Thursday, May 28, 2009
Things I Learned in Writing 12 (short essay)
If you'd like to share your piece for your portfolio, here's a place to post it. I will write about things I've learned as your teacher (and as a teacher of writing). Remember that next week's class (June 4) is our last "formal" class. On the 11th your portfolios are due and it's time for us to socialize and have a coffee together!
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About Writing 12, Is It Ok Course, Or An Excellent Course?
When I first decided to take Writing 12, I immediately felt “What did I just do?” And that feeling went on when I first saw Brad as Writing 12, because I don’t know rest of you guys, but I’m, better make that as was, quite scared of Brad because at that time, and this time, too, is English 12 teacher as well. I went crazy because having to think meeting Brad twice a week, it made me, I don’t know, berserk because who would want to meet your teacher not only once, but twice a week, right? Not me, definitely not me.
As the time goes along, I’m feeling I really am glad to take that course because at first, I really disgusted by the idea of writing. And, I was afraid of write anything, because I know my limitation of writing and I’m afraid of making mistakes. Now, I don’t know, I guess I feel confident about writing and improve my writing. And, I’m not afraid of use imaginations because I always thought using imagination is wrong, or forbidden to use that as writing tool.
Also, from Writing 12, I’m not scared of saying what’s on mind through writings, but still hard to accept criticism about my writings, I guess I still have to work on those. Because I guess I think of my writings as “my beloved children,” it’s hard to let go and I’m afraid they might get hurt, just like mothers thinking of their children.
Well finally, I really am glad to say it’s over and I’m thinking of taking Writing 12 once more. Of course, Brad is ok by it, that is. I definitely going to miss all of you and let’s keep it touch, ok?
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Learn to Become Tidy
When I watched the movie, A River Runs Though It, the narrator recalls his childhood memories—his father taught him learning to write. Each time after his handed in his writing, his father would scratch out half the lines and order him rewrite—in a Scottish tidy way. This scenery immediately reminded me of Brad. Maybe he is a Scottish too?!
If I run a newspaper business in future, I probably would hire Brad to be my chief editor—he would definitely save a lot of money for me.
To be serious, this is the most important principle I’ve learnt from my Writing Twelve class. To be a responsible writer, cherish every word I write; leave those nonsense and unnecessary words away—that’s the best way to respect my readers and myself.
Ever since I learnt this, writing become challenging. Making my writing tidy and still express fully isn’t easy. I have to spend my time choosing and comparing among the words I want. Make sure the best option to be selected precisely. Sometimes, seeing my hard work being scratched out are not very comfortable.
After a year of following this rule, my habit of reading and judging has changed also. I’m recently very frustrated with the Italian movies. It’s doesn't mean they don’t have great stories, but most of their movies are terribly long, with countless details and long takes. Believe or not, too many details make the story weakened and flat; I sometimes fall in sleep before the climaxes come. They need cutters and editors. I would suggest them participate in my Writing Twelve class.
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My friend often mentioned Writing 12 to me, and I started to think about adding this course in my graduation plan. Since I started this course, I learnt so many things. It is hard to say, but in few words I learned everything from punctuation to writing a story. It may sound very boring to be just writing, but I had great fun.
In this course I became a confident person who can accept criticism. I always feel when I write an assignment that at the same time I must prepare myself for reader’s (my class and teacher) criticism. It was very hard in the beginning of class. I was always scared. But later (when I found I can learn) I started to enjoy this course. Then I started participating in class conversation and sharing my ideas.
Through this course I participate in Pearson Buzz which is a big achievement for me. For four years I have been studying in this school. I started in level seven. As I improved my English, I started reading our school news letter and Pearson Buzz. Whenever I read students’ writing, I had a wish to be able to write for Pearson Buzz. I am grateful to my teacher who supported me to write a teacher profile.
Of course I learned so many things such as stories, poems, essays, and dialogues, and I became a more confident. I am glad to say now I can enjoy reading my writing. After I finish my course, if I continue in my writing, I will be able to(fill my dream) write something professional.
