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Digital Portfolio

here is the link to my dig port for writ1133

https://jessiesdigitalportfolio.tumblr.com/

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MAPS 3

My theory of writing is centered around the writer and their voice and how that voice changes based on genre, purpose and over time revision. My very first map and draft of my theory of writing included a much broader range of terms and ideas. However in my first map the sun that shined over the whole map (in that case the whole park) was the writer’s voice. The second map was a doodle with the word “voice” in the center with crazy ideas and doodles spiraling outward from the word “voice”. I have always believed that your voice as the writer is central to who you are as a writer and that may be why my theory hasn’t changed too drastically. However my theory has changed by the fact that I now can see how so many other aspects of writing can and do influence your voice. These conceptual maps have helped me narrow my theory to the specific key term “voice”, and have helped me identify what voice means to me. My unique voice is apparent in everything I write now and because of these maps my voice has become more versatile and creative. My voice is much more fluid and multi-dimensional, similar to these actual maps we have constructed. If you compare all three of my maps side by side the first is the least interesting and creative, the second a little more creative and by the third map we created today a whole story is there, and clearly it took a whole quarter to develop to that life. These maps have also shown that my understanding of writing is changing and not set in stone. I identify with this because I continue to learn as a writer and as someone who will always be developing their practice and understanding of writing. My maps also reflect me by the fact that they are not boring or old-fashioned, or closed minded. By using these principles in my writing now they are becoming part of my writing process as a whole and being ingrained into my muscle memory as a writer. Each map has definitely progressed and has become more focused but also carries a part of each past map with it. What I see this to mean is that although I am beginning to believe that voice is so important, I am not losing sight of what has contributed to me believing that in the first place.

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Week 8 Research Journal

The last few weeks we have done more primary research than I have ever done and now my appreciation for researchers has grown significantly. This sounds cheesy but it's so true because prior to this class I really had no idea what primary research entailed and meant. Also hindsight is always 20/20 as there are many things I would do differently if I were to do this project again. Clearly the 10 weeks we have is simply not enough, especially since we don't even start out primary research until well into the quarter and finished with a few weeks left. With that said I would've done more in-person interviews with more specialists in the field. But the biggest realization I had through this process was how much work all of this is. The collection of research is time and energy draining and then on top of that the analysis, decryption and coding of everything you found and deciphering what it all means. The next part of the process includes synthesis, I also found to be one of the areas where I struggled the most. All of these things that were required through the primary research was new and uncomfortable at first, and arguably is still pretty uncomfortable for me. This learning experience also showed me how easy it is for your (as the researcher) beliefs, attitudes and personal biases can seep into what you write and research. It's easy to only ask survey questions that may only paint a partial picture of your survey respondent's beliefs and ideas on the subject.

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Bergmann and Zepernick

Learning how to transfer knowledge is college is super important because it will not only teach you how to transfer what you’ve learned in one class to another but also to issues further down the road, something asked of you in your job, or being a mom and needing to advocate on behalf of your kid at some point. Another reason transfer is important is because you come to college and spend thousands of dollars for the classes you take. Similar to the university talked about in the Bergmann and Zepernick case many other colleges (University of Denver included) requires students to take minimum two writing courses. If you attend these classes with the attitude that you are b.s.ing your way through them and only writing fluff to satisfy your teacher and your grade, then you are not only wasting a ton of money but wasting huge learning opportunities.

Throughout this quarter and specifically this course my writing and my idea of writing has developed significantly. All the articles and readings we have read have given different perspectives on what we are learning and why we are learning it. The first reading with Driscoll about primary research when I read it seemed irrelevant and unimportant. But looking back it gave me a huge insight on what I’d be conducting, why I’d be conducting that and what would be achieved by conducting primary research. Additionally the Threshold Concept readings also gave me a new perspective and honestly encouraged me. You’re not born a great writer? Hell yeah I will take that and for once start to believe I can actually improve! Overall these readings are tied together because of what this course is trying to teach us and let us achieve.

this music video - breezeblocks by alt-j. One of my fav music videos ever bc there are so many ways to watch and interpret this vid. it’s all filmed backwards!

