Improving Professional Correspondence

To: T. Leoni, Manager, Personnel Department
From: Donald Pryzblo, Manager, Data Processing Department
Subject: ERRORS ON PAYROLL CHECKS

I have discovered some “errors” in the computer files that you may or may not have been aware of recently that you clerks obviously made. I do not feel that the errors were made by my people, but we have made the corrections to the faulty time tickets that your clerks have sent us.

After our discussion, my computer operators are performing a time-consuming task of comparing their entries against the time sheets from which your clerks are miscopying. We hope to fix this situation as soon as possible.

Please consider these concerns and present it to your clerks. I recommend for the future, that you suggest to your clerks to review their work carefully before giving it to my computer operators or have an employee assigned to review all entries before submission. I think this would help us to prevent this situation from occurring in the future. This will save us time and give us better productivity.  

In the original email, the writer seemed to be rude and not understanding towards the reader. He was not constructive in his communications and his demeanor was very abrasive. The original email could have caused some conflicts between the personnel manager and the data processing manager. This would not make their departments look good for either of them. In my revised version, I started the email be informing the personnel manager about the discovery of the errors that were made by her clerks. To make this revised email more reader-centered, I presumed that the personnel manager did not have knowledge of the mistakes her clerks have made on the time tickets. In the email, I informed the personnel manager that the computer operators spent a lot of time on the situation to correct the errors on the time sheets. I informed the personnel manager of suggestions that could prevent her clerks from making these mistakes in the future. I feel if I was the personnel manager, I would not want to receive an email, like the original. It would make me feel as if I was not able to do my job efficiently, so I revised the email to be informative and helpful towards the personnel manager. I feel that people are not perfect and they will make mistakes. People can become better workers if we find ways to help each other, instead of bringing each other down. Pointing the blame on each other is not going to make the problem go away but if they help each other it will make their departments stronger.   

Defining My Website's Objectives

            Being an elementary teacher can be a rewarding job because you are giving the gift of education to young children that could possible change the world. If you truly have a desire to educate children to the best of your abilities, you will always have job security. I search different university’s education department websites to see how they persuade potential students to join the education major.  The two universities that I chose were University of Southern Mississippi and Louisiana State University.

            The websites that I thought were more effective and engaging for recruiting potential students to the elementary education major was the University of Southern Mississippi. The University of Southern Mississippi’s Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education Department’s website was visually appealing, had great color scheme, and had helpful links. I thought the layout was well done and not visually overwhelming, like some other university websites. The website had a nice artistic contrast between the colors and the texts. The website also included photos of children and professional teachers in a classroom setting. By showing these various photos, the University of Southern Mississippi’s primary goal is to let potential students visualize themselves as teachers so they will decide to join the education major. The color scheme on the website was a good choice because the colors not only contrasted well but also represented the university’s colors. The biggest strength about the website was the helpful links. The website listed information about the department, various programs, and job openings. It also has a direct link to the Mississippi State Department of Education Frameworks. All of this links are helpful resources for current education majors and students who recently received their teacher certification. The weakness about the website is the size of the texts. At the top of the webpage the text size seems to be reasonable but as you scroll down the page the size seems to get smaller. This made it hard for me to read but overall I loved the site.

            The Louisiana State University’s Department of Educational Theory, Policy, and Practice’s website was less effective and engaging for recruiting potential students. The layout was visually boring and lacked creativity. The website layout was very plain, outdated, and incomplete. The website was only limited to three photos, but the three photos consisted of instructors accompanying their students by either one-on-one or within a group of students. These photos showed variation of methods used by teachers in education which might encourage potential students to join.

