Fish and Organization

In his article what should colleges teach, Stanley fish makes it very clear that our lower education did not do a great job of preparing us for college level writing. He questions whether or not middle school and high school are even teaching writing skills at all. Fish explains how he teaches his college students how to form simple sentences because a lot of them cannot do so. While i do agree that forming a simple sentence is important, i have to add that organization and structure is just as important. If not more. What is any type of writing if it is not organized properly? A huge mess.

is is what it is

The sad part is, very few people understand the importance of organization. Organizing your paper goes way beyond introduction, body paragraphs and conclusions. Organization not only helps a reader follow your points but it also reinforces your emphasis by moving from beginning to end or from least to most significant. Organization is important to all writing not just college writing. Organized writing helps with clarity, and there is nothing more important than clarity in any type of communication.

Organization is the structure or arrangement of related or connected items. When you organize a paper, you select an order for the parts that make sense and shows the reader how the ideas are connected. While exploring a topic you usually find a few ideas that belong together. Grouping your ideas helps you put them into your paper. Some writers start off really strong then start wandering away from the question that matters most. What happens is, the writer forgets what he/she is suppose to be talking about or has no idea what else to talk about. This doesn't happen when you completely organize your paper before hand:)

Connecting Stanley fish's Idea and pre-writing

When I was in high school I didn’t learn how to write a decent paper till my senior year. I wrote decent papers, and I even got A papers but ever since I got into a 4-year University I began to see the differences between a college paper and a high school paper. The problem with this that there should it be a great difference between a high school and college paper. The time you spend in high school is supposed to be dedicated for students to get ready for the struggles of college work such as writing better papers before entering a college type setting. In college students should know what a teacher is expecting when it comes to writing a paper, writing should reflect what you already learned in high school.

In my opinion I say teachers should mainly should set a section during the semester to focus on learning how to write college essays. Stanley Fish’s idea was pretty much cooperative with mine. If teachers took the time to teach a course strictly for writing purposes students in college professors would have less to worry about like teaching students how to create well written sentences. At a collegiate level, students shouldn’t be curious about where a comma should be placed in a sentence. Things like that should be of the past and not new to college students.

When it comes to writing in college a student has to take it seriously B.S. and procrastinating isn’t gonna get you anywhere. Writing takes time to learn so one has to practice, this is where pre-writing comes in handy. Pre-writing are the necessary steps taken before the actual paper is started. The aspects of this writing include research, brainstorming and outlining. The high school I attend was very fond of telling students to brainstorm and outline but what they didn’t tell us to do was to research often. If students tend to research more for their paper they’ll have excellent papers and be ready for what’s expected of them in college. I asked her questions about how she prepares for a paper and what was the most important aspect of writing and research was the answers for both so it a had a good amount of importance to be discussed about. The interview helped me understand how to conduct a well written essay.

Research is very important when it comes to a college essay

I have written about more the grading towards my papers are graded harder. The difference between them is that my papers I have written at a four-year university are written with more detail such as adding supporting evidence through what I learned or what I researched to better understand the topic I’ve learned. Most of what I wrote about in high school were summaries about books I read which was pretty because anyone can write a summary about a book they read about. As I said earlier I did not learn how to write a decent paper near graduation the things I never knew how to put on to a paper was an introduction and a thesis to my paper. Those two important parts were absolutely unknown to me.

Whenever I got an assignment such as writing a paper it just consisted of answering the questions that were given to me by the instructor and they never had a detail nor did they have supporting evidence to show where the information came from. There was a whole lot of grammatical errors like misspelling of words, run on sentences, etc. Another experience I had with writing was in earlier this semester. The writing assignment was for sociology; I was supposed write about the American achievement ideology and how media depicts it and what would happen if media depicts it accurately. I turned in the paper and a week later it was handed back to be as a terrible paper, probably because I didn’t read the questions carefully and I didn’t know what the American achievement ideology was until someone told me.

