Monthly Archives: May 2017

Student Blogs

Writing Research Studies: A Look Back



When I started this course I knew that it was going to be challenging. I was prepared for this course to be much harder than the Writing Theories class that I took in the fall. This course was just as challenging as I expected but the challenges were manageable. If I don't remember anything else in this course I will remember how to research with a specific purpose. I read a lot of articles this semester about writing theories and practices the research part of this course led by my own interests and questions. This is where I did the most meaningful work. The work that got me thinking about what is going to happen at the end.

I had no idea what I wanted my thesis to be in January. Truthfully, I still don't know what for sure but the work I've done over the course of this class has lead me in the right direction that will guide me towards my end goal in this course of my learning. I didn't have any expectations for this semester other than the fact that I knew that I would be doing some challenging work. Last semester was an introduction into my graduate studies. This semester the ball really started rolling. It was reassuring to know that I had a pretty good understanding of different philosophies, theorists and their research. I felt really secure in my work and what I was learning. The work load was something that I could understand and use in my profession.

The most challenging weeks for me were when I had a sudden family emergency that took me away from school work for a while and Katherine's week. She presented texts on participatory learning and she had loads of data research in her articles that was a challenge for me to decipher. At that point I wondered if I was missing something? Should I really be here? Do I even belong here. Nothing was making sense to me and everything looked foreign. It took me a long time to read through the work and glean the important parts that I needed to discuss in my blog. This really was a challenge for me. But when I was done I learned so much from this experience. I learned about myself as a scholar. I learned what my limitations are and I was able to push through.

For as much as I have learned I also learned that there is so much more that I need to learn about researching Writing Studies. I thought this field was new but it has been around for quite sometime and the people that are known for doing the work in is this field is on a very short list. And from what it seems like, all of their ideas intersect in some form or another. Our discussions were always so rich and informative it gave me a new perceptive on the articles we read weekly. I would learn what I didn't know or understand from the articles through our discussions.

I want to say I became a better writer in this course. But I doubt it. I think I am still an okay writer. The area that I did experience growth in is my research abilities. I didn't realize how much I research things as a teacher. I am always doing research in some form or another when I am preparing for my lessons. But doing research to write a thesis argument that I am going to present for academic purposes challenged me. It taught me how to research and think about research in a different way. And I learned so much about myself and how I should spend my time doing my research and research doesn't mean you read something in its entirety. You can't there's no time. It was the learning how to look through texts with purpose and intentionality. I welcome all that I have to learn and I am appreciative the knowledge that I've gained from this course.

Dr. Zamora you will be missed and I don't know what I am going to do with out you on the rest of my journey. Thank you for inspiring me to go beyond, push harder and think deeper.


Class Blog: 

Discussion Lead Paper:

Research Proposal:




Student Blogs

Writing Research Studies: A Look Back



When I started this course I knew that it was going to be challenging. I was prepared for this course to be much harder than the Writing Theories class that I took in the fall. This course was just as challenging as I expected but the challenges were manageable. If I don't remember anything else in this course I will remember how to research with a specific purpose. I read a lot of articles this semester about writing theories and practices the research part of this course led by my own interests and questions. This is where I did the most meaningful work. The work that got me thinking about what is going to happen at the end.

I had no idea what I wanted my thesis to be in January. Truthfully, I still don't know what for sure but the work I've done over the course of this class has lead me in the right direction that will guide me towards my end goal in this course of my learning. I didn't have any expectations for this semester other than the fact that I knew that I would be doing some challenging work. Last semester was an introduction into my graduate studies. This semester the ball really started rolling. It was reassuring to know that I had a pretty good understanding of different philosophies, theorists and their research. I felt really secure in my work and what I was learning. The work load was something that I could understand and use in my profession.

The most challenging weeks for me were when I had a sudden family emergency that took me away from school work for a while and Katherine's week. She presented texts on participatory learning and she had loads of data research in her articles that was a challenge for me to decipher. At that point I wondered if I was missing something? Should I really be here? Do I even belong here. Nothing was making sense to me and everything looked foreign. It took me a long time to read through the work and glean the important parts that I needed to discuss in my blog. This really was a challenge for me. But when I was done I learned so much from this experience. I learned about myself as a scholar. I learned what my limitations are and I was able to push through.

