Response to Flynn articles

Reading these articles was a bit frustrating because I don't really like feminists.  However, they did introduce new ideas to think about.  One of which is the idea that males and females write differently.  Not only do they write differently, but they write about different things.  I see how she compared the essays, and I understand her point of view.  But, I also think that both males and females are capable of writing the same quality paper.  Everybody has different writing styles, and I think there are plenty of males out there who can write a paper better than I can because I'm not afraid to admit that writing just isn't my thing.

project 3 peer review examle

This paper is about the Athens music community and how it works as a Discourse community.  I thought it was a good topic for the assigned ethnography.  In the paper he explains what the AMC is and what they do.  Another topic discussed is the interview conducted, and the answers given.
I thought the paper was well written.  However, one of the first things to pop out at me was that after a good introduction, the first paragraph is rather short.  I think there could be more detail added when explaining what the AMC is.  He makes very general points and for someone who has never heard of it before, they may be wanting to read more into it.  I do however think he did a good job incorporating the sources form the book.  I also thought it was good that we were provided with the questions used for the interviews.  This helps us to understand where the answers given are coming from.  I also felt that the analysis of the interview really brought it all together.  One last thing I think could use some improvement is that instead of telling us where the conclusion, analysis, etc. is, he should maybe find a way to transition it so it flows, yet we know where the paper is trying to take us.

intro/synthesis for project 3

In the article "Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics", James Paul Gee, Professor of Reading at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, discusses the importance of Discourses.  He describes them as "ways of being in the world" or "saying (writing)-doing-being-valuing-believing combinations".  We use Discourses in our everyday life as as way to communicate with others.  There is more than one type of Discourse.  Some of the different types are dominant, non dominant, primary, and secondary to name a few.
In the article Gee says that we are never "'purely' members of a single Discourse but, rather, that a given Discourse is influenced by other Discourses of which we're also members".  What he is saying is that we may not ever be able to fully be a part of one single Discourse because it is effected by so many other Discourses.

proposal for project 3

For project three I plan to use my learning community as my discourse community.  It is a group that I am very involved in, and I see them quite often therefore making it easy to find someone to interview.  Also, since I am so involved I will be able to easily write about it.

peer review for project 2

I found this paper to mainly be about the way Dr. Seuss affected our literacy as we were children.  One argument made was that no matter how good some other children's books may be, they do not teach us nearly as much as Dr. Seuss books did.  Even though they were fun and colorful, they all had a deeper meaning to teach us different lessons in each one.
I liked the opening of this paper because it catches your attention.  Almost everyone can relate to Dr. Seuss so you are immediately drawn to read the rest of the paper.  Another good quality of this project is the twitter page created.  It really brings together the mood they are trying to set my incorporating Dr. Seuss.  The background provided about his books is good, however there are a few spots with a shaky transition.  The survey was a good way to keep your attention.  I also like that each member f the group gave their response to the results rather than just putting them there for us to figure out on our own.  I would suggest however, that more detail be added to the actual writing portion of the paper.

Dialectical Journal for Gee

"'Language' is a misleading term; it too often suggests "grammar."  It is a truism that a person can know perfectly the grammar of a language and not know how to use that language."
-This is saying that when one discusses language it is often assumed that with language comes grammar.  This however is not true because these days especially, proper grammar is a big problem.  Just because one knows the English language, it doesn't necessarily mean they will have the grammar down.

"At any moment we are using language we must say or write the right thing in the right way while playing the right social role and (appearing) to hold the right values, beliefs, and attitudes."
-If we are going to use language we must be able to use it correctly.  If you use it incorrectly people can't understand what you are saying.  This not only contributes to how we speak, but also how we act, dress, and how our values, beliefs, attitudes, etc. are portrayed.

"A Discourse is a sort of "identity kit" which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act, talk, and often write, so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize."
-A Discourse is what defines our role in society.  Examples of this are doctor, teacher, student, member of a club, regular at a local bar, etc.

"After our initial socialization in our home community, each of us interacts with various non-home-based social institutions-institutions in the public sphere, beyond the family and immediate kin and peer group."
This is when we reach out to groups other than our families.
-examples: churches, schools, community groups

Dialectical Journal for Swales

"We need then to clarify, for procedural purposes, what is to be understood by discourse community and, perhaps in the present circumstances, it is better to offer a set of criteria sufficiently narrow that it will eliminate many of the marginal, blurred and controversial contenders."

