Laura Milleker @lauramill-blog1 - Tumblr Blog

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My theory of writing is essentially that writing is a process. I made my illustration a roller coaster because there are many different ups and downs and turns you have to make to reach the end. A process is something that takes time and effort and has many complex parts. I think of think of these twists and turns as things that I have to go through as a writer that contribute to my end draft.

Things like sharing with my knowledge community and peer review are essential to my writing process because I have learned to take critique and feedback and then be able to make revisions. The community we have built in this class has given me such good insight and feedback on my work and it has definitely made me a better writer, and that’s why these are on the pillars of some of my rollercoaster, because they contribute a lot to the direction I go.

Another couple words I added to my map that I’ve added to my maps before were connections and synthesis and drafting. Like I said in my maps take 2, “the learning process never stops, and in order to move forward, you have to take the things you have already learned and apply them to other new situations. Another new key term I have added to my theory of learning is adaptivity. This is a key part of writing because a good writer should be able to successfully adapt to whatever the situation or genre it is that they are writing for”. Connection is that next step in the writing process that I didn’t have in my theory of writing before I got here. I now realize how important it is to make your writing meaningful and be able to contribute something by writing it. That connection part is what has helped me be successful in my research and in most of my assignments thus far.

My end “goal” in my illustration is the tree. This part of my theory of writing is the idea that a writer and a piece always has room to grow. This is why feedback and drafting and revision are so important. Even the best writers have room to grow so never get cocky!

#writ1133du

Research journal 8

Throughout this research process, I’ve definitely grown as a writer. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is how to look at a text, and then how I am going to use what I gather. Instead of looking for backup information on my personal opinion or argument, I’ve looked at texts I am using as references in research as just an objecting source of information on a subject. What I mean by that is that since research papers aren't supposed to be opinionated or have an argument, I will look at a reference on a subject just browsing for common themes first, not related at all for what I am looking for. I try to look at texts not with a non-opinionated lens. When I was looking for secondary research for my project, I had some expectations for what I was going to find. However, instead of looking for quotes or information in my sources that would back up what I was anticipating I would find, I would look at these pieces of information just looking for anything I could find. This in the end enabled me to find new things, find different perspectives, and ultimately broadened my paper.

I also have learned a lot about myself as a writer. I have learned first and foremost the importance of revision and peer review. it is so easy to think that you can make one draft and think your own opinion is what matters before turning it in for a grade. However, throughout writing this paper I have learned so much from my peers. Even though someone could have no idea what your subject is about or have no relation to your topic whatsoever, a different perspective can go so far.

In the future I really think I can transfer a ton of what I’ve learned throughout this process. I have learned that making connections between sources is very important to do before weaving them into primary research. I have learned that primary research cannot lead you to directly make an assumption, but it can imply that something may be a reoccurring theme but must be researched further. I have learned that it is critical to revise nd get more opinions than my own. And above all I have learned that there is always room for more learning!

#writ1133du

One common theme in the reading was that a lot of students were confident in their abilities as writers, but that confidence came from their baseline knowledge and foundations of things such as mechanics. “Almost all of our respondents expressed a moderate to high degree of confidence in themselves as writers. However, they admitted to taking away from composition classes only some knowledge of mechanics, some guilt about not mastering MLA citations, and a very general and not very accurate understanding of a writing process they did not actually use”. This is not a sign of a mature writer. A writer should be able to move past the foundations of writing like mechanics and move into connections and discussion. From the transfer of learning reading, it was said that “Transfer is facilitated when new material is studied in light of previously learned material that serves as an analogy or metaphor. Things known about the ' 'old" domain of knowledge can now be transferred to a 'new" domain thereby making it better understood and learned”. The student must move past just transferring knowledge about baseline knowledge learned about grammar and mechanics and move into the more complex knowledge community and be able to transfer skills like making connections between sources and things we’ve learned in class.

