About Me

My name is Owen Nelson, and I am from Kennebunk, Maine. I am one of 5 kids, as well as being an identical twin. I came to UNE looking to further my education in the business administration field, but I’d be lying if I said that I was completely set on that being my major. In my free time I like to play basketball and go to the gym, and hang out with my friends. I am passionate about politics and other world issues, and like to keep up with world news. I am very excited to begin my educational career at UNE and continue to work hard towards my many goals in life.

Peer Review

I think that, in the beginning of the year, I had a good idea of what a solid peer editing comment was, and as the year went on, my strength for that only increased and I only got better. I did my best to try and hit nearly all parts of an essay, rather than trying to focus on one paragraph or one idea. I tried to work down, add a comment in the intro, paragraphs, and conclusion, so that way each piece of an essay could have something said about it. I tried to give compliments as much as possible when looking at peoples papers, because while peer editing is certainly meant to point out what needs improvement and what can be done better, etc, it is nice to be reminded, as the writer, what you have done right. I know that I did plenty of those comments and as a writer I would appreciate the same. I would also pick out key writing components when writing, examples like using abbreviations, state your claim more clearly, etc., as a whole trying to be specific so that the writer knows what needs to be done. I tried to focus, when giving comments, on areas of need that were discussed in class. For example, if we had a class that focused heavily on the introduction piece of an essay, I tried to be helpful and examine that more heavily to remind them of what to work on.

Mason-LiteracyNarrative-2

Integrating Ideas

As a writer, I would say that I pride myself on early in my educational career, at least in terms of when writing began being a big focus for me, that I was able to distinguish and participate in analyzation rather than summary.

In my final draft of my significant writing project, here is an excerpt that I believe shows the use of the integration of ideas –

Trent says that their teachers taught “superficial features of middle class discourse–grammar, style, mechanics–features that Gee claims are particularly resistant to classroom instruction. And the students successfully learned them” (Delpit 549). This quote shows that it is perhaps more possible to adapt and learn discourses than what was let on from Gee in the past based on his theory, as Trent was able to learn a dominant discourse in the classroom, and apply it so that he was able to become a successful professor, hence Gee’s idea of entering a dominant discourse proven to actually be possible.

Here, I briefly introduce and implement the quote without disrupting the flow of the paragraph, then examine the quote and connect it to the ideas of both Gee and Delpit, and work to extend on Delpits theory by showing that dominant discourse entry is indeed possible.

In Delpit’s piece, she writes that she disagrees with Gee on the notion that “people who have not been born into dominant discourses will find it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to acquire such a discourse. He argues strongly that discourses cannot be “overtly” taught, particularly in a classroom, but can only be acquired by enculturation in the home or by “apprenticeship” into social practices” (Delpit 546). This is important, as it means that dominant discourse entry is near impossible since those who have not been born into said discourse will have a hard time acquiring it.

Take this other excerpt from the same paper for example, short introduction to the quote, as I explain it is from Delpits piece where she disagrees with Gee on the notion of dominant discourse entry, and then analyzing it by showing its importance by using it to relay the fact that it will be extremely difficult for those who are not in a discourse to acquire other said discourse.

Both quotes show a quality idea of explaining claims and backing them up with textual evidence, adding or extending to previous ideas from scholars, introduction and examination of quotes, text to text connections between Delpit and Gee, and lastly, limiting summary and making sure to focus on analysis.

Significant Writing Project

In this project, I analyzed the work of James Gee, June Jordan, and Lisa Delpit in the ideas and theories of discourses and all the subsets of discourses that exist beneath that. Specifically, I looked at the idea of dominant discourse entry and how that differs among the scholars, specifically using James Gee theory of how dominant discourse is near impossible and very challenging for some, and then siding with Lisa Delpits idea of how dominant discourse entry is in fact possible and not nearly as difficult as Gee makes it out to be. I used the work of Jordan to support Delpits side and to use it to try and show that Gee’s theory was flawed and that Delpits was more sensible and applicable.

Included is a first draft of the copy and a final draft of the copy –

Nelson-Project-2-1st-Draft-2

Copy of Nelson-Project-2-Final-Draft