13.5: Participation Memo

Ashley Pence

November 23, 2007

Aims & Objectives:

These past two weeks are likely to have been my most stressful yet unstressful at the same time.  To begin with my aim was to have completed the posts prior to Friday before Thanksgiving break.  This also meant completing my final draft for my paper as well as preparing to take the GRE that same Friday morning.  Things were a little shook up after I realized that I had an extra week to complete all the posts excluding my final draft of the I-Search paper.  Once that was realized I devoted all my time to preparing for the GRE.  We all know what that means, the posts were slightly forgotten.  Although I knew that I would enjoy writing the posts for this week they were drown out by family and turkey.  Now we see the unstressful part of my previous two weeks.  I loved this past week due to the excitement of family and shopping and sleeping in.  I even worked on homework for other classes, but the posts for CD 315 never crossed my mind.  That is until 7 a.m. on black Friday.  You know the biggest shopping day of the year.  I was rudely awaken by a dream of explaining to Mrs. McComas why my posts were so much later than usual and thanking her for giving us two weeks to do them.  Funny how life has a way of reminding us of things we have forgotten.  Therefore we all know now why I am submitting all my posts in one night.

Declarative Knowledge:

I have learned much needed information on how to give and take constructive criticism.  Although I gave and took this criticism in the previous week I really worked on the things that were mentioned.  It was interesting to see my paper through another person’s eyes and hopefully my criticism helped them as much as theirs helped me.  I also learned about writing a preface, acknowledgements and about the author.

Procedural Knowledge: 

My first experience this week was learning how to revise my paper by using the review that my fellow students provided me with.  This allowed me to see what I had done good, bad and what could use some work.  No editing was done on spelling or any other grammatical errors so hopefully I was capable and successful at catching any of those.  By only reviewing the content of my paper this revealed some mistakes that I may have made in expressing my research in order to effectively get my point across to the audience.  The content was praised as well as given constructive criticism which guided me in see where my strengths and weaknesses were.

When learning about writing a preface, acknowledgements and about the author I realized that I had never had to do something like this, but always knew that it was something that every author does.  I began by writing about how and why I chose my research question.  This was considered writing my preface.  I then wrote my acknowledgements.  I liked doing this the most because I feel like everyone needs to be recognized for things done well.  This allowed me to give thanks and credit to those who inspired me along the way while writing my paper.  Writing about the author was less like the preface and acknowledgements seeing as it had everything to do with me.  I basically wrote a bibliography about myself, but included only current information about my education, plans and a little about my hobbies.

Conditional Knowledge:

This week has prepared me for the future by teaching me how to revise by using reviews of my research content.  By learning this I not only made my paper better, but I can now do the same thing with future papers.  I learned so much about family culture and why it is so important as well since I had to continuously be involved with the topic and research of my paper.  I am thankful for this oppurtunity and hope that the information that I have gained does not fade.

13.4: References

Ashley Pence

November 23, 2007

Resources:
 
(1991). S. R. Graubard (Ed.), Literacy an overview by 14 experts. The Noonday Press.
 
Commons, M. L., Galaz-Fontes, J. F., & Morse, S. J. (2006). Leadership, cross-cultural contact, socio-economic status and formal operational reasoning about moral dilemmas among Mexican non-literate adults and high school students. Journal of Moral Education, 35(2), 247-267. Retrieved October 6, 2007, from the ERIC database.

Cooter, K.S. (2006). When mama can’t read: Counteracting
intergenerational literacy. Reading Teacher, 59(7), 698-702.
Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.
 
Costa, M. (1988). Adult literacy/illiteracy in the United States. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
 
Guzzetti, B.J. (Ed.). (2002). Literacy in America (Vol. 1). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
 
Pavonetti, L. M., Brimmer, K. M., & Cipielewski, J. F. (2002).
Accelerated reader: What are the lasting effects on the reading habits of middle school students exposed to accelerated reader in elementary grades? Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 46(4), 1-13.
 
Puckett, A. (1992). Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting; Literacy, the division of labor and identity in a rural appalachian community. Anthropological Quarterly, 65(3). Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.
 
Roman, S. P. (2004). Illiteracy and older adults: Individual and societal implications. Educational Gerontology, 79-93. Retrieved October 6, 2007, from the ERIC database.