Also a lot of times students are focused on the end destination (the grade they will receive on a paper) rather than on the writing process. “In almost every response to every question, study participants showed their conviction that the purpose of school writing is to get a grade, that the audience is the teacher, and that a successful paper must take into account both stated constraints (length requirement, number of sources, and sometimes even sentence types that must be included) and unstated (a teacher’s known preference for papers that exceed the length requirement, or a teacher’s obsession with what students typically see as meaningless details). This is hindering students to transfer their knowledge because instead of focusing on the things they’re learning like the processes and the feedback they’re receiving; they just want to know what grade they’re going to get… which is going to be on their transcript. The process is so important because through feedback and failure, you grow as a writer. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere” (threshold reading). The reading also explains how students focus too much on giving the teacher what they know the teacher wants and less discussion and free writing actually expressing themselves. “As a group, the participants in our study prided themselves on their ability to figure out what teachers want, on both personal and disciplinary levels, and then do it”. This is not about transferring knowledge, this is merely focusing on what the teacher wants to hear, and then regurgitating a structured piece of something that doesn’t contribute anything new. “When asked how they actually learned to write, as opposed to what they learned in writing classes, students described a process of, on the one hand, learning to respond appropriately to the apparently idiosyncratic demands of particular teachers and, on the other hand, imitating models of successful papers”. This is a process of responding to a question rather than taking a question and connecting your knowledge with how to answer it and then creating a purpose from that. According to the transfer of knowledge, “Transfer sometimes depends on whether learners have abstracted critical attributes of a situation”. It is about connecting and contributing to the knowledge community rather than the destination grade. According to Jenkins, “These allegiances created between humans, and ultimately different and unique sources of information is new and powerful”. Knowledge communities are very helpful tools and to facilitate them will help your writing tremendously. Connected with this is the concept of a purpose. There should be a purpose to your writing other than just focusing on the grade you’re going to get at the end of the day. With the Bitzler reading, Bitzler’s main point was that rhetoric is situational. He believes that the situation or context will create the meaning. Taking this and using this, the rhetorical context is always important to keep in mind.

Lastly, I don’t think a lot of students know how to transfer their knowledge. “The attitudes expressed by our respondents suggest that the primary obstacle to such transfer is not that students are unable to recognize situations outside FYC in which those skills can be used, but that students do not look for such situations because they believe that skills learned in FYC have no value in any other setting”. This is why I appreciate how we do exercises about transfer in this class. Now that I know what it is, I can think about my learning more about how can I take this a step further instead of focusing on the grade in the class or just compartmentalizing my classes. According to transfer of learning, “Transfer of learning occurs when learning in one context or with one set of materials impacts on performance in another context or with other related materials”. This way, things I earn in Econ class can help me in business, and things I learn in writing can help me write a business proposal down the road.

I chose this music video because you can choose how to interpret any writing, and it is also important to keep that in mind when creating and expressing your purpose.

#writ1133du

Research Journal

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#writ1133

Research Journal 6

Survey

Thus far, I have made my survey, and sent it out to al of my friends at different schools who play division 1 sports. Mt survey questioned people about their gender, whether they played a varsity sport, whether they’d been drug tested, and then about their thoughts about division I football and the steroid use within. Overall, more of the respondents (which were all varsity athletes) had not been drug tested, but there were very close numbers. This corresponds to my secondary research because the majority of my research said that only a fraction of NCAA athletes were chosen to be drug tested. Additionally, 65% of my respondents thus far said that they believed that the numbers the NCAA received based off the drug tests administered was an underestimate of the dugs that were present in DI football. This translates to my secondary research because my secondary research says that most of what people hear about drugs in the NCAA is dulled down and is not an accurate representation of what is really going on.

Observation

In this documentary this player talks about how during college, the few drug test that were administered to him, he faked (which he explains was not hard to do) and he got around them. This agrees with my secondary research that the drug tests were weakly administered and easy to get around. This player ended up getting himself into much bigger problems later in his career because the NCAA did not stop his drug use during college. This also agrees with my secondary research because his use of steroids as a younger player led him to use of harder drugs later on.