-This quote is simply forcing us to understand what a discourse community is.  We need to recognize that the definition can be confused and this passage is trying to explain that to us.  It sets the guidelines that we need to know to choose a discourse community for project three.

"A 'strong' list of crieria will also avoid the circularity problem, because in consequence it will certainly follow that not all communities-as defined on other criteria-will be discourse communities, just as it will follow that not all discourse activity is relevant to discourse community consolidation."

-This tells us the importance of having criteria for discourse communities.  By having a list, we have something to help us determine if a group is a discourse community or not.  Also, some things within a discourse community may not fit the criteria so we must be able to decide what is and what isn't.

"A speech community is defined, then, tautologically but radically, as a community sharing knowledge of rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech.  Such sharing comprises knowledge of at least one form of speech, and knowledge also of its patterns of use.  Both conditions are necessary."

-A speech community is when as a group you mutually have the same understanding of speech.  

Dialectical Journal for Brandt

"Literacy looms as one of the great engines of profit and competitive advantage in the 20th century: a lubricant for consumer desire; a means for integrating corporate markets; a foundation for the deployment of weapons and other technology; a raw material in mass production of information."
-This is saying that literacy is a big part of our lives in a number of ways.  Without literacy we would not be able to do anything.  It is a way of communicating and bringing people together for different reasons.  Literacy is like the backbone of our society and everything we do.  The last sentence is saying that information can not be spread without it.  It is essentially the key ingredient to the recipe of information.

"Intuitively, sponsors seemed a fitting term for the figures who turned up most typically in people's memories of literacy learning: old relatives, teachers, priests, supervisors, military officers, editors, influential authors."
-In this quote, Brandt is describing the way we look at how our literacy history is affected.  A sponsor can mean many different things, the most general way to look at it is the way a sponsor helps us and supports us.  This relates back to this statement and our literacy because the people who affected our literacy when we were younger can be considered our "literary sponsor".

"A focus on sponsorship can force a more explicit and substantive link between literacy learning and systems of opportunity and access."
-The point this statement is trying to make is that when you look at your literacy sponsor, you can see a connection between them and your opportunity at literacy.  If you have a number of good supportive sponsors, then you have a good opportunity at literacy.  However, if there is no on to support you literacy, you will not have the same access to it as others.

Peer Review

http://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/jtla/article/viewFile/1661/1503

http://www.newsroom101.com/longleaf/ggrow/computerbad.html

http://www.ehow.com/info_8010737_effects-computers-language-communication.html

http://www.vantagelearning.com/docs/articles/learning.national.ascd.200304.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/01/technology/where-the-pc-is-mightier-than-the-pen.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/19387.php

http://www.bc.edu/research/intasc/PDF/ComputerVsPaperStateWriting.pdf

http://www.uncstorylab.org/2012/03/computers-help-rather-than-hurt-writing/

          Do you think the effects of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media impact your writing in any way? How does the fact that you have to condense your thoughts into a certain number of words make your writing better or worse? Our research paper talks about how social media can affect our writing skills by shortening our sentences, making our writing informal, and impacting our spelling in a negative way.  Social networks are taking the place of idle time, like reading and writing; instead of reading a book, people are on Facebook or they are instant messaging.  Our main question is does social media have a negative or positive affect on writing as a whole.

The conversation we are presented with has become a big issue in today’s society.  With the ever growing technology in today’s world, the way students are taught today has made a complete turnaround.  Not only do students have access to many different technologies these days, but they are available to them at a much younger age.  When young children are getting cell phones, smart phones especially, it pushes them into social media.  With the convenience of having it right at their fingertips, they are getting twitters, facebooks, tumblrs, pinterests, etc. at a much younger age than what we are used to.  With this happening, it is just causing students to be turned away from literature as they are more distracted with their social media. 

However, with the growing technology, more and more things are being put online.  With the much easier access, students can be browsing the web on social media sites, but still have a reading pulled on a different tab.  Social media itself can be argued as literature.  We read a heavy amount as we scroll through our facebook and twitter feed.  Therefore, one can argue that even though social media distracts us from the old style of literature, it replaces it with a more efficient way to get our information fast.  In a study conducted in Great Britain in 2010, it is proved that social media is actually helping students literacy.

