6 Nov, ARW

We didn't have two ARW classes due to ICU Festival and a national holiday. So including this class, the rest of ARW in this semester are three classes.

It was surprising that options to answer a respondent's race in a census started in British in 1776 were just only three; White, Black or Mulatto. But now people who live in USA have more than 50 choices. I think those choices is more natural than the British ones at that time. 

The another way to decide the person's race is to look at the figure of his or her foot. These two criteria are so simple that they spread over at least western societies. But race is not so easy to decide. Even if having the same color skin, people must have different cultures. 

We have to forget the concept of race in order to know a person's true face.

30 Oct, ARW

Today it's the Halloween Eve.

So some of the section mates including me wore our high school uniforms.

Of course, we'd rather wear tomorrow than today, but we won't have a chance to meet together tomorrow, so we wore today. 

When Rab saw us he was surprised and told us the history of Halloween. 

Halloween has its beginning of the ancient Gaelic culture. In order to make devils, who comes at the day, stay far from children, they must be dressed in unordinary costumes. As this custom spread all over world, people come to think they can wear special costumes at Halloween. 

Now, therefore, we wore the school uniforms as special ones. 

And also, we discussed the rest of our classes. We have few classes in this semester, so we may lower the contents in the class.

29 Oct, ARW

We must have had ARW class on last Friday, but Rab had a work outside ICU, so in this week's tutorial we took the class instead of last Friday's one. In Friday's ARW we are in a Mac room. But in this time all Mac room was already used. Therefore, we took the class in Windows room. We are used to use Mac PC, so it wasn't natural. And there are a few troublesome points. For example, in all Window's PC Zotero isn't installed. We can have nothing to do if there is not Zotero in our PCs. So what we have to do first is installing it. 

Rab taught three useful tools to collect resources about our essays.

First of all, he introduced a site in which many academic videos have. Second, he explained how to use a kind of a documentary movie archive. This site can use Zotero. Lastly, a school part in YouTube was introduced. And also, he taught us how movies in YouTube are installed into our devices.

28 Oct, ARW

My CWT paper was returned back. 

As written before, I had thought the paper's grade would be terrible. 

But the grade was worse than I had expected. First if all, the paper "cooked Sushi". When Rab gave it back, he said " If I want to eat Pizza and you cook Sushi, I don't want to eat Sushi, so you should cook Pizza." This mean something necessary to fulfill a level which is needed to be correct always should be written on a  exam paper. But I cooked Sushi. I couldn't achieve the level. So next time I should cook Pizza. I have to catch the central point of a question.

And also, I cheched a logical structure in ELA's text. How did the author introduce his or her objections? What's the order? If there are more than three arguments including supportings or objections, they must be arranged in order of strong one, weak one, ..... , weak one and strong one. So strong arguments should be first and last one because people tend to remember well first and last things in many things. 

23 Oct, ARW

My essay was given back with some mistakes. 

First of all, there was no thesis statement. This is a critical error. I tended to write the statement as referring three reasons why I'm against Abenomics in the body section in order. I must write more clearly. 

Secondly, I made many mistakes in grammar.  I forgot to add plural 's', and substituted the indefinite article 'a' for the definite article 'the' in a wrong way. Also I comitted errors in grammar meanings, especially in adverbial clauses.

Thirdly, I didn't list "Work Cited" in the order of the alphabet though I thought I did it.

Although I checked my essay on "Grammary", I made other several mistakes in grammar. The experience in writing this essay gave me a lesson. My english ability must be improved forever.

And also in the class, Rab explained to us how we write objections in a essay. There are some types of listing objections. If plural ones are written, we have to write them in a order. This order can express the body section efficiently.

21 Oct, ARW

In the class, Rab talked about the 2nd essay we're going to write.

We should write 1200 words in the essay. This number is bigger than th essay's one I've ever written. I can't imagine how I'll put stress on writing it. 

But a basic structure of a essay doesn't be changed. There are three parts; Introduction, Body and Conclusion. All we have to do is just to write longer each parts. How do we write long ones? One of the ways is noting details. The details will include examples or objections. These details can make a essay greatly deeper and more readable.

