Me as writer. (in spanish)
As the majority of the student, I started writing in the first grade of the elementary school. I wrote homework of school, however when I was 8 or 9 years old, I started writing personal letters to my relatives and sent them by postal mail. Those letters printed my "personal style" writing. I used to write a draft with pencil and then rewrite with the pen in a new piece a paper, including my own corrections.
Time after, "my personal writings" were to my friends. Those "manuscripts" were without draft. I wrote my feelings or ideas using the technique "brain-heart -hand". Any mistake was deleted in the same paper.
For the university and working reports, I have always kept the habit of reviewing the grammar and syntax of all that I have written. I spend long time writing those kind of writings. English writing is a new challenge for me.

WHERE IS AMERICAN PEOPLE'S SUPERHERO?

For many years the United States’ educational system has been criticized because of its failures in public education, where many of American people are affected. WAITING FOR SUPERMAN by Davis Guggenheim (2009) is a documentary that shows us the public school situation and the learning and teaching problems in this country; one of them, perhaps the most important is the access to education. This leads us to believe that this situation is not far from us. We can see it around the world. For that reason, this text seeks to enable a critical reflection about American’s problems in education. We can argue that the governments’ role is to watch over education for all people, in other that we have access to public schools.

First of all, economic conditions are one of the major causes to come to school. Poor people do not have enough resources to pay for private education. In the same way, the access to education can not be seeing as a lottery play, in which only are favored those who win. For example, the children’s case in the film, who were not selected. This leads us to ask “what happen with this people? This is an evidence that shows the right to equality’s violation.

Following that, political conditions are the other cause by which people do not have access to public schools. The administrative bureaucracy spends a lot of money in other social systems such as: politics, war, culture, etc. But, they never spend in education purposes. Taking to account that education is a formative process that gives us the knowledge of the world developing skills and values. It also makes us capable of interpreting. The government has to promote politics solutions because education is a fundamental human right.

Finally, we can say that all conditions that we have been arguing in this text are the cause by which, people do not have access to public schools. This is a harsh reality which is fraught with serious difficulties like “IGNORANCE” if we do not have chance to study, we will be lack of knowledge. We have the right to free education, regardless of our social class, ethnicity, background, etc.

In summary, there are many people who are deprived of education. Nowadays, it is difficult for them get access in, because of puberty, or for some people who wants to achieve their personal purpose. But where is our SUERHERO? Is there nobody to save us?

To study what you want or what you can?

Cheking the information and exploring different countries, Colombia, The US and Chile we can see that the educational situation is almost the same, money means you can do whatever you want, including studying. The situation in the Satates is incredible, is insane students have to get debts to receive any kind of certification that can asure them a better salary and after students graduate they have to continue paying what they own to the goverment, they will have the same debt for generations. In Chile students are fighting for the right to free education, or at least, cheaper education and with quality and in Colombia something is happening with the reforms that the goberment is appliying to the educational system, here in Colombia we can see that the public education is not as public as it sounds because not all the people is accepted and if a low-income person wants to go to a private university so the only way to do it real is getting a debt with higher economic interests that means that probably even after few generatios he or she will continue paying for the studies done some years before. So this means that in those three different contries the comunity of students have to choose actually a carrerer that will help them, after graduating, to get a better job with better payments, that could help if the debt wasn't as higher as it is now, but if a student like a poorly paid carrer and beside this he or she has to get a debt so he will never finish to pay the debt, wont receive credits from anywhere, wont have his/her own house and other stuff unless winning the lotto, so nowadays students have to study something that they dont really like but that will give them a "better" future for him/her and their families.

Student debt in the United States

Last Friday I talked about my own experience taking out private loans in order to fund my undergraduate education. For those interested in learning more about the student loan crisis and the rising costs of education in the United States, the following are links to some great articles:

http://www.good.is/post/on-track-for-1-trillion-student-loan-debt-greater-than-credit-card-debt/

http://www.good.is/post/when-will-the-bubble-burst-student-loan-debt-swells-511-percent/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/the-debt-crisis-at-american-colleges/243777/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/fashion/recent-college-graduates-wait-for-their-real-careers-to-begin.html?_r=2&ref=education

Given the increasing cost of college, paired with the lack of job openings for recent graduates, many college students are being forced to consider whether or not to study something they love or something that will land them a job. If public education in Colombia is privatized (and hence, the cost of tuition increases), how would this change your educational plan? For example, would you change your field of study?

