CWC on Thesis writing...my thoughts on it...

I always like showing off the thesis for my M.A. in history. I like the fact that it's bound with a cool, black hardcover and gold lettering. And it's not thin either! I call it "My Book." It really impresses the ladies (well, the ones who haven't had to write their own thesis) and its fun at parties!

I wrote my history thesis on how computer games, that are primarily designed for entertainment, present history. I could go on and on about what I concluded, but that's not what our CWC was about: it's how I wrote it. So...what happened?

I had the idea for quite some time while working on the degree's coursework. I wanted to examine computer games and how history is told through them. I knew my first step would be to do research. But what to research? This is where I didn't do as much planning as I should have in terms of the general concept: what would I be arguing? I hadn't answered this question because I thought all I would do is play a couple history games and do case studies on them. I played games like Colonization, Oregon Trail, and Railroad Tycoon. Therefore, I researched the subjects the games addressed: colonizing the new world, America's westward expansion, and the railroad business.

This strategy was lacking because I knew it wouldn't be a proper thesis: it would be a computer game report (ala book reports) and not worthy of being printed in any scholarly forum (maybe in a computer game magazine though). My next strategy was to examine computer game design, and I found this to be much more rewarding. I also started taking copious notes, but their abundance hid the meat of the subject: what was I trying to argue? By studying game design, I came up with three of the four main topics in my thesis: computer game categories (there are many, many different kinds of games), what makes a computer game good, and the influence of algorithms (mostly AI and random number generation) on a computer games ability to tell (retell) history. I also started to cast a wider net on sources: I trolled computer game magazines for insight into the computer gaming world and what issues they deal with. I also started looking at technical books on game theory, then I moved on to books on programming/designing artificial intelligence and random number generation. All the while taking copious notes. I also formed basic outlines and started to "just write." I would start writing on a topic in my outline and not really care where it was going: it was like brainstorming. Keep the good and delete the bad.

But I had two big problems as a result of this: how did this apply to the telling of history, and what to do with all the notes I took! The first problem I addressed by reading books on historiography: the history of history. Where did computer games fit in the telling of history (this is also where I got my title from: Virtual Historiography)? The second problem was just tedious: I took my notebooks of notes, and wrote each citation on a note card. My only regret of the last strategy was that I should have used color coded note cards! But by putting them on note cards and dividing them into topics and sub-topics, I was able to visually organize my arguments. After this last step, I was able to take my meandering ramblings from my "just write" something phase and re-rewrite them to comply with what I found (and I had to change my own pre-conceptions of history and computer games as a result! I really surprised myself!). So, by following my outline, organizing my note cards, but most importantly, rewriting what I already wrote, I was able to form a cohesive argument about computer games and history!

If I were to do it all over again, I would meditate more on what I wanted the thesis to be, form a crude outline, think more about where and what my sources/research was taking me, take notes directly on note cards from my sources, I would "just write" again, and be more systematic in how I revised my writings. I don't know if I'm a good model for thesis writing, but it was definitely the most generative exercise I've ever encountered!!!

Workshop on Bullying...a trip down memory lane...

Oh man, was that a good workshop! It was a walk, a painful walk, down memory lane for me! I've rarely been the bully (yea, I admit picking on smaller kids, but it was definitely a rare occasion that this happened: and if it did, it was with new kids who I didn't know that well...), but there were many times that I have been bullied. I've never been the biggest or smallest kid on the block, but I've always had a laid back, pacificist mentality to person confrontation. If I can avoid confrontation, I usually will!

