In English class this semester we explored many ideas about language and learned many writing skills. This class was informative and allowed me to build up on skills that I didn’t have or already obtained in the past. The class was limitless as there was always time to improve your writing or thinking skills. In this class I learned how many course learning objectives and I will write to you below how.
One learning objective I completed was “Examine how attitudes toward linguistic standards empower and oppress language users.” This was something we completed in the very beginning of the semester with the reading of “Mother’s Tongue”, by Amy Tan. We learned about how Amy Tan’s mother was oppressed by others around her because of her way of speaking English. For example, “She said they would not give her any more information until the next time and she would have to make another appointment for that….And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect English — lo and behold — we had assurances the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake. “ We learned about how people oppressed and kept information from Amy Tan’s mother just because she couldn’t speak the perfect English, which was just the standard English but we learned while reading Mother’s Tongue that there are many acceptable Englishes. Another learning objective that I achieved was, “Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations.” This is a perfect example of our first translation, where we had to put our LLN essay into a shorter writing form like a poem, changing the genre of our essay to examples like poems and changing how we communicate the meaning of our LLN to an audience based on what we are writing. For example, from my translation 1, “How can the bird that is born for joy, Sit in a cage and sing. How can a child when fears annoy.
But droop his tender wing. And forget his youthful spring.” I examined this quote from a poem, “The School Boy” by William Blake, where my LLN idea was about how English shouldn’t force a students’ creativity and imagination to just disappear. We can see how in this quote the boy feels trapped in a cage and takes no delight in the work he does in class, showing a direct connection to the idea in my LLN essay. My third learning objective that I completed in this class was, “Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences.” This introduces our second translation that we created to transform our synthesis essay into a media form, explaining our ideas with pictures. My synthesis essay was examining how AI can affect the critical thinking of students. As a result I created a digital pamphlet that explains the pros and cons of AI alongside the world impact of AI. Below is the pamphlet I created for Translation 2 which effectively shows my ideas from my synthesis essay.
My translation 2 assignment: Translation 2
The fourth learning objective that I completed was, “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate those sources for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias.” This was completed in my synthesis essay where we need to get one peer reviewed source, one to two scholarly sources, one to two non-scholarly sources, and two to three media sources. I learned effective ways to find reliable sources that were tied to my claim in the synthesis essay. I learned how to use google scholar with key words that were tied to my claim like education or artificial intelligence, to help narrow down sources.
In this class I learned four different learning outcomes through many assignments in class. The translation 1 allowed me to find different ways to communicate our idea from our LLN into a different genre like a poem. An assignment with Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” allowed me to analyze and learn how the one standard English oppresses people who use different Englishes even though it has the same meaning. The translation 2 allowed me to use pictures to express different ideas through pamphlets to address different audiences who may find it easier to understand media better than an essay. The Synthesis essay allowed me to gather resources that were credible and gathered them in effective ways. Overall this class gave me assignments that allowed me to learn new information and techniques that will better me for future english classes.