13.3: About the Author

Ashley Pence

November 23, 2007

Ashley Pence is a senior in the Communication Disorders program at Marshall University where she will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in May of 2008.  After graduation Ashley plans to attend graduate school to obtain her masters degree and obtain a job in the field of Speech Language Pathology.  Ashley’s major areas of interest in the field are working with elementary age children in a school setting, brain injury patients and the geriatric population.  Although her areas of interest vary greatly she is hoping to zero in on one particular group. 

Ashley is currenlty the Vice President of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association where she is involved in many activities to help support the community and the university clinic.  In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her husband, friends, being outdoors and traveling.

13.2: Acknowledgements

Ashley Pence

November 23, 2007

Much of why I chose the topic for my paper comes from the people who inspired me.  My inspiration ranges from my own family members, my community as well as my CD 315 professor.  I would like to begin with my professor.

After choosing my topic I did quite a bit of research to prepare for what was to come.  The core of my research consisted of poverty and literacy.  Throughout my research I was guided by Mrs. McComas who was almost like a little voice in my head telling me how to acquire good research based on skills she had given us through discussion and readings.  As time went on we were to meet with Mrs. McComas to go over our topic and foundation questions.  At this point in time Mrs. McComas guided me in revising my question to make my paper the best that it could be.  This required tweaking my questions slightly and doing a little more research on the new foundation questions.  Therefore my “special help” came from her.

As mentioned in my preface my other inspiration came from my community.  All I had to do was look around and see the affects that illiteracy has on individuals.  My heart broke and still breaks for those who are stuck in this vicious cycle of illiteracy and poverty.  This made me curious as to why there is such a cycle and if there could be a change.

Finally I would like to especially thank my grandparents who shared their thoughts on literacy as well as personal experiences.  By interviewing them and listening to their stories I gained a whole new level of respect for them.  Their lives were completely different when they were growing up compared to how an individual grows up today.  Things were not quite as available to them like they are now.  This meant they worked hard for little pay to help out the family and being literate was not even an option to their family.  I learned that if they had even wanted to continue in school and go to college it would consist of them going far away to school as well as to obtain a job.  This was not an option for them based on their desires as well as the needs of the family.  Although they only went to 9th and 10th grade before dropping out they have worked on performing literacy practices daily to increase their literacy skills to a much greater degree.  I thank them for working so hard and making things better for my mother and inspiring her to make life easier on my sisters and I as well all by increasing our literacy skills.

13.1: Preface

Ashley Pence

November 23, 2007

I realized that at the beginning of this project that I could choose from a wide variety of topics that dealt with literacy.  The fact that I had so many options did not hinder my decision however when I chose my topic.  It was as if I had already planned it in my mind and there really was not much that could change it.  It’s true that my topic changed slightly from focusing mainly on poverty and it’s affects on literacy to a broader view that focused on family culture as a whole.  The main idea was still a big contributing factor to the final outcome of the paper.

I was interested in this topic most importantly because I have witnessed it first hand.  My foundation question about generational literacy allowed me to dive deeper into my own families history and how literacy has changed over time.  I gained a greater knowledge of not only my experiences being a young adult in today’s society, but also learned about my families experiences as young adults when literacy was developing in them. 

By living in the Appalachian hills of Eastern Kentucky I have also witnessed first hand the affects that literacy can have on individuals.  My first thought was of my job at Grayson Rural Electric.  The name in itself “rural” explains some of what we may expect to see in an area such as this.  By accepting payments for electric bills I saw many people who could not fill out their checks.  They would lay their checkbooks on the counter and ask me to fill it out for them, then they would sign it.  The signatures were hardly legible.  Each time I would witness this I would think about it, but I never thought that one day I would be writing about it.  I also witnessed many who could not pay their electric bills, not just a one time thing, but each month.  This led me to believe that these people were stuck in the cycle of what I referenced to in my paper as intergenerational illiteracy.  Those who could not pay their bills perhaps had parents who were illiterate and therefore could not maintain or acquire a good job due to the lack of those skills.  In return they had children who were illiterate and therefore could not maintain or acquire a good job for the same reason. 

By witnessing those two aspects of family culture I was inspired to learn and write more about a topic that I feel is so important in today’s world.