Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020
After class, I am planning to attend my former student’s viewing. She was only seventeen years old. I was informed via email that her death was “sudden and tragic” over the weekend of September 19-20, 2020.
I remember Alicia (*name was changed*) sitting in my 10-2 English class. She had beautiful curly brown hair, big brown eyes, and porcelain skin. She was very bright and did not belong in a 10-2 class, but she appeared distracted and perhaps bored with a slow-paced Level II class. By the end of the year, I recommended moving her up to a Level I, college prep class.
“I may look like a tomboy, but I love make-up,” Alicia told me.
When I had experimented with a Laura Mercier purple eyeshadow, Alicia noticed and complimented me on my new look. When I had a new black eyeliner or bright red lipstick on, Alicia noticed. She was a normal teenager who liked make-up, Sephora, boys, her friends, and video games. In the hallway, I would see her smiling and laughing with her boyfriend, Craig (*name changed*), who was also one of my former students. She looked happy, and I was happy that she found happiness.
Alicia was only 17, and her entire life ahead of her. There were no warning signs in 10th grade. Something must have happened between junior and senior years. I cannot get her out of my head. I see her face and reread her past assignments that were saved in my Google Drive. This is the first time in my teaching career that I am attending a former student’s viewing.
I feel distracted, sad, and helpless. I look at my own three children who appear to be doing well with pandemic life. I am sure that Alicia’s parents thought that she was doing well, too.
RIP, sweet Alicia.
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Before news of Alicia’s death, I felt recharged after the Purple-haired Librarian Craig Anderson’s presentation on Graduate Student Intro to Digital Library Resources Webinar. I have researched online grammar checkers on Google Scholar and wanted to research more information on WorldCat. In terms of my Annotated Bibliography, I have compiled a list of 17 sources and would like to see if there are further sources on online grammar checkers. It is reassuring to know that I can reach out to Craig and his staff for research assistance. I also attended an APA Workshop that was offered by the Kean Writing Center, and it was very informative. As an English teacher, I am more familiar with MLA rather than APA; so, a refresher was much appreciated, especially when I am using APA for my Master’s Thesis. I also signed up for Cite it Right: Endpoint Workshop since I am unfamiliar with this particular software program. As recommended by Dr. Nelson, I am currently using Zotero and find it quite user-friendly.
Currently, I am in the process of revising my Annotated Bibliography.
An Act of Rebellion and A Tool of Empowerment:
Annotated Bibliography
Compiled by Linda Pham
21 September 2020
A Phenomenological Research Design Illustrated-Thomas Groenewald, 2004. (n.d.). Retrieved
May 10, 2020, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/160940690400300104
-Provides a step-by-step guide in conducting a phenomenological research design.
Autoethnography is a form of phenomenology but without the bracketing.
Abel, T. J., Bradley, J. W., Anderson, L., Adrimi-Sismani, V., Guerra, M. F., Walter, P., Agua, F.,
Conde, J. F., Kobyliñska, U., & Kobyliñski, Z. (2008). RESEARCHING THE
WORLD’S BEADS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. Proceedings of the 37th International Symposium on Archaeometry, 13, 16th.
– Provides an example of an Annotated Bibliography in an APA citation style.
Bardine, B. A., Bardine, M. S., & Deegan, E. F. (2000). Beyond the Red Pen: Clarifying Our
Role in the Response Process. The English Journal, 90(1), 94–101. JSTOR.
https://doi.org/10.2307/821738.
– Contends that teachers need to go beyond grading papers. Teachers need to see
themselves as responders to essays, focusing on the students’ ideas and not their goals.
Best Grammar Checker Tools: These 6 Will Make Your Writing Super Clean. (2020, January
20). The Write Life. https://thewritelife.com/automatic-editing-tools/.
– Provides recommendations of online grammar checkers such as ProWritingAid,
AutoCrit, and Grammarly.
Canagarajah, A. S. (2012). Teacher Development in a Global Profession: An Autoethnography.
TESOL Quarterly, 46(2), 258–279. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.18.
– Provides an example of an autoethnography of an English teacher who was able to gain
credibility as an English teacher in Sri Lanka. By using an authentic voice, this
Autoethnography is a strong example of this research method.
Cavaleri, M. R., & Dianati, S. (2016). You want me to check your grammar again? The
usefulness of an online grammar checker as perceived by students. Journal of Academic
Language and Learning, 10(1), A223–A236.
