Essay #3 Draft

This is just my starting paragraph, so there will be more to come. Its been a busy week for me.

As far as we can remember, writing on paper has been our main resource for preserving ideas. However, since the late 80's to the early 90's, the computer appeared on the scene, with the Internet shortly after. While it might be quite a while, the era of the book is looking to be coming to an end, with the computer quickly becoming the new means of preserving and transferring stories and information. I remember back when I was going to grade school in the early 90's, the schools I went to, going from a private Catholic school to a public school, both had computer labs, along with a computer in most classrooms, so the idea of writing on a computer is not new to me, but for people born before the age of the computer, this might seem foreign to them. While writing on the computer does have its advantages, there are also disadvantages. Throughout Unit 3, we learn what some of these advantages and disadvantages are, and how our writing has changed through the use of the computer.

I'll try and get a bit more added tonight.

Kosut and Delpit

I found both Kosut and Delpit articles very interesting. As I mentioned in one of my discussion posts, these two articles we should take into consideration since most of us are going into the educational field. I have to say, I'm glad I read them. It sort of given me insight as to what I should expect when I go into student teaching, and then teaching itself. I consider myself a open-minded person, but reading these two articles sort of puts into perspective for me. Going into teaching, I would assume that everyone has the same primary discourse as myself. I think now, when I do head into the classroom and teach, I can't assume that everyone is from the same background as the person sitting next to him/her, or from the same background as myself. As I posted in my Delpit post though, I believe that people can overcome their primary discourse and adopt a secondary discourse to be successful in their job. I can only imagine how new teachers might feel going into a school like one of the MPS schools, like the example of the teacher that was trouble in (I believe) Kosut article. A teacher could get so frusrated that it might turn them off from teaching, when in fact the teacher and student are just not connecting with each other.

Blog #2

"The educational problem, then, is this: Entering college students hold an arhectorial or asituational theory of written discourse, a repesentation or model of discourse..." (P.360 Haas)

"He knew that a university faculty would be reading and evaluating his essay, so he wrote for them." (P.512 Bartholomae)

I think both case studies were trying to get at the same point. Both Haas and Bartholomae were trying to state the problem of students coming in from high school into college. Haas is stating that high school students entering college have this mindset, on which Bartholomae shows, is that students are trying to appeal to the teacher for a better greade, but which doesn't really make them better writers. Well, it might, but according to both Haas and Bartholomae, writing to get a better grade doesn't make you a better writer. Being able to write what you want to write makes you a better writer according to Haas and Bartholomae.