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1. Original:

Alexander defines child prodigies as someone who “excels in reading and writing from an early age and is put on display for others to see his or hers brilliance” (615). From accelerated math courses, to skipping grades, child prodigies are extremely smart and they know it. They can set an example for other students, as usually child prodigies are model students. Furthermore, Alexander claims that “Child prodigy narratives reinforce the notion that literacy leads to success.”(619). I have to disagree with this statement. I believe that while a child prodigy has literacy success during childhood, they either transition into two different literacy narratives. From parents to teachers, to their own influence,child prodigies deal with an extraordinarily amount of pressure to be the best. This pressure and stress can make it or break it in some people. The countless nights studies until the early hours of the morning, the pressure to have the highest grade in the class, personally I pity child prodigies. Growing up, I have seen dozens of child prodigies have complete breakdowns from all the stress. On the contrary, you always hear on the news about a child prodigy who has started college at the age of 12, or has solved a math problem not even the most esteemed math professors could solve. Child prodigies are beneficial to growing a passion for literacy and the english discourse, however, outside and personal influences and shape if a child prodigy turns into a literacy success or a victim.

1. Revised:

Alexander defines child prodigies as someone who “excels in reading and writing from an early age and is put on display for others to see his or hers brilliance” (615).  As Alexander explains it, child prodigies are accelerated in math courses and skip grades, they are extremely smart and they know it. They can set an example for other students, as usually child prodigies are model students. Furthermore, Alexander claims that “Child prodigy narratives reinforce the notion that literacy leads to success.”(619). Through this quote, Alexander states the relationship between child prodigy and literacy success.  I have to disagree with this statement. I believe that while a child prodigy has literacy success during childhood, they either transition into two different literacy narratives. From parents to teachers, to their own influence, child prodigies deal with an extraordinary amount of pressure to be the best. This pressure and stress can make it or break it in some people. The countless nights studies until the early hours of the morning, the pressure to have the highest grade in the class, personally I pity child prodigies. Growing up, I have seen dozens of child prodigies have complete breakdowns from all the stress. On the contrary, you always hear on the news about a child prodigy who has started college at the age of 12 or has solved a math problem not even the most esteemed math professors could solve. Child prodigies are beneficial to growing a passion for literacy and the english discourse, however, outside and personal influences and shape if a child prodigy turns into a literacy success or a victim.

2. Original

The victim narrative is sadly one that is greatly explored in the student academic community. A shocking amount of students can think about a negative literacy experience. “Many students gravitate towards the victim narrative: over 80% of students incorporated it at least once”(Alexander 617). The number of students who have experienced a negative literacy experience is shocking. Alexander claims that “ the popularity of the victim narrative in students indicates students associate school based literacy practices with oppression and even cruelty”(618). Cruelty and oppression? Where does this come from? Kayla Farrell from Raising Carn shares her experience of a poor literacy experience that shaped her life in “Turn Around?”. She talks about how she use to love reading and writing. How Her parents use to read to her, and that she could read book after book. It was not until middle school that Kayla started to lose interest in reading after she was “forced” to read books she had no interest in. While Kayla had to read books with little fascination, she still had a interest for writing. Teachers would always praise her essays and give positive feedback. Until she got to high school, and met Mr. Stritch. A bad teacher can ruin someone’s love for a certain subject and that is exactly what happened to Kayla in Mr. Strich’s english class. No matter how hard Kayla seemed to work, she would always get back a 70% with her paper covered in red marks. Mr. Strich covered he paper with vague “helpful hints”, “bad word choice” and “explain more”, how was Kayla going to learn what to change is he isn’t specific on what he wants her to fix? This problem seeped past Kayla’s english grade. “It just seemed to slowly eat away at any of my confidence in writing that I had leftover”(Farrell 2). This negative experience with a teacher was more than receiving a bad test grade, it completely ruined Kayla’s confidence as a writer. Kayla’s literacy narrative in the beginning was that of a child prodigy. She loved school, and learning, Kayla loved get positive criticism and work harder. Yet, this all changed after a negative experience with one teacher. This is so impactful, and as Kayla said “This was an important moment in my life because this is when my views on reading and writing changed and unfortunately it has never been turned back around. Teachers have bigger impacts on students then they think they do” (2). One teacher causes someone who was on track to be a child prodigy and who loved literacy to become a victim of it. It was one teacher who made someone lose their confidence as a writer. Kayla is truly right when she says that teachers have a bigger impact than they think they do.

