CHAPTER 7

I read chapter seven more as a student than I did a teacher. I’m in the process of writing my thesis research paper and this chapter definitely brushed up on some of the specs. It’s important to know the difference between different writing genres as that is the only way to be clear on what the expectations are. One semester I took a course called “History of the English Language” and at the end of the semester my professor asked us to write a ten page final paper on any topic relating to the class. I did my research, used MLA style, meet the page requirement, but nowhere in the paper was my voice present. Now I’m wondering if I did it wrong (I passed the class though and I think I remember getting a good grade on the paper). So as I read chapter seven, I’m assuming ‘term paper’ and ‘final paper’ are synonymous, I asked myself “What are the specifics for a final paper? Are there any?” I was hoping Benjamin would elaborate a little more on that since she was touching on research and term papers being different from each other.

Under the “Science Research vs. Humanities Research” section Benjamin provides a brief description of the writing process for each.   Her explanation makes sense; I’d expect a science research paper to be more factual and contain more data meanwhile a humanities research paper  would have more scholarly comments. My thesis research paper is due for a humanities class and as I envision what I want the final product to be, I notice that I’m fusing both the science and humanities process together. My topic is discussing how different countries cater to the academic needs of their special education student body. My research will include: data, graphs, analysis, drawing conclusions as well as “reviewing commentary that already exists in scholarly literature” and I’m basing my literature review off of that.  Something that I won’t be including is any type of experiment as Benjamin discusses is protocol for science research papers. I understand why each type of paper would have their own research process but I don’t necessarily see anything wrong merging the two.

I can’t apply much of chapter seven to my students now because it would be very overwhelming and advanced for them. I like the break down on pages 114 and 115 which are grade specific in sequence.  It’s all a learning process and every year they continue to build upon skills they learned the previous year in order to produce efficient research papers by the time they leave high school.

Chapter 6

I made chapter 6 into a little game for myself. I tried to read the paragraphs first and then try to figure out the sentence stems. I got most of it correct.

Sometimes writing paragraphs gets a little complicated when there’s too little or too much to say about a topic. When there’s not a lot to say the main points are made in the beginning and the following sentences are usually not relevant to the main idea of the paragraph. Consequently, when there’s too much to say, the paragraph lacks some sort of order—it’s not a smooth flow of thoughts. More of the emphasis is placed on the order of the essay as a whole. I liked that this chapter focused on really breaking apart each paragraph and discussing what the role each sentence serves i.e. subcategory, example, justification etc.

An exercise to have with students would be to have them read some paragraphs and identify the purpose of each sentence. They can pin point key words that help communicate the main idea of the paragraph. Students need to also understand that different types of writing assignments have different structures. Therefore a paragraph discussing classifications will differ in structure from one that discusses characteristics or comparisons. I think the key is to show them examples and then have them practice writing sentences and then joining them together as a whole.

Chapter 5: Vocabulary-- Word for Word

Sometimes I get scared to use certain vocabulary words in sentences because I fear someone might ask me to define it. Now of course I wouldn’t use a word I don’t know the meaning to, but my definitions tend to be a little under developed. I know I should already be familiar with the word infrastructure but that was one word I looked up within the last two weeks. After hurricane Sandy struck NYC, I came across an article that had the word infrastructure in it. “I know this” I kept rolling my eyes “I just looked this word up the other day, ugh lord.” When I FINALLY remembered what the word meant, my exact definition to myself was “infrastructure is like the bridges and tunnels and schools and stuff that make a community.” Defining words can be extremely difficult if you don’t already have a word bank of general categories to begin with. I think chapter five gives effective and detailed steps towards constructing clear definitions.  Students would need to practice doing this of course because this does require multiple steps; it’s not a simplistic process.

Besides being able to provide clear definitions students need to integrate these words into their speech as much as possible. Chapter five’s suggestion on writing two types of sentences, one being a metaphorical sentence is a creative way to develop full understanding of the word. Once there’s a clear understanding on what the word means and how it can be used, it naturally finds its way into daily conversation.  A good exercise would be to have students write out sentences utilizing the vocabulary words then give it to their peers to try and figure out what it means. The sentences though would provide a synonym or defining phrase somewhere in the sentence like the reading suggests.  Something else I think is a good idea to help with learning vocabulary words is learning the Latin and Greek root of words in the English language. When I was in high school the student teacher assigned to my class would review some roots with us for 10-15 minutes in the morning. I ended up buying the Merriam-Webster’s Vocabulary Builder which concentrates on root words and it has been of great help to me.