Tuesday, November 6, 2012

blog # 10


When I started this graduate program, I had been out of school for six years and had not written a paper or thought about research articles. Writing my first paper was interesting and I did not do as well as I thought I would. My first thought while reading the article by Granello was, wow this is great information to know about, and why had I not been taught this in undergrad. I am sure that I was taught correct format for writing in either APA or MLA while in earlier schooling but I only had two English classes in my undergraduate program. I understand that Blooms Taxonomy is used in graduate level writing but after reading this article, and the way it was laid out and written, each level of writing and their progressions from knowledge to comprehension to application and so on really makes sense. Looking back and thinking about my own writing I know that I was not writing to my best ability.

 One part of the article that stuck out at me was when students are at a  lower level of taxonomy they will read the introduction and the discussion and go on from their to write their paper or summarization of the article. Now I am not going to lie, sometimes I do catch myself doing that first and then reading the rest of the article so I can have some kind of an idea of what the article is going to be about, but at this point in the program and know that in order for me to actually know and understand the information I have to be able to put it into use and apply it. I have yet to have research methods, so sometimes understanding the numbers and the way the study is completed can be confusing.  I believe my writing has improved from the start of the program to know and after reading this article, I am actually excited, and I can’t believe I am saying this but, I am excited to write my next paper and use the format laid out in this article.

 I also thought it was a great idea to include how one moves from a knowledge level to a comprehension, comprehension to application, application to analysis, analysis to synthesis, and synthesis to evaluation. Just saying that you need to move from this level to the next one up wouldn’t allow students to see what they are doing incorrectly. While reading this part of the article could see some of the things that I do in my own writing that could be fixed and made better.

I’ll end with this quote, “Faculty cannot assume that students who are cognitively advanced in other areas of their lives or in other areas of their academic programs will necessarily transfer those skills to their writing, (Granello, 2001, p 301). Students need to be taught how to think more complexly and to raise their own standards of critical thinking and writing.

           
Granello,D. H. (2001). Promoting cognitive complexity in graduate written work: Using Bloom's taxonomy as a pedagogical tool to improve literature reviews. Counselor Education & Supervision, 40, 292-307.

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