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Wedsite

https://eborsook.wixsite.com/ebdp

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*this is makeup work from the one class I was sick for this year*

I like to think of myself as a pretty simple person. I don’t have a million passions, but I’m incredibly passionate about a handful of things. On this incredibly well drawn canvas, you can see the things I really get passionate about. The soccer ball represents the 15 years of playing the game only to be ended senior year by knee surgery. Next to it is a shape that is supposed to represent the mountains and the outdoors. In the upper left, you can see the jersey of the five time Super Bowl champion and greatest to ever lace them up, Tom Brady. Not really a huge shock, but I, a 19 year old boy am a huge fan of sports, especially the four incredibly successful franchises based in Boston Mass.

Passion is the name of the game when it comes to writing, or pretty much everything in my eyes. People work hard and create the best end product when they are passionate about what they are doing. Students tend to do the worst in the classes that they are the least passionate about. They view to class as something to get through rather than an opportunity to expand their knowledge about something. We write the best when we are passionate about the subject. 

Based on this map, I can tell that my writing process is messy, but kind of an “organized chaos” if you will. I didn’t really start with a plan and just dove it. I filled it out as random things came to mind. Bit by bit, it came together the fill up a page of reflection. This is the same with my writing. I don’t really believe in making outlines. I think just diving in and seeing what you come up with is more affective for me. I think some of your best thoughts come out during the first take. 

I write to express my own, unique thoughts and opinions. I have no intention of writing something because my teacher or audience would want me to write.

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Theory of writing arts and crafts reflection.

All my hard years of pre-k and kindergarten are finally paying off. This masterpiece of assorted objects (to an extent) encapsulates my personal theory of writing. I know I sound like a broken record, but for me its all about voice. Like this train wreck, your voice needs to be unique, and it needs to be real. You can be a “good writer” but if your work is just like the guy’s sitting next to you, that makes it irrelevant in my opinion. 

I chose the pineapple because pineapple has become a highly controversial pizza topping these days. Us sane human being steer clear, but for those that we not raised by humans in any sort of society, they (somehow) enjoy it on their pizza. I believe your writing should be controversial. Everyone has strong opinions, and I think your work should reflect that. Not everyone has to, or will. agree with you. Don’t write trying to please your audience. Write what you are passionate about and your audience will find you. You're not going to please everyone so stop trying to and stop being afraid to make an enemy or two. That being said, you need to be open to criticism. People are going to disagree, and thats ok. You have to listen and repeat the backlash. 

I chose the W to remind everyone, including myself, to write with confidence. Many students are scared to be themselves when they write. Their scared that if they go off the beaten path, their grade will suffer. There seems to be a formula to write a “safe essay” that will return a good grade. These students never reach their full potential and their writing skills plateau. A W stands for a win the same that an L stands for a loss. If you play a game scared you're going to lose, and the same goes for writing. 

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Final Research Journal

And here we are. Week nine, with the end in sight. What a emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs with late nights scattered in between. What did all this hard work lead to? A solid first draft, and thats all I can ask for.

My primary and secondary research combined beautifully in the paper. I still have more work do to in the revising stage (yay!) but the discussion in particular combines all three forms of my primary research. I’ve already talked about the passion from the interviews, but am now excited to use it for a popular audience. I would say that this is the biggest thing I am taking away from this class. Popular writing and academic writing do not need to be mutually exclusive, but can actually be used to strengthen each other. 

I never posted my final research questions so here they are:

Where are you from/what’s your favorite NBA team

Who do you think is the most disliked team in the NBA right now and why?

Who do you think are two or three of the most disliked players in the league and why?

What is your opinion on the Golden State Warriors?

What is your opinion on the Cleveland Cavaliers?

What is your opinion on the San Antonio Spurs?

What is your opinion Brooklyn Nets?

Do you think NBA fans as a whole tend to start to dislike teams once they reach a certain level of success?

What is your opinion on Steph Curry?

Have you seen/did you have an opinion on him change from before he won the first title or MVP to after he won some silverware?

