Learning Records
L.R. Interview L.R. Goals L.R. Midterm L.R. Final
I
interviewed my mom, Marit, over the phone to ask her
about my development as a reader and writer. I chose her for this interview
because she has observed me my entire life and she has read well over half of my
writing.
Day 1:
Kristin: Mom, I need to interview you for my English class. I need you to talk about my development as a reader and writer.
Mom: Okay, let me think about it a little bit. Can you do it tomorrow?
Kristin: Okay, I’ll call tomorrow.
Day 2:
Kristin: I’m not sure what to ask first.
Mom: I thought of something. I was thinking about how I used to read to you every night when you were about three. Never fails, I would fall asleep and you would wake me up to hear the end of the story. Your favorite book was Catch Me and Kiss me and Say it Again. Remember? It was a collection of poems. You memorized the whole thing and people thought you could read the book. Even after you learned to read, you preferred to be read to. You’re more of an auditory learner. And, I think one of the other things that has helped you develop as a reader and a writer is having friends that liked reading and writing like Alena and Audra.
K: Do you remember if I liked to read as a kid?
M: Well, you always bought a lot of books from the scholastic book club at school. You liked the Box Car Children. I don’t know if you read many of those, but you did have them available. And, we did go to the library, even though it was far away. I don’t know if you did the summer reading program, did you do one of those?
K: I don’t remember. Do you remember if I liked to write as a kid?
M: I think you did some journal writing in some of your classes. I don’t remember which teachers. But, I know you did some. Maybe it was Mrs. Weber in 2nd grade. But I think the biggest boost to your writing was in high school. What was the name of that teacher you had?
K: Mrs. Guest.
M: Yes! She required so much of you. It scared you to death. But, you ended up loving it. You were so terrified and overwhelmed at the beginning of the year. She was so firm and hard as nails. Remember that?
K: Yeah. She was scary.
M: Then, Carolyn Dahl, who is a writer and a friend of the family, encouraged you in your writing. She’d come over and you’d go up to your room and you’d spend time going over things that you were writing. She came to the poetry reading that you and Audra had. Probably about 20 people came, including your classmates and family friends. I think having poetry readings with Audra helped improve your confidence about your writing.
K: How do you think my writing changed as a result?
M: I just think you had more confidence and better skills. Mrs. Guest had toned your skills by making you write so often. You got so much experience doing it. Don’t you think? Carolyn just encouraged you to write things down,such as your reactions to things. But, now you just love to read. You sit up in your room with all these blankets and read all types of books. That wasn’t always a hobby that you liked. You were a very social child who loved to play outside. Since college and high school, you have become more solitary.
K: So, my reading habits have changed. How would you say my writing has changed in college?
M: You’re just more proficient. It’s not as painstaking for you. I mean, I don’t know for sure, Kristin. I think you get your ideas across better. You’re just a better writer because of all the experience you had.
K: Can you think of any projects in college where you noticed a big change or improvement in my writing?
M: No, nothing in particular. You just improved over time. Encouragement from your professors and Carolyn helped.
K: Anything else you can think of?
M: Well, your study habits have improved. You’re a great self-starter, very motivated to get your work done. By high school, you were really good at organization and time-management. You were a lot better than I was at the time. You probably got that from your dad. Your dad wanted me to emphasize that your parents set high standards for you, and you had to live up to them. He wanted to make sure you put that in there. Also, you’ve learned that talking to people about your ideas is helpful. When you write something, you usually want to talk about it with someone first. That’s probably enough information, right?
K: Yeah, that’s probably enough. Thanks!
