Monday, August 16, 2010

Hello ENGL 112 Students!

I hope all of you had a nice summer and I am very much looking forward to meeting you on the first day of our class. I have posted our syllabus on my website (www.juliannenewmark.com) under the "Courses" button.

During the first week of classes, we will get to know each other, we will review what you will be expected to accomplish in ENGL 112 at NMT, and we will do an in-class writing exercise that will help me to see what your strengths and weaknesses are at this time.

Our readings for this semester will cover a wide range of issues on topics that are "arguable" (what isn't!) in contemporary American society, including the promise that education supposedly holds for all young Americans, the dynamics of the present-day American family, and the various interpretations and perspectives on Americans' involvement with and use of our "natural" surroundings. These are the subjects about which you will write argumentative essays in this class and these are the subjects about which you will do scholarly research. You will also share your perspectives on this blog and in our classroom. I hope you are as excited as I am to get the semester going! See you soon.

23 comments:

  1. Test, test, testing, 1, 2, 3.

    One thing I found "provocative" in our reading for today was how the book explained that there are different expectations in college than in high school. It doesn't take much to realize how true that is, but I have to ask why is the level of expectation so much higher? Shouldn't we have learned to meet such expectations in high school before entering college? If colleges aren't going to accept the way we learned how to do stuff, i.e. 5 paragraph essay format, then why learn and practice it to such an extent in the first place?

    My problem doesn't lie with the colleges, they provide and expect real world work. The high schools don't provide that material outside an ap class, and I think that needs to change.

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  2. I would have to agree with the above comment. Schools should work together so that the expectations from high school flow over to college more fluently.

    Such a drastic change in the learning environment may be a reason why many college students will not be back for sophomore year.

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  3. I definitely can see why the learning and work level are so drastic in the transition from high school to college. I don't know about anyone else, but the high school I attended was very lax and most teachers weren't so flexible about both their grading and deadlines for homework. Here in college, it's do or die.

    But college isn't so much the "growing up" experience that high school is. College is about getting the education you need to earn yourself a career in something that takes smarts to do (mostly).

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  4. So, should high schools bump up the expectations to the next level?

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  5. I feel that high schools only bump up the expectations to the next level in honor classes :(

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  6. Just because high school is easier and has a "growing up" feel to it doesn't mean it shouldn't prepare its students for the real world. Over 60% of UNM's freshman class need to take remedial classes because the students need to be retaught what they should already know. Around 50% of the freshman at UNM don't make it to their sophomore year, maybe more. It's a little ridiculous, and it seriously needs to change.

    If college is the place to get an education to get a job, then what was high school for? You can't get many decent jobs without a college degree, so shouldn't high school be preparing the students for college so that they can get jobs?

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  7. I couldn’t agree more with the above comment. What do our educations consist of before and after attending college? Education has been on a downward slope for the last seventy-five years or so in my opinion. A lot of our state colleges have turned into extensions of high-school, prolonging the process of individuals becoming adults. Is this because of the generation we were brought up in? The uncertainty of stability in our lives has caused us to disregard are educations, work ethics and our future generations.

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  8. Testing, I hope this site doesn't make me create my own blog, for I have no desire to succumb to it's further temptations. I'm afraid I can't say much right now, I need to re-learn how to transform graphs of trigonometric functions.

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  9. As far as a high school attempting to match the rigors of college, it isn't going to happen. The maturity of a college student compared to a high school student confirms that. A high school student could not stand up to the emotional (much less the intellectual) challenges of a college like environment. In high school, in my senior year with 6AP classes, government, and one elective, I had no homework, did nothing outside of class, and still ended up with a 3.75 on the semester (not counting the AP grade boost). The fact that I actually have to turn homework in to pass a class is astounding to me, never had to do it before (except for the occasional work I did in class).

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  10. If high school wasn't seen as the big deal it is now, then things would be much easier. Many high school students don't want to be there--so they should leave. If high school wasn't compulsory, and we didn't have to deal with the idiots who don't want to be there (and aren't learning anything anyways), then serious students could do serious work.

