I will be dark until Monday.

Now it looks as if Tonya has found a group to adopt her and help her get caught up, I can head out to go hiking with good conscious. I'm currently in Roanoke at the Roanoke Hotel, but I plan to go dark until Monday. If it's an emergency, then you may contact me through the hotel; otherwise, I will check respond the backlog of messages Monday and Tuesday.

Have a good Forth of July weekend.

Steve

One last student in need of a group.

There is one last student in need of adoption into a group--Tonya Goode, pinkybabiesx4@gmail.com. Same rules apply. Those who have already adopted should give others a chance. Those who do get five points for the adoption and another five points if you do what is necessary for Tonya to reintegrate with the group/class and succeed.

To adopt: contact Tonya and me to let us know of your decision to adopt and update the relevant information in the "Class List, ENG 111..." Google Doc.

Steve

Student Question: "How many of our grammar problems should we write about?"

Here's an edited version of my answer to this student's questions:

Each member of your group will write about their worst grammar issue. That is, just one. Feel free to write about others, that is, after you have focused your attention on your worst one, researched it, and written a process paper describing to someone else how to recognize and fix your problem. This gets folks focusing on one issue, learning how to research it, learning the issue well enough to fix it in their own writing and conquering it well enough to teach others how, and then they are ready to move on to their next worst issue, etc.

This is all part of the Kaizen method. You focus on one, high impact issue. You figure out and implement a solution. You make sure your solution works, and then you move on to the next problem. By focusing on one issue, you can bring all your energy and attention to bare on it, and each change you make allows you to make further improvements over time. Over time, the same changes accumulate to have great impact on how effectively your work and how good your resulting products can be.

The underlying assumption here is based on good research on how people incorporate change into their lives. Namely, people can make small changes and maintain these changes in their lives. When folks try to take on too much change all at once--a crash diet or going to the gym for an hour a day, for instance--they will have initial success, but they will not be able to maintain this success over the long haul. The habit they are trying to develop lapses, and they are back where they started. I'm trying to get folks to adopt habits for change which they can sustain.

Fix one small problem. Make the fix a habit. Figure out the next small problem to tackle, and move one. Gain reinforcement by watching the small changes accumulate. [By the way, this same approach works for getting yourself out of debt, loosing weight, learning to exercise, cleaning house, declutteriing, etc. et ect.]

Steve

FYI: Grammar and Usage Resources

By now, you know surface level errors--errors dealing with punctuation, spelling, and usage-- aren't as important as you were led to believe in high school. Yes, they matter; but, most audiences are willing to read through a reasonable number of surface level mistakes to get at your deep message. Having said this, there's a grammar Nazi in almost everyone.

This week, I'm helping to hire a new English professor at Reynolds. Last week, I read over sixty applications for the job. I shared my part of this reading with a computer instructor from the Business program, and I lost count of the number of times he said something like, "If they misspell X, do we want them teaching English?" I didn't go into my, pay-attention-to-what-they-are-saying, not-how-they-are-saying-it routine." Why? Because, to him as an audience, these issues matter.

You need to pay attention to surface level issues because you don't know when and to whom they will matter. You know they almost always matter in a job applications, where any difference in ability will help your audience weed the pile of applications down to the best of the bunch. You hope, when writing your significant other a love letter, your audience is paying attention to your deep level meaning and not your spelling. Think about getting a love letter back with zero comments on content and marked in red for grammar.

The truth is, there's no big secret to mastering grammar, and it isn't true that some folks are better at grammar than others. After all, a part Native kid from a mill town in North Carolina got a doctorate in English, and he still struggles with usage and grammar. Believe me, if I can master grammar well enough to major in English, anyone can. Even you. (Take that Ms. Robins--the 9th English teacher who said I'd never get through college English.) All such mastery takes is the right approach and right attitude.

Think Kaizen, that is, tackling your worst grammar problem, learning to recognize and fix it, and moving onto the next problem. This skill set is one you are learning this week. To help you, I thought I would refer you to some resources to help you with your research. You get Protestant Good Works points for any other useful resource to which you refer the class.

Don't say, "Uck! Grammar. That's boring." Life is full of boring tasks you do because it will help you look a tad less dumb, improve your ethos, and--in general--do better at difficult ongoing tasks like writing. Then again, I am not a grammar Nazi, nor am I a grammar nerd. My advice? Lose the attitude. It isn't helping. Mastering grammar (and writing and most anything) is just a matter of taking the bit into your teeth, realizing you have a long road ahead (look at the banner on the class blog), and getting on with the next step...

If you can, enjoy. If you can't enjoy, look at these links anyway, and think of England.

