Richard Straub's Document 'Transforming Students Into Professors'

Many students have struggled with essays for their English class. They have difficulties due to many issues, the least of which are poor writing skills. Each person has their own area of writing which gives them the most trouble. If this lack of skill is not addressed then a student can be certain that his or her grade will fall. Personally, I have the most difficulty with conclusions, transitions, and comma usage. To address these issues I conducted research and found three effective sources; The Little seagull Handbook, Smart-words.org, and grammar.ccc.commnet.edu. These three sources assisted me in improving each of my three skills, which I struggle with.

On February 22, 2016 author John Warner published an article on Just Visiting entitled “Kill the 5-Paragraph Essay.” Warner creatively talks about how rudimentary of a structure this type of essay holds. Writers are locked inside a cage of regulations and guidelines making them unable to write the essay as they please, but rather having to piece together regulated sentences and paragraphs because that’s what they have been told would score high on certain test questions. The article targets people of all kinds, but is more directed towards early college aged students. The purpose behind this article is to get them to expand their horizon, disregard all the regulations they have been previously taught and start to write in a much more open-minded sense.

Teaching the process of a five-paragraph essay seems to be a popular strategy when it comes to teaching new writers; however, not everyone agrees that five-paragraph essays are the best way to go about introducing the writing process. John Warner, author of “Kill the 5-Paragraph Essay” believes the process gives writers little freedom and is a “tool for the worst of teachers to hide amongst the good.” On the other hand, Kerri Smith, author of “In the Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay” claims “students who know the five-paragraph essay intimately are more prepared to take on the challenge of college-level writing.” Both first-year composition professors make great arguments; however, Warner’s article seems to argue his point effectively.

I observed Dr. Jenny Crisp’s English 98 class on January 19, 2016. The class began at 12:15 PM and lasted until 1:20 PM. The room that the class met in was on the third floor of the Liberal Arts building, and the room had individual computers for each of the students to work on. The class was divided into two sections on this day because Dr. Crisp had scheduled an introductory visit to the writing lab, which began at 12:45. Prior to the visit to the writing lab, Dr. Crisp guided the class in a discussion on the topic of revision in regards to the first paper that the class had submitted. The stages of revision were discussed and the students were shown where additional help could be found within the book. Dr. Crisp told the students that the reason that their grades on the essays were significantly lower was because the essays were lacking in detail and had Type One errors. She stated that revision is important and that could help bring up the grades on the essays.

Every student knows that feeling when your English teacher tells you write an essay, and your mind just blanks. This continues to spiral downwards until the due date arrives, leaving you sobbing quietly at your blank document. This problem has been plaguing people for years; however, I have found the perfect solution, which I ask you to consider as you read this.

The SAT, originally an abbreviation for Scholastic Aptitude Test in 1926, is a worldwide assessment used to measure college readiness and predict future academic success. Despite the fact that SAT no longer stands for such a high ranked title, the test is still used for fairly the same thing. The SAT’s are a way of foreseeing a student’s capability to learn materials they possibly did not learn in high school. A new essay portion of this test was admitted to the assessment as of 2005. The recently added fragment accounts for approximately one-ninth of the test-taker’s absolute score.

The objective of education in the United States of America is now a development system of advancement. The one common thread across the educational system is the art of writing. The skill of writing was once recognized as an extension of the English discipline; however, writing is now a mandatory subject and necessary skill set. Writing Across the Curriculum is among the Schools of Educational Pedagogies that aid teachers of all subjects. Educators around the world now recognize the importance of writing, strategy, and articulation of content material. Writing may vary for each subject matter; yet, the grading aspect stays the same. Instructors teaching writing courses may feel overwhelmed by the amount of errors within their student’s work. This synthesis will analyze the assignment design concept, draft/revision stage, alternatives to strict corrections, and the power dynamic of peer review.

