Survey findings: Best comments on essays

Here is a snapshot of findings from the survey today about comments from classmates on your essays (2-02a).

Screenshot of digest, 2014.11.19, 18:50:27:
Click for a closer look.

Thank you for your cooperation!

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The end of semester draws nigh!

What you do in these last few weeks is extremely important, if you want to earn credit for Writing III this year. This post provides a count-down to help keep you on track for successful completion of coursework.


Today's class: Wed., July 9th

Today was the next-to-last regular class meeting for spring semester. Those of you who were absent should:

• View the two most recent snapshots (class work and homework, 2014.07.09) in the white-board snapshots folder that your instructor has shared with you, and then
• Ask classmates (§1C) or peers (§1A) who attended class today to help you to understand and do what you missed.

Make-up class: Next Wed., July 16th

Next Wed., from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m., is an early make-up class for students from §§ 1A and 1C who will be going abroad before the last regular class meeting (July 23rd, below). Those students will need to attend the make-up class next Wed. 

However, your instructor would like to invite the rest of you to come as well, to use the computer lab. space that he has reserved, so you can work together to catch up on and improve work on all assignments due before final exams. That is, the rest of you are welcome to attend the early make-up session, too, but only if you arrive by 9:00 a.m.


Last regular class meeting: Wed., July 23rd

The last regular class meetings this semester will be Wed., July 23rd, at the usual times. Everyone who is not going abroad on a university-sanctioned exchange program will need to attend. 


Last day of classes: Tues., July 29th

All course work except final blog posts, peer-to-peer comments, and Proto-Portfolio entries for July (below) will be due by midnight, July 29th, the last day of classes this semester. Course work due July 29th includes: 

• Book reviews,
• Corresponding bibliography entries, and 
• Portfolio Elements updates and revisions.

Exam periods for Writing III, §§ 1A and 1C: Wed., July 30th

Semester final exams for students not going abroad on a university-sanctioned exchange program will be on Wed., July 30. Please note that exams periods are on a one-hour time schedule. You should plan to arrive 10-15 minutes before starting times, and have your work stations and browsers ready for use, because exams will begin immediately.


Proto-Portfolio (PPF) entries for July: Fri., Aug. 1st

All PPF entries for July will be due at the usual time: 5:00 p.m., the first of next month; Fri., Aug. 1st.* 


Please talk over this schedule of events with your classmates and peers. Then, if you have any concerns or questions about this count-down to the end of Writing III this semester, please spell them out in comments on this post at least 48 to 72 hours before particular events in the count-down. That lead-time will give your classmates, peers, and instructor an opportunity to share related concerns, questions, and understandings.

 ____________________
* Note: Original blog posts, book reviews, and peer-to-peer comments from Aug. 1st onward will count as fall semester coursework for Writing IV in §§ 1A and 1C.

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Using Correction Tools after Typing Trials

In the screenshot below, Mr. T. captured a stop-action view of Yukie's first typing trial, on the topic Self introduction. He was viewing a word-processing document with the grammar- and spell-checking tools on (activated). You can tell that the checking tools are on because there are squiggly green and red underlines visible under a number of words. Those are words that the word-processing program either: a) didn't recognize as correctly spelled words (generally red), or b) thought – if a program can think – were inaccurate (generally green).

Let me pause here for a moment to explain, and emphasize, that all of those underlined words appearing in a timed (five minute) typing trial are not a major concern, especially now, at the beginning of this writing course. This is simply a point of departure. Not only can you well expect to type more words in five minutes as the year progresses, but you also may find that you mistype fewer words, too, as you learn to both spell and type in English.

Even if you notice capitalization, punctuation, or spelling mistakes while typing, it's better not to go back and make corrections during timed trials. You should do that when you've finished each trial, both with computerized tools and without.

However, after churning out a certain number of words, it is important to clear up as many of those underlined passages as possible, before transferring them to new posts on your blogs. Mr. T. took the screenshot below to show Yukie how the checking tools work in a word-processing program, when they are turned on. This post explains a bit about how they work.