Steve


A list of common usage errors in English:

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html

"Five Common Mistakes That Make You Look Dumb":

http://www.copyblogger.com/5-common-mistakes-that-make-you-look-dumb/

The "Blog" of "Unnecessay" Quotation Marks:

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/


Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tricks to Improve Your Writing ("Yes, Virginia, there are grammar nerds."):

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

Purdue's Online Writing Lab's (OWL's) Handouts on Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/

The Rules of Comma Usage:

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/commas.asp

Two Additional Members in Need of a New Group.

In reviewing the class this week, I found a rather sad group of two, David Lacks and Markeysha Eleazer , valiantly struggling to complete assignments with little help from the remaining members of their group, who seem to have disappeared. Their group name says it all, that is, "In Need of Adoption." [By the way, if you are members of this group, are not David or Markeysha, and you plan to finish the course, you need to get in touch with my ASAP.]

As with Ashley's case, I am offering the groups who take in David and Markeysha five points extra credit on their final grades just for adopting them. If David and Markeysha and their new groups succeed in getting them caught up and their succeeding in the class, I'll tack on five more points of extra credit, for a total of one full letter grade. Both students are good students. They are much further along than was Ashley, who had folks who had to bail on her fairly early, and there's not much of a gamble in taking David and Markeysha on as group members.

Fine print: This offer is valid for only a limited time, and the Overachievers have already taken on Ashley, so they don't qualify for yet more credit. If a group takes in both David and Markeysha, they don't come with cumulative extra credit points, that is, you won't end up with two letter grades extra credit.

So? Do your classmates a needed favor. Improve your group's ethos with the professor. Heck, improve your ethos with the professor. Gain some extra points toward a higher grade, and improve your opportunities to learn. Get a higher class participation score. Adopt either David, Markeysha, or both.

Let me know which group(s) get(s) whom, and update your group contact information in the google doc, "Class List, ENG 111... ." Finally, let me know how I can help integrate these new members.

Steve

Work for Week of Monday, 7 July-Sunday, 13 July.

Get caught up. Review the reading and the work you have done to date. Complete any assignments you haven't done. Get ready for the last few weeks of class, when you will be bringing together everything you have learned, putting together a portfolio (on which most of your grade for the course will be based), and completing a research assignment. That's it. Oh, and have a good Forth of July.

I expect all the work to date to be in place by Sunday, 13 July, and I will assume you understand the concepts and skills we have covered.

Why the week for review?

I've spent a lot of this week reviewing where everyone is, how researching the process essay genre is going, and where folks are on writing their process paper on how to fix their worst grammar problem. Overall, folks are doing well, but I think you could do with a week of review, a somewhat slower pace, and making sure you know what we have already covered.

It is also the week of the 4th. I don't get "into" many holidays, but one of my specialty areas is Early American Literature. Over the years, I've developed a healthy respect for the just how unique our Declaration of Independence was.

You probably don't know it, but while Jefferson, et al were downstairs getting ready to put life, liberty and honor on the line, upstairs the Pennsylvania legislature was meeting. Folks from both bodies meet each other in the halls. The legislature had been charged with keeping the colony in the good stead with the British empire, so the two bodies had very, very different jobs. It is also important to recognize just how divided the colononies were. Most folks did not favor setting ourselves up as a new nation.

Moreover, when the men who signed the Declaration signed it, they had every reason to believe they were signing their death warrant for treason; more, they had every reason to believe that American would loose a war and they would be killed. France hadn't waded in on our side. The colonies were divided amongst themselves. Just read Patrick Henry's speech. The upshot is it took a great deal of courage to do the right thing, and they signed the Declaration not because they tought we would win but because they knew there was a right and wrong and the Crown was in the wrong. Such courage should be appreciated, celebrated, and remembered, and the 4th is a good time to renew your own commitment to individual liberty, reason, knowledge and to the work it takes to keep a democracy working.

If you don't know these stories or if you don't understand that perserving indivudal liberty and a nation devoted to reason and knowledge is hard, daily work, sign up for my ENG 241 course next Spring.

Do good work this coming week. Get caught up, and enter the rest of the class KNOWING you know the skills and knowledge set already covered.

Overview of the Week, Monday, 30 June-Sunday, 6 July.

This week we enter our sixth week of class. The semester is over half over, and we are into the last four weeks of class.

During the week, you will be working to improve your understanding of process. As you may remember, the writing process consists of five stages:

1. Prewriting
2. Drafting
3. Revision
4. Proofreading
5. Review

In our discussion of the writing process, we've been hitting each stage in a kind of modified reverse order, so this week you will be learning about drafting and taking your first steps toward learning about prewriting. Many student writers take these steps for granted. They honestly believe prewriting consists of "finding inspiration" (not true), and if they are inspired, they will be able to just sit down and write well (patently not true).

