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.
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.
Or there's a particualrly good collection of on-line HP Lovecraft writings at Project Gutenberg Australia. (Just scroll down to find him under the authors with the last name "L.")
We will also continue our discussion of pulp stories and early magazine stories with Leslie F Stones "Conquest of Gola" --this is in the book but if you wish to see the actual magazine it came in (with editorials and other stories, as well as fascinating ads, you may look here:
Finally, I'd be curious to get your take on the issue of Edgar Rice Burroughs and sexism or lack thereof.
There are ten and a half books in ERB's "Barsoom" (Mars) series, easily his most popular series after Tarzan and his most popular SF series.
This is the fourth one and dates from 1916. In the first three books, John Carter, a master swordsman and civil war veteran comes to Mars (Barsoom) through mysterious means where he discovers that due to the low gravity he has super strength. Skipping ahead, he makes friends with the savage four armed green martians who soon capture him and then rescues Dejah Thoris, a proud Barsoomian princess from a nation called Helium. They get married and have a son named Carthoris (should you wonder, Tarzan and Jane got married and had a son name Korak).
In this book, Carthoris, now an adult, meets Thuvia, a proud Martian princess who has the power to control the Martian lions called "Banths" and well . . . problems happen and he sets out to rescue her.
Just read as much as you want but please try to read at least the first scene of the book. (It starts much faster than the first three. I think in the first one, it takes a couple chapters before John Carter gets to Mars, chapters in which ERB carefully explains how he met John Carter and acquired the manuscript and in which John Carter explains how he wound up on Mars after going to Arizona where he was chased by Apaches into some mysterious ruins that transported him to the red planet.
Jules Verne 1828-1905 "Voyage Extroadinaire" / Extraordinary Voyages French adventure writer who enjoyed writing stories that include a technological wonder
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:
I recently had the chance to teach a non-credit class on science fiction at the local engineering school. Of course, I accepted. And, although we've only completed three weeks I am enjoying myself and so are the students, I think.
Class #1 was devoted to the question of "Can one define what science fiction is?" and "What is the first Science Fiction story?"
I don't claim it's a definitive answer, but I chose Mary Shelley's Frankinstein as my answer.
This entertaining and well done video includes much on that subject, although I prefer to stop the video at about the point roughly half way through where the SPOILERS on this classic novel (much different from the films) start:
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (as well as Pollidori's much forgotten but highly influential novel, "The Vampyre.") were written on a particularly wild weekend by a group of decadent Bohemians including Lord Byron, the poet, and Mary's husband Shelley, another decadent, wild poet.
I'd heard there was a movie based on this weekend and the events that occurred. To my surprise, I learned there were two. interestingly, they were made only two weeks apart. "Haunted Summer" and "Gothic" --interestingly I stumbled across a bizarre looking film called "Liztomania" that was also produced by Ken Russel, producer of "Gothic."
Although "Liztomania," had nothing but nothing to do with anything related to the class, save for some bizarre science fiction imagery, I showed it to the students and they seemed to enjoy it.
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.
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.
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.
Dear Abby -- The English (or busy and over-worked) English teacher's friend.
Advice columns such as Ann Landers or Dear Abby.
Show them to students, cover the answers, and ask them what they would do.
Very useful but you must read them in advance or you may find (to your surprise and shock) that they contain sexual situations or other situations that you do not wish to discuss in class.
Tomorrow is my advanced class at the William K Sanford library.
The subject will be on giving advice. I may try to tie the lesson in with the recent election debates. (Although if I do that then I guess I will have to actually watch at least part of the debates, something so far I have done successfully.) I suspect I shall suggest the students give advice to the candidates on how to act better in the debates.
Sample lesson plan
goal
Student will be better prepared to give
advice using modals.
Objective
Students will be able to make sentences
with the following modals used in both a positive and negative way.
1.Could / couldn’t
2.Should / shouldn’t
3.Must /mustn’t
Ice- breaker
Review
Introduce self to students
Tell the students I am here for a job
interview.
What should I do?
(NOTE THAT THIS IS INCORPORATED INTO
THE LECTURE)
Lecture / explanation
SEE NOTES
Exercise / practice
Pass out worksheet
Assessment
Look at worksheet
Possible Homework
???
Materials not covered that could be used for follow up,
review and expansion:
1. Unreal
conditionals (two great songs for this are “If I were a rich man” and “If I had
a million dollars.”)
2.Dear Abby
The lecture notes
Lecture –Giving Advice
1.Introduce the subject of giving
advice
Explain my problem –job interview
INTERACTION:
Explain I will need advice, but that comes later.
2.Ask them for examples of
problems.
INTERACTION: Write them on the board.
3.Introduce the constructions “should,”
“shouldn’t” and “should not.”
INTERACTION:
–PRONUNCIATION PRACTICE
Explain how to use them in a phrase or sentence.
Give some examples.
“if you are hungry, you ______________ eat.”
“if you are thirsty, you ______________ drink.”
“If you are tired, you ____________ sleep.”
AND THE
“If you are tired, you ______________ drive.”
“If you are angry, you ______________ speak.”
“if you are sad, you _____________ watch sad movies.”
LOOK AT THE EXAMPLES OF PROBLEMS
INTERACTION:
Discuss what people should and shouldn’t do.
IF TIME ALLOWS EXPLAIN “must” and “must not” and “could”
