Responding - Really Responding to Other Student's Writing

This is an article about students responding to other student's writing. It is about students editing and proofreading other students' writing. The article outlines how you should respond to someone's writing from a position other than a teacher. The author says that responding to a paper that someone has written and asked you to look over or the teacher asked you to look over is not just an assignment. When reading someone's writing, you need to actually read it and look for errors and look for things that would hurt there grade and stand out to the teacher. Above all the fixing of the errors and the grammar checks and finding problems to help improve someone's grade, you should look at the content and read the story. You should ask questions about the story, ask the reader why he/she did or did not include some things in their writing. You want to get the writer to understand why they have written what they did. Your goal is to help them improve their writing, but at the same time challenge them in what they have written. The author gives different steps for the reader/proofreader to achieve these goals. First, you need to understand what your goals are in reading the paper and understand what your role is when reading the paper. You need to know exactly what to address in the writing and where you should put your comments. Where does the writer and/or reader prefer that you put your comments. You need to make sure that you sound like a friend reading a friend's paper, not a teacher grading it. Make sure that you have a plan for how much to comment on the writing. One important thing that the author includes in the article of advice is to know who your writer is. You should take in to account who the writer is and their style, but not let it take over your comments and affect your feedback to the writer.
The writer gives good points for why they believe that their steps for responding to student's writing really works. With each step that they give, they explain why it is important and what will be missing from your response if this is not included. The writer seems to know a lot about commenting and it shows in this article and in each step/instruction for responding.
I agree with certain parts of the authors advice for responding to other student's writing. The part where he says that most of the time, it isn't good to be short and sweet and that you need to elaborate on the comments may not be true 100% of the time, in my opinion. I think that sometimes you need to just get to the point and not put a bunch of useless comments that the writer doesn't need to see. Other than this particular section, I think that the writer was very solid in his advice and I agree with it. I think that if we follow most of these instructions  then it will result in a very well written response to the writer about how to improve their paper.
The golden line that I have taken away is: "But say you want to do a good job. Say you are willing to put in the time and effort-though time is tight and you know it's not going to be easy-and help the writer look back on the paper and revise it." (pg. 136)

On the uses of Liberal Education Reading Response

This article is about a man and his wife who decide to have a course for underprivileged people to learn about the humanities and try to earn college credit at the same time. The course started with thirty students and in the end, sixteen students graduated. The students learned about many different things involving art and literature and ethics and reading and English. They visited museums and talked intelligently about things that they saw and experienced. Ten of the students in the course went on to attend four year universities, two of the students got full scholarships to Bard College (the college that they got credit at for taking the course), and two of them were attending community colleges or working full time. Each of the students made a better life for themselves after the course. Most of the students started out homeless and living on the streets or very poor or living in desolate conditions.

I think that the author argued his point rather well. He gave ample evidence for why an education, in particular an education in humanities is important and can help someone along in life. The students in the course ended up going from being homeless and not having a care in the world about education to attending universities and living well educated lives.

I believe that I do agree with the author of this article. I do think that an education in the humanities can help someone have a much better life. I also agree that if someone who has less than great means is given the FREE opportunity to get an education in an unbiased environment they will take it. I think that most people want to be well-educated. People that live on the street and are very poor and uneducated know that if they were to get an education it would help them to have better live and live by much, much better standards. The students that ended up graduating from the course went on to have better lives while attending four year universities.

"A year after graduation, ten of the first sixteen Clement Course graduates were attending four-year colleges or going to nursing school; four of them had received full scholarships to Bard College."
This one line sums up the whole point of the article. This line tells the reader why the author even had the course and why he took the time to write about it. It also explains why he put so much effort into the course because he knew how much it would help the students in achieving a better life for themselves.

Should Everyone go to College?

