Time transcripts of Sean

[00:00:00.01]	My name is Sean Burke, and I'm from Columbus Ohio, 

[00:00:06.00]	and my major is computer science and engineering.

[00:00:12.06]	Was math, and science always your favorite subject?

[00:00:20.16]	Math mainly was my favorite subject, but I liked science too. 

[00:00:26.00]	How did you feel about reading and writing when you were younger?

[00:00:32.23]	I liked, I mean it was alright. I didn't like vocab that much,

[00:00:40.27]	just because it doesn't... I know people say like, you'll use those words, 

[00:00:46.00]	but I don't seem like I'll use those words that much. 

[00:00:50.2]	Just like the high school vocab books. 

[00:00:55.4]	It just seems like most of those words... 

[00:00:58.00]	But I mean I've picked up a few and I've used a few too.

[00:01:04.42]	In high school, were you quizzed on vocabulary, 

[00:01:10.00]	did you have to like answer like, answer 20 different,

[00:01:16.49]	did you have to match the definitions of words or something like that, how was the quiz? 

[00:01:21.52]	They were like, it was like a couple, it was either complete the sentence with the vocab word.

[00:01:32.66]	It was antonyms or synonyms. Like circle the right word, or...

[00:01:44.73]	I think that was it. But it was kinda like the book, 

[00:01:50.00]	like they would take the questions out of the book and then put them on the...

[00:01:56.83]	But most teachers, they wouldn't give the answers to the books, 

[00:02:00.00]	so you would have to, if you really wanted to you could just study the,

[00:02:04.92]	like the sentences in the book and you could figure out like the answers from there. 

[00:02:11.6]	What do you mean?

[00:02:12.97]	Like, you know the vocab, like, the Sandler vocab books? 

[00:02:19.0]	No.

[00:02:21.05]	Well we, like there's like A through G of these books, 

[00:02:25.3]	vocab books that we that I mean, I've done all of them. 

[00:02:32.00]	Starting like in middle school.

[00:02:37.17]	But basically, every week we would have to fill out sections of like, 

[00:02:43.9]	we would get 20 words, per unit, I mean per section. 

[00:02:49.28]	So, and then we would have to take those words 

[00:02:53.00]	and there would be 20 completing the sentences. 

[00:02:57.00]	So you would have to put words in all those sentences. And then...

[00:03:01.36]	Oh so you would study the sentence from the book?

[00:03:05.38]	And then match, just remember the sentence for the quiz?

[00:03:09.41]	Well some teachers would take it from the book, so you could do that with some. 

[00:03:15.2]	But I mean that wasn't really learning the words.

[00:03:17.45]	But others, my favorite teacher would take 5 random words out of the 20

[00:03:25.50]	and say, like, make a sentence using this word that, like, you will know them meaning of. 

[00:03:34.9]	So I thought that was the best like teachers that actually tried 

[00:03:40.00]	to like bring out the meaning of the words instead of just saying like

[00:03:45.66]	memorize like, just, taking them out of the book. 

[00:03:51.5]	How did this teacher foreground meaning? Emphasize meaning? 

[00:04:01.75]	She just seemed more, like it just seemed like instead of just using the sentences in the book, 

[00:04:09.81]	we could create our own sentences. So not like all the sentences. 

[00:04:16.00]	Like most of them we probably wouldn't use so we could just create our own.

[00:04:21.89]	This was in high school? 

[00:04:24.91]	Yeah.

[00:04:25.92]	Can you tell us a story about that class?

[00:04:33.97]	Maybe not related to vocabulary but maybe to some of the other things 

[00:04:37.44]	that were going on in that class that that teacher did 

[00:04:39.8]	that you thought were effective or that you enjoyed?

[00:04:46.11]	Were there any essays you were writing, 

[00:04:47.25]	were there any specific books that you remember reading and liking?

[00:04:54.66]	Well that was my, I think it was my sophomore year. 

[00:05:00.22]	And we read a bunch of like paragraphs, in that class but...

[00:05:10.32]	You wrote paragraphs? 

[00:05:12.99]	Like we would write like essay type things, so...

[00:05:18.36]	I kinda liked more, like he was kind of a laid back teacher,

[00:05:26.42]	like he would make a lot of jokes too, so... 

[00:05:32.2]	A lot of the English teachers seemed to be really strict, well at least at my High school. 

[00:05:39.99]	What were they like, the strict teachers?

[00:05:44.00]	Well I mean, well um...

[00:05:46.59]	It would be more like if you did anything wrong they would punish you severely. 

[00:05:53.7]	So, like, I mean they would be strict to people they didn't really like.

[00:06:02.69]	Well I mean... Like, what kind of criteria did they have to judge their students?

[00:06:10.76]	Or like why do you think they favored certain students over others? 

[00:06:14.80]	I think it was the students that actually liked English and like wanted to like do the work. 

[00:06:22.22]	They would like a lot more. 

[00:06:27.91]	So, can you tell us a story about a time like you had a strict English teacher 

[00:06:32.98]	and what they did and what you disliked about that?

[00:06:39.03]	Or was it just like, I don't know...

[00:06:43.07]	Was it not that distinct of a feeling, was it just sort of a general feeling you had.

[00:06:55.00]	

[00:06:58.00]	Like what about Senior year English? What was that like?

[00:07:03.24]	Well Senior year we had to write our Senior paper, 

[00:07:08.9]	which was like a 5 to 7 page paper.

[00:07:15.31]	About a book, like a critique about a book.

[00:07:19.33]	So what I thought when we were doing this paper, I thought,

[00:07:27.39]	there were some problems that I was kinda confused by

[00:07:31.45]	like, we were supposed to read the book, and then...

