© Curtin University of Technology 2003 Essay writing has important skills development and educational functions. It allows you to develop and organise your thinking about key concepts and issues in the course you’re studying. All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanic, photocopying, recording or otherwise). without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this electronic resource. Recently a friend sent me a link to a website called UnemployedProfessors.com. I have written about services like this in an earlier blog post. This site is a regular paper mill, with a twist. That got me thinking, why do we have students write essays? Is it really because that’s how the system “spit us out” and now we are doing the same to our students? Well, for some instructors importance of traveling essay, there may be an element of truth there. Some academics and teachers think that things should be done the way they have always been done because that it the tradition. How would it change our students’ view of their assignments? I did a post a while back on the International Adult Literacy Skills Survey that showed that 2% of Canadian-born university graduates scored at the lowest levels of prose literacy. In other words, 2% of folks who are born in this country and who make it through University can barely identify or decode words and numbers. Most seven-year olds can do that. (Check out this post on what the literacy levels of IALSS are. ) If students’ minds aren’t expanding essay on love in romeo and juliet, we are not doing our job. Are your students writing as much as they should be? Classroom writing, done with willful focus and daily diligence, remains an essential part of educating students of all ages, including adults. Here are five reasons why classroom writing is still a must: Even a cursory search online will reveal a plethora of diary-like blogs, filled with entry after entry of highly personal content. In the same way that these blogs serve their authors, classroom writing can help students understand and make sense of their own experiences, locate contexts, and make (sometimes surprising) discoveries about their own thoughts and feelings. Author: Luiza Costa Ribeiro Learning to write well in college will not only help prepare you for the future, but will help you get more out of your college courses. Besides that, you’ll likely have learned to hone your revision and editing skills during your academic career. Sending out resumes, cover letters or emails that are not only well-expressed but demonstrate a mastery of grammar and are typo-free can make a big impression. As you learn to seriously apply these skills to your coursework, you’ll get more out of your classes. Though it may not seem like it at the time, academic life, for most, is finite. The more you can get out of your limited time where you have the luxury to explore thoughts and ideas in an academic environment, the longer the information and skills you’ve learned will stay with you after you graduate. “According to most corporate leaders, employees who are skilled in writing are the most likely to be promoted and the least likely to be outsourced or eliminated.” and “More than 90 percent of mid-career professionals recently cited the ‘need to write effectively’ as a skill of ‘great importance’ in their day-to-day work.” Invest in Your Collegiate Peace of Mind! In truth, possessing good writing skills brings enormous benefits. You don’t have to go into one of the “writerly” professions (novelist essay on good teacher, journalist, academic) in order to reap the benefits of this skill. Studies of corporations show that 80% of employees earning a salaried wage list writing as part of their job responsibility (California Writing Project, University of California). As you search for your niche in the professional world, you’ll be required to communicate about yourself in written form. Resumes, cover letters and email pitches are all written. If you’ve honed the skills to write in a way that’s dynamic, compelling and coherent, you’re a few steps ahead of the rest of the crowd. A well-written resume, even if the applicant’s experience is limited, has the ability to convey their intelligence and potential to employers. It might be helpful writing a formal outline for an essay, however, to document what you are doing “live” in your own blog – I can comment and help you there as well. That way others can see what you are doing and might be motivated to join in the fun and do it for their own kids in their own school. In any event, these things don’t get done unless one just starts doing them and moves ahead. I’m ready to help. My blog post is a response to this blog post by the same title. written by Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton, an educational leader, researcher, author, and professional speaker. When I saw the Twitter link for Dr. Eaton’s post, I must admit that I thought I’d find confirmation for my newfound disgruntlement with essays. Instead I found a defence for why we should make students write essays, a defence I have some concerns about. Regarding authentic assessment for the project, I created a “position description” for the team members – the tasks and responsibilities that they would have during the course of the project. They were assessed based on their performance against a rubric for each of these tasks. I believe I would add at least one more purpose of writing to your list 4) To inform. While it may be argued that informative writing such as newspaper or magazine articles, or text books inherently carry with them a desire to either persuade or entertain, I believe there are instances where writing/text creation can be primarily focused on the purpose of providing content. I’m wondering about the time commitment involved for this project, both preparation for the teacher and completion for the students. If I were to “create” projects that meet your recommendations for complexity, should I be putting this together during my time of in the summer and introducing the project right away in September? And find a dissertation topic, how much of my semester needs to be dedicated to student working though the project if we have daily 84 minute classes for approximately 20 weeks? A final question is about assessment. I’m wanting to move to a portfolio-style assessment that offers vebal/written comments as feedback rather than grades. It sounds like the Field Study would work well with this structure. Do you have any specific advice for this assessment context? 