I think that everyone should have the opportunity to go to college. I think anyone who wants to should be allowed and given the means to go to college. This doesn't mean, however, that everyone SHOULD go to college. I think that everyone has the ability to do well in college somewhere inside of them, but it is a matter of whether someone is willing to work hard in college to make the grade or not.
In class today, we talked about an article that we had read. The article was about a college class writing a research paper, in particular, one woman who was struggling with her paper. This woman, Ms. L, was computer illiterate. She hadn't been in front of a computer in a long time, if ever. She was struggling because, in order to write this research paper, the students had to be able to do the research on a computer. The woman wasn't willing to do what it took to learn how to use the computer for research. Ms. L ended up getting a failing grade on the paper. People like Ms. L probably should not go to college because she was not willing to put in the work to learn. However, she definitely should be given the opportunity to go if she is willing to work hard.
Another thing that we talked about in class today is the system in place in colleges in the U.S. for students to pay for the education that everyone deserves. The system of loaning students money, but not giving them enough to cover the cost of their whole education isn't good. Some students end up not being able to go to college because they simply cannot afford it. Other students end up having to get private students loans and when they graduate, they are buried in loans that they can't pay back. Some students also have to get jobs and work all throughout their schooling. I worked in high school, 25 hours a week and went to school everyday. It is really hard work and there is no way that your school work doesn't suffer because you have to work all the time. Someone once told me, it's better to do good in school so you can get a really good job later than to do really good at a mediocre job now and fail classes so you can't get a good job later.
These are my thoughts on the education system and the method of financing education in America today.

Writing Improvements

I believe that with each and every thing that I write, whether it be an assignment, a paper, something I'm writing for fun, a poem or a professional email or memo I am improving. I improve because I practice my writing. Writing is everywhere in our world, we cannot escape writing. Everyday I am, in some way working on my writing skills. I think that without any education at all, people still improve dramatically with their writing. Writing is the key to everything, it is the only way to express our feelings without talking. Whether we write a paper, a poem or a song, we are expressing our feelings with writing.

Women Without Class Reading Response

In this reading assignment, there was a researcher studying different groups of girls in a high school-like environment. In this study, the researcher was looking to see how different kinds of girls behave at school and what kinds of classes they take. According to the researcher, there were two main groups of girls in the school;there were a few others, but these were the groups that were focused on in the study. There were the preps in the college-preparatory classes and the Mexican-American girls in the lower level classes. The preps were very well manicured and had light colored lipstick, light colored nail polish and wore form fitting, but tasteful clothes. The Mexican-American girls wore dark colored lipstick, dark colored nail polish and very revealing tops and frequently tight pants. In summary of the study, the researcher said that the different types of girls weren't necessarily different in social class but they were more frequently put into different groups based on their sexuality. There is more of different sexual classes than social classes. 

I most definitely think that the author/researcher proved their point well. However, they didn't really have that much of a point to make. The study wasn't as much about having a point to make, but about studying the different groups of female students and showing how they were similar and different. I think that the researcher provided enough information from her observances to prove the fact that there are differences in students of different backgrounds and of students that are in different classes and different groups in any particular school. The author definitely makes the assumption at the beginning of the study that students of different types of groups learn differently and have different aspirations. Some questions that I am left with after this study are about the other groups of girls in this school, or in any school. I wonder what the African-American girls do at school and what category would they fall under? Perhaps would some fall under the "prep" category? Also, what about the boys in school?

I have to say that I agree with the researcher in that different groups of girls act, learn, and attend classes differently. The Mexican-American girls don't seem to care, whereas the "preps" are very concerned with their education and how well they do in school. The girls in these groups almost seem to think that these "groups" are predetermined for them. I would say that this study makes me think somewhat differently about school than I did before reading this study/article. However different it makes me think, I, to some extent already knew how there are vastly different groups of, not only girls, but students in general in schools. 

My golden line from this article about the study is: "There was, at the school, a symbolic economy of style that was the ground on which class and racial/ethnic relations were played out. Hairstyles, clothes, shoes, and the colors of lipstick, lip liner, and nail polish, in particular, were key markers in the symbolic economy that were employed to express group membership, as the body became a resource and a site on which difference was inscribed." 
This is actually two sentences, however, I think that the first sentence goes a long way to explain the second sentence very well. This is saying that the racial and class differences within this school are shone by the styles and behaviors of the actual students. The students do certain things and wear certain things to show exactly what group they belong to with no confusion. 