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  11. I agree with TK103,

    College seems to require an additional element that was not present in high school, being homework and study habits. For me, these skills are present only due to extra curricular activity that I did in order to develop better study/homework habits. A high school student that followed a "normal" high school curriculum would have quite some trouble in college if their high school did not cover these topics.

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  12. I agree with Teh Pigeon. It is probably much easier to adapt to college life when one has already had experience learning how to budget time because of extra curricular activities. For those who are struggling right now, I'm sure it will get easier. :)

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  13. I never learned those study habits and now I'm struggling with actually waking up/being productive. College is a much more demanding environment because it requires students to be proactive and drag themselves into working, not letting a teacher guide them through everything.

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  14. Tk103, I've had a very similar experience as you, that isn't relevant. I'm sure that many of the people here at Tech have had those same experiences. However, in your first comment, you said how the maturity level is different. Why does that have to be? Why is there such a dramatic change from senior year in high school to freshman year in college? It's true that most high schoolers won't be able to keep up in college, and that's why high school should start trying to up the standards.

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  15. There has been a lot of discussion of whether or not high school has prepared us for college. I feel like I am super prepared for college thanks to my high school experience. I know that I may not have had some of the same worthless classes and knowledge that other students here have on their résumé, but I can say that my high school gave me the proper attitude, work ethic, and social skills that have given me great confidence as a new college student. I believe the same ethics are critical to having a successful college experience and more beneficial than superficial knowledge. With that said, there is not a single thing I would change about my high school experience. If anything needs to be done to the public education in America it is to move away from laziness and re-adopt an education grounded in Miltonian principles and ideas.

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  16. I believe that the preparation level of a high school is all in what high school you go to. The average student graduating from my high school would be going into my local college as a sophomore. Two friends of mine are only a few credits away from being juniors. My high school even required a extra test to graduate. Other high schools went with insufficient funding, poor teachers, and problems ranging from drugs to gang violence. A person can only learn as much as they want to learn. No school can force education on someone. This will to learn comes from everything from your parents to where you come from.
    The problem with trying to make a high school work as a true place for college prep is that a lot of schools have such a large mixture of people that are both willing to learn and go onto college and that are future drop outs and failures. Thats why AP's are there. To teach students that strive to succeed and make something of themselves the skills that they will need in college.

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  17. Every school is different. I came from a private 'college preparatiory' school and i feel that i recieved a very good push from them for college. Of course, the classes you take in college are different than the ones in high school, but thats why its preparing us. Because its not the same. Although, because its not the same, that is why you should strive even harder to get ahold of your new found style of education.

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  18. I can't wait until we dive into the discussions about the oh-so-debatable dynamics if a family. How fun!

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  19. The school that I attended gave the option for students to take classes that would prepare them for college, but if the students did not take them, I can see where high school college prep could be lacking.

    On a side note, I'm in the same boat as prime. Debates on family dynamics could be fun given how many opinions there are on the subject.

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  20. I know this is late but it hasn't been letting me post blog comments.

    My high school did a poor job of honestly preparing students for college, if they did decide to continue on to a higher education. Very rarely was I actually required to turn in homework; more often than not, simply showing up for class was a guaranteed "C" grade. Homework was easy at its most difficult and I generally breezed through my different courses.

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  21. As a follow-up to my last comment, I would just like to say that I am surprised it finally let me post.

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  22. I feel that my high school did a fairly good job at preparing me for college. One of the things that my school did to help prepare me for college was that it offered ITV classes, which gave me access to college-level classes such as english, chemistry, and biology. My school also offered AP classes, which simulated and, in some cases, surpassed my current college workload in some classes. Some of the teachers were also rather rigorous, such as my 8-10th grade english teacher, who usually had us right 7-page research papers twice a year. Overall, I think that my high school did a fairly good job at preparing me for college, or at the very least, getting me somewhat acclimated to what college is like.

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  23. I know it's super late to be posting on this blog, but I am catching up on the blogs now, also I wasn't sure what to comment on this blog. I suppose I can state that my high school education was very good in preparing for college and that I am glad to be here at Tech. Especially in your class, Dr. Newmark. ;)

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