Unit 3 of ENGL 301 has continued the trend that the previous 2 units have started. Writing memos to peers has become second nature as has understanding the flow of the course generally.
The biggest challenge, but also the most interesting part of this unit, was the Formal Report Draft. This is not necessarily a bad thing but I found that my topic seemed to narrow down from ‘students in general’ to ‘K-12 public education’. While I found contacting interviewees to be somewhat frustrating, mostly due to slow responses, I was surprised to find that they mostly provided me with inciteful and interesting responses. One thing that I had foresaw (but hoped would that they would mention less) is how funding affects the school curriculum and teacher training. While they mentioned other obstacles as well, it was clear that most teachers think that funding is the primary issue. While there are many helpful solutions that I can propose that would not involve major budget increases, a budget increase appears to be the main solution to the problem.
Besides some issues with the content of my draft, I actually found the process of interviewing and surveying people to be interesting. I have never needed to interview or survey people before so it was a novel experience for me. I mostly interviewed teachers from my old high school and surveyed siblings of friends, so finding subjects was not a major issue. I found it interesting hearing people’s perspective on this issue. I was delighted to find out that basically all of the teachers felt that programming was an important and worthwhile subject to add to the curriculum.
Organizing my essay proved be a pretty huge challenge. Even though I had already planned the general sections that I would cover in my report, I found that once I started, I needed to remove or add some sections. For example, I initially planned on having ‘research findings’ and ‘research discussion’ section. When I was writing, I found this to be awkward because most of my research involved opinions, so the discussion and results blended together. In the end, I felt that it was a better idea to use research to give a more in depth introduction to the subject to the audience.
I also felt that peer reviewing Travis’s work gave me some insights into my own, so that seemed like a helpful experience as well. I found Travis’s work interesting because he chose an issue vastly different from the one I chose. I also felt that his peer review of my work was helpful. He suggested that I spend more time thinking about my solutions section which was exactly what I thought I needed to do as well.
Overall, I felt that this Unit prepared me for creating a final copy of my formal report. I think that once I am done the report I will feel very accomplished.