Tag: Academic writing

Figurative Language and Imagery Analysis
Figurative language, like imagery, uses words that stimulate the reader’s imagination by appealing to the senses. These techniques help to make a literary work powerful. Instead of using ordinary language that readers may take for granted, the writer chooses words that create a vivid impression on our senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. They need not be long or obscure in meaning; however, they should be striking.
Task:
Create a table to list the vivid verbs, adjectives, and nouns in Molly Chisaakay’s poem “The Elder’s Drum” that appeal to the senses. Identify which of the 5 senses is being awakened with each word choice.
Word Type
Vivid Word
Sense Appealed
Verb
Adjective
Noun

Argumentative Essay Outline: Why Abortion Should Be Legal
Introduction:
Introduce the issue of abortion.
State your position/argument at the end of the paragraph (thesis statement).
Hook, Connecting Ideas, and Thesis Statement:
Present an engaging hook.
Connect the hook to the topic.
End with your thesis statement (last sentence of the introduction).
Paragraph 2: Summary of the Counterarguments:
Provide an overview of the main counterarguments against abortion.
Paragraph 3: First Counterargument and Reasons to Refute It:
Present the first counterargument.
Offer reasons and evidence to refute it.
Paragraph 4: Second Counterargument and Its Rebuttal:
Present the second counterargument.
Offer reasons and evidence to rebut it.
Paragraph 5: Third Counterargument and Its Rebuttal:
Present the third counterargument.
Offer reasons and evidence to rebut it.
Paragraph 6: Support Your Argument:
Provide strong evidence and reasoning supporting your argument for legal abortion.
Paragraph 7: Another Support for Your Argument:
Present additional evidence and reasoning that bolsters your argument.
Paragraph 8: Conclusion:
Restate your thesis statement.
Include a call to action or a final thought that persuades the reader to adopt your point of view.

Question 1:
Speaking of their experience at the home, Twyla repeatedly points out the difference between she and Roberta and the rest of the kids at St. Bonny’s. She and Roberta were “dumped” there. The rest of the kids were true orphans. What does she call these kids’ mothers and fathers?
Leavers of the forsaken
Beautiful dead parents in the sky
The only real victims
Parents of the Lucky Ones
Angels without wings
Question 2:
Twyla says, “Lady Esther. Apple blossoms. I still go soft when I smell one or the other.” What is Lady Esther?
The English & Social Studies teacher at St. Bonny’s
Her mother’s dusting powder
A fragrant flower that grew in the orchard
The perfume Roberta wore at St. Bonny’s
The fragrance she wore when she first met her husband-to-be, James
Question 3:
Which of the following would best serve as the thesis for Elizabeth Abel’s article, “Black Writing, White Reading: Race and the Politics of Feminist Interpretation”?
Roberta’s mother, the story strongly implies, is mentally rather than physically ill, her capacity to nurture largely fictional.
By forcing us to construct racial categories from highly ambiguous social clues, “Recitatif” elicits and exposes the unarticulated racial codes that operate at the boundaries of consciousness.
I singled out the power relations of the girls from the broader network of cultural signs.
In the civil rights movement that Twyla sees as a common struggle against racial barriers, Roberta sees the distrust of white intervention and the impulse toward a separatist Black Power movement: she has the insider’s perspective on power and race relations.
Even in her reading of this first half of the story, Lula’s interpretation differed from mine by emphasizing cultural practices more historically nuanced than my categorical distinctions in body types, degrees of social cool, or modes of mothering.
Question 4:
In MLA, what is another way to say In Text Citation?
Modern Language Association
Quoting and Paraphrasing Techniques
MLA Essential Information
Works Cited Documentation
Parenthetical Reference

“Burning the Shelter,” Louis Owens Response
For this assignment, you should read Louis Owens’s essay “Burning the Shelter” here (p. 211-214 in
Colors of Nature
). (Here is an appreciation of Owens that was written after his death) here.
After you’ve read the essay, I would like you to consider what Owens writes at the conclusion of the essay:
“Unless Americans, and all human beings, can learn to imagine themselves as intimately and inextricably related to every aspect of the world they inhabit, with the extraordinary responsibilities such a relationship entails—unless they can learn what the indigenous peoples of the Americas knew and often still know—the earth will simply not survive.”
Think about ways in which you agree or disagree with what Owens writes here, and be prepared to discuss specific examples (from your own life and observations).
I would like you to search for evidence that either supports, complicates, or contradicts your ideas or the ideas presented in the essay by Louis Owens in a podcast about nature.
There are a number of places you might find this podcast:
?      EDCC Library Guides
?      NPR Environment Section
?      Living on Earth
Be sure to choose a podcast that is relevant to the ideas discussed in Owens’s article. Please don’t just choose the first one you come across!

