APA format

Here are some introductory materials to help teach the APA format. The APA format is a standard format used in academic writing.

http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/resources/handouts_apa/Citing1.pdf

Introduction to cause and effect essay and paragraph writing

Here are a few videos that help teach writing about cause and effect.

This one is on how to write a cause and effect paragraph.

These are on how to write cause and effect essays. There are many others on the web as well, but they tend to be long.

Writing a Five Paragraph Essay

Here are some materials I've collected for help in learning to write five paragraph essays. I used these when teaching English 101 at the proprietary college.

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/minliu/pbl/ESOL/index.htm



https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/05/

good paragraphs

When teaching paragraph structure and writing, it is often a good idea to have some sample paragraphs that one can use as examples. Here are a few that I have found. For better or worse, the reading level of the paragraphs is not high. When I taught at the proprietary college, the students, although native English speakers in most cases, were often not able to read them well enough to understand them. And with English language learners, they also are quite likely to have difficulty in understanding the sentences. Nevertheless, here are a few good paragraphs written by a few of my favorite writers or media personalities.

GOOD PARAGRAPHS

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life—and travel—leaves marks on you.”

― Anthony Bourdain

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“I don't mind exercise but it's a private activity. Joggers should run in a wheel - like hamsters - because I don't want to look at them. And I really hate people who go on an airplane in jogging outfits. That's a major offense today, even bigger than Spandex bicycle pants. You see eighty-year-old women coming on the plane in jogging outfits for comfort. Well my comfort - my mental comfort - is completely ruined when I see them coming. You're on an airplane, not in your bedroom, so please! And I really hate walkathons: blocking traffic, people patting themselves on the back. The whole attitude offends me. They have this smug look on their faces as they hold you up in traffic so that they can give two cents to some charity.”

― John Waters

“You don’t need fashion designers when you are young. Have faith in your own bad taste. Buy the cheapest thing in your local thrift shop - the clothes that are freshly out of style with even the hippest people a few years older than you. Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents - that is the key to fashion leadership. Ill-fitting is always stylish. But be more creative - wear your clothes inside out, backward, upside down. Throw bleach in a load of colored laundry. Follow the exact opposite of the dry cleaning instructions inside the clothes that cost the most in your thrift shop. Don’t wear jewelry - stick Band-Aids on your wrists or make a necklace out of them. Wear Scotch tape on the side of your face like a bad face-lift attempt. Mismatch your shoes. Best yet, do as Mink Stole used to do: go to the thrift store the day after Halloween, when the children’s trick-or-treat costumes are on sale, buy one, and wear it as your uniform of defiance.”

― John Waters, Role Models

Philip K. Dick      

"Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing."

— Philip K. Dick

Seagal is looking wider and moving slower than ever, and part of the joy of his pictures these days is seeing how they will try to convince the audience that he is some sort of an action hero. Early on it looks like all the action will be vehicle related, driving jeeps around splashing in puddles or a hilarious scene where he commandeers a small plane to scare its pilot into giving him information. (The pilot says his nickname is Crash “because I never have” – like that’s something to brag about. Shouldn’t most pilots be nicknamed Crash then?) But hang in there because there are some fight scenes that really deliver the laughs. Seagal has apparently thrown out the girdle and lets it all hang for some of his most Dolemite-esque fights to date.

VERN --  http://outlawvern.com/2003/07/04/out-for-a-kill/

“I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.”

― Charles Bukowski

“We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

paraphrasing, quotation, and citation -an excellent video

Not much here to share, but the little I do have is quite good. At some point, it seems, most of my writing classes do get the opportunity to watch this video.

It's got one of the best explanations I've seen on how to teach students to write original work without plagiarizing while still using the necessary key words that are required to share the ideas in the source.

writing paragraphs

More than once I've been required to teach students, both ESL students and students at the proprietary college who lacked basic academic fundamentals.  Here are some of the resources I've found useful. 

This is a useful article and with a little bit of copy and paste and appropriate accreditation (giving credit where credit is due is always important) it can make a good hand out.

https://www.eslwriting.org/esl-writing-lessons-learn-english-writing-structure-a-paragraph/

FANBOYS and compound sentences

This is  fun video that teaches about compound sentences.

It also teaches the useful acronym FANBOYS

For
And
Nor
But
Or
Yet
So

This also teaches the FANBOYS acronym and compound sentences.

Grammar Rock --Conjunction Junction --same thing, different era.

writing good sentences

More than once I've been hired to teach writing to students who often needed help with the basics.