2. Revised

The victim narrative is sadly one that is greatly explored in the student academic community. A shocking amount of students can think about a negative literacy experience. “Many students gravitate towards the victim narrative: over 80% of students incorporated it at least once”(Alexander 617). The number of students who have gone through a negative literacy experience is shocking. Alexander claims that “ the popularity of the victim narrative in students indicates students associate school-based literacy practices with oppression and even cruelty”(618). “Cruelty and oppression”, this is a bold statement about the education system.  Kayla Farrell from Raising Carn shares her experience of a poor literacy experience that shaped her life in “Turn Around?”. She talks about how she used to love reading and writing. How her parents use to read to her, and that she could read book after book. It was not until middle school that Kayla started to lose interest in reading after she was “forced” to read books she had no interest in. While Kayla had to read books with little fascination, she still had an interest in writing. Teachers would always praise her essays and give positive feedback. This all changed when  she got to high school and met Mr. Stritch. A bad teacher can ruin someone’s love for a certain subject and that is exactly what happened to Kayla in Mr. Strich’s english class. No matter how hard Kayla seemed to work, she would always get back a 70% with her paper covered in red marks. Mr. Strich covered the paper with vague “helpful hints”, “bad word choice” and “explain more”, how was Kayla going to learn what to change is he isn’t specific on what he wants her to fix? This problem seeped past Kayla’s english grade. “It just seemed to slowly eat away at any of my confidence in writing that I had leftover”(Farrell 2). Kayla had such a negative experience with a teacher was more than receiving a bad test grade, it completely ruined Kayla’s confidence as a writer. Her literacy narrative, in the beginning, was that of a child prodigy. She loved school, and learning, Kayla loved to get positive criticism and work harder. Yet, this all changed after a negative experience with one teacher. This is so impactful, and as Kayla said “This was an important moment in my life because this is when my views on reading and writing changed and unfortunately it has never been turned back around. Teachers have bigger impacts on students then they think they do” (2). One teacher causes someone who was on track to be a child prodigy and who loved literacy to become a victim of it. It was one teacher who made someone lose their confidence as a writer. Kayla is truly right when she says that teachers have a bigger impact than they think they do.

 

I am very happy with the progression of my third paper, but I believe I have still more to go. This paper should be “engaging in the conversation” of literacy acquisition. I should be adding more of Williams and Brant besides just Alexander. I am very confident in Alexander in my essay, I always root back to her when talking about the literacy Discourse, but now it is time to expand my essay to Brant and Williams.  I have good introductions to the subjects and concepts I am talking about. Cultural narratives are clearly explained and given examples of. As mentioned before, I just need to introduce Williams and Brant in my essay and talk about their role in literacy acquisition. To make this essay complete I need to dig deeper into the role of sponsorship and a healthy relationship between sponsor and cultural narrative. What effect does a sponsor have on a victim narrative? Why are sponsors important? These are questions I need to answer in order to make my essay complete. I am on a right track, but there is always room for improvement, and I am happy with how the essay is coming along.

Turn Around by Kayla Farrell is a perfect example of the victim narrative. She had a passion for reading and writing that was ruined by her teacher.

Child prodigies are every parent’s dream, but this parental dream comes from a constant push from parents. “Unless children are exposed to school literacy and learn these values at an early age, they will not be successful”(Alexander 619). Alexander describes the “child prodigy” literacy narrative as children who “excel at reading and writing from an early age and is put on display for others to see his or her brilliance and intellectual acumen”(615). Child prodigies are not your average student who have good grades, they are the ones up till three am making sure their essay is as perfect as it can be. Child prodigies are pushed by their parents every day to be smarter than any other child in their classroom. I believe that this is one of the more important literacy narratives because a child who Is constantly pushed and pressured to be better grows up to one of two literacy narratives. Child prodigies either turn out a literacy winner or a victim. 

