Discussion Responses Required – Sample Response attached for Reference – 7 Hours
Write a 250-word response to the review that a classmate posts on your thread. In your response, address your classmate’s questions and suggestions, and explain how you plan to revise your abstract based on the feedback. If you choose not to revise based on a particular question or suggestion, explain why you are choosing not to.
Final Project Proposal
For my final project I would like to write a report about the profession of teaching writing or composition, at a college level. My goal after graduating is to begin my career teaching in higher education, perhaps at a local community college, which is why I would like to look deeper into the most pressing topics within the field, or what seem to be the more commonly considered topics among published experts within the field. I would like for this to become a sort of guide for a beginning college writing instructor. I chose to write this project in the style of a report because I would like to consider the thoughts of experts on a variety of topics surrounding the profession rather than select one issue to do an empirical study on. As a beginner in the field, I am interested in what instructors prioritize in their lessons, important considerations for teaching online seeing as the demand for online education is very high, how to demonstrate pedagogical skills for students who are preparing themselves to teach writing, how to effectively implement peer review in the classroom, and other pedagogical skills valuable to the composition teacher. I know personally, I am most concerned with what concepts are most important to consider in my lessons and the best order in which to teach them. As a first year instructor, there will be a lot of trouble shooting, finding out what does and does not work and I would like to find materials that explain what other instructors have found did not work well to help strategize my own lesson planning better. I would also like to find roadblocks that instructors face with beginning writers in their classrooms. My method for research during this project will be to first consult academic databases starting with the databases available from the Liberty University Library. Perusing published journals and chapters from books, and other published works, will help to shape the organization of my report and recommend more specific topics for search as I continue looking for resources. This means that my report will take a clearer shape as I obtain more research. I will also likely consult writing instructors that I know in order to get their advice and personal opinions on topics of research which would be valuable to a beginning instructor, as well as resources they may find useful. Already I have found a variety of sources including essays, a letter to the editor, a pedagogical seminar, and a journal article regarding pedagogical focus for college writing. The Journal of Developmental Education has a relatively recent article published from 2016 which includes a small discussion by Doug Hesse, president of the National Council of Teachers of English in which Mr. Hesse states the importance of both product and process in college composition and as well as sustained and guided practice with examples such as, “providing generous opportunities to write,” and sequencing writing tasks (36). Reading this discussion has helped to guide me in searching for specific pedagogical ideas such as designing a course curriculum that is comprehensive. A pedagogy seminar by Janet Auten titled Teaching as Text, is incredibly useful for discovering how certain teaching outcomes can be reached with certain assignments. An example of this is a common assignment, weekly response essays where students write and respond to one another online after choosing their own prompts. Auten states that, “by putting students in charge of the response assignments, I cede more authority to them and also mandate a kind of peer reviewed tryout in the key skill of crafting writing prompts” (99). Using materials like this I can discover what methodologies instructors use to develop important writing skills in students. I plan to organize my findings in whatever way they can most fluidly and logically be ordered which will likely begin with pedagogical matters, moving into lesson planning and strategies, including considerations for online classes. Giving some isolated consideration to online writing classes is important due to the rapidly evolving technologies and their impact on higher education and teaching conditions. One resource that encouraged me to take a stronger interest the development of online writing courses is an essay by June Griffin and Deborah Minter who discuss just how the current state of online writing instruction is changing due to shifting technology as well as, “everyday literacies” (140). I appreciate the statement presented on the first page of the essay which states, “Online teaching requires professors and educators to constantly think about tone and the importance of follow- up,” they continue by stating, “You also have an intimate chance of getting to know your students through their ideas and not just who raises their hand or speaks first…” (140)”. They present conditions that differ from what most are used to in a traditional classroom setting which are important to understand as a writing instructor, especially one who has never had an online course. As my report takes shape, I would like to layout not only valuable pedagogical ideas, how they apply to lesson planning, and what classroom methods do and don’t work in practice, but also what considerations should be taken of the students. As a new college instructor, especially if given the opportunity to teach online courses, I will be interacting and forming relationships with a broader learning community than ever before. I would like to understand how best to serve a variety of learners all starting from different ability levels and coming from different backgrounds. After considering