The Making of a Great "Inquirer"...
As the end of the semester approaches, I can honestly say that this course has had a positive affect on both my writing and thought process as it pertains to analyzing literary pieces and quotes. However, most importantly, I have discovered the significance of research as well as the importance of academic inquiry and becoming a successful inquirer.
When this course first began, I was introduced to in-class Daybook entries for the very first time. At first, I did not want to do these things because they seemed like an extreme waste of both time and effort. I thought that we would come to class and just jump right into in-depth discussion and debate, however, I was wrong. The daybook entries were actually my instructor’s way of getting the class into the mood to effectively evaluate, process, think about and analyze either pieces we had read the night before, quotes she wanted us to respond to or prompts that she had come up with herself. Needless to say, her approach worked; it actually got to the point where I looked forward to doing the daybook entries because they afforded me the right to free write in an attempt to wholeheartedly express all of my ideas and opinions given a certain topic without having to worry about being judged or- worse – graded on behalf of what I wrote.
Eventually, the daybook entries began to, essentially, transcend into the homework assignments, which, usually, consisted of composing reading responses in the form of blog posts. Every night, we would be assigned an article or literary piece to read and respond to on our blog pages answering whatever questions our instructor had provided in the context of the piece. As time passed, I began to notice how the daybook entries and blog posts began to mesh with one another as we would almost always follow up and discuss what we read about the very next day in class and, sometimes, we would even delve deeper into the piece collectively as a class. For example, we read a piece by Mike Rose which prompted an in-depth discussion on “what it meant to be average” and our own individual definitions of “average” in which I discovered just how much the word average differed in meaning from person to person.
As the course progressed, the reading and daybook entries began to lead me into my process of inquiry. The time eventually came when it was time to decide upon a topic for my inquiry project and I was very confused and, honestly, did not know what direction to take as far as the project was concerned. However, because we had read all of those pieces and held class discussions on a wide range of topics, I just decided to turn my focal point of inquiry onto a topic that I felt very strongly about which happened to be testing and, with that in mind I ran with it. I actually think that this is that moment that I honestly realized the collective effort that all of the assignments and class activities that we had completed prior to had played in preparing me to complete my inquiry project.
The first assignment in the inquiry project was the research proposal. This was the segment of the assignment that was the hardest for me because it forced me to both make a final decision as to what the actual topic of my inquiry would be and to elaborate on my ideas for the entire project. I found it hard to elaborate on a project when I didn’t even know what I was going to do for it and, as a result, I found myself questioning, not only project, but the topic itself when I began working on the proposal. However, on the other hand, completing the research proposal assignment also prompted me to come up with more questions about my topic, thus, influencing me to dive into and immerse myself in the world of standardized testing similar to what we had been doing the whole year in our reading assignments.
The annotated bibliography assignment followed the proposal. This was the first step I took into serious inquiry in the world of testing. I began mulling over credible sources, analyzing and comparing the opinions of intellectual writers such as Alfie Kohn and Herbert Walberg while trying to sort out how my opinions would either coincide with or go against theirs in an argument. This assignment, essentially, connected back to both the daybook entries and the reading responses because it was based upon the premise of taking information, analyzing it and connecting it back to life or comparing it to my own opinions or ideas which is what I was required to do in all three assignments.
Next came the Academic Conversation paper, which was divided into two different segments. In this assignment I was basically assigned the task to compile all of my primary research in conjunction with my secondary research into an effective research piece that documented the ongoing debate in the world of standardized testing and how it related to the effectiveness of standardized testing to portray a student’s learning abilities and cognitive developments. In the Academic Conversation Draft One, I created a radio show skit in which I integrated all of my research into an actual conversation piece. I was very proud of the end product of this first draft because it exhibited a more creative genre of writing of which I was more privy to than just a regular academic essay. The Academic Conversation Draft One easily connected back to an in-class activity in which we discussed the elements of plays and dialogue and also looked at and discussed actual television show scripts. That particular in-class activity gave me the idea to structure my skit the way that I did while also providing me with a good example of what an actual dialogue piece should look like as I had never seen or written one before. In the Academic Conversation Draft Two portion of the Academic Conversation piece, I took my academic conversation draft one piece and converted into an academic essay. This piece actually took on a similar contextual value as the first draft, however, the structure of this piece differed greatly from the first. Significantly, I found that when I began to write the draft two piece, I became more analytical of my topic and I began to make connections from the topic itself to the real world. I also found myself connecting this portion of the piece back to a previous piece that we had read, blogged about and discussed earlier on in the year. I connected the premise of standardized testing and the rote skills that it imposes upon students back to a piece by Paulo Freire in which he described something known as the banking model of education. Overall, I think that this piece was the best product of my inquiry process because I, not only, integrated information from earlier on in the year into it to make a solid arguments but I also was able to apply skills such as analysis and research in order to get the piece completed.
Conclusively, I feel as if the skills that I developed while taking this course in conjunction with the activities themselves expounded upon one another. I was able to take something away from each assignment and entry and apply it to the next simply because I was never doing the same thing every time; I was continually learning and growing as a writer and inquirer. The overall experience in this course has taught me what it means to be a real “inquirer” while assuring me that it is perfectly natural to question the things around me; it means that I am only human.
