This week I was able to make great progress on my academic paper. I am not completely done with it just yet, but I am close. I am thinking by Friday I will be completely done with the academic paper and I can move on to creating my guide and adjusting my methodology/preface section.  I am hoping I can feel almost done by early next week. This way I have some time to sit on things for a little before fully submitting. I feel like I finally got the wheels turning and I am finally on a roll. Hopefully, right through to the finish line! See you all on zoom!  

I missed last week’s blog. I was feeling under the weather and spent most of the week in bed. Everyone was dropping like flies the previous week at work, so  I knew my time was coming eventually. Between naps and blowing my nose, I was able to work on my academic paper, however, I did not complete as much as I would`ve liked. I am hoping with the Thanksgiving break coming up I can play catch up, which I feel like I always say.  

This week I was able to finish up my lit review. FINALLY! I hope that nothing else comes up that I feel compelled to change or alter. Majority of my time this week was spent putting together my presentation. I think this is the first week that I kind of feel on top of things and less of like I`m scrambling. Previously I felt like my project aspects were all over the place, but laying things out this week and having to walk through them within my project helped ground me. I am excited to see what you guys think and what suggestions you give me.

For next week I will be focusing on finishing up my academic paper. My goal is to have that completed before Thanksgiving. Everything else after that is just a little bit easier. I`m using easier loosely. I am actually feeling good about all this and though it might be fleeting, I will take it!

See you all soon!

This week I have spent a few hours dedicating to my lit review… once again. I do feel like it is coming along and almost finished. I have two more articles to read and decide if they will be included or not. Admittedly I havent dedicated as much time as I probably should have in the last week. I plan to make up for that this long weekend. It’s actually my birthday weekend, but all my plans are super chill and relaxing. I feel like I can use that time to complete my lit review.

I also want to accomplish creating an outline for my academic paper. I know where I’m going with it but I want to write the paper in a fews day so the outline will keep me in check. This has been my daunting task. Everything else pertaining to my thesis is either done or I am not as stressed about getting done.

Once my lit review is done my to do list them becomes… academic paper outline, write academic paper, gather testimonies and lastly, put together my advice. I think. This is something I want to talk over with Dr. Zamora just to make sure I am not missing anything significant.

See you all soon!

This week I want to square up with my lit review. I feel like I am constantly finding new things to be added to it, and I have to keep going back and playing the game of “what needs to go”. Then I of course feel like everything HAS to stay. This gripe I have with the lit review is so real I had a dream about me teaching my middle schoolers what a lit review was. We have deep rooted beef. At this point I would love to say it was set in stone, but unfortunately, it is not. I found a really great source that analyzes “tokenism” which is significant to my work . Which is of course delaying my process in writing my academic paper.  

This weekend I hope to be able to just write my academic paper. I’d rather get something down and maybe have to add to it than to not have anything at all. Just to keep you guys up to speed, my creative section is mostly finished. I already have two short stories. I just need to add my advice section at the very end of that. However, I want that to be the absolute last thing because I keep altering or adding ideas based on the research I am discovering.  

As usual I hope to keep moving forward and use the weekend as some time to really play catch up, nail down the lit review and get going on my academic paper.  

This week I had to go back to the drawing board. I took my day off this week to really reset my whole thesis plan. I used the dreaded chatgpt to create a detailed schedule. I inputted all the related information as far as what tasks I had to accomplish and by what dates I wanted things done by. Although I cannot stand AI and chatgpt, this actually helped me so much. I was able to not only pace myself, but it gave me specific tasks I should be completing every time I sit down and dedicate time to my thesis. I was able to look back at things that were helping me move forward and aspects that were holding me back. One of my downfalls was my lit review. I found that it was hard for me to sit down and start writing my academic paper because my lit review wasn’t setting me up for success. This weekend I was able to go back, change some sources and also tweak some of my rationales. Doing this allowed for me to see clearly where I am going with my academic paper.  

My goal this week is to have a detailed outline for my academic paper, this way I know exactly where I am going with things. Overall, last weeks class coupled with my new plan is really putting me back on track and dare I say motivating me to keep pushing towards the finish line.  

This was even worse than a couple weeks back when I was struggling. There is so much going on in my personal life and with work. It seems as soon as I get one area under control, something happens to cause my attention, time and energy to shift.  

With that being said, I am at the point where I am practically avoiding my academic paper. I’m not sure what it is, but when I have set aside the little time I do have to actually write, I almost don’t know how to write academically anymore. With the little time I set aside this week I decided to be productive and switch gears by developing the questions I want to use during my interview process. I know I am fully ready to begin that process, and I am still excited about that. This academic paper has now become daunting, just because I know it is not going to be fun. This weekend I am going to try really hard to just get the whole thing done, so it can stop looming over my head. The more I think about it, the less I want to actually sit down and do it. My goal for next week is to come on here and tell you guys that I have a full draft for my academic paper on microaggression (if I can magically remember how to write an academic paper again). See you guys soon! 

The first piece by Martha Marinara talks about fluid identity in the classroom. In the text she refers to it as being “in between two norms”.

This was another interesting read. I think the topic of fluidity in general in a classroom setting has always been weird to me. Simply because I never seen an instant where that could possibly matter. As a teacher there is not any type of activity I conduct that would have to make my students feel in any way that they are being discriminated against or even made to feel like they HAVE have to identify with anything. It doesn’t matter to me as long as you feel safe and welcomed in my room no matter who you are. It is hard for me to wrap my head around this not being the case for other educators. I noticed at my school they had a workshop on this topic and how to make students feel comfortable. I think thats step in the right directions but based on the teachers reactions no one really took it serious and that makes me a little worried.

paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lhCP3VpTSrfqHMoJUVn087Cj8NsQ5kjx1E5JVvi2k3U/edit

slides :

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1G8NES-uSG8qaFqbVfBQKwxovi6vYeh9dT21C2BdRVwE/edit#slide=id.g18142ebd1e5_0_0

The idea of formulaic writing has always been something that I am on the fence about if I am being honest. As a student, having a structured formula was an aspect of writing that I relied on. Not in the sense that I could not write without it. I just felt more comfortable having a guide, especially when I was younger. I struggled with organizing my thoughts. I always had so much to say and it was sometimes confusing because there was no structure. Once I learned how to create structured pieces that is when my writing improved. I would not have learned that without the help of writing formulas that my teacher introduced.

As a teacher and just as an adult in general I can see how formulaic writing is not beneficial to students. It could turn into something they rely on. Even in my own classroom I have students everyday that question how long a writing assignment should be or how many sentences in a paragraph. It has gotten to the point where I do not even answer anymore. I tell them to write as much as they feel they need to answer the prompt correctly. Part of me completely understands where they are coming from though. They live in a world where they are not learning to be more knowledgeable, they are learning to make the grade. So how could you really blame them? Personally, I cant be the teacher that pounds into her kids head that making the grade is the most important thing. So I try to keep their creative juices flowing with small quickwrites that they do not have requirements for. But this makes me think, can we actually get away from formulaic writing? Is that even possible? Is it beneficial? And if not then what else do we do ?