As you are finding, good writing is more a matter or revision than it is inspiration. If you don't take the time to revise that first draft, then your chances of it being successful go way, way down. Don't get me wrong, I'll take inspiration if it comes, but I can't count on it to magically appear when I need to write; so, I'm much more concerned with learning a writing process which allows me to write successful texts when needed rather than waiting for something as nebulous as inspiration to make an appearance. This is where learning how to pre-write, how to get started writing, and how to get my basic ideas down comes in. In other words, it is where pre-writing and drafting come in.

Pre-writing is the stage where you tackle all the chores you have to do prior to writing. You have practiced some of these. Your first pre-writing task is to do a rhetorical analysis, that is, figure out what you want to accomplish, who your audience is, and what your options are in terms of crafting your message. Think the three appeals, ethos, pathos, and logos. Think noise and how to overcome it.

This week, you will learn another prewriting trick writers use to make the task of writing easier, namely, deciding on which kind of writing will best fit their purpose and audience. You will also learn about different kinds of writing and how to write in new ones.

Along the way, you will learn the basic steps involved in research and--this in an important moment in your career as a writer--how to recognize, research, and fix your worst grammar problems. This last should help your proofreading skills impove.

You will also be reading some of the best advice I have found on how to overcome procrastination--one of the typical problems involved with drafting, that is, getting your ideas on paper the first time--and you will read some tips on how to practice being creative. All this is wrapped about and uses process based thinking and Kaizen.

If all goes well, by the end of the week, you will have taken significant strides toward becoming a writer who doesn't need a professor to help them write successfully.

As always, write with questions;

BUT, before writing with questions, review my post on how to read actively and read the blog using these techniques. Also, talk your questions over with your group, as the process of asking questions and discussing possible solutions helps everyone learn.

One of my friends made a relevate observation this week. He pointed out some of the habits you learn in school are counter productive in the workplace. The example he gave was that of a recently fired co-worker. It was an instructive moment for me. Why did the coworker get fired? She had developed the habit of looking to her boss to solve problems rather than solving them herself. After thinking it over, I suspect she had professors and teachers who fell down on the job of teaching her to be an independent thinker, worker, and learner. After all, the measure of a teachers success is just how much their students don't need him or her after a class.

Looking to a professor for help is a good idea, but only after you have exhausted your own resources for learning. After all, I am here to help you learn. If I didn't love the job and seeing students learn, I would be doing something else; so, I like being what students sometimes refer to as "bothered." However, in the workforce, usually you don't want to bother your boss with problems for which you can find a solution. Paradoxically, it follows that helping you learn to find your own solutions, rather than providing them for you, is part of what I should be teaching.

Of course, I have known this for a while. Watching a student fail is always difficult. It is like watching a poorly played game of chess. You want to reach in and make the move which will ensure a win, not watch a friend loose. However, loss is an essential aspect of learning. It is when a door opens and a place and reason to learn make their magical appearance. If all goes well, it is where students fall in love with learning. Watching a student fail, learn from the failure, and learn to see struggling as a door to further leaning makes any difficulty I or a student has watching the process moot.

Stuggle on. The end is in sight.

Steve

FYI: A Resource Post: How to Be Creative

Many students feel that they aren't good at English, mostly because they have trouble coming up with ideas, that is, being creative. Having to create along with procrastination are the two major choke points in both prewriting and drafting. But disciplining yourself to write when you need to and being creative can be taught and learned. Anyone who makes it into college can pick up both skill sets.

Creativity, like most of writing, is not about talent; it is about picking up a set of attitudes and techniques which, once practiced, will help you grow the ability to be creative. An article passed my desk recently which uses a martial arts metaphor to capture these ideas. It includes a set of techniques, attitudes, and habits you can use to make yourself more creative.

Follow the link:

http://eventurebiz.com/blog/8-ways-to-train-yourself-to-be-creative/

FYI: A Resource Post: How to Deal with Procrastination:

www.stop-procrastination.org

A student shared this link to a blog on how to stop procrastination. Know that the blog is selling a system to stop procrastination; but, still, there's a log of useful information on the site with is free for the reading. Here's the link:

www.stop-procrastination.org

Reading for the Week: Notes on Procrastination

When I talk to the class about the drafting process, I usually include a discussion about procrastination.

Why? When I talk to my students and ask them to identify their worst writing problems, procrastination and getting started are usually at the top of their list. This semester, I thought I'd include three links with good articles on procrastination along with my current top ten ways of dealing with procrastination. You'll find these links at the bottom of the post.

Now, my current set of notes on procrastination:

Procrastination is a problem with which I've struggled for years, mostly out of fear. The task seems too large. I worry I'm not good enough. I worry I'll be judged lacking. The task isn't well enough defined. You get the idea. You've been there. Chances are, if you don't learn to deal with the habit of procrastination, you'll be there again.

Over the years, I've found a host of advice and a few tricks which have helped me. As you read through the ten rules which help me, read one, stop, think about it, read it again, and move on to the next.

