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Three posts from this page will be included in my final assignments as informal assignments.
Having spent half of the semester, I am more confident about my writing than the beginning of the semester even though I still can’t write exactly what I want to write.
I posted all the blogs and almost all the bonus blog. Because of that, I am less nervous about writing. At the beginning of the class, I didn’t like writing and didn’t want to write because I thought I was not good at writing at all, and I spent quite long time to write one post. However, as I wrote 13 blog posts and some bonus blogs, I came to be able to write without stopping, and ceased to feel like I don’t want to write. Writing is not a hard work that it used to be anymore. In addition, thinking about main idea has made it easier for me to wrote. At first, I just wrote about the topic, but I didn’t know what I really wanted to write. However, as I presented my writing in front of the classmates and got some feedback, I learned that I have to be sure what I want to tell the reader through my writing. Thus, now I try to think about the main topic before I start writing, which makes it easier for me to stay focus on it. Also, by reflecting after each assignment, I could find the better writing process for me. I found that I can do better when I work in the school library than in my bed room, that working alone first is good for me to think about my own opinion, and that writing ideas on paper before start writing is a good way to organize my thoughts. For the next half of the semester, I am going to keep posting all the blogs including bonus blogs, focusing on the main topic, and following the process that I found is good for me. In addition to that, I hope to learn details of writing, keep improving my writing process, and be a better writer. (340 words)
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Same as the academic mindsets assignment, I worked alone on the film-based assignment at first. I think it worked this time too. I could think about the problem and the solution with my own view.
This assignment was similar to the last one for both of them were about education and I had to write opinions toward problems and solutions. Thus, the hardest part with this assignment for me was having my own opinion, too. I worked on it following the writing process that I made when I wrote academic mindsets assignment reflection. I worked in the library, I used paper to think about my view, I tried to stay focus on what I wanted to write; the problem is that they are allowed to live without working, I read three times to make sure it was easy to understand, I rewrite the parts that I thought was weird, and I had it checked by my native friend (I couldn’t have it checked by my tutor this time, but I am going to do so in this week). Most of the part I used the same process as the last one, but I used another way of thinking. First I chose the bad things the son does in the film, such as hitting others with weapons and being rude at the job interviews. Then, I tried to trace the roots of them. For example, I thought they hit each other because they can’t think well about how others feel, that is because they lack the interaction with other people, and to have the interaction, they need to get jobs. The good thing was I could use the reflection of the last assignment. I think the style that I used last time worked for me at most of the part, so I worked on this assignment in the same process. Also that I found another way of thinking was good, too. The bad this was I couldn’t have it checked by the tutor, so that I couldn’t discuss this opinion. Thus, I am going to see her this week and write draft #2 after the discussion. I won’t revise the processes this time. I am going to keep following the process that I made last time. (375 words) Prompt: - Certain age that you stop relying on parents at the level of the step brothers - Does ending of marriage affect the children? Can a divorce be positive occurrence for children? - How can a child's actions impact a marriage? - Should a child's wrong-doing be served with consequences? - Is it okey to keep your inner child? Does adulthood make it impossible to maintain a youthful joy for life? - When is it appropriate for an adult to show your inner child? Do they exhibit an "indulgent" - Why do the brothers feel entitled for so long? - What did the parents do to make the brother feel entitled? Do they exhibit an "indulgent" parent style? - Different types of parenting : What type of parenting is needed for these brother to become functional adults? - How can parents help their children to leave the nest - Should the brothers follow their dreams or comfort to society's expectations for what constitutes being adult? - If a parent favors a child, can that affect his/her siblings? - Did the parents enable the brothers to act like children? Purpose: - Persuade Audience: - Our teacher of the class - The other class members - Parents (Robert and Nancy) - Children who feel entitled (Dale and Brennan) Focus: - Identify a problem and provide a solution Style: - Informal - Nontraditional - No need for APA/MLA for draft #1 Step Brothers is a movie about two middle-aged men, Dale Doback and Brennan Huff, who become step brothers because Dale’s father, Dr. Robert Doback, and Brennan’s mother, Nancy Huff, get married. The two guys are both about 40 years old but don’t work and live with their parents. Then, their parents get married and start living together. At first, the sons hate each other, and one day they fight against each other. Dr. Doback gets mad with them and tells them they have to find jobs in a month. Then, Dale punches Brennan’s brother, Derek, who Brennan hates, and they become best friends. They go to the job interviews together but they fail all of them. They try to start their own music business. However, they break Dr. Doback’s ship while they were shooting the music video, and Dr. Doback gets angry with them. Since he couldn’t agree with Nancy, who screens the sons, they decide to divorce. The sons are left in the house and start fighting again. They decide to live apart and find jobs. After a while, Brannan works for Derek’s company and manages the party. Dale serves the food at the party, too, so the parents are invited. The sons talk and shake hands as if they are “normal”. Then, the singer at the party abuses one of the audience, and because of it, Brannan gets fired. In such bad mood, Dr. Doback encourage the sons to go to the stage and perform. Dale goes to the stage first, and seeing Dale abused by people, Brannan decides to go, too. Their music reminds the parents of the moment they met for the first time, and Derek of the days he loved his brother. Six months later, Dale and Brannan run a karaoke company and Dr. Doback gives them a tree house made from the broken his boat.