For as much as I have learned I also learned that there is so much more that I need to learn about researching Writing Studies. I thought this field was new but it has been around for quite sometime and the people that are known for doing the work in is this field is on a very short list. And from what it seems like, all of their ideas intersect in some form or another. Our discussions were always so rich and informative it gave me a new perceptive on the articles we read weekly. I would learn what I didn't know or understand from the articles through our discussions.

I want to say I became a better writer in this course. But I doubt it. I think I am still an okay writer. The area that I did experience growth in is my research abilities. I didn't realize how much I research things as a teacher. I am always doing research in some form or another when I am preparing for my lessons. But doing research to write a thesis argument that I am going to present for academic purposes challenged me. It taught me how to research and think about research in a different way. And I learned so much about myself and how I should spend my time doing my research and research doesn't mean you read something in its entirety. You can't there's no time. It was the learning how to look through texts with purpose and intentionality. I welcome all that I have to learn and I am appreciative the knowledge that I've gained from this course.

Dr. Zamora you will be missed and I don't know what I am going to do with out you on the rest of my journey. Thank you for inspiring me to go beyond, push harder and think deeper.


Class Blog: 

Discussion Lead Paper:

Research Proposal:




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One last step, ….and congrats!

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We have made it to the finish line of #WritingResearch.  What a wonderful seminar-style experience we have had.  A shout out to Marissa and Hailey for their excellent wrap up of our presentations with a comprehensive overview of “DH” – the Digital Humanities.  And I am so glad you were all able to be a part of the Spring Symposium last night.  I am sure it was worthwhile to catch a glimpse of the unique contributions that each student produced this year.  I also hope it opens up for all of you a sense of what is possible as you plan your own future work to wrap up your MA degree.

Last order of business – Your final contribution for this class will be your Writing Research Self Assessment.  Please submit this final reflection via email by Monday, May 15th.

It has been a pleasure to work with each of you this semester.  I count myself very lucky to have the opportunity to continue to learn and grow with each of you.  We will all remain in touch this coming academic year, despite the fact that my home address will be father away.  We are connected after all, and it is the 21st century.  My email will remain the same of course. 😉

Thanks for the continued inspiration.

Sincerely,

Dr. Zamora

 

Student Blogs

Creating a New Environment 2017-05-01 22:05:00

The Literary, The Humanistic, The Digital: Toward a Research Agenda for Digital Literary Studies
Julia Flanders
What is Digital Humanities and What’s it Doing in English Department?
Mathew G. Kirchenbaum
Hope Wilson








         I have recently began to personally utilizing computers.I actually carry my iPad daily on most days to read and research at my leisure. Just last year I was utilizing computers for school and work related concerns only. I now feel comfortable with my learn knowledge of some applications that I now research, make purchases, and download information when needed. 