And also we have to decide the theme of the 2nd essay. This decision depends on the value of the essay, so it'll be difficult to select the theme. 

18 Oct, ARW

When I checked my CWT, I thought my paper wasn't readable.

Even if I try anything I could to gloss over my failure, it'll be found soon. 

First of all, there are not enough to write the essay as CWT. The reason is a lack of time to write it. This resulted from a lack of preparedness. 

Another topic in the class was related to using photographs in a essay.

There are dialects about sight; "Seeing is believing." or "A photograph is worth a thousand words." As showing the meaning of these dialects, photos can explain efficiently what writers'do like to express. But photos have copyright such as papers which usually have been cited. So we have to care about it, but if using the site that was introduced in the class and picking up photos from the site, we don't have to worry about copyright.

10/14 ARW

In this class, I thought perception is close to assumption.

The video I saw in the class is a interesting example. In that video those who were deceived rather than subjects responded in different ways. All of them were astonished and screamed at the event. After they turned out it'd been false, some felt relieved or angry, or cried, laughed. At the scene, it was impossible  they found that was not true unless they assumed the event to be reactions to unbelievable things and wanted to think it untrue. 

But, of course, that event wasn't true. 

Why did they consider true?

Because they were on the correct assumption that what they saw was true. It's said 80% of the information people perceive comes from the sense of sight. 

So it's natural people had make assumptions. 

I think they can't help assuming. 

ARW 10/11

There is a proverb; "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today."

Today I fully realized the meaning of this proverb.

We had to submit the essay on 'culture' today.But finally we didn't.

Many of students didn't cite their essays before the class. Many didn't check mistakes on 'Grammarly'. So it took a long time to run a check on the essays, though they had already written them. 

And then, Rab considered the situation and ordered us to postpone handing in until next Monday.

We forced him to delay the deadline, but as saying the proverb: "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.", we should do what to do naturally keeping our word. 

After the class, I looked for and corrected the errors on 'Grammary', and used 'Lextutor'. 

10/9 ARW

Bias. This word is built by information and matured by ourselves.

In this case, information is given by any kind of medium. 

If medium provide misleading news for citizens, these news will create false impressions in their mind unconsciously.

As they are exposed to these bias frequently, this misleading gets stronger and deeper. 

They come to understand news with bias sooner or later.

And medium tend and wouldn't like to report news which audience don't like to sense.

So there is a vicious circle of misleading information. 

The most wrong point is medium may mislead people on transmitting information unconsciously.

Of course, whether they mislead consciously or not, misleading should be avoided. But if unconsciously, citizens won't be kept from misleading. Because medium themselves won't realize they mislead citizens. 

One of the solutions to this problem is clarify the medium's political or economic  position to public. 

This clearness makes it easier for people to understand how and why medium prejudice citizens against information.

10/7 ARW

Rab's statements were valuable and reasonable.But why had we not given many comments to our partners' essays? This passiveness derives from the difference of educational attitudes between a western culture and a Japanese culture.

In western world, perhaps not especially in education, the quality of work such as assignments in school has been valued. The process hasn't mattered to evaluators. So peer work is not unnatural.

On the other hand, in Japan from entering junior high school to graduating from high school, students has rarely done homework by themselves. For peer work they had done just in elementary school students. So for students peer work is reminded nostalgically. We aren't used to work with others.

Both of styles are necessary and essential for educating persons before becoming working members of society.

In the meaning of these opposite concepts, Japanese might be more individualistic than people in western cultures.

10/4 ARW

Zotero is one of the most awesome tools I've ever seen before. 

How easy, how useful and how much effort and time will be saved.

As Rab said, I cannot find it reasonable to put off teaching this tool in spring semester. It's rubbish. 

Every time I hear this kind of information, I can't help thinking of my life after graduating from ICU. Will I be in work to use everything taught in ICU? Or will I get another job? I hope I won't make a bad choice of my career if possible. But it may not be until I will get a job that I fully can realize a bad choice. Finding our vocation is tough work we have to do first in our career.

