Essay Writing
2017.12.01
Wrapping Things Up
Weeks 13, 14, 15, and 16
These weeks we moved through chapters 5 and 6 and just kept on writing and revising. Expect to write an in-class essay exam (250 words) on a topic selected by the instructor when we meet Week 15 (Dec. 6th). Topic choices will be about the family. You should also have your first draft of the Chapter 6 essay submitted to the Canvas discussion area by class time that day (Wednesday Week 15).
Week 16, please turn in hard copies of your final drafts from chapters 4, 5, and 6. Each essay should be typed in Times New Roman 12 point font, double-spaced, and stapled. Please DO NOT staple all three essays together. Staple the pages of each essay together separately. You may turn them in to my mailbox in Room 106 of the Main Building. Don't forget to put your name on your papers if you want credit for them.
See you in class!
JBH
Below is the one on one schedule. Please bring hard copies of essays from chapters 5 or 6 or any writing you want to talk about.
2017.11.15
Week 12, we took a first look at Chapter 5, which will get us into some interviewing practice for writing an oral history essay. We looked at the first reading on pages 128-130 about a Chinese student's interview and profile of his great uncle and discussed what went into it as he wrote it.
We also looked at some interview techniques, as well as how to come up with a thesis for our essays. Please continue reviewing the techniques on pages 146-152, along with the essay assignment first draft instructions on pages 153-158. Because interviews take time, the first draft of this essay will not be due at the usual early deadline time. However, please make sure to post a complete first draft to Canvas for feedback by class time next week (11-22). We will likely be looking at some drafts in class, and you definitely will be giving each other helpful feedback in the Canvas discussion area.
We are going to be moving fast as the semester winds down, with a final draft due on Canvas by class time week 14, and a first draft of the Chapter 6 essay assignment due to be posted by early class deadline Week 15. Week 16, I will be expecting hard copies of your final drafts for grading. Expect another written exam Week 16.
Have fun!
JBH
2017.11.08
This week we kept moving in Chapter 4, looking briefly at some discussion questions on Readings 2, 3, and 5 about describing places using sensory details. We also looked at some language exercises on pages 115-118.
For next week, please follow directions on pages 112 through 118 for revising and editing your essay. Please post your final draft in the class Canvas discussion area before class time and be ready to talk about the first couple readings in Chapter 5 when we meet next week.
See you in class!
JBH
2017.11.01
Today in class, we went over some common parts of student writing that might be improved. Some of these areas include formatting papers, creating titles, looking at common problems, and simply learning the dos and don’ts of writing in English.
We talked about the first reading in Chapter 4, “The Tree of My Secrets,” and did a practice exercise to absorb the sounds, smells, tastes and physical sensations of a place near the classroom for a few minutes to describe it using all the senses except vision. We talked about Task 4.2 and 4.1 with partners for a few minutes, looking at our writing and some student writing in the text for more ideas.
For next week, please write a first draft of the essay assignment by following instructions on page 111-112. Post your draft to the class Canvas discussion area before the class deadline (midnight Sunday) and use the peer response form on pages 120 and 121 to make thoughtful, helpful comments in Canvas to two classmates about their writing before we meet again.
When we meet next week, we will continue looking at readings and tasks in Chapter 4, working toward a final draft of the essay about a place. Continue reading and thinking about readings 1, 2, and 3 in the chapter, and add reading 5 to the list.
See you in class!
JBH
2017.10.18 (Week 8)
Hi class!
Good luck with your exams (including the one from our class).
Please continue reading the student writings and working through the tasks in Chapter 3 on your own this week, and go ahead to complete the Chapter 3 essay assignment on pages 77-87. Post your first draft of this essay on the class canvas page under the subject "Chapter 3 essay" before the early class deadline and use the peer response form to give helpful feedback to two classmates before regular class time next week (Oct. 25th).
Don't forget, you are being graded for your feedback to your classmates as well. It is part of your homework score. Please be sure to do more than write "very good," or, "I liked it," when reviewing your classmates' writing. You don't need to be harshly critical, but please do try to offer helpful suggestions for improvement.
Week 9 we will be meeting in brief one-on-one conferences to look over and talk about your best writing from chapters 2 and 3. Please be in the correct place and on time for your session and bring copies of both essays with you. A scan of the one-on-one schedule is posted below. You should have your best revised draft from Chapter 2 and a polished first draft from Chapter 3, as well as being ready to talk about specific problems and questions about your writing.
The following week (Nov. 1st), I’ll want you to turn in your finished products from both chapters for scores. Together with your exam essays, these will be evaluated to make up your quality points from the first half of the semester.
When we meet again as a class Nov. 1st, we will be moving on to Chapter 4. Please pre-read and be ready to discuss readings 1, 2, and 3 from this chapter before we meet on that day.
Thanks!
