Learning Outcome 4: Peer Review: Be able to critique their own and others’ work by emphasizing global revision early in the writing process and local revision later in the process. This learning outcome is focused on the ability to critically read a peer’s project and make constructive suggestions for change, in addition to the ability to evaluate one’s own work and identify opportunities for specific improvement.
In the paragraphs that follow, I will describe my peer editing process using perspectives (ideas, claims) and the explanation of text’s relationship to them. In additional to local editing with signal phrases and in text citations, I also followed the writer’s thesis to the conclusion.
Although I have not done a lot of editing in my previous years of high school, I am glad that I got the chance to practice this incredibly important skill in my English class. In this exercise, we had to review and edit a peer’s draft of their paper, and in turn, a peer edited my own paper. In my editing, I tried to be as specific as possible, as I wanted to make clear suggestions that could be easily understood.
In reading this person’s paper, I found that they had formed a precise thesis that was easily discoverable and was supported throughout their paper. This claim was that “Though my first experience in patient care was not what I hoped it would be, it motivated me to become a dedicated and passionate medical professional in my future, which is how I believe every individual going into this field should be”. They followed this claim with a specific goal for how they thought that this could happen. In another part of the paper (#2), I explained how some of their word choice and sentence structure confused me and gave a suggestion on how it could make a little bit more sense for the reader. They had said “… change the outcome in which residents are treated”, and I suggested changing it to “change the outcome of how residents…”. Although this was a small change, I think that saying their sentence in a different way would make it much clearer for the reader to understand. Additionally, on some other pages (#3 & #4), I suggested things like changing the order of some sentences to make it flow more seamlessly, as well as a couple of transition sentences that I thought might make ideas fit better. The following images are from the paper that I edited.
#1#2#3#4
As for my paper, someone else was tasked with providing editing notes on my writing as well. Although they did not have as quite detailed as my comments were, they were still helpful in the process of editing my own paper to prepare it for the final draft. Throughout my paper, they made comments on aspects such as word choice, explanations for ideas that I presented, and transitions phrases when going from paragraph to paragraph. They suggested things that I could add, such as “add some quote analysis” on a quote that I had presented which could benefit from a more detailed explanation.
I participated in the October Resume Challenge here at UNE, where I submitted my resume to Handshake after I had revised and met with career services about it. Although I had done these steps even before this challenge came out, I appreciated that the school was trying to get students to be active participants in their own working lives. Although I didn’t get a work study job, I hope that by my continued efforts, I can either find a way to make up the money that I didn’t receive, or eventually land a work study job that I was technically given. I learned that the earlier you do these things, the more likely it is that you will succeed at getting a work study job, and this is true for many things in life, that it is good to do as early as possible. Even if it didn’t work out this time, it still showed me the benefit that I had in doing these things far before most of the people in my class.
For doing all of these steps, I got some free Halloween candy and I got entered to win a couple of grand prizes, including Bose headphones or a bluetooth speaker. Also, because of my meeting with Donna from Career Services, I learned more of the specific details that make a resume the best that it can be, which is especially useful with my lack of career experience, since I am only in my first year of college. I also learned how I will be able to expand my resume when I do gain that experience that comes from things like work study jobs and internships. So through this, I gained a connection with career services, who I have already had another meeting with about my choices of what I want for my major and how I can figure that out for myself.
I attended a zoom meeting with my Environmental class as well as other environmental classes and we watched a movie and had a discussion pertaining to the effect that humans have on the environment. The movie was called The Human Element and it discussed how people had such a profound effect on the environment, that we as a species could be considered a fifth element in the natural system. The documentary showed interviews with people who had lost their homes due to climate change driven natural disasters such as rising sea levels. It also showed how towns had to keep spending millions of dollars to raise buildings, roads and dams in order to save the entire town from going underwater.
The documentary also discussed steps that we could take as a species to try and help ourselves and our planet. One of those ways is putting funding towards actual solutions to these problems, like renewable or cleaner energy, instead of just trying to treat the symptoms of the strain that the human race has placed on earth. Putting more effort into solving the actual problem will not only help the people that are currently being affected, it will also be more economically beneficial in the long term. I learned that the extent to which people have an effect on the planet is straddling, but at the same time, we are also the ones that can actually do something about it. At the end of the showing, there was also a panel of professors at UNE that specialize in the environment, and from them, we learned a lot from a group discussion in how our generation feels about this crisis. They also gave us hope that our generation could do better than the previous one in this regard and they really believe that we can, in part because we grew up knowing that we would have to solve this issue.
I attended the Friday night painting activity where we painted a dog in autumn leaves together over zoom. I thought that this activity was a really good way to do something with other people that has been kind of lacking due to the current pandemic. The supplies were given out at the Commons where you could go and get them, and then later that night, you got on the zoom either by yourself or with your roommate, and you painted with everyone online. You could either pick up a blank canvas or one that already had the dog and the leaves already traced onto it, along with all of the paint colors that you would need and some brushes.