Early trends in writing were characterized by conflicting views about the impacts of writing on learning. Students were mainly instructed on how to write essays by using forms of exposition, narration, description or arguments. Teachers mainly dealt with contemporary textbooks and taught and assessed students on the ideal written products. The main assessment tool was the final product that the student

Writing has never been my forte. Nevertheless, this is not to say that I could not write. Throughout the semester with the assigned reading assignments and the given practical writing exercises I have come to grasp a vague understanding, I had never been taught how to write essays correctly. I am the product of Clark County Educational system. I have always struggled through my last classes and hoped to get out of my struggles this semester. One the greatest challenges that I faced was the distinction that existed among different types of writings that are performed within the English language. I did not understand how the distinction between a narrative essay, report essay and an analytical essay, argumentative essay, and reflective essay among other types of essays. I just thought all was the same regarding content and structure.

When thinking about the types of misunderstandings I have observed as a student in past English courses and that I might see in my future students, one of the first things that comes to mind is a fairly common writing related misunderstanding – the idea that all essays must adhere to the same rigid format. For some reason, many students – and even instructors – are under the impression that good, formal essays must follow a five to seven sentence by five paragraph format, particularly in middle school and the beginning of high school. While this may be beneficial as a guideline for the

Explicit writing instruction combined with providing detailed and effective feedback is the driving force English language students need to be successful writers. Educators agree that written feedback is needed and should be applied with the intent of improving student’s writing skills. Unfortunately, educators and researchers often disagree on what written feedback method should be used, when students should be corrected and how often. In an effort to establish a widespread view on the subject, multiple sources and articles will be mentioned and referred to throughout the paper. This paper will examine the similarities and differences of a video, textbook, and two articles as it relates to written feedback in the English second language classroom while shedding light on successful error correction methods used in the classroom.

The fumy smell of permanent marker lingered in the air as I stared at the big red ‘F’ written across my returned paper. I looked over at my teacher, as she continued around the room, and was met with an icy cold stare of contempt. It didn’t seem to matter how good it was every essay I wrote was returned with the very same marking and without the slightest feedback. This was my rude introduction to writing, at the high school level, and one I wouldn’t soon forget. It is an experience that remains etched deep in memory.

Before entering into this class, I thought that I had an adequate skill in writing essays. However, as I started writing papers for this class I began to notice that my ability to write an essay needed a great deal of improvement. At the beginning of the class I was not even able to distinguish the difference between editing and revising, however, I soon learned the difference. Throughout my learning experience this semester I have been able to gain valuable knowledge on how to revise my essays and this newfound knowledge helped me learn how to use revision techniques to improve my essays.

Over the course of all of my years in English classes, I was taught that there was no direct way to improve reading and writing skills by studying information. Instead, in order to improve, I had to practice. The ultimate cumulative goal of every English class that I have taken has always been to master spelling, grammar, reading, writing, and analyzing. Even with all of the practice and advice from peers and teachers, I still had and have lots of room for improvement in all of the aforementioned skills. For all of the three assigned essays in this course, I made a goal to correctly complete the assignment and to include all of the necessary components of a standard essay, such as a topic sentence, evidence, analysis, a thesis, and examples. Despite my knowledge of and intent to present these components in the best way I could, I made errors, and through the process of the reflection project, I was able to reexamine these errors and correct them with a new perspective after having some time away from my second essay.

I remember I sat in high school in my 11th grade English class every morning thinking I didn’t really know how to write a five-paragraph essay. I would occasionally think, “I can’t do this, this isn’t me.” My teachers would always push me even when I was a little kid. I’ve always had to write five-paragraph essay’s, but I don’t know this time it was different. I guess it was my 11th grade year, and I knew I had to pass this SOL on the first try because for the next I had 12th grade classes. It was very difficult to get me in focus. We had about five essays to write that whole semester and at least two-paragraph blogs due every Friday. My teacher told us that it would improve our writing skills by the time we went into that testing room on October 16, 2016. I started doubting the things she’d say. I thought she was just saying it to make us feel better about writing so much.