I clearly remember my mom reading to me as a kid. I was always allowed to pick out one book for her to read before bed. It was always a thrill that I savored to the last possible moment because after the book, I had to go to bed. I used to get frustrated with my mom because she would fall asleep right in the middle of the story. Interestingly, I never wanted to finish the story myself. I would always wake her back up to finish the book. She’s right, I learn really well by listening. I know I did not love reading then as much as I do now. As a kid, I would buy a couple books every time the scholastic book club catalog came in. I would wait eagerly for their arrival, but I would not ever read all of them. I remember in high school, I started liking reading much more. I would read to escape stress and to visit other places and people. I really started writing more in high school. My friend, now my roommate, and I wrote poems. We would read and critique each others poems and bounce ideas off of each other. We went to poetry readings by Carolyn Dahl in downtown Houston. She encouraged us to write and we eventually hosted a few of our own poetry readings. My friend and I were both in the same English class. This teacher, Mrs. Guest, pushed her students to write often and read analytically. At first, we both hated it. By the end of the year, that class was our favorite and Mrs. Guest was our favorite teacher because she helped us to improve our reading and writing skills dramatically. Both of us majored in English at college because of our experience in that high school English class. Since I have been at college, I have learned better study habits. I can read faster and still focus on the important information. My writing has improved through experience and I have become more flexible and versatile to meet the requirements of different assignments. I have learned the value of prewriting, which is something I never did in high school. I joined a poetry group with a couple of other English majors. This group has helped me to continue to enjoy writing and to improve my writing. Like my mom said, talking to and brainstorming with other people helps me to write my ideas more clearly. Even if I just talk about it aloud to myself, it is easier to solidify my ideas than if I try to think silently. I still have a long way to go in developing better reading and writing skills. I need to become more confident in my interpretation of readings. In the past, I have had a hard time sorting out my interpretations and impressions. I need to improve the cohesiveness of my writing so that one sentence smoothly transitions to another. However, overall, I think I have come along way.
1. I want to improve my writing.
I have made large improvements in my writing since I entered college. I express my ideas more clearly. My skills have improved because I have had many opportunities to practice. However I still have problems with transitions. Sometimes, my ideas do not flow from one to another very smoothly. Also, I have problems with the ends of papers. Typically I just stop writing as opposed to winding down to a thoughtful and memorable conclusion. I also have trouble revising my papers. I have a hard time seeing what needs to be fixed without outside help. I would like to improve in all these areas.
2. I want to be more confident speaking in front of people.
I have always hated being in the spotlight. I usually turn bright red when many people are looking at me at once. This usually makes the situation worse. My heart races and my hands get sweaty anytime I have to talk in front of people. I have tried in the past to just get over this fear. I get more comfortable in a classroom as the year progresses. However each time I am put in a situation, I get nervous all over again. I would love to be able to just say what I am thinking without being nervous. I think with practice I will get better at this.
3. I want to learn how to manage stress better.
I always make things seem worse than they really are. If I have a big assignment, I always get really nervous and stressed about it. Despite the numerous times I have looked back and thought “that was not even a big deal,” I am not able to relax when I have things hanging over my head. I would like to develop a more realistic perception of stress so that I can deal with my assignments rationally and calmly.
4. I’m a little bit of a perfectionist and that drives me crazy.
This goal goes together with the last one. I know that it is good to want to perfect everything you do, but it just gets tiring. I know I am going to look back at college and wish I had had more fun and spent less time worrying about school work. Even with that consciousness, I still work really hard until everything I do is the best job that I could do. This may sound bad, but I wish I could just tone that sense of perfectionism down a little bit.
5. I want to enjoy the English major like I did when I chose it.
I really loved English when I started college. Over the past three years, I have become jaded with my English classes. I’m not exactly sure why. I think I just got tired of always having to think about what the author was trying to say in everything I read. Sometimes, I just wanted to read to enjoy the book instead of tearing it apart and piecing it back together. Plus, I got so interested in speech and language pathology that I devoted all my interest to that. I know that I could really enjoy English, and that is part of the reason I picked this class. I wanted to leave college with the same sense of wonderment and curiosity about English literature that I entered with.
I remember looking at the syllabus that we received by e-mail over the summer and thinking, “There’s no way I’m going to be able to do all of this!” I thought that I didn’t know anything about computers and I wasn’t good at speaking in front of groups. Since that day I have accomplished more than I would have imagined. I have improved my speaking, writing, and reading skills; more importantly, I feel more confident in my abilities. In this exercise I hope to “stand outside myself and write what I see,” or, in another sense, “go up to a mountaintop, and, looking down, [see] how [I] move about in the course of an ordinary day” in E379S (94).
My first goal at the beginning of the semester
was to improve my writing. I used to have trouble starting a paper. I would
sit and think until I was so frustrated that I wanted to quit. I have noticed
that writing has become much easier as a
result
of my work in this course. For example, the first journal I did took me a few
hours. I spend a long time reading and deciding what I wanted to write. Then,
after completing it, I sent it to a friend to proofread it. Now, after reading,
I have no trouble deciding what to write on. Sometimes the words seem to just
pour from my mind onto the page. Now my journal entries have improved, and they
require less effort. I even get better grades on the journals I do now. I was
surprised at some of the creative ideas I came up for my project on Samuel
Johnson. I often have my mom read my papers and she has recently said that my
papers are more creative and transition better. I said in my LR Goals that I
had trouble making conclusions that are thoughtful and memorable. I still
experience this. On the first project, I felt like my last sentence was the
perfect conclusion to the paper. However, I often have trouble knowing how to
end the journal entries without sounding bland or too repetitive. I still have
room for improvement in my writing. My revised goal for writing is to
continue improving the flow of my writing and to work on concluding sentences.