When you logged on to the zoom and began painting, the person giving the instructions left it very open to what we wanted to do, and just gave us the steps that she did, but told us that we could put the colors where we wanted to. I appreciated the creative freedom we were given, but also that she gave us broad steps to follow if our goal was to create a painting that looked like hers. I had a great time painting with my roommate, who is also my sister, and it was a nice break from doing all of the work that I feel like I always need to do. I think that it is good to take a break once in a while in order to care for your own mental health, which is something that many people, including myself, need to make more time for.
One of the learning outcomes of the Business and Sustainability major is to “Know fundamental principles of business and ecology and apply these to sustainability initiatives within private, public, and/or civic organizations/enterprises”. This establishes that one of the goals of this major is to have the student develop not only their own skills in the field, but also how they can acquire knowledge from many sources and weave that broader perspective to improve themselves as working citizens. Boyer touches on this point when he brings in other sources for his article, sharing some thoughts by Sir Eric Ashby on his view of useful knowledge. He says that “A student who can weave his technology into the fabric of society can claim to have a liberal education”. This quote shows that although Boyer believes that knowledge is important, it is also necessary to be able to intertwine that knowledge with the greater society around them.
One of the missions of this major is “Prepare students for ethically and socially responsible roles in sustainability and business professions and society”. This mission connects directly with Boyer in that he emphasizes the importance of knowing the social and ethical implications of your field. He claims that this is a necessary component of a college education in order for graduates to be successful in their respective fields. He says that “If a major is so narrow that it cannot be discussed in terms of its historical and social implications, if the work in the proposed field of study cannot be a broadening experience, then the department is offering mere technical training that belongs in a trade school, not on a college campus, where the goal is liberal learning” (Boyer 223). According to Boyer, in order for an education like college to be useful and fulfilling, it must teach a broader sense of what that discipline is, whether it be the history of it, or the social and ethical implications of that field.
One of the courses that is required for this major is the business management course. This course goes against what Boyer defines as an enriched major, as it focuses more on the skills needed to actually run a business, so that graduates can be knowledgeable enough in their field to do the same. Boyer insists that more vocational training such as this should be more reserved for technical schools and not a liberal education degree. However, this course geared more toward the vocational responsibilities in this field is incredibly important for a graduate to become successful in this field.
Go further into the chosen major’s learning outcomes and goals. Link one or more of them to specific elements of Boyer, Scheuer, and/or Ungar.
Based on the learning outcomes and goals of this major, it connects to Boyer in that both Boyer and these outcomes place an emphasis on preparing students to become a helpful part of their communities, both ethically and socially. This also connects to Scheuer, who emphasizes the importance of being a global citizen. The mission of this major states that it is to “Prepare students for ethically and socially responsible roles in sustainability and business professions and society;”. Without a grasp on how their work affects those around them, they cannot be truly successful in their field.
Look at the actual curriculum or course requirements. Where do you see pieces that look like elements of what Boyer calls an “enriched” major? Where do you see pieces that might be more technical or vocational? GO INTO UONLINE and get COURSE DESCRIPTIONS for those classes. Look hard for both.
Some aspects that this major uses that could be called Boyer’s enriched major is that it includes courses that have broader focused courses that are required to take. For example, one of the classes that does not fit this description is a classe such as business management, which shows that they teach the basics of how a real business is actually run. But they also have environmental ethics, which is a broader class showing us how we have a responsibility to the environment in choosing how businesses are run, and ways in which to respect that balance. This major also requires you to have an internship either in an environmental sector or a business sector so that you can gain experience in that area.
From the work in the first two bullets, develop two paragraph-like units that TELL the READER something about how specific parts of the major do or do not seem to fit some aspect of an enriched major. (Feel free to draw on Scheuer and/or Ungar to assist.)
The idea that graduates are required to take both technical and the broader courses to round out their education is very reminiscent of Boyer’s idea of an enriched major. This is because Boyer says in his article that it is very important to have more broad courses that explore how the major will fit into other subjects as a whole. One specific class that fulfills this is Environmental Ethics, where students learn about the impact of businesses on the environment. This is also important in the article by Scheuer, which emphasizes the importance of being able to connect what you are doing with the world around you. As a result of this scope, graduates will have a broader perspective on problems that they encounter in their jobs, and can draw on their knowledge from different fields to solve problems in extremely creative ways.
Another thing that doesn’t necessarily fit with Boyer’s idea of an enriched major is one of the points under the mission statement. They say that one of the goals is to prepare students for entry level positions in both the public and private sectors of business careers. This aspect is based more on the technical side of things, in which a student actually needs to learn how to do the job that they might have one day. Although this doesn’t exactly fit with Boyer believes to be an enriched major, it is still an essential part of a college education.