       The digital humanity has become a popular concern of many scholars concerning the English department as well as public usage. As soon as I read the first couple of lines I too googled digital humanities and my results where on wikipedia also. The definition is the digital humanities, also known as humanities computing, is a field of study, research, teaching, and invention concerned with the intersection of computing and the disciplines of the humanities. It is methodological by nature and interdisciplinary in scope. It involves investigation, analysis, synthesis and presentation of information in electronic form. It studies how these media affect the disciplines in which they are used, and what these disciplines have to contribute to our knowledge of computing. There are constant concerns of how to reinvent and improve processes like the success of the project of the “developed and tested standards and best practices for archiving and ensuring future access to computer games, interactive fiction, and virtual communities” providing the users with better applications. Digital humanities are encouraging change in the English Department. It provides options on how to research, teach, invent, and compute. The entire methodology of investigating, analyzing and how we present information in electric form have changed. This change will provide enormous amount of access to needed information and research. Although I consider myself to be “old school” I continue to enjoy going to a physical library and holding books in my hand as I read them. I have adjusted to the internet because it has its convenient. I am engaged in progress and inspired by the technical tools that are presently available to students and willing users. Although we must consider “The recession-era push to do more with less provides motivation for both defensive, retreating shifts (such as elimination of specialized departments and increased class size) and opportunistic ones (such as the creation of online educational programs that arguably serve to expand access and increase educational opportunities even while they help reduce costs). But both shifts reduce the visibility of the individual—reduce the proportionality, we might say, of the individual to the system. This is true whether we are considering the teacher (now an intellectual focal point for an expanding set of educational relationships that might number in the hundreds or thousands per course) or the student (now a proportionally smaller participant in larger and larger classrooms or online learning communities). It is important to note that both retreat and opportunity operate in the same way here: they accept the same structural premises, namely that the individual must be placed in ever greater subordination to a system of interconnections and that the efficiency and scale of the educational operation are the primary measures of its success—a developmental direction mapped out and justified by the logic of industrial technology,” may effect the transition of technology. We must also consider how accurate our look up has to be to receive exactly what we are searching. The library system is more convenient in that aspect. Considering the World Wide Web has enormous amount of information available to the seeker who are  knowledgeable of the process of researching information. We use to know exactly what we were getting in books and in the World Wide Web I am not exactly sure.

Student Blogs

Creating a New Environment 2017-05-01 22:05:00

The Literary, The Humanistic, The Digital: Toward a Research Agenda for Digital Literary Studies
Julia Flanders
What is Digital Humanities and What’s it Doing in English Department?
Mathew G. Kirchenbaum
Hope Wilson








         I have recently began to personally utilizing computers.I actually carry my iPad daily on most days to read and research at my leisure. Just last year I was utilizing computers for school and work related concerns only. I now feel comfortable with my learn knowledge of some applications that I now research, make purchases, and download information when needed. 

       The digital humanity has become a popular concern of many scholars concerning the English department as well as public usage. As soon as I read the first couple of lines I too googled digital humanities and my results where on wikipedia also. The definition is the digital humanities, also known as humanities computing, is a field of study, research, teaching, and invention concerned with the intersection of computing and the disciplines of the humanities. It is methodological by nature and interdisciplinary in scope. It involves investigation, analysis, synthesis and presentation of information in electronic form. It studies how these media affect the disciplines in which they are used, and what these disciplines have to contribute to our knowledge of computing. There are constant concerns of how to reinvent and improve processes like the success of the project of the “developed and tested standards and best practices for archiving and ensuring future access to computer games, interactive fiction, and virtual communities” providing the users with better applications. Digital humanities are encouraging change in the English Department. It provides options on how to research, teach, invent, and compute. The entire methodology of investigating, analyzing and how we present information in electric form have changed. This change will provide enormous amount of access to needed information and research. Although I consider myself to be “old school” I continue to enjoy going to a physical library and holding books in my hand as I read them. I have adjusted to the internet because it has its convenient. I am engaged in progress and inspired by the technical tools that are presently available to students and willing users. Although we must consider “The recession-era push to do more with less provides motivation for both defensive, retreating shifts (such as elimination of specialized departments and increased class size) and opportunistic ones (such as the creation of online educational programs that arguably serve to expand access and increase educational opportunities even while they help reduce costs). But both shifts reduce the visibility of the individual—reduce the proportionality, we might say, of the individual to the system. This is true whether we are considering the teacher (now an intellectual focal point for an expanding set of educational relationships that might number in the hundreds or thousands per course) or the student (now a proportionally smaller participant in larger and larger classrooms or online learning communities). It is important to note that both retreat and opportunity operate in the same way here: they accept the same structural premises, namely that the individual must be placed in ever greater subordination to a system of interconnections and that the efficiency and scale of the educational operation are the primary measures of its success—a developmental direction mapped out and justified by the logic of industrial technology,” may effect the transition of technology. We must also consider how accurate our look up has to be to receive exactly what we are searching. The library system is more convenient in that aspect. Considering the World Wide Web has enormous amount of information available to the seeker who are  knowledgeable of the process of researching information. We use to know exactly what we were getting in books and in the World Wide Web I am not exactly sure.

