A college way to fish

Stanley Fish, wrote an article that was called What should colleges teach? Part 3. In this article, he explained how the high school teachers are not doing right by teaching the students the correct things to know for when they eventually start college, not even the middle school teachers are correct. In this article he stated, "First, you must clear your mind of the orthodoxies that have taken hold in the composition world." Which is very similar to my topic about brainstorming, clearing the mind first before anything else.

According to The Writing Studio at Colorado State University, "brainstorming is an informal way of generating topics to write about, or points to make about your topic. The writing studio stresses this informality...The important point about brainstorming is that there should be no pressure to be 'brilliant.' Students should simply open their minds to whatever pops into them." This quote ties in with Stanley Fish's comment because each quote refers to clearing the mind of everything you are used to doing. Our brains are always program to think, so it may be harder for others to even be able to clear their mind to focus on one topic instead of multiple topics at once. When thinking about one specific topic though you shouldn't think too hard, because it will create writers block and will prevent you from thinking of other ideas to further explain.

My brain has left

So, while I was completing my spring semester at The Ohio State University at Newark I used different data gathering assignments, for me to do my research for my big paper for my English 1109 class. I observed a tutoring session with the tutor named John, and a student named Teressa to gather information. After the session I was able to interview John, to get his feedback on topics they discussed. Once that was done, I created my own online survey and sent it to other college students to get feedback on their college writing experiences. After gathering information, I created an annotated bibliography which includes: a web source, a book source, and a journal article. Lastly, I had an email interview with a college professor Michael Czyzniejewski and was able to get more answers and his opinions.

When I first read Fish's article, I could see that he was correct when he stated how the teachers haven't prepared the students. In the results I received from my online survey, each college student struggled with the same thing in college writing which was organization. It's different when one person says their struggling, but when multiple people, who don't even know each other all say they are struggling with the same college writing aspect, then there is a true problem with the teachers. When you are not taught something correctly, it can truly affect future situations that happen because you will not be prepared, so you will not know what to do or how to even do it.

Please, no more questions!

After completely reading Fish's article and comparing it to my own research, it is safe to say that brainstorming should be taught more in the writing classrooms. Students struggle in college when they are trying to write a paper. It's common for college students to not be interested or motivated for their papers, but by using brainstorming you can include interests that you are passionate about. Including your interests can make it more fun because when you are interested in a topic you will be more motivated to write about it. If teachers were more encouraging on making students brainstorm before writing, they will be able to think clearly, and even quicken the writing process because they will know exactly what to talk about. Students can even use collaborative brainstorming if they are able to work in pairs or groups. It can help create new topics to talk about and get more in depth about topics one already has considered.This option of brainstorming is also important because some may think of ideas they would have never thought of before and can include that in their writing and improve it and make it stronger. Collaborative brainstorming helps students because it can bring thoughts together since we all think differently.

wow..I came a long way but I get it and understand!