Fluency Discussion Board 3.4B: The Reading Rope and Fluency
Describe the subskills of word recognition and language comprehension in Scarborough’s Reading Rope.
Using the reading rope model, explain the process of becoming a fluent reader.

TRUTH IN NONFICTION: A TESTIMONIAL BY DYLAN NICE (July 3rd, 2012)
What is the THESIS of this narrative essay? Is it EXPLICIT, a physical sentence you can identify, or IMPLICIT, a larger passage in the text that is open to interpretation? Whatever you think it is, cite it by quoting directly from the text. (If you think the thesis is implied and part of a larger paragraph, you can paraphrase the passage with a sentence or two of your own). Be sure to explain why you think that your cited text qualifies as the thesis.

Kevin Costner’s Speech at Whitney Houston’s Funeral
Watch the video here
Note:
Please watch the video and answer the following questions.
Based on the eulogy tips discussed in this week’s lecture and your textbook, which tips does Kevin Costner use in his speech?
What stories does he recall in the speech?
What does he do to keep the attention of the audience?
What does he do for the conclusion of the speech?
Did you notice any weaknesses in his speech? If so, what were they?
What do you think were the strengths of his speech?

Instructions for Writing Reflection
In at least 400 words, describe your discipline’s discursive practices (based on what you learned from the assigned reading), pose questions you have about information dissemination, and investigate the outline of your discipline to identify at least two sub-disciplines in which you are interested.
Reflect on what you learned about disciplines as discourse communities from “Thinking through the Disciplines,” and on what you learned about your particular discipline’s discursive practices from the “Reading and Writing about…” chapter you chose. Then, reflect on how the information in either reading complemented or challenged what you already knew about your discipline’s discursive practices and/or the underlying disciplinary values that support these practices.
You can find the reading here: Thinking through the Disciplines.
Reflect on what you learned from the “Understanding Information Dissemination (Articles < journals="">< academic="" publishing="" houses),="" information="" access="" (databases),="" and="" the="" purpose="" of="" library="" subject="" guides"="" instructional="" page="" and="" list="" questions="" you="" have="" about="" the="" content="">
Resource: Scroll through the “Outline of Academic Disciplines” to find your discipline, review the associated sub-disciplines listed beneath, and click on the sub-disciplines in which you are interested to read more about those particular areas. Once you have thoroughly explored all sub-disciplines in which you are interested, identify at least two that you would like to explore further through your work in this class, provide links (click on the Insert Link icon) for their respective pages, and discuss what you learned from reading these pages that prompted your interest.
You can access the outline of academic disciplines here: Outline of Academic Disciplines.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
— Mark Twain
Elif Shafak discusses the importance of reading fiction as a deterrent against forming stereotypes — but I want to go two steps further and discuss why this is important. The bias we hold changes/affects/deteriorates/supports those around us — for better, and for worse.
HEALTH CARE: ACA vs Obamacare (implicit bias in rhetoric & consequences)

https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicaid-expansion-has-saved-at-least-19000-lives-new-research-finds (clearly this is my foundation article here)
Where were the states most likely to not expand Medicaid? Which states were more likely? Show the cross-section of data. This is a heady topic rife with political controversy. I will need to watch my sources to avoid bias. The same places where Medicaid wasn’t expanded — also are the same places that report the lowest rates of both education and travel. SO what? What does this mean? More research needed. The data is huge but there.
TRAVEL:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/post_662_n_833399 (left-leaning news source)
EDUCATION:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/most-least-educated-states-america-2020 (right-leaning news source)
DIRECTIONS:
When three outlier points (topics) on articles all point to a specific regional set of geographic data, this needs to be addressed regarding this topic.
What conclusions can you draw — if any — from this data?
Are the ways in which Americans view health care in the U.S. (through their own admitted bias) helping or hurting fellow Americans? Or is there something else not discussed here you think is important to said research?
REPLY BELOW
Sample Student Response
The data demonstrates it’s more difficult to break free from the status quo when the tools for expanding one’s mindset such as education, travel, and subsequently, income, are not at one’s disposal. In the quote at the top of this post, Mark Twain claims travel can dismantle prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. While Elif Shafak suggests reading fiction to gain the ability to empathize. Take Mississippi for example, the state contains less than 20% of passport holders and is the least educated state according to WalletHub’s study. And according to this Wikipedia article on median household income in the states and territories, Mississippi ranks #51 with a median household income of $44,717 in 2018. I would assume it’s incredibly difficult for people in Mississippi — and other states in similar positions — to break away from their own implicit biases when the keys to destroying it, i.e. reading fiction and traveling (which requires money), are not necessarily presented as options.
On the topic of Medicaid, I would say the ways in which Americans view health care in the U.S. hurt fellow Americans. It hurts us because our reluctance to do research and our willingness to blindly attach ourselves to an agenda divides us. And through this division, we see basic implicit biases metamorphose into something far more dangerous, where our likes and dislikes for a political figure now determine if someone lives or dies. A lot more research needs to be done on this topic, but I think it would be important to note how Medicaid was advertised in the media in each state and how people receive their news, i.e., television versus online news articles, etc.