My second goal was to become more confident
when speaking in front of people. I have focused on this goal more than any of
the others. I have turned in my journals early every time to have the
opportunity to improve my speaking skills in class. However, I still get
extremely nervous. If I don’t know that Dr. Bump is going to call on my ahead
of time, I do not get as nervous as when I know before hand (as in journal
days). The day we presented our roadmaps, I was nervous from the
moment I
entered the classroom. I started relaxing as I watched other students do their
presentations. When it was my turn, I was anxious and rushed through the
presentation. I had a lot of good things to say, but I forgot to say them
because I was nervous. I am definitely more comfortable than I was at the
beginning of the semester. I will probably be even more comfortable as the
semester progresses. However, I know the moment I am put in a new situation; I
will be back to square one. I think the best way to fix this problem would be
to talk in class as much as possible until it is ridiculous that I was ever
nervous. Perhaps I am concentrating too much on my fear, “buying into, even
juicing up, precisely what people who are suffering what to be rid of” (94).
Instead, I will try and see myself as a good speaker and imagine myself
succeeding. Since I haven’t made as much progress in this area as I would have
liked, my goal will stay the same: to become more confident when speaking in
front of people.
The third goal I listed was to learn how to
manage stress better. Simply by being successful in the class so far, I have
been able to reduce my stress. For example, I am not as nervous about project
two as I was about project one, because I
have
already conquered one hurdle. Naturally, I still do experience some stress. I
identify with the passage in the packet comparing thoughts to leaves. “Our
thoughts are always happening” like leaves falling from a tree. We have the
ability to attend to these thoughts or not just as we have the ability to watch
each leaf fall or ignore them all and stare into the distance. “We aren’t our
thoughts any more than we are the leaves” (75-76). Unfortunately, I tend to
examine every thought that drifts through my mind. However, different from
before this semester, I am able to catch myself doing this and stop. Getting
away from the classroom environment helps me to relax. In addition, talking to
Raj helps me put assignments in perspective. He is always very calm about
things and often tells me to relax or take a break. In conclusion, I am doing
better, but I am not to “Raj status” yet. My revised goal is to
become more
aware of when stress is affecting me and to “do nothing” sometimes.
The next goal was to become less of a perfectionist. Sometimes, I allow myself to turn in something less than perfect, but it usually a somewhat painful experience for me. I think I will change this goal, because it is unrealistic considering my personality. The new goal is to not let my perfectionist nature be stressful.
The last goal on my LR goal list was to enjoy English the way I did when I chose it. I have definitely come a long way in this area. After my English class last semester, I was just ready to graduate. I was just going to take my last class and be done with English. I feel much differently now about my major than I did last semester. I am excited to come to class to see what Dr. Bump has in store for us. We do something different every day. As mentioned above, I have noticed a large improvement in my skills as a result of the activities in this class. I can honestly say that I will leave with a good impression of my major. I would change this goal to: I want to continue increasing my enjoyment of my major.
If I would have been asked what to change about
this course the first couple weeks of the semester, I would have said that there
should be less work. However, I have learned by doing all these assignments
that I learn best by repeated practice. My writing has improved because I write
something at least once a week
. My speaking has improved because I have to talk
in front of the class at least once a week. I also thought at the beginning of
the course that there weren’t enough instructions on the first project. Then I
realized that I learned so much more by creating my own boundaries. I really
like the activities we do in this class because they are forcing me to change.
I am a very left-brained, organized, and systematic human being. This class is
helping me to open “to acknowledge a fuller sense of identity” by forcing me to
take on roles that I would not have chosen for myself (73). For example, I
would never have imagined that I could do something that actually looks nice
with a computer. I just recently made a website for my last project. It is
nothing fancy, but it is a website! If the course ended today, I think I would
make an A. I have worked harder in this class than all my other classes
combined this semester. (Word Count 1331)
I know Kristin Hatfield very well.
