The Little Seagull Handbook Book Summary

I would like to take this opportunity to express my thoughts, observations, and reflections on the academic writing that was presented within the Capella University writing course. The enclosed portfolio will provide additional detail to what I have learned throughout this course, and showcase my strengths and weaknesses.

In They Say/ I say, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein informs the audience of the basic moves in academic writing through text, illustrations, and templates. Their main model in this book is they say/I say template, in which it helps writers to develop their arguments by paying attention to what others are saying, and engaging with a response. The authors goal is to demystify academic writing, and return it to its social and conversational roots. The authors want the writers to engage in the ideas of others. These concepts from this book, will help make a stronger, supportive argument. The book They Say/I say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein deserves a 4 out of five stars, because I believe these authors explain and illustrates the contents

“Should everybody write” is the question that is argued throughout the article Should Everybody Write by Dennis Baron. Baron, an English professor at the University of Illinois, incorporates essay styled writings in correspondence to English problems faced in today’s world. His main concern in this essay is to demonstrate to his audience a proper answer to the argued statement and uses rhetorical strategies throughout his article to support his claims. The use of tone is incorporated when he discusses the context of writing history. His purpose in this article is discussed using his strong sense of logic and he also conveys to his audience’s emotions to caution them on their own writing or writing fears. In this article, Dennis Baron expresses that not everyone

McCarthy’s findings contribute to the notion, “learning to write… is not only a developmental process that occurs within an individual student, but also as a social process, that occurs in response to particular situations” (236). Although McCarthy only documents Dave as he takes this “journey across the curriculum”, her study is addressing the college student body as a whole. She declares that the success of a student is determined not only by their intelligence, but also their ability to adapt to a wide range of social and academic settings without any negative interference towards their

The author, Natalie Wexler is a one of the founders of the board of trustees for the Writing Revolution. In her article, Why Americans Can 't Write, with the advent of email, writing ability has become more important than ever, and writing deficiencies have become increasingly apparent. The writing skills have been lacking in America, and the reason is because schools have only 24% of the students in eighth and 12th grades were proficient in writing and just 3% were advanced. The exercise doesn 't provide kids with the tools they need to write analytically. The standards in middle and in high schools teachers expect students to know things. For example, the rules of capitalization, punctuation and sentence construction. But this doesn 't

In her essay "Does Texting Affect Writing?", Michaela Cullington presents her argument that texting does not impact formal writing written by students. She discusses the concerns presented by many people about how texting language can transfer into writing, but through the use of personal experiences and credible sources she discusses how this is not true. Her use of multiple different studies and situations help boost her argument and allow the reader to truly see how students actually do formal writing. She presents a strong argument as to why those who believe students don't have the control and knowledge to write formally, instead of with text speak, are wrong.

As I was reading Melissa Duffy’s “Inspiration, and Craig Vetter’s “Bonehead Writing,” I found myself connecting with Vetter’s paper more than Duffy’s. I found that the presentation in “Bonehead Writing” to capture my attention, and that Vetter’s feelings about writing was similar to my opinion on writing. Through his wording and humor, I think Craig Vetter wrote the best essay.

In “Does Texting Affect Writing,” essay student Michaela Cullington outlines the concerns about textspeak, and whether it hinders students formal writing abilities; she reviews her own personal research and observations, as well as expert research. Cullington is clearly preparing her readers for the topic of text messaging and textspeak in relation to formal writing by addressing the three main topics she will inquire about, “Some people believe that using… abbreviations is hindering the writing abilities of students, and others argue that texting is actually having a positive effect on writing. In fact, it seems that texting has no significant effect on student writing” (130).

The book Choice Words by Peter H Johnson challenges teachers to think about the words that they say because teachers have such a powerful influence on how children see themselves. Teachers undoubtedly are a very influential part of child’s life. The words that teachers say (and don’t say) influence a child way beyond the time that he or she is in their classroom. For example, my daughter is in the second grade; she has vivid memories of all of her teachers. She remembers their character and how they made her feel. She has a positive attitude about school and loves to learn. As a mother, I am thankful for the teachers that have poured into her life. In the same way, I want to be a positive influence to my students.

Over the course of the semester, my main goal was to become a more precise writer and develop my identity as a writer. According too, the Portfolio Letter assignment sheet, becoming a better writer consists of precise planning, draft and revising. It also includes understanding a variety of academic genres by examining the basic characteristics that defines each type. In order too efficiently meet my goal of becoming a better writer, it was very important to have my work evaluated by others and myself as well. The use of rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, reading and writing all are the important aspects in this course. All of which helped tremendously with becoming a more precise writer and developing my identity as a writer.

Andrea Lunsford, who wrote “Our Semi-Literate Youth? Not So Fast”, conducts her own study with a few colleagues to take notes on how students writing skills are changing. She decides to conduct another one twenty five years later to see how much the writing skills have changed since technology has been updated and became more available to students. She found that “students today are writing more than ever before.” Although we still have the same amount of writing errors as before, the patterns of errors are different. Many people argue that technology is only making our writing skill worse, this study helps to prove a different theory. Most of the errors made are the use of a wrong word. Lunsford believes “these wrong words come from the advice given by the

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing About Writing, A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 466-479.

The apparent audience for Anna Quindlen’s essay is those interested in the movie “Freedom Writers,” and those interested in how writing impacts our lives. Others would include readers of Newsweek. Quindlen raises

Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, is about the Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This book takes one into the story of RGB, in a creative way. Written with both history and pop culture in mind, this novel is both a factual story of the famous RBG, while shown in a fun a creative way to relate to current pop culture. History can be interpreted in many different ways, and an author has the power to dictate how a story is seen. Different generations, look at history in different ways, based on the way that that history is written down. When it comes to the millennials of this time, they work very different from the older generations. This is based upon how we have grown up in a digital, technological culture. This has ultimately altered the way in which we learn. We have become a very impatient generation based on the technology that we have been raised with. When it comes to an author or a novel in this day in age, to attract the attention of millennials, these stories need to be written in

Have you ever killed a person? We are innocent people, but not if we killed people because when people kill a person with reason or without, they feel guilty about it. Also, English speakers have an idioms about when you kill someone “Albatross around his/ her neck”. However, they just use it if someone kill someone else because it is like in your neck forever and obvious to see. Why American says that when someone kill someone else?