1) Take control. One of the worst aspects of procrastination is that one feels out of control. You know you have a task to do. You know your life would be better for doing the task. It seems irrational you'd avoid doing it. You must recognize that not doing something is a choice. You choose to not. That's OK. It's your choice, but go into the decision with your eyes wide open. Allow yourself time to articulate all the consequences of your choice not to do. Examine your choice rationally. Don't avoid this examination. Then, if you still decide not to do, OK. You've made that choice. Live with it as your choice. Chances are, however, the articulation will add that extra bit of umph you'll need to find the motivation to do.

2) Find motivation. One productivity coach argues the only problem with procrastinators is they're under motivated. There are all kinds of ways to find motivation. Try visualizing in as much detail as possible a scene where you've done the dreaded task and succeeded with it. Envision the results. Envision success. Try to stay away from dwelling on the negative consequences of not doing. Concentrating on them will trap you into feeling more anxious and frustrated, two feelings which we avoid by procrastination; so, you'll might find yourself procrastinating on finding the motivation to succeed.

3) Deal with stress. There's more advice out there with dealing with stress than most any other subject. Truth is, up to a point, stress and anxiety are your friends. They're one aspect of your motivation. Learning to embrace the increased feeling of stress which comes from starting or anticipating starting a project is a major step in overcoming procrastination. Past a certain point, however, stress and anxiety become part of the pattern of procrastination. You avoid the stress and anxiety associated with a task by distracting yourself with more enjoyable behaviors. Indeed, one way of thinking about procrastination is as delaying a stress inducing task by substituting more pleasurable tasks which temporarily reduce stress. Note the word temporarily. To deal with stress, you've got to establish good habits. You must exercise. You must get enough sleep. The best method I've found, however, is to meditate. I meditate on the task at hand. I meditate on what it would feel like to succeed. I remember in detail past successes and project them into my visualization of my success doing the task at hand. I also have learned the habit of every day meditation. Now just looking inward, shifting my posture, and breathing correctly eases stress. To get to this point, however, you've got to meditate daily, so you can learn to associate on a deep level certain ways of breathing, thinking, and posture with calm. Another trick is to meditate walking, step-by-step to a place where you feel comfortable and mentally settling down there. My mental, stress reducing walk is one in the mountains where I grew up. It ends at at a waterfall. Each step takes me deeper into the woods. With every mental step, I can feel a little of life's weight dropping off. When I settle down at the waterfall, I am at peace.

4) Learn your triggers. There's something(S) causing your procrastination. It might be you learned to rebel by not doing; and, paradoxically, you're not doing gave you a sense of control. You might have certain fears which trigger avoidance. Learn to recognize the behaviors you use to avoid and procrastinate, and use these as an index to the things which cause you to procrastinate. Once you learn what triggers avoidance, you can think about your triggers from a more objective distance and plan how you'll react to them rather than reacting with knee-jerk avoidance.

5) Do a little bit. Identify one physical action which will bring your task closer to completion. Sit down at the computer. Open the word processor. You get the idea. The trick is to make sure you identify a single, physical act. You can't "write a paper." You can spend 15 minutes brainstorming or free-writing.
You must then give yourself permission to do your one task. Then identify the next task. Rinse. Repeat. Often just getting a little momentum will make the dreaded task less stressful, give you a small success on which to build, and help you motivate yourself.
Another trick is to use a timer program. You can download them from the web. Set your timer for 5, 10, or 15 minutes. Give yourself permission to just work till your timer runs out. Often, just getting started with those few minutes is enough to overcome the worst of the initial, anticipatory fear--the stress inducing fear which you procrastinate to avoid If the first few minutes weren't all that bad, set the timer again. Rinse. Repeat. If the first few minutes prove too much, then all you've lost is doing so many minutes of the work you know you need to do anyway.
Don't do too much. Most productivity coaches recommend moving your timer up to a routine of 48 minutes working with a 12 minute break following. There's good psychology behind the 48 minute mark. It's why many classes are divided into 50 minute sections.

6) Do the dreaded task first thing in the morning. I have an established morning routine. I get up with Nance. We get a bath. We go for a walk. We fix breakfast and eat it. We give each other seven lucky kisses, and she goes to work. I start my morning with the mediation I discussed above. I then do the dreaded task. Productivity coaches call this doing the worst chore first, eating one frog each day. Once you've eaten your personal, daily frog, everything else is easier. Seriously, before I do anything else, before I allow myself to get distracted, I set my timer for 48 minutes, and I work on the task I want to put off the most. I identify this task the evening before, and I've meditated on the task and it's success. Usually, I can then make progress.

7) Sprint. Not the telephone company, sprint though your dreaded task. Once you learn the 48 minute rule, you give yourself permission (just like your 5, 10, or 15 minute sessions) to do as much as you can in that 48 minutes, then quit. Often, however, you'll find that first 48 minute sprint gives you enough momentum you'll want to keep going.

