Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with composition and writing

Open courses that teach writing skills: where are they?

pracowity — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:16:04 -0800

Open courses that teach writing skills: where are they? Sites like Coursera, Udacity, and Khan Academy specialize in technology, science, and mathematics. I need similar resources but that teach writing skills (and English in general, I suppose, but mainly how to write well).

Free courses on expository writing, technical writing, grammar, how to build a sentence, how to edit, how to index, etc., would all be good.

Courses that require payment would not be good. Also, it isn't enough to get a syllabus, a few PowerPoint slides, and a list of Amazon links. I am hoping for real content (lectures, exercises, and tests) free and online like you might get on Coursera (but for writing, not for math and science).

What do students want from a freshman composition course?

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:30:36 -0800

I'm a freshman composition instructor who wants to rock the evals. But how? If you've taken a first-year college writing or rhetoric course, what teaching practices made for a good (or horrible) experience from the student's perspective? I'm an advanced grad student, and will be teaching a few sections of freshman composition at a middle-tier 4-year college. I'd really like to do well at this, particularly on student evaluations. I know being an easy grader is a huge part of that, but there may be quotas in place, so I don't know how much control I'll actually have on that front.

I've taught intro composition before, but I never felt like I really "got" it. I'll admit that I loathed my own fresh-comp experience with a fiery passion, despite doing well in the class. I'm personally an INTP, science-y, hyper-rational type, so a big problem was that I never saw the point of it-- all the random decontextualized readings that don't enter anywhere else in the college curriculum, the aimless circle-style political discussions, the tiresome quasi-journalistic, quasi-confessional/creative essay assignments that had almost nothing to do with actual academic writing or thinking in any discipline.

When I trained as an instructor it became clear that the profession as a whole was also kind of confused about freshman comp: should it be an intro to research and academic argument/thinking? an intro to argumentation in general? a general course on creative essay-writing? some sort of political awakening? or a place to find one's authentic personal voice as a writer? My instinct in the past has been to focus very closely on the construction of scholarly arguments, ditching most of the touchy-feely/creative stuff and breaking everything down in a very clear, systematic fashion with detailed draft-evaluation checklists, clear grading rubrics, etc. I've gotten okay-to-good evals, but I always wondered whether the non-NT majority of my students might actually have preferred a more creative, personal, identity-based, literary and/or artsy freshman writing experience, after all. I'll be delighted to show in-class movies or, you know, have people write poetry about their cats if it'll help keep everyone happy and engaged with the course.

So tl;dr, for the most of you out there who've yourselves sat through an introductory college writing course, and written evaluations on same, I'm soliciting suggestions for:

1. Overall course rationale: was your first-year college writing course presented in such a way that it felt important, relevant or useful? If so, describe!

2. Particular techniques and activities: What did your freshman writing instructor do that you loved or hated? What practices would you be likely to reward or punish come evaluation-time?

Both dos and don'ts are welcome-- and obviously, if you're yourself a comp instructor who's received good evaluations based on something other than pure sex appeal, than I'd love to hear from you, too. Anonymous in the interests of preserving the wall between my professional life and my considerably-more-salacious existence on Metafilter. Thanks!

Resources for beginning lyricists

Anonymous — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:20:39 -0800

Resources for beginning songwriters and lyricists (that would make kickass Xmas presents?) I have a good friend who has just started getting into writing songs for his (very informal, totally recreational) band. He's a published fiction writer, so the basic wordcraft skills are definitely there already, but it's a new form for him and there seems to be a fairly steep learning curve. For Xmas, I'm planning on getting him a good rhyming dictionary (Thanks AskMe!) but I'm wondering if there are other resources that might be useful as well. I should add that my friend is the drummer in his band, so my impression is that he's not really writing melodies-- or if he is, he's coming in with a vague idea of how the melody might go, and the rest of the band is taking his ideas and retooling them substantially. What he's doing is definitely word-work, for the most part.

(Please note, in case it isn't already apparent, that I have absolutely no idea how the songwriting process really works.)

(Note also: This question is being asked anonymously because my friend reads Metafilter and totally knows my handle.)

computer aided essay grading

landlubber — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:44:17 -0800

Have you used software to help you grade student essays? Tell me about your experience. I teach college freshman composition (among other things), and I tend to take *way* too much time grading students essays (I don't get them back quickly enough; it also absorbs time I need for class prep and other projects). So I'm just starting to consider the idea of using some sort of software to help me grade more quickly.

I'd like to know your opinion about paper-grading software. I'm not thinking of software that automatically scores student writing (a horrible and clearly unworkable idea imho), but rather software that would in theory help me streamline my grading process by to some degree automating the process of commenting on essays.

I'm used to sitting with a clipboard, a paper, and a cup of tea. And it it weren't for my habit of hemming and hawing and thinking digressively about each of my papers, this method would be pretty good--certainly more convenient that reading and grading on a laptop, making comments in the margins via Microsoft Word.

