Blog 8

Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)

Detailed statement of your research question

List of the information you need to gather

A preliminary list of sources

Plan for gathering your information that includes:

·         who/what you will be studying (for example:. students in a College Composition class, how they think about the comments teachers write on their papers)

·         where you will collect your information (for example:. in interviews at Kean University)

·         how many subjects you will study (for example:. 3)

what methods you will use to conduct your study (for example:. interviews, textual analysis, discourse analysis)

Statement of purpose
This study will examine the social acceptance of student loan debt in the U.S.

Detailed statement of your research question
Why has taken out loans to pay for education become a social norm in society?
Why is it socially acceptable to accrue immense debt to attain a degree?

List of information you need to gather
Look into;
Power structures
Student identities, what it currently means to be a student
Effects of loans on;
Picking school, picking major
How debt delays normal life processes like getting married, having kids, buying a house.

List of sources

Plan for gathering information
Interview 3-5 students on their current knowledge of their loans
-who told you to take out a loan
-how was it said, addressed
Survey students on how debt affects their lives

Blog # 6

Blog 6:  In class we talked about the differences among a topic, a focus, and the particular research quesstions you might ask as you conduct your research.  Each of you are in a different place in terms of developing your project - but where every you are - write into your material as far as you can go in terms of your topic, the specific focus you want to take to that topic, and (if possible) what in particular you want to find out within that focus = what you want to do in your study (your research questions = what you will ask about your data).  The more you write - the more we have to work with.


These are the topics I have so far...


1. Should people on Welfare be drug tested?
Points to be made..
-It is unfair to the children who are supported by welfare.(increase in foster care which taxpayers have to pay for)(seems counter-productive)
-It is an invasion of privacy.
-It doesn't fix the problem of poverty which is the real issue behind welfare.
- Is it another form of control?
-Is it a racially charged issue?


2.Should Churches pay taxes and what would this do to the economy?


3.Should courses on managing student loan debt be taught in High School?
-Student loan debt for most people is the first debt we have to deal with in our adult lives so it is the duty of education to prepare us for what is to come.
-How this delays normal life patterns(having kids, buying a house, etc.)

Blog #5

First 

Talked about 2-3 minutes

Brenda and David

Brenda is a bilingual major

Talked a lot kind of fast I think she was nervous rightfully so because this assignment was awkward.

I tried not to start the conversations but then silence tightened the interaction up.

Things I remembered later = David actually took command of the conversation by pointing out how awkward the assignment was.

Second

About 2 -3minutes into activity

Adrian is also and English major on the writing track who is a junior so he knows the deal with kean more experience

I tried not to start the conversations but then silence tightened the interaction up.

We talked about issues with credits at Kean which seemed to annoy him 

He was confident while speaking

Field notes

-after being forced to talked to random classmates, eventually students migrated back to people they were comfortable with.

-the assignment was uncomfortable at some points

-body language was hard to judge since everyone was recording what was being said (not natural)

-Looking back I should have not said a word and focused primarily on interactions around me

-The situation made me a little uncomfortable and distracted me from collecting accurate data

Blog #4

Our class may not be a discourse community simply because as a teacher you have to much command and power over the group. Discourse communities are filled with strong minded people who like to help guide conversations but it is a not a job that you get paid to do. As a teacher who gets paid I think it violates whether or not we can be viewed as a true discourse community.

This is not to say that we do not share a lot of similarities with discourse communities. We have genres of communication like blogs, emails, group work, and basic speech in class. These mechanisms aid us in getting feedback and correct information about topics. We also maintain a certain classroom etiquette when addressing the teacher and class mates, Our class also relies on correct terminology to validate our knowledge on a subject(lexis). Lastly, we have an expert that can give us the correct answers in the teacher who acts as a mediator of discussion. However, the role of the teacher in the class is such a powerful governing body that it may be too big an influence for me to label our class discourse community.

Blog # 3

Blog 3:  Identify and define (in your own words)  any the terms we have been developing for use in   language analysis.  The point here is not necessarily to be correct (this is not a test), rather it is to give me a chance to see what you are thinking/learning and supply language/direction if you want/need it.

Even after reading Swales's convoluted excerpt, I still feel I have a firm grasp on the language we have used in class. Although the word "discourse" can be a very confusing term, to me it it means a platform for communicating and debating topics of interest in efforts to further knowledge about the genre or topic. The only problem I have is in differentiating between discourse communities and speech communities. They seem to be very closely related, and to pose a difference between the two seems like splitting hairs.