One of the features of this movie is the words that the characters use. They use a lot of “swear words” during the whole scene. I think this is effective in this film. That makes the story funnier and more energetic. Also, even though this is a stupid comedy movie, it surely has the main message. The message is; don’t forget your childish aspects. I think this movie is good when you want to laugh, but also you can learn from the film. There are three quotes that I think are important. The first one is “You are adults. It’s time you start acting like adults.” It is said by Dr. Doback. When is the appropriate time for people to start acting like adults? What is the “act” of adults? The second one is “I don’t care how old they are. They are still our children.” This is a Nancy’s quote. Does this attitude have something to do with the sons’ behavior? The last quote is “The point is, don’t lose your dinosaur.” This is also said by Dr. Doback. Is it okay to keep your childish aspect? What is the problem of being “adults”? (506 words) The movie I would choose is a Danish movie called “After the Wedding”. This is a story about Jacob, a Danish man who runs an orphanage in India.
Although he works hard, the orphanage faces bankruptcy. Then he gets an offer of donation from a rich man in Denmark. To talk with the CEO, Jørgen, Jacob comes back to Denmark. When Jacob meets Jørgen, Jacob is told that Jørgen is still considering about the fund and that he would make a decision in a few days, which surprise Jacob because he had thought the decision was already made. While he is waiting for Jørgen’s decision, Jacob is invited to Jørgen’s daughter’s wedding. At the wedding, Jacob meets his ex-girlfriend, Helene, who is now Jørgen’s wife. Moreover, from her speech, he learns Anna, Jørgen’s daughter, is not a biological daughter of Jørgen but of Helene’s ex-boyfriend. With a suspect that Anna might be his daughter, Jacob asks Henne the truth. Learning that Anna is actually his daughter, he hugs her with a big love. Jørgen’s decision is to create a foundation of three million dollars with the name of Jacob and Anna, with requirements; to use for helping Indian orphans, and for Jacob to live in Denmark. Jacob rejects this offer because he has a boy in India who he loves like his son, Pramod, and he leaves the room with anger. Jørgen chases after Jacob, tells that he is ill and has not long to live, and asks to take care of his family including his twin sons. Jacob can’t accept it soon, and gets back to the hotel, where he finds Anna crying because his husband cheats on her. The next morning, Helene comes too, and they spend some time together. Then, Jacob decides to accept Jørgen’s requirement. On his last birthday, Jørgen cries, complaining that he doesn’t want to die and he wants to live longer. After a few months, despite his wish, Jørgen passes away. At his funeral, there are Helene, Anna, his twin sons, and Jacob. At last of the movie, Jacob goes back to India, and asks Pramod whether he wants to come to Denmark with Jacob. But he says no, and Jacob starts live in Denmark. The possible writing topic is: What is the role of Pramod in this movie? He tells Jacob that he will stay in India without hesitation when he is asked if he wants to come to Denmark with Jacob. Why this scene is included at the end of the movie? (421 words) I wrote this essay by myself at first, and after finish it, I had it checked by my tutor. Because I worked by myself, I could think about my own opinion. It is hard for me to have my own opinion since I have never asked to state/write about it before. When I talk with other people about their opinion, I sometimes unconsciously take their opinion as mine. Thus, it worked for me to take my time alone and think about what I think. Also, it was good to have it checked by the tutor because I could find the weak point of my opinion and find the answer to it.
