"Explorartory Essay (2nd Draft)" Reflection

1. What was the most helpful piece of advice you received? Explain.

The most helpful piece of advice that Megan gave me was when she asked me to present more questions about the articles and show how the ideas presented in these articles relate to college preparation. I thought that I did a good job of explaining my points but she is pushing me to look deeper in the texts and find more connections and hidden things that the author may not blatantly put out there.

2. What was the least helpful piece of advice you received? Explain.

I would not say that there was a least helpful piece of advice because all criticism that she gives me can benefit me and my writing in some way. The least stressing piece of advice or commentary that Megan gave me was correcting grammar and punctuation. I also forgot about my Works Cited page so I will need to add that into my paper.

3. What questions do you have about Megan’s comments?

At the beginning of my paper she said that I need to avoid using second person, but I am not sure how to word what I am saying because I thought that I was speaking to an audience so I may need some guidance on that. Another question I have is about punctuation and grammar. How am I supposed to place quotes or textual evidence? I thought that the period is included in the quote because that was the end of the sentence. Another quote I used, you said that the B should be lowercase because it was two sentences on either side of the comma. I was quoting from the text so I don't understand why the B should be lowercase.

4. What are your plans for revision? Be specific. 

 I will fix minor grammatical errors, include a Works Cited page, and dig deeper into what the authors are trying to convey in their works. I will find evidence in the text to support my thesis. I will also try to leave my opinion out of the paper and implement the authors point of view.

Conference Reflection (3/11/13)

I really enjoyed the conference especially because I got to hear opinions and input from other students not in my inquiry group. When I first got there, I was thinking about my research paper in one way and after having the conference with Meagan and three other peers, I am thinking about my inquiry paper in another way that will help me find out what I want to focus on in the paper. I was going to talk about how perceptions, identities, and stereotypes of students (minorities) are represented in pop culture and how this affects them in school. I realized that after discussing in the group conference, I was able to come up with a specific topic or question that I was going to research and talk about in my inquiry paper: How do stereotypes in music and movies affect African American students in education in real life?

Research Proposal

Dear Meagan,

            I am writing this letter to let you know that I will inquire about the how perceptions, identities, and stereotypes of students (minority or not) are represented in pop culture and how it effects them in school. I am interested in this topic because pop culture (film, music, social media, politics, television, etc.) has a great influence on the youth and I was wondering if that effects how the students are viewed in society and how well they do in school. I listen to a lot of music as a student and different music has different effects on me. So music gives me motivation to type a paper while other music gives me ideas and inspiration to get me out of writer’s block. I also watch a lot of movies that have school scenes or that are centered around education for minority students and they portray them in ways that may be true to the real world or just as how society sees them.

            I plan on starting this process by analyzing each component of pop culture (movies, music, and politics) and find examples of how society views the student and how they use that point of view to influence the media and I will illustrate how the media affects the students in school. I will use sources that are current and that everyone is familiar with. When I use music as an example, I will look at how the artists use lyrics in their song to show how they view education and they portray it to their youth listeners. In movies, they mostly show minority students having a hard time in school and show how they improve their education throughout the movie so it is not always a negative impact on students in school.

Exploratory Essay Reflection

As I was writing this essay, I was more focused on getting my point across with using details and just getting out of that traditional style of writing that I was accustomed to in high school. I organized my paper with an outline and I found examples in each of my texts to support my thesis. I feel that I achieved at least one of my goals in which got my point across but I still wrote in the traditional writing style of high school. My essay in a sense had an introduction/thesis, a body, and a conclusion.
I feel like I would have done a lot better on my first draft if I had used my time wisely during the weekend instead of writing it early the morning it was due. My thoughts and thinking processes felt rushed and I struggled to get ideas. I had writer's block in my first paragraph; I wasn't able to think straight and clear about what I was going to synthesize. However, I did benefit from the in-class workshops because I got the chance to hear opinions and critiques from my colleagues and received feedback that will help me improve my paper. With the extra time I had to plan my points that I was going to discuss in my essay, I was able to think more about what the author is implying instead of rushing and inserting my own opinion.I automatically notice that my writing is very consistent. Even though I tried to change my style of writing (introduction/thesis, body, conclusion), I still recognize that i go back to this tradtional sense the I grew up with. I really benefited ftom the responses from my peers. They helped me look at my paperfrom a different aspect. I was able to see what I bneed to change as far as structure and grammar.I think I  contributed to to my paper's sucess because I was willing to change and be so content with my writing. I was able to take criticism and push myself further in my writing.I learned that I am a good wrier, I just have trouble getting my thoughts onto paper. I can brainstrom and draft and outline all I want but it will take some time to put it all together. I think the hardest part about writing this paper is trying to get out the standard introduction, body , and conclusion structure of writing. The easiet part was fixing little grammar issues that were minor.I am proud of the fact that I can dig deeper into what the author was thinking to convey my thesis. I provided more examples and quotes that showed what the author was actually thinking.