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Week 7: Research Journal

Damn week 7 is over already. Time flies when your research is actually interesting to you. For this week’s research journal I knew I had to read across the research and knowledge I’ve gained over the last several weeks. Specifically I am beginning to analyze and discuss the results of the survey I created. I got within the range of 60-100 responses and cut it off where I am now at 74 responses. However every question was optional to answer, therefore not every question has 74 responses but every question was answered at least by 60 respondents.  I believe I got good and reliable responses because of who I opened it up to. I shared it on social media using the hashtag “yoga” along with other related yoga hashtags. In fact, a “twitter-famous” yoga account with over 175 thousands followers re-tweeted my request for yogis to take my survey. My survey asked primarily about the role that yoga plays in each individual respondents’ lives and other questions about their relationship with yoga. Over 54% of my respondents practice yoga at least once a week or more, with that only less than 30% of the responses categorized their practice of happening less than once a month. Additionally over 70% of the survey respondents focus mostly on the practice of Vinyasa yoga also know as flow yoga (where poses are associated with each breath, each inhale and exhale)which is the type of Yoga I practice which might be relevant to note a possible bias. When survey respondents were asking about what benefits they have seen from practicing yoga (of any) the highest selected was increased flexibility (65/73). What I also found interesting was that the majority of respondents didn’t characterize yoga as purely an individual activity or purely a social activity. over 2/3s of the survey respondents attended yoga by themselves as well as with friends or family, with no particular preference. One of the most interesting result I found from my survey that I wasn’t expecting and didn’t even think about this but only 1 person when asked about other exercise or sports they involve themselves in said yoga was the only form of exercise they practice. This made me think that yoga is not necessarily the one “thing” people attribute their fitness too but quite possibly could be one way they contribute their mental being to. 

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Maps Take 2

maps take 2

(1)  Start by talking about your map – why does it represent your understanding of writing, specifically what writing means to you? You MUST use at least 2 of the readings we’ve done this quarter to support your response to this question.

A big part of my understanding of writing and what it means to write well is the use of your unique and particular voice. Vatz mentioned the importance of this because how you say things with your voice can determine the outcome and what people get from reading what you have written. Your voice can take the perspective of whatever you want and therefore and create a completely different rhetorical situation. Also perkins and salomon talk about how the transfer of learning does not happen as easily and the more you learn to use your voice for one situation, the more naturally you’ll be able to able it to a different situation. My map is kinda all over the place with a ton of things leading into the word “voice”. And this map is helping me become more conscious of what has lead to my unique voice.

(2)  Next draw out one conclusion from your map – what that conclusion looks like is up to you.

The word “voice” on my doodling page comes together as the cumulation of everything in my head. Many ideas, experiences and opinions give me my voice and its meaning. I am beginning to become more aware of what has impacted my voice in my writing.

(3)  All of the maps are leading towards your final theory of writing … so, how might a visual representation of key terms, and in the case of this map a key phrase, help you to better understand your theory of writing? What is your theory of writing right now in a single sentence?

Many concepts play into what I leads to my understanding of writing but as of now voice seems to be the most powerful and the most present.

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perkins&salomon

1. Transfer of learning happens when you learn something in one context and are later able to apply what you learned in a different context. One example of what this looks like from the reading is learning math and then learning physics with what you already have learned from said math classes and particular math concepts. It has been easier to trace a transfer of learning from one similar context to the next than it is from one context to a vastly different context. This makes sense because it is easier to apply what you have learned to a new concept that may look nearly identical, than to something totally new and different. Another obstacle with transfer is that people fail to see the connection between two situations and therefore cannot see a way to transfer what they have learned. High road transfer is similar to far-transfer which requires you to think deliberately about how your prior knowledge may transfer to something new you are trying to accomplish, and one problem with this is that people don’t think to think about what they already know from different/prior situations. This text makes the argument that people who are generally more “inclined to mindfulness or metacognition are by definition more likely to make” these “high-road” or far-transfer connections.

