Paragraphs: Corrections and Metacognitive Analysis

• Original Paragraphs:

Causes of Students’ Failure

Children’s failing in schools is a very serious matter, and of course, there are some possible reasons for this to be happening which can be considered the most important ones. First of all, despite the fact of that a student’s success or failure through the different subjects has been for many years appreciated by the experts from a perspective that focuses on the individual features of a person, the characteristics of the context in which an infant or teenager is immersed in, such as his or her family and social and economical background, just to name a few examples, are a significant factor to take into account when looking for major causes that produce unsuccessful students. Secondly, as mentioned by Gardner, motivation, which can be instrumental or integrative, and the absence of it, play an important role which can also be crucial for the kind of performance a primary or secondary school learner may have through the course of a year. In the third place, it is also important to pay attention to the atmosphere that is generated by the teacher, because in many cases, a student’s level of anxiety can be too high and counter-productive, ending up as another reason for failure. Lastly, It is worth mentioning that according to the Vygotskian socio-historical theory, we humans learn collaboratively through a process later known by the name of scaffolding, in which expert and novice interact in order to solve a particular task; of course, if the task happens to be too demanding, the learner will end up failing in the enterprise of internalizing the tools that will allow him or her to perform the given task without the help of the teacher or a more advanced peer, and this of course can be what determines if the student will achieve the necessary level in order to be promoted or not. Evidently, the reasons for school failure in children can be varied, but the experts are beginning to realize that they should start looking for other possible triggers that, although it may sound rather strange for some, might be found outside the institutions and located especially in the rest of the community.

Working Women

In United States, a slow but significant improvement can be appreciated in the allowance of women to perform many types of jobs traditionally reserved for men. In the medicine area, for instance, in 1890, women constituted only 5 per cent of the doctors, whereas nowadays the percentage arises almost to 20 per cent. Similarly, legal jobs have shown an increasing acknowledgment in feminine rights: in 1930, from each 100 lawyers and judges, only 2 were women; that number reached to 22 in 1989. However, the most remarkable advance can be perceived in the political field-mainly due to its influence in the course of the Nation-in which women have been able to occupy sites of great influence as senators, majors, governors, Supreme Court judges, etc, in a relatively short period from the law that gave them the chance to vote in 1920. All these achievements leave open the hope of finding women, not only covering a larger number of employments, especially in new areas, but also contributing with their skills and capabilities in the most important making-decision jobs.

Cited Works

Shrum, J. & Glisan E. (2005) Understanding the Role of Contextualized Input, Output, and

Interaction in Language Learning. Teacher´s Handbook. Contextualized Language

Instruction. Boston.

Women's International Center (1995), Women's History in America

Presented by Women's International Center, Compton’s Newsmedia, inc., Retrieved

from http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm

• Rewritten Paragraphs:

Causes of Students’ Failure

There are external and internal reasons for children’s failure in schools. First of all, it is worth considering the social and economic background in which a student is immersed in. Secondly, concerning the internal aspect of the causes, instrumental or integrative motivation is critical to the attainment of success. In the third place, it is also important to pay attention to the atmosphere that is generated by the teacher, because in many cases, a student’s level of anxiety can be too high and counter-productive, ending up as another reason for failure. In addition, according to Vygotsky, we humans learn collaboratively through a process later known by the name of scaffolding; the teacher has to know how to provide this help to the student or things will not go well. Lastly, physical health almost always has consequences in cognitive development, so a previous medical history of several diseases is also a determining factor for underachievement. When we talk about children's failure in schools, we are talking about a social problem, not just an individual problem within the learner, so both internal and external factors have to be taken into account.

Working Women

A significant improvement can be appreciated in the allowance of women to perform many types of jobs traditionally reserved for men. In the medicine area, for instance, in 1890, women constituted only 5 per cent of the doctors, whereas nowadays the percentage arises almost to 20 per cent. Similarly, legal jobs have shown an increasing acknowledgment in feminine rights: in 1930, from each 100 lawyers and judges, only 2 were women; that number reached to 22 in 1989. However, the most remarkable advance can be perceived in the political field-mainly due to its influence in the course of the Nation-in which women have been able to occupy sites of great influence as senators, majors, governors, Supreme Court judges, etc, in a relatively short period from the law that gave them the chance to vote in 1920. All these achievements leave open the hope of finding women, not only covering a larger number of employments, especially in new areas, but also contributing with their skills and capabilities in the most important making-decision jobs.

• Metacognitive Analysis:

After watching the videos about Paragraph Structure, going to the theory from the book From Paragraph to Essay and receiving the LEE IV teacher’s feedback, I could become aware of the mistakes I made when writing my paragraphs. Although the general structure was fine, the topic sentence of the first paragraph should have been more specific: the body sentences listed external and internal factors that could lead students to failure while the topic sentence prepared the reader to find “…reasons (…) which can be considered the most important ones.” That was too general and did not get to the point. Taking into account Halliday’s three functions of language, it can be said that the interpersonal was not fully achieved at some points: one of the sentences in particular was too long and there was too much circumlocution in general. Also the fact of mentioning “experts” stating something without citing any work that supports it is something out of the question in academic writing. In addition, despite the fact that there were isolated mistakes like for example writing “economical background” instead of “economic background” (awful mistake by the way), there weren’t significant problems regarding cohesion and the use of cohesive devices. Finally, there was circumlocution present in the conclusion sentence as well, including the use of terms like “triggers”, something that takes the reader too far from the main point of the paragraph. This metacognitive analysis and the teacher’s feedback contribute a lot to my future writing tasks because as a future teacher, it is crucial for me to enable readers to understand the ideas I want to transmit, and because I always want to give the best of myself.

