Academic Summary

Academic Summary: The use of Haiku in the Classroom

Iida (2010) in his article “Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts” states that the social expressivist approach to writing is encouraging the teaching of Haikus in EFL classrooms. Haiku is a kind of poetry composed of three lines which facilitates students to contact their feelings and express them by describing nature and human behavior. It helps to increase students´ vocabulary and to develop their writing skills. Furthermore, it stimulates students to find their own voice considering the audience.

Haiku has some special features such as a syllable pattern, a seasonal reference and a cutting word or punctuation mark which divides the Haiku in two independent pieces and fosters reflection on both parts and the Haiku as unity. Because of these and due to the audience, each Haiku is free of interpretation. (Iida, 2010)

Reading Haiku is the first stage to introduce this type of poetry into the classroom (Iida, 2010). By analyzing structures, discovering meaning and interpreting them, students can be aware of the writer´s voice. By sharing free and multiple interpretations students will negotiate meaning with other members of the audience and the author.

Secondly, students should compose their own Haikus. Instructions should be open, clear and simple. According to Iida (2010), after reviewing the concept of Haiku and its features, students go to the outside world to hear and observe. They compose by using their impression, the correct use of words, wording and the possible use of synonyms. Peer reading helps to discover meaning and to see the impact of them. Afterwards, students are requested to collect important memories, so as to write a haiku about them. It is very important to foster writing fluency than grammatical accuracy.

Lastly, Iida (2010) states that to show students´ haikus increase the possibility to find new audiences to interpret students´ productions, not only peers and teachers in the classroom context. (p. 33)

Through the introduction of Haiku in the classroom students will achieve the use of their own voices, and awareness of audience.  The usage of the speaker´s discourse influenced by his life´s story, experiences and culture encourages the growth of literacy and critical thinking.

References

 Iida, A. (2010).  Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts. English Teaching Forum, Nbr. 1. DOI: EJ914886

APA style: in-text citations

Analysis of in-text citations in a piece of writing

According to APA (American Psychological Association) style (APA, 2010), there are three types of in- text citations: paraphrases, direct quote and block quotations. This paper will analyse the use of these three resources of avoiding plagiarism in the article “Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts” (Iida, 2010)

In this article, block quotations are not included. The author used direct quotes and paraphrasing. Direct quotes requirements are “to include the author, year of publication, and the page number for the reference (preceded by "p.")” (Prudue Owl, In-text citations: The basics, Short Quotations, para 1).  In Iida (2010)  no page number is found at the end of the quotes.

As regards paraphrase quotes, most of them are introduced by the same signal phrase “according to”. Paraphrase quotes are characterized by the name of the author, a comma and the year of publication. In this case, the quotes illustrated do not show a comma for separating author and year of publication. Number page is not displayed in most of the quotes, but “APA guidelines encourage you to also provide the page number (although it is not required.)” (Prudue Owl, In-text citations: The basics, Summary or paraphrase, para 1).   “For three, four or five authors, cite all authors in the first instance, thereafter, only first author followed by "et al." (not underlined and with no stop after "et") and the year of publication” (University of Southern Quensland, n.d Paraphrasing). In the article the group of authors is not named for the first time, they are grouped by the use of “et” after the main author.

To conclude, although all the sources appear in the reference list, Iida (2010) does not completely follow the rules of APA style of quoting and making a reference in this article.

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association(6th ed.). Washington, DC.  

 Iida, A. (2010).  Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts. English Teaching Forum, Nbr. 1. DOI: EJ914886

Purdue OWL (2013). In-text citations: the basics, Short Quotations. Retrieved October 2013, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/

University of Suthern Quensland (n.d) APA Referecing guide  Retrieved October 2013, from  http://www.usq.edu.au/library/referencing/apa-referencing-guide#How_to_cite_references_within_the_text_of_an_assignment

Writing a Critique

Critique to a Book of Academic Writing

The book Academic Writing: A Handbook for international students written by Bailey (2006) aims at overseas students to develop academic writing skills when studying at colleges or universities of all subjects and levels (Bailey, 2006, p. vii). It is a practical writing course which fosters students’ academic writing styles either for the classroom or for self-study. Each topic consists of simple explanations, some examples and elementary practice. This book might be worthy for some students but it may have some inconsistencies from what the author expects and what it really portrays.