JBH
2017.10.11
In class, we got started looking at some of the readings and tasks in Chapter 3 in this first session after the looooooong holiday. We took a look at a story about an elegant Chinese grandmother who never let her dream of being an actress die, as well as a mother who showed her daughter what it means to be strong and free.
After class, please go over and thoroughly complete tasks 3.1 and 3.2 on pages 73 and 74 of the text. Please write up your observation from Task 3.2 and post it to the blog under the subject heading “People Watching.”
We will be writing an essay in class next week and I will give you instructions for continuing to work through the chapter and write a first draft for the following week.
See you in class!
JBH
Looking ahead toward 2017.10.11and beyond
We will be moving forward with Chapter 3 this week and cranking out another first draft, working toward a final draft the week after mid-term exams. We will also have a sit-down writing exam in this class.
We are a little behind in our writing, but I am planning to do one-on-one conferences Week 9 and students should have two drafts, one revised draft from chapter 2 and a rough draft from chapter 3 to talk about with me by then. I think I'll ask students to hand in the final drafts after that (week 10 or 11) and we will speed up a bit moving forward. I like to have four final drafts to grade for a semester, in addition to mid-term and final exam essays written under time constraints.
See you in class!
JBH
2017.09.27
These first five weeks of the semester, we have done several short writings and put them on the blog for feedback. Now it’s time to take our best writing and make a final draft to fulfill the requirements of the essay assignment in Chapter 2.
Choose the best start you have to help write the essay assignment in Chapter 2. Please incorporate any and all suggestions from feedback partners, what you’ve learned in class, and your own ideas to improve your writing and crank out a final draft during the week of Chuseok holidays. Be sure to review the suggestions from Chapter 2 about content and about editing your writing.
You should have your improved Chapter 2 revised draft posted to Canvas before class time week 7. We will be moving on in Chapter Three that week and getting ready for our mid-term exam Week 8.
See you in class!
JBH
2017.09.13
Today, we cleaned up all our problems from getting started with Canvas, making sure everyone had received an invitation to the class online discussion area. If you have not yet received an invitation, or are having trouble figuring out how to get started, please get with someone who can help, either a classmate or me. I am very available to help you get started.
We next made sure we had covered all the highlights of Chapter 1, which the instructor noted will be a good reference chapter throughout this class for help with brainstorming and writing techniques. Then we moved on to Chapter 2. There, we looked at a reading about a child’s experience in Hong Kong learning to cook rice and a student’s experience getting to be teacher for a day in the Dominican Republic. We talked about the discussion questions for each story and wrote a bit about them.
For next week, please use the brainstorming and freewriting on the stories we discussed in class to create a discussion post about your personal experience. In it, you can tell your discussion partners about a time in your childhood when you learned a news skill and how you felt about the accomplishment, an experience in your life when you felt both fear and excitement, or an experience when one of your dreams came true. Write at least 250 words about any one or all three of these topics by midnight Sunday and post your writing to the class discussion in Canvas. Before we meet next Wednesday, please respond to at least two classmates’ discussion posts with value-added comments (more than "I like what you wrote").
Along with this writing, please be sure to look at the other stories in Chapter 2. All of them are good, but we will probably be focusing on #4 and #5 in class. We will also move on to the chapter tasks, including memory chains and time chunks, and get started writing the first draft of the Chapter 2 essay assignment after next week. Feel free to look ahead and start brainstorming early.
See you in class!
JBH
2017.09.06
This week in class we started with a great “getting acquainted” session, mingling around as if we were at a cocktail party and asking each other interesting questions. Then we shifted to one-on-one conversations to look at the differences between the way we used spoken and written English with each other.
JBH collected email addresses from everyone in class and will email a link to our Canvas discussion site for this class soon.
When you get that link, please login ASAP (As Soon As Possible) and let everyone know you are in our online classroom too. You can do that by posting a brief intro of you that may use elements from what you have already written about yourself, but may also be something totally new and different.
When you write about yourself, please also include information from your freewriting and thoughts about the questions on pages 9-11to give us an idea how you feel about writing. In addition, please post a writeup about what you learned about your classmates from item two on page five of our textbook. So basically, you will be telling us about yourself, your attitudes about writing, and what you know about people in the class so far. The subject of this discussion post could be "first post" or "About Writing" or whatever you like that makes sense. I am exploring working with Canvas too, so we will see how things work when we meet next week.
See you in class!
JBH
2016.08.30
The first week's session consisted of introductions and a brief class outline.
The textbook for this course will be In Our Own Words: Student Writers at Work, 3rd Ed., by Rebecca Mlynarczyk and Steven Haber, Cambridge University Press. It is available in the HUFS bookstore.
Please pre-read and give some thought to all questions in the book in Part I, Starting Out, as soon as possible. Please be ready to discuss the interview questions in class on pages 4 and 5 and bring your typed answers to the survey on pages 24 and 25 when we meet again next week.
We will be talking about Unit 1 and how to write and share our work with classmates online when we meet again next week.
Thanks, and see you in class!
JBH