What is your opinion on Lebron James?

What was your opinion on him during his first stint in Cleveland? When he made “the Decision” and won in miami? Now that he is back in Cleveland?

What is your opinion on Kawhi Leonard?

Who do you root for in the last two finals and why?

Now that all the research is done, I’m both scared and looking forward to continue with the writing phase. This is a topic I could talk about for hours, and I think the popular audience draft will allow me to show my passion the way the interviewee’s did.

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Research Journal Week 7

What a shockingly successful week to be Ethan in his great quest to find out why NBA fans hate successful teams. My survey currently has 61 responses, and the results have been exactly what I thought/hoped for. 41 % (which is the majority) of people that responded openly root against the Warriors, while only three percent root against the even more successful San Antonio Spurs. I got to watch the NBA playoffs as observation which is an awesome way to do homework. Unfortunately the Warriors swept the Jazz, so there was not a huge sample size, but it was interesting watching the Jazz fans root both for the Jazz, and against the Warriors. I guess I’ll have to wait for game three of their current series against the Spurs to see another away game. 

I wasn’t able to do as many interviews as I would have liked due to schedule conflicts, but the interviews I have now are a good representation of NBA fans as a whole. I now have all my research, both primary and secondary, done now its time to finish the first draft before my conference.

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Disciplinarily and Transfer: Students’ Perceptions of Learning to Write1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U 

The Pink Floyd classic perfectly describes my feeling toward the education system and more specifically, writing. As certain professors of this class might know, I am not the world’s biggest fan of certain forms of writing (shocking, I know). The song talks about how schools, which I’ve applied to writing, try to create conformity, and punish individualism and creativity, to push forward a one way to success model. This is how many high schoolers feel, due to teachers going through the motions, rather than inspiring their students. 

Studies like this are part of why I am interested in going into education. The skills one learns in high school are a solid foundation for what you are going to learn at undergraduate as well as graduate universities. The problem is that they are not seen this way by the students themselves; high schoolers. Education, at least in my opinion, starts with the teacher. Teachers and professors can be as accomplished as they want, but if they are not resonation with and inspiring their students, they are failing at the single most important part of their critically important jobs. 

Studies like these, where you see primary research of high school students, show where our education system as a whole is lacking, and the English subject is at the for front. This quote from the reading shows the disconnect between teacher and student:

“Moreover, the terms students used to characterize the kind of writing they did in FYC and other courses in the English Department included “fluff,” “b.s.,” and “ flowery,” whereas in talking about the writing they did in other classes, students used descriptors such as “concise,” “to the point,” and “not a lot of  owery adjectives.”” (page 125) 

Teachers set word counts intentionally to challenge students with intentional condiments. However students don’t see it this way. That is why they believe they are adding “fluff” just to meet an arbitrary word count. Whether teachers like it or not, this is discouraging to many students, and the attitude shift has to start with a better understanding, coming right from the teacher.

This article is a great example of transfer. The skills students acquire in high school, whether directly or indirectly, are shown in their college work. As it mentions in the conclusion, this article reiterates the importance of rhetorical situation and discourse community, which we have been learning about all year.

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Research Journal: Week 6

The beginning of the primary research phase has been without a doubt my favorite part of this process. So far I have only conducted two interviews, but I have two more booked and interest from more than five others. The interviews are why I chose this topic. I get to hear first hand, from fans, what they think about certain teams, players and trends in the league. You can really hear the passion in their voices and responses which is exactly what this paper is about. Profanities were being tossed around and like all sports fans, the interviewees had some very hot takes

Seeing as the Warriors have only had one away game against the Utah Jazz so far so I’ve done half of my observations. This is a tough subject to observe for because playoff games have several days in between games and we have a limited time to observe. Obviously the Jazz faithful were pulling for their team, but there was clearly not only a home team bias, but a animosity toward the Warriors. This was brought to center stage when the entire crowd got into with with Draymond Green, after he began taunting them over the Warrior’s 2-0 series lead. 