This is a collection of materials I've found on the basics of writing good sentences.

This second one is good too, but it's worth mentioning that Mark Roberts is Canadian and pronounces the word "pasta" differently than most Americans would. (We would say PAH-sta,  with an "a" like in "taco" but he says PA-sta with an "a" like in "cat.")

Sentence fragments are a big problem with many students, both foreign and native speakers.

Run on sentences are another big problem.

If you'd like to practice corrrecting sentences and check your understanding of grammar, here is a collection of sample quizzes and practice sheets you can use.

http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Sentence-Correction.htm



This video teaches types of sentences.

This is a video on how to write better sentences. It assumes a good command of grammar.

Not so great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpoZBnXHg3E

Teaching English 101 to low ability students: developing a research topic

Because students often did not attend class, and the text book was not appropriate to their reading level, I made an effort to provide the materials required in a way that the students could access them any time and any place they might wish. Fortunately youtube offers a wealth of such materials.

Since part of learning to do academic writing, or any sort of writing for that matter, is to choose an appropriate topic and develop it in an appropriate way, I devoted a class to that topic.

When it comes to research paper topics, there's a lot of fine materials out there and here are some of my favorities.

As with most writing topic, the Purdue Owl contains useful materials:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/658/03/

But youtube has many materials as well. 

Teaching English 101 to low ability student, Part Two: English Punctuation is Important

In my last post, I described how I had come to teach English 101 at a for-profit vocational college that specialized in taking first generation college adult, often minorities, often with low academic ability and poor academic background and motivation, and hooking them up with loans and then enrolling them in its programs. What I've been told is that people like these programs because they often feature good good hands-on training in skills needed for different vocations. Unfortunately English 101, despite my attempts to make it relevant to real life, really didn't fit that bill particularly when many of the students were at the end of their programs, thereby making English 101 nothing more than a requirement to finish the program.


STEP ONE --THE PLAN

So what did I do on the first class? First, I decide to emphasize that one important aspect of good writing is that it is clear in meaning and comprehensible.

And one key to making English writing comprehensible is to use proper punctuation. Therefore, I did some google searching and found some entertaining.

I am offering these here for the benefit of others.


Domestic Examples:

20 Images That Prove Grammar and Punctuation Are Important


A Humorous Look at The Importance of Punctuation

29 Photos That Prove Punctuation Is VERY Important



Foreign examples

31 Brilliant examples of Engrish fails...


There was also this example from the humorous website Engrish.com that deals with Japanese and Asian examples of badly used English.



Having used some examples of bad English produced by Asians, I decided to avoid or reduce the likelihood of charges of racism (or "culturalism"? or "Anglocentrism"? Although I admit it is problematic and potentially offensive when one makes fun of usage of one's own language by non-native speakers, it is not necessarilly "racist" by the strict definition of "racism" now is it? Just saying.) by providing some exampes of bad Asian language usage by Westerners.

The most common example of where we see this is in tattoos using (or misusing) Chinese characters (or weird squiggles that are supposed to be Chinese characters). Since this is a subject that has interested me for years, it was easy enough to throw these in.


Google Search on bad Chinese tattoo fails


These presentations were followed up with showing a Cambodian language pop music video and asking students to write about it and a homework assignment. Before the next class, the students were to find one example of good writing and one example of bad writing.


STEP TWO --ASSESSING HOW THE LESSON WENT

This is a bit more problematic, but, of course, just as important if not more important than the actual lesson itself. What I often found, must to my surprise, was that many of the students read at such a low level that they were not able to grasp the lesson.  In other words, their knowledge of punctuation was such that the students were often unable to tell if a sentence were ambivalent or not.

I'm not sure how this should have been dealt with.

The obvious two solutions were to either assign homework that would focus on remedial punctuation or begin class with a lesson on remedial punctuation.

However, neither of these solutions worked well because the students who needed it the most, did not arrive in class on time nor did they do homework.

A hard nosed approach of "Do your homework or I will fail you," was tried and the administration was quick to tell me that they did not approve of this approach. (This is a common criticism of for-profit schools. Student happiness and retention of return customers is valued over academic rigor or standards.)

Teaching low level, low motivation students is not easy. It's an area where I hope to improve and am making efforts to improve and develop my teaching skills.

An Introduction to Teaching English composition to low level adults -- My experiences.

