Category: ENG 110 Blog Posts

Bartholomew says field work is required by the state, but is very important for students to see teaching in the real world.

The elementary/middle education major “includes content rich in curriculum theory, assessment, literacy, education psychology and classroom management, using technology in the classroom as well as courses in teaching in various subject areas included in elementary curricula” (UNE EDU).

The idea of an enriched major encourages “students not only to explore a field in depth, but also help them [to] put their field of study in perspective” (Boyer, 110).

Carter talks about four metagenres: problem solving, empirical inquiry, research from resources, and call for performance.

Works Cited

**(format did not translate correctly)**

Bartholomew, Audrey. Interview. Education Department. 13 November 2019.

Boyer, Ernest L., Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and Carnegie 

Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton, NJ. College: The 

Undergraduate Experience in America. Harper & Row, New York, 1987.

Carter, Michael. “Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing in the Disciplines.” College 

Composition and Communication, vol. 58, no. 3, 2007, pp. 385-418.

“University of New England.” Elementary/Middle Major Curriculum. Education. University of New England in Maine, Tangier and Online, www.une.edu/cas/education/undergraduate/elementarymiddle-major-curriculum.

“University of New England.” Undergraduate Programs. Education. University of New England in Maine, Tangier and Online, www.une.edu/cas/education/undergraduate.

Before

The Education major can closely relate to the multiple of these metagenres. Education majors are taught about different types of learners as well as their development and the differences of a learning environment. Through doing this, the Education majors will be using previous data about the learning types and the types of development of students to help in their future job and within their fieldwork, fitting into the metagenre of empirical inquiry. Fieldwork is completed while still studying at the university and is required to complete the major. The call for performance metagenre is used inside and outside of the classroom. As a student learning, one needs to apply their knowledge inside of the classroom, but also outside in the field. Through the education major, students are taught to apply their knowledge by teaching or shadowing in real classrooms.

After

Education majors are taught about different types of learners as well as their development and the differences of a learning environment. Through doing this, the Education majors will be using previous data about the learning types and the types of development of students to help in their future job and within their fieldwork, fitting into the metagenre of empirical inquiry. As a refresher, empirical inquiry answers questions by creating conclusions from data. Bartholomew thinks that this metagenre seems to be the most important in the Education major. Although these students will not be conducting their own research as teachers, research can be very useful. As teachers, students will use data to learn all kinds of things such as learning or creating new ways to do a lesson, or some of the above mentioned types of learning. This metagenre also is closely related to the other metagenre of a call for research from sources. This is when research is done and later used for its purpose. As previously mentioned, teachers use all sorts of research to help their teaching skills and plans. Fieldwork is completed while still studying at the university and is required to complete the major. The call for performance metagenre is used inside and outside of the classroom. This metagenre is the act of doing what one has learned. As a student learning, one needs to apply their knowledge inside of the classroom, but also outside in the field. Through the education major, students are taught to apply their knowledge by teaching or shadowing in real classrooms. This is brought out into the field when students are required to participate in field work, internships, and student teach. The last metagenre is problem solving. This metagenre is probably the most used. All aspects of life require one to use problem solving, not just a specific major. Because of this, this is why the problem solving metagenre can be used within the Education major as well as in any other major. In my opinion, any major can fit into the metagenre of problem solving. I also think that there may be a need for a new metagenre. The point of them is for a major or subject of study to fit best into one category, but the Education major can clearly fit into all four of them.

Conclusion

Even though some majors may not be considered to be enriched, all majors should fit into at least one metagenre, making it an important major. The Education major is taught within a liberal arts institution and therefore applies to many of Sheuer’s ideas of critical thinking, relating to Carter’s idea of metagenres. The Education major fits into many ideas from these articles. It is an enriched major according to Boyer’s definition of one. The major is both narrow and answers all three of his questions, “What is the history and tradition of the field to be examines? What are the social and economic implications to be understood? What are ethical and moral issues to be confronted?” (Boyer, 110). It also fits into multiple of Carter’s metagenres: problem solving, empirical inquiry, research from resources, and call for performance. It most closely relates to the ideas of empirical inquiry and call for performance. It also can relate to the call for research as well as critical thinking. I think it relates the least to the call for research. The idea of critical thinking is used in any major, so it may not necessarily need its own metagenre in my opinion.

