Process+Journal

**Process Journal**

One of the goals I had for my research was to understand why Ed Sheeran made decisions in his life, and the motives behind it. This is because I already knew basic facts about him. So, I wanted a deeper understanding of these facts. In some ways I did meet this goal. Why he moved to London was one of the facts I found out. Also, I found why he started out independent and what made him eventually sign to a record label. In addition, I discovered what propelled him to leave London to go to LA for a month in 2010. I also realized the true meaning behind many of his songs. All of these were facts that I wanted to know. I feel that now that I know them I have a better understand of who Ed Sheeran is as a person rather than just a famous figure. The most interesting fact about Ed Sheeran I found was his belief about staying true to himself. I thought it was very interesting how he was sure of himself, and didn’t care too much about what anyone else thought of him. I also found his dedication to be admirable and interesting. Not everyone can leave home at such a young age and basically become an adult and take on adult responsibilities. I believe that I learned some facts from this project that I wouldn’t have been able to learn in a traditional research paper. This is because in this project I had to get inside his head, and write as if I was him. To do so I had to figure out how he thought, and talked, and acted. By doing so when I wrote I can remove myself from the equation and act as if Ed Sheeran was writing the piece. Thinking and learning in this way gave me a better grasp and deepened my knowledge about my topic. It also gave me information on a new perspective to life, musicianship, and dedication. All of those are subjects that I would not have learned about from researching Ed Sheeran in a traditional research project. One of my writing strengths that I discovered during this project was writing with a voice. Usually I am writing from my own perspective. So, I am writing in my own voice which is not difficult. However, in every piece I was writing with someone else’s voice. I think I did a fairly good job giving a unique voice to different character’s that appear in the pieces. I believe that one strength I used in my writing was giving the audience an insight to the character’s thoughts. This strength showed most predominately in the narrative. However, it was also present in other pieces such as the journal entries. To organize the wiki I put the pieces in chronological order, or the order they would be written in if Ed wrote them. I chose this organization so that the audience would have background knowledge when they come across the latter pieces. I also used a color them through out the whole wiki. This was done purposefully in a way to graphically unify the piece. The repeated element is suppose to have the same effect of unifying the pieces. I believe I developed the theme of the repeated element in the pieces before presenting the actually phrase itself. That was also a tactic I used to make the whole wiki cohesive and unified. Working with peers on revising and editing was beneficial to me. Since I wrote the pieces it was easy for me to read over something and not catch the mistakes. However, other people were able to catch mistakes and point them out to me. Some people’s advise was more helpful than others. I think that the level of honesty in the advise depends on who you are asking and how close you are to the person. One piece of advise was to shorten my pieces a little because they are on the long side. I took this into consideration while writing the last few pieces. Another piece of advice was to try to use less words and show not tell. I found this difficult to do, so it is not evident in my writing. Overall, it was helpful to have people on the outside read my writing so that I could gain a new view on it and change the pieces accordingly. ||
 * **Date** || **List the** **items you** **worked on** **and/or** **completed** **each day.** || * **What road did you choose?** **Thoughts****Reflections****Concerns****Inspirations****Contemplations** ||
 * **5/7/12** || Thinking about possible topics. (Worked on) || I worked on this sheet. I think I want to do something about music possibly an artist, like Ed sheeran. Or something like the genre of singer songwriter or the singer songwriter process. ||
 * **5/8/12** || Topic and research || I finalized my topic today, it’s ed sheeran. Also, I started to think of resources to research. ||
 * **5/10/12** || FQI 2 || **Today I finished the second one on an article from when he was still in high school, which helped get info on the early bits of his career and early life.** ||
 * 5/12/12 || <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Times-Roman,serif; text-decoration: none;">Resource 3 || <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: center;">**Today I found my third resource, it is a “quiz book” about Ed Sheeran.** ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: cambria,serif; text-align: right;">5/14/12 || <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Times-Roman,serif; text-decoration: none;">FQI 3 || <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: center;">**Today I finished my second FQI sheet, on the Ed Sheeran eBook.** ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: right;">**5/16/12** || <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Times-Roman,serif; text-decoration: none;">Character Development || <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Times-Roman,serif; text-decoration: none;">I used the character development sheets/exercises to form my character for the assessment tomorrow and the writing. ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: right;">**5/18/12** || <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">FQI 4 and 5 || <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: center;">**I looked at interviews to finish my last two FQI's.** ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: right;">**5/22/12** || <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Narrative || I worked on drafting my narrative and finalized all planning. ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: right;">**5/28/12** || <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Road not taken checklist and poem. || Today I looked over the road not take checklist, and the poem. I did this so that tomorrow I will be prepared for the in class mark up. ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: right;">**5/30/12** || <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: left;">Genre's || Yesterday I continued what we did in class. I brainstormed genre's to use, and drafted them. I have a clearer understanding now of the direction I am heading in. I also continued to think about what my repetend will be. ||  ||   ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: right;">**6/1/12** || Rough Draft's || I worked on a rough draft of two of my genre's. I also brainstormed more genre's and plan to do a rough draft them this weekend or early next week. I want to have "finals" of everything by wednesday. This is so that I will be able to go away from it for a day, thursday, and then come back to it on Friday so it will be easier to fix any small things before I hand it in. ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: right;">**6/5/12** || Rough Draft's (Continued) || I have idea's finalized for all my genre's now. I also have three drafts. I plan on finalizing them tomorrow, and doing the last one. So far I am not having too many challenges. The only thing is that it is a little challenging to not repeat things in different pieces. ||
 * <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: comicsansms,cursive; text-align: right;">**6/7/12** ||  || **What goals did you have for your research? Did you meet those?**
 * What facts about your topic interested you most? Did this kind of project help you get a better understanding of your topic than you might have with a more traditional kind of research paper? If so, why and in what ways did it help?**
 * What strengths did you use as a writer in this project? What new strengths did you discover?**
 * How did you decide on the organization of the pieces into a cohesive whole?**
 * Consider not only organization but use of transitional devices and packaging.**
 * What did you learn by working with your peers on revising and editing? Did they give you helpful advise? What was most helpful to you? What kinds of things did you learn from reading their pieces?**

