Reads and Writes!

[phangjuin]

Last but not least...

This subject has enabled me to learn so much on the strategies to reading and writing, though I honestly think that this subject should be taught earlier and not during our final semester. We had some interesting discussions on several topics, and I always think it’s good to have a platform to voice out our ideas and opinions (there are always surprises). We also have carried out some activities that other lecturers wouldn’t adopt in class such as debate and library research. I believed whatever I have learned here will greatly benefit my FYP and my future research. 

Dr. Ikhlas has been very friendly and open minded to us. I really appreciate all the effort you gave. I understand my group always seem like the one who always look very worried (I guess you know which group I’m referring to), but you have been patient to teach and guide us. Thank you! 

[phangjuin]

Week 11 -Library Research

So we hunted some books in the library for our reference. I guess we have another research to work on now despite having FYP to worry about :) Nevertheless I like going to the library, except it may not be the best library. The computer is slow and some are not working, the temperature may be too cold or too warm, these may affect some students’ decision on going to the library.

Our topic is  ‘The flouting of Grice’s Maxims in relation to the successfulness of the sitcom ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Season 1′. We first listed out all the related keywords that we need to find in the sea of books such as sematics, pragmatics, speech acts, and conversation analysis. Fortunately we found a dozen of these books for our reference. In addition, we found some primary resources online too. These will greatly help us in extracting relevant information. 

I enjoyed being in the library, sometimes being away from the classroom can be a good thing! 

[phangjuin]

Week 10 - Understanding Resources

Honestly it’s not an easy task differentiating primary resources and secondary resources (at least for me). This is because I always suspect all primary resources might have contain at least a tiny bit of secondary resources? I may be wrong. Primary resources are generally original documents or first hand observations that have not been processed or researched before. For example, Universal grammar from Chomsky or the theory of evolution by Darwin are primary resources. These topics has not been discussed before these authors started it. 

Secondary resources are resources that based on primary resources for analysis, interpretation or research. For instance, a journal article that discusses about Universal Grammar is a secondary resource. There are times when a secondary resource may contain primary resource in it, so we need to know how to differentiate them well. 

[phangjuin]

Week 9 - Albury’s Article

Albury’s article on mother tongue and languaging is a good read and thought provoking. Albury provided perspective that may not be surprising for Malaysian readers (as the study is carried out in Malaysian context), it may do so for foreigners. He did shed light on the meaning of mother tongue and the importance of bringing it under critical lens.

It is also interesting to see how different ethnicity define mother tongue. Little did I know that our mother tongue has so much to do with our cultural history. On a side note, I think Albury can include a mix group discussion and focus group discussion among different age groups. This way it can provide a wider perspective of mother tongue and how different races will defend the notion of mother tongue in the midst of other races.

All in all, it is an interesting read.

[phangjuin]

Week 7 - Academic Discourse

One way to easily understand academic discourse is to know how a journal article looks like. Academic discourse is discourses that includes all lingual activities associated with academia. This kind of discourse put a lot of focus on the form itself rather than the creativity of the content. The main purpose of academic discourse is to explain, clarify, define, elaborate, claim, infer and conclude something. 

However, the writing style varies according to culture and status apparently. It is found that Serbian writers use more interrogatives while Spanish historians treat reviews as a site for bonding with readers. In addition, professors may have a different writing style compared to associate professors or students. 

[phangjuin]

Week 5 - Reading Campbell’s Article

Humans evolved from apes? Females are not motivated by power? All men are aggressive? Well, Campbell’s articles did trigger our thoughts to a whole new level. Reading this as a group did help us in saving a lot of time (50 pages? come on!). Discussions aroused (feminist in the group, interesting), agreed and disagreed with each other, and assumptions were made. 

From this group interactions in reading, a few things can be noted. First of all, schematic knowledge did help us a lot in raising questions. We wouldn’t have a clue about the article if we don’t know anything about Darwin’s evolution theory, or humans history, or what is happening to the world right now. Our schematic knowledge tells us that women today wasn’t the same as the time Campbell wrote the paper. There are females CEOs and Prime Ministers now, not to mention females wrestlers. Next, we probe questions from one another. Checking on their progress every 5 minutes help to keep a smooth flow in reading, at the same time help each other along the way should there is any difficulties.

All in all, good read! Hope this can be one of the topic we can all discuss together or debate about.

[phangjuin]

Week 5 - Schematic Knowledge

Schematic knowledge is particularly important in reading any kind of materials. I guess every subject that we reads, it somehow relates to what we experienced or remembered - or else we wouldn’t understand a single thing right? 

There are 3 kinds of connections - self, world, text. It is like having a direct conversation with the author - what is his idea going to do about me? Are his ideas applicable to the place I live in? What are the significant differences of his ideas compared to the ideas of another friend of mine? These are few questions that will help us make sense of what we read. 

However, not many people can read deeply enough to bring him or herself to have such conversation with the author. I myself was once a surface reader, meaning I read only because I was told to, not because I want to know something. That is why school teachers can’t exactly gauge something out of the students after they have read something. Anyway, the prerequisite to achieve a thorough reading is to have schematic knowledge. But how do we obtain schematic knowledge? Well...read more!

[phangjuin]

Week 4 - From theory to practical!

First of all, 4 of us struggled in this. We are just not used to deliberately make activate our self-conscious in applying the pre-reading and while-reading strategies. However, they proved to be quite useful, at least we learn to identify what we are looking for - without reading the whole text of course. I truly hoped this was taught earlier way before we start our FYP, we might not struggle that much in reading... We realized most part of the strategies relies on asking many questions. Questioning is a good way to dig out the truth and to get a clear idea on what we want. Just a question to ponder: is there such thing as asking TOO much question?