– Presents research on the positive impact of online grammar checkers on students
in Australia. Based on their study, online grammar checkers promote self-efficacy
and independence.
Cordell, E. (n.d.). Subject Guides: Research Fundamentals: David Foster Wallace – Authority
and American Usage. Retrieved May 8, 2020, from
//subjectguides.lib.neu.edu/c.php?g=574789&p=3964033.
-Wallace examines the power dynamics in American usage. He argues that the elite, the
SNOOTS (or grammar snobs), are the authority in terms of usage. They determine right
and wrong in American usage.
Delpit, L. D. (1988). The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s
Children. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.58.3.c43481778r528qw4
Delpit examines the culture of power in the classroom and in writing pedagogy. She
argues for a student-centered classroom and writing as a process.
Ferenz, O. (2005). EFL writers’ social networks: Impact on advanced academic literacy
development. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 4(4), 339–351.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2005.07.002.
-Using human ecology theory, Orna Fernez examines how ESL students’ social
environment (a network of friends, classmates, and co-workers) impact the students’
acquisition of advanced literacy skills.
Figueredo, L., & Varnhagen, C. K. (2006). Spelling and grammar checkers: Are they intrusive?
British Journal of Educational Technology, 37(5), 721–732.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2006.00562.x.
– Concludes that online grammar checkers do not negatively impact a writer’s revision
process. More experienced writers, such as graduate students, use online grammar
checkers to check for surface revisions.
Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing
USA.
– Argues for liberation of the oppressed by breaking the chains of a
conventional education that focuses on memorization. Instead, education should focus
on problem-solving and critical thinking skills. He encourages dialogue between
the teacher and the student.
Jayavalan, K., & Razali, A. B. (2018). Effectiveness of Online Grammar Checker to Improve
Secondary Students’ English Narrative Essay Writing. International Research Journal of
Education and Sciences (IRJES), 2(1).
-Shows how Maylasian students who used Grammarly scored higher in the narrative
writing tasks by using Grammarly.
McAlexander, P. J. (2000). CHECKING THE GRAMMAR CHECKER: INTEGRATING
GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION WITH WRITING. Journal of Basic Writing, 19(2),
124–140. JSTOR.
-Describes online grammar checkers as “pattern detectors” that can detect formulaic
patterns of errors but not error relating to content and meaning such as comma rules,
dangling and misplaced modifiers, and pronoun agreement errors.
McCracken, H., & McCracken, H. (2019, April 1). On its 10th anniversary, Grammarly looks
way beyond grammar. Fast Company.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90327157/on-its-10th-anniversary-grammarly-looks-way-beyond-grammar
-Provides background on the founders of Grammarly, Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko,
who want people to write well. The writer Harry McKraken who writes for a living uses
Grammarly to help him find errors.
Moré, J. (2006). A grammar checker based on web searching. Digithum, 8, 1–5.
Naber, D. (2003). A rule-based style and grammar checker. Citeseer.
On Students’ Rights to Their Own Texts: A Model of Teacher Response on JSTOR. (n.d.).
-Claims that teachers should treat students’ writing with respect. The teacher should return control of writing to the students by adopting the mindset of helping the student improve as a writing and not comparing the students’ writing to an Ideal text.
Pitard, J. (2015). Using Vignettes Within Autoethnography to Explore Layers of Cross-Cultural
Awareness as a Teacher. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-17.1.2393.
-Uses vignettes (or anecdotes) to serve as a “window” into a different culture. She distinguishes autoethnographies from short stories by connecting the self to the larger cultural text, and the self to the larger social context.
Potter, R., & Fuller, D. (2008). My New Teaching Partner? Using the Grammar Checker in
Writing Instruction. The English Journal, 98(1), 36–41. JSTOR.
-A seventh-grade teacher, Reva Potter, describes her positive experience of teaching
online grammar checker. She concludes by saying that she can teach technology
and writing simultaneously.
Semke, H. D. (1984). Effects of the Red Pen. Foreign Language Annals, 17(3), 195–202.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1984.tb01727.x
-Shows that students’ writing skills improve with a combination of positive comments
corrections on their papers.
The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging. (2017, June 29). Othering and
Belonging. http://www.otheringandbelonging.org/the-problem-of-othering/
-John a. Powell and Stephen Menendian posit that the problem of the 20th century is
“othering, ” which is a type of prejudice where one group perceives another group as
being different from them, thus marginalizing them. Othering occurs because of the
desire for power and unconscious bias.
