2007年5月31日木曜日

Meiland Essay Paragraph 2

Kota Funakawa
Professor Owen JAMES
ARW Section AI
31 May 2007

Meiland Essay Paragraph 2
 
  Secondly, the college allows you exchange opinions. This point is similar to Meiland’s argument that students should ask questions in class (Meiland 19). College is made for pursuing the truth so their opinions require to be examined by others’ sceptical suspending view. For example when you asked question, you have to answer. If you don’t know specific or have the idea with no evidence, you can’t answer so you have to study details harder and search the evidence. As a result, you get deeper understanding. At the same time questioner is getting new information from you. Taking examination also leads getting the new perspective. When you asked, you might be unable to answer because of the questioner’s new perspective. But it is important for you because the new perspective allows you rethink your own opinion. If you could accept it, you can correct your idea or make it more reliable. For those reasons, exchanging your own idea is important and the opportunity for bartering ideas is mainly given in college study so college study is not useless.

2007年5月30日水曜日

Meiland Essay Paragraph 1

Kota Funakawa
Professor Owen JAMES
ARW Section AI
29 May 2007

Meiland Essay Paragraph 1

  The first reason why I disagree with the ides is that the true purpose of college is to learn how to think, intellectual skills and attitudes. This point is suggested by Meiland “the content is not the main point. Much of the content that you are taught in college will be outmoded or discarded anyway in ten or twenty years. Learning intellectual skills and attitudes is far more important.” (Meiland 5).This Meiland’s argument is complete answer for this essay’s topic “a college education seems to be fairly useless” because the main affirmative claim for the topic is the information which we are studying now will be out-of-date but Meiland says the content of study is less important. And there is an example. In ICU, the professors always say “Think critical. Don’t believe the information without considering by yourself. Have your own opinion.” so ICU students must learn how to think critical. When you are learning it, you use particular topic. But after acquired, the way of thinking are employed not only when think about particular topic but also anytime. The importance of intellectual skills and attitudes will not change. And here is another example, think about legal science. The number of laws is increasing day by day. The reason why they are increasing is that new problems are happening in our society so new law is being made. But appearing of laws is not automatically means the old laws became useless. At first it looks like that the old laws became out-of-date, but it isn’t because the new law is made to cover just new extent and existing laws keep their effect for their own fields, they didn’t become useless. The example tells us if the new information appeared, it is not always means the old one is out-of-date.

2007年5月22日火曜日

Fluency journal "The purpose of ELP"

Kota Funakawa
Professor Owen JAMES
ARW Section AI
22 May 2007
Fluency journal "The purpose of ELP"
 
  I would like to explain the purpose of ELP. The reason why I chose this topic is because I thought that now is the time we recognize the meaning of ELP anew. I hope that rediscovery will make our studying English more efficient. Now let’s begin. The purpose of ELP is to make students fluent at English enough to take lecture. But the ELP alone won’t make you a fluent English speaker because ELP is just an opportunity to use English. So you have to have the desire, motivation and effort to learn in order to be a fluent speaker. The ELP has six kinds of classes in spring term: ARW, RCA, ALS, ALN, ASP and NP. Let’s see the purpose of each class. First, ARW has two purposes, writing part and reading part. On the one hand, reading part helps you understand and talk about the ideas presented in the readings and NP lectures. On the other hand, writing part develops your writing abilities in English for university level work. Second, RCA also has two parts. The purpose of reading part is to develop skills in reading the content for accuracy. That of writing part is to develop your understanding of the structure of English sentence, paragraphs and academic texts. Third, the objectives of ALS are to introduce you to various learning strategies, and to help you develop effective ways to promote classroom interaction and self-study techniques. Forth, the aim of ALN class is developing your listening and notetaking skills. Fifth, the object of ASP is to become more fluent in spoken English. Last, NP’s purpose is to develop your academic listening and notetaking skills. These are the purposes of ELP. We should study while being conscious of these purposes to improve your own skill of English.(298 words)
Work cited
ELP STUDENT HANDBOOK 2007-2008