Why I write? It is not an academic text!!

Why I write? It is not an academic text!!

I was reading "why I write?" trying to find the academic scheme. 

I had to search and think... what were the characteristics and components must have an academic text and I could say that it is not. Because the text is just telling a personal experience giving reasons why a person developed a writing skill it does not have an academic connotation although it has the structure essay. Starting by introduction, a thesis with different arguments and of course it has a conclusion but the academic text is characterized by representative referential (academic) and it is designed to be supportive and transmit  knowledge. it is a highly developed kind of discourse, characterized by the use of formal register of language with precise and specific lexicon

The structure of these texts is based, often in the descriptive and argumentative text sequences with a high degree of generalization and semantics abstraction.

REFLECTION ON ACADEMIC TEXT

George Orwell's "Why I write" is the kind of text perfectly tailor-made to reconsider what we believe an academic text is. We are taugth to use only a few rules that give an accurate tone to our writing, this is we are used to objectivity. Orwell's essay does not break established paradigms, but it shows a text can be both academic and personal.

The essay has the requested structure to be academic:

Organisation: It has a clear introduction, body and conclusion. The arguments are clear and supported with examples.
Relevance: All its arguments address to the topic; it does not have any information that may take out Orwell from the subject.
Coherence and Cohesion: It has a sense and a structure.

There is a very strong objection about this text: Orwell's use of language. It is truth that words like "humbug" or "stuff" MAY NOT seem appropriate for an academic text but it is not totally forbidden; plus you have to convince your audience, so it implies that some rules must be skipped.

I think "Why I write" is a personal essay but also an academic one and we should not let some rules confuse us. Remember rules are to be broken.

Why I write: academic text?

First of all I would like to say, as this is the chance to talk for myself, that I am not totally sure about whether the text why I write is an academic text or not, but as I have to defend a position, I will defend the one that the text is closer to be, i.e., I consider the text to be an academic one.

Well, I assume that position because of the next arguments: in spite of the text in the beginning is just telling us about the life of the author, I consider the text to have a very clear structure of an essay, as it has an introduction (after the little biography given), a development where you can see the arguments that the author give and that led him to become a writer with a political bias (the political and even military events that took place in his age---context), and of course a conclusion where he joins his ideas to say what written a book is for himself.

Other reasons are that there are specific vocabulary related in some way with the process of writing for example: vers d’occasion, comic, poems, literary, prose, rhythm, typography, width of margins, descriptive books, magazine article, sentences, etc. the author also makes citations both for his writings (the little poem), as for other’s authors (paradise lost).

Julian R. Sepulveda

Dear students:
As it is explained in our program, for every text we read, we need a couple in charge of summarizing it. The idea is that at the end of the semester, everybody can have this set of summaries as an aid for preparing the final exam. Everybody will have to do it... so, who are gonna be the brave ones to start?
We need a couple from my group and a couple from Alex's group to bring a summary of the text by Barbara Schneider and Jo Anne Andre for Monday. These two couples must make copies for everyone (Remember there will be 15 students in each group). Being the first has its advantages... texts will get more complex as we advance ;)

"Why I Write" is NOT an academic text.

I think the text it is not an academic text because the author is relating a personal experience about the reasons why he writes. I thaught it was an academic essay before because of its structure. It has the same structure of an adademic essay. It starts by an introduction, then a thesis which is supported by giving arguments and the ending has a conclusion. Also, the auther uses specific vocabulary about the topic and wants to convince readers about his point of view.
But, an academic essay is more specialized and not that subjective.

