Language Skills: Collective Mind-Map of Topics from Free-Writing, §1A

The graphic in this post is to remind you of topics that you and your classmates shared from your free-writing posts on Wednesday, June 11. If you click on the graphic, you will be able to get a close look at the sub-topics on small branches of the mind-map. I've made two such posts: 

• Language Skills: Collective Mind-Map of Topics from Free-Writing, §1A; and
• Language Skills: Collective Mind-Map of Topics from Free-Writing, §1C.

Please feel free to adopt topics, sub-topics, and organisational ideas from either of them to include in your next draft essays. 

[93 words]

Language Skills: Collective Mind-Map of Topics from Free-Writing, §1C

The graphic in this post is to remind you of topics that you and your classmates shared from your free-writing posts on Wednesday, June 11. If you click on the graphic, you will be able to get a close look at the sub-topics on small branches of the mind-map. I've made two such posts: 

• Language Skills: Collective Mind-Map of Topics from Free-Writing, §1A; and
• Language Skills: Collective Mind-Map of Topics from Free-Writing, §1C.

Please feel free to adopt topics, sub-topics, and organisational ideas from either of them to include in your next draft essays. 

[93 words]

Mind-Maps for University Life Essay Prep.

Please click on the graphics below to get closer looks at the various topics that the collective mind-maps from last week covered.

University Life (1C, 2014.05.14)

University Life (1A, 2014.05.14)

Please feel free to write about topics from either map in your essay prep. (free-writing) posts. Ideally each main (blue) branch will serve as the basis for one or more paragraphs.

[63 words]

Mind-maps for Essays 1-01a: Letters to Host Families

Here are collective mind-maps from two classes today, showing related topics in connected branches of each diagram. Though many of the topics in the two mind-maps are the same or similar, there are topics or sub-topics and examples in each that differ.

Please note that the organization of elements on various branches is flexible. So is the order of presentation in general, though self-introductions came first, and were most detailed, in both maps. You should feel free to borrow and elaborate ideas and organizational schemes from both as you revise your letters to host families for Essays 1-01a.

Mind-map from §1C

Mind-map from §1A

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My Language Learning Story: Map[s] & Outline

This is a model essay prep. post.

Mind-map of my language learning history (2012.06.28)

The graphic above, a FreeMind export (PNG), shows a recent version of the mind-map that I started in classes on Wed., June 27. ... [Here is a snapshot taken June 27:]

Mind-map of my language learning history (2012.06.27)

Below is an outline ... from an HTML export from the ... [extended, 2012.06.28] mind-map, copied and pasted into and out of Microsoft® Word to get the bullet points for various levels of the outline.

My language learning story

• childhood
• pre-natal
• ?
• early years
• mother tongue (English)
• parents
• older brother
• pre-school years
• family
• parents
• siblings
• relatives
• grandparents
• aunts & uncles
• neighbors
• friends
• elementary school
• English
• secondary schooling
• JHS
• NA
• SHS
• French
• skills
• listening
• speaking
• pronunciation
• intonation
• reading
• writing
• sub-skills
• grammar
• vocabulary
• college
• French
• upper division courses
• post graduate
• overseas experience
• France
• cultural exchange
• homestay
• travel
• with friends
• alone
• work
• (graduate studies)
• Japan
• work
• travel
• France
• intensive course
• travel
• revitalization workshop
• French
• graduate studies
• French
• intensive course
• Japanese
• online courses
• library services
• English
• Canada
• Spanish
• Mexico
• life-long learning
• English
• French
• Japanese
• Spanish
• What's next?

[248 words]

Good PowerPoint Design (Osterwalder)

Modeling design principles for business presenters, Ostewalder showed and told it all in 135 slides, including step-by-step builds and appendices (Slideshare, "two years ago" [relative date]). He cut to the chase to introduce four basic rules on slides 15-18, then elaborated on each.

1. Audience's perspective (slide 24, ff.)
2. Content and structure – Tell a story. (slide 51, ff.)
3. Visual design – Keep it simple. (slide 83, ff.)
4. Delivery – a performance for guests (slide 104, ff.)

