ARW Dec 20th

 In today's class, I learned some helpful sites for research and how to create website.
 I was surprised at usefulness of Media Education Foundation. Those contents are various and free, and the site has some obliging services: transcript, study guide, and images. They lead me to effective research and deep understanding. However, I don't agree with an opinion that iTunesU is good source. Of course, iTunesU is beneficial for studying, but I think it is not appropriate for research, because iTunesU has little explanation about contents, doesn't have enough technological service such as transcripts, and takes much time to download.
 Anyway, in the Christmas holiday, I will make effort to research my essay topic and make a website for Winter Project. I intend to visit Wakayama prefectural museum which holds special display of Mask.

ARW Dec 17th

 In the Tuesday's ARW, we made teams of winter project and discussed ethics based on Shannon.

 Our discussion was not so effective because we didn't get used to argue that abstruct topic. And that topic doesn't have reality for us. To discuss problems in society, we have two ways to approach the problems: abstract and practical. Shannon's arguement is the abstract way. The benefit of the abstract way shows the structure of arguements and overview. On the other hand, practical approach starts arguement from examples, so we can understand the situation of the problem and argue on the basis of it. I learned them through debates in high school club activity. In my opinion, if ELA program think a great deal of both ways, ELA will be more effective for student's critical thinking.

ARW Dec.16th Quality of essay

 Today's lecture is about deciding essay topic, thesis statement, and the way of research. In discussion, I remember my attitude to essay writing in the previous terms. To tell the truth, my essays were composed by deceit. Of course I made effort to write essay well, but it was just "making what looks like essay". Why did I do it? At the beginning of semester, I had a will to write fantastic and interesting essay and chose interesting topic. However, I had troubles in the process. I became tired of researching, so I started writing with a few knowledge and my biased opinion. Finding sources are along with writing. I didn't use and verify the sources opposed to my claim because they were trouble and I had no time. Nevertheless, I could write well-composed and A-grade essay at last.
 Is it interesting? Of course not. If I do debate based on my essay, I cannot win the debate because of weakness of my argument which didn't go through counterarguments. Such a essay is not academic paper; It's wastepaper. I want to write an essay which is attractive for most of people, improve myself, and fun in writing.      

ARW 13th. Dec - The Inportance Of Checking Tools

 Yesterday's ARW was very helpful for me. We learned an effective writing style and some checking tools. Especially, I think that to know checking tools is important. After the class, I tried using those tools by my essay in Autumn term. I checked vocabrary level, word's frequency, reading level, and grammer. The results of them were almost so-so, but reading level is not enough for undergraduate level. In winter term, I will improve my writing technic by using them.

 Why is knowing checking tools important? There are two reasons. First, in writing essay, ELA program doesn't have enough supporting system. ARW teachers don't have sufficient time to check essay in detail for all of students. Of cource, student's peer review is not completely effective. Therefore, it is necessary for each student to check and improve essay by themselves. Second reason is the language problem. When we read Japanese writing, we can understand the level of writing because we have read Japanese writing for over 10 years. However, in English, we cannot do that. In short, evaluation needs experiences. Using those tools, without experience, we can evaluate our writing. Therefore, to know the existance of those checking tools is significant for me. They are like teachers in Internet.

 CONVENIENCE!

ARW Dec.10th

 Today's ARW was very interesting for me. We discussed good and bad presentation to see Rab's presentation and the other presentations. And we actually tried to show presentation based on the discussion. After that, Rab taught us various google functions.

 I think Rab's lecture about presentation was very effective. He had us discuss and list the good and bad presentation technics, and then he said that we knew the what the good presentation is. This way of teaching was successful. We couldn't do presentation we ever did because it was bad presentation and we criticized our bad previous presentation in discussion. In my opinion, this lecture was a kind of presentation. He did great presentation about presentation to us.

 Through some Rab's class, I noticed that I (or we or Japanese youngers) are strictly restricted by non-real standards, for example, presentation style, learning style, and so on. I want creativity in order to break such boring standards.