Thursday, September 23, 2010

Blog 5 What a Disaster

Brainstorming

Is there even research done on the relationships between social networking and writing for academia and the struggles or benefits that it brings to students and coaches at writing centers?

I want to look into the types of writing that people do outside of academia and how it affects their writing in school or in the writing center. I’ve heard of stories where students type papers the way they talk online. I haven’t seen enough of those papers to even make the assumption that students write papers the way they chat with friends. How does this affect the writing culture at Kean Writing Center?

Does chatting online or creating online blogs impact people as academic writers? I think writing online allows people to take stand while hiding behind the screen. It allows people to put on a mask. It’s much different than tutoring sessions or reading your paper in class. What mask can you hide behind when you are in a tutoring session? How much of what you really want to talk about can you reveal in your sessions or assignment? We are asked to write about topics that don’t interest us. I don’t think students will write to their full potentials if they are not interested in a topic.

As a writing coach, it’s sometimes hard to find that balance. As coach I wanted to find a common ground with my students. How much of myself am I willing to reveal in order to find that common bond, gain that trust?

Based on my experiences with students at Kean, I haven’t met many students who write novels or essays for pleasure. Many are so caught up, so busy, too busy in fact to even watch television shows that they enjoy. They work two to three jobs and are full time students; some or many are even parents or taking care of relatives. However, I do see that many of the younger students have joined some form of social network or communicate with individuals through text tor even gaming. I want to know how that impacts their lives as writers for school, is there even a relationship.

How does writing for pleasure, students who write on facebook and myspace and blogs, affect their writing in school? I’m not sure. I know it does affect my typing skills. It provides me with an outlet, an escape.

I think I’m off topic. I don’t have a draft. I have sketchy ideas. I have to do some more reflections.

Since I’m big on social networking and blogging, I’m the type of person that needs to write in order for my ideas to develop. They can’t really just develop in my brain, I feel they get squished in there. It’s similar to how I update my statuses on facebook. I want to let out my random ideas..and validate them.

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Feed back from Dr. Chandler in class

Characterize and values of social networking writing

General to specific do they site sources

Students think they are writing in a n appropriate style because of their experiences in social networking site sand when they go to the classrooms.

The problem is their habits, under the surface assumptions that go, if they are told academic writing is different they write in a different style.

Sometimes they don’t' know that sending an email to a teacher is sending an email to a friend. At the same time there are some things that students know. This is a complicated problem.

Language teachers have particular expectaitons, however these aren't obvious to the students.

Say the differences in culture...

Writing center must validate

What aspects? talk about one set of features or feature and how it shapes the problems that a particular set of writers are going to confront....

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Messy Draft

Here’s a thought…Students have trouble proving their points in academic writing. Online they write their ideas, feelings, social networks are focused on “me”. In academic writing, papers are not supposed to be focused on the writer’s feelings and opinions. If an ideas is to be negated, it must be proven through explainations and references. On the internet, in order to validate a point, a picture or a video or article or website can be linked. No further explanation is required, a link is simply cut and pasted.

This brings forth problems in writing centers, when students bring research papers with their opinions. They say “I” or “my” however, the research papers don’t require any personal opinions. They need concrete evidence that must not only be shared, but explained. This is the differences between writing in for social networking and writing for academia.

I’m going to look for references, I’m thinking James Gee and others.

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