But I've noticed that there are some errors and problems that I end up pointing out repeatedly within the same set of papers, and I feel like I might be wasting time by writing out similar comments again and again (either as marginal notes, or in my end comments). I've therefore been imagining a program that would work with Microsoft Word to allow me to create menus of user-defined notes, for insertion into papers.

My hope would be not that I'd end up providing only boilerplate comments for my students, but that I'd paste-in (with some changes) comments about common or mechanical problems, giving me a little more room to say more about the argument and method of each student's paper, over and above the more standardized remarks.

Anyhow, in a fit of procrastination, I just Googled this subject, and came across a piece of software called T.A. Toolbar that looks pretty much like what I was envisioning (although I wish that it inserted marginal comments were into Word doc comment bubbles instead of in-line in boldface). Anyhow, they have some flash demos posted that might give a good sense of how TA Toolbar works with both marginal and end comments. I have to say that at first blush it looks pretty interesting.

So my questions are these:

1) Have you ever used software to assist in grading college essays?
2) What software have you used, and how useful was it?
3) How did it affect the quality of the feedback you provided to students?
4) What was the reaction of your department and colleagues to your use of this software?
5) Do you feel that students read and valued this feedback as much as handwritten remarks?

Finally, if you aren't a teacher but are or have been a university-level student, what would be your attitude towards the use of this sort of software in grading your written work in an introductory college composition class?

Many thanks for any replies.

Short passages of particularly strong or weak nonfiction prose?

cymru_j — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:04:34 -0800

In search of short passages of especially strong or weak nonfiction prose! I’m hoping to build a composition class around short examples of effective and in effective writing. I'm thinking of passages of about 1-6 sentences.

We'll look at excerpted passages as a class and analyze what makes them more or less effective. Maybe we'll even try rewriting them in various ways to note the effect.

Passages from well-loved (or well-hated) prose stylists are very welcome, but bonus points for writing whose quality seems surprising or out of context, i.e. poor writing where one might expect strong (from a respected magazine, author, columnist) or good prose that pops up in off-beat venues (blogs, advertising copy, tabloids, etc.).

Any comments on why said prose is effective or ineffective are also welcome.

Thanks very much, guys!

What are the best personal essays about technology?

Tesseractive — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:02:26 -0800

What are some great examples of personal, non-fiction essay writing about technology, to be used in a freshman writing class with a tech theme? I have many interesting readings to use that are about technology, other people using technology, academic research on writing and technology, or technical writing.

However, I want to assign them a "technology autobiography" essay, and would like to include examples of essayistic explorations of the presence or absence of technology in an author's life. An extremely broad definition of tech is fine--what is important is that I have examples of good writing for my students to emulate.

(Non-fiction writing only, please, the class isn't really about discussing literature and is not in an English department.)

Online writing system?

cymru_j — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:50:49 -0800

Online systems for writing teachers? I am a college writing instructor, and I've been asked to preview the following system for possible adoption in my classroom: http://www.mycomplab.com/newtour/index.html.

This is new turf for me, and I'm not sure what to think.

The benefit of the system is its inclusiveness; it's a one-stop shop for students' writing needs: grammar help, online paper submission and more. It also seems to be a potential boon for instructors, since it allows them to provide feedback on student work efficiently.

That said, my concern is that it might be unwise to adopt something so monolithic. If the system breaks down, the entire course effectively grinds to a halt.

Then again, I don't want to be resistant to electronic resources. Though I do use Blackboard, it's only one aspect of the course, and I'm wary of going all electronic (unless, of course, the system is superb).

Questions:
- Have you used this or a similar system?
- How does this particular system look to you?
- I'll be meeting with a rep who'll demo the system. What kinds of questions should I ask at that meeting?

Thanks in advance!

How to compose myself into an argument?

Sova — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:49:08 -0800

Recommendations for books that teach argument composition? I'm a first year undergrad in the social sciences, and have just completed my initial round of essays and exams. While writing these I realised that I don't know how to compose proper arguments. I missed out on a lot of schooling in the past, and so didn't pick up this skill at any point. My writing is not terrible, but it's clearly failing to express what I know, what I think, and do so in any academic kind of way. I find writing essays or exam answers to be throwing enough information into the pot to reach the word count and don't know how to go beyond that.

I would like recommendations for books that will help me to compose written arguments, and preferably give some insight into how to decompose the arguments of others. I have heard of The Crafts of Research, but don't know if this would suit my needs because I'm not doing research. I'm more or less okay at doing the reading for essays, and having original ideas, I just need to know how to order that thoughtfully.

Thanks in advance!

What current rhet/comp issues are you into?

hpliferaft — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:04:45 -0800

Describe some current issues in English Rhetoric and/or Composition that are interesting to you. I'm a part-time composition instructor who's been out of grad school for a few years. I'm looking for research ideas with some currency in the field.

Also, an overlapping question: what noteworthy works have you read or written about the rhetoric or composition of new media lately?