Mr. T. had just clicked on the word "my" that I've circled in red on the screenshot below, and emphasized with a pointing finger like one he may have seen just before clicking on that word ("my", line 4). Clicking on that word had opened a short, pop-open menu offering three basic choices for a point the program thinks of as a grammatical problem (capitalization):

1. Change it to "My;"
2. Ignore it (from now on); or
3. Correct it yourself, which opens a dialog box for retyping.

In this case, the first choice is the best one. Capitalizing the first letters of words at the beginning of sentences in the passage that Yukie typed will clear up most, if not all, of the squiggly green markings, and some of the red ones as well, for example: "I'm . . . " (line 3).

Peoples names, like Yukie, and place names, like Kumamoto, also call for capitalization, but even if you capitalize those names, the word-processing program still may not recognize them. So, once you're certain that you've capitalized and spelled such names correctly, you may need to select Ignore from the menu of choices that the word-processor checking tools propose.

Let me draw to a close here with a couple of reminders regarding both word-processor and web-based grammar- and spell-checking tools, including those built into your blogs:

1. You shouldn't count on those tools to catch every error or inaccuracy in your work; and
2. They may flag words or passages that the programs don't recognize, but aren't necessarily incorrect.

Nevertheless, timely and regular use of those tools can help you improve your English, and should make your blog posts easier to read and understand. Finally, if in doubt about a particular point that may need correction, ask about it!

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to acknowledge contributions to this post from:

• Yukie, who graciously agreed to let me share a representation of her early work in this writing course on the Writing Studio Blog;
• Mr. T., who quickly captured an image of that typing sample before corrections occurred, and passed it along to me (personal correspondence, March 4, 2013 7:02:36 PM GMT+09:00), and who also provided additional suggestions on a draft for this post; and, last but not least,
• gkrock, who shared the pointing finger graphic on the piq pixel art site, under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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Class notes: Nov. 28 classwork, group work, & homework

Yesterday was a big day in Writing IV, as those of you who attended will recall. Yet, as I have learned to expect, it was also a day on which there were technical challenges, not the least of which (for me, at least) was display of class notes on laboratory monitors.

The screenshot below, an enhanced version of my class notes, more or less reflects board work and general instructions from class yesterday. Square brackets enclose enhancements in this retrospective, or responses to questions in one section of the class or another.

Screenshot of enhanced Nov. 28 class notes, 2012.11.29

Essay prep. posts, as well as previewing, actual viewing, or reviewing of the movies that teams choose, are essential components of the homework assignment for this week.

Please click on the graphic above to get a closer look, or zoom in on it in your browsers. Then, if you have any questions or concern about the classwork, group work, or homework in that outline; please spell them out in comments on this post before the end of November.

Last but not least, I'd like to ask you again to share what you learn from posts on the Writing Studio Blog with your classmates and peers. Thank you in advance for your continuing cooperation.

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Preparation for Audioboo recordings

listen to ‘Prep. for Audioboo recordings’ on Audioboo

The Audioboo recording above introduces the current, three-step homework assignment. Please listen to the recording carefully and completely. It is less than two minutes long.

Next, please open and read "more details" on the Writing Studio Calendar event for October 9. You also can find details in your invitation to that calendar event, and in a Gmail reminder to follow a couple of days before the assignment is due.

Screenshot of Writing Studio Blog:
Calendar of Events page
(Agenda view)

If you have concerns or questions about this assignment, please spell them out in comments on this post a day or two before the assignment is due, and make sure to select the option to receive follow-up comments via Gmail. Then, if your classmates, peers, or I respond to your comments, you will get Gmail notification messages immediately.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

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Comments and Advice: September 2011

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to the Writing Studio Blog.

In the left column of the table below is a collection of comments that I'd posted on individual blogs during or just after the summer recess, including a number of suggestions for revising and improving posts. Those without dates and links were pending moderator approvals when I collected them (from previews). They are all in chronological order (earliest to latest). In the right column are generalizations from those comments to advice for all of you to continue to follow. So please read this entire post carefully.

Then, if you have any concerns or questions about those comments, either on your own posts or on those of your classmates or peers, please voice them in class or spell them out in comments on this post. The same goes for the advice and suggestions for everyone. Last but not least, please keep checking your blog dashboards for comments awaiting moderation, and show and tell me in class if you get any that you think are comment spam.

Thank you for your continuing cooperation.

