FIG experience/Free Post

The FIG experience has been interesting. I thought that it would be a good idea for me to ease my way into college by taking smaller classes with the same group of people. I get easily intimidated by big groups, so I wanted to make my transition into college easier. The FIG served just that purpose. I am so glad that I was able to take a lot out of this experience. I learned so much about educational policies and inequalities, race and class, and much much more. I also liked how everything in the classes intersected with each other. For example, when I was writing a paper in educational policies, I was able to incorporate information I learned in sociology and English. I really enjoyed the topic of the FIG as well. I was not exposed to very much diversity in high school, so it was nice to be in a more diverse group of students and learning about their backgrounds, listening to their opinions, etc. I am sad that this semester is over, but I am really glad that I am coming out of the FIG with positive memories and experiences.

I am really stressed out. I have a lot to accomplish over the next week and a half. I finished my English reflection paper, my educational policies essay, and my sociology paper. I still need to finish reading my educational policies book and write my book review. But, I have a test in one of my classes on Monday—the week before the final. It does not make sense to me. Also, I now have to worry about revising my papers for my English portfolio on top of worrying about studying for finals. I guess this is what college is all about and I am going to have to take one thing at a time.

Access: Writing in the Midst of Many Cultures/Writing Post

I am going to comment on the piece “Access: Writing in the Midst of Many Cultures” by Hans Ostrom. I did not really care for the piece that much. It was not written in an interesting way. While I did kind of enjoy the question and answer sections and thought that the little sections were a good idea, I just did not clique with the writing. I agree when he says that students need to question other’s beliefs and ideas. Students should interrogate the beliefs and ideas but should NOT directly attack the students. Questioning ideas and opinions is a good thing because it leads to debates. I, myself, have been attacked about certain claims I have made before and all it did was discourage me from speaking up in class. All in all, this piece proposed some good ideas, but I didn’t enjoy the way it was written.

I have learned so much about my writing and writing in general this semester. After having read the assigned pages in “Easy Access” and “The Craft of Research”, I feel a lot more knowledgeable about writing. I learned how to properly cite, how to compose a perfect thesis, how to write good counter arguments, etc. I learned a lot about writing in general, too, from all of the different pieces we read. I learned that not all writing has to be done in a traditional manner. You can write a letter, a comic, a poem and still get the same point across that you would in a formal essay. You can add pictures to writing for a more visual person. I really enjoyed all of the writing I did this semester. I feel as though it made me a strong writer and I have become more creative because of it.

Class Presentations/FIG issue

The issues that were discussed in the English presentations were very interesting. Al’s presentation—about abstinence only versus comprehensive sex education was particularly interesting to me. I wrote a research paper on this topic junior year, and even ended up writing a college admissions paper about it as well. I find it very interesting and a very important debate in society today. I think that all schools should adopt a comprehensive sex education program. Kids these days are very promiscuous and they are going to have sex regardless of whether they’re taught not to or not. We might as well prepare them and teach them how to be safe about it and teach them ways to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. It is not as though comprehensive sex programs are encouraging students to have sex, they are still teaching them not to but they are just teaching them ways to be safe about it. Abstinence only sex education is pointless because it is not teaching kids to be safe about having sex—it just teaching them not to do it whatsoever when it is inevitable that it will sooner than later.

One issue that we have discussed in the FIG course is about school failure. It was discussed in our educational policies class. We read an article regarding school failure and what attributes to it. One of the factors that influences failure is genetics. The major idea coming out of this is that if our parents are smart, their children are smart and if our parents aren’t smart, their children won’t be smart. Another factor is out culture. This is how we are taught to behave, the attitudes of our parents towards education, language, home environment, etc. The final factor that goes into this is class. This includes family income (or lack there of), type of schools, tracking, human capital, language, etc.

Primary Argument/Free Post

My primary argument in my paper is that the more parental involvement there is in a child’s life, the better they’ll do in school. When they are motivated and helped out at home, they will perform better at school. Other factors affect their performance as well, such as how good of a school they attend, their extracurricular activities they’re involved in, etc. All of this ties back to the parental involvement aspect of the debate. Race also plays a role in this. Normally, higher earning parents (usually white) live in better neighborhoods and pay higher property taxes which therefore fund the schools better than those in the inner city. It is these families, the white ones, that are better influences on their children in the academic aspect and play a bigger role in their academic careers.