Exploratory Essay Second Draft

If you have the right tools and preparation, then you can make it in this society. The authors in the following texts: “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower”, and “Working Class Chicas” all believe that if you decide to pursue post-secondary education that you should be well prepared for what is to come and if you are not prepared then it will be hard for you to succeed.

In these stories, the authors put emphasis on the college preparation and the lack thereof. In “Working Class Chicas”, Julie Bettie illustrates that the counselors have failed the minority females by assigning them the easy classes they need to pass to graduate but not enrolling them in classes that may challenge them past high school like the college prep courses. One of the girls responds to why she was not prepared for college, “The counselor told me to take all the non-required classes. Now I’m way behind in English and math, so that is why I can’t go to a state school.”(Bettie, 77) How can you expect to get into college and the people who are supposed to be helping you are not doing their job? Bettie shows that some minority students need assistance in preparing for college. She also stated that most students are pressured in to attend college because it leads to success, “But given that school culture equates success with college is readily understood as an individual failure, las chicas were often left with no one to blame but themselves.” (Bettie, 79) How can you blame the students for not being prepared for college, if the teachers are a key role in preparing students for the next level? It is understood that if a student is not taking any initiative in to bettering themselves as far as education and getting into college, but it is also with the help of the instructor to give some guidance.

Similar to, “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower”, the woman in her 40s was not capable of comprehending the processes of modern society. She was enrolled in a college course but was not able to keep up with the requirements of the class, “She simply was not qualified for college…For I, … am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; they are in some cases barely literate;…They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.” (Professor X, 3-4) The professor tries to help her with her paper but she is incapable of understanding the concepts. Since she is an older student, she may not be up-to-date and current on the ways of modern society or she may have forgotten how to write a paper correctly. The author suggests that if you are going to go to college, you need to able to keep up with the classes or take classes as prerequisites to refresh your memory.

 However, in “The Basement of the Ivory Tower”, the professor unlike some other teachers agrees to work with the student on their deficits, “I had responsibilities to the rest of my students, so only when the class ended could I sit with her and work on some of the basics. It didn’t go well. She wasn’t absorbing anything. The wall had gone up, the wall known to every teacher at every level: the wall of defeat and hopelessness and humiliation, the wall that is an impenetrable barrier to learning.” (Professor X, 1) Not all teachers allow their students to fail, so actually some teachers care about the success of their students. Now since, the emphasis on college prep if so apparent it takes responsibility from the teacher as a means of resource and from the student as an output, whether you are in college or not. In the article, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work”, the author implies that based on what social class you are associated with, the education you receive and how you receive it plays a role in how prepared you are for college or post-secondary education. The author discusses the differences in the education by social class, “The foregoing analysis of differences in schoolwork in contrasting social class contexts suggests the following conclusion: the “hidden curriculum” of school work is tacit preparation for relating to the process of production in a particular way.”(Anyon, 10) Jean Anyon argues that the way the students are taught influences how well they are prepared for future college plans or careers. The students of the middle class are taught by the book, they engage in work by doing things step-by-step. They are not required to express a lot of creativity. With this teaching style in mind, they are being prepared for schools and/or jobs that deal with problem solving which requires a basic background in the core subjects. In contrast, not every job requires these skills and some require more skills which require more education meaning more time in college. Bettie supports this claim, “But no one actually speaks to the fact of changing labor and declining wages that await this generation of students, a problem that neither schools, parents, nor girls can solve.” (Bettie, 82) She claims that in society the demands for education and to get jobs are becoming harder and that there is no real solution for all of these issues.