“According to one of the studies, 49 per cent of young people believe that writing is “boring.” However, students who use technology-based texts such as blogs have more positive attitudes toward writing. Whereas 60 per cent of bloggers say that they enjoy writing, only 40 per cent of non-bloggers find writing enjoyable. “

“The study also showed that students who write blogs or maintain a profile on a social networking site tend to be more confident about their writing ability. More than 60 per cent of students who blog and 56 per cent of students who have a profile on a social networking site claim to be “good” or “very good” writers, compared with only 47 per cent of those who don’t use online formats. Having a blog also affects writing behaviour. Students who are active online are significantly more likely to keep a journal or write short stories, letters or song lyrics than those without a social networking presence.“

These statistics show can be schoking to some.  Not everybody likes the way literacy is changing and seeing these stastitics can throw them off because they want to believe that social media is only making writing worse.  As these studies have shown, that is not the case.  If a student is reading and writing all day long on their social media sites, they are being automatically exposed to reading and writing.  Without such sites, who knows if they would even pick up a book because they would be more ditracted by technology such as video games where the student is not being exposed to literature at all. 

In the article, the author discusses the difference between how he wrote when he was a kid and how kids write now.  When he was younger he was writing in a journal to himself; it stayed in his drawer and no one was reading it.  Today, that is so much different.  With the internet and social media, young students are able to write for an audience.  When they start out at a young age writing for an audience, they can become more confident with their writing and it will only continue to improve.

http://www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/The%20Learning%20Team/Volume-14/Number-1/Pages/Can-social-networking-boost-literacy-skills.aspx

Another study we look at provides us with shocking evidence against a norm of social media on literacy.  It is not uncommon to hear people saying that social media effects how we spell in a bad way.  However, if we take a look at these reults, we can see otherwise.

“In a recent study of  9-10 year olds results show that there was a positive relationship between the use of ‘textisms’ (text speak) and an improvement in spelling and overall literacy skills (Wood 2011).  114 children took part and were tested both before and after the 10 week experiment.  Spelling scores were higher in a majority of students after having use of a mobile phone and using text speak to communicate. “

Although the results are shocking, the more it is thought about, the more it can make sense.  If i young student is on their phone texting, tweeting, and reading what other people are saying, they are exposed to literacy more than we are led to believe.  The more they are exposed to it, the better they will become with it.

http://escalate.ac.uk/downloads/8298.pdf

This issue has a number of good arguments on both side of the line.  In the end, the way you perceive it(good or bad) is all up to you.  Some are a fan of the ways literacy is being changed so they learn to adapt while others continue to believe in the old ways.

          Our question has multiple answers. There are both positive and negative effects on how social media effects are writing skills. According to a study by both The University of Massachusetts and Boston College computers can help with writing in many ways. Students who use computers for schools related tasks are often more engaged then students who do schoolwork by hand. The simple fact that computers give students automatic feedback helps them to improve their writing skills. When you are writing an assignment by hand you can not see the spelling and grammatical errors you have made, but if you are using a computer you can use software like Microsoft Word to check your mistakes for you. Another study conducted by The University of Massachusetts and Boston College showed that students who use a computer to write on a regular basis have higher standardized text scores than those students who do not use computers to write.

            Although social media may have some positive influence on one’s writing ability, social media also contains negative influence.  Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterist, and Tumblr are all very interesting, yet distracting; this can take away from idle time like reading and writing.  Instead of reading a book or writing in a journal or diary, people are on Facebook reading statuses or on Twitter expressing their opinions (in 140 characters or less).  Facebook and Twitter are breeding grounds for bad grammar and punctuation.  People are too caught up in what they’re saying to care about spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.  When scrolling down my Twitter timeline, I found these tweets from actual people that prove the fact that proper writing etiquette is not used through social networking sites.  According to Frank Re, “yeah you make me feel like, I’ve been locked out of Heavennnn” (10/18/12 1:47 PM).  Look at all of the errors in his tweet: he failed to capitalize the first letter of this sentence (but he capitalizes “heaven”), he put an unnecessary comma after the word “like”, and spelled “heaven” with four N’s.  Another tweet I found, from Shaela Lewis, states, “Yu don’t hate me u hate how much u love me” (10/18/12, 1:31 PM).  Where to begin with this tweet; she spells the word “you” as “yu” and “u”, and her tweet lacks a comma after the word “me” as well as a period.  Even going through my tweets I found multiple writing errors.  For example, I tweeted, “Anthropology y u so expensive” (10/6/12, 4:08 PM).  This tweet contains multiple spelling and grammar errors, like the word “why” and “you” being spelled as “y” and “u”.  Also, this sentence is missing a verb (“are”) and since I am addressing the store Anthropologie (the store is spelled with an “ie” so technically I spelled the name of the store wrong, too) there should be a comma following that word.  Social networking sites are full of all sorts of writing errors, and writing repeatedly like this can become habit forming and bad for your writing. 

