Queen Mary of Scots: A critique

Most people conceive that a biography of a Queen could be very boring, but this biography is completely different from the ones you have read before. Mary Queen of Scots and her hopeless husbands is an engaging, well-written, and informative bibliography about Queen Mary Stuart’s life. It includes comics, which make her dialogues more vivid; pages of her personal diary; newspaper pages, which illustrate the situation at those times and the possibility to discover some prickly facts about the Scottish Queen and her hopeless husbands (and why they are called “hopeless”). As Simpson (2003) defined, “even though she is dead, Mary is still full of surprises”. (p. 209).

Simpson has divided the bibliographical entries into twelve chapters. First of all, there is a little introduction beginning with interactive questions about Queen Mary’s life and some funny pictures as well. The first chapter is entitled -Infant queen- in which the reader can learn how she became a queen. In the second Chapter, Queen Mary travels to France and the author includes some letters from Queen Mary to her mother telling her about her fiancé, among other important facts. Then, the author devotes the rest of the chapters to tell about Mary´s life through all the possible aspects and how her life came to an end. The last chapter is an epilogue which brings closure to the bibliography and the author reminds us why Queen Mary’s life is so famous around the world, as she states “she had been Elizabeth’s prisoner for 19 years, and though she had been Queen of Scots since she was one week old, she had actually ruled Scotland for only six of her 45 years.” (p. 206).

The strength of the book is that it offers, as mentioned, wonderful cartoons adding to the fun of reading and dialogues with an easy and entertaining writing. It may also be an engaging book for adolescents as it is especially focused on murder, prison, death and suspense which are most adolescents’ favourite topics. Moreover, young people can learn about the early history of Scotland through a compelling bibliography. This book shows, among other aspects, the real meaning of marriage at those times, as the Queen had to marry someone she did not even know or like, just because of royal allies with foreign Reigns.

On the other hand, this biography seems to be appropriate only for young people as it may be a little childish for adults because of the comics and simple comments. If the reader is more interesting in learning historical facts with details about dates and places, this is not the ideal bibliography. As I mentioned before, it is different from any other ordinary bibliography. That is why it may be appealing to adolescents. This book is more like a fictional book as it retells Queen Mary’s life as it was a story tale, which may be disappointed for those people who would like to read a pure historical bibliography.

All in all, the portrayal of Queen Mary and the humorous comments included in the book are very appropriate. Simpson (2003) could describe this queen as sensitive and innocent instead of as a cruel and mad woman as has been the case of many other authors. It is admirable how personal the bibliography is, as if the reader can get real access to her personal diary. Elizabeth I and her conquests is a similar book of the same author that may be also recommended.

Reference

Simpson, M. (2003). Mary Queen of Scots and her hopeless husbands. London, UK: Scholastic Ltd.

Characteristics of a Discourse Community

The purpose of this paper is to find evidence of Swales’ (1990) characteristics to define a discourse community in four different articles. Swales (1990) proposed six characteristics for a discourse community. According to Swales (1990), if a discourse community does not meet these characteristics, it means that it cannot be called a discourse community. The requirements are the following: Common goals, Participatory mechanisms, Information exchange, community-specific genres, highly specialized terminology and high general level of expertise.

Members of a discourse community should develop common purposes, relationships, attitudes and values so that their knowledge and goals can be achieved (Kutz, 1997; as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001). This is connected with Swales’ (1990) first characteristic of a discourse community (common goals). Similarly, Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles and LopezTorres (2003) explained in their article that “teachers function as resources for one another, providing each other with guidance and assistance on which to build new ideas”. This idea is similar to Swales’ (1990) second characteristic of a discourse community, “participatory mechanisms”.

Moreover, Hoffman-Kipp et al. (2003) stated that “team teaching and collaborative planning typically require teachers to discuss their beliefs and practices within the routines of their daily work”. This idea is related to Swales’ (1990) third characteristic of a discourse community which establishes “Information exchange”. The fourth characteristic established by Swales (1990), “Community-specific genes” may be associated when Kelly-Kleese (2004) stated that “In order to have their work deemed worthy, community college faculty and administrators must understand the convention of writing and the standards by which their work will be judged.”

“The community college can be seen as adopting language that has been given particular meaning within the larger higher education community (…)” (Kelly-Kleese, 2001). This is what Swales calls “highly specialized terminology”. The last characteristic of a discourse community mentioned by Swales is “general level of expertise” and there is evidence of this when Zito (1984) argues that “an author is granted a certain binding authority to his intended meaning; this is legitimated by academic credentials, professional associations, and the division of knowledge within the academy” (as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001).

On the whole, the six characteristics established by Swales (1990) for describing a discourse community seems to be present in the articles and thus giving evidence and supporting Swales’ theory.

