(12.06.16) UNIT 3: Final Draft + Reflection

https://prezi.com/j3iv4vaj9zab/how-to-study-smarter-not-harder/




REFLECTION:

This was probably my favorite unit project out of the three we have done. It was full of creativity and personalization. I love how I was able to choose a topic that I felt was most going to be not only beneficial and fun but also appealing to the audience  as well. I genuinely do feel that working on this project helped me gain knowledge on the tips and tricks of learning to study better as well. While I was working on my project, I decided to research up information to know some statistical facts regarding studying tips, and also asked a couple of my friends' opinions and thoughts on their top studying tips. I felt that this not only expand the connection between the readers and my blog, but also augment my own credibility for this project. Using actual students' opinions and such can help concrete the validity for some of the tips that I mentioned because it proves that there are other students who are currently having the exact same studying habits as the readers are.

In the beginning, my original idea was to have a discussion on how to take good notes. As I was writing my rough draft for that concept, I realized that it was too narrow and specific. Rather than completely throwing that idea away and replacing with a new idea, I decided to simply use a more broad topic: how to study smarter, not harder. A few of the tips within that would include the tips I originally wrote for my previous topic.

During the peer review we had during class, I asked my classmates for some feedback for my project. Some suggestions I heard was to mention the benefits of study groups, flashcards, and using the examples given from professors and their notes. I personally don’t find study groups beneficial, only because everyone gets distracted easily at one point. Therefore, I mentioned all their helpful tips except for that one in particular. I’m a strong believer in people studying successfully when focusing alone. I really liked how we had this open peer review session during class, because it gave me the opportunity to interact with my classmates and hear their honest feedback. In the end, I decided to have a total of 10 tips on how to study efficiently and effectively. I also chose to present my Prezi with an introduction, so my readers know what the content is going to be touching base with.
Some important tips that I thought you were super important were to use a planner, putting your phone on a mode, and having an automated playlist. Those three are probably the top 3 tips that personally help me study much better. Part of the reason being is because I am the type of person to get distracted very easily. However, it bothers me if my phone isn't near a close proximity to where I am at, therefore putting it in "Do Not Disturb" mode definitely helps me out. After writing down all the tips and giving a detailed explanation for each, I realized that my project seemed too simple and not very appealing. As I thought about it, I also came into a realization that I lack credibility. In order to bolster that, I asked a few of my friends to give me their opinion on their favorite tip from my "How-To" guide. I feel that presenting their opinions really does enhance my project into standing out for the audience to enjoy and read.

(11.17.16) UNIT 3: Draft

(11.10.16) UNIT 3: letters to mi casa y familia!! :)

REFLECTION:

This letter assignment we did was actually not as bad and weird as I expected it to be. I actually really didn’t mind working on it, because it allowed me to just open up and speak my mind into the letter, while being able to update my family back home on how I’ve been doing here at Syracuse. This type of writing genre was definitely different than the ones we previously worked on. It’s different mainly because of the writing style; I was able to write not as formally as other genres. In the letter, I basically wrote how I would normally speak, because it was a letter for my family, not the president or some sort. This really allowed me to be more genuine and personal with my audience, which only caught the reader's’ attentions even more. I felt that I most likely made a stronger connection with my audience because they were my family members who are familiar with my personal life and struggles. I personally enjoy writing freely, without having any constraints or limitations to what I can express towards whoever are reading my writings. So, writing this letter to my family wasn’t a struggle for me and like I said previously - it wasn’t a bother writing it at all. It felt more so as if I was writing a typical journal entry.

Quite frankly, this assignment actually helped with me with ideas for my current unit assignment because it promoted the different discourses that I have such as my group in work, friends, and school. It helped me gain ideas on what I should base my assignment topic on.

(11.08.16) UNIT 3: Manifesto

(11.03.16) UNIT 3: A Stranger in Strange Lands

(10.20.16) UNIT 2: Mini Dialogue Assignment

(10.13.16) UNIT 2: Draft + Final Draft + Reflection

Draft

Being a student is not as simple and as fun as some people may think. There’s always a never-ending pile of homework that must be dealt with every night, and arduous athletic training that must be taken on a constant basis as well. There are some discourses between full time student communities versus student athletic communities, because of their different priorities. I remember struggling throughout high school because juggling my exams with my tournaments wasn’t as easy thing. I traveled throughout different states, and skipped several days of school here and there, just so I can attend my tournaments. I always came home at around 10 in the late evening from practice, and then that’s when I had to start on my schoolwork. There were days when I would come home extra late because I had additional training sessions with my team.

