My Personal Inquiry Blog

I finished my search on different search engines to see if I could find anything using the same words "modern transcendentalism." I used Ask Jeeves, Google, and Altavista. Needless to say I was extremely disappointed. I tried different strategies, using exact words, advanced searches and so on. I got a ton of information which I expected because I just could not think of better key word searches to use, but I was most frustrated with the excess of websites that offer essays to the user for a price. There must be a lot of papers assigned on this topic. I guess I am too much of an idealist, naive, or just too ethical, but what person could sleep at night knowing that they were contributing to plagiarism and just plain old cheating. I guess in their minds it pays the bills and that's all that matters, not the state of our children's educational future. My researching tonight is tinged with bitterness after seeing all of these sites. How sad that students are trying to do legitimate research, yet are inundated with ways to help them cheat instead of giving them resources.

This leads in nicely to my next phase of Wiggling which is evaluating sources. The website http://www.quick.org.uk offers a great tool for evaluating sources called "The Quality Information Checklist."

I thought I would use some of this checklist to evaluate the website I wrote about yesterday.

http://www.shepherd.edu/transweb/america.htm

1. Is it clear who has written the information? This information from the website says it all:
This site was developed as a class project for ENGL 446 and ENGL 447, two interrelated courses on American Transcendentalism and the Prominence of Place. The courses were offered in the Spring 2002 semester by Dr. Patricia Dwyer and Dr. Linda Tate, both associate professors of English at Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Linda served as webmaster for this project. Please email her with questions, suggestions, additions, corrections.

2. Are the aims of the site clear? Again, the site is specific in who it is for and what it is for:
We hope this site will give you a sense of the American Transcendentalists and the many writers and environmental activists they have inspired, as well as the many possibilities for creativity learning in higher education.

3. Does the site achieve its aims? I definitely think the site achieves its aims. I have gotten a great PERSONAL sense of the writers' lives. I especially enjoyed the article on Margaret Fuller. I also love the capabilities to go on a virtual tour of different places that these people have lived. It fulfils its mission of giving a sense of American Transcendentalists.

4. Is the site relevant to me? Five things I have found out from the site
1. Margaret Fuller is an inspiration to me and lived a fascinating life surrounded by Transcendentalists. Though an academic in the truest sense of the word with her knowledge of languages and her writing abilities, I most admire her for the way she lived her life, never letting social norms and stereotypes keep her from living her life the way she wanted to live it.

2. The many places to visit in Boston! I can't wait to visit Boston again, not to walk the Freedom Trail, like I did last time, but to experience the places and homes of the Transcendentalists!

3. Hawthorne's Salem is another great site that offers great perspectives on places that the authors visited and lived while also providing great videos and other media to spend time with.

4. The section on America's Writers: Taking Transcendentalism Past New England showed me how I could use modern Transcendentalism within my English classroom. This whole section would be great models to show the kids 1. some ideas about the modern slant on it and 2. some modeling of how to write a modern essay that has these Transcendentalist ideas. It offers current famous authors, but it also includes these students' writings that are diverse in nature: some journaling, poetry, essays.

5. I can't leave out the information about Emerson and Thoreau. They are the gurus and the information provided in this site is great because it is perfect for the high school student. Not only is information provided about where they lived and worked, but live links take you to sites about each man that provide background information without getting too difficult to interpret. I would feel confident assigning a project using only this site and getting a great product from the kids.

5. Can the information be checked? The credibility checks out since two professors are completing the site with their students from a college. I could check this out by going on to the college's website and making sure they are professors there.

6. When was the site produced? The most recent date for this was 2003. I would be concerned about this except for the fact that all of the links I tried were live links and the information that is being provided does not have to be cutting edge since it is dealing with biography and history.

7. Is the information biased in any way? The only bias I can think of is that it does want the user to think positively about Transcendentalism. I have not come across any information which speaks negatively about any of the people or the philosophy, though I know there were people who were annoyed with the positiveness of Emerson.

8. Does the site tell you about choices open to you? I don't think the site gives advice. It jsut provides information about the foremost thinkers of the time and models some of the writings of modern day transcendentalists along with travel guides to areas that these people lived and worked.

Completing this checklist was really useful for me and I will use it in the classroom this fall. Students need to learn to evaluate sources and I know that it is not being taught well enough in the schools. Last year when I taught AP I had a student use as a source for his research paper on college basketball players leaving early to enter the NBA draft the website http://www.duke-sucks.com/

If you check out the website, you will see why it is not a credible source. And you're probably thinking, well, duh! When I told the student that using this website as a source would weaken the credibility of his paper, he looked at me like WHAT? I had to explain to him that even the url sent warning flags to me. I didn't even have to look it up to check it to know that it was not appropriate because it was going to be biased. The frustrating part of teaching is that we talk and talk about it, but unless you do an activity such as the checklist, students won't get it. You have to spend the classtime modeling and using these checklists to ensure that students understand about evaluating sources. I know that duke-sucks.com will be a prime example for me to model a bad site.

Well, I have done a little bit of weaving so that my title fits this entire blog! I chose to do a concept map and after reading Callison's chapter on it and seeing some of the cool maps that were handwritten, I decided to do one of my one. You will see that it is not quite so cool as the ones in the chapter, but I have to agree with Tony Buzan. Notetaking is not as useful as making a map. It forced me to make connections and to write as much as possible without referring to my sources. Though there are only key words listed there, there is a story behind each word.

Here is my concept map:



















After reading the information about Mind Mapping. I decided to add to my concept map by using the strategies that Buzan outlines. Here is the example of my improved map:


I was able to do a few things to it to make connections and add color elements to link people and ideas. This could be a fun thing to do with the students in class with a bunch of markers.

I am exhausted! It is 1:34 and I need to go to bed. I wanted to make it through these steps and actually I didn't want to stop what I was doing. I am authentically engaged! : )

Till tomorrow!