8) Reward yourself, but be careful. If you've worked for the 48 minutes, give yourself a little reward. You'll have to figure out your system of rewards. Maybe it's a cup of tea or a brownie. I don't know. I do know you don't want to reward yourself with one of your avoidance behaviors. It's then too easy to quit and fall back on bad habits.
Don't forget to give yourself the big rewards. If you manage to complete the dreaded task on which you've tended to procrastinate, reward yourself. Take a day off. You then deserve the reward. Those rewards, both big and little, are part of the ammunition you can use when you visualize success, and they're part of the motivation you can use to get started and to keep going.

9) Don't try to be perfect. You aren't. Remember Kaizen? It's about picking the lowest fruit and then learning to pick the higher. It's about getting some reward with each effort. If you don't do because you want what's done to be perfect, you'll never do. Learn this lesson. Do a good enough job, and if you have time, polish it into a better one. You want the success of getting a job done which does well enough. You can then spend time working out a better production process so the next job will be better. If you keep up with the plan, sooner rather than later, you'll find yourself producing a pretty damn good product. It still won't be perfect. The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to the world we share, but your products will do the work you want them to do. Usually.

10) Make mistakes joyfully. Remember my earlier post. Learning to embrace the opportunity a failure offers is a major step toward dealing with the stress and anxiety which causes you to procrastinate. OK, so the product you produced didn't meet standards. It didn't reach your goals for it. What didn't you do that you should? The only way to test a product is by giving it a chance to be used and judged in the field. If it fails, learn why. Alter your process for the next time. The only sure way to fail is to give up and rest on your failures.

Here's a freebie: overcoming the habit of procrastination is a long term process. You picked up the habit of procrastination over a lifetime. Learning to overcome the habit won't happen in a day. It's a process. Work on one aspect of your problem at a time. Focus on the successes as they build up. Embrace your failures as another opportunity for success. Give yourself the time you need, and take the time. When you slip up, get back on the horse and give yourself credit for the ground you've covered.

Enough lecture. Here are three articles on procrastination and tricks for making yourself write. They can give you a other perspectives. Read them. If I can help, make an appointment and we'll talk.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20060324-000001.html

http://webhome.idirect.com/~readon/procrast.html

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/strategies.html

NB In reading back through my notes, I realized just how many of them were taken from Zen Habits, one of the few blogs I read every day. Lifehack is another.

Reading for the Week: Notes on Drafting...

I love it when someone has already written an article I need to write. Low and behold, Lifehack--one of my favorite blogs for writing tips to share with students--recently completed a post on tricks to help you get started writing. They're talking mostly about drafting, and getting started is often the most difficult step in writing.

Add in the fact I have you drafting a process paper this week, and ...Find the article here:

Lifehack's Post on Tricks to Get Your Writing Started

Reading for the Week...A Self Assessment with Comments.

In reading a student's self assessment, I realized how representative it is of many students, and how much of what I was saying to might benefit other students. The student in question was kind enough to agree my sharing her assessment with my comments here. Find the combination below. My comments are in red.