But even though I had to sacrifice so many tears, so many sleepless nights, and so many hours of my days, I was never able to give up on either of these communities. Both of them represented who I was as a whole. My academics were to bolster me in achieving my goal of receiving a degree in Health and Exercise Science to become a sports psychologist. My passion for archery motivated me to earn the highest ranks as possible. I knew they were not easy tasks to accomplish, but both were goals that I wanted to achieve in the long run.


Final Draft
Being a student athlete is not as simple and as fun as some people may think. There’s always a never-ending pile of homework that must be dealt with every night, and arduous athletic training that must be taken on a constant basis as well. There are some discourses between full time student communities versus student athletic communities, because of their different priorities. I remember struggling throughout high school because juggling my exams with my tournaments wasn’t as easy thing. I traveled throughout different states, and skipped several days of school here and there, just so I can attend my tournaments. I always came home at around 10 in the late evening from practice, and then that’s when I had to start on my schoolwork. There were days when I would come home extra late because I had additional training sessions with my team.

But even though I had to sacrifice so many tears, so many sleepless nights, and even a previous musical talent of mine, I was never able to give up on either of these two communities. Both of them represented who I was as a whole. My academics were to bolster me in achieving my goal of receiving a degree in Health and Exercise Science to become a sports psychologist. My passion for archery motivated me to earn the highest ranks as possible. I knew they were not easy tasks to accomplish, but both were goals that I wanted to achieve in the long run. There were always tension in between these two groups. As previously mentioned, archery took a lot of my time. For some reason, my testing schedule for finals were always a weekend or two after one of my tournaments. This brought over so many much conflicts for me because it would make me doubt myself in even participating in the tournament; I didn’t want to end up overloading myself with pounds of stress on my shoulders and fail miserably in both my exams and tournaments. Time management eventually became probably the biggest challenge for me as a high school student. As I slowly adjusted to all the workload that was upon me, I resolved this by studying wherever I can, whether it be in the hour long car drive to practice, or a road/plane ride trip to competitions. Moreover, I was also an active choir student throughout my years in high school. My archery training days would sometimes conflict with my choir performance nights, and so I had to sacrifice one for the other. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t attend both events when they occurred at once.

My team was invited to train with South Korea’s Seoul National Sport University’s archery team. We vigorously trained six hours with them to prepare for an international tournament there.

Tension isn’t necessarily always going to be between two people. As you can see, it can be between two whole groups. These tensions will, unfortunately, always require some sort of sacrifice. At one point, I actually had to let go of one of these communities - not because I wanted to, but because I physically wasn’t able to do both:

In April by the end of my spring break, I was to decide which university to attend after I graduated out of my high school. I was very conflicted between a variety of schools: going out of state to either Texas A&M or Syracuse University, or staying in my home state by attending either University of Pacific or one of the top UC schools. Each school had its own pros and cons, but my main dilemma was regarding whether the school had an archery team or not. The amount of financial aid I was to receive was of course an issue too, but I viewed my archery much more highly than anything else. I wanted to attend Syracuse University, but I knew for a fact that there wasn’t an archery club or team. In the end, however, I ended up on taking up a big risk by attending Syracuse. My family and friends knew by heart that meant the ending of my archery career, but I felt that maybe it could be the possibility of something new as well.

(10.11.16) UNIT 2: Chang Rae Lee's library

Chang Rae Lee’s article, “An Immigrant Thanksgiving” is about his personal experience of celebrating Thanksgiving. He first sets the background setting by describing where his parents are immigrants: “My father and uncle wear the same brow-line style eyeglasses that have not yet gone out of fashion back in Seoul (Lee)”. He continues to mention his childhood memories by bringing up his mother’s hatred for bugs and pests, and “no matter what she does she can’t bar them or kill them, and she’s begun to think the only solution is to move.. (Lee)”. Bringing up korean food, such as kimbap and bulgogi to the dinner table is also one of the highlights throughout the article because it accentuates one of the main differences between the two communities in regards to cuisines: American food vs. Korean food. Thanksgiving was a big special event for him as a child because he didn’t eat much poultry. So the turkey they were planning on eating that night, was going to be one of the few nights that they eat that certain type of cuisine.