2. The easiest form of transfer seems to occur in nearly identical or at least very similar situations. One example from the reading of transfer outside of academia is driving. Someone who rents a U-Haul truck is going to be able to drive it because they have already learned to drive a different car that has nearly the same features: a steering wheel, gear shift, break and gas pedal, etc. This occurs easily because people relate driving a car as nearly the same thing as driving a truck (a bigger car).

3. I’ve learned to synthesize in this class more than ever before and I think that the process of reading and analyzing research can easily relate to the process of doing the same in a different area, say data. In my business classes now and in the future we read about, analyze and try to make connections with data that is put in front of it and then have to write reports on said data. I believe that learning how to synthesize in this course is carrying over to my business courses as well.

My understanding of writing continues to expand every time I tackle a new assignment, read a new article or sit through another hour of my writ 1133 class. Because I have learned that there is always more to learn I think that directly relates to the process and ability of transfer. I think the more I learn the more I am able to transfer into my writing and other aspects of life besides writing or school in general.

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Week 6: Research Journal

This week I started thinking in more depth about my primary research and specifically how I want to conduct my observations. I decided I do not want to observe an actual yoga class because I am not so much interested in how each yogi performs the pose or posture, as not everybody is an expert and that doesn’t tell me anything. What I want to know is how these people attending yoga act outside of the yoga class itself. So one idea I have is to observe a yoga studio from the outside and watch as yogis enter and exit the studio, to see the “before and after”, my exceptions are the obvious: the go in clean and come out super sweaty. But in addition to that I expect to observe people coming by themselves, versus coming with friends or family. I also am great with faces so I will be able to recognize which people are which from the entrance to the exit. I did this on Friday and got saw what I expected to see in addition to a lot of other interesting results. The majority of people came alone and left alone, with maybe 1/5 people coming with one friend maybe two. I never saw a group of more than 3 people enter the studio as a unit and this made an interesting observation. I am trying to think about this objectively but what it meant to me was that yoga was not initially a social activity but more about your self and your time on the mat. Many people who came early tended to linger longer in the studio and not be in such a hurry to leave. Maybe this is because they use their yoga time as more of a experience beyond just the fitness, possibly they spend more time enjoying the quiet time in the studio before and after the class. And also the people who get there right as class is starting may use yoga purely as a way to get your workout cranked out for the day. I am not entirely sure but I believe as my research continues I will find more correlations between these observations and how people feel about yoga!

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Poster Page !!

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Self Analysis

My overall goal with this lit review is to achieve a level of interconnectedness with each of my sources and themes. Many of my sources have very specific and different ideas and themes than the others, but there has still been a good amount of overlap for each source. For example one source may talk about the practice of yoga leading to down regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the sympathetic nervous system, which may seem irrelevant to how a women experiencing chronic stress but it’s not. Both of these sources tell me that there is a correlation between the body and mind and I can then reflect on that. I have been able to make connections from research talking physical benefits to research discussing the mental ones as the common ground here is yoga and meditation.

Beyond this particular assignment my expectations are that my ability to draw connections between sources, or experiences or ideas will come more fluidly and I hope to be able to express these relationships in all types of writing, other assignments and even situations outside the academia world. I also think this lit review has opened my eyes to how wide yoga can reach to people not all trying to achieve the same thing. I hope my audience will also see the relationships and connections I have spent so much time drawing upon and learning about. I want my audience to see the scope that yoga and meditation can reach in all varieties of lifestyles and fitness levels. Additionally the revision process is long and doesn’t happen over night. I think my revision will lead to me making my connections more clear and evident to my audience.