#writ1133du connnections

Transfer of Learning

Transfer of learning happens when someone learns something in one context and then it affects their related performance in another context. It is essentially the same as learning and then retaining the knowledge. When a student learns simple math in school in a classroom, he transfers that knowledge outside the classroom in a different situation when he counts how many crayons he has in his pencil pouch. It is the act of using the knowledge you have learned from one instance and then applying it to another instance. It can be positive or negative. Sometimes the effect is positive if you learn something that can be applied to a situation and it can make the learning process easier. However, sometimes the transfer of learning van be hindering. The example was given in the reading about people learning a second language. It can be a positive transfer if learning a second language that is similar to the first is easier to learn because the person already went through the learning process similarly on the first time. However, it can be negative transfer if with learning a new language, you have a hard time learning the pronunciation or understanding the contrasts of vocabulary.

An example where transfer can happen easily is playing different sports and learning how to play them. Some sports are more similar (near transfer) and some are vastly different (far transfer). As a kid, learning how to play one sport can make learning another sport easier. If a kid learns how to play soccer, they are learning skills of coordination, communication, taking directions, and aim. Then, when they pick up a lacrosse stick, they can carry over those skills even though they are doing a new sport. Then, when they join the swim team, even though they don’t need some of the skills they had to use during soccer and lacrosse, they still carry over that skill they have acquired of taking directions from a coach. These transfers happen subconsciously because they have already been taught, learned, and practiced, and ingrained into the kid.

There are many things I have learned in this class that I will transfer. Most of the transfer of learning will be near because I will bring over skills I’ve learned in this class to other writing contexts. One of the main things I think I will transfer over is how we write for many genres and on many different platforms. This taught me the skill of adaption to audience and genre type… and I’m definitely still learning. When Dr. KT has us post on Tumblr and twitter we learn how to adjust our tone and voice to adapt to the platform we are writing upon. This is going to help me in the workforce when I am learning to write business proposals and formal emails. These will be new platforms that I will have to learn to write for, and I will transfer my learning from this class about being able to vary my writing technique and style to fit what my purpose is for writing.

#writ1133du transferoflearning

#writ1133du

RESEARCH JOURNAL 5

Interview

I plan on interviewing a few college coaches or athletic directors at some big division I Universities. They will probably be hard to get them to respond, so I will be emailing a bunch of them to see if any of them will bite.

My interview questions will consist of:

1. What is your role at the University of _______? (job description etc…)

2. How often do you drug test your athletes?

3. Do you think there is enough stress and attention geared towards drug use?

4. How much of a role do you think performance enhancing drugs play in division I football?

5. What would you say would motivate football players to want to take steroids?

Observation

For my observation, I cannot directly observe Division I football players because we do not have a football team here at the University of Denver, so I want to watch a documentary on steroid use in football. I honestly think I might learn way more in watching a documentary anyways because it’s the behind the scenes of the NCAA I really want to dig up some dirt on.

I am watching a few videos for my observation. My first video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPwhAMD1He8 is a video of a former collegiate football player at Michigan and a story of his drug use in college and how he got around NCAA testing. I really liked this video because it’s raw and a huge insight into how steroids can be really overlooked in many instances.

Survey

One of the key themes I want to focus on in my research is the concept that steroid use in the NCAA is typically an issue that is very covered up. I really want to find out how people perceive the issue and then compare my results to what I find in my secondary research. I plan on giving my survey out to division I athletes in varied sports and ask them about drug testing, the effectiveness, and then also their perceptions about football players. I want to give out my survey to athletes because this is a division I school and NCAA policies are widespread across sports, and these athletes will be familiar with the drug testing process.