Professor Brandon,

This is my second self assessment to you. I could not retrieve my first due to computer error, so I please ask for your understanding that this one unfortunately does not have the thought and time in it that my first did. I would like to start my assessment by going over the techniques and ideas that I have learned in this class. The first and most important after this unfortunate incident would have to be the use and benefits of using gmail and google docs. Gmail has proven to be the most sufficient and user friendly email available to students of a distant learning course. The amount of information that is able to be stored and retrieved is wonderful and very helpful. Google docs has also proven to be a wise choice for the storage and formatting of writings and presentations. I have found it fairly easy to use, and the options of things to do (i.e the different formats, power point, ways of sharing) seem to be endless, i find a new tool every time I use. Another general trick I have learned from this class and your writings, is to read EVERYTHING. I have always been a skimmer. I can usually read through an entire page on only a handful of sentences and key words. Your documents have proven my method of reading to be highly ineffective. In the length of my college work and my career in life, I'm sure I will thank you for this eye-opener, eventually. [You will. Just as there are different kinds of writing to accomplish different things--memos, emails, poetry, novels, newspaper ads, etc.; and, you pick which method to use based on your audience, your goal, and your message, there are different ways of reading. Skimming works well in many circumstances, but there are times when you've got to milk a text for every bit of information and nuance. Knowing how to read actively and intensively will help you in college and in your profession, as most college texts are written for intensive reading as are most professional journals.] As far as course material goes, I have had that which stumped me and that which interested me. With our first two reading assignments on ethos, pathos, and logos, I found myself reading the material two or three times. I also found myself reading over my notes during almost all my writings on rhetorical situations. These components were very new to me, and I had my difficulty in understanding and differentiating them. I feel I know how to read a situation, as far as if its from a factual point of view or an emotional point of view, but learning how to break them down was much different. I often found myself caught between whether something was ethos or pathos, or both. These two, in my point of view, seem very connected in a way, and not until after much reading and practice, was I able to get a better understanding of the differences. [Often, the various appeals are interconnected. For instance, emotions (pathos) and how you are made to feel about an author plays a large role in the credibility (ethos) they have. How one presents ideas and the quality of the ideas you present (logos) also has much to do with how much credibility (ethos) an audience is willing to give to you.] I will say though, I feel with each rhetorical situation I write about, breaking it down into components and analyzing the messages gets a little easier, which I guess is a step in the right direction. [AND, this is how you are supposed to learn, that is, one step at a time, learning a little bit more about how to apply new knowledge and new skills with each step.] I have also become a little more confident in my writings with my other courses, and have learned to not only perceive what I write from my point of view but that of my audiences' (usually the professor) point of view as well. [Just remember, while I will give you a grade, and because of this, I am an important audience in the rhetorical situation of this course, you are learning to write for real audiences, and writing a successful message for a real audience is very different than writing one for teachers.] Next, I believe, came the critiques of our classmates writings. I am not a person who criticizes much or very well. I feel I don't have the room to criticize if I am unsure of the information myself. I found this assignment somewhat out of character for me, but with the reading of others opinions, I blended [is this the precise word you want?] in to the idea. The forming and group work I have actually grown to love. I always considered myself to be one who works better alone, but I found it has been nice to have a group of my peers to turn to in quest for help and in general to even out the workload. Our final assignments have been in proofreading, and this without a doubt I have enjoyed, and probably learned the greatest from. I have always been one to rely on spell check and nothing else. However, with the different techniques you gave us I find myself proofreading everything. I have tried all of them and found my favorite, and most effective for me, to be reading backwards through the sentences. I was amazed with the first paper I proof read this way, and the amount of mistakes I found. I have also come to rely on the reading aloud method. I don't read to others, but to myself, which I find to be very useful, not only for proofing but also to train my ears with visual recognition on the proper text and usage in writing. [Students who respond well to reading out loud often see even more if they get the text read to them. For this, you can use a text to speech program or get someone to read your writing back. The advantage of a text to speech program is that you can have it with you anywhere, and with earphones, no one will know you are proofreading. Here's a link to many free, online text to speech converters: http://www.laits.utexas.edu/hebrew/personal/tts/table.html.] Being half way through this course, I feel comfortable in my learning's but far from safe, which in my eyes is gonna make be a better learner in the long run.

When it comes to assessing myself on how I am doing in your class, I tend to be a little more hazy. I enjoy your class because not everything is sealed and stamped with an A,B,C,D, or F, but at the same time, I dislike your method because nothing is sealed and stamped with a grade. I understand the work we do in this class is all a work in progress but I am a student who learns by knowing what I am excelling in and what I need vast improvement in, and I don't get that in your class. I am confident in myself that I have put every effort into understanding and executing all the different techniques and readings that you have given to us. However, I feel snowed sometimes with trying to grasp a new technique and put it into action all in a weeks time. [In part, this is a product of the course design. In order to free students from worrying about grades and to get the idea that one must revise to produce a successful text, I do away with grades, which allow a students to stop worrying if their work is good enough to stop revising. Without a grade, the limiting factor in learning to polish and revise is how a student feels about the quality of their work. Since one of the things I'm charged with teaching is the chore of teaching students to learn to judge the quality of their own communication and to revise it to the goals they have for a message, giving a grade actually subverts the learning outcomes students need to learn. Complicating all this is how students prior to college are trained to look at the teacher/student relationship, namely, as one where the teacher is the ultimate authority. In fact, the institution is set up to promote this view. However, one of my other jobs is to teach students to look to themselves as author(ity)s, when it comes to their own writing, not at the professor. All this learning comes at the cost to the student of the reassurance which comes from being able to be reassured that all is well. All in all, I've found it a trade off with which I can live. Then again, I'm not the student worried about their grade. To reassure you, return to what I said in the syllabus. I am what is known in the trade as an easy grader. Struggle with the ideas. Don't try to just get by or to force the learning into as little time as possible, do the work and--as you have in this assessment--show me you have learned, and you will get a high grade; because, when all is said in done, I'm in the business to promote your learning, not to judge your learning harshly.] I feel a personal best of my writing at this point. I believe my writings have been well written and contained thorough information, evidence, and opinion. My downfall is I tend to always question whether the information, evidence, and opinion I am providing is right. [Learning to trust and have confidence in your voice as a writer and judgment as a professional is one of the hardest lessons of lift, must less your freshman year.] I have trouble asking questions and admitting my doubts about assignments, but I have gotten to realize that asking questions and putting my doubts out there is probably the best way to pass this class. [You are right.] So, in that respect, I am going to try to put my thoughts and fears out in the open more in hopes of coming to a comfortable understanding of our assignments and weekly readings. I believe I stated in my introduction that English and writing has never been the subject I excel in, and I thought with taking this class I could prove myself wrong and hopefully surprise myself, but I don't feel as if I have done that so far. I have taken my learning in this class with me to my other classes and used them it [learning is something called a "mass noun," like a herd of cows. We treat mass nouns as if they were singular, even though they refer to a group or mass. It's one of the quirks of English. In any event, since the pronoun must agree with the noun to which it refers, "them" doesn't go with "learning." "It" does.] quite well. This little step helps me to know that I am succeeding somewhat from this course. In overview, I feel I stand in middle ground at this point and that is not where I am comfortable being; so it's up to me to change that, and that's what I hope to do from this point on.