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Threshold Concepts pt II

Threshold Concept: Effective reflection happens as a process, not a one time thing:

Reflecting seems pretty easy right? Your brain seems to always be on and churning and working. But the process of reflection is much more complex than just being aware of what you are writing and thinking. Good and effective reflection can lead to making deeper connections across a variety of ideas and concepts. KT says that reflection can “offer writers the ability to be active agents of change, making meaningful contributions to any rhetorical exchange”. All of this leads to stronger and superior writing processes and contributes to skills at a writer. If you are constantly reflecting as you work and write you will recognize connections and parallels more readily and fluidly than if you skim over everything you’ve worked on once you think it is done. With the ability and willingness to reflect throughout the process, the process as a whole becomes more natural and fluid. Through reflecting you as a writer can add more original thought to your writing and develop a better sense of what certain ideas mean to you. Similar to the second reading on threshold concepts suggest, this then leads to the writer getting to know themselves better. You are what you write I think is a very insightful comment and holds to be very true. Especially since your writing can change and evolve into what you make it. Reflection is not limited to your ideas or writing habits but also to the approach and outlook you take toward each genre of writing you encounter. This particular idea of reflection resonated with me particularly because I had never really thought about it this way and now I have a different perspective which will absolutely influence what and how I write. 

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week 5 research journal

Thinking about my interview questions has me frazzled. There are so many things to be discussed with my fellow yogis. How long have you been doing yoga? How did you get into it? Why do you do yoga? How does yoga make you feel? How has yoga changed you? (if at all) but these are such basic questions and may be more suitable for the survey portion. After some deeper thinking I should ask more specific questions in the interview. Such as:

what does your yoga routine look like?

can you describe the relationship you have with yoga? Is it personal or do you share your yoga experiences with others?

specifically what yoga do you do? (hatha, vinyasa, hot, birkram, etc.)

how has it changed your outlook on life?

how has yoga changed your physical body and fitness?

what other benefits have you seen from yoga specific to you?

what has yoga taught you about yourself?

This is a broad range of questions but I feel as though there is a large chunk missing. And these questions I am referring to are the mental questions I have. I know the IRB prevents me from asking questions that might be deemed unfit, or inappropriate and I wonder how far that will go when it comes to me asking survey participants and interviewees how yoga has affected their mental health and overall well being. Can I ask questions about depression? For example on women I am planning on interviewing is someone who has practiced yoga for years and holds yoga accountable for her ease with bearing and eventually delivering her first child. I am close with this women and would like to ask about any psychological situations or idk if situation is the right word but maybe how yoga has helped her with that other side of childbirth and motherhood.  

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PRIMARY RESEARCH PRACTICE RUN

Methods

The three methods we used to gather research were surveying, interviewing and two secondary resources. For our survey we came up with a mix of open-ended and multiple choice questions, to accumulate to a total of five questions. Our survey questions were the following;

1.How often does your organization table? (multiple choice)

2. What do you table for? (multiple choice)

3. People stop at my organization’s table more frequently when we have incentives (i.e. free food)? (multiple choice)

4. On a scale of 1-5, have you found tabling effective?(multiple choice)

5. What has your organization found to be the most effective form of promotion? (open-ended response)

We posted our survey on our respective social media organization’s pages and asked our followers to participate in our online survey. This survey was limited to the University of Denver students and we are certain of this, because we only posted it on our University of Denver organization’s pages along with asking DU friends to participate in our survey. The two organizations pages that we posted on were Alpha Phi and Lambda Chi Alpha. Additionally, the person we surveyed was also a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. For our secondary research, we looked at the University of Denver website and found the passage explaining how the tabling process works both internally and externally.

Results

The majority of organizations (over 88% of respondents) that table do so once a quarter. 75% of survey respondents were either tabling to raise money or sell something. Over 93% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that incentives i.e. food or candy set up on the table brought people over much more frequently. We found organizations that often set up tables in order to raise participation, awareness, selling things etc. saw much higher rates of participation and/or sell/make more money. On average when asked about the effectiveness of tabling the results came in at only a 3 on a scale of 5. When survey respondents were asked what they believed was the most effective form of promotion for their organization less than 20% responded with tabling as the most effective method. Our results also showed that organizations that table have found that only around 35% of people who walk by tables will actually stop and provide their contact information/decide to participate or contribute.  