Survey questions (I will make this on survey monkey)

1. Male/female

2. Freshman/sophomore/junior/senior

3. Have you ever been drug tested?

4. Do you think the NCAA drug testing system accurately gauges the use of drugs?

5. If you answered “no” above, do you think it is an overestimate or an underestimate?

6. What would you estimate the use of steroids to be in division I football?. Slim to none

Moderate

Rampant

7. How often do you hear about scandals involving steroid use within division I football?

Never

Sometimes

Often

#writ1133du #primaryresearch

THRESHOLD CONCEPT

Practicing writing for different purposes and in different genres creates a more diverse and developed writer.

I believe that while challenging yourself to write in different ways and use different tones and voices and ways to get different claims across just helps you to be a more diverse writer. There are many skills you acquire while writing different genres. You learn how to adjust your style for the audience, and learn how to have many different voices and tones in order to be appropriate for whatever purpose you’re writing for.

For example, in this writ1133 class, Dr. KT has us post on tumble, twitter, and then also do more formal writing like lit reviews and research papers. All of this diverse writing has personally helped me to really learn to adapt to my audience. In the twitter posts, I really have to keep in mind that I am writing very informally and for the entire class to read. Also. Writing in 130 characters is really tough because you have to be really concise with your thoughts in a way that still conveys what you need to say but can be summarizing a really long article. Similarly, with the Tumblr posts, you need to consider that you’re writing for the whole class and the teacher at once, and that just like the twitter posts, the writing should be casual and more blog or conversation like.

So… how is using twitter and tumble helping me become a more developed writer?

It’s essentially putting tools in my toolbox. I have learned skills like reading an academic piece and then being able to write an informal blog post about it. Also, I can now take an entire article and summarize it in under 130 characters. Above all thought, I have learned to adjust to my audience with my tone and voice, ultimately making me a better writer. The article talks about how “writers constrained to ‘repeated practice of the same genres’ may become ‘entrenched’ in particular approaches or conventions”. This just strengthens my concept I just described because if you’re only writing for one purpose or one genre, you won’t be challenging yourself to earn anything new. However, is when you get outside your comfort zone that you acquire new skills!

#writ1133du thresholdconcepts

Methods:

To conduct our primary research, we used three different methods; observation, interviews and survey. For our observation, we went to the Coor’s gym on the University of Denver campus at three different times. The first was 7:20am, 2:40 pm and 7:00pm. We observed how many people were there and what specific activities they were participating in. For our interviews, we chose to interview three University of Denver students, two being non-varsity athletes and one being a varsity lacrosse player. We asked them about their enjoyment level with exercise related activities and what their preferred means of exercise was. Lastly, we conducted a survey. We handed the survey out to 25 students at DU in order to gauge how active they were. 13 girls and 12 boys took the survey from all different grades to ensure we got an accurate depiction how active students are at University of Denver.

Results:

We found through our three methods of primary research that University of Denver students are very active. In our observations when we went to Coor’s gym we found that there was a different in the way that boys and girls prefer to workout. We found that the girls preferred cardio machines such as treadmills and workout classes whereas boys stuck to weightlifting and sports aspect of the gym. We also found that at different times there were different amounts of people that worked out, the evening being the most popular.

Our interviews reflected similarities to what we found in our observations. After interviewing a female freshman on campus she indicated that she enjoyed using the Coor’s gym and attending workout classes such as Zumba and swimming with her friends. We also interviewed a freshman male who said that he didn’t frequent the gym very often but enjoyed playing club sports such as hockey and soccer. He also indicated that when he goes to the gym he sticks to the weight lifting section of the gym. Lastly, we interviewed a female on the division one women’s lacrosse team who stated that she doesn’t ever attend the Coor’s gym because she gets her work out through her daily practices, work outs and weekly games.

We also conducted a survey that found that 23/25 respondents indicated on our survey that they enjoy working out. In addition, we found that 19/25 respondent’s workout on campus weekly.

See graphs above...

Discussion:

We concluded that the University of Denver is a very active campus with many students taking advantage of the weather, the great outdoors and sports teams offered through the University. One thing that attracts students to DU is the active environment within the students. Celia Haims, one of our interviewees stated that, “being able to go on a hike in the mountains was something that drew me to DU on my college search.” In addition, the University also offers structured activities on campus. The University of Denver mission for club sports is:

“To bring together groups of students with similar interests to organize and participate in a specific sport and/or recreational sporting activity. We are a dynamic organization on the DU campus committed to developing students as active members of the University community.”

