Week 3

1.    New things that you learnt from any of your HELP classes.

I learned plagiarism, citation and paraphrasing in writing class. Plagiarism is using other people’s words or ideas in my writing without citation. It is a stealing. For example, when I use the information from the site in the internet, I have to mention it right after that sentence. Moreover, in the last of the writing, I have to write about the source. For instance, the name of article, the address, the date when it was modified and when I checked. Also, there are two ways to cite other people’s words. They are “Direct quote” and “Paraphrasing.” Direct quote means that I use other people’s words exactly as it says. I must not change the words, grammar and order. It needs a quotation mark. Paraphrasing means that I write other people’s words in different way, but still it has to be same meaning. In other words, I have to change not only the words using synonyms, but also the grammar. I can change the length of sentence, but I must not change the meaning from original passage.

 

2.    New things that you learnt outside of HELP.

I learned “PBJ” from my host mother. When I had lunch with my host family, she told me about “PBJ.” This is a shortened form of “Peanut Butter Jam.” It is maybe one kind of sandwich. I was surprised, so I introduce you how to make it. Ingredients are two slices of bread, peanut butter and jam. You can use any kinds of jam like strawberry, apple, blueberry and apricot. First, you prepare a slice of bread. Second, you spread Peanut Butter on it. Third, you spread jam on it. Lastly, you put another slice of bread on it like sandwich, and eat. She said it was very popular among American kids because it was easy, cheap and delicious. However, I could not believe it. I do not know why they put both peanut butter and jam. She made me it with apricot jam, and I tried then. The taste of peanut butter was much stronger than apricot jam. I thought jam did not need. I only could understand why many American kids were big.

 

3.    Apparently, there are certain steps for creating GOs. What are your steps when creating GOs? Try to recall what you do (step by step) while creating GOs for readings.

First, I have to read the article and make sure what this is talking about. If I find the words which I do not know, I guess the meaning or look up in the dictionary. Second, I find out the signal words and identify which type of the article it is such as listing, comparison, contrast or sequence. Third, I find out the main idea, thesis statement or topic sentence. After that, I look for some details. These should be important information to understand the article. Finally, I create GOs. I draw a picture with many kinds of circles, rectangles and arrows. Also, I write important information in that picture. It is included main idea, details and signal words. Each pattern has many kinds of way to create GOs. GOs have to be created simple and easy to see, but organized. When other people can understand and recognize what that article is about from only looking at the GOs, it is very good GOs.  

4.    After reading part of the article "Graphic Organizers in Reading Instruction" by Jiang and Grabe (2007), explain what the questions are in GOs research in your own words (p. 35). Also, according to Jiang and Grabe, what are the merits of GO instructions suggested by researchers (p.35)?

There are four questions. First, there is no evidence of experiential research that GOs are technical ways to understand the readings easily. Second, there are many kinds of understandings and designs to create GOs per person. Third, the research of GO about English learner as a foreign language is not enough. Lastly, there is not enough time to research GO. On the other hand, there is also merit to learn GOs.  GOs support understanding and memorizing of the readings because all readings have patterns, and GOs show them and important information to visualize.