After reading this article, I reflected upon the ideas within the tensions between discourse communities. I realized that there will always be some sort of discourse between communities because of the conflicting ideas and cultures.

(10.06.16) UNIT 2: Stanford Stereotypes

We’ve all seen those American classic movies that revolve around high school, like Mean Girls and Grease, where it shows the different cliques: the nerds, the popular girls, and of course the athletic boys. Throughout the years, society has perceived these varsity sports players as dumb jocks. Although this is stereotype isn’t necessarily true, it still has stuck onto everyone’s back of their heads, including the athletes themselves. Unfortunately, this lead to them having a lower academic performance by restraining their true potential.

In Clifton B. Parker’s article, he mentions how a Stanford researcher noticed that stereotypes genuinely do ingrain into the athlete’s head and negatively impact their performance. Different discourses that were highlighted that impacted athletes were their gender/race differences as well as their reputation and how people viewed them as a person. He stated how even just “warning people about the phenomenon can help overcome feelings or thoughts that they don’t belong to a particular group (Dee)”. To put it simply. having athletes self consciously be aware that they aren’t “dumb jocks” just because they are athletes is an important mindset that more people should have.

I personally don’t feel that there aren’t any other tension between student athletes and the larger student body. However even this one discourse between the communicates has lessened; I believe that more people are starting to notice that athletes can be just as academically productive as regular full time students, if not then more. It has been scientifically proven that those who stay physically active on a constant basis have more motivation and energy to be productive. Furthermore, many sports whether they may be competitive division teams or smaller club teams, require a certain GPA score, to ensure that their team players are able to equally dedicate themselves to both their sport and education.

(10.04.16) UNIT 2: 3 Literary Artifacts

When an item has sentimental value, it gives people more of a reason to never get rid of it, whether it may be a tattered blanket or a prized jewelry. They normally represent one’s background or perspective.

The first artifact that I decided to present was my team shirt from an international archery tournament in Korea. Not only was it one of the biggest tournaments that I’ve ever participated in, but also probably the most memorable. Never have I met so many people from around the world, all sharing the same passion as mine: archery. Archery is one of my communities that I am proud to be a part of. I have proudly been a part of this community for four years, and have learned many morals from my coaches and teammates.. They are all very much my second family; people who I were able to depend on to help me keep accountable of all my athletic performances.

The shirt signifies the memories I have made during the time of me being there in Seoul.

We all have put hours of time and bucketfuls of sweat and tears into our training sessions and games.

The second important community would be my Korean ethnicity. Growing up with both my parents being Korean, they both wanted me to maintain my cultures and traditions while I was being surrounded by an American environment. Thus, I grew to be familiar with the traditional holidays and cuisines at an early age. We always celebrated the important holidays every year, such as the korean thanksgiving, and ate different korean dishes everyday. Furthermore, I went to Korean school every Saturday morning, where they helped me practice my korean fluency but also the culture in general. I may be raised with a lot of my Korean culture, but my American culture is just as important to me. This actually brings a lot of tension between my parents and I because they don’t value the American background as much as I do. They favor more of their original customs, because of the fact that they were born and raised in South Korea.

My Southern Californian background is most definitely another community that I will never let go of. I have lived there my entire life, and have grown used to all the perks around me: Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm being only a half hour drive, all-you-can-eat korean barbecue restaurants within a 15 minute range, and of course all the different sightseeing areas in Los Angeles.

(09.29.16) UNIT 2: Jason Colin's article

I’m not that familiar with what goes in within the basketball industry, or any other sport (except archery) actually. But the article about Jason Collins expressing his sexuality so openly and publicly was very interesting to me. I may not know who exactly he is, but I do know for a fact that a celebrity sharing something personal about himself/herself is not an easy thing to do especially with the fast growing media that we have in our society.

