Comments for Talk to the Clouds

Comment on Word Games by Peter Roizen

Peter Roizen — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:58:08 +0000

You might find this word game of interest.

http://www.wildwords.us

Unlike Scrabble, it does not require short odd words to play well. Rather, it builds and exercises a meaningful vocabulary–not nerd words like QAT, ZA, or XI.

Comment on Composition’s Dirty Little Secret by Clarissa

Clarissa — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:27:23 +0000

Hi, chico! Aw, you’re too kind! I understand how you feel about your thesis because I’m in a kind of similar situation with my second master’s thesis. :/ Send me an e-mail if you want to talk more sometime — clarissa (*at*) talktotheclouds.com

Comment on Composition’s Dirty Little Secret by chico

chico — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:57:01 +0000

Hi, I’m a undergrad in Japan, majoring in English literature. Writing a graduate thesis is required for all the students, however, we don’t even have the “writing course”. Since 8 times of guidances is required to take in oder to earn credit, I took the first one the other day and the teacher handed me some printed papers which explained how to decide my thesis, how to write it as well as some of “good” examples. I was totally at a loss where to start but I can’t afford to postpone to deal with it, either.
I’m also into Todoku and through emmie’s blog, I found this incredibly educational blog of yours. This dirty secret of composition is my life saver. I’m not exaggerating.
Perhaps it might be more understandable if I explain my circumstances. I’m a single mum, having two part-time jobs, trying to earn teaching certificate in Japan through corresponding course. Since i have a incredibly understanding and supportive daughter and family, my life hasn’t been stressful, but it is not so sweet, either since I hardly get any advice from anyone for my study. Writing research papers have been quite struggling and I often have to revise them a few times. Which has been time-consuming and extremely tough for a part-time student like me. The most struggling part has been the fact that only I can depend on are textbooks I get from the uni. and references I find in a local library. Sometimes I can take lectures at the uni. and get some advices from teachers but not as often as I need. I’ve been feeling like I’m trapped in a dead end but the tip for writing gave me such a eye-opening tip for this lonely learner. Since I can read heaps of resourceful articles on the net, I’ll read them as much as possible and learn from them as well. This gets too long to thank you but i hope you’ll forgive me for I’m overjoyed to read your brilliant blog. Thanks again.
chico

Comment on Composition’s Dirty Little Secret by Clarissa

Clarissa — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:17:58 +0000

Yes, I think inertia and the fact that it’s easier to do it the old way has a lot to do with it. That’s not necessarily laziness, either; time, money, and energy are in really short supply at a lot of institutions. I have one composition textbook here somewhere that includes a lot of student writing. I’ll review it on the blog if I ever find it again…

Comment on Composition’s Dirty Little Secret by syllepsis

syllepsis — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:15:31 +0000

As an addendum, I’ve been speculating on why using models isn’t more widely practiced. Part of it might be fear that the students will rely too heavily on it, leading to plagiarism issues. But I think the primary factor is the time and effort it takes to either write sample papers that fit your prompts or track down students who’ve written good papers to get their permission to use them as examples.

I think having a specialized reader with a variety of essays that exemplify the genre that they’re working with is ideal, but that takes a lot of institutional support.

Comment on Composition’s Dirty Little Secret by syllepsis

syllepsis — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:08:56 +0000

I don’t think it’s any accident that our curriculum has been designed by pretty well-regarded Rhetoric and Composition scholars.

When I was a wee undergrad at a different school, I was exposed to the Reluctant Literature Professor composition course design, and I think I learned a lot about what not to do.

For our introductory writing course, they complete four short 3-5 paper, and then turn in a portfolio of revised essays along with a reflective introduction that evaluates their skills as a writer and how they’ve developed. Only one of those papers is research oriented, a synthesis essay. In English 102, they write longer papers more focused on controversial social and academic issues, with the final requirement being an 8-10 page research paper. While 101 has a common syllabus, the instructors have more flexibility in 102 and I’m not sure everyone adopts modeling as heavily as a teaching technique. I always spent a class session or two discussing sample essays before I had my students do peer reviews.

Comment on Composition’s Dirty Little Secret by Clarissa

Clarissa — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:54:38 +0000

Hi, syllepsis! That’s excellent. I really think that your university is ahead of the curve. That shouldn’t be the case, but I’m afraid it’s true. (Then again, maybe California’s just behind the times–everything here is so underfunded.) Either way, I’m glad to hear about your program. Do the students get a chance to look at a longer term paper before they have to write one, by the way, or is that left to later classes?

Comment on Composition’s Dirty Little Secret by syllepsis

syllepsis — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:34:20 +0000

I can’t speak for other Writing Studies departments at other universities, but at my school model essays are heavily emphasized as part of the curriculum. All of our writing textbooks for the introductory courses have sample student essays included, and most of us either write model essays for our students or show them sterling examples of student work that we’ve gotten permission to use. For our 101 course, writing in different genres is emphasized and the school adopted a customized reader full of example essays to complement each unit.

Comment on Comparisons and Politics by Alex Case

Alex Case — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:21:50 +0000

Thanks for the Cognitive Daily link, hadn’t come across that one before

Comment on Comparisons and Politics by Alex Case

Alex Case — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:15:23 +0000

Or not so briefly…

I always wonder about teachers who say these kind of political topics just come up, because they almost never come up in my classes… When I was studying French I found such conversations difficult, often boring, likely to leave one person dominating the conversation and not using language I wanted to talk about my usual conversational topics. Maybe my students can see that traumatic experience in my expression and back off from such topics??