Before

The Education major here at the University of New England is split into four parts and also offers two minors. The four majors are elementary/middle, secondary education, art education, and educational studies. Special education and education minors are also offered. Through this paper, there will be a focus on elementary/middle major, but may include other aspects of the Education major as a whole. The elementary/middle education major “includes content rich in curriculum theory, assessment, literacy, education psychology and classroom management, using technology in the classroom as well as courses in teaching in various subject areas included in elementary curricula” (UNE EDU). The Education major requires field experience as well as internships to better prepare the students for their job of teaching in the real world after college. This major requires only 48 credits allowing students to dive deeper into the offered minors as well as other areas of study through double majors, minors, internships, and travel opportunities. There are also many required courses within the Education major that are required due to the use of a liberal arts education.

After

The Education major here at the University of New England is split into four parts and also offers two minors. The four majors are elementary/middle, secondary education, art education, and educational studies. Special education and education minors are also offered. Through this paper, there will be a focus on elementary/middle major, but may include other aspects of the Education major as a whole. The elementary/middle education major “includes content rich in curriculum theory, assessment, literacy, education psychology and classroom management, using technology in the classroom as well as courses in teaching in various subject areas included in elementary curricula” (UNE EDU). The Education major also requires field work experience as well as internships to better prepare the students for their job of teaching in the real world after college. Bartholomew says field work is required by the state, but is very important for students to see teaching in the real world. They may not always be good examples of teaching, but the student is taught how to reflect on these examples and nonexamples of good teaching. The big thing field work does is it allows students to experience teaching different subjects, as well as different grade levels. These experiences also help to build networking connections for a job after college. According to Bartholomew, the Education major cut down on credit requirements as of a few years ago. This major requires only 48 credits allowing students to dive deeper into everything UNE has to offer. These things include: opportunities to minor, double minor, or even triple minor,  double major, do internships, and study abroad. There are also many required courses that the Education majors must take throughout their college experience since the University of New England is a liberal arts institution.

For this paragraph, I added my interview with Audrey. Her explanations seem to make the paragraph stronger, as her points back up what I had previously stated and learned about the major. I will continue to add about our interview throughout the paper to create stronger points. I affirmed my previous points and added the interview to this paragraph.

Through reading my peers’ feedback, I know I need to make more opinions or make them more known. I also need to make stronger connections to the metagenres and talk more about them. Both Alicia and Emma comment on my explanations being strong. Alicia also commented that I should give more examples of the course requirements and explain them to help the reader better understand the major. Meg commented on some of the strong points she saw in my paper, which helped me to identify what topics did not need as much revision or to build a stronger portion of the next topic. I was having difficulty writing about the metagenres because I really don’t understand why a major needs to fit into just one, but I have trouble justifying all even though I do think the EDU major does fit into all four. I will be adding my interview with Audrey, the EDU department head, as well as the above mentioned. I will try harder to affirm my mentions of the metagenres and make that section of my paper stronger. Both writings can be a little difficult to work with since the author is simply explaining their own concepts with no outside sources. This paper is a little easier to argue than the last one, but I do not find myself engaging in too much argument yet.

Carter talks about four metagenres: problem solving, empirical inquiry, research from resources, and call for performance. The EDU major can closely relate to the multiple of these metagenres. The empirical inquiry metagenre answers “questions by drawing conclusions from systematic investigation based on empirical data” (Carter, 396). EDU majors are taught about different types of learners and their development as well as the differences between learning environments. Through doing this, the EDU majors will be using previous data about the learning types and the development of students to help in their future job and within their fieldwork. The major can also fit into the call for performance metagenre. This metagenre “denote[s] both the act and the resulting object of a performance, but particularly the primacy of an object as evidence of success in learning to perform the act, the doing of the performance” (Carter, 400). The call for performance is used inside and outside of the classroom. As a student learning, one needs to apply their knowledge inside of the classroom, but also outside in the field. Through the education major, students are taught to apply their knowledge by teaching or shadowing in real classrooms.

Boyer’s idea of an enriched major can be found in aspects throughout the EDU major. The idea of an enriched major encourages “students not only to explore a field in depth, but also help them [to] put their field of study in perspective” (Boyer, 110). The major will be able to answer three questions according to Boyer. “What is the history and tradition of the field to be examines? What are the social and economic implications to be understood? What are ethical and moral issues to be confronted?” (Boyer, 110). In my opinion, the EDU major coincides with many ideas of the enriched major. The major can answer all three questions with the required courses. For the history/tradition part there is a course called foundations in literacy development and instruction. For the social/economic part there is a course called exploring teaching. For the ethical/moral part there is a course called diversity issues in schools. Field work is a part of the exploring teaching course as well as many other courses within the major. The major seems to be generally narrow with a low credit requirement, which Boyer says is the perfect example of an enriched major.