Comments for Individuals	Advice for All
Hi Sakurako, If what you have in this post is a quotation (possibly a preface for a book review), you need to mark the quotation as such (and shorten it), for example, "...[O]ne day, a dazzling new songbird arrives..., and the Emperor has eyes for nothing else" (p. n). Book reviews also need APA-style references. Cheers, PB 2011年8月5日16:13	Start book reviews with brief quotations that are likely to attract readers attention. Mark them clearly as a quotations; Follow them with short citations in parentheses; and Provide a complete APA-style reference, with the authors' given names spelled out, at the end of the review. See the Writing Studio Blog, BR 2-01: Robin Hood (Swan, 1989) (September 22, 2011) for an illustration.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot! The "n" in parentheses in my previous comment is a placeholder for the number of the page where you got the quotation. I'd also like to    remind you that book reviews you do now (Aug. – Sep.) will count for fall semester, and, last but not least, ask you [to] share what you learn from comments like this with your classmates and peers. Cheers, PB 2011年8月5日16:21	For an explanation of factors scores for book reviews you post early this semester, please review the Writing Studio Blog, Book Reviews: Factors to Consider (August    1, 2011).
pab さんのコメント... Hi, Yudai! It is a pleasure to see you tackling serious topics here on your blog. Your remark at the end about discussing such things with your friends lead me to wonder whether there is any place special that you like to go to do that. Cheers, PB. 2011年9月20日火曜日10:21:00 JST ...2011/09/big-earthquake-in-japan	Include information you expect readers to need or want to know. Provide details and give examples.
pab さんのコメント... Takahiro, Is this some sort of machine translation? Please let me know in a follow-up comment ASAP. Cheers, PB [Sep 22, 2011]	Open your blog at least every other day. Please approve comments waiting for moderation within 48 hours, and respond in follow-up comments. [Note: Takahiro has  responded to my question in a follow-up comment.]
pab さんのコメント... Shiori's right! You should use three or more labels on every post. Other possible labels for this post would be composition and free-writing. You also need to include word counts on every post. Counting words when you post will make it easy to tally them up for your Proto-Portfolio entries each month. Please put them in square brackets, aligned flush right, on the last line of every post. Cheers, PB 2011年9月22日13:42 ...2011/09/reflections-on-writing-iii.html	Include word counts and labels on every post. See the Writing Studio Blog for model posts showing where to put word counts (last line, aligned right). Choose labels suited to each post. If you're not sure about which labels to use, please ask for suggestions in class.
pab さんのコメント... Hi Natsumi, It sounds like you took some sort of nation-wide certification or qualification exam. I gathered it was challenging, but I couldn't figure out who or what the exam was for. So please let us know more. For example, what subjects where on the exam, and how long did (each part of) it last? Cheers, PB 2011年9月27日火曜日13:38:00 JST	Include information readers will need or want to know. Organize that information in a way that makes it easy to understand how one topic relates to the next. For example: General to specific, for example: Kind of test, Parts of test, Length of parts, & Difficulty of parts. Other organizational schemes you can use are: Time sequence Starting with earliest, or Starting with latest; and Order of importance Starting with the most important, & Repeating the most important at the end.

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Wow, What Did I Miss? (2nd sem., day one)

In case you're not back from your summer holidays (or forgot classes started today, like I did about this time last year :-), here is a snapshot of class notes reflecting what we did. The main activities and assignments today covered accuracy (labeling issues), fluency (free-writing and extensive writing), portfolio (PF) foundation building, and homework.

To get a closer look, please click on the graphic (above). To find out details, please ask a classmate or peer who attended. If you have questions about classwork and other assignments shown here, questions your classmates and peers cannot answer, please post them in comments on this post. 

Last but not least, please plan to attend every class meeting for the rest of the semester, or to gather this sort of information on your own from now on. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. 

See you next week!

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Nancy and Suzy Explore Twitter

"...[A]n online interaction designer, facilitator and coach... working with a puppet" to help people get a handle on social media (Community Matters, Vimeo, Wed, Feb 16, 2011):

 

Nancy White & Suzy - An Intro to Twitter 

from CommunityMatters on Vimeo.

Twitterers out there: Are they telling it like it is?

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Assignments and How to Find Out about Them

This post represents: 1) updated information about current assignments, 2) reminders of on-going assignments, and 3) general suggestions for inquiries about assignments, all of which I sent out recently in an occasional reply to an individual student. I want to share the information, reminders, and suggestions with everyone concerned.