As I wrote above, having my own opinion was the most difficult part for me and to overcome, I spent some time alone and think about it. Also, I used paper to think about it. At first I tried to start the essay, but I didn’t know what to write, so I took a paper and write whatever came in my mind. I didn’t think it would work, but it was a good approach to organize my thinking. I worked this project in library after my classes, same as when I did the Hiraeth assignment, which was good. However, I couldn’t take enough time to reread and rewrite the essay since I took too much time on thinking. Thus, I need to be able to think in shorter time and have more time to think about the writing itself next time. I chose this topic because I thought both of the two authors insisted that we needed to change the educational environment and the differences of their claims were what we had to change, and Kohn doesn’t contradict growth mindset itself. Thus, I thought about my opinion toward what we need to change, and I finally got to the answer what we have to change is adults’ attitude toward children or students, not the educational system. My new writing process especially when writing about my opinion is:
(400 words) It is messy and have a lot of mistakes but this is the paper I wrote to think about my opinion. I believe that to be better, being stressed is needed. When I was in the first grade in my high school, I was not good at my history class. I was not interested in the subject, so I didn’t want to study it and didn’t make any efforts to learn it, in which way I didn’t have to be stressed. I just studied on the nights before the tests, but I couldn’t remember most of the things and I failed on some of them. I thought I was not a person for this subject and gave up doing well at it. However, when I was in the end of the second grade, I had to study it for the entrance exam for universities. I wanted to get in to the university, so I started to study it more than ever. I tried to think that if I study more, I could get higher score and get a ticket for the university. I spend a lot of hours on the subject each day telling myself that I was going to be better. It was stressful to study the things I don’t like, but then I came to get much higher score on mock tests than I used to before and at last I got the highest score at the real test. Therefore, I believe that working hard is stressful but useful. Also, making mistakes is stressful but can improve you. I don’t like making mistakes especially in front of other people. I feel embarrassing. However, because of this, I won’t forget about the mistakes and won’t do it anymore. Therefore, I believe that you must be stressed a lot when you make mistakes but won’t do it anymore, so it will improve you. There are some kinds of stress during making efforts, but all of them are important to improve you.
(310 words) According to “Teaching Adolescents to Become Learners […]” by Chicago University, there are four academic mindsets; belonging (I belong in this academic community), growth mindset (my ability and competence grow with my effort), self-efficacy (I can succeed at this), relevance/purpose (this work has value for me). For me, self-efficacy is the most important to achieve academic success. Although people try to consider students’ effort, the result on test or assignment is still the most important point of judging students. So if I succeed in something, I will be seen better. I feel like I am worth when I could do well. So I can work hard to achieve good result on the things that I am good at. However, it is true that when I am working on the things that I am not good at, I can’t be as enthusiastic as on the things I am more likely to succeed. Getting over a challenge which seems difficult is stressing, but I know the joy of achieving it is great. Before I came to the United States, I was in a university which is in the top three in Japanese universities ranking. Everyone around me didn’t think I can really be accepted by the university, but I believed I could do that, so I could study hard. And when I got the result, I was very proud and wanted to have more challenge. At DCCC, my biggest goal is to transfer to the college that I want to go, and to achieve this goal, I have to get high GPA. To get high GPA, I have to do well on all of my classes; math class, sociology class, religion class, and English class. On math class, I am likely to do well because the things I am learning are the ones I did in my high school, On the other hand, on English class, I am less likely to do well since this is not my first language and I haven't learn how to write even in my language, but I believe that I can do well if I work hard in the right way.
At last, I would like to add that the most important thing for my academic success is enjoying learning itself, rather than mindsets. It’s hard to study religion since I don’t have any religion, but I’m interested in it and enjoying it, so I can work hard and am learning a lot. (407 words) In “Teachers, Parents Often Misuse Growth Mindset Research, Carol Dweck Says”, the three ways that parents and teachers misuse growth mindset are mentioned. The first one is to praise effort alone. Praising effort alone is useless when the child is doing in a wrong way and making no progress, so instead, parents and teachers should praise a child’s process and strategies. The second one is to tell kids to try hard. Instead of telling students to keep trying, adults should review with a child what he or she has done and what he or she has to do next. The last one is to repeat mindset jargon. Many parents and teachers use the growth mindset phrases but doesn’t change the ways they teach. To lead children to have growth mindset, they have to change how they teach and how they treat children. In “The perils of “Growth Mindset” […]”, the author claims that when a child praised for his or her effort, they might feel like he or she is not capable for the task. Also he states that the goal for children might become getting praised and wouldn’t care what they are praised for, and this is more about controlling than encouraging. At last, he claims that thinking too much about mindsets doesn’t work.
Growth mindset is to think one’s intelligence or ability can be developed by making effort. In other words, if you work hard, you will be better. On the other hand, fixed mindset is to think one’s intelligence or ability can’t be changed, so it is no use to make effort. I think I am a combination of two mindsets. I believe that making effort can make a person better, but also that there is difference of how much effort one need to be at certain level; there is differences of ability between people, but one can lessen the gap by effort. Like the story “The Tortoise and Hare”, even if someone has high ability, without effort, another might become better by making a lot of effort. (341 words) |
Katsuki Iio
Born in Osaka, Japan in 1997. Archives
December 2016
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