My final thesis
March 10th, 2008 by jennemede
Phew, it’s all done.
My second English 101 thesis on persuasive writing was on redshirting (aha!).
What is redshirting? Read my thesis. Tell me what you think.
Do I make the “so what?” hurdle?
(don’t pull any punches. I can take it)
Posted in Imperfect Education
March 13th, 2008 at 11:36 am
As the parent of two summer birthday girls (July and August) and a son who’s up against kids a year older than he is in his classes, I share your passion for this topic. While we never really considered it for our middle daughter (she’s so tall it would have been ridiculous to hold her back), our tiny little August baby has us scared of the other huge (some possibly redshirted) kids she’ll be in kindergarten with. (baaaad grammar!)
You are so right that this is ultimately a very selfish thing to do when you’re just looking to give your child an edge. While there are certainly 5 year olds with a definite need to delay kindergarten, the growing number of redshirtees makes me doubt that they’re all simply not ready.
Awesome thesis!
Thanks Jaime! I changed some of it. Read it again and tell me if it sounds better
Thanks for reading, you!
March 13th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Jenn, I can’t think of a stronger compliment than this:
I couldn’t give a damn about this topic if you paid me. This is the most interesting, usefully informative thing I’ve read all week.
Also, I’m staring long and hard down the barrel of English 101 at my local community college. Your thesis reminds me of just how much I’m going to hate it, because it’s going to be full of college kids and not folks like you. Which is to say, adult, talented, skilled and erudite.
Brava!
Thanks, you! I actually finetuned it further and changed the ending to include a short verdict about my summer non-redshirt girl who’s doing very well, thankeeverymuch. The new doc uses the same link
March 14th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Hi Jenn,
Your writing is superb. Just wanted to ask you about your citation and reference style.
There appears to be a mix of MLA and APA style in your paper. You need to choose one and be consistent.
For MLA style, journal articles: the year doesn’t appear after the author. In general this is the format:
last name, first name. “article title.” journal title (italicised) volume #.issue #(year): page #.
I also noticed that there are what appears to be call numbers such as ERIC ED 447951. You can’t include this information… you need the journal or newspaper or whatever it is that article was published in. I think ERIC is a psychology database.
Anyway, google MLA style and you’ll get a whole bunch of advice. Sorry to be so picky. But when I grade my students’ papers, I find that referencing and citation can make a difference between an A- and A.
oh yeah… are you allowed to use information from Wikipedia? My students are discouraged from doing that… better use a dictionary or other source.
My two cents…
That’s exactly what my instructor said re my citations! I am really bad with all the rules (coz they don’t make sense mostly lol). This is really good feedback, KG thanks so much. Re Wiki, she said one usage is fine hehe.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Oh gosh. Sorry that I didn’t get to you earlier. Hope your instructor didn’t take off too many points. Tell you what, next time you have a paper email it to me and I’ll go over your citations to make sure you’ve got it right.
Oh no, KG, today was the deadline so I managed to squeeze those corrections in, thanks to you! I’ll def send you a copy of my next semester’s paper (Eng 201). Thanks lady!