I think if I had pre-written before I started my essay I could’ve done way better. Practicing on this type of writing would have got me a better grade, it would help me pay close attention being asked. Certain aspects of pre-writing such as outlining could’ve helped me the most because it helps me understand what I want to mention before I type the essay. Going in to the essay blindly can have a negative effect on a student’s essay because they’re not prepared for what they’re supposed to do for the paper. As Stanley Fish said students come into a college classroom and are completely clueless of what the college professor is expecting of them on the writing assignment given to them. Being taught pre-writing in high school would give college freshmen a heads up of what the professor expects of them.

In conclusion, I agree with Stanley Fish’s idea that high school teacher do need to grasp the concept of teaching their students of learning how to write instead of playing the blame game, because they are the ones preparing them for the next level of education. Pre-writing should be basis for college writing because once it is done I can look back at my pre-written paper and make corrections to better the final paper. In my own experience the more times I conducted pre-writing I’ve done a lot better. My draft papers are proof of why this type of writing works if it done, its more effective and shows that you’re focused on what you’re supposed to write about.

Reeling in the students

I rcently read an article written by Stanley Fish that is about the educational system. He touches on three main points. (1) isn't the mastery of forms something we should learn before college. (2) Isn't extensive reading the key to writing. (3) what would a composition course based on the method I urge  look like.
He states that the elementary and high school level classes aren't teaching us everything we need to learn. such as our basic skills sentance structure and grammar. Smooth english writing is now a job for college teachers to take up which in turn, takes the place of important more advanced methods we need for later classes thus putting us deeper in a whole.
Stanley's main point is that we need to develop proper sentence structures from a young age in order to allow our selves to expand on larger ideas in college. his best example is learning the how to drop kick without a definition oh the game. If you don't know the structure of the game you are playing its hard to grasp the idea of a drop kick and how to use it.

Ooooo i like what he's selling!

I agree with stately fish I have found that we aren't anticipating our youths skills to age ratio. Starting them off easy with little pressure to read and write well isn't working. The educational system is letting us down. Starting out young we need to teach how to formulate close to perfect sentences but also we need to teach kids not to procrastinate. According to Joseph Ferrari 20 percent of people die in horror films just kidding 20 percent procrastinate. That may not seem like much however, this number stuck out to me because if we have 7 billion people on the planet. That means 1400000000 people procrastinate.

"He became president."

If students procrastinate their homework and after school lessons we miss out and let ourselves down. I believe self education can be preformed through books, I taught my self to create websites, fix a lap top, and even fix up cars all by reading. So who's to say  I can't read to obtain good sentence structure. "Everything I know, I know from reading."- Abraham Lincoln. I believe I know we can teach ourselves to write properly with all the resources today online, class books, and even trial and error. its not the teachers fault in total it every person that goes home and feels accomplished enough for the day that lets themselves down.

Schooling Your Audience

Stanley Fish makes it quite clear how our lower education has failed to prepare us for college level writing in his article "What Should Colleges Teach?". He stresses how most students with an exception of some cathedral students lack knowledge in writing in the simplest ways. He blames the youth of todays society for having little to no interest in reading, middle school, and high school education for not teaching writing in an effective manner. Fish even questions if they even teach writing. He then explains how he teaches his college students how to form simple sentences because he believes we cannot even do, which I even find to be a little insulting. Although Fish makes a good argument that I do agree with but I believe that teaching about audience is just as important and significant when teaching about what sentences are and how to form them.

That "AHHH" moment (the audience agrees).

Knowing how to form simple sentences is important but that is only the foundation of writing. There is a whole lot more to it. One can know how to write simple sentences correctly but who are you writing to? How will you know how to form and word sentences not knowing how to write to your targeted reader? Audience is just as important if not more when it comes to writing. There is usually always a purpose to any persons writing. According to the Purdue OWL  an author's purpose maybe to inform or persuade, "Authors conscientiously create texts for Specific audiences." Knowing about audience and how to write to your audience can affect something as small and important as words so this is essential when writing sentences in general. Writing is basically centered around your targeted audience when writing there are many things things you need to keep in mind. One thing to keep in mind is the language you are using because your audience needs to comprehend your writing (That's the whole point!)