Learning Outcome Three: Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.
I read an essay called “Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice” by Anthony Kwame Appiah and I had to prepare it for discussion. I went through the essay highlighting areas where I had questions, terms that needed extended definitions, and what connections I made with the article. Once I found quotes for each section, I provided an explanation on what my take was on the quote. This process helped me get use to analyzing important texts and other scientific articles. Below, the questions are in orange, the definitions are in pink, and the connections are in green. For the questions, I also placed a quote underneath each which I thought could answer the question.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Making Conversation and The Primacy of Practice.” Emerging: Contemporary Readings for Writers, 2nd ed., Bedford/St. Martins, 2010, pp. 66–82.
Annotation Exercise
Questions for the Text
Example: I’m not sure what Appiah means by “habits” on page 78, para 1. What does the media have to do with this? Can double up on quotes!!!!!! (questioning-orange)
Q1. Is Appiah saying that arguments change nothing, and is he saying that globalization is a good or bad thing? Or is he in the middle? Page 68, para 1 “Together, we can ruin poor farmers by dumping… Together, we can raise standards of living by adopting new policies on trade and aid… of each human life.”
“The challenge, then, is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.”(Appiah 68).
Q2. Based on Appiah, is he saying that the media can affect people’s habits, and their new normal? On page 78, para 2, “The increasing presence of ‘openly gay’ people in social life and in the media has changed our habits.”
“I am urging that we should learn about people in other places, take an interest in their civilizations, their arguments, their errors, their achievements, not because that will bring us to agreement, but because it will help us get used to one another.”(Appiah 78).
Q3. I am not sure how conflict could arise from agreeing that the same thing is good, but that also arguments occur from wanting the same result but being conflicting about why to do it. Page 78, para 3 “live in harmony without agreeing on underlying values”. “find ourselves in conflict when we do agree on values.” How do we get anything done as a species?
“This wasn’t a conflict between values. It was a conflict of interests couched inn terms of the same values.” (Appiah 79).
Q4. So does this mean the fight for gender equality could be met with opposition because it would cause an equality of power? Or because people are forcing their ideals on others, which is the opposite of cosmopolitanism. Page 81, para 1 “Worse, they say, we are now trying to force our conception of how women and men should behave upon them.” “And then we want their governments to enforce them.”
“But I also know that the changes that these freedoms would bring will change the balance of power between men and women in everyday life.” (Appiah 81).
Class Notes- Reading Response Sources (defining-pink)
Example- To help me define cosmopolitanism, I used page 79, paragraph 3: “But this is a dispute only because each side recognizes…”
D1.To establish the varying sides of cosmopolitanism, I used page _70___: “the name not of the solution but of the challenge.” Cosmopolitanism can be seen as an ideal state, but even the author knows that this kind of peaceful existence is far from actually doable. However, that is why Appiah claims it as a challenge, because just because something is improbable doesn’t mean that individuals can choose this way of living and make the world that much more understanding.
D2.To demonstrate the contradictions that cosmopolitanism can create, I used page 77, “can’t have any respect for human diversity and expect everyone to become cosmopolitan”. This is one of the reasons that cosmopolitanism is such a challenge, because it is difficult to accept another viewpoint that is not your own.
D3. To explain that people can be very stubborn when it comes to change, but not at the point at which most people think. This quote shows how people don’t become upset merely speaking about change, but the anger comes when change is already occurring, and they want to resist that. On page 76, paragraph 1 he says “Reasoning—by which I mean the act of exchanging stated justifications—comes in not when we are going on in the usual way, but when we are thinking about change.”
Roadblocks to Change(applying-blue)
Example: People might be opposed to the change I suggested in my first essay because “we have inherited many received ideas. Above all, we have deep habits about gender” (Appiah 81).
A1. People might be opposed to helping the environment because “so long as this settled pattern is not seriously disrupted, they do not worry over-much about whether their fellow citizens agree with them or their theories about how to live.”(Appiah 74).
A2. People refuse to pick up new, strange ideas that conflict with their usual habits. Page 77, para 3 “How much of the shift away from these assumptions is the result of arguments? Isn’t a significant part of it just the consequence of our getting used to new ways of doing things?”
A3. Another blockade could be that many people believe that helping the environment is a good thing, but since many refuse to pass things that might cause jumps in prices, or even believe that information that they see is false, the problem remains unsolved. Or even because if the problem is not occurring right in front of them, they believe that it doesn’t affect them. Page 70 para 1 “A citizen of the world: How far can we take that idea? Are you really supposed to abjure all local allegiances and partialities in the name of this vast abstraction, humanity?”
