The Class Reading
For me personally, I have two slightly contradictory views on the readings. I think that, at the same time, they were both old news and new news. As confusing as that is, let me explain. I found a fair amount of the reading to be old news, such as how to look at an article and see the underlying messages and audiences. By interpreting how an author organizes and writes, you can find the less explicit messages and meanings. This was actually touched on before in one of my earlier classes, and so I had already thought about seeing articles the way Wysocki describes. In regards to the new info, I think the readings better explain the basic ideas and formatting in a way that I can actually use. Before the reading I could probably look at an article and find many of the differences in structure, texture, and simple organization and the reasons for that. After having been given simplified examples and templates, I feel more confident in being able to apply said techniques in my own writing.
Discourse Analysis Paper
My initial research question was centered on “How does a lack of technological availability affect children?” After initial research for that question, and after some work at the Discovery Center, I re-created the original question: “How does allowing children to participate in exhibits and experiments affect the way they learn the material?” It still has the basic roots of the original question, but has been refined toward the opportunity for children to actually do an experiment as opposed to watching or reading about it. This paper is based along the different aspects of the question, from educational opportunities to actual labs.
Source 1:
The article starts off with describing the situation in Chicago where a new school for math and science opened. The school was made possible by one of the local companies, Exelon, and is meant to address the growing concern of lack of interest in STEM. After explaining how students are dropping STEM classes as soon as they can and how Exelon is trying to fix this, the article describes the hows and whys of a company establishing a school like this.
This article, when analyzing it, came across as confusing and unorganized. The organization at the beginning gives the impression that the author would talk about why there was a lack of interest in science, or what could be done to resolve it. But before it can, it turns around and talks about the company that made the school possible and why it did. It explains the multiple reasons a company might do that. Considering the paragraph before was leading into the issues, this is a very confusing point to me. Beneath the main title is a sub title touching on the company side of the article. If the article is primarily focused on the company strategy, why spend so long talking about the specific issues of this community, implying that the article would be addressing these issues in detail? Also, the tone at times seems to go back and forth at times. At some points it is praising the idea of the company’s idea to make these community contributions, and later turns around and sounds more negative.
Source 2:
The second article is essentially a guide to parents for making science interesting and fun for kids. The article describes how to experiment with kids, what they should and shouldn’t do, and is a very general guide for beginning home experiments. It doesn’t really get specific, and could definitely elaborate more on the given points.
Now for the details of the article. The article starts off with the author explaining how much they enjoy homeschooling their kids. The tone of the author and the way the author presents the ideas tells us that the article is primarily designed with parents in mind. It is very enthusiastic and supportive of helping kids learn about science, and maintains that structure throughout the article. The title is a little deceptive, as it mentions science experiments but doesn’t actually touch on any specific. I did find, however, that the sub titles in the article were helpful for describing the next section and helped keep the article very organized. One of the nice things was that it also referenced other places parents could find helpful information and labs. This flows nicely with the structure of the article being a very basic guide anyway. I also noticed throughout the article the author continuously came back to asking the kids questions, and encouraging the kids to ask questions and be creative. This felt like the main idea/theme behind the article, and is easily seen.
Source 3:
My third source compliments nicely with Source 2. This article is also about how parents can make learning fun and interesting for their kids. Unlike Source 2, this article is much more specific, following a single situation and the possible solutions to it. The situation is a parent trying to help her son study for a test, while he kept getting up and not focusing. Then the article presented several different possible solutions, each aimed at making the learning fun and effective.
One thing I noticed almost immediately was the tone of the author. Rather, I noticed the seemingly lack of tone. While the author may seem to be supportive and interested in the topic, the manner in which the article was made, and the lack of emotion-filled words spoke out to me. I analyzed the article and found the author to be too detached from the topic, and this had a negative impact on the article as a whole. While the article mentions good solutions to the situation, it comes across as more of “Well you could have done this instead” kind of approach, almost more like a reprimand than advice. It just didn’t seem to fit well with the topic to me, and ended up keeping the article from having the kind of effect it could have had. It also isn’t entirely clear who the target audience is. It could be parents, but the structure and flow of the article seems to suggest it is more of a case study, possibly for an academic audience. This could explain the lack of emotion, as the author may be intentionally trying to portray their point in a more unbiased way.
Works Cited
Hi Taylor: Great work here! I'm surprised you changed your research question, but hopefully your new one is a bit more productive for you. Both Jason and Tyler seem to be following a similar track. You might also check the group blog for ANSER (accessible via our course website), considering that they're researching similar questions.
ReplyDeleteSome notes. First, in your write up you refer to your "first" and your "second" sources. As opposed to this, try something along the lines of "Kari Miller says." This would have kept me better situated as a reader. Jason's work is actually an excellent example for how you can integrate sources.
Keep up the hard work! I'm excited to see how your research progresses from here.
I'm still thinking of integrating my original question into the new one. For example, what about home-schooled kids? Their access to experiments will be much lower than that of a public school, emphasizing the importance behind places like the Discovery Center.
ReplyDeleteI realized the Source problem too late, on my way to class. I can easily see it being difficult to determine which source is which in the Works Cited. Something to remember.