Memo continued.

If you were going to assign this again next semester I would suggest that the group work is more structured. There were a lot of days when we were in groups that we would finish talking about the topic and there would still be tons of time left over. I also think that it would be a good idea to space out the readings a little bit more. Especially, when some of the articles are very long as it is hard to get the important information out of 50 pages that need to be read in a two day time. I feel that the rubric for the assignment was helpful but that it could have also been more structured so that it provided a clear statement of what was going to be looked for in the assignment. I think that the point values for each of the requirements should be listed so the student is aware of how much each aspect of the assignment is going to be worth. Overall, I think this assignment was very helpful as it will definately be something that we will need toknow how to do once we are teachers. I know that I personally had experience writing memos before but they were just short things that were for inter-office discussion. It was very interesting to learn the research that needs to be involved in writing an academic memo because that was something that had yet to be addressed by any of our other classes.

Memorandum Reflection

I think that this assignment was really interesting and challenging. There was a lot of informtion in the articles that had to be read. At times it was hard to try to find all of the salient points in the articles. There are so many different approaches to teaching writing. Oddly enough I found that most of these methods could be implemented together. For example it would be easy for a teacher to model the writing process for her class with their help while including other methods such as brainstorming, revision, and social interaction. Trying to write the memo itself was a little more difficult. I have had experience writing memos before but not to this degree of information or professionalism. It also made me a little nervous because I know that doing something like this is going to be a regular thing once I begin to teach in a classroom. I am happy that we did this assignment because it gives me practice on writing a memo and the amazing amount of content that needs to be included. It was difficult to try to pick the most important methods that we discussed on the teaching of writing. There were a lot of things that I felt should be covered and seemed to be something that would be very easy to implement in a classroom. I definately have a better understanding of the different methods that I would like to use in my classroom and the benefits that these methods will have for my students. I also realized that it is very important for teachers to use a multitude of these methods because just using one method is not going to work for everyone in the class. By using different methods students will gain the experience of working with different writing modalities that will help prepare them for high school, college, and their careers.

Correctness..

In way I have always considered myself to be some what of a grammar Nazi. Growing up with my family I would always correct everyone's sentences. My mom and brother usually get irritated because I will stop and correct them mid-sentence. Well, after reading these pages I don't think that I was that over the edge in the search for correctness. There was a lot of information in this book that I didn't know or just plain could not remember. I really enjoyed the style of the book because all the topics listed are in a nice bulleted list. The book provides quick examples that are both correct and incorrect. I was really suprised at the amount of material that was covered in these pages. All the content that is listed is very relevant and helpful in understanding the correct forms of grammar. I can definately understand how students would become disenchanted with writing after constantly being corrected over little things. In my opinion any negative criticism should be complimented by a positive reinforcement. It is important for teachers to find the right balance of correctness and content of the material. It is in this range that teachers will help students formulate their best written and oral pieces. I really think that this book by Silverman will be something that will be useful not just for teachers but should be used by everyone. By doing this people would gain a better understanding of the use of the various forms of grammar.

Extra Credit

Hello this is Kyle Imlach and i was so thrilled to watch the video that Angela made about her learning to wakeboard. It was also nice to watch because there were clips of me doing my flips and I got to see what they really look like to other people who are in the boat. I was really happy for Ang because she picked a topic that she really enjoys because being on the boat at the lake is our absolute favorite thing to do during the summer. Angela has really progressed in wakeboarding since she first got in the water to try it. I think that the main reason that she has not been able to get up on the board and stay up is because the board she uses is not to the exact specifications for her body. Right now the board she uses is mine, i tired to get her to buy one but she wants to wait till she can actually get out of the water and stay out. I know that Ang was very excited and happy to make this movie because she would always talk about. It also gave her a reason to go through all her pictures and videos to find material to put in it. I though that the video was great and wish that my teachers would give us something like this to do instead of a paper.

Wiki Articles...

Well, the article have been at times very interesting and at other time very ardous and difficult. I think overall though the working in groups has provided us with a great advantage as we do not have to read all the articles and can rely on our fellow students. Just by reading the annotated bibliographies provides us with the bulk of the article and a response from a fellow student. I think that this memo assignment is going to be difficult just for the fact that I personally have yet to have the experience of having to write a professional memo that will impact decision making. I am concerned that with all the readings that I have done that I will not be able to find the most salient points, in my opinion, that are able to be backed up by hard evidence. Even though this assignment is "fake" it still seems daunting..... There are a million different opinions and approaches to teaching writing and I really do not think that any one approach is the best. I have sort of come to the conclusion that there would need to be an amalgamtion of most of them to provide a writing program to the students that is versatile, helpful, and will work with a multitude of learning styles. The difficult part is going to be in deciding which features of the various writing programs to choose. Some things will obviously stand out more than others but how do I choose from the styles that are similar or even a little harder to understand. Another challenge in trying to choose which writing process would work best is that for the most part I have not seen these practices implemented in the classroom or how the students respond to the various processes.
In the first article the main points were that a student's life would affect the positions that they would put themselves into in both conversation as well as in their writing. Even though they may start in one position they do change through out time and even within the same context