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: ComicSansMS,cursive; font-size: 9pt; text-decoration: none;">Adapted from ©2006 by Melinda Putz from A Teacher’s Guide to the Multigenre Research Project, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: timesnewromanpsmt,serif; font-size: 15pt; text-align: center;">**Process Journal Scoring Checklist** <span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: timesnewromanpsmt,serif; text-align: center;">Total Process Journal Points /50 points

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; font-size: 15pt; text-decoration: none;">**Score A Date 5/28 9 points** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_10 points Student is up to date with her/his journal entries. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;"> Progress toward the final collection is apparent. There is evidence of thoughtful reflection about the components of the project. The reader is not distracted by grammar/spelling errors.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_8-9 points Student is almost up to date with her/his journal entries. Progress toward the final collection is visible. There is evidence of some reflection about the components of the project, but the journal is more of a list than a reflection at times <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">. While there are some grammar/spelling errors, the reader is not distracted. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_5-6 points Student has fallen behind in his journal entries. Progress toward the final collection is inconsistent; work needs to ramp up. The entries report rather than reflect. Reader is distracted by grammar/spelling errors. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_ 4 points There were no journal entries at the time of scoring. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; font-size: 15pt; text-decoration: none;">**Score B ___ Date 6/5 9 points__** ___10 points__ Student is up to date with her/his journal entries. Progress toward the final collection is apparent. __There is evidence of thoughtful reflection about the components of the project.__ The reader is not distracted by grammar/spelling errors.

___8-9 points Student is almost up to date with her/his journal entries. Progress toward the final collection is visible.__ There is evidence of some reflection about the components of the project, but the journal is more of a list than a reflection at times __. While there are some grammar/spelling errors, the reader is not distracted.__ ___5-6 points Student has fallen behind in his journal entries. Progress toward the final collection is inconsistent; work needs to ramp up. The entries report rather than reflect. Reader is distracted by grammar/spelling errors.__ ___ 4 points There were no new journal entries at the time of scoring.__

__<span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">**Score C** __**_30 points** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; font-size: 15pt; text-decoration: none;">**Date 6/9 30 points** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_ 10 points Student is up to date with her/his journal entries. Progress toward the final collection is apparent. There is evidence of thoughtful reflection about the components of the project. The reader is not distracted by grammar/spelling errors.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_8-9 points Student is almost up to date with her/his journal entries. Progress toward the final collection is visible. There is evidence of some reflection about the components of the project, but the journal is more of a list than a reflection at times. While there are some grammar/spelling errors, the reader is not distracted. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_5-6 points Student has fallen behind in his journal entries. Progress toward the final collection is inconsistent; work needs to ramp up. The entries report rather than reflect. Reader is distracted by grammar/spelling errors. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_ 4 points There were no new journal entries at the time of scoring. <span style="color: #487dc6; display: block; font-family: timesnewromanpsmt,serif; font-size: 17pt; text-align: center;">**Plus** _10 points Student answered more than four of the final reflection questions with thoughtful and thorough responses. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_8-9 points Student answered four of the final reflection questions with thoughtful and thorough responses. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_5-6 points Students answered some of the final reflection questions. The responses answered the questions with little elaboration or insight. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif; text-decoration: none;">_ 4 points Student did not answer any of the reflection questions.