Structure of a Well-Written Paragraph

American paragraph structure is different than the ones in other cultures:

• The topic sentence:

- One central idea
- An opinion as an opener
- One thesis statement
- Has to be general
- Should be indented at the beginning

• The body contains the details (sentences and all other ideas should be directly related to the main idea).

- Could be any length
- Details:
Why is this important?

What are the reasons?

Are there any examples of this?

- There are two ways of ordering details: taking into account their level of importance, and/or 
chronologically (order of events)

- The body should contain:
  Flow- bridges (Sentences with clear connections to preceding and subsequent 
  sentences, and paragraphs whose topic sentence is connected to the closing      sentence of the preceding one, and so on)

Key terms

Variety of words

Links between words
Synonyms in order to avoid repetition

• Closing sentence

- Reminder of topic

- Must keep the reader thinking

- Must prepare the reader for the next paragraph

• Other things to take into account in order to write well-written paragraphs and academic papers

- Always ask yourself about what is expected of you
- Use and make yourself fond of your module handbooks
- What are the learning outcomes within this activity?
- Use key direction words
- Make a plan
- Reread and edit
- Proof read
- Avoid going off on tangents
- Always have the title in front of you
- Provide a wide range of arguments

Students: Rodrigo Alvarenga, Santiago Mazzei

Cited Works

engVid.com (2009, May 19). Parts of a Paragraph - English Academic Writing Introduction
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCuExRE6N-4
engVid.com (2013, July 22). Writing Skills: The Paragraph 
[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IFDuhdB2Hk
Edge Hill University (2013, Julne 20). Introduction to Academic Writing [Video file]. 
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CelpkwseU5U

Metacognitive Analysis of "Writing and Writers are a Must" Based on the Theory Developed in Our G-DOC

          This metacognitive analysis has been written following The 5 Basic Stages of the Writing Process. The previous entry of this blog was a text that resulted from a task that consisted in spontaneously writing something about a particular given topic, with the purpose of making us students realise that no writing can be properly written without meeting certain conditions regarding its elaboration process. The following paragraphs are going to mension the steps or events that should have taken place before the "publishing" stage of Writing and Writers are a Must.
          In the first place, in order o write a proper work, one should start by the "pre-writing" stage. For me, there has been no need of finding a topic to write about as it had already been given as part of the task. There has not been any kind of process related to building the idea I was supposed to write about or establishing the kind of public this work would be written for. A brainstorming, for example, would have given great results, although one can use freewriting for the same purpose as well. Planning a structure is something essential, and something that didn't take place in my writing process either, so instead of deciding which aspects of my idea I would write about, I started compulsively writing the first things that came to my mind. It has been like a freewriting of something not processed or not properly disassembled and examined.

I used brainstorming in order to get the ideas that made it possible for me to write this entry.

          Secondly, there has not been any draft made before declaring this work finished. Moreover, Writing and Writers are a Must itself could be taken as a draft of something that lacks a proper shape or consistency.

The draft I used in order to get to the definitive version of this entry.

          In the third place, it is obvious that there has not been an opportunity of revising the work at any extent. No questions regarding the level of detail or the logical order in which ideas are presented have been considered (mentioning Vigotsky and suddenly jumping to the Greek philosophers all of a sudden is a clear example of this). Moreover, no additions, rearrangements, removals or replacements of information have taken place.
          A fourth fact worthmentioning is that this work has been put through an editing process, but taking into account that there was no final product the author (I) might have had in mind (no target public, etc.), it has been "editing for the sake of editing" and nothing more.
          Finally, the fifth and last stage of the writing process is the "publishing" stage. Although Writing and Writers are a Must has been posted on the internet through Blogger, this event was not part of this stage due to the fact that its publishing was not part of any set of stages in any kind of process: it is a "purposeless written work that has been published just because it was part of a given task."
          A writing is not such if it does not meet certain conditions that have to do with its elaboration process, as it has been mentioned before. In order to write a proper article, paper, story or any kind of written production, there are certain aspects that have to be taken into consideration as it has been described. Following The 5 Basic Stages of the Writing Process is one of the keys to a successful writing.

Click here to go to the G-DOC that we had to write about The 5 Basic Stages of the Writing Process!

Writing and Writers are a Must

          Writing is a tool which has the function of expressing thought. It is a vehicle for thought.
As humans, we have the need of communicating our ideas to others. We are social beings, it is in our nature.
          Vigotsky said that writing is a instrument of semiotic mediation, acquired in most cases in an educational institution, that at the same time enables us to internalize others of its kind. This is why writing is said to have a double function, as well as reading. It is part of the Advanced Superior Psychological Processes, and only humans are capable of acquiring it.
          Western philosophers in the ancient Greece began to express their ideas and concepts through the written language and that, at the same time, influenced other philosophers and thinkers years and years after them. To have a clear proof (ideologically speaking) of the development of Mankind, the base for every single achievement of the species has probably been written somewhere (even if it is not in a common or average style).
          The purpose of writing can be varied, as we can write to create a work of art, to inform of a scientific discovery, to express our feelings in a catarctic event, to share any kind of knowledge, etc.
          I personally believe writing is a must because without the ability of doing so, leaving aside all the physical and mental advantages it rewards us with, we would be unable to share our own "self" with the universal self we are all part of.
          Writers, on the other hand, are very important for the world because they carry the gift of being the voice of those who sometimes cannot have a voice, those to whom fate has not been kind, those who seek for a remedy to ease a mental pain. But also of those who enjoy a pleasant and quiet life, those who want to share a possitive message.
          Moreover, writers are the influence of those who have not yet started their adventure,those who feel they want to be part of the great poem that life is, and want to contribute with a verse.

Welcome to my new Blog!

Hi! my name is Santiago Mazzei and I hope you enjoy this Blog's development as I will be writing some entries during the course of the year. Have fun! :)