Case Study 3 – Kite
Kite is an 18-year-old Brotherboy (a term used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People used to describe gender-diverse people who have a male spirit) who is transitioning gender to be a man. He has recently completed his Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care and is interviewing for an Early Childhood Educator position at Little Catalysts ELC. Kite hopes to get some experience before doing his Diploma, as he would like to be a Kindergarten Teacher one day.
Kite is very passionate about sharing his Aboriginal culture with the children and his experience of believing that he is a male living in a female body, and how he had to do things at school being a ‘girl,’ with which he wasn’t comfortable. Kite hopes to ‘shed light on the world,’ that he is no different than anyone else and just wants to be happy being himself. Due to his past trauma, Kite has a monthly meeting with his counsellor.
Kite was interviewed by: Carol, the Director; Anthony, the Educational Leader; and Tanya, a Kindergarten educator. Carol thought Kite would be an asset to the service. He presented himself confidently during the interview and had ‘good vibes.’ Tanya shared that she was worried about saying the wrong thing to Kite if he started at the service. She felt inexperienced with LGBTQIA+ protocols.
Kite is worried that he might not get the job due to his age, sex, and Indigenous background. He’s concerned that needing a day off every month to see his counsellor for his mental health may inhibit his chances of employment.
Kite has been working at Little Catalysts ELC now for nearly a month and is loving every minute of it, as are the staff and children in the service. Kite is enthusiastically researching ways to bring Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander People’s culture and practice into daily practices and learning.
Kite was inspired by this example of daily practice, Acknowledgement of Country, that he found.
He also read about an early childhood educator who conducted a learning experience with two Aboriginal children and an Elder. The educator presented the Aboriginal Australia map, which illustrated the 250 ‘Countries’ or language groups of Australia. Using a toy car, the educator showed the children the country where she was born and the journey she took to get to the country on which the preschool was located.
The teacher invited the children’s relatives to show the children where they were born, which then prompted the Elder to tell the group about her childhood.
Benchmark Criteria
Question 11
Resources
Kearns. (2020, 5th Ed) The Big Picture, pp. 115-125.
Brotherboys Yarnin’ Up – Kai and Dean
Describe how you would sensitively resolve any concerns in this scenario for all parties and identify people you could go to for further assistance, if required, to seek advice or support. Explain your responses by providing points on where misunderstanding could arise from, as a result of diversity.
Watch the video, Acknowledgement of Country and refer to the National Quality Standards (NQS) to complete the following question. Interpret how the NQS is demonstrated in practice, in the case study provided.
Question 12
Resources
Review National Quality Standard (A4 Poster). Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority (ACECQA). (2018) for assistance.
Acknowledgement of Country
A Guide to the National Quality Framework
Little Catalysts Policies and Procedures:
?      Code of Conduct
?      Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
?      Educational program and practice
?      Interactions with children
Provide the NQS element, element description, and a practice example (1) that relates to each area defined in the table, that was demonstrated in the Case Study – Kite continued. Refer to Quality Areas 1, 5, and 6 in your responses.
QA1: Educational Program and Practice
QA5: Relationships with Children
QA6: Collaborative Partnerships with Families and Communities
Provide one (1) NQS element number and description that relates to the case study for each area
Provide one (1) Early Childhood Services National Law Act 2010 and Law Act 2017 (ECSNR) Regulation that relates to the case study for each area
Provide one (1) example of practice that relates to the NQS element you’ve chosen from the case study for each area