From Virginia Heffernen:

1. The first time I submitted an assignment online was my senior year of high school in my online English class. It was a big change from how I used to write papers and do assignments and I wish that my teachers in past years would have introduced that kind of online submission and interaction earlier. That is at least one thing that I would suggest them to add in their curriculum. Also, I would suggest making a class blog or discussion board where all the students would get a chance to post and respond so that they are better prepared for college.

2. I know that today’s dentists are much different even from dentists ten years ago. The technological advances are insane. There are so many new tools and machines that do almost all the work for you in the field of dentistry; it’s all about knowing how to operate them. I don’t think Oakland can really prepare me for that in my undergraduate years just because they are preparing me to take the DAT in order to get into dental school. Then in graduate school I will be prepared for the skills I need to operate and use the new technology.

3. I feel that when I write in a blog or an email I can be myself and I don’t have to worry about any formatting or proper persuading or citing. I think that things like the “five paragraph essay” or a “1,000 word essay” limits how I can write and can sometimes even force me to stretch out papers when they already sounded good 300 words ago. Putting specific formatting and requirements on papers can be stressful and I don’t feel that I write as good as I would in a relaxed setting.

4. If I were a math teacher I would do a lot of things differently than most of today’s math teachers. First of all, I would never have my students memorize formulas or equations. To me, it doesn’t make sense to do that even with today’s technology because anyone can just look up formulas for whatever problem they have in a matter of seconds. I feel that having to memorize equations makes the test more stressful and takes away from the whole point of the test; which is to test the student’s ability to do the problem correctly. Also, since technology and the world are always changing, I would especially focus on making sure they have the basics down that society will never stop using.

5. I definitely agree with Virginia Heffernen and the main focus of the piece; which was “…we can’t keep preparing students for a world that doesn’t exist.” Everyone needs to realize that there is a need for an update in the way teachers teach and a change in the curriculum. A related to everything she wrote in her piece. It’s so true that when students are forced to write a specific kind of paper that has to be a certain length students don’t write as well as they would without all that.

My Literacy Timeline

Two Questions, Lynda Barry

After reading “Two Questions” by Lynda Barry, I definitely agreed with her that as children, most of us LOVE to draw and create but as we get older it almost becomes “work”. As a cartoonist, novelist, and playwright all she did was write and draw. She realized that she was beginning to lose her passion for what she once lived for. She found herself asking two questions: Does this suck? Is this good? She was extrinsically motivated for a long time, meaning that she was just doing her work as her job and for others; which is why she asked herself those two questions. This writers block caused a lot of issues for a long time until she finally realized that she needed to write for herself and then she would finally be satisfied with her own work. Intrinsic motivation worked best for her because it allowed her to create and write to the best of her ability because it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. The fact that she went back to writing for herself, like kids do when they draw or write, is what made this story a circular narrative. I related to this story a lot because I’m very artsy and I became literate through art. As a child, the first kinds of books that I was interested in reading were autobiographies on artists. I also have been scrapbooking and drawing for almost all my life; so I really enjoyed this story.

Why Is Writing Important?

               Writing is used in almost every profession at least a little bit. Everyone needs to communicate to work together in order to get a job done. Whether it’s through e-mail, texting, or even “old-fashion” hand written notes or reminders, writing is essential in everyday life. Companies advertise, workers of all sorts have to write down their schedule or request time off in some way to their managers, and doctors document everything about a patient on a daily basis.

                My ultimate future career goal is to be a dentist. I know that will require much documenting of each of my patients. Even just a cleaning will require me to write whether everything is looking good or not. My job requires tons of communication between hygienists, secretaries, and dental assistants in order to be successful. Every day I will have to look at my patients chart at past written notes and observations and make new ones.  I’m going to need to take special English classes in graduate school to learn the language of dentists and how they write their abbreviations and things. Communication is definitely key because not doing so could cause major problems.