Student Blogs

Creating a New Environment 2017-05-01 22:05:00

The Literary, The Humanistic, The Digital: Toward a Research Agenda for Digital Literary Studies
Julia Flanders
What is Digital Humanities and What’s it Doing in English Department?
Mathew G. Kirchenbaum
Hope Wilson








         I have recently began to personally utilizing computers.I actually carry my iPad daily on most days to read and research at my leisure. Just last year I was utilizing computers for school and work related concerns only. I now feel comfortable with my learn knowledge of some applications that I now research, make purchases, and download information when needed. 

       The digital humanity has become a popular concern of many scholars concerning the English department as well as public usage. As soon as I read the first couple of lines I too googled digital humanities and my results where on wikipedia also. The definition is the digital humanities, also known as humanities computing, is a field of study, research, teaching, and invention concerned with the intersection of computing and the disciplines of the humanities. It is methodological by nature and interdisciplinary in scope. It involves investigation, analysis, synthesis and presentation of information in electronic form. It studies how these media affect the disciplines in which they are used, and what these disciplines have to contribute to our knowledge of computing. There are constant concerns of how to reinvent and improve processes like the success of the project of the “developed and tested standards and best practices for archiving and ensuring future access to computer games, interactive fiction, and virtual communities” providing the users with better applications. Digital humanities are encouraging change in the English Department. It provides options on how to research, teach, invent, and compute. The entire methodology of investigating, analyzing and how we present information in electric form have changed. This change will provide enormous amount of access to needed information and research. Although I consider myself to be “old school” I continue to enjoy going to a physical library and holding books in my hand as I read them. I have adjusted to the internet because it has its convenient. I am engaged in progress and inspired by the technical tools that are presently available to students and willing users. Although we must consider “The recession-era push to do more with less provides motivation for both defensive, retreating shifts (such as elimination of specialized departments and increased class size) and opportunistic ones (such as the creation of online educational programs that arguably serve to expand access and increase educational opportunities even while they help reduce costs). But both shifts reduce the visibility of the individual—reduce the proportionality, we might say, of the individual to the system. This is true whether we are considering the teacher (now an intellectual focal point for an expanding set of educational relationships that might number in the hundreds or thousands per course) or the student (now a proportionally smaller participant in larger and larger classrooms or online learning communities). It is important to note that both retreat and opportunity operate in the same way here: they accept the same structural premises, namely that the individual must be placed in ever greater subordination to a system of interconnections and that the efficiency and scale of the educational operation are the primary measures of its success—a developmental direction mapped out and justified by the logic of industrial technology,” may effect the transition of technology. We must also consider how accurate our look up has to be to receive exactly what we are searching. The library system is more convenient in that aspect. Considering the World Wide Web has enormous amount of information available to the seeker who are  knowledgeable of the process of researching information. We use to know exactly what we were getting in books and in the World Wide Web I am not exactly sure.

Student Blogs

Blog 10: Digital Humanities Place in English

This topic is actually a portion of what I’m incorporating into my thesis. With all the concerns we have in the digital sphere of learning, there’s a lot to gain for the English departments across the country and the world. Twitter and other sites as mentioned in the “What is Digital Humanities and What’s it doing in English Departments?” article have gotten people to express themselves through writing and other new ways of communication.

The digital sphere as we’ve heard time and time again allows for students to have a feedback audience quicker and more substantive than just their professor and classmates. The choice of blogging with photos, colors and designs also makes students extra excited to start writing their responses to articles. It also helps more reserved and quiet students out in the network sharing their ideas and points with the world.

There is also a lot of resistance from longtime educators who are used to doing things a certain way and see that this digital sphere is a threat to how things should be in their eyes. This field needs people to be bold and take this risk of taking on this whole new sphere of learning. Overall this will keep modern students completely engaged in their English classes than the typical class of today. Some classes have resorted to abolishing the use of digital devices while in the classroom but as technology is expanding and more used this will do more harm than good in ensuring classroom engagement. Digital humanities is the answer to keeping students engaged and motivated to continue learning.