Audrey,

My name is Kayla Midolo. I have met you previously a few times in Julie’s Exploring Teaching course, as well as having a meeting in order to get into that class. For my english course, I am researching more about the EDU major and I need to set up an interview with you, the department head. I would love to speak with you to get to know more about the major if you have time. Me along with two other girls, also in Julie’s class are doing the same topic for our english class, so if working with all three of us would be easier we can also arrange for that.

Thank you,

Kayla Midolo

Enriched major questions

1. What do students get out of this course?
2. What are the difficulties in this major?

Metagenre questions

1. How does this major help for the future? (call for performance)
2. What is so special about the education major at UNE? (research from sources)

Own questions

1. Why is this major a necessary one to have and promote?
2. Why is this major a useful one to continue teaching?
3. What do students get out of participating in fieldwork throughout their time spent in the Education major?
4. How does the Education major help prepare college students to teach younger kids?
5. What is so special about the Education major and its curriculum at UNE?
6. How does the Education major help to improve the education system for the future of our children?

Boyer’s idea of an enriched major can be found in aspects throughout the EDU major. The idea of an enriched major encourages “students not only to explore a field in depth, but also help them [to] put their field of study in perspective” (Boyer, 110). The major will be able to answer three questions according to Boyer. “What is the history and tradition of the field to be examines? What are the social and economic implications to be understood? What are ethical and moral issues to be confronted?” (Boyer, 110). In my opinion, the EDU major coincides with many ideas of the enriched major. For example, as with the other majors at UNE, it is a graduation requirement to take exploratory classes as well as courses such as environmental and humanities. In the EDU major, it is required for students to take anatomy and physiology, exercise or sports physiology, psychology as well as other classes within the core curriculum.

Carter talks about four metagenres: problem solving, empirical inquiry, research from resources, and call for performance. The EDU major can closely relate to the metagenre about empirical inquiry. This metagenre answers “questions by drawing conclusions from systematic investigation based on empirical data” (Carter, 396). EDU majors are taught about different types of learners and their development as well as the differences between learning environments. Through doing this, the EDU majors will be using previous data about the learning types and the development of students to help in their future job and within their fieldwork.

Personally, I did not find making this table helpful. I did not really understand why I was doing this and found it hard to make connections between the text and the topics given. Maybe if the topics were explained more or if there was less information to go through it could have been easier or gone smoother. The texts we are using are very wordy, long, and hard to understand on their own, let alone trying to connect them. I haven’t had trouble with connections in the past two projects, but this one is giving me trouble. I understand how this may be helpful for some students to organize ideas and concepts, but for me I just became more confused. I found myself disinterested and just trying to get through it. Generally with our lengthy assignments, the topic is at least of some interest to me, but the new readings are just a lot of information that wouldn’t necessarily apply to me.

1. The problem in the writing refers to being able to “bridge the gap between writing in and writing outside of the disciplines, the knowing that and the knowing how” (Carter, 387). He is trying to respond to the different types of writing and how they help in any area of study and in life in general.
2. Carter gives other’s perspectives of the concept of genre. “Social action, ways of doing and writing by which individual linguistic acts on the microlevel constitute social formations on the macrolevel. Second, they establish the concept of genre set as a collection of related genres. Third, they use the genre set to indicate the role that related genres play in constituting complex social formations” (Carter, 392). “A typified response to a recurrent rhetorical situation directs our attention to certain patterns in the social action of language, patterns of recurring situations and of similar responses to those situations” (Carter, 392). As well as multiple other ideas. Each person’s concept is slightly different in how they perceive what a genre really is.
3. A metagenre is broken down into four categories. The first is responses to academic situations that call for problem solving. This category focuses on the process of problem solving. The second is responses to academic situations that call for empirical inquiry. This category focuses on “answering questions by drawing conclusions from systematic investigation based on empirical data” (Carter, 396). The third is responses to academic situations that call for research from sources. This category focuses on what kind of research is being done as well as the goal of that research being conducted. The fourth is responses to academic situations that call for performance. This category focuses on the primacy of an object as proof of learning causing success and then doing the performance of the learning.
4. Metadisciplines are sets of genres and social formation. Carter highlights the metagenres and broaden what their definition originally was. According to Carter, the metadisciplines work along side the metagenres and work within them.