I have watched and observed her progress in this course very closely. The first
couple weeks of the semester I remember Kristin being overwhelmed with the
amount of work she had to do. As the semester progressed, the work load stayed
the same; however, she felt more in control and could easily stay on top of the
assignments. After looking at they syllabus over the summer, she adopted the
idea that there was no way she’d be able to do this amount of work. This narrow
perception limited her enjoyment of the class in the first few weeks. Ram Dass
recognizes that “any model of self, positive or negative, will limit our
capacity to help” (72). By worrying about the work load, she was
underestimating her abilities to accomplish large amounts of work and
missing
the fun activities the class did in those first couple weeks. For example, the
day the class went to the grassy area by the post office and all sat in benches
facing each other, she spent the whole time worrying about what she was going to
do for the first project as opposed to enjoying the place. In addition to
teaching her to be confident in her abilities, this class has allowed her to
improve her speaking writing and reading skills. In the following exercise I
will review Kristin’s goals from the LR midterm and LR goals, and I will
summarize her experience in the units we covered to “hammer my thoughts into
unity” (759).
Her first goal was to continue improving the flow of my writing and to work on concluding sentences. There will always be room for improvement in this area. However, I think she has continued to improve her writing since the midterm. I never thought she could write a creative short story until she started on the projects. I always thought that she was only good at writing poetry. However, after finishing project two, I realized that she could write short stories too. While she was writing her second project, I remember thinking, “wow, how is she coming up with this stuff?” By narrowing her mindset, she was depriving herself of a writing style that might fit her well. “So often we deny ourselves and others the full resources of our being simply because we’re in the habit of defining ourselves narrowly and defensively to begin with” (26). As a result, different types of writing that she has had to do for her other classes have become less threatening. She recently wrote a diagnostic report for someone who had a stroke. If she would have had this assignment last semester, she would have worried about it quite a bit. However, she was able to complete it easily and painlessly. Writing has become easier, and therefore more fun! In addition, she has learned the importance of paying attention to grammar. I hope in the future that she has opportunities to continue practicing her writing skills. If I were to grade Kristin on her writing improvement this semester I would give her an A-.
Her second goal was to become
more confident when speaking in front of people. She has greatly improved
in this area since the midterm. When she
did her
Alice skit, she spoke in front of three classes, and she didn’t feel nervous at
all. When Raj and Kristin did their presentation on the mural in the Oxford
Union Library, she didn’t feel anxious at all either. I think she became more
comfortable with the people in the class. I realized that she didn’t
necessarily have to be someone who was bad at public speaking or
someone who was excellent at it. Dass points out that, “We don’t have to be
‘this’ or ‘that.’ We are free simply to be.” (73). Instead of projecting
a bad outcome on every public speaking opportunity, she can just see what
happens. Instead of saying “I know I am going to bad today, turn red, and start
shaking,” she can say “I am prepared for the presentation, and I will just see
how it goes.” Overall, she improved quite a bit in this area, but it is yet to
be seen whether she can speak in front of groups of people besides E379S. So,
I’ll give her a B.
The third goal she listed was to
become more aware of when stress is affecting me and to “do nothing”
sometimes. I felt like Ram Dass was speaking to her when he said, “For one
who has not examined the mind and has always identified completely with passing
thoughts, the possibility of being able to
rest
in awareness free of thought may be a bit disconcerting” (76). Most of the
time, she needs to be doing something productive or strategizing. However, this
semester she has learned to relax a little. I said in the first paragraph that
she has learned how to handle
larger amounts of work than she could at the beginning of this semester. This
has helped her to become less stressed. This class has required more of her
than any other class she has ever taken. Now that we are in the final weeks of
class, I can look back and realize that she doesn’t need stress out as much as
she did this semester. She is more aware of when she is anxious. Yesterday she
was running all around campus, and at one point, I stopped and asked her if she
was racing someone. “I certainly feel like I am racing; my heart is beating
fast and I am walking more quickly than normal,” she said. In this case, she
was not able to relieve her stress right away, but she was able to realize that
she was anxious and notice how it was affecting her. She still needs to work on
finding “tranquility even in the midst of trauma” (67). If she has a broken
toe, gum in her hair, and ten tests tomorrow, I want to her to be still
smiling. Overall, I think she made some significant improvements in this area
and deserves a B+.