Another thing to keep in mind is who your audience is. Is your audience someone you know personally or professionally? Is your audience one person or a group of people? This is another factor that will affect the language you decide to use when writing. Your tone changes depending on who you are speaking to but in this case, writing to. Tone comes through word choice the author decides to use. For example, If you were writing a persuasive letter about how you thought the color periwinkle wasn't purple you would use persuasive language to persuade your audience.

Tone can change literally and figuratively!

Here is another question to get you thinking: Do you and your audience share the same ideas, views, and/or knowledge? If you can answer these questions you should give yourself a pat on the back for knowing your audience. This is crucial because your shared convictions and knowledge with your audience can alter your writing. The wise, brusque, Dr. Paul McCormick once told me; “The goal is use the old knowledge as scaffolding or a foundation for the new knowledge.It's kind of like teaching: move quickly from what your audience knows to what they do not, but use the former (that is, what they know) as a bridge to the latter (that is, what they do not know)” This causes you to change what you write according to your audience. It forces you to be familiar with your audience, assume what their past knowledge was, and inform them with new knowledge.

You don't want to bore your audience!

There are many other ways audience can change and alter your writing not only through tone and knowledge. This is why I argue that audience is important to teach about in college-level courses no matter the deficit some college students may have when it comes to writing.Words and language make up sentences and your audience is what determines them Stanley Fish!

GET HOOKED ON with fish the research



I MEAN DHU FISH!

In the article " What should college teach" fish makes many claims BUUUTTTT! no arguments but besides arguments researching sources to support the argument. in my opinion I believe when going through college writing classes students should always be reminded and refreshed on research. WHYYYY? because being a student myself I know that I tend to question research and sources, and the reasoning behind this concept. this is when I question fish and what his claim is regarding what college should teach.

 

 

 

 

 

There are many things I found out with researching sources is that many don't ( Students) .

don't  tend to realize or understand why we have to use sources or even search for them at ALLLLL.

I MEAN ITS NOT SOMETHING WE NEED AS AN LIFE LESSON HUH?.

is actually what all students think me as well being an student myself that also relate to others. but this is until we all realize that credit and facts counts toward the researching when creating a paper. YESS ITS A BIG DEAL!

 



OH man now you tell me...

Researching allows us to not only gather information against a claim but even to be able to build off of it and agree. when conducting research myself I have personally learned that short handing my self with researching is not an great idea. when I say this I say I don't search for one source but many but to many to STRESSS myself. but enough to gather data and to pull out the important and correct information. one example of this is an article a used to support why research is important was through the evaluation. ( RESEARCHING )  ( RESEARCHING AND EVLUATION )

I mean if you really want to get technical if you properly research and pull information from it your teacher will evaluate it as rewording but to just cite that sources will not be so much of quoting. I mean when I think back on it to when conducting my observation on Sierra Hiss I did decide to incorporate her in a lot of my paper but my teacher didn't evaluate it on a information detailed bases. it was more of a personal interview which is what student fell to realize. that not only can research come from web pages books and so more. you can conduct personal research by just asking questions and being able to imply and show that they are reliable and creditable.

I mean I understand that most student don't want to take time out of there day to interview someone. but literally when you do this its a major key of help. Another one when conducting research would be having a secondary voice to back up your information that you have decided to use claims from. for example secondary voices I decided to use was from my survey ... from the web page survey monkey, with this you can create question and send them out to hundreds to get true and reliable information. to look in to this form of research this link will be provided. " Survey Monkey"

 

 

 

 

 

I know that many will read this blog and think this way is a bit much for me

but that's fine . because that's an opinion which are like leaves and are liable to fall any where on a scale of thinking lets say. this why I just try to explain ways i know and what i think and how I  decided to gather my data and how much people take in and how much people give when taking the steps I took. I mean secondary voices are great specially when they take out the time to write you or even answer question. even taking a survey or even letting someone sit in and watch what you teach and recommend.