Ben Phelps, the male student we interviewed who is currently involved in club hockey stated that club sports benefited him socially as well as athletically. He stated that he used club sports as an opportunity to connect with students he wouldn’t have met otherwise.

After analyzing the primary research, we concluded that males and females prefer different means of exercise, boys opt more towards team sports and weightlifting whereas girls prefer more work out classes, treadmill and biking. Although this was true for the group that we observed and interviewed, we cannot assume that this is completely true for the entire population of DU. We did however find through our secondary research that this was a reoccurring theme between male and females at colleges across the United States. A study conducted by Egli and Bland found, “current findings demonstrated that males tend to be more motivated by intrinsic factors whereas females were more motivated by extrinsic factors.” This could be the reason why the students at the University of Denver have different methods of working out, because they are motivated by different things.

#writ1133du primaryresearch

Practice Run Update

Our group is researching how active students at DU are. We plan to base this not only on amount of people who workout at the gym, but how frequently students at DU get outside.

Observation:

As it would be challenging and creepy to observe someone as they go one a hike in the mountains… We plan on going to the Coors Gym for our observations. We will go early in the morning, the afternoon, and at night. We want to observe at different times because some people are morning owls and prefer to workout early, while others don’t. One thing that we need to keep in mind while we are observing is that we can’t be working out too because that will throw off our observations. Observe classes i.e zumba, spin as well as people working out on there own.

Survey:

We plan on making hard copies of our survey and handing them out on Driscoll Green. Being friends with mostly athletes and people who are really active, we feel as though we will have a better shot at representing DU as a whole if we ask random people to answer our survey questions. Some questions we will ask:

What is your gender? We can draw different conclusions from boys & girls

How many times have you gone to the mountains this year?

Have you ever used Coors Gym, if so, how frequently?

We will be finishing our survey this weekend and conducting our survey one day next week, either Monday or Tuesday.

Interview:

One of the people we thought about interviewing for the project is instructors of classes at the gyms and captains of intramural club teams. We want to ask them about there involvement. How many people come or are apart of your club? How did you get involved? Do you think enough students on campus are aware of all the opportunities to be active?

#writ1133du groupresearch

Research Journal 4

This is only one of my themes on my Matrix... couldn’t fit the whole table on here.... Essentially, this matrix made it really easy for me to organize my thoughts and one of my topics I will be discussing in my paper will be how drugs are affecting the athletes and I found information about this in 4 sources. Can’t wait to get synthesizing!

#writ1133du

THRESHOLDS

The two threshold concepts that resonated with me most was the concept that teaching of writing should focus on puzzling out of failure as it does on rewarding success and the concept of practicing.

With the concept of using failure as an opportunity for growth, a quote that stood out to me was “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere”. It is essential for a writer to have the opportunity to try, fail, and learn from those failures as a means of intellectual growth. Failure not only allows a writer to learn what not to do, but allows a writer to learn how to adapt. In this class, we don’t exactly have grades, but when Dr. KT holds conferences, she allows the students to bring in a draft that she can then in turn discuss and get you onto a better track before the writing process can continue. With the use of Twitter and Tumblr in this class, it has been a real learning opportunity for me. It is helping me to adjust my writing style to the audience and the platform on which I am writing.

Another concept that stood out to me was that practicing writing helps it to become a part of us. It is by constant practice that we can improve the fluidity of our writing and redefine our technique, and become more familiar with writing in general. There is so much to learn about writing, and we will never stop learning about it, so practicing writing in all different ways can help us learn faster and more. It is also through practice that we develop writing capacities, among them the ability to adjust and adapt to different concepts, purposes, and audiences. Additionally, the book explains that “Writers need considerable practice keyed not only to fluidity and technique but also to differentiated practice across different spaces of writing, working with different technologies of writing”. This applies to our class in that we certainly practice writing in different genres and for different purposes, and this is going to help us all become better writers because we are learning skills about how to adjust to things like different audiences and when to use different voices and tones and formalities.