In January of 2017, I was given the chance to teach English 101, Academic Writing and Research, at the local for-profit, vocational college. Although accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, this is one of those places that specializes in recruiting from often first generation, often minority, generally low academic level students who would not do well at other institutions, arranging for federal and other loans for them to enable them to complete their studies, and then running them through various programs focused on job and vocational training. The college also offers two year programs and, although English 101 is being phased out and replaced with a course oriented towards vocational and job needs than academic needs. 

At the time, however, not only did it exist, but it was a required course for some students who needed it to graduate in their programs. Curiously, unlike a normal college where students take English 101 first semester to develop the skills required to complete their studies and finish their program, at this school the majority of my students were in their last semester and had already completed the majority of their classes. This was particularly interesting as many of them showed serious academic deficits.  

At the last minute their previous English 101 instructor was unable or unwilling to continue and I was hired as a last minute replacement. In fact, they came to me, unsolicited, without my ever having applied to work at the school. 

Over the next few months, I found myself teaching academic writing to a small group of usually college age adults. There were ten students in the class, at the start, although one was later expelled, reducing the student load to nine. These students were all first college and their background proved a challenge to teaching. 

Over the next semester, I learned that in my class none of the students were aware of what a master's degree was, what a standardized test was, what the SAT's were, or who Steve Bannon, the controversial adviser to recently elected President Donald Trump, was. Nor, generally speaking, did they consider it abnormal or unusual that they didn't know these things, and generally had little interest in learning who or what they were.

Clearly, this was not the typical group of college students. And they had special challenges.

Most read at a low level. In many cases, they were not able to comprehend texts and newspaper articles unless given assistance, assistance they would often not ask for or seek out. It didn't help that the assigned textbook, as well as the verbiage on the syllabus, was far above their reading level, thus making the (quite expensive) textbook virtually useless for teaching. Although I can't discuss the exact rationale behind the inappropriate textbook or the syllabus, they both seemed to have been written for someone other than my students (and probably was). 

Why? It's difficult to say. Ability to use and write in standard English was also a challenge. One had a non-Western, South-West Asian language as his native language (he was also the hardest working and most studious student in the class.) Two others were Hispanic and although their English was at a high conversational level, I suspect one had problems stemming from his bilinguality. (To achieve in an academic setting, a student must be able to write and communicate at a sufficient level in the language of instruction, in this case English. This level is higher than that required for must mundane, day to day, workplace and social interactions. If a person has this level of ability in one language, for instance, most Chinese who come to the USA to study, they can often acquire it through education and study in a second language. With some bilingual students, they function at a non-academic level in two languages and then bringing them up to an academic level in either is a challenge that should ideally be addressed before placing them in a classroom. However in this case it had not been addressed.) The other attended class so rarely that I never did get a chance to really assess her English level thoroughly.  Another, although a native English speaker, spoke a "non-standard" Caribbean dialect of English as her native tongue,  

Which left six students who were native English speakers, but even these often showed problems. For instance, when I began my class with an assessment I like to use ( see: Assessing students writing through using Cambodian language pop music ) , two students, both White, native English speaking American women who spoke "working class English" turned in papers that included the line "Her and her friends were dancing." (as opposed to the more "standard"   "She and her friends were dancing.") 

For the next 15 weeks, each Wednesday for three hours I taught my class. Although I think my instincts were good, and I adjusted as time went on and I became more familiar with the expectations and restrictions of the administration and the abilities and level of motivations of the students, it was not an easy teaching assignment. 

To add to the challenges, while at most colleges English 101 -Academic Writing and Research is required in the initial semester or year so that the students develop an introduction to the skills that they will need to use to acquire their degree, in this case the course was being taken by many students near the end of their degree, students who expected to be entering fields where they would not need to do much academic research or writing, and who thus felt they had little practical need for the skills that were taught in the course.

Classes were often skipped, often attended late if at all, homework left undone, and the administration's approach to the problem was keep the students happy, do not confront them, and if they fail, well, they can take the class a second time --and be billed for it twice. 

Assessing Students Writing through Cambodian language pop music.

Often I find myself faced with a room full of students and the need to assess their ability to write. 

When that happens I have found this video a useful tool. I merely cue it up, ask the students to tell me, through writing, what they think the song and the video are about.

For those who are interested, the band is called Dengue Fever, and while heavily influenced by Cambodia pop music, a surprisingly interesting subject, they are, in fact, from southern California. The language of the song is Cambodian (Khmer) so unless you have someone fluent in Cambodian in your classroom, they will be forced to use their imagination. 

I have found this useful with both native and non-native English speaking students.

For more on the band Dengue Fever visit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcCel2BCLHg16GACc9IUWEA or http://denguefevermusic.com/