July 2 Post

Tonight was last time we met. I am happy that the class finally ended but I feel like I lost something as well. I don't expect my English will improve a lot in such short time, a  month; but I do get the ideas of how to find out a way to improve my English in the future because the class helps me analyze my writing process and other people's writing process as well. I think the teaching technique Paul use is fun and useful; in which he motivate us to participate actively the class. also, all classmates are nice and friendly. the reason I took the English 414 almost the last courses is that I am not confident with the foundation of English and do not speak well. this class does help me ease my nervous, at least my heart was not beating so fast and my face did not become red (?) while I gave the presentation in front of the class.  so thank you Paul.

Also tonight we have a peer view section. I found out some of drafts are wonderful with so many details of how writers such James Baldwin compose their essays. Comparing with other classmate's drafts, I pick James Baldwin but still have difficulties to analyze his writing process. I was stuck and had to do additional research to get more informaton. it is so time-consuming process for me to write an essay. Some of essais such Subtly Powerful are wonderful. I always check it back many times to try to get some ideas.

June 27 Post

June 27, 2012 Post

Tonight I gave a presentation on one of my favorite writer Amy Tan; but I did not feel well even though I spent many times to prepare for it. Basically I read my outline most of time rather than say it; and I did not have some sort of visual accompaniment such as power point. I know my broken English is a hurdle for me to do well in this presentation but I still do not feel well. I felt like I lost something that I have never gotten back until today. What I don’t speak well English today still haunt me and become a root cause that I always have a low self-esteem and lack of confident. Once one of my classmates in speech one in City College of San Francisco made a comment on my presentation, in which he directly told that he didn’t get what I was saying. I really appreciated he gave me a true feedback but I am human being so I definitely felt embarrassed.

Many facts and evidence convince me that I still have a long way to improve my English. After reading the short essay “How to Date a Brown girl….”, I could not understand some part of essay. For example, “clear the government cheese from the refrigerator,” and “run a hand through your hair like the white boys do even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.” I absolutely didn’t get its points initially. In addition, I am definitely unable to write well this kind of essay because I have limitation on writing skill and do not have enough knowledge on Americanized culture.

One word I can say regarding to the sample essay is excellent.

June 25 Post

Tonight, some of classmates gave presentations on their favorite writers. While listening their presentation, I am concerned about and nervous that how I am going to give a presentation because, on the one hand, I am not confident with my presentation is as good as they are; on the other hand, even though I have done research on Amy Tan, I still can’t know how to organize and prepare. Needless to say, since Amy Tan is a famous novelist, all of classmates have already known who she is. So how can I differentiate my perspective of Amy Tan to my classmates? Until now, I still can’t figure out how to do it. In addition, I can picture myself speaking broken English, like Amy Tan described her mother, while classmates might not understand. I am really scared.

In the class discussion, many classmates agree with these articles are difficult to understand and keep track on the ideas of how writers try to convey. I am not an exception of this rule. I am wondering where I can find some analysis to spark my thought to comprehend these articles. Also it’s interesting in the comments regarding to Britney Spears. Many think she is a naïve because of her ridiculous manners and thoughts. Based on their life experience and cultural background, people might come up their unique perspective to view the world. I am not saying whose perspective is right or wrong; but for me, I will not bother to watch these pop stars unless I must do so for assignments. These pop stars are trying to get attention from the public so that they can get more opportunities to make money. For example, Kim Kardashian might be this kind of person. he marriage only last 72 days; then she filed for divorce. My point is that the more people are interesting with her, the more opportunities she will get to make money. So if you definitely dislike her, then why care about her news?

The essay 2 assignment will be a good chanes to improve our writing skill.

June 20 Post

Tonight we were watching the movie "Exit through the Gift Shop”. It’s about street artists such as Terry is passionately pursuing their goals of graffiti on public place. Initially, I have negative view on this kind of behavior by putting graffiti on public place such as walls and train because, on the one hand, it will mess up the environment so that someone has to waste time and money to clean it up; on the other hand, more importantly, these street artists impose their personal ideas on public even though some graffiti are meaningful to us. It sounds like to rape someone without consent. Further, these street artists are all brilliant and intelligent; if they do it in a normal way to pursue their passion, they will succeed eventually. Their lives will be decent rather shabby.  

After at home, I discussed with my son about these graffiti street artists and argued that their behaviors are unacceptable and they might gradually ruin their future. However, my son has a different view regarding to these graffiti artists. He argued that if they are happy in the way of how they live and the way of what they pursue, then there is no reason to stop. I was shocked by his opinion and am wondering it’s different in culture between China and America so that we come up different views. I don't want my son too ambition but I definitely expect my son to be decent person and to focus on learning while he still is a student.

I am also concerning about how to write three letter assignment on format and especially how to compose a yelp review because it will emphasize on personal feelings and use more slang. as a ESL speaker, I can't speak and understand well slang. so I hope yelp.com can give me some ideas.

June 18 Post

Tonight, I was late for school so I only wrote a few sentences regarding to literacy from different perpectives. Before reading Mirabelli article "Learning to Serve: The Language and LIteracy of Food Service Workers", I am most likely to define that "literacy" is more close related to academic in a old school view; in which literacy becomes a symbolic status representing those are well-educated, intellgent, and have a strong ability of the problem identifying, problem solving, and other high level abilities neede to work on other occupation. Initially, I am also in favor of those views only the well-educated have a strong ability of literacy; in other words, they have capability of "saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing".