Anyway, first of all, I have to connect Wi-Fi into my house instead of communication by wire.

10/2 ARW

Now the rest of this year has been less than three months. Time flies. 

The psychological test in this class was so interesting it might guess myself correctly. 

And the hidden meaning in the test is unexpected; "Color" means ideal myself because humans cannot change their skin and "Animal" does his/her perfect partner. 

Including a magic Rab showed after the above test, these practice made sure of our perception.

9/30 ARW

Today our class was in Mac room. 

We made groups to share ideas or make suggestion with each other on Google Document. 

I am going to write "Whether or not Abenomics is better for Japanese economy?" for this assignment.

The group members' topics as this essay are "Whether or not Olympic game 2020 in Tokyo is good for Japan?" and " Guns should be prohibited ?".

Their themes are related to my theme.

The former discuss exactly economy.

The latter is partly involved with my topic.

We will help write our essays.

9/27 ARW

Every feeling in our minds comes from 'Perception' such as pleasure, sadness and fear.

Perception depends on individuals' experiences, thoughts based on experiences and lives that derive from them.

But it was surprising we seldom share laughter such as Rooney's video even if we're in a same culture.

In other words, if we were in a perfectly same situation we might not have had same perception.

It may be because of the difference between their biological system such as genes.

9/25 ARW

Rab meant there were not little mistakes on our BookReviews.
That's why he explained necessary layout and formats in writing a essay.

Of course a part of his explanation hadn't  been known and had been, but the most important is that we hadn't understand what had already been explained at the last semester. 

9/20 ARW

I learned how to use some useful Internet services. 

For the first time, I knew such these services..

These services make it easier for students to deal with daily assignments.

One of the most memorable service in the class is 'Feedly'.

For example, we should read blogs other section mates posted. But it's troublesome to access the blogs every time we try to read the ones. In these situation, 'Feedly' is so useful a site that this site gathers the blogs at one place. That is, if students would like to read them, they don't have to go to each sites. It's enough for just one site: 'Feedly'. I think, it's amazing all we must do is just take a look once. 

Because of these services such as 'Feedly', we will carry out necessary jobs efficiently.

9/18 ARW

In this class, I fully realized how important 3B's had been searched before the first class of discussing a text.

knowing author's background information or bias leads the readers a forest of the world the author created. This knowledge makes it easier for readers to understand what the concept is in this text and why he or she wrote the text. 

Moreover, we discussed relationships between foreign cultures and our own culture. We have lived only for twenty years or less, but the members I talked with have experience many types of culture shocks. And then, I wondered why people feel culture shocks. I think that' because when people recognize foreign cultures or people, first of all, they try to understand differences and similarities between them. In this situation, all we can do is attempt to understand them. 

Of course, it depends on the person's way to think of or deal with unexpected events to see these differences and similarities as shock or pleasure. Anyway, so we consider these differences and similarities as shock or pleasure that came from foreign matters. This point was very interesting to me.

9/13 ARW

In this class, I saw a new world in reading a fiction.

Rab explained to us some authors have been given hints which came from a real event, and written novels using those ones. In other words, some novels have influenced the realities. If I read in this way, I can have a different view. I will guess another point if I know a point and related facts. This reading technique is so important that we can look at the authors' brain; how they think in their mind and recognize the the real world. Therefore, we can know how authors think if we can think connections between the novels and facts.

9/11 ARW

In this class, we took the first ARW in autumn.
We did Presentation and Discussion (P&D) on the book we read in this summer vacation.
I chose "The Great Gatsby" as a assignment.


The P&D was not held well. That one was more difficult than I had expected.
Every time Rab stopped our P&D during the class, he pointed out to us the misleading posture or how to look at listeners. But I could not have done any suggestion he had. So, in order to present efficiently, I had better change the way I did presentation.
Even though other discussion mates' P&D was well-prepared, and they brought papers that had been written for this presentation,  I did not prepare this kind of papers. I thought it's enough to speak and present ideas that was thought during reading the book. But now I have to read a text while considering what to do next.