The highlight for me was the audience profiling tool, a graphic organizer, that Ostewalder introduced on slides 42-46. Try it out!

Good PowerPoint Design - for business presenters

View more presentations from Alexander Osterwalder

[116 words]

Writing_III-IV_10-11_Syllabus (word list)

From a snippet of the syllabus for Writing III-IV, I've generated a word list in Visual Thesaurus that shows each of the words with:

• a thumbnail image of connections to related words, and
• a sentence or two of context from the source document.

Following contexts in which the words appear in bold typeface, some listings include lists of other Visual Thesaurus word lists in which the words also appear, though none do for the three listings in the screen capture (above). To discover other lists of words that might merit further investigation of keywords, please browse the actual list:

Writing_III-IV_10-11_Syllabus

(list of 87 words)

April 8, 2010

[109 words]

Looking Forward by Looking Back: Best Portfolios

In this post, I'm listing up the best student portfolio posts from last year. I'd like you to browse through them all, to get a clear idea of what's ahead in Writing III and IV, namely course portfolio development.

The portfolio posts listed below show how proto-portfolios fit in to provide an overview of your blogging each semester. They also show how course portfolios comprise both showcases of, and reflections upon the work you do in our Writing Studio.

Granted, the examples below are la crême de la crême, which makes this post a showcase of showcases. Nevertheless, your predecessors were able to achieve such developments without the benefit of a preview like this. Given this preview, you should be able to equal or exceed your predecessors' achievements.

§1A: Best in Show (2008-09)

• nojomi's portfolio
• Jam's portfolio
• chusong's
• Aaaai's

§1C: Best in Show (2008-09)

• Kaori's
• yuu's
• Saori's

I'll be reworking the portfolio template again, to try to eliminate a few more bugs in it, and to tailor it to fit your work this semester. I'll make a revised template available as soon as possible, so you can start building yours between essay assignments. In the mean time, please feel free to post impressions, observations, or questions regarding course portfolios, in comments on this post.

[214 words]

Additional Course Link: Sentence Structure Cmap

Wordle image created 2009.01.30

While listening to a Green Room interview about graphic organizers (Episode 54, 2008.12.01), and following up on a related Learning Times discussion thread, I discovered an online resource that may interest those of you who have expressed concerns about your own grammatical accuracy. It's a concept map created with a powerful yet free computer application called IHMC CmapTools.

Tammy Moore, a registered Learning Times community member, listed the Sentence Structure Cmap, an example of students' work which I've already added to the Course Links in the sidbar, as "middle school level - English/Grammar/Sentence Structure" (Using Graphic Organizers?, 2008.12.04 [registration required]). If you're interested either in the grammar it represents, or in visual, hypertextual representation possible with CmapTools, please check it out.

[122 words]

Images created by the Wordle.net web application are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
http://wordle.net/faq

Essay Map: Composition Tool for Short Essays

I've written this short piece in Essay Map to re-explore its advantages and rediscover the kinds of output available at the end of the process. Basically, there are three main advantages of preparing an essay this way. However, output options are few.

Visualization
Visualization is a powerful tool for realizing your objectives. With desired outcomes in mind, paths to achievement may clear. Essay Map helps you see the end from the beginning, and back again.

Organization
The purpose of this mapping tool is to show beginning writers ways of organizing and supporting their ideas. Although thinking is rarely if ever linear, conventional writing is. Organizing and supporting main points help readers understand writers' thoughts.

Facilitation
Paths on the map are easy to follow and retrace. Though Supporting Details frames lack topic specific headings for main ideas, an Essay Map enables you to review your introduction, main ideas, and supporting points with a few clicks as you are writing.

Essay Map makes it easy to collect and organize content for essays. The writing paths are easy to follow for step-by-step development of your main ideas. Though the displays are narrow, you can retrace your steps anytime, and review your entire map before you finish. To capture output, you need to print from the "Review my map" frame (and retype), or copy and paste text from individual input frames. Nevertheless, this is a cool tool for composing short five-paragraph essays!

[242 words]

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