Literacy – Page 4 – UWS BA ePDPs

Sustainable Development – Disasters

Middleton (2013, p.467) says “natural hazards should be defined and studied both in terms of the physical processes involved and the human factors affecting the vulnerability of certain groups of people to disasters.” Therefore, natural disasters can be defined as uncontrollable events which have devastating impacts on the lives and environment of the area in … Continue reading Sustainable Development – Disasters

The Skill of Questioning

The main aim of the chapter is to inform the reader of the skill of questioning by explaining the different types of questioning used in society. Key themes throughout the chapter are education, health care, crime and criminal justice and the use of questioning in everyday life.
Hargie claims that pharmacists asking closed questions could lead to them missing out information. He backs this up by including an example from a study by Morrow et al. (1993) A pharmacist asks a series of closed questions and proceeds to give a product to a client, the client then asks. “What about if you have taken any other tablets?” This then required the pharmacist to reduce the recommended dosage, without this knowledge the client could have overdosed on medicine.
An argument in the chapter that I found interesting was the effect of leading questions on children. Studies show that leading questions can have a distorting effect on children. This has made me think more about the way I would address questions to them.
While I agree with most of what Hargie says I do not find it surprising that social workers mainly ask closed question unlike other councillors. Social workers require accurate and precise information on the children they work with and they are more likely to get this information by asking closed questions. Hargie states that open questions may not be appropriate for respondents with low intellect therefore it is possible that social workers are dealing with clients of a lower calibre.
To help me understand the reading there were a few words that I had to research the meaning of to help me, this included: Stenographer, pervasive, subsumed and abhor
One theory that is explained in the chapter is by Fiedler (1993:362): “The way in which a person is questioned may have a substantial effect on his or her credibility, regardless of what he/she actually says.” I understand this to mean that the way a person is questioned can alter their response.

References

‘Finding out about others: the skill of questioning’, in Hargie, O. (2011) Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice. 5th ed. London: Routledge.

Reflections on Room

I consider myself to be an avid reader, and it is one of my main hobbies. My preferences tend towards fantasy if reading fiction, the works of Shakespeare and Tolkien being at the top of my list of favourites, along … Continue reading →

Personal response to ‘Room’

Personal response to Room Throughout my life, I have always been a keen reader. Since around the age of six I was visiting my local library and would work my way through 3-4 books every week, even if I … Continue reading →

Personal response to Room

Throughout my life, I have always been a keen reader. Since around the age of six I was visiting my local library and would work my way through 3-4 books every week, even if I wasn’t properly reading them, so yes, I have always loved reading from a very young age and still do now.

I read to for pleasure when I find the time to read and when I do find the time to read for pleasure, I tend to read crime and thriller books along with mystery and fantasy books such as: The Lovely Bones, Gone Girl, Harry Potter and The Girl on the Train etc. I love reading these sort of texts/genres as I feel part of the story and I feel drawn in to the book. I also like reading these type of fiction texts as I like to see how different authors describe situations, characters and scenes in the book.

As part of my university work, I had the opportunity to read the book ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue. I found the book very interesting and intriguing to read. I also enjoyed the book as these are the type of books I like to read with mystery and suspense in them throughout the story. I also enjoyed the book as it gave me a better insight of how some children learn and develop and how some children struggle to develop within certain situations such as neglect and lack of interaction with people and language variations. I also enjoyed the book as it highlighted the importance of interaction with children and how important it is that children need to be involved with different situations and activities, not just confined to a minimal amount of activity and limited interaction within the classroom and outside of the classroom.

I would recommend ‘Room’ to others as I think the book is very interesting and makes you want to keep reading by the nature of the story. I think that other people should read the book as it gives an insight of children’s language development in an informal way that is an accurate perception.

When reading ‘Room’, the language of the book challenged my own language skills as Jack’s language is very disjointed in the book and there are unusual language patterns. This challenged me as I have never read a book like this before. I also felt challenged when reading the book because of the darkness to the story which was quite disturbing in some ways. However, reading ‘Room’ has improved my reading skills in the sense that I feel more confident engaging with texts that are not considered normal or contain normal language patterns that may be harder to understand at first.

Reading ‘Room’ has encouraged me to read other novels of this nature as I found the book very interesting and relevant to the course I am studying. Although I do read novels already, I have never read a book like this before and thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. I will definitely be reading more books like this in future.

I only ever considered academic reading to be textbooks and journals, I never realised that these kinds of books would help with my learning at university. ‘Room’ was a very effective and useful text to engage with when learning about language acquisition and development as the book showed both sides of language development in the sense of positive and negative. For example, the book shows the negative side of language development if children are not exposed to a wide range of language and interaction. This is shown by using disjointed language. The positive aspect of language acquisition and development is then shown through Jack’s positive language development after he leaves ‘Room’. This is useful as it shows the challenges that some children may face/the different situations children are in at home which could impact on their development both inside and outside the classroom. The book also helps us to realise as future teacher’s that there may be other reasons why children are not grasping things within our classroom.