2) To argue an issue(s) and explain and persuade; A key thing to remember when you field a team: Make SURE you have a team captain who has a strong work ethic and who will shepherd the others through the project. Regarding the other members of the team human resource management research papers free, I would recommend that you use JUNIORS (i.e. 11th grade) so you have a strong bench for further Field Studies down the road. These kids can serve as your ‘team captains’ for those during their Senior years. Writing the proposal/conformation letter is consistent with the author’s Essay Writing Laws; the final report for a “Field Study” can be written in narrative form (following the author’s Essay Writing Laws), but in my opinion a presentation style report that focuses on simplicity – present the findings and a simple summary, present the conclusions and a simple summary, and present the recommendations and a simple summary. Oh my. I think it’s clear by now that I dislike the inauthenticity of essays, but that’s nothing compared to the abhorrence I harbour toward the inauthenticity and unfairness of standardized tests. For an inkling essay about heros, you can take a look here. Hopefully you’re still reading as I attempt to explain my position. First, individuals who are going to scream the statements above are focused primarily on marks. I’ll address that a bit more in a moment, but suffice it to say that students who do well on whatever you do in-class will still walk away from the course with a decent mark (and much better prepared for life) even if they do “poorly” on the diploma exam. Second, if we are going to argue that teaching an inauthentic essay format will prepare students for writing more authentic letters, reports, policies, etc. then the reverse should also be true–teaching those forms should result in students who can produce a great essay. Which would you rather your students be better practiced in: The type of writing they’ll need long-term or the type of writing that will temporarily benefit them? I choose the life-long skills. Third, many of our students aren’t even headed off to university and, consequentially, their need for amazing diploma exam marks is virtually non-existent. For those students who are headed to university and will need essay writing skills for four to eight more years, that’s where differentiation comes in and we teach the minor formatting differences after they are well-grounded in more authentic writing styles. This should satisfy those teachers who believe that the government and society as a whole have the right idea about education being about marks more than it is about students actually being involved in relevant learning. I do fully intend to ensure this happens example college essays that worked, but not because I’ll make students do it; it’ll be because they recognize the need to learn essay writing in order to jump through the hoops of an inauthentic and broken education system. Even with my grade 10’s student not doing homework letter, I’ve been diligent in pointing out the similarities and differences between proposals and essays to help prepare the ones who will need to know them. Adding the purpose “to inform” is excellent – I just didn’t think of it at the time! So, if the above quote seems to be Dr. Eaton’s main point, and I seem to agree with her reasoning, then what could I possibly have an issue with? My disagreement comes from Dr. Eaton’s statement that “We ask students to write papers so they can learn how to write.” My initial response to this is to echo another one of her own declarations: “But really, that’s not good enough.” Thanks for the nice words – and I’ll say again that I totally agree with what you are trying to do. I love a good debate. Thank you for providing invigorating food for thought on the subject. One might argue that a blog post such as yours is a kind of essay in and of itself. I personally found it well-written and clearly constructed. You yourself demonstrate exemplary writing qualities. Towards the end of her article, Dr. Eaton makes a statement that I agree with 100% and have begun to implement in my own teaching practice. She introduces the following quote by stating that we shouldn’t have students write essays just so they can get a grade, which, by the way, supports my comments above about grade-focused teachers. Instead, Dr. Eaton argues that school is about learning: Thus, the need to teach students how to write clearly is essential. On balance essay for business, I agree with the author’s arguments about essay writing. These are the skills that I try to teach. 3) A combination of entertainment and persuasion. I have another blog that gives a blueprint for a Field Study for a small school – it’s a project where students create a service learning internship program for their school. The blog address is: http://highschoolservicelearning.com . According to Aims Community College closing of a cover letter, writing is an important skill in almost every career field or industry because nearly all professions require some form of writing on the job. For example, physical therapists must write reports and document patient symptoms even though most of their job is hands-on. Daycare teachers must create lesson plans and communicate in writing with parents although most of their job consists of active play and verbal instruction.
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