When this course first began, I was introduced to in-class Daybook entries for the very first time. At first, I did not want to do these things because they seemed like an extreme waste of both time and effort. I thought that we would come to class and just jump right into in-depth discussion and debate, however, I was wrong. The daybook entries were actually my instructor’s way of getting the class into the mood to effectively evaluate, process, think about and analyze either pieces we had read the night before, quotes she wanted us to respond to or prompts that she had come up with herself. Needless to say, her approach worked; it actually got to the point where I looked forward to doing the daybook entries because they afforded me the right to free write in an attempt to wholeheartedly express all of my ideas and opinions given a certain topic without having to worry about being judged or- worse – graded on behalf of what I wrote.
Eventually, the daybook entries began to, essentially, transcend into the homework assignments, which, usually, consisted of composing reading responses in the form of blog posts. Every night, we would be assigned an article or literary piece to read and respond to on our blog pages answering whatever questions our instructor had provided in the context of the piece. As time passed, I began to notice how the daybook entries and blog posts began to mesh with one another as we would almost always follow up and discuss what we read about the very next day in class and, sometimes, we would even delve deeper into the piece collectively as a class. For example, we read a piece by Mike Rose which prompted an in-depth discussion on “what it meant to be average” and our own individual definitions of “average” in which I discovered just how much the word average differed in meaning from person to person.
As the course progressed, the reading and daybook entries began to lead me into my process of inquiry. The time eventually came when it was time to decide upon a topic for my inquiry project and I was very confused and, honestly, did not know what direction to take as far as the project was concerned. However, because we had read all of those pieces and held class discussions on a wide range of topics, I just decided to turn my focal point of inquiry onto a topic that I felt very strongly about which happened to be testing and, with that in mind I ran with it. I actually think that this is that moment that I honestly realized the collective effort that all of the assignments and class activities that we had completed prior to had played in preparing me to complete my inquiry project.
The first assignment in the inquiry project was the research proposal. This was the segment of the assignment that was the hardest for me because it forced me to both make a final decision as to what the actual topic of my inquiry would be and to elaborate on my ideas for the entire project. I found it hard to elaborate on a project when I didn’t even know what I was going to do for it and, as a result, I found myself questioning, not only project, but the topic itself when I began working on the proposal. However, on the other hand, completing the research proposal assignment also prompted me to come up with more questions about my topic, thus, influencing me to dive into and immerse myself in the world of standardized testing similar to what we had been doing the whole year in our reading assignments.
The annotated bibliography assignment followed the proposal. This was the first step I took into serious inquiry in the world of testing. I began mulling over credible sources, analyzing and comparing the opinions of intellectual writers such as Alfie Kohn and Herbert Walberg while trying to sort out how my opinions would either coincide with or go against theirs in an argument. This assignment, essentially, connected back to both the daybook entries and the reading responses because it was based upon the premise of taking information, analyzing it and connecting it back to life or comparing it to my own opinions or ideas which is what I was required to do in all three assignments.
Next came the Academic Conversation paper, which was divided into two different segments. In this assignment I was basically assigned the task to compile all of my primary research in conjunction with my secondary research into an effective research piece that documented the ongoing debate in the world of standardized testing and how it related to the effectiveness of standardized testing to portray a student’s learning abilities and cognitive developments. In the Academic Conversation Draft One, I created a radio show skit in which I integrated all of my research into an actual conversation piece. I was very proud of the end product of this first draft because it exhibited a more creative genre of writing of which I was more privy to than just a regular academic essay. The Academic Conversation Draft One easily connected back to an in-class activity in which we discussed the elements of plays and dialogue and also looked at and discussed actual television show scripts. That particular in-class activity gave me the idea to structure my skit the way that I did while also providing me with a good example of what an actual dialogue piece should look like as I had never seen or written one before. In the Academic Conversation Draft Two portion of the Academic Conversation piece, I took my academic conversation draft one piece and converted into an academic essay. This piece actually took on a similar contextual value as the first draft, however, the structure of this piece differed greatly from the first. Significantly, I found that when I began to write the draft two piece, I became more analytical of my topic and I began to make connections from the topic itself to the real world. I also found myself connecting this portion of the piece back to a previous piece that we had read, blogged about and discussed earlier on in the year. I connected the premise of standardized testing and the rote skills that it imposes upon students back to a piece by Paulo Freire in which he described something known as the banking model of education. Overall, I think that this piece was the best product of my inquiry process because I, not only, integrated information from earlier on in the year into it to make a solid arguments but I also was able to apply skills such as analysis and research in order to get the piece completed.
Conclusively, I feel as if the skills that I developed while taking this course in conjunction with the activities themselves expounded upon one another. I was able to take something away from each assignment and entry and apply it to the next simply because I was never doing the same thing every time; I was continually learning and growing as a writer and inquirer. The overall experience in this course has taught me what it means to be a real “inquirer” while assuring me that it is perfectly natural to question the things around me; it means that I am only human.