I am extremely tired right now. I just took a midterm for my communicative disorders class and all I want to do it relax outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. But instead, I have reading to do and this research paper to work on. I am extremely stressed out because we have our sociology midterm Tuesday on top of it. I am probably going to start making my flashcards tonight since we just got the review sheet e-mailed to us. I can’t believe how gorgeous the weather is outside. It’s November 8 and it was well into the 60’s and sunny today. I wish this was the coldest it got in Madison. Oh well! I can’t wait to go home for Thanksgiving and see all of my friends and my family. It has been so long since I have seen some of my best friends and it is going to be so good to finally see them again.

Halloween Weekend/Free Post

Halloween weekend was so much fun. I had never seen anything like it. State Street was completely packed and all lit up. Unfortunately, my window in my dorm room overlooks State Street so my room was entirely lit up all night. I saw some of the most interesting costumes. I saw someone dressed up as facebook, a guy on stilts dressed up as some sort of monster, a bunch of people dressed up as a pirate ship…it was so cool. A few of my friends actually had their picture in the newspaper. They all dressed up as bananas and one of them as a gorilla. It was hysterical everyone loved them. We went to a bunch of parties and everyone was creatively dressed up and everything. I loved it and I can’t wait for Halloween at Madison next year.

My first semester of college is a ton of fun. I love it here so much. My roommate and my suitemates are amazing and we are all actually living together in an apartment next year. I couldn’t have gotten luckier being paired with them. I have made a good group of friends and, coincidentally, a lot of them live in towns very close to where I live at home. It will be fun being able to see my school friends when I go home. My classes are all going really well. It is pretty much what I expected—a lot of reading, work, papers, etc. But there is so much time to get it all done because it is different from high school where you are in classes for 7 hours a day. I have a few hours of classes a day here and that’s it. I can’t wait for next four years here. It is going to be amazing.

Research/FIG issue

So far, the research is going well. I have not done that much since we went to the library that one day to find sources, but the ones I found and included in my annotated bibliography were really good. I have been able to narrow down which kinds of sources will work for me, and which kinds won’t. I am really glad to have been given the opportunity to learn how to navigate several online databases. I was able to print out a few of the articles I found through them, but I have to go to a few of the libraries on campus and find the sources myself. I usually get really overwhelmed when it comes to finding sources that will fit well in my paper, but I don’t feel that way this time. I like that this is a longer process and we are taking baby steps until we get to the final paper. I finished my annotated bibliography already, so I think I am going to try and start writing bits and pieces of the final paper so that it can be done before the due date. Overall, the research is going well and I am where I want to be at at this point in time.

One issue that is being addressed in the FIG course was discussed in this week’s section and Tuesday’s lecture. The issue was is bilingual education harmful to children. According to Editors of The New Republic, bilingual education is harmful to children. It doesn’t help with assimilation because they will fall behind in relation to higher education and jobs. Some parents don’t want it for their kids because it will prevent them from moving up the social ladder. Having bilingual education will cost more money because the schools will need to specially train teachers to make sure they are capable of being able to teach two languages. In the long run, it could be harder for the child to learn English if they are given so much instruction in their native tongue. However, according to James Crawford, bilingual education would benefit children. He thought that if children had general knowledge of the world and subject-matter knowledge, it will help make the English they hear more comprehensible. Also, literacy transfers across languages. We learn to read by making sense of what we see on a page. This will make it easier to learn to read in a language we already understand. Once you learn to read, you can read, and the ability to read transfers across languages. Crawford that that language acquisition is natural, developmental process cannot be rushed.

Writing for School/Do I Want to Write

When it comes to writing for school, I have mixed emotions. I don’t mind free writing. I like to be able to write down my thoughts. It is always fun going back later and seeing all of the random things that were on my mind. And I don’t mind writing papers about a book I’ve read, or an opinion piece. I used to keep a diary and I wrote in it every so often. I liked having that around but after a while I stopped writing in it. But I cannot stand writing research papers. I hate the whole process. First you have to pick a topic. Then, you need to start researching. Next, you read though all of the sources and highlight what’s important. Finally, you write draft after draft and cite source after source just so you can get a decent grade. I also don’t really like writing poetry. I never really understood it and I am not very creative so I was never very good.

I don’t think I want to write in the future. I don’t have the desire to be a writer. If I ever wrote, it would probably be a children’s book. I feel like that would be fun to write because you can really use your imagination and make it as strange or as colorful as you wanted. That was actually always something I wanted to do. But, of course, that wouldn’t be my main career. I would just write a children’s book on the side—as a hobby. If I chose a career associated with writing, it would probably involve more informal writing—like letters or something of that sort. I wouldn’t want to write a business proposal or something along those lines. Writing has never been something I loved to do.