In many cases of child prodigies, they become a victim. Alexander describes a victim literacy narrative as “ someone who is a victim of negative literacy experiences in or out of school; casts blame for negative literacy experiences; discusses how someone took the fun out of reading and writing”(615). Unfortunately, Alexander’s depiction of a victim narrative is one many students can relate to, as he states, “many students gravitate towards the victim narrative: over 80% of students incorporated it at least once”(615). Why is it that 80% of our students experience a negative literacy experience? Many blame the relationship between a student and a bad teacher, “ students wrote about negative school-based literacy experiences that include being misread by insensitive teachers, having a ‘masterpiece’ ruined by a teacher’s notorious red ink”(Alexander 617). The reason many students have negative learning experiences is that they had a poor relationship with a teacher who did not “appreciate” their work.

Literacy Winner: I see the literacy winner as an easy narrative to research. The ideas of success and child prodigy all fit into the literacy winner narrative. There are so many stories of literacy success, it would be interesting to compare multiple.

Victim:  Like success, I believe that there is a certain event in our lives that separate a person from falling into the victim or success narrative. Researching victim narratives, I would like to be able to pinpoint each event that shaped a person. This certain event is the reason why they enjoy English literature or dislike it.

Hero: The hero literacy narrative is something that anyone can identify. I learned about “The Hero’s Journey” in high school and I would like to see if I could incorporate that concept into the hero stories I read about.

Rebel: I am interested in writing about the rebel narrative because I always hear about either the general hero or victim story. I would like to read an outsider perspective.

Success: I would be interested in writing about the success narrative because I think that there is a certain event that makes someone a success narrative rather than a victim narrative and I would like to explore that said event.

Prodigy: The prodigy literacy narrative is something that has always interested me. I grew up with a lot of “child prodigies” and I can see them as a victim narrative as well. I would like to explore this literacy narrative. I would like to learn if all child prodigies happy to be one?

Kayla:

Kayla dealt with losing a passion. She is a clear example of the “victim” literacy narrative. As Alexander states A victim ” has dealt with a negative literacy experience in or out of school; discusses how someone took the fun out of reading and writing”(615).  Kayla use to love reading as a kid. But her experience with Mr. Stritch completely ruined that for her and she never found that spark for reading again.

Sam: 

Sam is what we can call a “success” narrative. She never had a bad experience with writing, and always strived to be better. The writing was never worked for Sam, as she says “So what did I think about the process of writing? I loved it, I really did. I enjoyed just being able to get lost in the moment of sharing my thoughts on a piece of paper”(2). According to Alexander of “Successes, Victims, and Prodigies”, “Students like Anna value the success master narrative as a lens through which they understand their literate experiences, and they do so by generalizing about literacy and its power of pointing to future success” (617).

Hannah:

Hannah’s story was trickier to put into a literacy narrative perspective, but I believe that Hannah is a “hero”. In the face of a teacher telling her that all her hard work was wasted, Hannah showed self-reliance and believed in her own essay. Hannah’s college essay was helping her heal from her brother’s death, and no teacher, grade, or college acceptance was going to change how she felt about the paper.

Blake: 

While reading Blake’s story, I realized that he fits into the literary narrative of “hero”. To Alexander, a hero is someone who “equates literacy acquisition with success, liberation, development, and progression”(615). We see Blake try and try again to find out the problem with his paragraph. When Blake succeeds in solving his grammar error, he is proud of his own progression. Later in life, he learned to overcome his grammatical obstacles, “Still to this day when I find myself rushing through projects I have to stop and tell myself to slow down”(2).  The obstacles he overcame helped Blake grown as a person.

 

 

“Expect the Unexpected” was a very sad story to read. I am glad that Hannah did not lose her passion for her essay because her teacher put her essay down. As Kayla Farrell said in “Turn Around”, “Teachers have a bigger impact on their students then they realize”.

 

“Recess and Distress” was a story that I personally related to. In 1st grade, I had a teacher who was always hard on me and would hold me in during recess. Just like Blake, I learned to slow down and fix my mistakes, that proofreading is so important. I emphasized the fact that this could have been an experience that would have made Blake hate English, like Kayla.