          The topic we have researched on effects of social media on our writing today is very relevant in today’s society.  Many of children, teenager and even adults have been impacted by the outcome of social media on writing skills. The amount of individuals logging onto social media websites is rapidly increasing, therefore making this topic more insightful to many people today. We have found negative effects such as it has made writing more concise. On websites such as Twitter there can only be a certain number of characteristics to write and this causes students to not write full out and get lazy in grammar and punctuation. Further research that could be done on this question to get further conclusions could logging onto students Facebook’s and Twitter’s to actually see what kind of effect these social medias have had on their grammar. Also by researching and taking polls in a certain area we can get a better understanding of how many people this research project is really effecting.

           http://www.facebook.com/erica.abbychloe

           

           

10-8-12 Homework

This is a good example of contrast because the black figure on a light color attracts your attention immediately.  There is also contrast with the white cord/ipod on the black figure and green background.  I see repetition in the bracelet on the dancers arm.  There is also alignment leading from the dancers hand to the earphones.  The proximity is seen through the iPod and earphones being close to her body.  
We are reading this to show that there are different ways to perceive things.  This can be carried over to our writing because different people may perceive the things we write in different ways.

10-5-12 Homework

Dialetical Journal-From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies (Dennis Baron)

"The computer, the latest development in writing technology, promises, or threatens, to change literacy practices for better or worse, depending on your point of view."
-These days we rely on technology for just about anything.  For some this is a good thing, and for others this is a bad thing.  Like said in this quote, it is all dependent on your point of view.  When writing a paper, you can sit down with a pen and paper or you can sit down at the computer.  Personally, I sit down at the computer, so in my opion technology is changing literacy for the better.  This has a lot to do with the generatrion in which we were raised.  Literacy is in a constant change and we must adapt.

"The computer is also touted as a gateway to literacy."
-With the groewing technology that we are provided with in our everyday lives, it has become easier to access reading and writing through technology.  We no longer have to get ourselves to the library or book store to get a book.  So many books can be found online, causing the computer to be our gateway to literacy.

"Whether it consists of energized particles on a screen or ink embedded in paper or lines gouged into clay tablets, writing itself is always first and foremost a technology, a way of engineering materials in order to accomplish an end."
-Writing is essentially us taking the ideas in our head and creating something.  Through our writing we are acomplishing something, just as technology does.  However, writing came before all of our many technologies we have today.

"While brave new literacy technologies offer new opportunities for producting and manipulating text, they also present new opportunities for fraud."
-All of the technologies we have open us up to a number of opportunites.  However, with everything being put online these days it is easy to find other people's works to copy and paste into your own.  We have the easy answer to writers block at the tips of our fingers so we must learn to work around this.

"The pencil may be old, but like the computer today and the telegraph in 1849, it is an indisputable example of communication technology."
-We always have to start somewhere with technology and it is constantly growing.  Before we had computers, we have a pencil and paper.  Simple as that.

"The development of the pencil is also a paradigm of the development of literacy."
-A pencil is technology, when technology grows, literacy grows.  Technology and literacy work together to develop and grow everyday. 

"shitty first draft"

I can still remember learning to write my name in kindergarden.  We would be given a piece of paper and asked to write our name five times.  Little did I know that those days would shape the lazy writer I would become today.  It would go something like this: Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Libby, Libby, Libby.  When asked why I did this I said it was because Elizabeth was too long to write.  When I look at my writing today I realize how lazy I am with it.  If something is too long then I am immediately turned off by it.

10-3-12 Homework

Summary:
The readings are both narratives/autobiographies discussing the authors writings.  We see that there are so many things that shape how we write.  Through these readings we see what it too these writers to get to where they are now.   They share their experience with us in order to help us get to where we think we need to be.

Synthesis:
This works with the other readings because they are all about how we write.  This reading brings it all together by discussing how we become to write the way we do.

QDJ:
1. When she says she wanted to "kill" her self in her writing she meant that she wanted to start over.  By writing about it and getting it all out she is able to get a fresh start.  Writing her autobiography was her way of moving on from the past.

2. Bio-mythography is when your writing is fiction and autobiography.  I think her work is an example of this because how does one remember every detail exactly.  Somewhere in your writing something will be made up.