#writ1133du

Research Journal #3

At this point in my project, I have really narrowed down my search and I have found a few sources that I think will springboard my thinking a little. My paper is going to be on Illegal performance enhancing drugs in NCAA Division I football. A lot of what I am planning on talking about is going to be the “behind the scenes” of these scandals. Many of these incidents have been covered up by the schools of the athletes to protect their athletic program’s reputation and their team’s success. That being said, there are not many scholarly articles on this topic about the specific scandals. I’m sure I will find some of the scholarly articles about the logistics behind the testing though.

The first source I found is a popular source, it’s an ESPN article. ESPN is a very credible source, despite being a broadcasting center.

1. Steroids loom large over programs (2012) espn.com

This article was a very good overview for me and really shed a lot of light on the inconsistencies of testing between schools. It talks about how easy steroids are to buy, how punishments are weak and inconsistent, and how college football players can pack on significant weight and not even draw attention from their schools or the NCAA. It also points out how the NCAA’s random and scarce drug tests are not accurate at all in gauging the drug use in college athletics. There are basically many things that both the schools and the NCAA do to artificially reduce the numbers of positive drug tests and keep schools out of embarrassing drug scandals, like, for example, notifying athletes when they will be tested. One of my main goals for this research is to uncover a lot of the tactics the NCAA and these schools use to cover up and protect their athletes from exposure and this article is really going to be insightful for me to do this.

2. Take steroids out of college football

The Christian Science Monitor; Boston, Mass. [Boston, Mass]24 Dec 2012: 9. --Newspaper article

This article is also talking about how steroids are much more prevalent in college football then what appears. There is sufficient evidence that these athletes are gaining an absurd amount of weight far from what can be gained with nutrition and weight training is very short time frames. Additionally, this article talks about how the use of these anabolic steroids is banned because of these drugs are linked to many ill effects, including serious mental and physical problems. This article claims that cleaning up the drug problem would promote fair competition and protect the health of these athletes. I agree with this and something I want to come to a conclusion on in this paper is a more efficient way to drug test and start chipping away at this problem.

Starting to research has actually helped be better understand what I want to focus on, and I want to mainly focus on how the NCAA and schools cover up their drug scandals, and what effect this is ultimately having on the athletes.

#writ133du research thankspeggy

Writing is like baking a cake

My prior experiences with writing have for the most part been very structured. In high school I was mostly taught formal writing in very structured and restricted essays with the content being set by my teacher always. I was not often allowed to write about a topic I chose myself, and the structure was always basic and uniform across the board: to follow certain steps and always remember to do them in order, etc. I feel as though I have a good understanding of connecting and inserting other information into my writing.

I looked at the process of writing as baking a cake. My map shows the different sections of baking a cake and how each part of that connects to writing as a whole. First I used a baker to represent the rhetor. The rhetor has his or her own voice and style and knowledge, and that is just like how a baker has his own unique style of baking and has skills already. The kitchen is where all the writing tools you need are. Things like literary devices and tone are in here that you can use to write your well organized paper. There are also recipes in there that guide your thinking. These guidelines can be the genre you’re writing, the purpose you are writing, and who you are writing for (the audience). Then you have the ingredients. These are things you consider while writing and can use to incorporate into it. These are things like resources and research and rhetoric, tone, voice, analysis, and organization. Next you have the baking, which is the writing process. This is when you can take things like research and reinvent it and incorporate it into your paper and support your points with. This is also where you can make connections and transform ideas from your research. Finally, you have a finished cake! This is like the effective writing you have created with all your hard work!

This represents well how I understand writing because I like to break down steps in the writing process and focus on all of them individually. I like to thoroughly organize my thoughts before I start and then do my process my own way just like a baker has a method to his creations!

#writ1133du

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