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Three Things I’ve Learned in Writing—12
Writing—12 helped me to improve in many ways. As a person new to the language, I was always scared of expressing my ideas in writing as well as in speaking; the course made me to read more to write well, and to “show not tell” in writing.
I’ve developed with Writing—12 in writing, speaking, and expressing my ideas. Writing was always a challenge to me prior to this course. A student who already did this course said, “I was scared of writing before, I feel confident writing about anything I want to now.” It was hard to believe, but I decided to give it a try anyways. During the course of Writing—12 I’ve gained the confidence of putting everything in writing that comes to mind. I can comment on someone’s work, and take criticism on my writing as well. I was complimented by my coordinator at my job for good writing skills.
Writing—12 course made me read more. As a person speaking English as the second language, it was challenging from time to time to write really understandable piece for English readers. Sometimes without being aware of our mistakes we put the idea in words using our first language expressions which makes the readers confused. I found it helpful to read English novels trough which you get to know the way an English writer expresses the ideas. My writing, sometimes, doesn’t make sense if I translate it into my first language, since I use English expressions now.
“Show not Tell” is the other important part of writing I learned during this course. I liked the “warm- up” part at the beginning of classes last term. It trained me to use senses- sights, sounds, dialogs, and people connections- to make the piece attractive. For example: to show boredom, we had to describe the behaviour- fidgeting, yawning, stretching, and busying himself with something else. This way, I learned how to show not tell which really was challenging at the beginning.
I was leaving early from work to make it to Writing—12 classes this semester, and I am sure I gained a lot more than if I stayed at work for that time. This course helped me in more than just getting better in writing; it gave me the confidence I was lucking in, plus improved my communication skills. It is a good base for my future development.
407 words
What I Have Learned in Writing 12
“Writing 12 “is one of the best courses I took at the Adult Learning Center. The course guided me to writing better, taught me the theory of writing and pointed out the direction to build my own writing “style”.
“Reading more and writing more are the way to be a successful writer”—Brad, my teacher, told us in Writing 12. At the very beginning, I didn’t fully understanding its meaning. Then things changed. In my writing, the same mistakes in spelling, grammar, and conventions appeared again and again. It seemed I did the mistakes deliberately despite Brad admonished of them to us many times. However, after the cycles of writing—correcting –writing again, things got better. Only at this moment, I began to realize what the real meaning of this sentence is--that is the first thing I learned in Writing 12. .
In writing 12, Brad gave us a lot of instructions about the writing techniques and theories, such as: zeugma, synecdoche, symbol, dialogue, parallelism, etc. Some are very fresh for me that I never heard. Some are known but not fully understand. Under the instructing, much oriental practices were made. Some training of the special topic –such as, “100 word place description with no adjectives”, “using paired idioms” were very useful to improve my level of writing. The training of “Fibonacci Poem” was good for enhancing the sense of rhythm. Those literal theories and the special trainings were the second gains that were benefited for pushing and prompting my writing skills forward.
Brad told us “how to write with style” that gave us the direction in future writing. He also asked us using the figurative language to give a good, strong image and using the senses of our noses, eyes and touching let the readers have a clear sense. That is “Turning tell to show”. The other epigrams: “Sound like yourself”, “Keep it simple” etc. had become my mottos in my writing.
At beginning of “Writing 12”, what I could do was to write a simple complain letter full of many mistakes both in spelling and grammar. Now I can write some short stories-- my own childish “novels”. Thanks for the course “Writing 12” and thanks for my teacher Brad.
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Teaching and Learning
Entering a classroom at the beginning of a term is nerve wracking to say the least. Students have high expectations for their teachers and these weigh heavily on me. No matter how experienced I am, I still sweat a little more in the first weeks. But for the learning I and my students experience it’s all worth it in the end.
One of my observations this year (and in other years) is the level of resistance I experience to the idea of blogging. Although you all now know the incredible power of this new media, in the first weeks I have a lot of convincing to do. Excuses come about not having email (yes, it’s true!) or that it all seems horribly complicated. And then, of course, it becomes clear early on that I will not be marking every submission made to the student blog. Students are used to being marked on everything and, in my opinion, it creates a timidity in them that acts to stifle their creativity. Because learning to write requires a fair amount of risk taking, it is important to allow students the chance to learn by making mistakes. Blogging allows all my students a safe place to work out their ideas and to also read the ideas of others, so it is well worth pushing past any resistance.