Bailey´s book (2006) is organized in different parts, all connected by cross-sectional references. In Part 1 “Writing Process”, the book guides students into the process of writing from sentences to general organization. In Part 2 “Elements of Writing” the topics lead students to acquiring writing skills; in Part 3 “Accuracy in Writing” students practice grammatical issues while in Part 4 “Writing models” the book shows different samples of the most common types of academic writing. There is also a “Writing Test” section for checking progress and “Answers” on the exercises can be found as the last segment of the book.

Bailey (2006) challenges college or university students from foundation to PhD to adopt the book, but many of the topics dealt might be already well known for students who have introduce themselves in the grounds of academic writing such as “Nouns- Countable and Uncountable” (part 3.10 p. 147) or “Confusing Pairs” (part 3. 6 p. 136). In addition, some topics and skills that academic students need to improve are not described or, they are not deeply enough developed in Bailey (2006) such as Reference and Quotations (part 2.11 p. 99) as well as Cohesion (part 2.3 p. 73) .The book mostly aims at essay writing; therefore some widely used academic genres are not included in part 4. Only formal letter, a CV (curriculum vitae) and two examples of essays does the book contain, so, students are not exposed to academic summaries, reviews, reports, critiques, articles, among others.

As regards the book´s presentation and format, students might face some difficulties in finding and relating topics. Bailey (2006) states that students “can work either with the teacher or by themselves” (p. vii), but this would have been possible for students who had known their academic needs beforehand and who had a teacher for guiding their improvements. Students working alone would find no suitable answer for some writing exercises (Paraphrasing 1.16; Combining sources 1.10; Argument  2.1) moreover, no guiding or further explanation for some topics, for instance “Academic Vocabulary” (part 3.2 p. 124) and the use of “other text features” (part 1.1 p. 4). It would have also been better if Bailey (2006) had shown the table of contents and topics relating according to students needs and not “alphabetically for easy access” as he assumes.

This book might be really useful for those language competent students who are introduced in academic writing. Some topics are simple shown and preliminary developed, so further practice and examples would be needed for those who attempt proficient levels. If it would have been easy-to-follow as it had been proposed by the author a teacher might not be necessary, but guiding must be essential. I would not recommend this book as a self-study course for either very weak or highly proficient students. And, as Brown and Yule (1983, cited in Ansary and Babaii, 2013) “materials should be chosen, not so much on the basis of their own interest, but for what they can be used to do”(p. 9). Therefore, materials become good materials when students and teachers make them profitable enough for their goals.

References

Bailey, S. (2006). Academic Writing: A handbook for international students.  (2^nd edition). Retrieved November 2013 from   http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_t27.pdf

Ansary, H., & Esmat, B. (2013).  Universal Characteristics of EFL/ESL Textbooks: A step towards systematic textbook evaluation. Shiraz University. Retrieved November 2013 from

http://cluster1.cafe.daum.net/_c21_/bbs_search_read?grpid=17sno&fldid=O7eD&contentval=000QDzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz&nenc=&fenc=&q=&nil_profile=cafetop&nil_menu=sch_updw

Analysing APA style

APA (American Psychological Association) Style in a Piece of Writing

Members of the discourse community must follow certain rules in order to achieve academic writing skills. The American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) proposes pre-established academic conventions for formatting and writing style as well as citations and reference lists.  (Prudue OWL, 2013 para 1). The aim of this paper is to analyse how Dalvit, Murray, Terzoli, & Zhao, 2005 article follows some established conventions of APA style of writing such as quotations, signal phrases and reference list.

