{"id":44,"date":"2008-02-05T07:14:23","date_gmt":"2008-02-05T12:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/02\/05\/evaluating-the-merit-of-students-connections\/"},"modified":"2008-02-05T07:14:23","modified_gmt":"2008-02-05T12:14:23","slug":"evaluating-the-merit-of-students-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/02\/05\/evaluating-the-merit-of-students-connections\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating the Merit of Students’ Connections"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 The enthusiasm the students expressed regarding Sherry Linkon’s Inquiry Project was encouraging because getting students to slow down, reread, and reconsider first impressions are very difficult goals to achieve. Consider the words of one student, Mark: “I liked how I was able to discover MY answers instead of the answers that I thought Dr. Linkon wanted me to find.”\u00a0 The question I have regarding the project is what is done when “MY answers” are not supported by the text.\u00a0 I do not see allowance in the course for evaluating the merit of connections that they students make, just that they make them.\u00a0 However, when student, Rikki, wrote about reading No-No Boy<\/em>, she said “there were some parts that were confusing the first time I read them, and I had to go back to make sure I was reading it right.”\u00a0 Rikki understands that there is a right<\/em> way to read it, which means there must be wrong ways to read it that should be avoided.\u00a0 Rikki speculates on the connection between style and subject matter and makes a plausible and interesting conclusion, but ultimately, her ideas cannot be proven; not at all sure of her connections, she expresses them in terms of what “seems to” emphasize and what “could be” an extension. \u00a0Randy Bass also offers examples of student work on his poster, and we see a similar lack of certainty by his advanced student: “It seems<\/em> there is a spiritual connection,” he writes. I do not understand the value of forcing students to make such speculations for speculations’ sake.Linkon makes a link between literature and writing when she says that the value of critical thinking and inquiry is to formulate new ideas to be shared.\u00a0 “No researcher completes the entire study of any text,” she writes.\u00a0 “Rather, we build on . . . the work done by others,” so “you need to be able to communicate clearly what you’re thinking, and if you can make your work engaging and enjoyable to read, all the better.”\u00a0 But in addition to being engaging and clear, it should be logical and true.\u00a0 Due to the interactions of text, reader, and culture, Linkon identifies critical reading, in part, with shifting and contradictory meaning.\u00a0 I disagree that the meaning of a text changes, and contradictory meaning is non-sensical.\u00a0 Although my inquiry into the historical and cultural contexts may cause a shift in my understanding of the text, it does not change the meaning of it.\u00a0 Nor does it make any sense that a text should contradict itself.\u00a0 Scholarly inquiry should lead me to resolve apparent contradictions. \u00a0\u00a0Naomi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 The enthusiasm the students expressed regarding Sherry Linkon’s Inquiry Project was encouraging because getting students to slow down, reread, and reconsider first impressions are very difficult goals to achieve. Consider the words of one student, Mark: “I liked how I was able to discover MY answers instead of the answers that I thought Dr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}