From composition to transcription: A study of conceptual understanding and levels of awareness in thinking used by children during specific genre writing tasks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This naturalistic study of cases explores the interrelationship between children’s awareness of their own thought processes, their ability to understand key concepts and concept vocabulary and integrate new ideas into their existing knowledge base when engaged in specific genre writing tasks. An adaptation of the framework, originally devised by Swartz and Perkins (1989), was used to identify the levels of awareness in thinking displayed by eight Year 3 children, when engaged in genre writing tasks during one academic year. The addition of ‘collaborative use’ to this framework highlights ways in which collaborative thinking can act as a support for young writers. When children co-construct ideas they endeavour to make their thinking explicit thus enabling teachers to assess levels of conceptual understanding whilst the children are engaged in a writing task. Evidence also suggests that young writers move in and out of the suggested levels of thinking depending on the complexity of the task, their prior knowledge and understanding of key concepts and awareness of the working strategies and thought processes they employ. This study not only contributes to current research on genre writing within school based contexts but makes a unique contribution by highlighting the need for pedagogical strategies to focus on the way young writers think about and understand the underlying concepts and principles related to genre writing tasks. Evidence also suggests that learning objectives presented to this age group often focus on the factual and procedural aspects of a writing task. However, when factual, procedural and conceptual aspects are made explicit through clear, thought-provoking learning objectives then children are able to develop their own creative responses within the linguistic and textual structures of the given genre without being confined by them

Trouble at Work

Introduction to logic-based therapy. This Socratic dialogue illustrates the techniques used by Philosophical Counselors in helping their clients work through life problems. Philosophical Counseling is based on Stoic Philosophy and practitioners assist clients to identify faulty reasoning that leads to poor behavioral choices or unwanted emotions. Dialogues such as this can serve as teaching resources for students working towards certification in Practical Philosophy or Philosophical Counseling

On a Distinction between Access and Phenomenal Consciousness

In his paper "On A Confusion about a Function of Consciousness", Ned Block claims that the concept of consciousness is best described as a mongrel concept. For Block, the word "consciousness" refers to many different concepts and phenomena that have been bundled together under the one concept. Block suggests that we run into problems when we analyse certain aspects of consciousness using premises that cannot be applied to other aspects of consciousness. In an effort to clear up the confusion associated with reasoning about consciousness, Block breaks consciousness down into several different concepts. In this paper I will be concerned only with what Block calls access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. These two concepts appear to constitute his primary distinction and deserve attention. I will consider David Chalmers' contribution to the issue and will then outline an alternative view offered by Daniel Dennett

The Atheist and the Agnostic

This Socratic dialogue pitched at introductory philosophy students examines the question of God's existence from atheist and agnostic perspectives

Alternatives to HOT Theories of Consciousness

Higher-order thought theories (or HOT theories) state that a mental state is conscious only when it is accompanied by a higher-order thought (HOT). The thought that makes a state conscious is not conscious in itself, but having that thought is what make the state of which it is about conscious. If there is no HOT about a mental state, then that state is not a conscious state. On this view, a state can only be a conscious state if we are aware of that state, or, have a HOT about that state. Fred Dretske, on the otherhand, believes that mental states can be conscious without the subject being aware of those states. For Dretske, what makes a mental state conscious is not the subject's awareness of the state, rather, it is the way in which the state makes the subject conscious of something in the world. When we look at an object, we are not conscious of our experience of looking at the object, we are conscious of the object itself. In this paper, I will suggest that HOT theories lead to a cluttered picture of the mind. I will then offer Dretske's account of consciousness as an alternative to the HOT theories. My goal will be to show that Dretske's model of consciousness should be the preferred option

Overlapping Protein-Encoding Genes in Pseudomonas fluorescens Pf0-1

The annotated genome sequences of prokaryotes seldom include overlapping genes encoded opposite each other by the same stretch of DNA. However, antisense transcription is becoming recognized as a widespread phenomenon in eukaryotes, and examples have been linked to important biological processes. Pseudomonas fluorescens inhabits aquatic and terrestrial environments, and can be regarded as an environmental generalist. The genetic basis for this ecological success is not well understood. In a previous search for soil-induced genes in P. fluorescens Pf0-1, ten antisense genes were discovered. These were termed ‘cryptic’ genes, as they had escaped detection by gene-hunting algorithms, and lacked easily recognizable promoters. In this communication, we designate such genes as ‘non-predicted’ or ‘hidden’. Using reverse transcription PCR, we show that at each of six non-predicted gene loci chosen for study, transcription occurs from both ‘sense’ and ‘antisense’ DNA strands. Further, at least one of these hidden antisense genes, iiv14, encodes a protein, as does the sense transcript, both identified by poly-histidine tags on the C-terminus of the proteins. Mutational and complementation studies showed that this novel antisense gene was important for efficient colonization of soil, and multiple copies in the wildtype host improved the speed of soil colonization. Introduction of a stop codon early in the gene eliminated complementation, further implicating the protein in colonization of soil. We therefore designate iiv14 “cosA”. These data suggest that, as is the case with eukaryotes, some bacterial genomes are more densely coded than currently recognized

Revealing the language of thought

Language of thought theories fall primarily into two views. The first view sees the language of thought as an innate language known as mentalese, which is hypothesized to operate at a level below conscious awareness while at the same time operating at a higher level than the neural events in the brain. The second view supposes that the language of thought is not innate. Rather, the language of thought is natural language. So, as an English speaker, my language of thought would be English. My goal is to defend the second view. My methodology will see the project broken down into three major areas. First I will show that human thinking requires a language of thought, after which I will highlight some problems with assuming that this language is innate and hidden. Included in this section will be a small introduction to the compatibility problem. The compatibility problem offers some obvious difficulties for mentalese theories and these will be discussed. The next stage of the project will focus on evidence that can be put forward in support of the claim that natural language is the language of thought. Our most direct source of evidence comes from introspection, and this will play a dominant role in the discussion. The final part of the thesis will involve an examination of the principle arguments that have been put forward against the idea that natural language is the language of thought. My goal will be to show that these arguments do not entail the existence of mentalese, nor do they show that natural language is not the language of thought. I will provide answers to the arguments, and will explain the phenomena they point to in terms of natural language being the language of thought