Academic Text Reflections

My experience has permitted me to work in certain types of texts; from fanzine articles, through argumentative texts, to literary texts. My interpretation of an academic text goes through its structure, in the first place, and the audience. An academic text in my opinion is a kind of article or maybe a literary piece that is made for a certain purpose, I mean, academic text has an intention and a public that is intended to be read. The author of this kind of texts deals with a main topic that in most cases is explicit in the title or in the first lines, it doesn’t matter what discursive resources he or she uses, the most important is that the author develop the idea in order to be understandable and finally to be discussed from the reactions that the text lets. In most cases readers agree with author’s thoughts because is a text read to clear ideas or hear an opinion about something, but the text is richer when leads into a debate when readers are not totally agree with author‘s stance.

In conclusion, an academic text shows in perspective the author’s ideas, opinions or feelings in a way to be discussed; for those agree o against the ideas. Following a well-organized structure to develop the text clearly and understandable.

WHY I WRITE IS NOT AN ACADEMIC TEXT

This is a definition of academic text from the web: "An academic text besides building knowledge (every text is useful in that way), it contains specific information, often supported by a research of any kind or an analysis which brings about a reflection or hypothesis in any particular academic field, and which then can be turned into a reliable source." So, I consider that this text is not academic because it looks more like the telling of a personal experience which information is not supported by a deep and serious research and analysis, only brings about a bunch of personal judgements.

Topics for my personal writing.

Topics:
1. Difficultes developing oral or speaking skills in english. One written point of view.
Audience: Students of english
2. The fear to speak in English.
Audience: Students of english
3. English as a better life opportunity. The social impact of english in our society.
Audience: Students of english.

***I'm interested in making an analysis of a movie or a book but I haven't decided which one and what kind of analysis.

"WHY I WRITE" is NOT an academic text

After reading the text and searchong about what the characteristics of an academic text are, I can say that "Why I Write" by George Orwell is not an academic text.

Among the characteristics of academic texts I found that one of those should present the topic as simple and precise as possible. It should try to avoid all irrelevant information, and this is not the case of "Why I Write", in which I could read a small biography of the author. The author also includes one of his poems in order to contextualize his idea.

Another thing that let me see why is not academic is the subjectivity of the proposal.

In the text, Orwell states some motives for a writer to write, but as he doesn't present other voices or sources. He doesnt present any kind of experiment or result either. The author is basing this proposal merely on his personal experience. Although I understand it's a repectable one, but it still remains personal.

Finally, the last evidence of the text not being academic, is the language. Even if I don't know the audience I'm sure that most people is able to understand it. Not trying to be too estrict, personally I consider that the formality of the language can make a big difference when you express yourself.

Why I write by George Orwell is not an academic text!!!

For me why I write by George Orwell is not an academic text because it is a text in which the author talks about his personal journey on how he becomes a writer. First of all, at the beginning of the text you can see that there is not a clear introduction that explains or shows the main thesis of the article. It doesn't involve the reader to take a position about the subject. Personally I think that it’s like a biography, personal experience and opinions about what writing involves.

on the other hand, academic texts are relatively formal in the structure and style. In this text you can see the use of the first person “I”; it leads one to think that it is a subjective text.

Finally, this text is not an academic one because it has many descriptions and narrations.

WHY I WRITE?. A DIFFERENT KIND OF ACADEMIC TEXT.

The most common knowledge people have about academic texts are the essays, and the image of essays as the most frequent and better known example of academic text, but if we can imagine how complex is the art of writing we can also imagine that maybe in that complexity the academic text are more than assays. Even if I dont have a big knowledge about academic writing, I would say that this text wrote by George Orwell can be academic but presented in a different way not well known for me.

This text makes me think about the complexity of writing academic texts, because at least for me, it broke down the walls of academic writing I had and suggested me other ways of writing for the academy.

Why I think that the text “why I write” is an academy text.

First it has the same structure that essay does, it begins with an introduction, then text has its thesis, then the author gives arguments to support his thesis, and at the end he finishes by giving a conclusion.

Second, in some parts of the text the author uses technical vocabulary related to the writing and reading process.

Finally the author tries to convince the readers through his arguments why he writes and that is one of the goal of the academic text, to convince people of doing or thinking something with good arguments such the ones that he gives in the text.