--As always, write with questions.

Steve

Extra Credit: Classmate in need of a new group.

As will sometimes happen in a summer class, one of your classmates, Aheley Cousins, seems to have found herself orphaned and in need a a new group. I vouch for the fact that she is a hard worker and will do what she needs to do to succeed, but the other members of her first group seem to have dropped out of the class. This happens in summer classes--especially online classes, as they are more intense than regular semester classes. If the members of her original group do plan on finishing the semester, they need to get in touch with me ASAP.

If your group adopts her and accepts the extra work load of helping her get caught up, I will add half a letter grade, that's five points, to each group member's final grade. You will get the extra points regardless of wheather Ashley gets caught up or not. If she does get caught up, and you help her succeed in the class, then I will will add 10 full points to your final letter grade. This last is the difference between a "B" and a "C" or an "A" and a "B."

Contact Ashley Cousins to welcome your new group member. She will make the decision about which group to join, but you should update your group information on the "ENG 111, Class List" google doc, and please email me to let me make a note of the change.

Steve

Writing Assignment Two, Week of Monday, 30 June-Sunday, 6 July.

Researching Your Worst Grammar Issue

Over the past few weeks, you've had a chance to get familiar with your personal grammar error list. This week, you are going to learn what to do about them. As always, my advice is based on process and Kaizen. You gain control over grammar the same way you gain control over other aspects of writing or, for that matter, over your life. You:

1) Identify a problem which you want to fix. Personally, the problems I pick to work on next are the ones which will have the highest impact for the least amount of my effort.
2) You research the problem to figure out how others deal with it successfully.
3) You find a working solution, that is, a solution you think is worth trying out.
4) You implement this solution and practice it.
5) You review/assess the results.
6) Once you are satisfied, you identify the next problem on which to work. Rinse, repeat, and let the little fixes accumulate.

Over time, using a combination of this technique and better proofreading, you will have fewer and fewer grammar issues about which you need to worry. This won't happen overnight, but if you practice, it will happen.

This week's writing assignment has you learning how to research and fix your worst grammar problem. It is based on the truth that, if you know a topic well enough to teach another person, you have learned your topic. In this assignment, you are also going to draft a process paper in which you teach someone else how to recognize and fix your worst grammar problem in their writing. (If you don't know what a process paper is, you will learn in the first writing assignment for the week.) For examples to illustrate the process of recognizing and fixing the problem you discuss, you will pull from the drafts you have written this semester.

Here's what you do:

1) Go back through the work your group mates have proofread for you. Look at your personal error list. Talk to your group mates. Through this process, you are to determine your most annoying or significant grammar problem. This is the grammar problem about which you are going to write.
2) Google the question of how to recognize and fix the problem on which you are working.
3) Read at least five of sites you find which offer advice on your problem. Take notes. Make sure to record where you found which advice. Here, you are looking for effective advice on how to recognize and fix your problem.
4) Summarize the advice you found most useful in the form of a process paper. In this paper, you should explain how to recognize and fix your problem. Base your advice on that you uncovered in your research. Make sure it is effective by trying it out in your own writing. That is, proofread looking for your error using the advice you found on how to recognize it. This advice might be as simple as, "this is the problem..." If the advice allows you to recognize a problem you had once not noticed, assume it is worth passing along. Next, offer step by step instructions on how to recognize and fix the problem. Use examples from your own writing as illustrations.
5) Finally, document where your advice came from--footnotes work well for this last, and include a set of links in your paper to the sites you found most useful. Taking notes about where you found what advice will allow you to document the sources of your advice and to avoid plagiarism.
6) Create your process paper in google docs, and share it with me and your group.

(Note: You will be revising this paper for style next week, so don't get caught up in revising your document for anything but content and clarity.)

Now, sit back an pat yourself on the back. Not only have you learned a new genre--the process paper--and crafted a draft of a potentially successful message in this genre, you have learned how to recognize, research and fix grammar problems without needing a teacher. Apply what you have learned. Practice it. Give yourself permission to improve over time, and eventually you will no longer need to worry about grammar.