As regards in-text citations, APA style might be verified in different aspects of the text: in-text citations, signal phrases and reference list.  The authors Dalvit et al (2005) only included paraphrased in-text citations identified by an optional signal phrase, followed by a surname and date in between brackets, however, page number of the quote is omitted.  In the article, there is no evidence of direct quotes or block quotations.  In addition, the sources stated are varied, article´s evidence is supported by books, publications done by universities and websites; and online dictionaries and journals; and they are all acceptably pointed out in the reference list.

In view of APA style (2010), signal phrases are used to lead quoted or cited material; but in this article, they are barely used and repeated along the text. “According” and “According to” are written to introduce the citation, which are quite similar. This may show a lack of academic competence from the authors or it could have been required by the article´s publishing house.

Considering reference lists according to APA style (2010), they must appear at the end of the body of the paper in a new page. The title “References” must be centered- aligned, not in bold, underlined or italics. (Prudue Owl, 2013a, para 2). However, in the article analyzed, these requirements are not fully accomplished. The reference list is not in a new page, the title is on bold followed by colon and not properly aligned. APA style, has also established that all “the sources that appear in the article, must be cited alphabetically in the reference list” (Prudue Owl, 2013a, para 1).  This is attained by the authors, but they enumerated each source and they did not respect the double spacing necessary, in the reference list and throughout the text. The sources are indented and cited in the correct order: surnames, initials names, year of publication followed by the title.

As regards reference construction, titles and names of the books are in italics, while APA style suggests that only names of books and journals should be italicized (University of Minnesota, n.d). Online books are not cited with author, although if there is not one, it might start with the title (University of Southern Quensland, n.d). Besides, the signal phrases “available from” or “retrieved” are also missing, so as to indicate the date and the link, since there is no evidence of DOI. Furthermore, the reference to the online dictionary must reveal the entry word at the beginning of the cite, nonetheless in both allusions entry words are not mentioned.

So as to conclude, the article written by Dalvit et al, 2005 follows most of the requirements presented by APA 2010 style of writing. It attempts to be an academic piece of writing but it reveals some inconsistencies as regards APA style conventions, mainly in the reference list, although there is a worthy implementation of quotes. Therefore it does not completely fulfill academic rules of APA (2010) sixth edition style of writing.

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association(6th ed.). Washington, DC.  

Dalvit, L., Murray, S., Terzoli, A., Zhao, X., Rhodes University, Mini, B., & University of Fort Hare. (2005). Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University. US-China Education Review, Sep. 2005, Vol. 2 (9).

Purdue OWL (2013). APA style workshop Retrieved October 2013,

 https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/664/01/

Purdue OWL (2013a). Reference List: Basic Rules. Retrieved October 2013, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/

University of Minnesota Center for Writing. (n.d.). Quicktips: APA documentation style: Reference list. University of Minnesota: Student Writing Support. Retrieved October 2013, from http://writing.umn.edu/sws/assets/pdf/quicktips/apa_References.pdf

University of Suthern Quensland (n.d) APA Referecing guide  Retrieved October 2013, from  http://www.usq.edu.au/library/referencing/apa-referencing-guide#How_to_cite_references_within_the_text_of_an_assignment

Education Communities

Education Communities, Discourse Communities

Teachers, learners, study subjects, practices, methods, learning theories, cognitive mechanisms, scientific concepts, reflections and colleges are important issues for developing discourse communities. The purpose of this piece of writing is to show how some educational communities work as discourse communities.

A discourse community is a group of people who own the same values, aims and get together so as to work on knowledge by using the same language practices. So as to acquire the membership of any discourse community Swales (1990) establishes some basic requirement criteria to be accomplished. Discourse communities have common goals, participatory mechanisms, information exchange community-specific-genres, highly-specialized-terminology and high general level of expertise.

