MLA Practice

Liza Burby's article from Better Homes and Gardens magazine is about the contrast between the fun kids have at parties and going to school when they are young and the boredome they experience in junior and senior high school. Russ Quaglia says, "The sense of fun and adventure they have in going to school and learning new things begins to wane by third grade when they've learned the basic skills . . . By seventh grade, with their hormones kicking in and their peers being paramount in their lives, their lament is, 'School is so boring!'" (Quoted in Burby 108).

Activity 33

One important even from my childhood was when I decided to start studying music. I wanted to be like my older brother, who played the guitar. So, I first started with guitar lessons when I was seven years old. I found that I really enjoyed reading and performing music. My love for music inspired me to learn how to play the flute in fourth grade. Since then, music has played a big role in my life. When I was in junior and senior high school, music was what I concentrated on. I participated in many honors bands and band festivals. When I was a senior, my high school dream came true--I qualified for the Pennsylvania State Wind Ensemble, where I ranked 5th in the state.

Studying and performing music itself has brought me great joy and a sense of accomplishment, but it also has other advantages. For one, I have made many good friends in band, including my boyfriend. Even my band director became a good friend of mine. I have gotten to work with and meet many different directors and students from across the state, which broadened my musical knowledge and my social spectrum. I have gotten to travel different places and see what they are like. In addition, I have learned that music education is every bit as academic as every other academic area, and that it should not be cut from schools. Last year, I joined IUP's Concert Band. I really liked working with college level musicians and conductors. Unfortunately, I have not been able to fit any ensembles in my schedule lately. I do believe, however, that my musical talent will help me in my professional career as an elementary teacher, since elementary teachers are encouraged to be creative and artistic. My musical studies started at that one vital moment when I asked my mom to sign me up for guitar lessons when I was seven years old.

I-SEARCH

When I was first considering what to research, I thought about social issues that are not very popular. I wanted to write about something that many people don't know about. As I was browsing the web for something to research, I stumbled across something dealing with sex trafficking. I read more about it and what I found was alarming. Since most people don't know it exists in the United States, I wanted to write about it so others could read about it. As an elementary education major, I am interested in the health and well-being of children, so I wanted to write exclusively about juvenile sex trafficking--it narrowed down my topic too. I found a lot of sources published by the government, and some accounts of sex trafficked victims themselves. I found other sources from reliable newspapers and news networks. Some other sources were written by professors who lead sex trafficking awareness centers at their universities. After looking through all my sources, I concluded that sex trafficking in the United States is more of a problem than most people think it is, and something needs to be done about it. First, I tried to contact agencies that deal with sex trafficking victims, including Indiana's Children and Youth Services, but only one agency out of the 13 I contacted were willing to be interviewed by me. Since interviews were then out of the question, I decided I would get better results if I send a questionnaire to IUP students to see how much they know about sex trafficking. Finding participants is the only problem I have had so far, and I have to rewrite my methodology section to fit my new research method. I think I wrote a good literature review so I am proud of that.

Paraphrasing

Oftentimes, students use too many direct quotes while note-taking. Consequently, they use too many of these direct quotations in their final research papers, which exceeds the limit of having 10% of the final paper directly quoted. Therefore, while note-taking, you should make it a goal to limit the amount of word-for-word material you write down (Lester, 1976).

In-Class Blogging

I really don't like anything about my hometown, but one social change I would make is to eradicate racism. One year when I was in high school, Miss Pennsylvania came to my school to sing and talk to us in the high school auditorium. She was African American and all the the redneck racist people acted really rudely toward her. It was so bad that the teachers in my school announced that they were never going to invite another black guest to the school. One reason why so many people in my rural, Western Pennsylvanian hometown are racist is probably because there are only a handful of black people in the town, therefore many people aren't familiar or knowledgeable about black people, so they fear them or pass inaccurate judgments. One thing I would do to tip an anti-racist epidemic would not be to stop inviting black guests into the town, but instead invite more of them so that people will understand them better and become more familiar with them.
I am an education major so I thought the chapter on Sesame Street and Blues Clues was most influential. I think that not enough money is spent on education in this country and that our education system is seriously lacking. An uneducated society is, of course, a bad thing. In addition, I think that many parents do not pay as much attention to their children's education as they should. It is good to have a television show that can effectively teach children, especially if they are not getting an education from any other source.
As mentioned before, I hope to one day teach children. I think the Stickiness Factor is one thing I will consider when teaching. The whole point of teaching is so that students understand and remember information. If I make my lessons sticky, then my students will be more likely to remember them. As demonstrated in the Columbia Records advertising, simply getting the customers physically and actively involved in something makes a message sticky. Therefore, when writing lesson plans, I will come up with ways to get my students actively and physically involved in the lessons so that they remember them.