[00:07:35.47]	And like halfway through the book,

[00:07:39.52]	she told us that we should have been picking quotes for our paper. But I was really...

[00:07:47.59]	You weren't approaching it that way? 

[00:07:50.00]	Yeah I was just going to read the book and then I thought maybe after I would try to find the quotes.

[00:07:59.70]	But like I mean I was just really confused about like what is like a good quote. 

[00:08:06.4]	Because it seems like there could be a lot of quotes for a lot of different topics, so...

[00:08:11.79]	Because we didn't know our topic until we read the book or read most of the book.

[00:08:19.83]	What book did you end up writing about?

[00:08:25.00]	"Cry the Beloved Country"

[00:08:27.87]	What's that about? Who wrote that?

[00:08:31.89]	I'm not very good with... 

[00:08:35.93]	Maybe the author isn't that important, but what was that about or what did you write about?

[00:08:39.97]	It was about, a country like priest, who came to the city

[00:08:48.01]	and he was trying to find his brother.

[00:08:56.08]	But on his way, he found his sister... Oh wait no.

[00:09:08.17]	Nevermind, he was on his way to find his son,

[00:09:12.21]	but he found his sister and his brother there as well.

[00:09:16.23]	And his brother had a son, well the sister had the son,

[00:09:24.27]	and she was a prostitute, so...

[00:09:29.32]	It was an illegitimate child.

[00:09:32.37]	I'm not sure if there was, I forget who was the father of the son,

[00:09:40.45]	but the sister, he tried to take, he wanted to take her back to... 

[00:09:49.00]	He lived in like a rural village type of area.

[00:09:52.53]	But he wanted to take her back there.

[00:09:56.55]	Just so she would do better, and like he wanted to help her. 

[00:10:00.59]	But she ran away and left the son there with him. 

[00:10:06.3]	So, and then, eventually the main plot was like when he got there after searching for a while 

[00:10:15.00]	he found his son had committed a murder, or didn't actually committ...

[00:10:24.00]	It was like kind of an accident, because his son

[00:10:28.81]	and a couple other people broke into a house and were going to steal some stuff,

[00:10:32.84]	and they brought a gun but they weren't planning on using it. 

[00:10:40.90]	So they like, the owner of the house came up and he just got surprised

[00:10:48.95]	and shot they guy, and the guy died, so.

[00:10:55.55]	What did you choose to write about, was there a specific theme?

[00:11:01.00]	I chose, like...

[00:11:05.04]	Did you know what you were going to write about like right away? 

[00:11:08.1]	Or did you have to think about it, or what was that process like?

[00:11:13.11]	I thought about it a lot, because I wasn't quite sure. 

[00:11:20.00]	I wasn't very sure even what would be a good topic or what would be a bad topic.

[00:11:29.17]	But I wrote about poverty in the book, and like what were some of the reasons

[00:11:37.25]	why like there was a lot,

[00:11:41.28]	why like village areas seemed to be like a lot more happier than urban areas.

[00:11:53.39]	Did you get a good grade? 

[00:11:55.42]	I think I got a 92 overall, so. Right on. 

[00:11:59.99]	I was pretty happy about that. For someone in engineering I would imagine yeah, I mean...

[00:12:09.54]	Polar opposites right?

[00:12:12.00]	You enjoy computer science? You've been doing programming for a while? 

[00:12:21.63]	I took a programming class about C++ my sophomore year. 

[00:12:26.68]	And then I took AP computer science my senior year, which was about Java, so.

[00:12:37.76]	What could you say about like the differences between like

[00:12:45.79]	learning and writing in a programming language

[00:12:49.82]	versus reading and writing in English?

[00:12:53.84]	Is there any connection or is, I don't know, 

[00:13:01.90]	it seems that you prefer computer programming if that is what you're going into. 

[00:13:07.93]	Well there's some, I guess there's some, there's probably a lot of connections,

[00:13:13.99]	just because... Well I mean, I would think grammar would kind of be

[00:13:18.01]	like the order of like what you're supposed to write in computer science. 

[00:13:24.9]	Like if you have bad grammar you're like it's not right, 

[00:13:31.00]	like you need to put certain things in certain places. 

[00:13:35.5]	Or the program will go in an infinite loop or something. 

[00:13:41.00]	If you could say anything to the graduate students 

[00:13:45.00]	who are going to be teaching English 110 this fall,

[00:13:50.28]	about the kinds of reading materials that they should have their students read, 

[00:13:59.00]	or they should require their students to read, what would you say?

[00:14:02.37]	I would say make it kind of in between like not, 

[00:14:10.42]	I mean, you don't want too much action, too much like guy stuff that only guys would like.

[00:14:19.3]	But you don't want the drama, soap opera kind of books. 

[00:14:26.54]	I guess just pick an in between book and try to I think just try to be relaxed.

[00:14:34.59]	Just not like relax, just try to make the class enjoyable.

[00:14:42.64]	Are there any kinds of topics that you would suggest

[00:14:50.71]	that the new graduate students require their students to write about? 

[00:15:01.00]	Or are there any topics that you're interested in 

[00:15:04.65]	that you think other students would be interested in writing about?

[00:15:11.84]	Topics as in...

[00:15:14.86]	For example, like a contemporary issue thats in the news? 

[00:15:21.00]	Such as gay marriage or healthcare or the war in Iraq.

[00:15:30.93]	Or something similar?

[00:15:39.00]	Yeah like, I mean like writing about big issues I think would be pretty enjoyable. 

[00:15:45.05]	Like writing about, like if you got to choose like one big issue that you felt

[00:15:55.12]	you were really for or really against

[00:15:59.99]	and like just write a paper about why you are for or against that.