Steve

First Writing Assignment, Week of Monday, 30 June-Sunday, 6 July

Researching a Genre:

In previous posts, you've heard me discuss the idea of a "genre of writing." Genres are kinds or types of writing. When an author writes, she has to decide what kind of writing she will use to craft her message. Will she craft her message as a poem, as a term paper, or as a memo, etc. When she is making this decision, she is picking the right kind of tool for goal she wants to accomplish. For instance, think about how successful a typical job application crafted as poetry would prove.

To craft a successful job application for most American jobs, an author has to understand how to read the genre of the job advertisement and how to craft successful cover letters and resumes or CVs. Without an extensive knowledge of the genres in which she is expected to work, a writer cannot craft successful messages, and it doesn't matter if she is an effective author in another genre. If your audience expects a memo, a well crafted love letter or a short story just won't cut it.

The upshot is good authors are always learning all they can about different kinds of genres. How? In part, they learn through experience. In part, they learn through observing successful writing of others in the genre; and, in part, they learn through research. In part, they learn through classes like this one. Whether you realized it or not, I have had you practicing the first two techniques of how to learn a new genre of writing.

Think about it. Did you know how to write a decent rhetorical analysis before this class? I rarely have a student who can answer, "yes," to this question. How did you learn how to write a rhetorical analysis? I taught you the basic questions you needed to answer in such an analysis. You learned by practicing the genre on your own, and you have learned by looking at the work of others in the genre and helping them to better craft their writing, that is, you learned by working with other authors. Finally, you learned to take the best practices of successful work, to analyze them, and to incorporate them into your own writing. Think about the rhetorical analysis you did on the successful writing of others in the class. In fact, much of the work I have had you do this semester is connected to learning how to learn from helping, reading, and working with other authors. These are skills you can use anytime you need to learn a new genre of writing.

This writing assignment deals with the last piece of puzzle, namely, how to research a genre and figure out how to write in it. Using the Internet, such research is a snap. For instance, this week, you'll be drafting something called a process paper.

1. Google "process paper" or "writing a good process paper" now. Poke around in the various ices of advice you are given on several sites. Look for patterns in this advice. If you see the same piece of advice in several of the sites, then chances are, it is decent and accepted best practice. Take notes, and make sure to save a record of which sites gave you which piece of good advice.
2) As you poke around, look for the basic questions a process paper needs to answer. See if you can find a few examples of a successful process paper. Again, take notes, and make sure to save a record of which sites gave you which pieces of information.
3) Someone in your group (maybe you) should set up a google document for your group. In it: a) each member should summarize the advice on writing a good process paper they found; b) you should share links to good sites you found on the subject; and, c) share links to a few good examples for a good process paper. In your document, make sure to document which pieces of advice came from which sites.
3. As your discussion in the google doc evolves, see if you can come up with a group consensus concerning the format, basic structure, and information a process paper should include.
4. Write down this consensus at the top of your document under the section heading: "A Good Process Paper Should:"

Congratulations, you just learned how to research a new genre of writing. You are one step closer to becoming a better writer, and you no longer need a professor to teach you best practices for things like: how to write a good research paper or how to write a good biology lab report. You can research them on your own.

You also just learned how to do basic research. Think about it. You just found a set of answers to a question. You when through these answers looking for patterns. You evaluated the answers you found. You took notes on the answers and where you found them. You shared your findings with your group. You had a discussion about the findings of others, and you recorded these findings coming to a group consensus. This is exactly what professionals do with they research a question.

Steve

PS (Post Script): By the way, when students here the word, "research." They tend to freak out. They shouldn't. Research is nothing more than having the tools necessary to answer a question for which you don't know the answer. Sometimes research--finding the right answer or solution--requires error and trail. Sometimes it requires going to the community and seeing what they have to say. You do this via the Internet, reading, or learning to use the library, or, most often, just asking. Sometimes, research requires systematic experimentation, and you learn these techniques in science classes.

In any event, while you may not be familiar with *every* technique used for *every* kind of research, research is something you already do every day. You learn to research well the same way you learn to write well. Think "Kaizen." Think "process." You take the techniques you already know, you use them because they work. Then you learn one or two new techniques, and over time you add to these new techniques and refine them for how you work. That's it--the secret of all professional researchers.

Don't waste your time being afraid of research; instead, take each new research assignment or task as what it is, a chance to improve what you know about how to research.

Why is this worth the trouble? You have heard the expression, "Knowledge is power." How do you acquire power and control over your life? You learn to learn. You learn to how to find answers to critical questions for your self, so you don't have to pay someone else or so you can just live a better life based on better information. In short, you learn to research. If you don't know how to do research, you will remain essentially powerless. So? Don't freak out. Learn to do the research.