3. She uses the imagine of a man she knew to frame her autobiography.  She describes a number of things about him in detail and I feel as if I am able to see him.  I would use the images from my early education years for my own.

AEI:
2. I think we can change identity through text because when you write you can do and say whatever you want.  This can especially be achieved through fictional writing.  You can make yourself into a character and then write it however you want.

Personal Reflection:
I liked this reading because it helps bring us to the next project.  It got me thinking about how my writing became what it is.  After reading this I began brainstorming in my head what I would write about for our next paper.

10-1-12 Homework

Dialectical Journal

"Literacy looms as one of the great engines of profit and competitive advantage in the 20th century: a lubricant for consumer desire; a means for integrating corporate markets; a foundation for the deployment of weapons and other technology; a raw material in the mass production of information."

This quote is saying that without literacy we would be missing a key component of life.  The spread of information is very important to our everyday lives be it through books, newspapers, magazines, etc, and without literacy we would not be able to do this.  It is a competitive advantage because literacy is power. 

"Sponsors, as I have come to think of them, are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy-and gain advantage by it in some way."

For how important literacy is these days, it wouldn't be possible without help.  Even though some of us may have taught ourselves to read, someone has helped us read or write at some point in our lives.  Brandt describes sponsors in a fairly broad sense because help can come from anybody and everybody, as well as anywhere and everywhere.

The Critique of the Five-Paragaph Essay

The Critique of the Five-Paragraph Essay

The five-paragraph essay, a method we have been taught for years, but is it really effective?  I say no.  It is confusing as a student when we are being told to write an in depth paper, yet we are given a limit on how much we are able to express in our writing.  If you are able to fit your entire paper into five paragraphs, chances are you are not saying enough, or it is poorly set up.  It is important that you present the argument, as well as showing the counter argument.  After you do that, you should prove why the counter argument is wrong.  Now we will see why it should take more than five paragraphs to create your paper.

In the article “The Ill effects of the Five Paragraph Essay”, Kimberly Wesley argues that it is more effective to teach the essay in three parts, the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.  If students are being taught to write in a set number of paragraphs, they are extremely limited.  The length of a paper depends a lot on the topic.  Some topics can require the introduction to have more than one paragraph where as others just require the typical one paragraph.  The body paragraphs can serve a variety of reasons.  It is not just to present your point of view, you can use them to define terms, review the reading, present and analyze the evidence for your topic, and arguing the opposing views.

9-19-12 Homework

Summary:
This reading focusses on how people perceive what they are reading.  A good example of this is ads.  The concept of gestalt is discussed, showing that there is different ways we interpret the ads we are looking at.  If there are a group of words or pictures close together, gestalt says that we will group them together.  When you group them together you are getting the message faster because you are seeing it as one big picture.  It is also important to choose your font and size of the font wisely.  The big text can capture the eye and bring you in to read the rest of it.

Synthesis:
This can be related back to our other readings because when we are choosing a text four our research, we are more likely to reading something that stands out and catches our eye.  Not only do we have to be smart about our writing, but we have to be smart about what we choose to write about.  The articles we choose to research will shape our paper so we need to choose one that stands out.

QDJ:
4.) I believe you are supposed to write an essay that follows a specific format because our papers need to be organized.  If you just wrote in a completely unplanned pattern your work would be sloppy and all over the place.  Having a format is a good way to place each thought where it needs to be in order to create a meaningful text.

AEI:
3.) Gestalt is focussing attention on the total visual impact of the text on a prospective reader.  The second definition of gestalt is good continuation.  This means that our visual perception pulls figures out of the background to give them definition in the undistinguished field they are in.  The third law of gestalt is closure.  This simply means filling in the gaps of what we do not see.  The fourth law of gestalt is the law of similarity.  This is when we see resemblance in shape, size, color, or direction and we group them together.  Knowing the definition helps us to understand what the article is talking about because it helps us to follow along.

