PB3A - Matters of
the Mind
I have always found the pursuit and application of knowledge quite
fascinating, and am constantly on the hunt to find new ways to apply concepts
towards solving problems in a variety of contexts. In her writing composition
titled What is Transfer, Elizabeth
Wardle explores this idea in the area of academics, explaining that there are
different types of writing processes and skills that can transfer over to
tackling issues in other academic contexts such as history or science. Wardle
claims that if the writing process is taught in a certain academic setting a
teacher can foster a sense of creativity and problem-solving that allows
students to utilize their rhetorical skills towards other disciplines. I
believe that this idea could be illustrated in two different ways: mind-mapping
and journal writing.
One lesson in our class this quarter involved exploring the idea of
mind-mapping and expressing your thoughts in a creative form during the
pre-planning process prior to composition. This displays an incredible transfer
and connectivity between ideas and thoughts, helping students to synthesize
them into a coherent, holistic argument. By brainstorming in this way, one can
compose a piece with the structure and flow to really tie together all of the
main ideas between a variety of contexts.
I find the idea of skill transfer and mind-mapping to be incredibly
applicable to the modern business work-space, as we must all learn to develop
useful skills and find ways to apply them to a variety of job types. This is
why I would like to express the ideas from this article in the form of a startup
business mind-map for an older audience hoping to utilize skills transfer to
grow their business and apply these techniques to various parts of a business
model. I am thoroughly convinced that mind-mapping and idea transfer would be
extremely valuable for this audience and know that I could express this through
my WP3! But I would question the reader to help me determine how best to
display this work, though writing/drawing on paper, an online program, or even
maybe a whiteboard? I doubt that I can turn in a whole whiteboard for my
project, but perhaps I could take pictures of complex mind-maps? Let me know
what you think!
Onto the medium for a younger audience to grasp the idea of transfer
between academic writing contexts, I would like to emulate a young student’s
personal journal. This holds the potential for such a creative project, as I
could include pages with daily reflections and insights, free writing pages,
drawings, or even cut outs of pictures or cool quotes. I must admit that I have
taken up the practice of daily journaling with great consistency every night
this quarter, and have found truly astounding benefits from the practice. Having
worked in this medium for personal development will make this type of
composition for my WP3 a breeze, allowing me to create a high quality piece of
work that allows for creativity and a high degree of self-expression. Please
shoot me a message or comment about your thoughts on this idea, as I am
seriously stoked to get started on it but want to ensure that it is a
legitimate way to go about this project first. Thanks for reading!
Hey Tyler,
ReplyDeleteSuper cool that you found a topic that you’re truly interested in!! We already talked a bit in class about the questions you were asking of your readers, but I think that you should be fine to take pictures of your white boards (in your very best handwriting of course!) and add them to your project. You could also be ridiculously fancy and work out your outlines, erase the text, take a picture of the structure and figure out how to type into your bubbles from there to avoid hand writing. That’s a terribly convoluted idea, though, so feel free to ignore it. Your journal idea could be really fun for you, but don’t create too much work for yourself! Good luck!
Hey Tyler,
ReplyDeleteSo I really enjoy your topic as it intrigues me. I think you will do really well with this topic considering you really =enjoy it as well. Considering your genre transformations, I have a few questions regarding how you are going to go about this. So, when you talk about your older audience transformation, how are you going to support your mind-map with the original information in the scholarly article? What support will you give when you refer to the pursuit of gaining more knowledge when you are using a mind-map to refer to employees to utilize skills to grow a business? These are a couple questions that I believe would be good to refer to when you are actually writing your new heres. Always make sure to support and give good and creative ideas. Remember that these are just ideas so please feel free to use them or not use them. good luck!
Tyler,
ReplyDeleteDude! What a COOL idea: “I would like to express the ideas from this article in the form of a startup business mind-map for an older audience hoping to utilize skills transfer to grow their business and apply these techniques to various parts of a business model.: The best part is: you’ve got a solid reason for doing this.
I’ve got two pieces of advice here: (1) make sure you situate the business start-up—what company is it, who is their audience/client base, where are they located, what’s their image/vibe, etc; and (2) don’t forget that this ultimately needs to bring Wardle + transfer to life. In other words, a straight-up mind map of a business plan wouldn’t sufficiently address this assignment—you need to create a business plan (or whatever) in the form of a mind map that ultimately CONNECTS BACK to Wardle and her idea of transfer. This, to me, sounds very difficult and abstract, but I have confidence in you that you can pull it off. If it gets too tough, I’m OK with you changing direction.
As far as the younger audience’s genre, I think that a personal journal is a neat idea, but I need you to get a lot more specific about the details. Whose journal? What age? What grades/subjects? Over what time period? What kinds of reflections/insights would you draw upon? And where’s the idea of “transfer” coming into play? (For instance, is a 5th grader actively reflecting in their personal journal/diary “What did I transfer across academic contexts today?” Probably not—at least not in such terms. So how would this happen? What would the exigence be?)
Z
Tyler,
ReplyDeleteFirst I'd like to say that I admire your creativity and enthusiasm towards this project. It is nice to see that you found a topic of interest and I specifically like the idea of your business startup transformation. This is something I would have never even thought about and I think it has the potential to turn out very cool. Although I love this idea, I am also curious, like Ryan, how you will use the information from the original article? As far as the journal goes, I think you will do very well, especially since you've been journaling every night. I agree with you when you say that a journal allows for a very personal, creative piece and overall think your project is going to turn out very nicely!
Keep it up yo,
xoxo Jrey
Tyler,
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of mind-mapping the article it could be interesting to see quite a few different perspectives on the same article. Could you apply this to a specific business of some kind? like a writing tutoring business or something of the sort?
I think it's really interesting to use a young person's journal for the younger audience. It probably really helps that you write your own journal which will make the journal entries that you make seem that much more real. What kind of a student are you going to be writing as? someone who is writing on their free time and just trying to improve their skills, a high school writing student, or a college writing student? How would their styles differ, or could you do each one from a different perspective? This seems like a very interesting idea and I'm excited to see where it goes!