-themes we saw

Discussion:

Throughout the majority of our observations and research, we found that incentives played a huge role in how much awareness each organization would raise and how many people were drawn towards that particular table. Things such as free food or stickers showed to at least catch the attention of people. Many people that walked by the tables made a strenuous effort to keep their heads down and avoid any type of conversation. With the help of incentives, this stimulated people to pick their heads up and see what was going on. People who were then drawn over to the tables were then given a greater incentive to sign up for whatever the particular organization was advertising. This allowed that table to generate greater sales. Another finding is that when a table was surrounded by a large number of people, this sparks the attention of people that are passing by. This could very well be that because it is a popular table, this makes people who pass by want to stop and see what is going on. The final observation that we made that we found to be crucial is that in order for tabling to be successful, that organization must be persistent in order to be successful. We found that organizations that just sit around their table and hope for people to come and see what’s going on we found to be much less successful in attracting people to whatever was being advertised. Tables that were lively, inviting and fun we found were much more successful in drawing people in and completing the objective that they were hoping to achieve. In conclusion, this proved to be a very interesting observation and topic to discover for our primary research. We were able to collect a vast amount of data and learn about what makes tabling successful and what doesn’t. For organizations that are looking to improve their tactics in tabling, our research could prove to be very useful.

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Week 4 Research Journal

Before meeting with Prof. KT this week one of my primary concerns was how the majority of my secondary sources on the benefits of yoga all seemed to say the same thing. People who practice yoga are ranked the same or better in nearly every category as people who don’t do yoga. This hasn’t seemed too helpful to me. Well duh I thought thats what I expected. Going into my research I assumed people who did yoga were more physically fit and flexible, were more mentally healthy and their overall well being was just, uh better I guess than non-yogis. I talked about this during my conference and KT said well that’s good, you’re suspicions were spot on. Yeah okay I thought, what am I supposed to say then?? This made me think about all the possible connections that would be obvious to make between my secondary sources. This also made me think of what else I could connect my research to. Like meditation or yoga through the different age groups. How many people who start implementing yoga into their life early on see different or similar results than those who only began yoga later in their life. One of the most interesting things I have discovered thus far through my research was an article about a principal of a high school in Massachusetts implementing mandatory yoga classes for his seniors in order to learn how to manage stress better. He implemented these classes after a series of suicides in the school community. He feels that these classes will help students learn to cope with stressful times and deal with them for the rest of their lives in a healthy way.

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Threshold Concepts

All writers have more to learn. What an encouraging and disheartening concept. You can always be improving as you go through school and continue to become a better and more experienced writer. But wait a minute you got a phD in writing and your job is writing and your life is writing and you eat, sleep and talk writing? Eh but you're not there yet champ you could be better. Well that certainly is one way of looking at it. But in my mind this is *mostly* positive. Because it should fire you up and give a glimpse into your future writing. Also it can be a measurement of how far you’ve come (or I guess how far you still have to go if you're a class-half-empty person). Anyways this resonated with me specifically because of my personal struggles as a writer. Shirley Rose says, “the ability to write is not an innate trait humans are born possessing” and I relate to this because I have always felt like I am just not a writer and it doesn’t come naturally to me. But this threshold concept says that it doesn't come naturally to anybody, I am not the odd man out. I have the opportunity to become a better writer and possibly a great writer.

The next concept that I felt was relevant to me as a writer was section 4.2 on the importance of failure in improving. I often get frustrated with my writing, thinking that my ideas are terrible, my expressing of thoughts are terrible, and my writing is anything but elegant and graceful. But Anne Lamott observed, “almost all good writing beings with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere” (Lamott 1995, 303). But many teacher and education systems demoralize students for failing and therefore students are scared to fail, and often associate revising with failure.

Both of these concepts can relate to our class because we are learning that we revise no matter how good the first efforts may have been. We are not punished for improving and I think that will make me and all my peers improve this quarter.

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1. Continue your discussion of the prior (you started this in Week 1 and continued with your response to the homework – the prior includes prior knowledge, prior experiences, prior attitudes, prior dispositions, etc.) and how it impacts how you understand the type of writing we are doing in this course. Be specific.

My prior experiences have been mostly neutral or negative when it comes to writing because it’s always had a strict set of guidelines you had to follow. As a result I am more reserved feelings about writing but nevertheless have wanted to improve my writing for some time. As a result of my desire to advance my skills as a writer I am more aware of each key term and how that impacts my skills as a writer and rhetor.