I recently put my survey out into the world and the responses are flying in. In just a few minutes I have 18 responses. The results, although somewhat limited, are exactly inline with some of my hypothesis. 

This next week I’m looking to wrap up my primary research. I have a planned interview with a legitimate Golden State Warriors fan (which is hard to come by) which should add a lot to my research.

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Transfer of Learning

Transfer can be thought of like synthesis. Its all about connections. Think if transfer as building blocks that have branches. Some lessons, like in math, build right off of each other. You learn pre-calc before you take calculous because it builds a foundation that you can build straight up from. Some subjects, like writing, don't have as obvious a transfer. These are the branches. Sometimes you don’t even realize a connection, but if affects your end product. When I learned about the importance of voice, I didn’t realize how much it would intertwine its way into my writing and improve the experience of the audience. 

This obviously directly affects learning as a whole. We as students sometimes don't realize or appreciate what our teachers are doing. Some classes or lessons that we see as pointless or boring are actual helping us out further down the line without our realizing. The idea of transfer really furthers the belief, included by yours truly, that all learning connects together. The world needs specialists but if you’re not the one percent of your specialty, you'd be much  better off with a more well rounded education.

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Voice:

Definition:

Your voice is who you are. How you write about something is just as important as what you write about. Your voice is how you choose to represent yourself in your work. It shows your point of view and emotions toward to subject without simply stating them. It encapsulates your tone toward the subject and allows the reader to connect to you and your state of mind

Significance:

In my opinion, voice is the single most important key team of writing. A boring voice will lead to a boring piece of work. It is also the most genuine part about writing. Voice is not something that you can fake. If you are passionate about the subject you are writing about, your audience will know, and will feed off of it. As hard as you may try, you will not be able to fake the positive, passionate voice about a subject you are disinterested in or find boring. It’s the same idea that we read about in Jenkins’s piece on survivor. Fans went out of their way to research and predict the ending of each season because they were truly passionate about not only the show, but the art of spoiling. They wrote pieces on forums that others would read because the pieces would have a completely genuine, passionate and charismatic voice. 

Resources:

Finding Your Voice. (2015, April 30). Retrieved May 03, 2017, from http://www.jennycapella.com/finding-voice/

Voice, Purpose & Audience. (n.d.). Retrieved May 03, 2017, from http://www.webster.edu/academic-resource-center/writingcenter/writing-tips/voice.html

Convergence Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved May 03, 2017, from https://books.google.com/books?id=RlRVNikT06YC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=spoiling%2Bsurvivor%2Bthe%2Banatomy%2Bof%2Ba%2Bknowledge%2Bcommunity&source=bl&ots=9BaDpzZATr&sig=DVQJkL109-sNhruf3pEATcRDCyc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBns7qqtTTAhUq6IMKHYskCn0Q6AEINDAC#v=onepage&q=spoiling%20survivor%20the%20anatomy%20of%20a%20knowledge%20community&f=false

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Self-Analysis

The goal of my lit review is to set up a research based foundation for my primary research. I wan’t the primary research to be the main part of the paper, as the passion of fans today is what I believe is most important. I heavily used my academic sources to define an “anti-fan.” This will allow me to talk about the fans themselves that hate, with a researched base. The secondary sources allowed me to research my actual topic of which teams NBA fans hate and why. There is a natural connection between the two groups of research. I mainly focused on today’s most hated team; the Golden State Warriors. I then looked at the free agent decisions from top free agents and found a direct correlation between where the best players sign and that team becoming hated.

I hope my audience will understand the behavior patters of NBA fans as a whole. Ideally I would want my audience to be able to predict whether or not a team would be liked depending on their history, star players, and position in the league.

In terms of revision, I need to make more connections between my sources and synthesize. Because it was a draft, I focused on the actual work and not the citations, so obviously I have to create a “work cited” page and properly cite my sources. 

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Research Journal Week 5

Secondary research is coming to a close while I’m finishing up my lit review draft, and what a time it was. I combed through the academic research like a detective, looking for connections between anti fans, and the modern NBA. I also enjoyed my popular sources (as much as a college student can enjoy doing research) and am loving how much they really move my paper along.