            I am writing to persuade more people to join the elementary education major because I feel our society needs caring teachers. I hope that this would encourage future teachers to put more thought into the decision making process of choosing a university and obtaining a teaching degree.  My primary readers would be elementary education majors like myself who are trying to obtain their teaching certification. My communication would be open for anyone interested but would target mostly elementary education majors. My reader may or may not be well enough informed therefore I will have my communication as detailed as possible. I may or may not know who my readers will be, so I will be sure to have a variety of attractions such as graphics, different fonts and animated photos so my communications will be attractive to all readers. I will be sure to update my communications frequently throughout the school year. This will show my dedication and pride, and my readers will be more pleased that I am up to date with events. My readers might ask about teaching degrees programs or particular registration deadline dates in which I will have a calendar. I will use outlines with bullets to highlight main points and important information. The reader will be informed in an organized sequence of what expectations required within the elementary education program. I want them to be as passionate about wanting to teach as much as me because we need devoted teachers in the future. I want my readers’ attitude to be positive and motivated in becoming a part of their exciting future as an elementary education teacher. I do not think there would be many constraints that could limit the way I could write. What I learned from the other websites that could be useful to keep in mind when creating my website would be to make it visually appealing and well organized. I would want my layout to be captivating so that it would catch the attention of my audience and put more graphics and readable text.  

Rhetorical Analysis on Harry's Girls

Meredith Cherland’s article,“ Harry’s Girls: Harry Potter and the Discourse of Gender”, was published in December 2008  Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Meredith Cherland had thirty eight years of experience in the education field from being a junior high English teacher to a professor of education at University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. After reading this piece, I feel that Cherland’s beliefs about the issues of gender are very liberal and she wants to inform other teachers and their students of ways to open their mind to different perspectives about gender. Cherland’s tone in the article was very casual but yet informative towards her readers. Cherland assumed that her readers would be literary teachers that wanted to teach and show their students ways to be aware about society’s norms in dealing with the issues about gender, in hopes that they could change.

In Cherland’s article, she explained feminist poststructural theory and how it could help secondary teachers and their students in hopes of understanding how young adults can challenge the norms of our society when it comes to the subject of gender. Cherland explained how our society has humanistic views and how we pass those views on to our children from generation to generation.  Cherland claimed that poststructural theory can help teachers and their students to change their humanistic views and open their eyes to both worldviews about gender.  

Cherland defines her key terms in the piece very clearly and is very organized for anyone to understand. Cherland used the last four novels in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series as an example on how to use poststructural theory in modern literature to empower students to change the world in hopes for a better future. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series are a popular culture phenomenon worldwide that most children, teens, and adults know about, either from the books or movies.  

Cherland also provided teaching strategies to help teachers apply this theory in their classrooms at the end of the article. Literary teachers can use these strategies in their classroom as individual or group activities with their students using any popular culture literature. These strategies can help students examine the literature and find examples of humanism and poststructural theory within the texts. Her hopes for this is to help students, so that they can write about a world that is open minded about gender instead of a world with humanistic views.

            In the beginning of Cherland’s piece, she establishes her credibility, or ethos. She connects to her audience by stating that she is a fellow teacher and a Harry Potter fan. She also defines and explains key concepts so her audience could understand the meaning of poststructural theory. Her purpose was to educate these teachers about humanism and poststructural theory so that they could apply it with their students in hopes that these students when they become adults and can change the society’s norms about the subject of gender. Cherland’s piece is organized in two columns throughout most of the article so that it is easy to visually quick scan. The article did not affect my understanding of gender personally. But it did highlight new ways to study gender in modern literature and other popular culture.

Cherland, Meredith. “Harry’s Girls: Harry Potter and the Discourse of Gender.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 52.4 (2009): 273-282.Online. 9 June 2011.

My Student Profile

My name is Lekeisha LeMaire. I am married and have a 2 year old daughter named Sophia. I am majoring in Elementary Education. I am currently a teacher's assistant at USM DuBard School for Language Disorders. I love teaching and enjoy working with children especially with special needs. My writing skills are not the best but   I am improving since this last year. I am really excited about taking this class and I really hope to learn a lot. I have only written academic papers for my English Composition classes but not professionally. My favorite types of writings are argumentative papers because I like to prove facts and show people another side to a particular topic. My least favorite type of writing is rhetorical papers because I have trouble organizing the structure of my papers. From this class, I really hope to gain more knowledge and skills in writing better academic papers.