Reference

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. j., &Lopez Torres, L. ( 2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into practice. Retrieved September 2011, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mONQM/is_3_42/ai_108442653

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2011, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_mOHCZ/is_1_29/ai_77481463

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA community college review: community college scholarship and discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2011, from http://findarticle.com/p/articles/mi_mOHCZ/is_1_32/ai_n6361541

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Dealing with Critical Incidents.

Last year I started working in a primary school for the first time. It was a 4^th year of 23 students from a very low social class. Even though the students had some discipline problems, they worked really hard when they got engaged. In my first lesson, I met a boy with a very sweet smile who never looked me in the eyes and it seemed like he did not even notice my presence. When I was introducing myself to the group, this boy ran away from the classroom. The students revealed that he always escaped from the classroom to turn off the lights of the school. In fact, he did so. I immediately called the headmaster and he confessed to me that this boy always behaved in that way and that nothing could be done to change his behavior. He suggested keeping him busy with some drawings and that was all. I thought about this and decided that if the headmaster had no interest in encouraging students to learn, then I would do it.

When I was thinking in the possible ways to solve this situation, I remembered that each person can be motivated in different ways taking into account their cultural and social background (Brown, 2000). So, by asking him questions about his interest, I found out that he truly loved cars as his step-father was a mechanic. Then, we started, for example, by learning numbers and colours in English with cars drawings. In that way, he could express his favourite colours of cars and to count them. He made an enormous improvement. He was always sitting next to me as he probably felt that someone was caring for him. His mother had abandoned him at the age of six; he was a survival. I could relate all this to what Fujimura (2005) states:

Social scholars have suggested that rather than emphasize the relative powerlessness of individuals in changing political and economic realities, thereby neglecting the power such individuals have in constructing their own cultural world, anthropologists need to look more deeply into the power of survival (…). (p.50).

I felt very satisfied that I had dealt with this critical incident in such a successful way. Every lesson the relationship between Ariel and me improved a lot. I was so pleased that he could learn a lot of things and that he seemed to enjoy that process of learning. What is more, he did not escape from the classroom anymore and I was also very happy that I had probably contributed to this change. This incident stands out for me because I did a small thing that had a very positive outcome. When I became aware of this student's situation, I could do something about it and I felt very proud of it. It seems important that the headmaster and the teacher in charge of the course should act in situations like this. Perhaps several actions should be introduced to ensure that all students' progress is monitored and encouraged informally regardless their behaviour or personal problems they may have.

Reference

Brown, H.D. (4^th ed., 2000). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Fujimura, C. (2005). Russia’s abandoned children: an intimate understanding. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Retrieved October 2011, from http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=bQby48u0wU0C&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=how+do+abandoned+children+behave?&source=bl&ots=mpk4tW4Kb6&sig=38l6KKEdq5nxbdlyffuaRLLnZSY&hl=en&ei=YROPTpSYOsTj0QG625ET&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Critical Incidents and the Integration of Theory and Practice

When I first saw the title in the article of Fernandez González, Elórtegui Escartín, and Medina Pérez (2003), I immediately came back to my old days at the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) College. Even though I finished it two years ago, I still feel that it would have been very useful to learn from the very beginning how to observe, analyse and reflect upon the problems that may arise in a classroom. In order to be prepared to stand in front of a classroom, we should reflect not only about what we have to teach, but also how to apply all that in a critical situation, for example.

I consider that it is a great idea to make use of Critical Incidents (CI) as a strategy during the initiation in TEFL College because critical incidents help teachers to be resourceful, to learn how to work within a team group and the importance of it, to develop their common sense and to avoid inadequate actions when we are exposed to a conflict situation in a classroom. To have an ace up your sleeve, as one of my teachers always said. All this, is about trying to make a match between theory and practice. Fernandez, Elórtegui and Medina (2003) revealed in one of the possible causes for a problematic situation that “Las prácticas no se corresponden temporalmente con la teoría que se explica. Eran las mismas prácticas para tres niveles diferentes, independientemente del temario que se desarrolla en las clases teóricas” (p. 109).

Altogether, As Tejada (1996) describes, “La reflexión es el eje que relaciona, confronta, diferencia e interioriza ideas nuevas con las anteriores” (as cited in Fernandez, Elórtegui and Medina, 2003, p.102). In other words, we have to reflect about what to be a professional means and thus what should be taught at the TEFL College.

Reference

Fernandez González, J., Elórtegui Escartín, N., & Medina Pérez, M. (2003). Los incidentes críticos en la formación y perfeccionamiento del profesorado de secundaria de ciencias de la naturaleza. Revista universitaria de Formación de Profesorado, 17-001. Zaragoza, España: Universidad de Zaragoza. Retrieved October 2011, from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=12816