My goals and objectives for the past week haven’t changed immensely from those of the previous weeks. I’m still just trying to envision how at the end of the semester my project will fit cohesively together. This has become a very important goal for me and it is something that I often have doubts about. I now realize that while it is up to me to mesh the various genres together into one (genre 7) at the conclusion of this project, it will probably be much easier once all of the genres are complete. When I was thinking about the process of pulling all genres together at the end, it reminded me of putting together a difficult puzzle. (I know people always compare things to puzzles and pieces, but oh well, here’s my comparison.) It usually takes me a lot of work to find which puzzle piece fits with others and where the groups of pieces fit together in relation to the whole puzzle picture. This is representative of the struggle I’ve been experiencing in finding relevant genres for my project. For instance, before my topic shift, I wanted to do a sample lesson plan, but now that genre is not relevant to my essential question, so I explored other options (like the interview and the email exchange). Also, a puzzle becomes more difficult when I can’t look at the final picture that the pieces create. While I have been provided with many MRP examples from the CD. 315 summer class, none of them will look exactly like my finished product. Those examples are like looking at the pictures for different puzzles, but never finding a picture of the one I’m constructing. Those examples are helpful in showing how various MRP’s could be constructed, but they don’t necessarily provide a method that is best for me. That’s one thing I like about the MRP…it’s very individual. One can start with their own ideas and creatively integrate their research findings (while still following the guidelines), in order to arrive at a truly unique piece of work. That’s one thing that I admire about the work of the summer class…everyone’s project was presented in such a unique format. In actuality, I have no idea what the final product of my MRP will look like or how the genres will ultimately unite. I guess it will just take a lot of guesswork and playing around with different options for me to arrive at a point where my work is cohesive. My main point (I tend to get off track sometimes!): It is always easier to see what a puzzle picture is once all of the pieces are in place (that’s just common sense). So, I’m not going to worry too heavily about the overall picture at this point during work on my MRP, because the overall cohesiveness should be apparent, just as a puzzle picture is once all pieces are intact, when all of the genres are completed.

More about the MRP…I guess I had the same concern as Allison did that my genres weren’t directly reflecting my research findings. Then, I figured out that really they were. Here’s why. The genres I have completed to date have been the journal entries, webliography, and poem. I am currently working on completing my fourth genre which is an email exchange between the SLP and the client’s wife. All of these genres, in some way, include either the client, client’s family member, or clinician’s personal feelings toward my topic. These particular feelings and beliefs expressed by these MRP “characters” have all been derived from the research that I’ve conducted. For instance, while creating my fourth genre, the email exchange, I had to take into consideration the feelings and concerns of a family member of a person trying to learn to adequately communicate and understand a new language—English. Since I could not find direct research on this subject, I had to adapt some of the research that I found about needs assessment and testing procedures. What I’m trying to say is that, while these more personal genres may sometimes seem to be created out of nowhere, they really aren’t. Before researching this topic, I wouldn’t even have the slightest clue where to begin expressing the feelings of someone struggling to learn a second language, let alone the feelings of a family member or clinician of such a person. So, research findings are always tied to my genres in some form or another, even though it may not first appear that way.