The next step of course is primary research, and I’m excited for this. NBA fans have a lot of passion and thats exactly what I’m looking for. I could talk about sports all day long so I will need to make sure to keep everything on topic and not go on tangents. The survey will be challenging sheerly from a numbers standpoint but through all the social media platforms that we have today, it should be doable. For observation, I’m obviously I’m not going to buy a ticket to go to Utah to see a Jazz-Warriors game and feel the environment of anti Warrior fans. But I can do the next best thing, which is watch the game on TV and observe how the Jazz fans react, win or lose. Being able to say that I “have to” watch a NBA playoff game for homework is pretty darn sweet if you ask me.

I don’t have a complete list for my interview or survey questions but here are some I’ve been thinking of using:

Survey:

Do you consider yourself an NBA fan?

yes or no

What is your opinion on the Golden State Warriors?

no opinion/neutral 

I like them/root for them

I dislike them/root against them

What is your opinion on the Cleveland Cavaliers?

no opinion/neutral

I like them/root for them

I dislike them/root against them

What is your opinion on the San Antonio?

no opinion/neutral

I like them/root for them

I dislike them/root against them

Who did you root for in the last two NBA finals?

Warriors

Cavilers 

Interview:

Where are you from/whats your favorite NBA team

Who do you think is the most disliked team in the NBA right now and why

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Threshold Concepts in Writing Studies

My main takeaway from the reading was the idea of influence on writing. On top of the neuroscience and psychology being influential, all your actual experiences are your fuel for writing. Not just the specific experiences you talk about and are physically in your wiring, but all the experiences you’ve had in one way or another influence your work. This idea perfectly coincides with the 1900′s Italian film style known as Neorealism. The idea was that you can’t edit out scene because the audience considers them “boring” or “not directly affecting the plot.” These movies have long, uneventful scenes that you would never see in movies today, because the thought was even if they don’t move the plot along, these scenes influence the characters or plot in one way or another and cannot simply be cut out of the movie. The same idea is being applied to writing in this reading. That my friends is what we in the business call synthesis. 

This meme is my friend and I sitting on the roof of a small barn. We are looking over a field, which in this case represents the past, both in experiences and emotions, that all come together to influence our writing.

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How do DU freshmen spend their free time?

Methods:

To investigate the question of what do DU freshmen do in their free time on week nights, we interviewed, surveyed, and observed various DU first-years on the University of Denver campus.  The subject of the interview was a DU male first-year who was asked nine questions about class, homework, clubs/organizations, and leisure time, and free time, as well as one clarification question.  The survey that was sent to the broader DU community consisted of seven questions, addressed class and homework time and free time activities, and was taken by twenty DU freshmen.  After completing the interview and the survey, we observed the Centennial Halls dormitory lobby for twenty minutes in the evening before going outside and observing the basketball ball court and the soccer field on High Street for another twenty minutes.

Results:

The subject of the interview does not have class everyday of the week.  He spends about four to five hours in class the days he does have class.  He is involved in Greek Life and Divest DU and that takes around five hours of his time between the two of them.  He spends about an hour and a half of his time on homework in the library on a typical school day.  He defines free time as any time when he is not doing school work or in class.  He has a lot of free time on Fridays, because he doesn’t have class, but he usually only has about one to two hours of free time Monday through Thursday.  When he does have free time, he spends it watching netflix or working out.

The twenty survey respondents were University of Denver first-year undergraduates.  5% have class for up to two hours on a normal weekday, 80% have class from three to five hours, and 15% of students have class for over six hours.  5% of students spend up to one hour of their time on homework per night, 75% spend two to four hours per night, and 20% spend five or more hours per night on homework.  The next results are in regards to free time.  10% of students have up to one hour of free time on an average weekday, 65% have two to four hours, and 25% have five hours or more of free time on an average weekday.  10% of students spend their free time in the AAC or another academic building, 70% spend it in a residence hall, and 20% spend their free time off campus.  The last question granted the respondents multiple options to choose from.  55% of students said they study in their free time, 80% said they watch Netflix or other TV, 10% said they play video games, 60% nap, and 85% hang out with their friends in their free time.