This year I used some online lectures on story writing in my Writing 12 class and felt that it worked out pretty well. I am not a short story writer; my son is. Thus, although I teach and discuss techniques from this discipline, I’ve never felt entirely comfortable in my teaching practice. Thus, the lectures from the Scottish Book Trust provided me with an expert writer saying many of the same things I have said in class over the years. We do love our experts don’t we? The result brought out some good writing from a number of students. I particularly enjoyed the stories created by Beatrice, Eve and Makassia and feel that the expert advice given from the online lectures was a useful addition to my classes. Next term, I hope to have slightly better sound quality to make the online lectures even more effective!
Inviting students to join us midway through the course also proved valuable this year. I can’t imagine the class without Chris and Zarghoona attending. Thanks to both of you for playing a bit of catch up and offering us your perspectives (and writing) for the second half of the year. Because adult lives are complicated, I expect that students will need flexibility in their studies. We lost Sonya, Steed and Connie along the way; Kamaljeet was able to attend much more in the second semester. In the end, it is your contributions to the classroom and to our blog that count the most. You all know how important an active and engaged classroom is to the success of Writing 12. All students contributions are valued and essential to why Writing 12 is so effective at improving student writing.
We’ve learned a lot, together, this past term and so my initial nervousness was replaced with a good, strong feeling of accomplishment. I hope you all have found the experience useful and that it will be helpful to you in the future. Good luck to all of you!
Writing Changes My Life
Three things I learned from Writing 12 this term are:
Most importantly, what I learned from this writing 12 is to know that writing could be fun; I used to hate to write from my elementary school throughout my entire adulthood. At the beginning of the class, I was worried about how am I going to write in English if I was not even good in Chinese. So I stumbled along the writing assignments from every week (I thought it was too much for me), but soon, I found out writing is such a precious thing; it enables you to capture the moments of emotion and thought, so that you are able to appreciate it later. It almost worked as a therapy for me: after I write my heart out, I felt so released and happy. People don’t always get time to listen; writing enables you to talk to yourself (do I sound like a freak?), but the blog also enabled us to share among ourselves. I was never able to experience the beauty of writing until I took the effort to write.
Second, it is to have your own style of writing. Just like Kurt Vonnegut said in one of Brad’s handouts: “it is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” Having your own style is to have your own heart-feeling idea to express to your readers. Before I write each time, I always try to think quite a long time; to make sure what I write is what I truly cared about.
Third, “Show, not tell”. I always tell the reader what the characters feel by saying “she is upset about this” or “she is happy”. But, the reader is smarter than I thought. By giving the proper dialogues or a proper setting; the reader can get the idea clearly without having to tell them.
It is more sort of experience than what I learned. It really transformed me from hating to write to believing in writing. Writing is about life and experience, and I think I will continue to write in the future. Thanks here for Brad; what he was doing here was not only to teach but also to inspire people’s life and encouraged students to reach their full potential, so that I could carry the passion of learning through my life time.
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Okay, to finish three things we learnt from this class I still have two more points to write.
One more thing I have learnt from this class is how to handle other people’s opinion. I was defensive at the very beginning, not able to listen properly. I simply didn't understand one thing--everybody has a perspective and therefore there is nothing wrong to listen. It might help or not but I should always appreciate that there were someone read my writing and bothered to give me a comment. There is nothing more pathetic than “keep writing even you are the only reader for your own”.
The last but not the least I have leant from this class is Editing. Before I joined this class, I had no clue what editing is; and now it’s habit of me. It guarantees my writing comes out fluently and beautifully. I trim my own writing and check all aspects; make it with proper length and weigh to fit for a blog or somewhere else. I look all the tenses and punctuations, replace some words for good. Sometimes I’m disgusted by the phone dialogues of others therefore I look carefully if it happens in my own writing.
So, three things I’ve leant from this class tidiness, listening to others properly and editing—always.
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