Fish Food For Thought: A Study of Argument

Stanley fish has wrote yet another article (published back in '09) about what should colleges teach.  This is a great and good article (*high fives Fish*), but what it's really missing is ARGUMENT!  If anyone asks me, argument needs to be taught right from the start.

High fiving Fish

The thing about argument is that very few people actually know the academic side of argument.   People tend to associate argument with anger and hurt feelings, and fail to realize that it is arguing a point in a mature, though out manner.  Thats why nobody feels it should be taught at the top of the list, EVERYBODY THINKS IT'S BAD UNLESS THEY ARE EDUCATED (which a vast majority of people aren't).  

Argument allows us to narrow in on clear reasoning, which will allow you to remove the drama out of a debate once you have removed all extraneous details from a work.  One such example of drama in a debate is the start of the 2016 republican primary debates when Donald Trump would insult every single delegate, that is incorrect usage of argument.   Argument also will help students after they obtain their education, it enables them to evaluate and think for themselves what choices will lead to the most success in the future.  You can view my source here.

Probably making fun of someone

Some people are just naturally argumentative, a quote from the late artist, Prince, will allow one to see, "I like to argue".  There are going to be those people that don't remove pathos from a debate, but if educated, anyone could do it.

With proper use of academic argumentation, you can have a higher level of ethos (credibility), when you have all your facts in a row and have researched your points, you are, in essence, an "expert" in your field of work, study, etc.  Those around you will want to believe more readily, when you have a clear, concise, organized, factual argument.  Just ask your self,:If there was someone on the street (it's a long shot, I realize that) preaching about some scientific break through and they said the conducted the study, most people would be more apt to get behind the person.

I understand that little exercise is the exact opposite of what I trying to argue--I used pathos, borderline bathos--but it got the point across and made you think.   Which is one of the items I want you to see and understand:  Think for yourself, examine evidence, be smart.

Students are underprepared for the rigors of High School and later down the road, college.  Teaching argument should be a priority (refer to the article I hyperlinked above) from first grade and beyond.  Granted first graders are still learn how to writer a sentence and not take naps halfway through the day, but the concept of arguing to settle a dispute in a mature, adult like fashion should be implemented at a young age.  As the student grows and progresses, argument should be more second nature and not something that an individual needs to struggle with, so by time college rolls around, there will be an influx of students who know and understand how to write a 'college level' paper.  Perhaps if we can raise a new generation of intellects, AP classes will be the average class and the average class will become the more remedial class.   faculty at schools will recieve calls and emails, Why is the curriculum so dang hard?!?"  But that is an issue we can fight in the future.

Future Parents: "Why u teach so tough??"

There are those that scoff at the idea of teaching the fine art of argument at such a young age with the idea of children being irrational and too emotional to comprehend a mature, rational debate.  Although the opposition is present in the subject, the allies to the cause remain dominant.  5 year olds are starting to be taught the basic debates such as, "what's your favorite dinosaur?"  While this is not very thought provoking, a second question is posed, "why?", this is the one that really gets 'em, they have to think how to back their opinions. 


With all this being said, it is hard to deny the importance of argument in academics, and it's importance of being taught at a young age.

If You Can Find Me A Topic: Let Minnow

Stanley Fish wrote an article, "What Should Colleges Teach?" In this article, Stanley makes a statement saying, "high schools and middle schools are not teaching writing skills in an effective way, if they are teaching them at all." Harsh right?

Unexpected comment made about teachers

Stanley then continues on to say that students come to college without the knowledge of knowing how to write clean Engllish sentences. Which may be true, but I dont think that's the problem most of the time. Any student who attends a university all have different writing styles. The way they write, the amount they write, and how they want to portray their message in their papers. With that being said, I think that is why Stanley believes that students are not being taught how to write clean sentences. Personally, I strongly believe that students should be taught in a more proper way on how to find the right topic for their paper rather than sentence structuring

Finding the right topic can make or break a student's stress level when in the process of completeing a paper. Nobody wants to write a paper over something they don't have an idea of what it is or how boring the topic may be. That is why you must follow the steps of requirements, relevance, research, and then interest when finding the right topic.



hmmm..

