Monday, April 30, 2007

Sign Up to Edit (and Inconvenient Truths)

Stacey's edit of Tatyana's piece is a good example of editing for readability and style. This is normal in the editing process: many writers are good fact finders and excellent with a pithy quote but may not be masters of grammar (nor am I, in fact). Editors edit as much or more than was done on the "Submarine" piece.

In that spirit, as Stacey has done, please sign up to edit a piece that we plan to publish . Be sure the piece matters to you in some way. Try not to alter it so much that the original writer's voice is lost.

Here's a story that bears reading: Record High Temperatures in Europe in April at The New York Times. We've been blessed with relatively moderate weather this spring (excepting a few fierce rainstorms) but it is not hard to remember what happened last winter! Here's another, just posted today: The rich world's policy on greenhouse gas now seems clear: millions will die

Have a look around at what's in the news on climate change/global warming and share any other sources you find on the Web (here at this post). Time to practice some persuasive writing (editorial)!

See you all Thursday. BTW, I jumped the gun a bit and published Yi and Hao's pieces. Also Harjit's Hybrid Cars and Suzanne's Yoga pieces. Remember to vote asap and thanks to Ben and Natalia and Hiromi for weighing in . . .

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Latest Publications etc. (New articles?)

Posted Stacey's rant on Virginia Tech (and recipe for veggies), Hiromi's piece on Strunk and White, and Rosaria's rant on show offs. Check for my edits.

The domain pbuzz.net is fully functional now. I noticed a dramatic falling off of readership over the week as our content got stale! It's back up now (I'll show you in class). We'll have lots of articles with the contributions of the English 11 and 12s, however. We should publish no more than 2/3s of them to make it clearer the effort required!

Bring your ideas for your future contributions to class or post them here. The poster is ready for printing (will show you in class) and we'll need to work out where to post and who will distribute. As for printing places, I'm happy to receive your suggestions, although I've found one online.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Links to Revised Articles for The Buzz-REVISED

Please check the links below as at least two students posted revisions this evening.

Vote by the student name (there are two Cynthias btw). No need to say why. I assume that Yi's recipe for cheesecake, the piano tuner article, the article on the Hollywood Bowl are publishable. All others are up to you!

Articles by English 12 Students (Revisions)

Articles by English 11 Students (Revisions)

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Latest "Buzz" Stats

Pages viewed went from 477 for seven days previous to our last class to 1273 (250% increase) this week. I'm still working on figuring out how to get pbuzz.net to work. I'll let you know.

Friday, April 13, 2007

The "Latest" (+new edits)

I've published Ritsuko's turquoise piece, Hiromi's bank machine debacle and Rick article, Natalia's jazz cafe, Rosaria's bulgogi recipe , Catherine's The Wall and a couple or three rants (on Monday, maybe)! Larry's latest on cats.

Everyone: put your latest edits or new pieces here.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Student Article Links for The Pearson Buzz

Students have a deadline of Tuesday evening to submit their articles. Expect some to start coming in later on the weekend. Use this post to comment on their articles and discuss the potential for publication of their submissions. They have a 200-word maximum word count.

NOTE: Just a clarification. Please post your comments to student articles here rather than at the English students' blogs. Actually, I had no idea you could post to their blog (Stacey did and that was a surprise). I've moved Stacey's comment back here. The class will go over their pieces in detail on Thursday and feedback will be delivered to the English classes on Friday.

Articles from the English 12 students

Articles from the English 11 students

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Articles and Edits (and etc.)

Put anything new you're working on or any new edits of pieces not yet published at this post (to avoid confusion). Hope to see another teacher article, for example! I'll look through your offerings, but articles by Natalia and Hiromi (at the bank machine) look nearly ready (I can do the "copy" edit). James's article is ready (just need a teaser) as is Ritsuko's article on hot springs. New content to start a new week. See you next Thursday (and hoping to see you, Stacey, too!)

The Advertising Poster

Thanks Natalia for offering your son's help. Hope he doesn't mind! Ideas for wording on the poster are welcome at this post.

By the way, no problem with funding the purchase of a domain name for pbuzz.net. I'll get it done over the next week or so. In time for our next big advertising push!

RANTS!

Put 'em here!

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Buzz is LIVE (Updated April 3)

I sent out the email newsletter today. Also, I made prominent mention of the paper on all of our top pages at PALC.net. I'll let you know later in the week how our readership is going. Is anyone interested in designing a poster/handbill for giving out/displaying at the centre this week?

NEW: I've found that we can get the domain names, pbuzz.net or pearsonbuzz.net in order to make it easier to advertise our site (and easier for someone to type in). Which one do you prefer?

Bravo to all of you! You're published . . .