Salvaging freshman comp?

puckish — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:03:36 -0800

Help me to not suck at teaching! (focus on analytic reading) I'm halfway through my first semester teaching freshman comp. I'm great at one on one workshops, talking through essays, giving feedback. What I'm not so good at is getting them to be excited about the reading. Enthusiasm might be a bit much -- but you know, curiosity? Interest? They're bright kids, but sometimes they look at me as if I'm in the process of slowly driving a stake through the heart.

What I'm mostly concerned about:

1. Basic participation -- getting people to actually DO THE READINGS, so that they can actually talk meaningfully about the texts. Short of mandatory participation (which I think kind of defeats the point), what's the best way to get the level of participation that *is actually mandatory* for good discussion?

2. Making class discussion meaningful-- What happens when they want to talk about how this relates to the movie they saw last weekend?

3. Gauging how much I should actually care about this?

I'm really interested in hearing from other people who have concrete improvement stories -- I've got lots of examples of "great teachers I've had" that I can draw on, but that doesn't really help in figuring out how to replicate this yourself, you know?

What you might need to know:

1. The class is structured around 3 essays, in which they gradually integrate more sources into their essays, and develop their own arguments based on the texts we're reading. The texts are a mix of popular (New Yorker) style criticism and more concrete academic work - Susan Sontag, Anthony Appiah, etc. Strong emphasis on "current affairs"

2. Most of the problems (in class and in papers) have to do with analytic reading -- getting them to sit through, parse, and then use arguments from other texts. In other words, writing is not strictly the problem (though I'm mining this post and this post for advice)

3. Not surprisingly, nobody likes this class. Including the grad students who have to teach it. We try to suppress this as much as possible, but it's pretty much a given that by the second week, they've figured this out. This, I understand, is a problem.

Thanks in advance!

How to fill 70 minutes of in-class writing time?

toomuchkatherine — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:08:17 -0800

Help a freshman comp teacher out! I need a fun writing exercise to fill 70 minutes of class time. I'm teaching freshman comp. The students are not stellar but they're all right, though most of them hate writing (and see it as drudgerous and formulaic). The three main assignments I have to give them this semester include a process essay (basically a how-to article), a short research paper, and an essay on a novel. We also have a textbook but they seem to hate it, and I can't say that I blame them much.

Tomorrow we have a fairly free day; on the syllabus I inherited, it just says "in-class writing exercise." Actually it says "timed writing exercise." Either way, I need to fill 70 minutes of class time with writing, or writing and group work...and I'd like to make it fun, because we haven't been having enough fun in class lately, and I think that anything I can get them to do to enjoy writing and use it to explore their thoughts and feelings will be useful.

Any comp-teacher ideas?

Wring music? How hard can it be?

grumblebee — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 08:33:27 -0800

Can I learn to create melodies? I love music, but I can't play an instrument. I can't read music. I don't understand the first thing about music theory. Though my life contains plenty of music listening, I've always been sad that it doesn't contain any music making.

I know that music-making is a hard thing to take up, especially for a middle-aged guy, but I have an impulse to make it even harder for myself: I want to compose. While -- in my wildest dreams -- I'd like to compose symphonies, I know that's not even close to realistic. I'd be overjoyed if I could gain the skill to compose "simple" melodies. Not for fame and fortune -- just to amuse myself and to learn a little about what it's like to "be on the inside" of music.

My guess is that even this is a pipe dream. Is it? One thing I've always wondered is whether people who come up with songs had melodic ideas before they ever learned about the mechanics of music -- just like someone might make up a story without knowing anything about the mechanics of writing. I certainly know of plenty of people, like The Beatles and Charlie Chaplin, who had melodic ideas without knowing how to read music. But what about people who have never even played an instrument?

I've never had an original song pop into my head -- or even a snippet of melody. Even if I learned how to read music and play an instrument, is there any reason to believe I'd be able to write music? I understand that to write music WELL, you have to be gifted. But is it more binary than that? Do you either have it or you don't? Can you become a music creator -- even just a so-so one -- by learning some mechanics?

(By the way, I know there are all sorts of looping programs out there. I've played with them. They don't interest me. I want to create original melodies. I don't want to mix a bunch of riffs and beats together.)

So have any of you ever go from having zero musical ideas to having some musical ideas? If so, what brought you from point A to point B?

Essays for Engineers

washburn — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:13:15 -0800

What readings would you recommend for a freshman composition class for Engineers? These readings shouldn't be too long, and should be accessible to any non-engineers who end up in the class (in fact, it's not strictly necessary that course readings concern engineering at all). The class isn't about business communication or technical writing, but is more an introduction to writing the "college essay," with a bit of engineering spin to keep things interesting for the technically inclined.

I'm happy with my syllabus already, yet I can't help but query the hive mind: What are some readings you think would generate interesting discussion and written work? Suggested readings that concern the social dimensions of engineering and design would be especially welcome.