2. Next, talk about your map – why does it represent your set of key terms? What are the connections between the terms? How do the terms help you understand various writing situations?

My map is of 2 people on a teeter-totter on a sunny day with passing clouds. The teeter-totter is a metaphor for the balance we seek/require for good writing. Specifically the balancing between the knowledge which I consider the base because for every writer it is what they know and believe and from there that determines the rhetorical situation and how the writer creates the reality. From there we get the purpose and the genre. A good writer should always be aware of the purpose and the genre. And one without the other is not effective writing and that is why they are balancing each other out. Next is the sun which is shining down over the whole picture. The sun represents your unique voice as a writer and will penetrate each sentence you write because it should be specific to you as the writer. Finally are the clouds which are passing but always around, and these clouds represent the audience, because the audience is present and has an overall view of the whole picture, or argument.

3. Finally, draw out one conclusion: how/why does your map represent how you understand writing?  

My drawing clearly shows that each key term plays a significant role in writing and without them all you lose effectiveness as a writer.

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theory of writing

(1) Key Terms for Writing

What are my key terms for writing? Hmm what a great question and I remember answering this in my first tumblr post and I mentioned organization, effective vocabulary and expressing opinions efficiently. But now I am wondering if key words can be a more simplistic view on writing as a whole. After some time thinking about what writing is and includes I came up with this list:

describe

thoughts/contemplating

defend

argue

juxtapose

outline

summarize

explain

analysis

When comparing these specific terms to my writing practices I noticed that they all have their own special place and yet often are intertwined. For example summarizing and explaining can easily go together, specifically in research. If you read an article and site it as a secondary source you must summarize it to your audience and then further explain it and how it relates to your certain argument or claim or question. Additionally when I think about the journals we’ve written so far this quarter that includes a lot of reflecting and brainstorming. Some key words that jump out in that sense are my thought and what I am contemplating when I am writing and reflecting. Another example of a key word that relates to a specific genre, this time the Vatz reading is the term juxtapose because we compared and contrasted Vatz’s ideas next to Bitzer’s. Really what this tells me is that we need to know what terms to focus on for each occasion in order to be the most efficient writers, if I started arguing instead of summarizing in my tweets regarding readings my tweets would not be nearly as effective to my peers and audience.  

(2) Writerly Identity

The first word that comes to mind when I think of who I am as a writer is ‘narrator’ and this is a very basic at its core as I am the one reviewing, commenting and expressing myself and I am the person with power, there person supposedly people are listening to. I know that just writing anything doesn’t give you power but in a sense if people are reading what you're writing it does. If I were to think in terms of my key words I would say I am an analyst or a defender of my opinions and thoughts. My identity as a writer can change situationally as what I am writing about changes, and these key words can help me identify my role in each situation. As a researcher I am still the narrator but more of a secondary researcher who is summarizing and outlining arguments of others. Especially when it comes to examining research you come across. Specifically inquiry-based writing lets me as the writer explore what questions I have and that then turns me into the detective writer, someone who is searching for answers and results of cause and effect processes.  

(3) Prior Knowledge and Experiences

In the past a lot of my writing has been argumentative based or about myself personally. I think this quarter is different in the way that is more about my thoughts and reflections than just facts and this-is-how-it-is essays. I think this quarter my writing has had more fluidity to it because I am literally just expressing my thoughts as they come to me. Many writing classes I have been in growing up have not been like this so I think I have always identified as naturally not a good writer solely because I’ve never had much interest in what I’ve written about and haven't really gotten the chance to express myself through writing. This quarter definitely is changing that “status quo” of what I've always thought writing to be about. Understanding key terms will definitely help in the future because it can help identify what role as the writer I should take on.I am still learning how to write in a more formal sense and I think that will be extremely helpful in the future because most of life is informal and expressing yourself effectively can be extremely informal yet powerful.

(4) Theory of Writing

Writing is the ability to express one’s thoughts fluidly through your own one-of-a-kind voice.