I think the genre that will most directly incorporate direct research findings will be my Power Point presentation. I’m still unsure of exactly what information I am going to present in this genre, but I have come up with some new ideas this week. Since this is my made up clinician’s first time working with an ESL client, I think I am going to have the Power Point created by her. The intended audience would be other clinicians who are new to working with ESL clients. In the Power Point, my essential question would be directly addressed. The clinician will address why it is crucial for clinicians to understand the various needs of the ESL clients in order to create a potentially successful therapy plan. While addressing why knowledge of the ESL client’s needs is important, the clinician will present examples of ways to assess these needs…observation in different environments, self-assessment questionnaires, informal questioning, analyzing responses to communication probes, and administration of different informal tests such as the Multiple Intelligence test. At least, that’s the tentative idea I have right now for the Power Point presentation. I hope that genre isn’t due next week, because it’s definitely something that is requiring a great deal of thought and planning. I noticed that one of my peer reviewers for my journal entries mentioned that some of this testing might not be in the scope of practice for a SLP. I’m glad this point was brought up. I don’t exactly know what is and what isn’t in the scope of practice, because working with second language learners isn’t as common as working with people who speak English and have various communication disorders. All I can say in response is that I will try to check to see what’s in the scope of practice for SLP’s working with ESL clients. Actually, I think my peer reviewer was a little confused about the tests that I talked about in the journal entry. The made up clinician would not be giving the client, Thani, an IQ test. What I said was a multiple intelligence test…which is a test, developed by Howard Gardner, that groups learners’ capabilities into eight broad categories. It’s based on the notion that every student’s learning style is unique and is a combination of these eight intelligences. My thought behind including this in an ESL client’s needs assessment would be so that the SLP could get a better indication of what tasks (logical, visual, kinesthetic, musical, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, or naturalistic) the client excels at, so that therapy can in some way present the necessary information in that specific form (or maybe in a few different forms if the client is equally good at several different areas). I’m still not sure if I am on the right track of thinking here. Even if I found out that a SLP cannot perform some of these various tests I’ve mentioned, I can still have the SLP request that the tests be administered by the appropriate professional and then have the results sent to her. Therefore, my overall project flow won’t be disrupted or altered drastically even if I do find out an SLP isn’t qualified to administer certain needs assessment tests.

In addition to working on MRP genres and Power Point ideas, I reviewed my peers’ work, received comments about my own work, and then completed the assignment concerning my mailing list. First of all, I definitely appreciated the constructive criticism that my peers offered. Of course, it’s always nice to hear positive compliments about the work I’ve done, but I am always much more appreciative of the people who can find places in my work that need extra attention. My peers were able to find many areas that I needed to address and I was very grateful for their honesty. Although I haven’t had much time to change my work yet, I made notes on a piece of paper listing what areas of my genres needed extra work/modifications. That way, when I do have some extra time, I can go back to my work, read the comments, find which ones I agree with, and then, change my work. I think that peer reviewing isn’t truly beneficial if the reviewer can’t make at least one suggestion for improvement or add some way to make the piece of work more interesting or clear to the reader. Sometimes, it is difficult to offer someone these suggestions because their work might appear perfect (really I’m not sure if perfect work even exists…excellent or outstanding, yes, but perfect I feel may not be realistic). One thing I’ve learned during the peer review process is that it’s easy for me to find grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors, but much more difficult to offer peers suggestions about the content of their work. I guess this comes from helping my mom grade/edit so many of her students' papers when I was in high school. Anyway, the next time I peer review, I’m going to try to focus more of my comments (in the “address” sections) on the content of the students' work. I feel that then, the people in my group will benefit much more than if I tell them to add a comma in line 5. Later this week, I completed the mailing assignment, which resulted in a change in my thinking. Maybe it wasn’t so much a change in my thinking, but more of a realization…that I hate my mailing list! It’s not that I can’t sometimes find good information relating to my topic there, it’s just that I don’t like the way the people interact with one another. Many of the list subscribers are just rude to other people and this disturbs me. Previously, I never really took the time to think about their interactions with one another until I was asked to do so in the discussion portion of the mailing list assignment. I guess my mailing list situation is weird because I want to stay a part of it because it offers some good information about ESL. On the other hand, I don’t want to stay a part of it because of the way some of the people present this information and negatively respond to others’ comments. I learned from this assignment that if I ever choose to host a mailing list/discussion forum in the future, I will definitely try my best to make all members feel welcomed and supported. I would encourage members to express their opinions and respect (not necessarily agree) others’ opinions and questions.

In sum, lots of MRP work/planning was accomplished, a few new processes were used, and a couple changes in my thinking occurred. I have no questions at this point except for the one I’ve been asking since about week three of this class. HOW DO YOU CHANGE THE FONT SIZE FOR MY WEBLIOGRAPHY? I know my webliography looks awful because of the font size inconsistency and I’ve tried to figure out how to change it, but I have had no luck. I’m still looking for some help on this matter. Until next week….

My quote for the week:
“Breathe.” --Erin Nichols