[phangjuin]

Week 4- Reading Strategies

I guess most of us never actually aware of reading strategies until today. We may be subconsciously performing the pre-reading, while reading & post reading rituals without realizing we are doing it. Adopting these reading strategies are particularly important in reading journal articles, we simply do not have time to read every word! I think it is very important to form our own opinions whenever we read a text, simply agreeing with whatever the author writes may be dangerous though.

These reading strategies may be subjective to some people as every one has their own reading habits that would help them to read more effectively. All in all, this is a good guide for those who may not know how to read well. :)

[phangjuin]

About the debate...

It was a very interesting debate, fortunately I am fighting for what I believe is easier to defend which is top-down approach to reading. Everyone did a great job overall, I wish we can have more of this kind of ‘revision’. 

[phangjuin]

Week 3- Process & Genre Approach to Writing

Just keep writing & writing. I guess we are all too familiar with Process Approach to writing because we are going through it at the moment. Drafts after drafts after drafts, I can never see the end of the tunnel. But hey, it’s not all that bad. Unlike Product approach, it doesn’t put so much emphasis on grammar and format, but the process itself. Come to think of it, if we are to keep submitting our drafts for correction, I don’t think the grammar will be that bad after....5 or 6 drafts perhaps? And it allows flexibility in adding contents or even changing the work itself. All in all this process is important..at least TO US! Not to mention there is human interactions involved in this approach, we just gotta talk more with our supervisors.

Genre approach is a combination of product and process approach. First we identify what kind of genre to write, say a poem, and poem has its own structure to follow (product approach detected), then identify what social context and purpose of a poem are. Genre approach is good in a sense that it allows reader to easily identify what the purpose of the text is. However, the structure of the text may limit writer’s creative thoughts about content since it places emphasis on conventions and genre features. That’s all for today. :)

[phangjuin]

Week 3- Product Approach to Writing

Product approach of writing was exactly what my teacher taught us in primary and secondary school. We were drilled to repeat writing the same sentence and words for many times, I still remember she even forced us to write our own name for 50 times. This approach focuses on structure itself, I think it is pretty helpful for us to be familiar with the structure and grammar when it comes to occasion such as applying for jobs, or even score in an examination. At least this approach is highly applicable in Malaysian context, what we’ve learned wouldn’t go to waste here.

On the other hand, it lacks creativity. It depends on what is the purpose of the writing, it is obvious that when writing a novel this type of approach wouldn’t make the product colourful. That is why Malaysians are said to be lacking in creativity and ideas! We are bound so much by these rules we are afraid to take the risk. Perhaps by adopting this approach in teaching, teacher should encourage brave and crazy ideas from students? Anyways, only risk-takers make breakthroughs!

[phangjuin]

My favourite author

This post should be done in the first week of the class, totally forgotten about it...anyway, my favourite author is Malcolm Gladwell. Some of his well-known books are (well I think all of his books are pretty popular) The Tipping Point, David and Goliath, Outliers, and many others. The reason why I love his works are the language he uses and the way he presented examples in explaining a concept. He uses simple language yet sophisticated in its own way. He provides relevant, real-life examples to explain something. These makes reading a whole lot easier! In a nutshell, I obtain plenty of information and knowledge without so much of reading effort or brain squeezing to decode what the author meant. 

[phangjuin]

Week 2- Top-down Approach of Reading

Ah yes, top-down approach of reading, it makes you feel like you’re a professional reader once you think you adopt the top-down reading skill. I guess at this level, most of us should apply this approach in our reading. There is no time to stop and check every unfamiliar words we encounter. Since this approach emphasized on background schemata and knowledge of the text, I find it really helpful when we know what we are reading, at least what the author is referring to. That is why I always like to read books that are able to relate to readers’ lives and experience, it makes us readers felt ‘included’ and encourages smooth reading. 

I can only imagine for readers who might not be familiar with most of the words and the language of the authors, it must be tough just to read!

[phangjuin]

Week 2- Bottom-up Approach of Reading

It will be dreadful just to think of using this approach in university level, reading will go extremely slow, would take months to just finish a book, what more journal articles (which in my opinion, are not ‘readers-friendly’). I can only think of having a dictionary by my side if I fully adopt this approach to read. However, the impatient me would rather make a guess of the meaning of that unknown word than interrupt the momentum of my reading. I shouldn’t underestimate the power of this approach as I might have learnt reading since young by using this approach. And oh wait, I might not even learn Spanish without this…

[phangjuin]

Week 1 - About Reading and Writing

I love history, that’s why I got excited when we start off the class by looking at the historical facts of reading and writing. Reading and writing can never be separated as different entities (in my own opinion). Without writing, there will be no reading. Similarly, without reading, we wouldn’t know how to write (at least this is applicable to 21st century humans).

One thing caught my attention was how many of my peers respond to “what is writing?” and “what is reading”. Indeed their answers were correct in every way, reading and writing are tools that allow us to encode and decode words into meaning or meaning into words. However, reading and writing are both ‘inventions’. I once read a book entitled “Proust and the Squid” by Maryanne Wolf that focuses on the story and science behind the reading brain (I recommend this book for those interested to know more about how the brain process reading). She writes “we were never born to read. Human beings invented reading only a few thousand years ago. And with this invention, we rearranged the very organization of our brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able to think, which altered the intellectual evolution of our species.”

Interesting isn’t it? Reading is not just a tool to decode words, it is an invention that develops our cognitive ability. Humans are smarter because of reading!