9-17-12 Homework

IWA:
The concept of intertextuality is not a new one.  This says that all texts have somehow come from other texts, more or less that no writing is original.  In this article, one main document discussed is the Declaration of Independence.  When examined closely it can be said that Thomas Jefferson took ideas from other documents previous to his.  If it weren't for intertextuality, he could be charged with plagiarism based on today's standards.  We are taught to be creative and original with our own writing however, intertextuality challenges that.  I find this reading to tie back to what we have been learning because we are constantly reading about how to make your work your own.  With all the information we have available to us today, it is hard to be creative and original with your work.  It is tempting to model our writing after other works, but we are constantly being taught that we have to write our own thoughts.  This reading relates to our other readings, but also contradicts it as it tells us it is hard not to model our writing after others.
pre-reading: When I think about the difference between an author and a writer, I associate an author with a novel and a writer with essays and education texts.  I would use the term author to describe somebody who is publishing a fictional book that takes our minds to another world.  I would describe a writer as someone writing shorter pieces that are mostly educational.  For example, somebody who writes and essay is someone I would consider a writer.
list of ways I get help in writing:
my mom because she is a teacher
my friends
teachers
my neighbor because he used to be my english teacher

QDJ:
4.) The way Porter argues writing should be evaluated is different than how I thought.  In my mind the writer would be writing for themselves and not what other people think.  It is important to please your reader but that doesn't mean you shouldn't write for yourself.  You can't please everybody when you write so I don't think you should write just for your audience.  However, I feel like in the past my writing has been evaluated this way because we are always being told exactly what and how to write.  In high school papers I always felt I had to write to fit the teachers needs rather than what I actually wanted to write.
5.) I think his article reflects well on what he is trying to say.  The simple fact that there is a works cited page shows that he used other works to create his own.  He did not plagiarize, he made his own point, but he used other works to help make his point.  According to his theory on intertextuality, this is okay to do.

AEI:
2. "If a student uses the help of another work for their paper, it is okay as long as it is cited."  This is somewhat similar to the policy now.  If it is cited then it is not considered plagiarism.  However, with Porter's argument, it is okay to use other works into your own.  The way it is now we are constantly being told that we must create the entire thing to be our own thoughts.

Meta Moment:
Porter's study definitely changed the way I look at writers.  I always assumed they came up with everything on their own.  I now see that they do have help because sometimes you can't make your point without the help of others.  It would change the way I would write because I wouldn't have so much pressure to make everything up on my own.  Sometimes I ramble in my writing because I know that everything I say needs to be my own.  With the help of other works, I would't have to ramble so much to make a point.

9-12-12 Homework

Informal Writing Assignment:
Just because you like to write doesn't necessarily mean you are good at it.  When it comes to writing we are constantly learning new things and growing in our writing along the way.  One way we can improve our own writing is by imitation.  If we follow the strategies proven successful by other writers, we can write a better paper of our own.  This is in relation to our other readings because what we have learned so far is that our writing can always improve.  I thought this was very interesting because I always just assumed people who liked writing were good at it.  Being someone who doesn't like to write, I always believed that there was no hope for me to get better, that only people who liked to write can be good, but this article shows me that is not the case.

QDJ:
1. I think Murray's writing process is definitely different.  The one thing I can relate to is getting up, walking away, and then coming back with a better idea of what to write.  Sometimes you just need to walk away from it to clear your writer's block.

3. This study changed Berkenotter's understanding of the writing process because it directed her into new research.  She sees that all writers are different and it is important that we understand that.

AEI:
1. I don't think my writing experience is very high.  When I am writing I am usually distracted by other things.  I don't set aside the time to focus on just my writing and it causes me to be constantly distracted.    I definitely think that if I spent more time on each step of the writing process that my writing experience would improve.  It is a constant learning process for me.

Meta moment:
One thing I learned from this reading is that I need to focus more time on each step of the writing process.  I think I tend to just jump straight into the writing rather than planning what I want to say first.  This gets me into trouble because I run out of things to say due to lack of preparation.

Summary:
The reading is a good description on a study of how people write.  Berkenotter tested Murray on how he accomplishes his writing.  Once the data is gathered, they proceed to analyze it and discuss the different parts.

Synthesis:
I can relate this to our other readings because it continues to help us pick apart our own writing style.  I does this while teaching us about how other people write.  When we see how other people write we can continue to improve on our own writing.

Personal Reflection:
I thought this reading was very interesting because the way Murray writes is so different.  It puts it into perspective that all writers struggle just as much as I do, no matter how experienced of a writer they may be.

Research of a writer:
I was interested in finding out how Nicholas Sparks writes his books.  The first thing I noticed is that he writes in once characters voice at a time.  I always just assumed you would write all the voices at once so I was surprised to hear this.  He says that he doesn't think about his readers as he writes, he thinks of them as he conceives a story because he wants to conceive a story that they will enjoy.  Another thing I read he does is drawing inspiration for characters from people in his life.