The last goal she listed was to
continue increasing my enjoyment of my major. Usually the classes that
are the hardest for
Kristin
turn out to be her favorites. At one point in the semester, she called her mom
on the phone and said that this class was just so hard, and her mom said “it
will probably turn out to be the best English class you’ve taken.” She was
right. Most of the English classes Kristin has taken as an undergraduate have
been very predictable. She would dread them because she knew exactly what to
expect. She had one Shakespeare class in particular that she had trouble
focusing in. The professor would lecture and ask the class questions in the
same format every day. Tests were actually a
welcome change of scenery. She never knows what to expect from day to day in
this class. We might be eating play doh, going to tour Littlefield, or
meditating and “systematically observing the mind itself and becoming more
familiar with the ways, in which we are denied the experience of full
concentration” (75). Enjoyment of a subject is important for learning. For
example, she will always remember the characteristics of Antimodernism because
she actually saw a house built in that style. In addition, she didn’t just see
the house, but she gave it the personal attention and toil of drawing it.
Hopkins and Ruskin would approve. This class will also be memorable for her
because she did so much “hammering.” The things she has learned in this class
are one big interconnected web in her brain where access to one thought will
lead to access to them all. She deserves an A+ in this area!
She has worked on these goals
throughout the semester in the context of the units discussed
in
class. The course and, more specifically, the first unit were focused on
“place.” She remembers reading on the questionnaire we received over the
summer, “What experience have you had with place?” She remembers thinking,
“place? What do you mean place? I am in a place…” I think she just left it
blank. This semester she has first learned how to notice place. For example,
she had walked by Littlefield house probably hundreds of times without even
really looking at it. She has learned to communicate with the “ghosts” in
certain places through the first project and from Jude’s example. In addition,
many of her classes were held in the H.R.C., and she passed by the ghosts etched
in the windows on her way in. Although she has lived in Austin for two years,
she had never really been downtown. Our downtown excursion increased her sense
of place from the U.T. campus to the St. Mary’s Cathedral, the Capitol, and the
Driskil Hotel. In the road map assignment, she was asked to extend our sense of
place to our past.
The second unit the class did
was “Nature and the College Experience.” After visiting and observing the nature
on campus, she kept writing in her journals that she never knew these places
existed. Waller Creek, the biology ponds, the Taniguchi gardens were all places
that she had never been before. She felt like she was on “The other side of
hedge,” and that she had found a peaceful place on campus amidst the hurrying
students who talk on cell phones as they rush to their next class (448). She
felt like she had found
something that no one else knew existed; and if they did, they would be here
enjoying the scenery like her. She realized that when we focus on the “rat
race,” competition, and climbing to the top, we are missing out on some of the
most peaceful and satisfying aspects of nature. She learned that we can also be
educated by nature. You can learn about the “infinite number of things an
infinite God has created” (354). She found that nature can also connect you to
another time period. At the Taniguchi gardens she sat in the peaceful
environment intended to counteract the chaos of the bombings in World War Two.
At the T.M.M. she saw the skeletons of creatures that lived here thousands of
years ago. Overall, in this unit, she learned that it is important to notice
and observe nature.
The third unit was on Antimodernism. The idea of a backward-looking style stuck in her mind as the characteristic of Antimodernism. This course is Antimodernist in style. She looked back over her college years and became aware of her college place. She read past authors and looked to famous “ghosts” for inspiration in her writings. She learned that our sense of “place” is a combination of the past of that place plus her personal experience.
As a jaded senior just ready to graduate, this course was exactly what she needed. When she thought she had it all figured out, this course pointed out that she didn’t. The first couple weeks of class she felt totally disoriented and out of control, like she was falling down a “rabbit hole.” She was frustrated at first, like Alice, and felt like she might drown in her own tears. However, she learned to expect nothing and to just do the best she could. Now, she has wonderful stories to tell and a very memorable conclusion to her undergraduate experience.
I like the way the course is set up, and though she wouldn’t have said this in August, she benefited from the disorientation she experienced the first few weeks. I think it was helpful that Dr. Bump dispelled some of her fears the first day of class. However, I don’t think it’s necessary to make the students too comfortable. In addition, I don’t think it is necessary to be more descriptive or specific on assignment instructions. The insecurity and ambiguity allowed her to step outside of her box and be creative. Instead of following the teacher’s instructions, she created her own and greatly benefited by the process. It allowed her to further identify with Alice and feel like she was in her own wonderland. In the end, this course fit her perfectly. This is strange because in the beginning it didn’t fit her at all. Word Count (2066)