In his article, there were some moments where us readers were able to sense the tension/discourse within his communities. We immediately sensed the tension when he opened up his article stating that he, “didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport (Collins).” This conveys the tension that he’s been feeling because he states that he was the first person to open up about his sexuality. He continues to mention his struggle by stating that he was keeping it to himself for 33 years, and also also when his close friend marched in Boston’s Gay Pride Parade. “Hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy..angry that as a closeted gay man couldn’t even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator. (Collins).” He knew that he would not be able to comfortably tell people that he was supporting his friend because he himself was gay. Within his community, those were his main struggles, which caused the discourses between him and the societies around him. The third tension that I was able to notice was when he mentioned his twin brother. Not only did they grow up to become close brothers, but also did many things together, including going to Stanford for education and joining the NBA. Despite them growing together and building a strong relationship, he sensed a difference at a young age, which was him not being as attracted to girls as his brother was. However his brother managed to be fully supportive with him.

There are many places where there are tension within the communities that I fall under. One important one is within my family’s religion. Although I grew up with Christian parents, I always questioned myself in believing the same religion as them. If anything, I personally felt obligated to be one. Another time where I felt tension was with my ethnicity and culture. My parents, being born in South Korea, thus sticking close to more of their Korean traditions than American traditions, was something that I wasn’t able to partake in as much as them. I grew up here in America, and was always surrounded by very Americanized people, which only affected how I perceived my views within my cultures. I felt tension when I was in my archery team. Being in an active and competitive team required me to dedicate hours of practice. This caused a lot of discourse and trouble for me because I wouldn’t be able to spend time with my friends as much as I wanted to.

(09.21.16) UNIT 1: LITERACY NARRATIVE + REFLECTION: Archery

     When people mentioned my name in high school, the first thing they thought of was archery. I remember people coming up to me and asking, "You're the girl who shoots, right?" I would give a sheepish smile and respond back with a "maybe" along with a light laugh. Archery has been a sport that I not only invested countless of hours in, but also saw as a passion of mine. It was something that I envisioned myself taking part of as a possible career. I remember my fellow teammates and I being excited for our very first training session of us earning our coaching licenses. We all took our sport very seriously, so of course, we considered our four week coaching training as one of our top priorities at that time.

    I remember gaining so much more knowledge during my lessons: familiarizing with the specifics within the anatomy of the bow, memorizing each step of proper techniques to shoot an arrow, and understanding the history behind archery. They were things that enhanced my skills in regards to being an athlete and being a step closer to earning the title as a coach. Within Dennis Baron's article, "From Pencils to Pixels", he made some very important statements that stood out to me: "Today when people read books, they still read conventional printed books, not the relatively small number of electronic books..the conventional book continues to thrive (Baron)". Baron is essentially claiming that even though the use of technology is rapidly increasing, conventional books are still just as popular. I completely agree with his assertion because during our sessions, our instructor handed each of us a booklet, that we used as a "textbook". He could have easily given us an e-book of it so we can access it on our mobile devices, but we used the traditional paper book in order to be able to highlight key terms and facts for future references. Additionally in Joseph Harris' article, "Coming to Terms," he pointed out that, "texts don't simply reveal their meanings to us; we need to make sense of them (Harris)". Harris is saying that there is no significance in reading the given texts. It is necessary to completely acknowledge the true meaning behind the given text. This is another statement that I could relate to; because I wasn't accustomed to all the linguistic words in the booklet, I couldn't simply just memorize the important facts and words. I had to actually understand and take ownership of what I was being taught.

   Although the weeks of training weren't easy, it still was definitely worth all the efforts that I gave. Receiving my license really augmented me as an athlete, and even as a person in general because it made me realize that there's more to just shooting an arrow. The process of shooting, from your breathing to when you release the arrow all matters and can all impact your end results. Even though, my career as an archery athlete has ended for now, the memories and knowledge that I gained throughout still lingers in my mind. Not many people will understand, solely because it is a sport that is not as active as others such as soccer or water polo, but it is still a sport that was and always will be a part of me.

REFLECTION

Throughout the Unit 1 assignments, there have been many moments where I’ve felt that my understanding of the assignment topics has augmented. This particular assignment pushed me to enhance my introspecting skills and have a better perspective within myself.It made me really value archery even more, even thought I’m not an active shooter anymore. During my competitive years, I used to take archery for granted, because it was such a daily routine for me. Now that I look back to it, however, I’ve come to realize that I should feel blessed for having the opportunity to try such an uncommon sport.

