So I finally went and spent some time, other than orientation, at my service learning partners facility. I had a blast! I helped a student with their math homework which looked close to a practice GED test. Other than a few minor techniques he seemed to have a good grasp on what he was doing. At the beginning of the tutoring session he was having trouble with a specific problem and by the time we were done he was able to complete those types of problems with little to no help from me! I was very impressed by his enthusiasm to understand the concepts and do things on his own.
I would say that my service learning partner can relate to what we are doing in English 102 and also with what the University is doing also. In English we are researching topics that have to do with our service learning partners. In my case, I'm researching the GED. I realize I need to narrow this but at the moment am having difficulty determining what I want to narrow it to. This has to do with Centennial Job Corps because their goal is to help teenagers and young adults either obtain their GED or if they already have it then help them get the required skills they need for a specific job. This way the young adult is able to get the skills required to jump into the work force and make a wage that they can sustain themselves off of. What I am specifically doing at Job Corps to help is by being there to help them with their homework whether it be English, Math, or whatever they are working on that day.
I believe Job Corps has a similar characteristic with Boise State University in that they are both preparing young adults for specific jobs that will overall help the community grow and expand. I really like what Job Corps is doing and I am impressed at how big of a difference they are making in some peoples lives.
Revised Extended Bibs. and Unit 1 Essay
Cech, Scott J. "Armed With a GED." Education Week, 28, 15, pp. 20-23, Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 30 Jan. 2011.
This article is about the Army Preparatory School (APS) in Fort Jackson that helps young adults get their GED. Scott Cech talks about the style that this program is using and also talks to people in the program to get a better idea of how the whole system works. Cech emphasizes the freedom that the teachers have in the curriculum taught at APS. Part of Cech's article is the views from other teachers about military teaching style brought into public schools and how they would benefit or ruin the normal curriculum taught in public schools. Hugh B. Price, who is not connected to the APS program but is an expert on military-style education has one of the first comments in the article basically saying that the militaries style of education has a lot of potential if adopted into public school systems.
The whole article sounds very one sided by all the pros of the APS program and how the army benefits from it. When there was the one comment from a teacher who disapproved of how the APS wanted to motivate young adults she brought up different ways to encourage them to carry on with their education and support them through it but the author instead of saying that the program helps young adults are motivated in different aspects he simply throws in a comment from one of the young adults who has already gone through the APS program.
I chose this article because it sounded very similar to the Job Corps program that we are going to be working with this semester. Some similarities that they have are that they both are helping young adults achieve their GED and also helping the students prepare for future jobs in or out of the military. Job Corps’ goal is to help students obtain their GED and prepare them for certain jobs once they are out of the program so they can lead successful lives. In the Army Preparatory School they are helping young adults get their GED and also train for the military; once they have their GED they are then transferred to another military base to continue their time within the military. Also, their schedules and rules are very close related. They both require their students to participate in 8 hours of class and then after class they are free to do chores, homework, or relax. For Job Corps lights are out at 10 pm but for APS lights are out at 9 pm. Yet another thing they have in common is that they do not allow their students to drink or do any sort of drugs while in the program.
I think the article sounds very one sided in support of military-styled education. Even though I do like the idea of having stricter rules and curriculum I feel that this article could have contained more information about the actual methods used by APS instead of a bunch of comments on why people liked it.
Some questions that I have about this article is what types of methods did the Army Preparatory School use for discipline? What would be considered "overtly military?" What types of methods did West Philadelphia High School adopt to improve their school?
Deisher, R.W., Hammar, S.L., Ramsey, Otis, Gode, Richard, and Seligman, Fred. "Physical, Intellectual, and Educational Characteristics of a Sample of Job Corps Trainees." Pediatrics. (Oct. 1967): Academic Search Premiere. EDSCO. Web. 4 Feb 2011.
This article is about the health of a group of young men before they entered the Job Corps program and during the program itself. It talked about how only 36% of the tested men had had regular dental care and only 14% were under the care of a private physician. It also states that only 24% of the group sought dental help for tooth extractions or other forms of help but no restorations.
By the way this article was written it sounds like it mostly talks about the care of the boys prior to them entering the Job Corps program. Most of the information was about their physical states before they entered the program and then a little part of it said the educational levels the young men were at before they entered the program.
I think this article focused too much on the state of the boys before they entered the program and not enough on how the young men improved or got worse during their time at Job Corps. The article never stated whether or not the education levels of the young men improved or not. I think it would also have been beneficial to know where this study was taken and its comparison to the same study done in another area of the US.
Some questions I have are, how did each of the men improve or worsen while at Job Corps? What has Job Corps learned from this trial?
Bona, Linda. "Head Start and Job Corps Break New Ground", Children Today vol. 19, issue 3 (1990): Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 4 Feb 2011.
This article is about a Job Corps in San Diego, California that is finishing a new Head Start building next to the Job Corps facility. The article basically describes the new Head Start facility and the fact that even some of the Job Corps students are helping build the facility; even some of the Job Corps students have children enrolled in the Head Start program. Linda Bona makes it obvious that she thinks that this will be very beneficial to the children by ending the article with the statement, "In an environment of learning, caring, striving, and 'doing', the young children at this site are getting a Head Start in life that will truly make a difference."