in my report what teaching methods are valuable and how they are used, I must also consider what approaches to teaching writing best serve students from a variety of backgrounds. My report should include ways to create meaningful writing experiences for students, ways to make students more comfortable with the process of writing, pedagogical ideas for developing students’ skills, structure, and strategies for writing, and common expectations for writing students which are universally clear. As previously stated, I want to deliver my findings in a way which is valuable to beginning writing instructors providing information that would give those like me, important basic considerations such as what basic foundational concepts of college writing are taught and an idea of how they are organized, efficient ways to teach those concepts to students especially beginning students, how to encourage higher thinking skills through peer review, as well as ways to translate lessons well in an online setting. I also want the report to consider how to best instruct students who may also be studying to teach writing themselves and students who come from a variety of backgrounds. This report should also include findings about lessons or pedagogical ideas which did not work when implemented or programs that have not been as successful for students. This report should give beginning instructors a better idea of what the demand of their field will entail and what areas of concern are most valuable to consider as they decide how to plan for their first position teaching writing. This information is useful because often after obtaining a masters degree instructors most difficult year, their first, begins with the search for a comprehensive textbook which will have to include a logical delivery of the most important topics for their subject, and will be followed with their own study of whatever class materials they choose and the structuring of a course based off of how they plan to deliver the material in the textbook. These beginning teachers will have to do trouble shooting of their own discovering as they go what works well and what does not within their lessons and assignments. Knowing what topics experts find most valuable and how to deliver them most effectively to a variety of students is helping when planning what text and class materials might be most effective. Knowing what ideas may have failed for other instructors and knowing how they delivered their same topics of study in an online format is also valuable when designing your own course of instruction.
Works Cited:
Auten, Janet. “Teaching as Text—The Pedagogy Seminar: LIT 730, Teaching Composition.” Composition Studies, vol. 40, no. 1, 2012, pp. 95–112. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/43501813. Accessed 1 Feb. 2020
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Griffin, June and Deborah Minter. “The Rise of the Online Writing Classroom: Reflecting on the Material Conditions of College Composition Teaching.” College Composition and Communication 65.1 (2013): 140-61. ProQuest. Web. 1 Feb. 2020.
“Teaching Composition.” Journal of Developmental Education 40.1 (2016): 36. ProQuest. Web. 1 Feb. 2020.
Hello,
I am hoping you’re enjoying this semester and you have rolled up your sleeves to glean as much knowledge as possible from the courses you’re pursuing. I found your proposal quite interesting. Since, we share the same vocation, reading each other’s paper will provide a venue to explore mutual beneficial opportunities. I would also like to connect with you in LinkedIn. I appreciate that you have chosen to write about something that will prepare you in a way to secure your dream job in your field.
I totally agree with your stance regarding the pace of technological innovation in today’s business world, especially in the digital business environment. The rate at which technology is evolving, it is becoming a challenging task for any organization leverage the latest technology and innovate rapidly. The onus is on the organization to adopt and leverage the latest technological solutions available in the market to deliver value for their customers so that they can remain relevant and survive today’s competitive business environment. An additional burden imposed by technological innovations on organizations is that they have to implement organizational change management so that their staff is embrace the change brought about by technology innovation in their industry. The tendency of various functions of the organization is to work in silos and resist change which poses a great threat to the competitiveness of the organization.
I have never worked in the digital industry. But I am sure that digital businesses with their cutting-edge technology are replacing most of the brick and motor model-based businesses. The nuance in this whole story is how technology innovations are getting managed in digital business environment. This is one of the reasons, I am earnestly looking forward to reading your research paper. Visiting the company sites or talking to people who are dealing with the latest cutting-edge technologies on a daily basis will give you better picture on innovation is managed in digital businesses. I will highly recommend you to do that.
The valuable information that social media generates will help a organization better understand its’s customer’s behavior and preferences; and how they feel about the business’s products or services. However, extracting this valuable information is not an easy task and this requires huge investment in “big data” technology that can help analyzing and extracting meaningful insight from the social media data generated for an organization. Investment in new technology require detailed research and analysis on how this new technology is going to augment the existing technology currently in use in the business, whether the new technology is scalable and cost-effective and so on. I will suggest that you can consider investigating these aspects as you develop your research paper.