1. The numbered outline in the message that I'm quoting (indented and in italics below) includes boardwork annotations from the second period class as well as further elaborations I made specifically for that individual mail reply. In general, I expect you to depend upon in-class listening, note-making, and screen capture to gather classwork and homework assignment details yourselves.
2. On-going blogging assignments are just that, on-going. So please expect few or no further reminders of those.
3. The follow-up suggestions in the message below reflect where to turn first for information about assignments, and how to focus and frame follow-up inquiries. Please use those suggestions to coach and guide one another from now on.

Hi ...,

Thank your for writing (Wed, May 19, 2010 at 11:49 PM; ...). I'm sorry to hear that you were sick [1st period] on Wednesday, May 19, 2010. 

As always in Writing III, §§ 1A and 1C, there were both classwork and homework assignments. The following outline, revised somewhat during the 1C class meeting and annotated below, should give you a rough idea of what you missed in 1A (classwork, 0-3.2; homework, 3.1-5). I suggest that you confer with classmates (1A) or near-peers (1C) for details and tips.

0. Label draft essay posts (1-02a): drafts, essays, reviews, websites, … (including a suitable topic label).

1. Comment [PQRS] on 3-5 classmates' essay posts (1-02a) [immediately] UP list from yours on class blog lists:

Writing_III-IV_10-11_1A+1C
(Writing Studio Blog sidebar, Course Links)

1.1. Praise what you find informative and interesting in their essays;
1.2. Question what is unknown or unclear after reading their essays;
1.3. Reflect on what you understand from their essays; and
1.4. Suggest other information they could add, or other ways to improve their essays.

2. Respond briefly to comments on your draft essay (1-02a) in an additional comment (or two) on your draft essay.

3. Revise your essay (1-02b) in preparation for a complete, separate post including:

3.01 Short Title (centered),

3.02 Introductory ¶,

3.03 Three (3) or more body ¶¶,

3.04 Concluding ¶, and

3.05 A list of APA-style References

3.1. Add answers and info. to existing or new ¶¶ in your essay in a word-processing program (OpenOffice, Pages, or Word [in KGU Mac labs]).
3.2. Add APA-style website references created in Recipes4Success: Citation Maker (Writing Studio Blog sidebar, Course Links) to a References section at the foot of your revised essay.
3.3. Follow other suggestions from classmates or peers to improve your essay.
3.4. Grammar and spell-check your revised essay thoroughly in in a word-processing program (OpenOffice, Pages or Word [in KGU Mac labs]).

3.5. Publish your revised essay in a separate (new) post on your blog:

By the due date (Writing Studio Calendar),

In a new post entitled:

"Essay 1-02b: [Short Title]"
(without quotation marks or square brackets), AND

With the following labels: essays, reviews, revisions, websites, … (including a suitable topic label).

Day 1-06a[-b] (2010.05.19)

There also are on-going blogging assignments for Writing III-IV, namely: 

a. Weekly book review posts with APA-style references, and 

b. Other routine blog posts on topics of your choice.

On average, you should be publishing 3-5, or more, blog posts per week. 

In addition, Mr. T... (Cc:) tracks your progress on weekly typing assignments, and came in person to remind some of your peers about typing assignments. After you mail your weekly typing trials to Mr. T, you should post _grammar and spelling checked_ versions of them on your blog, 

The next time that you're absent, I'd appreciate it if you would confer with classmates (many of whom have snapshots of the outline above), and check the Writing Studio Calendar, before sending mail. Then please focus your in-person or mail inquiries on concerns or questions above or beyond what you can learn for those nearby sources.

There is no need to reply to this message, but please do share what you learn from it with your classmates and peers. Also, please (re-)read the Mail Protocol section of the Writing Studio Wiki (Home Page, §10), and follow the instructions there, before sending any more mail messages. 

Cheers, PB

(personal correspondence, Thu, May 20, 2010 at 10:01 AM) 

As always, if you have concerns or questions about current or on-going assignments, or [about] the general reminders and suggestions reflected in the reply that I've cross-posted above, I encourage you to share them. You may share them a) in comments on this post, b) in comments on other posts to which your concerns or questions relate more closely than they do to this one, or c) at the earliest opportunity in class, rather than transmitting them through individual mail messages. I appreciate your cooperation.