2007年5月15日火曜日

Fluency journal "Menus of ICU restaurant"


Kota Funakawa
Professor Owen JAMES
ARW Section AI
15 May 2007
Fluency journal "Menus of ICU restaurant"
 
  Next to Diffendorfer Memorial Hall, there is the dining hall. It is called by students “Gakki”. There are about 10 menus usually and the taste is not bad. The most popular menu is chicken TATSUTA. But the price is high in general. In the ranking of WASEDA GAKUSYOKU KENKYUUKAI, ICU’s dining hall is the best. But is it sure? What do you think? So we went Aoyama-gakuin university to investigate the dining hall. Aogaku’s dining hall is really large because there are a lot of students. There are about 30 menus always. We ate lunch set A titled “Omotesandou” and “Millefeuille KATSUDON.” They are really nice especially Millefeuille KATSUDON is fantastic. Then, we find an interesting paper there. It says Aogaku’s dining hall is the best in the ranking which investigated by Asahi newspaper. In that ranking, ICU’s dining hall is out of the 10th. But we are convinced “Aogaku’s dining hall is better than ICU’s one.” because the price is lower overall and there are really many varieties. Therefore we felt Aogaku’s dining is better.

2007年5月8日火曜日

ARP:Reaction to Meiland's "Why Reasons Matter"

Kota Funakawa
Professor Owen JAMES
ARW Section AI
8 May 2007
Reaction to Meiland’s “Why Reasons Matter”
Summary
    In “Why Reasons Matter” Meiland argue that beliefs are supported by good reasons. First, if the beliefs are supported by good reasons, the beliefs are credible. It doesn’t mean, however, we don’t need to confirm those beliefs. Next, basing beliefs on good reasons are really important for us because they liberate us from avoiding frustration and encourage us to achieve our goals. This function is called “pragmatic” justification. So we can get along better in the world. Third justification is called “social” justification because basing beliefs on good reason fits together well with our democratic way of life and help to achieve the aim, to be ideal person, to make the environment which we want to live. Forth, if we have the belief which supported by good reasons, we don’t have to bother whether it is true or not because good reasons let us avoiding when we are challenged. Last function of good reasons is deeper understanding. If you pursue the good reason, you will gather more specific information. So you get better, deeper, understanding. We are using the functions of good reasons while we are unconscious. Therefore the good reasons are supporting the beliefs.

Discussion
    According to the Meiland, beliefs are supported by five functions of good reasons. So you don’t need to bother whether they are true. But the five justifications are originally the same. It is because the five functions appear at the same time. When you do the first justification, searching for good reason to make your own belief credible, you have to gather a lot of information. So you automatically do the second, “pragmatic”, justification: to let you to get along better in the world, and fifth one, to understand about the belief deeper. When you search, you have the purpose finding the good reason and understand about the belief better. These are the second and fifth. While it is happening, the third and forth justifications are also appearing. In the one hand, the third, “social”, justification to make you or the environment around you pleasant is found in discussion. You frequently use the way gathering information through discussion. Thus the third justification is discovered there. On the other hand, the fourth justification is also in the discussion. But it is difficult to find because the definition is abstract. Meiland’s definition is “If you know the grounds-the good reasons or justification-for your beliefs, then when your belief is challenged, you can defend your belief, not only to other people but to yourself too.” In short, in my interpretation, if the belief has the forth justification, you can hold the self-confidence. Wait a minute, do you remember the first justification? It is similar to the forth justification, isn’t it? The forth justification is just an aspect of the first justification. So the forth justification is inevitably happened together. Thus it is obvious the five justifications are happened simultaneously. Therefore the five justifications are originally the same.
Work Cited
Meiland, Jack W. Why Reasons Matter:College Thinking:
How to Get the Best Out of College, 1981. (The ELP Reader, 2007)