The structure of your research paper is impressive. However, I would suggest you should provide a brief background about digital business environment and what technological innovations apply to them. I am also looking forward to learning from you on how force-field analysis and impact analysis can help in selecting the best solution from among the choices available.
In conclusion, I would like to say that your topic is impressive and interesting. Your approach towards structuring this research paper is very good and readers will definitely find your writing illuminating. I wish you good luck in your endeavor to achieve success in your field.
Regards,
Project Proposal
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For my Project, I will be researching and writing about perspective, specifically history perspective. History is written by the victors, a notion adopted and most widely acknowledged to be used by Winston Churchill, but its true origins are unknown. Perspective, specifically when dealing with the historical perspective has shaped history, and thus, history is inaccurate.
When we read history (or anything for that matter), we tend to assume what we are reading is true. A lot of people believe that history is an unequivocal fact. However, the history of the world that we know and study lacks just as many facts as it contains if not even more” (Ryder). History is not grounded in facts, but rather it’s the winners’ account of what happened.
The best way to piece together this research will be to present it as a traditional academic piece written in a persuasive style. I chose this topic and genre because I’ve always found the historical inaccuracies interesting and how we only ever get half the story. Native Americans, for instance, are one of the most oppressed groups of people in the world, yet we rarely talk about them (Ryder). Why? Because they weren’t the victors. American history has been dominated by white men. History (and people) have been inaccurately recounting the experience(s) and perspective(s) of battles since the beginning of time when man could record history. The victors have always been the ones to have the last say, the final word, and the only word on what occurred. In history, when a battle was one, the victors would burn and destroy the others’ temples, scripts, history and teachings. Accounts of the experiences and hardships felt by the losing side of a battle were only ever recorded in the winners’ view (Historians.org, 2020).
Just like with the Native Americans, there’s no detailed account of the brutality of the British militia which lead to the Jacobite uprising and the downfall of the Highlander way of life at the Battle of Culloden (National Trust for Scotland, 2017). The Highlander history and recounts of the Battle of Culloden talk about the profit benefit to highlanders and barely touch on how “Clan chiefs were deprived of their legal powers and clansmen of their weapons; Jacobite estates were seized by the Crown; and the kilt and tartan were banned” (National Trust for Scotland, 2017).
The first step in organizing this undertaking was developing the topic/thesis that history is not grounded in facts as it is written by the victors. The next step will be defining no more than four battles to focus on in order to limit the scope of research and not spend years focusing on this project. The next step will be to gather sources and research on each of the battles and develop the argument to support each one based on the thesis.
Sources for gathering the research for this project will include historical textbooks detailing the accounts of the American wars as well as the Battle of Culloden, online sources detailing historical accounts, and as seen below, accounts from respective sources that have credibility and authority. The battle of Culloden, for instance, has a record of prisoners with their names, but there is no account from their perspective of what transpired. I will also be looking into scholarly articles focusing on Winston Churchill’s words, “History is written by the victors,” in order to do a philosophical account of the meaning to be able to dive into reaching the notion that history is in fact, grounded in perspective.
In my presentation, I think it would be most beneficial for this piece to serve as written documentation and research findings of the fact, but I will be including some visual representations. For instance, I think it would be beneficial to see a prisoner of war log/record, if available, a visual representation of the Colonies when the Native Americans were the inhabitants versus when settlers began coming in.
Works Cited
Conway, Michael. “The Problem With History Classes.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 16 Mar. 2015,
www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-problem-with-history-classes/387823/
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Historians.org. (2020). Writing History: An Introductory Guide to How History Is Produced | AHA. [online] Available at: https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/teaching-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/the-history-of-the-americas/the-conquest-of-mexico/for-students/writing-history-an-introductory-guide-to-how-history-is-produced [Accessed 1 Feb. 2020].
National Trust for Scotland. (2017). Jacobite Stories: The Aftermath of Culloden | National Trust for Scotland. [online] Available at: https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/jacobite-stories-the-aftermath-of-culloden [Accessed 2 Feb. 2020].
Ryder, Chris. “(Partial) History: Why ‘History Is Written By The Victors’ Couldn’t Be More True.” The Odyssey Online, The Odyssey Online, 17 Oct. 2019,
www.theodysseyonline.com/partial-history
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