When searching for requirements, make sure you follow a rubric (if one is present). This'll guide you in the right steps toward a topic. If you dont, you'll only create more work for yourself later on with the assignment!

Relevance does matter! You don't want anything that doesn't make sense, because not making sense and not being able to prove a point with your topic will ruin your assignment. So yes, be logical and don't try to pull a topic into consideration that doesnt fit into a set of requirements.

 

Research is always important for your papers. You will need credibility for your paper in order for it to be a successful paper! Not having enough or any research at all will be a problem that a student does not want to come across in the process of constructing a paper. When a student fails to find research over a topic, they soon find themselves writing with no meaning. No meaning as in no credibility.

Interest is always important. Personally I think it should come last out of the 4 steps in finding the right topic. Yes, having interest will make anyone do whatever it may be, better than before. Just that choosing interest before those above will lead you to more predicaments than expected.

College writing courses are all different. With the subject being written about, what kind of writing takes place in the course, and difficulty of course. That is why when it comes to college writing, I will stand by finding the right topic is one of the most important aspects for students to understand, because of it's ability to help them find what to write about in their future classes and how it's the first step in the right direction. As Martin Luther King once said, "You don't have to see the full staircase, just take the first step."



well said MLK

Citing My Man The Fish

In the article What Should Colleges Teach, Part 3 by Stanley Fish Fish talks about what first year college writing classes should teach. Fish also believes that it should be a narrowly focused class which basically focuses on creating proper sentences. I kind of agree that some schools don't prepare students for college writing. Fish said that "High schools and middle schools are not teaching writing skills in an effective way” which I believe to be true about some schools because most schools aren't shown what to do and what steps they should take. 

Fish explaining why knowing how to write a proper sentence is important when writing in college.

Students end up getting hurt in the long run because they go through Middle and High School thinking they know how to write a proper sentence .But when they get to college they are hit with the harsh truth that they do not know how to write a proper sentence and then they have to learn all over again in college. Which causes some students to get behind on their major which keeps them in college longer which also costs more money and may decrease a students will or drive to be in college because it may be to hard for the student. It also causes teachers to have a bigger workload and cause them to teach more which in return can be stressful for both students and teachers. 

I do think that Middle School and High School teachers should spend a little more time on teaching students how to write proper sentences. like fish said "You`re not going to be able to change the world if you are not equipped with tolls that speak to its present condition" you won't go far in the world or even college if you don't have the right tools. It is important that as a student you know the correct writing style. 

I also agree that through extensive reading it is the key to learning how to write a proper sentence. But you cant blame the teachers for all of this after all you can lead a horse to water but you can't make the horse drink what I mean by that is teachers can teach in all theses different way but in the end its up to the student to actually learn and pay attention. From my personal experience It was hard learning how to adapt to writing in college it is drastically different from High School writing. In High School we weren't required to write such a detailed intro and conclusion but over the course of this semester I have learned to expand on my topic which was a big problem for me. 

A perfect representation of a teacher (The man) and a student (The Horse). 

All tho knowing how to write a sentence is important there are more important things to know how to do like citing sources is more important than what Fish thinks is important. Fish thinks that sentence structure is the most important thing in college writing. I have to disagree with that for Analytical Research Essay I choose citing sources as the most important thing in college writing the reason why is because if you don't cite your sources you can get in trouble for plagiarism. If you get caught for plagiarism depending on the severity or how much you plagiarize or the amount of plagiarize you get caught for could decide if you get a warning to getting kicked out of a class to being expelled from your college or worse than that being taken to court and probably sued but thats like someone taking a paper from the internet word for word and using it as your own.

Even tho Fish brings up a good point in "What Should Colleges Teach?(Part 3)" yes having a structured sentence is important when writing in college but its not the most important. if you get caught for plagrism chances are you probably won't be in college so knowing how to write a proper sentence and sentence structure wont get you very far I mean it might help when your writing a letter to the school board asking to come back or when your making your statement to the judge.