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Matthew Crusse
ID #800770414
ENGL 1102-014
1
Final Reflection Paper
This semester of English has been an experience as a whole from
going over various
topics and looking in-depth with them. Going back to the first
day of the class where you
asked what we think of when we talk about school in general.
From there, my initial
reactions to that were a classroom full of students; listening
to their teacher, taking notes
from what they were saying. From here, I was correct in a way,
due to it being the
traditionalized form of class. From here, this is where we began
looking into various
articles from that of: Donald Van de Mark, Professor X, Paulo
Freire, and Mark Edmundson.
From these articles, we would read them and blog about them on
our Weebly English
Website and then go over them in class the next time we were to
meet. Starting with
Donald van de Mark, we started talking about whether our lives
are a trajectory. From this
I was able to say that everything that a person does in their
life is a trajectory of some sort
whether it be something small in nature as taking a left turn of
a right turn, or even doing
something quite extensive like moving to the other side of the
country; every action one
takes has an ability to changes ones trajectory. From here we
began looking into how
school, in a way, forms a trajectory for each and every one of
us due to the teachers we
have throughout our educational experience. This is where
Professor X and Paulo Freire
play a drastic role. One of my favorite articles that we had
gone over in class, Freires
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, does an amazing job in describing the
traditional form of
schooling which most still do today which is known to be a
lecture style of teaching where
the teacher is up in front of the room throwing out notes to the
students forcing them to be
containers of knowledge so that when the test comes they will
just dump all that
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Matthew Crusse
ID #800770414
ENGL 1102-014
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knowledge back on the paper so that they pass and eventually
forget what they learned
about the months of years to come when they are put in the
situation of having to actually
use and retain that information. This is where Freire presents a
new form of teaching
called the problem-posing method, from which the teachers
actually get involved with
their students and actually teach them in a way that forces them
to be engaged and
critically think about the material that they are going over.
After we discussed Paulo
Freires article, we went onto Mark Edmundson, who went talking
about how its not only
the teachers fault for students not always succeeding in the
class room but its also the
students themselves. He states that in todays consumption
society that Passion and
strong admiration is forbidden, meaning thatthe students of the
present education system
lack the ability to be passionate about their work and the
learning experience that has been
giving to them. I believe that this is because most students
have lost the ideal reason for
why we learn. Not to solely further our ability to gain higher
wagers in the future, but to
gain knowledge and advance ones ability to think critically
about things and know why
certain things happen. From that, we had gone over the majority
of the readings for the
year and began talking about our inquiry project. Before I go
into detail about the project I
would like to go over the majority of the readings and restate
that they all are
interconnected in a way because they state the major faults of
many educational systems
but also shows how they can be fixed. I also loved how you had
taken in Freires problem
posing method for your class because I feel thats the best way
to teach.
Going forward into the next section of the class we began
talking about topics for
which we would want to choose for something we would like to
inquire about, I chose the
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Matthew Crusse
ID #800770414
ENGL 1102-014
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topic of basing school start times to the sleep cycles of
students at different ages. From this
I had to figure out what was wrong with the current school
system. I soon found that if
start-times of schools were to be based on sleep cycles, the
start-times of high school and
elementary schools would be swapped. From this I had to go in
depth about all the positive
and negative effects it would have on schools and give examples
of school systems that
have already adopted this idea and show all the areas of
improvement that had been found.
From all the information I found from that I had decided that I
was a great topic to discuss,
so I had used the information to write a research proposal so I
could set my topic in stone.
After writing a research proposal to you we then began out
annotated bibliography. This
was my first time ever writing an annotated bibliography but I
didnt come across any
problems because we would go over it in class countless times to
where if I didnt know
how to do something it wouldve been due to not listening. Having
this been my first time
writing one, I fairly enjoyed writing it because it allowed me
to find vital information from
each of my sources and allowed me to see their overall stance on
the subject. After writing
and submitting our annotated bibs we then began on our academic
conversation piece.
Starting off with having to write a play (Academic Conversation
#1) using our five sources,
this was my least favorite piece in the class due to me feeling
as if I was just throwing facts
out entire writing to where it wasnt very interesting. This may
be due to my lack of
passion when it comes to plays but otherwise it was still quite
ineffective in my eyes.
Furthermore, we then started our second academic conversation
piece, which I liked more
because it was more of a traditional essay which I would prefer
any time of the day when
compared to a writing a play. In my second draft I began to
through out the various facts
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Matthew Crusse
ID #800770414
ENGL 1102-014
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and details I had found that supported my argument and found
ways for which changing
school start times could work. We had then gone into work
shopping our pieces and
deciding which draft we would like to choose for our final
inquiry paper. For our final
inquiry paper we were to revise the draft which we had chosen
using the notes which we
obtained from the workshops to inter-lap our revised essay with
also our primary research
which we had conducted.
Going back throughout the semester over all the things that we
went over, I would
have to say that this class was quite enjoyable and I loved how
you used the problem-
posing method in your teaching style to force students to focus
and be engaged in class or
else class wouldnt run smoothly. I also enjoyed the countless
workshops that we had
because that was very helpful to get a peers perspective on my
writings so that I could
critique them if any mistakes were made. The only thing with
workshops is that the groups
have to be split between the correct types people so that no one
will end up talking the
whole time and slack off. Otherwise the peer editing was very
helpful. Also the way in
which you conducted class every day was helpful because you
would always answer any
question I would have regarding something to the class so that
if someone didnt know how
to do something it would usually always be their fault because
they were not listening.