Writing History Response Paper Instructor Comments Reflection

I think that the most important piece of advice that I received on my Writing History paper comments was the comment that asked me how much my experiences have really shaped my writing. I think that sometimes we give certain assignments and certain experiences too much credit for the role that they play in our writing maturity, which was what I probably did in this paper. In my paper, I stated that in my Statement of Faith paper I was able to write about something that was truly important to me for the first time ever. The comment that I received asked if this was really the first time ever? I believe this was the least helpful piece of advice because I meant this more as a figure of speech. I meant that it was one of the only times in a while, which is what I probably should have said instead. One particular question that I have about the comments that I received was about the comment regarding my introduction to the paper. Are we not supposed to have any kind of introduction at all? Do we just jump into the paper and start writing about the topic? With regards to my revisions of this paper, I plan to change many aspects of the paper. First I will edit the paper again, and change some of the grammar. Also, some of the examples that I used as my experiences I might take out and add in different ones. I think that I want to change some of the things that I said about my Statement of Faith paper. I am not sure how, but I am going to change my introduction and conclusion, if not take it out all together. When I am done revising the paper, I anticipate that it will look very different. 

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work Reading Response

         "The Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work" is an article written by Jean Anyon, and Educator at Rutgers University, Newark. She observed five elementary schools over the course of a year. The things that she observed were interesting. Elementary schools in different economic environments teach and prepare students in different ways. According to Anyon, there are four different classifications of schools. There are the "working-class schools", the "middle-class schools", "Affluent Professional schools", and "Executive Elite schools". Each type of school prepares the students differently. As you can imagine, the working class schools are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, all the way up to the executive elite schools at the top of the ladder.
       In the working class schools, students are expected to do their work with as much effort as they can give. Work is not always about getting the right answer. They are almost always given steps and a procedure for getting the answer, little decision making is involved. Teachers rarely explain to the students why they have been given the assignment.  In the middle class schools, success means getting the right answer. Effort is considered in the grading of the students' work, but mainly, the teachers are looking for the right answer. Even though it is most important for students to get the right answer, effort is still evaluated to an extent. Usually in these types of schools, the answer is found without an extreme amount of effort, perhaps in books, class notes, or from the teachers lesson. Teachers will sometimes explain to the students the relation of the assignment to what they are learning. A teacher might explain the relation of the work to life, or even to a potential career path. In the affluent professional school, teachers are doing less teachers for the assignment or for the test and more teachers for the rest of the students life. Students in this type of school have to carry out a lot more thought on their own than the students in their respective schools lower on the socio-economic ladder. Students also have to do a lot of critical thinking and analysis of ideas. A lot of the students work relates to life or to a potential career, or at least to work that they will have further on in their academic careers. Teachers will often explain the reasons for the assignments that the students are completing. The last type of school is the Executive Elite School. In this type of school, students are trained for success. The assignments that they are given relate directly to life and careers. Students are sometimes asked to relate the assignments themselves. Critical thinking is a very large part of this type of school. Students are trained to think about their potential career as early as 4th or 5th grade. If you compare a student from this type of school to a student of the same age from the working class school, you will find them vastly different. Another big difference in these schools are the involvement of parents. In the affluent professional school, parents are heavily involved in their child's education, sometimes they even pay large amounts of money to ensure that the education that the student is receiving is top notch. In the working class schools, parents don't care as much, and even if they do, most of the time, their is little that they can do to help their child get a good education because of financial constraints and time constraints. Most of the parents of these children work very hard, often at two or three jobs to barely be able to provide for their children.
        I think that Anyon argued her point well that students of different economic backgrounds get very different types of education. She explains each type of school thoroughly and gives examples of how students are taught from each type of school. She explains the processes of teaching and helps us understand why each school is the way it is. Obviously Anyon assumes that the reason for these different types of schools are because of financial reasons and a lack of resources. I wonder why the government would let their be such a large gap in the education of children. All children should have an equal chance to have a good life/career. When some students are being so well prepared for careers and others are barely even being prepared for middle school, everything is not equal. I would like to know if the government has any plans towards bridging this education gap.
       I definitely agree with the point of view of Jean Anyon. She makes good points. She shows how the schools really operate. I agree that there is a big difference in the education of students from different economic backgrounds. This is a big reason that some students have better reasoning and analytical skills. I think that something definitely needs to be done about this gap.
       "These differences may not only contribute to the development in the children in each social class of certain types of economically significant relationships and not others but would thereby help to reproduce this system of relations in society." This is my golden line from the article because it gives a good explanation of the article and why these processes of different kinds of schooling are bad. It also gives a good overview of what the article is about.