Personal Response to ‘Room’

Personal Response to ‘Room’ During our introductory lecture of Literacy of Understanding we were informed that we had a novel- ‘Room’. I dreaded the prospect of reading this novel as the last time that read a novel was during my study of Higher English. But since reading ‘Room’ this has completely changed my outlook and … Continue reading Personal Response to ‘Room’ →

Personal Response to ‘Room’

During our introductory lecture of Literacy of Understanding we were informed that we had a novel- ‘Room’. I dreaded the prospect of reading this novel as the last time that read a novel was during my study of Higher English. But since reading ‘Room’ this has completely changed my outlook and attitude towards reading. When I was little my parents would always read to me and this influenced my habits of being a reader until my mid-teens.

I doubtlessly stopped reading for pleasure in fifth year of school as I had other priorities of studying for my Highers. Before then during my younger teens I was an avid reader and found contentment in reading by discovering new cultures and gathering a greater understanding of the current world in which we live in, but also the past world. During this time, I did find fulfilment in reading novels, my particular genres varied, I went through stages when I liked horror fiction, girl fiction and fantasy fiction. Sometimes if I got interested in a subject topic I studied at school this would influence my reading choices. For instance, during second year History I studied American Civil Rights therefore during this period I read the ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ and ‘The Help’. Reading books related to school I was able to gain a further understanding and knowledge. Reflecting back, I believe if I kept reading novels I would have more creative writing flare and a more styled style of writing, but intimating the authors that I read.

Presently I prefer to read current and in date texts such as newspapers and magazines. I am increasingly inclined to read broadsheet newspapers such as ‘The Times’, ‘The Herald’ and The Guardian’. The writing methodology of the editors influence my writing style, but at time their lexicon and language can be complex to understand.

Why do I not choose to read fiction presently? That was a question that I pondered about. Why I do not choose to read is partially all excuses- I don’t have any time to read, I don’t find reading enjoying, I cannot find any fiction that standouts.

However, since reading ‘Room’, in which I enjoyed reading has changed my view on reading. The initial pages of ‘Room’ did not interest me in the slightest but as the novel developed I became intrigue by the plot especially when Ma and Jack where planning their escape from ‘Room’ and understand how they would adjust to life on the outside. ‘Room’ is definitely a book that I would recommend to read, as I found it profoundly moving and conveys a world being locked away from society and the bond of mother and son.

Reading ‘Room’ has highlighted the importance to myself that I have to read more breath of fictions and I should not just read the first few pages and get discourage if I am not fond of the plot or characters. Reading a scope fictions allows you to gain a better understanding of the world and varying situations that humans find themselves in.

Undoubtfully it has changed my view on using novels for academic reading, reading ‘Room’ reinforced the aspects of language development present in young children and their tendencies as young speakers, as Jack language highlighted the development of his and shows that situations can impair facets of language.

Personal Response to ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue

For years now I have greatly enjoyed reading both fiction and non-fiction books, with fiction being my favourite. I used to be an avid reader sometimes going through several books a month, nowadays however I find that I don’t read as much as I would like to, probably because I don’t have enough time and because I’ve read most of the books in my house, several times. As I said, fictional books are my preferred choice of reading, with the Harry Potter series being my absolute favourite and The Maze Runner Series coming in second. Although I prefer fictional books I do quite like to read non-fictional books too, I like how they are based on fact and open your understanding on certain topics that you have some previous knowledge on or have no understanding of at all. Reading non-fictional books can also widen your search for topic work in a classroom as you could be inspired to choose a topic that you ordinarily wouldn’t have chosen either because you didn’t know enough about it or didn’t know anything at all about it. Most of the fictional books I read are chosen because they are based on events that would be extremely unlikely to happen in real-life (e.g. Harry Potter), however some fictional books are based on real-life events but have a twist or are developed from true stories. ‘Room’ by Emma Donoghue falls in to latter category, a fictional book inspired by a true story. This book was particularly fascinating as the story line was gripping and really interesting. I really liked how it was all written from Jack’s point of view although this did make it quite hard to read and understand in places because of the language he used. Also, I liked how you got a good setting of what it was like before Jack was born and how Joy ended up in room. I would definitely recommend this book to someone else, even if they have already seen the film, because you get more information in the book than you do from the film as you hear all of Jack’s thoughts which you don’t get from the movie. One aspect of the way ‘Room’ that was challenging for me was the way it was written from Jack’s point of view, because he’s only five the language that he used and the way that some of his words were jumbled up or he had the wrong word for certain things was a little confusing. This meant that when reading the book, it took a little while to into the way in which he spoke, so sometimes I would have to go back and re-read parts again because I hadn’t understood the first time. I think ‘Room’ has developed my reading skills as it has given me the opportunity to read a book that is unconventionally written in a way that I’ve never seen before (written from a child’s point of view). This book has inspired me to read more books that are like it, more grown-up and loosely based on true stories. ‘Room’ was very useful when it came to understanding language acquisition and development as it allowed you to see in context what the certain aspects of language development/acquisition are, for example, over-generalisation.

