At last...

This is my last blog for this course as we have to end it this week. It is my fourteenth week of my seventh semester and only few days ahead to end it. I felt a great relief as I’m going to hand in my research paper this Wednesday which means my final exam is over for this paper. My supervisor asked us to give the best piece as the final draft so I have edited the paper again and hope it would be better than the first draft. Throughout this course I learnt a lot, eve though I’m not sure how to apply them in my teaching. Maybe not now but later, I guess. I had a hard time completing my two major assignments for this course but it taught a lot especially to do work earlier to avoid problem. From a person who never borrowed books from library, for the purpose of research paper I borrowed six books at once, which I will never forget. It was an interesting course that makes us to be more matured and prepare for next semester, my final semester in UPM. I’m going to miss all the fun of doing assignments but I know it will be replaced with lesson plans. And I should forget to thank Dr.Edwin who guided us a lot in completing our position paper, thank you Dr. Ok this is the end, bye…

Freedom For Writers...

Last Friday we watched a move entitled Freedom for Writers, a fantastic movie. Its actually a motivating movie for us as we are becoming teachers in future.. :) It is about a teacher who manages to unite the students and make them to realize about themselves as an individual and community. The students are from native and non Native Americans and both of them hate the side of each other. The teacher faced a lot of challenges before she could capture their attention and interest. Slowly with her dedication, patient and care she was able to put them together under one roof called classroom. They forgot about their past life, revenge, hatred, gangsters and realized that none of these will lead them to a good way. Every step the teacher takes inspires the students to change themselves. I like the teacher’s idea when asked them to write journal everyday where it was chance and opportunity for them to pour out their sadness, frustration, depression, anger, loneliness in their life. Although at first many of them reluctant but it was actually their first step to become writers. Knowing their interest, problem the teacher provided some reading books that are inspirational and motivational for them. It does really work for them. They became immersed with the books and tend to change the perspective on life. Even though the teacher lost her family life but she gained a very big family called as students at the end. Every individual has their own talent but it will be not discover until they discover it by themselves or others. As a future teacher, it was motivating movie for us even though I’m jot sure whether we can make changes like in the movie but at least we could try... I guess…

First draft

What next week he wants the first draft? I’m going to die as I never touched anything yet except for finding the necessary information. I will never learn my lesson L I should start working now itself. The first two parts and the implication on education are quite easy to do. Literature review is a bit though because I’m not sure on how to do it. For the first time in my university life, I borrowed six books at once just to do some readings regarding my literature review. It is not an easy job to do research paper, you need to read, write, and think a lot. Even for the position it took one whole week to finish it, how about this assignment? Worst still I have exams ahead next week and I need to revise. I manage to do the introduction, synopsis, background of the author and implication on education in one day so it means I still have plenty of time to do the literature review and my actual study. After three days of struggling, burning the midnight sleep, I was able to complete it. It’s a relief but I’m sure I have to re do it again. Never mind it is better to learn from mistakes. During the raya break I’ll try to do it again.

Proposal Paper.

My supervisor has already asked for the proposal paper and I haven’t draft it yet. There is only one day for me to sit and do it. Luckily, Kumutha taught me on how to do the proposal paper. I manage to do everything except for the issues that I’m going to discuss on. What exactly I want to do research on? According to Kumutha, she said we should have at least ten issues to discuss and it’s better to have more. At least ten, I can’t even think of one now! Relax, don’t be panic and be cool after all it just a proposal paper, this is what I thought at first but thinking back on the mark,40% it is better to do it properly. After a while I was able to list down few issues, actually only 9 issues. Hope it will be accepted. Research paper is a complicated process but it was my fault also I should have prepare it earlier. It’s a lesson for me.

Enid Blyton

After our first meeting with my supervisor, I kept on thinking on what to do. The topic that I chose need to be changed and I don’t have any idea. Oh God… why mind is so blank this semester? I was talking to Tharani about this dilemma and she suggested me to work on Enid Blyton’s work. Yes, it is a good idea since I have read a lot of her story books. She is a young adult writer and the stories are interesting to read. Now, I have the idea but on what topic should I do? Think… think… maybe I will work on the portrayal of theme in her writings. As I don’t have any of the books with me, so I went to MPH bookstore to buy them. I choose to work on ‘The Island of Adventure’ and ‘Five Run Away Together’ but my bad luck I didn’t get the second book. So I decided to do on ‘Five Go to Mystery Moor’. Now I have to sit and read to decide on the theme that I’m going to do research on.

Finally done!

Yahoo! I’m done with my position paper. We hand it over this Wednesday. Most of my course mates were confused because some of them thought it’s the first draft that they should submit without realizing that it’s the final work they need to hand over. Thank God, I didn’t think like that. To tell the truth until now I’m not satisfied with my position paper, I still feel it is incomplete. I feel that the explanations and arguments in my position paper are not good enough. But it too late to think on it as I already submitted it. I felt a great relief and happy as though I completed a big work. The result of this paper, I have to wait……

How to start?

After few weeks of struggling with the thesis statement now we have to crack our head to write the position paper. It is not easy to start you should have the right words, mood, idea and so on to do it. Ehem… how to start? By giving the definition of fantasy and reality or straight to the point? After reading the sample I had a clear idea on how to write a position paper. It took me three days to start the first paragraph. Each time I write I’m not satisfied as I don’t feel it is a good start. At last, I have started to write it and each day I will write two paragraphs so it took me almost a week to complete the position paper. It’s easy to construct the points but it is hard to develop the points since I have to argue and provide textual evidence as well. Above all this, I need to keep track with the word count as it should not exceed 1000 words. I’m not sure how many words it had exceed, I’ll know after I started to type them out.