I am so impressed with Mirabelli's new concept on literacy. he introduced the concept of multiliteracies to argue the blue-collar serive workers are able to read and write the textual literacies and printed-based literacies; more importantly, the blue-collar service workers are able to read people and situation. His findings not only indicate service workers have ability of literacy but also are beyond their counterpart, white-collar worker, in certain circumstance. 

my reflectoion is about human diversity in the United States or global because I am concerned about the human diveristy might trigger an unsafe and hate crime society even though most of us think our country is equal, freedom, and democratic nation. many people assume that service workers are ignorant and stupid. even those economists such as Peter Drucher also stereotype or prejudice serive workers lack the necessary education to be knowledged worker. Until today, many people have the negative view of other racial group and racial discrimination and prejudice are existing every corner of our country. these evidencs reinforce my concern regarding to human diversity.

June 13 Post

 I am impressed by the phrase of blocker writer. Based on my writing process, I definitely fall in the category of blocker writer. My understanding of block in terms of writing process is that people are stuck with their well-formulated outline or trapped inside his original plans without easily shifting another approaches or unable to generate another alternatives; in other words, their ideas are blocked so that their writing proceses have to stop. I have many experiences of unable to continuously write my papers because my mind was completely blocked so that I couldn't generate ideas any more. Even I tries to think another alternatives, my brain was blank. From time to time, I am very frustated with my writing's ability. even though i am uncomfortable and am struggled with the writing process of talking loud while writing, I did devote myself to participate this experiment. the analysis did help me discover some causes regarding to "block".

Even James Paul in his article"Ideology in Discouses, Critical Perspectives on Literacy and Education" define it's a sort of 'indentity kit' which comes with the approprite costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular social role that other will recognize. and he also refer it as saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combination.
I am still unable to understand well the meaning of "Discourse" in different circumstance. Can I use the concept of "Discourse" to our experiment on the writing process of talking loud while writing? and use it to analyze the coding transcript to find out my personal writing process?

June 11 Post

June 11, 2012 English 414

            Tonight, I am impressed by the works other classmates wrote; it’s amazing. The ideas are awesome and wonderful, organization is well structured, and sentence structure is nice. It’s one of those truly embarrassing moment I encounter during the period of peer review. Comparing with these native English speakers who easily put down their ideas on paper, I have to take time to search an appropriate word or a phrase reflecting my ideas. From time to time, the word of phrase I put on the paper might not be well related to my original ideas. Most of native English speakers are instructed to speak loud while writing. For me, I was instructed to write a paper quietly because noise might distract me to concentrate on the paper. In addition, in fact, as an ESL speaker, I even can’t speak well enough so I am skeptical about whether or not it will work for me by using the way of speaking loud while writing.           

            Autoethnography will be helpful for me to improve my writing skill while correcting some bad writing habits. Autoethnogrpahy can untangle and analyze the writing processes so I can find out what part of my writing processes might do wrong and what weakness I should improve. In contrast, I am not sure whether or not the coding of transcript of the recoding can help improve my writing.

            Since we are instructed to do this way, why should I not give a try; it might work for me.

June 6 class post

June 6, 2012, tonight is second time we met for English 414, I felt much at ease comparing with the first class because I started to familiarize myself with how the course is organized; and Professor Paul and classmates are nice and friendly.

Our group made a presentation regarding to the article “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block” by Mike Rose. Mike conducted a study in terms of how ten UCLA undergraduates write their papers and of what categories of blockers or non-blocker they fall. He concluded it wasn’t their skill but could have rested in the emotional realm such as anxiety, fear of evaluation, and insecurity. The blockers were all operating either with writing rules or with planning strategies that impeded rather than enhanced the composing process; contrast, even though the non-blockers also utilize rules, they were less rigid ones, and more appropriate to a complex process like writing. Basically, they were more functional, more flexible, and more open to information from the outside.

I definitely fall the categories of blockers. Due to ESL background, I face a big obstacle when composing my writing. My ideas relating to the assignment can’t put it down on my paper effectively and appropriately. The free-up writing is not often occurred to me; instead, I would be restricted to my outlines.

The first essay assignment will be a good opportunity for me to practice my writing by trying not to strictly follow the outline; and trying to utilize the writing method Professor Paul taught.

Tonight, June 4, 2012, is the first day of Summer English 414. I am exciting to meet many new classmates and a nice professor, Paul, while I am also concerned about whether or not I will do well in English 414; fortunately, Professor Paul and whole class are friendly. So I defnitely hope I can make some improvement in English especially in writing with teacher and classmate's help.

the essay Mother Tongue  by  Amy Tan, a Chinese American and a novalist, tells her personal story of how difficult for a Chinese immigrant live in America. First, the racial stereotype about a Chinese makes Amy Tan especially her mother feel that they are hard to fit in America. Her mother didn't speak well English; it's most likely to describe it to people as "broken"or " fractured" English. Because of her mother's "limited English", her mother was treated unfairly comparing with other speak well in English.

In her essay Mother Tongue, Amy Tan also has an unique perspective against those racial stereotype; in which she implied that even a person such as her mother did speak bad in English, that doesn't mean the person can't do well in other thing. Everyone has an unique talent for doing a great job in certain way. Thus, her essay Mother Tongue is a way to denounce these stereotype.

Through her essay Mother Tongue, Amy Tan was also struggling and frustrated with her ethnicity. She was shame of being as a Chinese American. Her mother didn't speak well English, didn't act well as her counterpart such as a while woman did.