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Paragraphs for Review in Google Spreadsheet

In this post I'm going to reflect upon and amplify work done online and in class in recent weeks. While I hope that you check your gmail regularly for course-related announcements, a recent reply to a two-week old message shook my confidence that all of you do so. For that reason, I'm posting these notes here, rather than relying completely upon another Google spreadsheet mail notification (forthcoming).

Those of you who reviewed paragraphs in the Google spreadsheet to which you posted them in November may have been unaware of general comments that I had added to row two before class last week (December 3rd, cells 2A-2I). In order to view lengthy comments there, when text wrapping was off, you would have had to double-click in each cell. For example, about titles, I wrote:

Please use accurate and catchy titles! There are confusing, inaccurate, and unnecessary alphanumeric code prefixes in this Title column [column E], for example: MR2-01 and Essay2-02 (no spaces before numbers). There also are titles that reflect assignments, but not the content of particular essays. However, please don't change titles here, unless you already have changed the title of your essays on your blogs, and are copying and pasting the revised titles in here. Titles should reflect content, theme, and focus. Accurate labels, for example, "essays" (... [three] Ss and one A), "movies," and "reviews," should suffice to convey other information instead of code (the exception to this rule is post titles for book reviews, for example: BR 2-01, ... -02, ... -03, ..., BR-12: [+ short book titles]).

(BestEssays_Self-Assessments..., cell 2E)

Since the focus of that data collection was weakest paragraphs in best essays as of November 19 (BestEssays_Self-Assessments form, item 3.e.), I am going to reiterate and amplify the follow-up questions from the spreadsheet that I announced in class on December 3rd, here, where there are layout options unavailable in Google spreadsheets (automated numbering and bullet points added, below):

1. Is what you've posted a paragraph?
   
• If not, why not;
  
• If so, how so?
  
• [In other words, what constitutes a paragraph?]
  
2. What is the topic of the paragraph [that you felt was your weakest]?
   
3. Is the topic [of that paragraph] defined in the first sentence (topic sentence)?
   
4. Does all other information or opinion in the paragraph develop and support the topic?
   
5. Is there any information or expression of opinion in the paragraph unrelated to, or ... [which does not directly support], the paragraph topic?
   
6. Does the paragraph end with a sentence that reflects the topic and content of the whole paragraph?

(BestEssays_Self-Assessments..., cell 2I)

The purpose of question one (above) was to explore your definitions of paragraphs, in particular, to discover what you had learned about paragraphs from other courses. If you can remember or retrieve a definition of paragraphs from Writing I or II, please share it in a comment on this post.

Question two (above), as we found in one class on December 3rd, also can apply to single sentences that some students posted for the weakest paragraph item (spreadsheet, column I). Once you identify the topics of sentences in question, they can serve as foci for paragraph development. In the first example below, the pronoun "It" reflects the topic from the initial sentence, "home page" (spreadsheet, cell 26I). In both examples below, the phrasing suggestions in square brackets introduce supporting reasons the authors could use to develop their sentences into paragraphs:

• ¶6 Let's go to this home page! [It is very interesting, because….] (26I)
• ¶6 I think French is more difficult than English [for three main reasons. First, French....] (32I)

Questions three through six (above) indicate weaknesses common in novice writers' paragraphs, and can serve as general guidelines for paragraph development. I say guidelines, rather than rules, because even experienced writers occasionally diverge from them. For example, in short paragraphs, concluding sentences may be unnecessary to maintain readers' attention, especially if following paragraphs start with topic sentences, and comprise topics that are closely related to preceding ones.

I'd like to close this post with thanks and an invitation. That is, first, with thanks to the students who explained their weakest paragraphs in class last week. I appreciate your efforts to share thoughts about your writing in a language other than your vernacular. Next, to students whose writing did not come to the fore as examples in class last week, I extend this invitation to identify what you see as major weaknesses of the paragraphs that you posted to the Goggle spreadsheet in November. A good place to spell out those weaknesses would be in the new column K on the spreadsheet, where we can all read and compare them. Finally, thank you all for your cooperation in our writing studio, both in class and in various online venues.

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