The observations were completed during the evening between 7:00 and 8:00 in the Centennial Halls Residence Hall lobby and outdoor space.  Many students were studying, but more were walking to and from their rooms.  There were also many students that were exercising or socializing.

Discussion:

Through our research, multiple trends were discovered regarding how DU freshmen spend their free time during the week. Our interview subject had similar answers to those that were surveyed, with a few small differences. A major trend that we found was that most students only have two to four hours of free time per day during the week. With this time, students tend to hang out with friends or watch Netflix and other video streaming sites. This is not all that surprising, considering our previous knowledge on the subject. However, according the the University of Denver website, students have a surplus of outdoor activity to take advantage of.

Our interview subject matched all of the aforementioned  trends, besides that he articulated that he had less free time on average, but more on Fridays. The University of Denver recently began offering classes on Fridays, however many students opt out of them. Because of the limited number of classes offered on Fridays, some students still consider this day part of the weekend. There is also a continuing social trend for students to go out on Thursday, perhaps making Friday a lazier day. Those students ambitious enough, choose to ski or go hiking on Fridays.

If we were to research this topic further, a recommendation would be to separate Fridays from the week to find more comprehensive conclusions about students’ free time.

A possible research shortcoming that should be explicitly mentioned is that we observed on a Sunday night. We chose to consider Sunday night a weeknight because of background knowledge about student activity on this night. However, while observing in the Halls lobby lots of students were doing homework. Sunday night is known to be a last minute homework scramble. We saw a different experience when we went outside of Halls and observed from a bench near the basketball court. Here, the observations matched what we researched on the DU website. At the time there was two intramural soccer games going on, exemplifying the student trend at the university to go outside and participate in activities. Additionally, bikers, skateboarders, and runners were observed, further emphasizing this trend.

Overall, nothing striking was discovered during our research, but our presumptions were supported. We discovered that students at the University of Denver spend their free time doing primarily three things: hanging out with friends, watching Netflix, and reassuringly to our media obsessed culture, outdoor activities.

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How do DU freshmen spend their free time?

Methods:

To investigate the question of what do DU freshmen do in their free time on week nights, we interviewed, surveyed, and observed various DU first-years on the University of Denver campus.  The subject of the interview was a DU male first-year who was asked nine questions about class, homework, clubs/organizations, and leisure time, and free time, as well as one clarification question.  The survey that was sent to the broader DU community consisted of seven questions, addressed class and homework time and free time activities, and was taken by twenty DU freshmen.  After completing the interview and the survey, we observed the Centennial Halls dormitory lobby for twenty minutes in the evening before going outside and observing the basketball ball court and the soccer field on High Street for another twenty minutes.

Results:

The subject of the interview does not have class everyday of the week.  He spends about four to five hours in class the days he does have class.  He is involved in Greek Life and Divest DU and that takes around five hours of his time between the two of them.  He spends about an hour and a half of his time on homework in the library on a typical school day.  He defines free time as any time when he is not doing school work or in class.  He has a lot of free time on Fridays, because he doesn’t have class, but he usually only has about one to two hours of free time Monday through Thursday.  When he does have free time, he spends it watching netflix or working out.

The twenty survey respondents were University of Denver first-year undergraduates.  5% have class for up to two hours on a normal weekday, 80% have class from three to five hours, and 15% of students have class for over six hours.  5% of students spend up to one hour of their time on homework per night, 75% spend two to four hours per night, and 20% spend five or more hours per night on homework.  The next results are in regards to free time.  10% of students have up to one hour of free time on an average weekday, 65% have two to four hours, and 25% have five hours or more of free time on an average weekday.  10% of students spend their free time in the AAC or another academic building, 70% spend it in a residence hall, and 20% spend their free time off campus.  The last question granted the respondents multiple options to choose from.  55% of students said they study in their free time, 80% said they watch Netflix or other TV, 10% said they play video games, 60% nap, and 85% hang out with their friends in their free time.