Regarding understanding literary analysis, I learned that when understanding literature text, you have not just read the words but also completely understand what is being shown to you. Taking ownership of the texts is vital in order to completely understand what the author’s message is. The role of the readings were to help us understand how to analyze text in a deeper fashion and mature perspective by having an open mind. These essentially bolstered us with our literacy journeys because of it being a constant reminder for us to not read with narrow perspectives but also to really think what the author is trying to say.

If I were to have more time to continue writing my essay, I would probably write more about my experiences in archery, such as the tournaments and how my shooting experiences as a whole grew onto me as a person. Archery genuinely taught me so much not just as an athlete, but as a person. Additionally, I met a great team of archers, competitors, and coaches who also supported my shootings and taught me important morals.

(09.13.16) UNIT 1: Graphic Novel Page

A literacy narrative are essentially stories.They range from being simple bedtime stories from our childhood years to autobiographical texts from our academic textbooks. Narratives usually hold a specific purpose, that signifies an event in our lives but are related to having some sort of personal interaction with literacy. Focusing on a different and new genre - in this case, a literacy narrative, - changed my rhetorical choices, by altering my perspectives. In other words, I viewed this genre in a more personal level, because the literacy narrative had to be related to us and our own personal experiences. I focused my experiences on archery: the moment where I was in the midst of receiving my coaching license. I decided to highlight the simple but main parts of the experience: going through training, learning all the different concepts, taking the coaching test, and finally, receiving the actual license.In order to appeal to my audience, I made sure to set a scene by having a background: a classroom for me to receive my archery coaching license.

(09.08.16) UNIT 1: "Speaking in Tongues"

In Zadie Smith’s “Speaking in Tongues,” she expresses her regrets of not being able to have multiple voices. In other words, because she moved to a different area during her college years, she was forced to learn a new language - hence a new “voice”. This lead her to eventually forget her original language and end up replacing her old with the new. She claims that this “is not the voice of her childhood (Smith)” and explains how she felt conflicted because she wasn’t able to express herself in college with her old voice. She feels a sense of regret and disappointment, stating, “they were both a part of me (Smith).” However, the cultures between both languages clashed and this made me feel like she lost a part of her identity.

Smith and the other two previous authors, Dennis Baron and Joseph Harris all went through their own personal literacy experiences. Smith went through an obstacle regarding self and identity, while Baron voiced his thoughts towards technological advancement. Joseph Harris spoke about how one can fully understand literature by providing the readers with different techniques and tips.. Each of these authors’ experiences are critical to their lives and literacy journeys because it is what helped them understand more of not just themselves, but also their perspective towards literacy.

(09.06.16) UNIT 1: From Pencils to Pixels.."

Denis Baron’s From Pencils to Pixels..” was an interesting piece that he wrote, in regards to the relationship between technology and literacy. He discusses how technology has impacted the way we perceive literacy now, and how dependent we are towards our computers.

He starts off his essay by talking about how Google started a project in 2002, where they attempted to have many texts available online, like an online library. Although it did cause several copyright issues along the way, it still managed to grow and become successful as they expanded the amount of availability by signing off with multiple book publishers. He then transitions to how technology has affected not just literacy, but the people themselves as well. He claims that “more people are writing more; they are creating new genres of writing; and they have more control over what they write and how it is distributed (Baron).” Computers have definitely impacted our lives as a whole, considering the fact that we use them nonstop for instant messaging, emails, and many other work/leisurely uses. Many may argue that the traditional way of reading and literature is dying out because of the substitution of the digital text, but Baron begs to differ. He says that we are reading just the same amount, if not more; the only thing that did change was the ease of access of being able to control what and how we are reading, rather than how much we are reading.

He continues to augment his statement about the value of technology by saying how online advertisements have the ability to show us certain products that could be of our interest. He says that he “never told Amazon what I already own, nor have I ever rated an item, but I learned that I could do both if I wished..(Baron).” In other words, the keywords we provide with in search engines have grown to be able to satisfy us consumers by showing products of our interest.

I personally found this piece of literature as introspective and straightforward. It was refreshing to read a response from a person who solely believed that technology has advanced and is growing only for the better. I feel that his supporting statements, facts, and statistical evidence all successfully bolstered what he had to say. Most importantly, I feel that it possibly has brought a new insight towards the readers, because I know that it definitely did to me. I never realized how attached we have grown to become towards our technology, and have managed to control what we can access because of it.

Cite: http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/482/482readings/12%20pencils%20to%20pixels.pdf