Personal Response to ‘Room’

Reading for pleasure is something which I can only do if I have become extremely engaged in a novel within the first few chapters. Luckily, I was gripped to ‘Room’ from the very beginning. When read for pleasure, I have always read fiction books; usually those which have a thrilling or particularly emotional story-line. I … Continue reading Personal Response to ‘Room’

A Personal Response to “Room”

I first read Emma Donoghue’s Room last December, after it was recommended by a friend. Room is typical of one of the genre of books I usually tend to read, along the lines of Jodi Picoult and Martina Cole. I also really enjoy dramatic autobiographies and memoirs such as Angela’s Ashes, Call the Midwife and …

Continue reading “A Personal Response to “Room””

Room Reflection

As a child, I used to read a lot. As the years have went by, the amount of books I read has declined each year because my work load has increased. If I ever try to read now, I start to feel guilty and think about other work that I could be doing. When the … Continue reading Room Reflection →

In general, I’m not a fussy reader. I tend to read fiction books of all genres, but I occasionally like to read a non-fiction book for some variety. I would say that my favourite genre is crime fiction and mystery, but I don’t like reading fantasy books.

I loved reading the book Room. Before we were asked to read it at University, a friend had recommended it to me, so I have now read room twice and enjoyed it even more the second time!! It was different to any story that I have every read before because it was written in a child’s perspective. I felt like the book gave me an insight into a child’s mind, and made me aware of the grammatical errors that children can make in their language. I was also interested to find out that the story had been based on the Joseph Fritzl story. I would definitely recommend Room because it was so different to any book that I had read and it would give them a new experience in reading books.

I felt that Room definitely challenged me as a reader because it forced me to think in a childlike manor. I sometimes had to go back and read sentences again to gain understanding of what Jack was saying. It could be hard to understand due to the way that he said some words, e.g. melted spoon. I feel like this has developed my reading skills because it has let me identify errors in our English language.

Before reading Room, I had never really considered how fiction can be used in Academic study. I now understand that it is possible because I have learned a lot about the English language whilst reading Room. Although I enjoyed reading room, it has not encouraged me to read any more than I do already. I feel that the book has encouraged me to read some books that I wouldn’t have before reading Room to allow me to have new experiences in reading.

Personal Reflection of Room

When I was younger, I was a big reader and I read for pleasure a lot however as I’ve gotten older I have stopped reading as I never have the time to sit down and actually read a book. I tend to read romantic fiction, novels that are popular and ones that have been recommended … Continue reading Personal Reflection of Room →

I felt that Room was a very enjoyable read and the story really intrigued me. I felt very involved in the story while reading it and throughout the beginning, I was interested to see how Jack’s language changed and how he came to have such a wide range of vocabulary. I noticed straight away that Jack personifies the objects in Room and this was one concept that really interested me as Jack pretended they were his friends however he had no real grasp on the fact that they were inanimate objects and could not be his friends. As well as this, it shocked me that Ma made out to Jack that everything he seen on TV was only TV and was not real, however the truth would have been too much for Jack to handle so I can understand why she did such a thing. I felt that Room was a very eye-opening novel as the things that happen in Room can happen in real life and it shows you the seriousness of the situation and how it could play out. I would definitely recommend Room to someone who hasn’t read it as it is a very captivating and eye-opening novel.

When I was reading room, there were some sentences that I had to read multiple times before I could understand what they meant. Because it is written in Jack’s point of view, some of the sentences are not in the right word order or the wrong words are used when describing something. As I have always been able to understand grammar rules and it just comes naturally to me, I found it difficult to revert and put myself in Jack’s mind. However, I feel that this will have helped me develop my skills as a reader due to the fact I had to focus carefully on each word and I had to figure out what some of the sentences meant before I could continue with the story. Reading Room has definitely encouraged me to start reading more novels again. I had forgotten how much I actually did enjoy reading until I read Room.

If you had asked me before, I would have said that the use of fiction would be a waste of time in academic study however Room helped me realise how a child’s language develops and how they come to understand the grammatical rules associated with the English language. Before reading Room, I didn’t fully understand what overgeneralising meant however I now fully grasp the concept.