The observations were completed during the evening between 7:00 and 8:00 in the Centennial Halls Residence Hall lobby and outdoor space.  Many students were studying, but more were walking to and from their rooms.  There were also many students that were exercising or socializing.

Discussion:

Through our research, multiple trends were discovered regarding how DU freshmen spend their free time during the week. Our interview subject had similar answers to those that were surveyed, with a few small differences. A major trend that we found was that most students only have two to four hours of free time per day during the week. With this time, students tend to hang out with friends or watch Netflix and other video streaming sites. This is not all that surprising, considering our previous knowledge on the subject. However, according the the University of Denver website, students have a surplus of outdoor activity to take advantage of.

Our interview subject matched all of the aforementioned  trends, besides that he articulated that he had less free time on average, but more on Fridays. The University of Denver recently began offering classes on Fridays, however many students opt out of them. Because of the limited number of classes offered on Fridays, some students still consider this day part of the weekend. There is also a continuing social trend for students to go out on Thursday, perhaps making Friday a lazier day. Those students ambitious enough, choose to ski or go hiking on Fridays.

If we were to research this topic further, a recommendation would be to separate Fridays from the week to find more comprehensive conclusions about students’ free time.

A possible research shortcoming that should be explicitly mentioned is that we observed on a Sunday night. We chose to consider Sunday night a weeknight because of background knowledge about student activity on this night. However, while observing in the Halls lobby lots of students were doing homework. Sunday night is known to be a last minute homework scramble. We saw a different experience when we went outside of Halls and observed from a bench near the basketball court. Here, the observations matched what we researched on the DU website. At the time there was two intramural soccer games going on, exemplifying the student trend at the university to go outside and participate in activities. Additionally, bikers, skateboarders, and runners were observed, further emphasizing this trend.

Overall, nothing striking was discovered during our research, but our presumptions were supported. We discovered that students at the University of Denver spend their free time doing primarily three things: hanging out with friends, watching Netflix, and reassuringly to our media obsessed culture, outdoor activities.

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Research Journal: Week 4

With my new positive attitude toward academic writing, I look back on week four proudly. Theres something about deadlines and due dates that really motivate a college student. Although I did not make it through all of my sources, more specifically the academic ones, I did start to make connections. I was able to get a good definition of an “anti fan” but now need to slightly modify that into my own definition. 

My popular sources have been super helpful but a little repetitive. So far I’ve focused on the Golden State Warriors sense their currently “the team to hate.” All the sources were passionately written but also extremely self aware which made them both fun to read as well as gave them more legitimacy. It was easy to make connections here as they argued many of the same points. Because of the differences in topic and relevance between my popular and academic sources, I see the biggest challenge going forward being finding connections between the two categories, but momma didn't raise a quitter. 

After this week of practice run, I'm feeling more confident about the primary research coming up. 

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Practice Run

As both Ethan and Sophie said, we came up with the following research question: How do DU freshman spend their free time during the week?  During class time on Wednesday, Sophie was sick with the flu, so Ethan and I came up with a couple of interview questions and interviewed one of his friends at Nagel, while Sophie came up with the survey questions.  After the interview, we parted ways, Ethan to observe the turf, and I to observe the JMAC lobby.  After Sophie finished the survey she sent the link to Ethan and I, and each of us sent it to any and all of our fellow DU classmates.

What’s left is to meet up on Sunday and observe two other places on campus as a group.  We will then compile all of our findings and have a rough guesstimate of how DU freshmen spend their free time.  That is, if they (we) have free time, and depending on what the definition of free time means to each person.

I have to agree with Ethan, that straight up observing people, watching people without interacting, feels more than a little bit creepy.  On Wednesday, people were even looking at me weird just for looking at them. Some of the people I knew came up to me and asked what I was doing, so maybe we should go to a more public space where less people will know us.  However, if we do go to a more public place, then how will we differentiate between the first-years, second-years, or third-years?  Probably from the lost look on their faces.