 The authors of these three texts all illustrate how you must be prepared for college in order to succeed and they also showed if you don’t have the background knowledge, then you are going to struggle. The woman who was in her 40s in, “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower” was struggling even when she didn’t think she was. She had a lack of preparation which caused her to be behind in her studies just like the girls in “Working Class Chicas” who were not prepared for school or careers beyond high school.

 

Exploration Essay Workshop Reflection

     As I was getting feedback from the members of my group, they really helped me to better my essay or to look at it from a different perspective. Rachel critiqued me on my grammar. She advised me to put the titles of the articles I was using in quotations and evidence or quotes from the text in quotations as well. Kayla told me to include a Works Cited page to avoid plagiarism and in order to cite the readings that I included in my paper. Brian suggested that I make an argument, try to start a conversation between the authors' thoughts, and use quotes from the text in which the author says these things. 

     I think the most helpful piece of advice would be from Brian when he told me I should really elaborate and think critically about what the author is trying to say through these stories. It seems like I am still intertwining my opinion in the essay but I have to find more examples that deal with the author's voice instead of my own.

     I don't think that any of the feedback that I received in the workshop was "least" helpful. Anything that would improve my paper is welcome. I think that the least important or least pressing issue that was pointed out in my paper would be the grammar issues that Rachel pointed out but those can be easily fixed.

     I plan to change my paper in several ways. I need to stray away from writing the traditional way. I want to start writing without a set structure and when I am finished talking about my points, I need to practice just ending at that. Next, I will try to make an argument or do a better job at showing the different perspectives of the authors on the same issue. I also will need to correct my grammar in certain places and cite my sources in the correct way and include a Works Cited pages to let the reader know what texts I used to support my claim.

Exploratory Essay

In this modern world, college seems like a necessary part to becoming successful in life. However, making it to college seems more difficult than college itself. If you have the right tools and preparation, then you can make it in this society. The authors in the following texts: Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, and Working Class Chicas all believe that if you decide to pursue post-secondary education that you should be well prepared for what is to come and if you are not prepared then it will be hard for you to succeed.

The curriculum for most high schools is to pass tests for graduation but some of them specialize in preparation for college, which is why some of them offer Advanced Placement courses. In these stories, the authors put emphasis on the college preparation and the lack thereof. In Working Class Chicas, Julie Bettie illustrates that the counselors have failed the minority females by assigning them the easy classes they need to pass to graduate but not enrolling them in classes that may challenge them past high school like the college prep courses. One of the girls responds to why she was not prepared for college, “The counselor told me to take all the non-required classes. Now I’m way behind in English and math, so that is why I can’t go to a state school.”(Bettie, 77) How can you expect to get into college and the people who are supposed to be helping you are not doing their job? Bettie shows that some minority students need assistance in preparing for college. Similar to, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, the woman in her 40s was not capable of comprehending the processes of modern society. She was enrolled in a college course but was not able to keep up with the requirements of the class, “She simply was not qualified for college…For I, … am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; they are in some cases barely literate;…They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.” (Professor X, 3-4) The professor tries to help her with her paper but she is incapable of understanding the concepts. Since she is an older student, she may not be up-to-date and current on the ways of modern society or she may have forgotten how to write a paper correctly. The author suggests that if you are going to go to college, you need to able to keep up with the classes or take classes as prerequisites to refresh your memory. In the article, Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work, the author implies that based on what social class you are associated with, the education you receive and how you receive it plays a role in how prepared you are for college or post-secondary education. The author discusses the differences in the education by social class, “The foregoing analysis of differences in schoolwork in contrasting social class contexts suggests the following conclusion: the “hidden curriculum” of school work is tacit preparation for relating to the process of production in a particular way.”(Anyon, 10) Jean Anyon argues that the way the students are taught influences how well they are prepared for future college plans or careers. The students of the middle class are taught by the book, they engage in work by doing things step-by-step. They are not required to express a lot of creativity. With this teaching style in mind, they are being prepared for schools and/or  jobs that deal with problem solving which requires  a basic background in the core subjects. In a general sense, they all suggest that some type of education is needed before you enter college.   

The authors of these three texts all illustrate how you must be prepared for college in order to succeed and they also showed if you don’t have the background knowledge, then you are going to struggle. The woman who was in her 40s in, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower was struggling even when she didn’t think she was. She had a lack of preparation which caused her to be behind in her studies just like the girls in Working Class Chicas who were not prepared for school or careers beyond high school.