 

Just Like Hannah’s story, this one was sad to read. I talked about how it was so sad that it was a teacher that ruined Kayla’s passion for reading when it should be the opposite. Teachers are the ones who should inspire us to read.

“Passion for writing” was another success story like Blake. I talked about the relationship between having a good teacher and growing your passion for English and reading. This was the final story I read so I was able to connect it to every other story.

 

2.) We grow up talking and socializing, but it is English teachers who make us self-aware about English. They teach us how we can write, and more importantly, what to write. Alexander describes the use of writing as “ literacy narrative aim to define who were are and what we want to become as individuals and a community”. Writing is essential to growth, but many people hate it due to poor experiences. Many have been belittled in front of the class, worked so hard on an essay only to get a C or any other type of negative experience. This is why I believe people dislike the Discourse of English, bad experiences shape our image of English.

4.)The “child prodigy” in Alexander’s “cultural narrative” chart is one well familiar with. These are the students who have excelled in their students since preschool. They “excel in reading and writing from an early age and is put on display for others to see his or her brilliance”. I chose this cultural narrative because I know many of these “prodigies”. Honestly, I feel bad for them. They never got to learn it is okay to get a bad grade. Ever test they have panic attacks. What good is being smart if you don’t feel good about it? I really dislike the “victim” cultural narrative. I don’t understand how one experience with literacy “takes the fun out”. We read every day, we read both good and bad news, read letters from our grandparents, we read every single day. How can someone possibly dislike reading when it is an action necessary to survive?

6.)  “Hero and rebel” are two of the biggest cultural narratives that are influenced by teachers. The “hero” cultural narrative talks about their enlightening experience with literacy, how it shaped their lives, while the “rebel” narrative talks about how much they hate literacy. Teachers, especially in the earlier stages, can “make it or break it for a student”.

Revised Learning Outcomes: 

Introduction- I made my hook more engaging. In my rough draft, I jumped straight into the methods of scientific discourse. In the introduction, I changed it to start very broad and general. I tried to make my thesis stating that the IMRAD format and building tasks are meant to help you write a research paper and that observation is the key to scientific discovery. 

Evidence and Explanation- I added more evidence to my paragraphs about Haas and Eliza, I wanted there to be two clear results of the experiment to show people Eliza grew as a student and as a person. I also tried to relate everything to a building task. Mentioning practices, connections, relationships, etc in each paragraph I wrote about. I added a quote that explains how abstracts work, as someone might be unfamiliar to them. 

Reorganization- I did not really move around paragraphs, I mainly added to them to make them have more content. 

New Paragraph- Yes this paper is much longer than my rough draft. I added a paragraph about results and discussion and asked questions like “what does it (your research paper) mean why it matters. I lengthened by methods and materials paragraph any adding quotes to help connect it to Nair and Nair. The Haas experiment was already a good length so I did not really change it a lot, I mostly just revised it a little here and there. I took out a lot of repeating words to keep the point of the message across. 

 

1. I full understand Gee’s concepts, I can see how Building Tasks can be related to anything in literature, in addition, I can see Discourse in everyday life. Haas, I am having more trouble with. With paper 2 I am having difficulty relating Haas to anything besides the Eliza experiment and how the study was made in the IMRAD format. Other than that I cannot seem to make overall connections no matter how much I read the paper. 
2. I think I have good quotes to help strengthen my points. I feel that the quotes I used when talking about the Eliza experiment brought in a visual of how Eliza grew as a student. The whole study was to watch her grow and I think quoting on the face that she did not realize how she was growing really showed the depth of the experiment. Haas was learning things about Eliza that not even Eliza knew. 
3. I am having a lot of trouble with the results and discussion paragraph of the essay. I can only seem to relate it to Gee’s Building Task of connections. At the end of the study, the results are what we have. And in the discussion, we connect everything from the experiment and relate it to the real world. I can see the connection between Haas’s study and this one building Task but not any other. 
4. I believe my analysis will show that the science Discourse is extremely thorough and everything has to be thought out. Experiments can wield many results, including results that thought of by scientists in the first place. I also believe my analysis will show how important observation is, the root of the scientific method and basis for all discovery.