Bona's argument is basically that since the Head Start is being built right next to Job Corps it will be better for the children to see young adults learning and striving for a better future. Also, it is a lot easier for some of the Job Corps students who have children in the Head Start program so easily accessible to their own program. Bona is saying that the students at Job Corps are able to participate and interact with the children at Head Start, which is going to create a better environment for everyone participating.
I would definitely have to agree with Bona that this is a great idea to have the Head Start and Job Corps so close to each other so they can grow and learn off of one another. Some of the things that Bona was saying such as the fact that this might be the most successful facility and that others will soon follow in their footsteps has me skeptical. I think that in some places it would be too risky to have young adults so close to children. Also, not every state or city is going to have the success that San Diego did. Another predicament is that in certain places Job Corps and Head Start already have facilities built in separate places and it would be too expensive to rebuild closer to one another.
Some questions that arose in my mind while I read this article were: Would there be any danger to the children in the Head Start program? What if the two facilities were moved to be closer to each other such as the one in San Diego and it became too inconvenient for students and children to attend the programs? Could this possibly influence the enrollment in the programs?
When I first entered English 102 I had very little to no understanding of academic writing and citation strategies. Yes, I have written research papers before and used citation multiple times but a lot of the times I get very confused on how the citation should be written and occasionally how to cite the source within the essay. My thoughts about academic writing were that they were kind of pointless and too meticulous for its own good. I used to also think that the reason we used citations and MLA format was simply for the reader, if interested, to go and read more on the subject; this is partially true but the reasons I have learned now make me feel more comfortable and make it seem more essential to find the best sources I can for any academic writing I do. Many of the essays I have written in college have opened my eyes to what I believe is the true meaning of academic writing and research papers.
It all starts in middle school when I learn how to write full sentences and paragraphs that require five or more sentences. Then it went into short essays that had specific topics such as responses to books or about an animal that is going extinct or even a famous figure in history. Of course while I was writing these small essays I never thought to tell my teachers where I got all of the information. Then I entered high school and I started learning about citing the sources I get information from and how to write essays in MLA format and then I learn how to make Work Cited pages at the end of my essays.
During my sophomore year of high school we had to write a research essay for Biology about cloning and genetic research. This was the first seriously graded research essay I wrote that would be graded partially on the format of the essay rather than the way you have written it and the information you put into it. My first taste of academic writing and I absolutely hated it. I thought that it was pointless for us to have to write down all of our sources and putting the authors name in parentheses after a sentence that you paraphrased from the source and all that other nonsense that goes into a research essay. After this essay my English teachers started making us write research papers and practice citing sources for hours on end; it was rather grueling work.
My senior year rolled around and along with it came senior projects. I was excited about doing the hands on part of the project and taking pictures and documenting my progress. But with the hands on project came the 10-15 page research paper. It took an entire semester to do the research and write the two rough drafts and final copy of the paper. This was the most extensive academic writing I have ever done. I cited all of my sources and wrote down every detail I needed to do well on my essay. I ended doing great and was actually top of my class for the paper. It wasn’t till my first semester of college that I realized the reason we write for academic purposes and why we cite all or our sources.
In my English 101 our professor taught us about ethos, pathos, and logos. She taught me what I believe to be the most important thing about citing your sources. What I took from my English 101 class is that you need to cite your sources and write a flawless essay so that the author can have or is pretending to have some sort of credibility. Due to this, now when I write research papers, I find the best sources that are reliable and, most important, credible.
Then came my English 102 class. I began to learn more in-depth how to determine whether an online site is credible or if they use fancy settings and words on the web page to sound smart and dependable. We also started writing extended bibliographies that made us look more closely at the information the site is giving us and picking it apart to determine what its underlying meaning and intent is. In one of my extended bibliographies I wrote I didn’t quite get what the actual intent of the essay was until I went back and revised the extended bibliography and reread the article. As I was summarizing the article I put this statement in my extended bibliography, “It talked about how only 36% of the tested men had had regular dental care and only 14% were under the care of a private physician.” The entire article seemed to take about the state of health the participants of the study were in before they entered the Job Corps program. I think the intent of this article was to make Job Corps sound very generous in accepting students that were in such bad shape. However, the article doesn’t talk about the condition of the boys after they entered Job Corps; the article kind of makes you assume that the boys improved greatly but it never directly states what the study found after they entered Job Corps.
Due to this article I realized you really do need to pay attention to the websites and articles you read and pick them apart to understand the intent of the article and whether the author is reliable or not. I feel like this has helped me become more reliable when I write my extended bibliographies or research papers. I now look for reliable and dependable sources when trying to find information instead of going to Wikipedia or the website that is easiest to find information on.
I am really glad that we are doing this class in a blog format online because I feel that the comments and responses that people put on my extended bibliographies are very helpful to me. They help me know whether my own assumption of the article or interpretation was clear and correct. An example of this was when Katie read through my first article and asked how the article related to Job Corps. When I went back and reread and revised this I realized I did a terrible job linking the two the way I had intended and so when I revised it I added an extra paragraph purely for explaining why I thought the article was important and relatable to Job Corps.
Also, I am really glad that I can read some of my groups extended bibliographies and see how they are asking questions and summarizing the articles they find. I am also glad that I can respond and tell them how good of a job they are doing and praise them for their work. I also really like the hug-slap-hug method because it does allow me to sort o criticize their work and give them advice on something they can fix without coming off as being rude. Overall, I have learned so much about how to find good sources and how to read them with the thought in mind of whether they are credible and good enough to be used on a website that anyone can see and read.