The two bullies that stand out most in my mind are Pat S. in the seventh grade, and Damon L. in the 10th and 11th grades. The worst of the two was Pat: he had set up a devious routine. If I did something wrong or affront him some how, he would assign punches to it. Let's say, I made fun of him somehow, that was worth 10 punches (unless it was an especially good zing, then I got more). I could either accumulate or eliminate my punch count by being bad/annoying or good to him, respectively. It was all very arbitrary anyway. At a certain point, he would decide to cash in his punches and start hitting my upper arm (usually my right). All through seventh grade I had a bruise on my right arm...it really sucked. I don't know why I never stuck up for myself or fought back. He was more popular than I, and I was afraid of the consequences: I didn't want to get detention, grounded, or suspended. Luckily, he moved away and I didn't have to worry about him anymore. Damon was very different, it was more passive aggressive bullying: he was a big black guy and I was his "Koozbaby." In other words, his bitch: but not in the prison way, but in the, "He pretended to like me and flirt with me" to make me feel uncomfortable. It was very disconcerting. I really couldn't stop him because he was twice my size and I didn't want to really want him to snap and beat me up (It wouldn't have been pretty). But then again, others wouldn't mess with me because they didn't want Damon to kick their ass (although I never really tested that theory).

So what did the workshop teach me? Well, that I need to be a bit more assertive in preventing violence and bullying. I wasn't surprised that bullying wasn't necessarily perpetrated by a loner (as my bullies were very popular). At the Science Center, I don't see any bullying amongst the adults, although I am more aware of what forms it could take, and since I work with kids of all sizes, I know I shouldn't use my size as way to influence a kids impression of me. I know I don't consciously do this, but if it's perceived that way, it would be a problem. I do see other kids make fun of each other, and of course, the bigger kids telling the smaller ones what to do: I make sure to politely correct such behavior, but if it's bad, I know to go to his or her chaperone. I also referee at robotics competitions, and I need to make sure I don't come off as aggressive to the participants or their mentors because that's not in the spirit of the robotics competition. And vice versa, I think I'm more aware of students bullying other students in the competition (as opposed to working together or taking good direction from another team member). Overall, the bullying workshop was fantastic and the people who did it knew what they were talking about!

Chapter 13: Writing

Chapter 13 was probably one of the more fascinating chapters in this book! I agree with Bruning that writing requires that all cognitive functions to work! The Flower and Hayes model of writing could be placed on top of the cognitive function models from one of the first chapters. When we write, we must use our long term memory to recall what we want to write about and it also provides the knowledge of how we are going to write about our topic. Short term/working memory focuses on the words and grammar we will need to express individual ideas and then applying our long term memory's "plan" to generate and organize the flow of ideas. Finally, we have the task environment: this describes the exterior factors that influence our writing. For example, what material do have for research, what is the writing assignment about, how long the assignment is, and what medium we have to write on to name a few. One thing I wish this model would have included, and this is important for young learners, is the dexterity needed to write (or type, as the case may be). It may be that good hand writing translates into good writing in general (and if this is true, I'm in deep trouble). I also wonder if dexterity would fit in the working or long term memory, but maybe, it's a part of both....

What does this model tell me about my own writing? Well, I would make the general observation that I am not a prolific writer: I don't and haven't written as much as I should in order to be good at it. Whether speaking or writing, I've found my working memory to be a limiting factor as I struggle to express what's going on in my head. Constantly forgetting what I'm trying to convey or how I was going to organize it. I know I don't plan nor review my writing enough to become a good writer: Bruning would describe me as a knowledge teller. Although I would hope to say that I can do more than string some ideas together, I really don't take the time to make an abstract road map of what I need to say: well, let me take that back, on longer assignments, I do write outlines, but on shorter writing assignments such as this journal or the items within my outline, I know I organize them sequentially instead of conceptually. Well, I guess I have more work to do on this front!

Chapter 12

Bruning recognizes three different models that describe the reading process: Data-driven, conceptually driven, and interactive processes. As a side note, I'm glad he continues to use computer metaphors!

The data-driven model describes how reading is a mechanical process that can be studied by following a reader's eye movements. Instead of reading word by word, you focus on one or two letters then move on to the next group of letters until you focus on another letter group (it's called the saccade). Meaning is gathered by matching patterns of letters and patterns of words (and sentence patterns) to already known patterns of meaning. It's a very linear process.

