Jenna's Blog

 I feel like my rational argument went really well. At first, I struggled to add adjectives and adverbs, but I think my revision includes a lot of good information mixed with signal phrases. My question focused on how primary school age children's reading abilities were impacted by the pandemic. I was shocked by severity of the information I found.  I really enjoyed how this assignment led me to question beyond just my original viewpoint. I figured that the pandemic had impacted reading abilities, but I didn't expect the impacts to stretch to oral reading fluency, or that the e-learning may have been more impactful than the pandemic itself. 

 There were many things I learned from Laura about scholarly research during our class in the library this week. First, I learned exactly what an academic research paper is. I thought it was interesting that in order to be an academic journal article, they have to perform their own research because that was never a distinction my high school teachers made. Another thing I learned from our library class this week was that we can take our topic and expand it in a lot of different ways and connect those ideas through a mind map. This is something I'm going to attempt with my own rational argument because I think it will help me fully research my problematic question. Finally, I learned that one of the most crucial parts to an academic journal article is that it's been peer reviewed. I knew that peer reviewing academic articles is a very important part of the process, but I never knew how many times articles are reviewed, or by how many people they need to be reviewed by. 

     I learned a lot about the library in our lesson this week. The first thing I learned was before stepping foot in class: I learned that the library has computer labs. Despite studying often in the library, I never noticed the room we were in until finding it for class.      Once in class, I learned about the website for the library(library.noctrl.edu). This was my first time on that site, so I learned a lot about the different sections and resources we can use. I think come time to study for finals, I'll definitely reserve a study room on Tuesdays or Thursdays to study.      The final thing I learned from our first lesson in the library was how to use the databases and cardinal search. Both of these resources will be so helpful in finding articles for our rational argument, so I'm very grateful to Laura for teaching us how to use them

      I've decided to focus my rational argument on a topic I explored in a blog post, reading in elementary school age children. As I discussed previously, my brother is trying to help my nephew with his reading comprehension. I've talked with various people about this topic since my initial blog post, and I now believe that the issue is much more widespread than I had originally thought.     A simple google search has confirmed that a lot of people feel a shift in the perception for reading. I wonder if the rise of technology has caused this, or if the pandemic has escalated the decline in reading scores. These are both questions I want to explore when researching for my rational argument.      I'm very excited to learn more about this topic and also find data to either confirm or discredit my argument, especially because so far, I only have the personal stories of those around me. I also wonder if other countries are experiencing this...

      This year, I've taken on a lot more responsibility in my family regarding events. From Easter, to Christmas, I've had to manage communication, decorating, and hosting. This is very stressful, especially in a family where not everyone gets along. With some aunts and uncles passionately defending their opinions, alongside others that will quietly stew if their unspoken expectations are not met. This has led me to think about the consequences of being the head of a family.     Something I'm already struggling with as my pseudo matriarch position becomes more and more demanding, is that being the head of a family means hours and hours of phone calls and texts. Everyone in the family looks to the head as the person with all the answers, even if that person doesn't actually have any answers for them. Another consequence of being the head of the family is the stress of trying to please as many people as possible. No one wants to ruin another person's ho...

     I'd like to begin this blog post by acknowledging that I am very biased about this topic and only have my experiences to base my opinion on. That being said, I do believe there are some trends between the reading that I remember in grade school, and the reading that my nieces and nephew are experiencing today.      Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Junie B Jones, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Goosebumps, Captain Underpants, Charolette's Web,  and Choose Your Own Adventure books are only a few of the countless books I remember running through my grade school library to check out before someone else ripped them off the shelf first. Reading was an integral part of my grade school. Every class had programs for summer reading, reading for scheduled times in class, and of course, reading for hours and hours at home in hopes of gaining enough minutes on your card to earn your free personal pizza coupon at our local pizza hut. Not to mention reading for comprehension ...