone in Greek.” My focused informal reading which presents specific passages and ideas about these passages in a blog post shows I’m understanding this learning outcome. I found a direct quote which I used, I also related it to my life personally, and I explored this specific passage for an idea, of what I believe is the best way to become a linguist.

Critique own and others work- I believe I’m right in between Novice and mastery in this learning outcome. An example of this is when Conry shared his Literacy moment first draft with me, he wrote”when I had restrictions and guidelines that prevented me from having fun with my assignment I struggled to keep writing and would have little interest in my assignment” My comment to this was find a way to be creative, even when you find yourself restricted. My comment is made to offer suggestions for change in his piece of writing .  Bergman shared his literacy narrative with me. One of his feelings about procrastination is something I easily related to. He said “But I was so overtired and my mind was drifting off to other things and I was losing my train of thought. This was only the start of what was to come.” My comment was I can relate to this because even today I feel this way about certain readings. This lead to an in class discussion where we explored his experiences in procrastinating and how his readers understand this familiar feeling.

 

Document work using appropriate Conventions- I don’t believe I’m near the mastery of this learning outcome. I need a better understanding of in text citations that follow MLA parenthetical and punctuation format. I have yet to cite work that follows MLA format and enables a reader to easily locate the source. I believe I’ve improved on annotating which makes it easier to locate the source of what I’m reading but not in MLA format. I can’t find a piece of writing that shows I have made any progress for this learning outcome.

Control Individualized error patterns- I’am not even close to the mastery of this learning outcome, spotting errors in writing and or grammar is a weakness of mine. I have improved a lot in terms of getting rid of things I don’t need in a paper by the final draft, or my patterns of error decrease significantly by the time I arrive at a final draft.