The conceptually driven model flips the data-driven model around: instead of patterns driving meaning, knowledge drives meaning. One's schema (knowledge and expectations of the text) drives reading comprehension. Basically, if you have no knowledge of a concept or object, how would you expect to read or comprehend a word that describes said concept or object?! Poor reading is more likely a result of a lack of knowledge (world knowledge is described later in the chapter) than an inability to piece sequential patterns together.

The third model, construction-integration, takes a middle of the road approach, and as a result, it's a much more reasonable model to defend. It takes the pattern recognition of the data-driven model and the application of knowledge in the conceptually driven model, and combines them into macro and micro structures. Microstructures refer to the word by word and sentence by sentence meaning while macrostructures refer to, as Bruning says, "the gist" of the text. We then construct the meaning of the text and then integrate that meaning into our long term knowledge: it's a recursive process that feeds upon itself. This would explain why extensive reading and regurgitating (which is described in the next chapter on writing) are so important to the cognitive development of children and adults.

Besides my observation on what this chapter means, but how does the chapter apply to me? As I mentioned earlier, my teachers didn't really teach many reading strategies after the fourth grade. Now, I'm not blaming them for my reading skills, but I have come to a realization recently: the slower I read, the less I comprehend the overall meaning of the text. As I read slower (at least as I interpret it through the text), my working memory works harder to retain the words I've just read and so "clock cycles" dedicated to overall meaning decline. The faster I read, the less I enjoy it, but I do get more meaning out of it: I understand it better. Last semester, we were reading Dewey's "Democracy and Education" and I found myself being able to discuss chapters, that I read in a fast manner (not quite skimming but not reading word for word), with a much better understanding of what Dewey was trying to say (instead of focusing on exactly what he said). Now I have some confirmation as why this is so...

What I learned about learning how to read....Chapter 11 (part 2)

I remember enjoying learning how to read, and I also believe that I can recall the process that my teachers used to teach me reading. From first and second grade, I definitely remember applying what Bruning calls the "alphabetic principle:" my teachers taught me the sounds the letters make and to identify those sounds in words. A more precise term is given later: the Phonetic-Cue Reading model. Although, our teachers were not as forgiving of misspelling as much as Bruning (or in this case, Bruning describing Ehri's models) would be seem to be. Around third and fourth grade, we started to learn about prefixes and what they could mean: bicycle and biplane are two words that come to mind. By the fourth and fifth grade though, I can't remember any teachers trying to model/demonstrate reading strategies....

As a general metalinguistic observation, I'm not a particularly strong reader (it was my lowest score on the ACT) and yet, I love to read. I actually had a hard time with page 250's decoding of the "Chronicle" passage. Although, I had taken some Russian history in the past and thought it was Cyrillic, I didn't really tackle it until I read a bit further. But once I "got it" decoding it was still a slow process. But going back to my self observation, I figure that I read to get better: I have always tried to make reading as automatic as possible. It also helps that I have a link to an online dictionary: if I'm not maintaining my personal dictionary, then I'm constantly looking words up to make sure their meaning is known and automatic. The automaticity of meaning is especially important for words where nuance or similarity in spelling plays a key role in decoding (like dichotomy and diametric...I've always confused the two).

As for what I do to teach kids how to read, the only child in my life that is really curious about reading is my best friend's daughter, Stella (She's 5). For the last two years, her parents and I have been reading to her...I always use my finger to point to the word I'm currently reading. Why? Well, that's how I remember being read to, I point to get her to realize that what I say comes directly from where my finger is on the page, and I hope she develops a sight recognition of the words. For the last several months, she has been identifying letters with sounds! Although I think I upset her mother when I explained what a question mark and an exclamation point looked like and what it meant. She thought it was too advanced for Stella: I thought I explained it very simply. Oh well, there's always their younger son and my nieces and nephew to see what else I can do to facilitate their journey into the written word.