A Cultural Historical view of Teacher learning as Praxis emerges suggesting that language occurs in a social context. Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and Lopez Torres (2003) have observed:

Whether through writing, speaking, or simply listening as a peripheral member of the activity system, teachers are participating in the construction of knowledge as well as crafting identities within the activity system of this inquiry group. (…)Teachers function as resources for one another, providing each other with guidance and assistance on which to build new ideas. As newcomers try on new roles or develop analytic or reflective dispositions and skills through the assistance of others, they will eventually attempt on their own to use artifacts (material, ideal) in novel situations. (p. 4)

Through this example the authors may show how this community works. This group of teachers gathers with the purpose of studying their professional practices in their context. They create new knowledge while interacting by interchanging information, receiving feedback from other members using specialized terminology and artifacts. The level of expertise is revealed when new specialists guide apprentices into the community.

According to Kutz (1990, p. 200 as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001) in a community college “Its members have, over time, developed a common discourse that involves shared knowledge, common purposes, common relationships, similar attitudes and values, shared understandings about how to communicate their knowledge and achieve their shared purposes, and a flow of discourse that has a particular structure and style”. (p. 1) Furthermore, Kelly- Kleese (2001) reports that:

The community college often adopts language given meaning within the larger higher education discourse community. For example, the term non-traditional is much more appropriate in the university discourse community than in that of two-year colleges students who are deemed nontraditional at the university are, on the contrary, traditional students in the community college setting. (p. 2)

As the above example illustrates, while the non-traditional term is more suitable for students at university than from college, each member of a discourse community is part of an association respectively, where each of them has common goals, participants know how to communicate among them and have a shared knowledge of the subject.

A cohort study was carried out among teachers with the purpose of connecting “what they do in their classrooms to research-informed practices; immerse teachers in a collaborative culture” (p. 113) according to Wenzlaff and Wiesemann (2004). They also state that each cohort was “a team working towards the same goal” (p. 122).  In this teachers´ discourse community formed with the same purpose, not only goals, language, participatory mechanisms and information were shared but also a sense of collaborative culture was created among the teachers of the cohort.

So as to conclude, with the purpose of being part of a discourse community, members must share certain requirements and participate in the collaborative culture so as to belong to it. In education, discourse communities overlap because they have fuzzy and flexible boundaries, thus, each “education discourse community exists within and part from higher education discourse community” (Porter 1992,  as cited in Kelly- Kleese, 2004 p. 2 Discourse Community Boundaries)

References

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved September 2013, from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/theory_into_practice/v042/42.3hoffman-kipp.html

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s Choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2013, from http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/editor-s-choice-an-open-memo-to-community-college-faculty-and-5lPjH3hd0V

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA community college review: community college scholarship and discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2013, from http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-121672231/ucla-community-college-review-community-college-scholarship

Pintos, V. (2012) Unit 1: Building up a community of teachers and prospective researchers. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Universidad CAECE. Retrieved September 2013, from

http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/pluginfile.php/46896/mod_resource/content/1/EAP%20Unit%201%20120716%20ARM.pdf

Swales, J M (1990) Genre Analysis English in Academic and Research Setting. Cambridge (Ed.)

Wenzlaff, T. L., & Wieseman, K. C. (2004). Teachers Need Teachers To Grow. Teacher Education Quarterly. Retrieved September 2013, from

http://www.teqjournal.org/backvols/2004/31_2/wenzlaff&wieseman.pmd.pdf

WELCOME!

Hello and Welcome to my blog!

My name is Rosario, I am 25 years old and I am from San Antonio de Areco, a beautiful and peaceful town in the province of Buenos Aires. I work as a teacher of English at the different levels of education: kindergarten, primary and secondary levels.

In this blog I will upload my academic writings. So please, I will be delighted to receive any feedback and comments from you. This may be a great opportunity to exchange ideas.

Because I think that to teach English is also to share ideas….