Stacey's Graduation Speech Published at Buzz; Grad Photos

Enjoying the sun? Me, I've got my windows covered and closed!

Stacey's speech is up at The Buzz. Still waiting on L, for his photos of the graduation. I'd like to use Stacey's pic to go with the speech and to, if it's ok, to feature as grad on our PALC.net home page. Would anyone else allow a grad photo to be used?

I took only four pictures, but they're not too bad. Save a copy for yourself from below. If anyone doesn't want photo linked here let me know. Mostly only we visit here I think.

Graduates seated

Masaru getting his marks

The potluck table

The potluck table with Ann and Cheryl close up

The Graduation on June 21st: Our Thoughts

I've started the thread. Anyone else want to comment or give their view of the proceedings?

New Articles Up at The Buzz

Start at home.

Stacey's Graduation Speech

Here's an edit of Stacey's current draft. I think it's pretty well ready to go! For more information: Public Speaking Website

Stuff About Writing 12: Your Answers to My Questions

Much appreciated any comments you feel would help convince students to give Writing 12 a try in the 2007-2008 school year.

Buzz Articles (New Articles Welcome!)

So far: Olivia's Dentist Rant; Helena's Taoist Monk travel journal; Rosaria's recipe for pancakes (due to tomorrow's rainy forecast!); Catherine's Is a Flood Coming?

Buzz Articles Published May 27

Michelle's "Learning from Mice" and Hiromi's "Young Man Who Went the Distance" and Ritsuko's "Active Teacher Helen" and James' "A Philosophy of Romance."

The "Natalia" New Piece Post

Post them here! Thanks Natalia for your suggestion. Suzanne: we're eagerly anticipating your ghost story at the elementary school!

Here's the file of pieces we looked at in class today.

An interesting (fairly long) piece called On Good Writing

Portfolio Pieces for Feedback

Take advantage of the class session by submitting one piece (something you hope to work on) for our evaluation at Thursday's class. Limit of one per person! Anything from anytime this past year . . .

Buzz Articles Published This Week (So Far!)

To assist you in preparing your portfolio: On Editing.

Also pieces by Natalia on summer music festivals, by Ruth on the Hollywood Bowl concerts, by Stacey on dealing with separation, and by Suzanne on the forbidden palace.

Assembling Your Portfolio REVISED May 16

Locate all the writing you've done since September 2007. *By this I imagine that some of it needs a bit of searching to find; perhaps it's on the blog only; perhaps you've not shared it or shown it to anyone before.

Categorize what you find: is it a first draft?; is it worth working on?; is it phony or forced in any way?; has it been published?; is it the best that you can do?; how well do you use our five senses in the writing?(can a reader imagine the setting easily, for example, in more than one sense?) *This is for your sake. I don't expect to see or know about this step at all. You are trying to find your best in order to do the one revision below and to choose the pieces (5-10) you will present to me in your portfolio. It's up to you!

Write detailed comments for one piece that needs work and is worth the effort. Be brutally honest (If it doesn't work, readers won't buy what you are saying. You'll lose them!) Write up your comments in a short essay.

Take your own advice and rewrite the piece. Make it the best you've done all year.

Choose between five and ten pieces from the year. Word process them, using 12 point text size, double spacing and an indent for each paragraph. Title everything clearly and refer to the exercise or technique where you first began to work on the piece.

Be sure to follow correct form; for example, when inserting dialogue make a new paragraph for each new person speaking. And, of course, punctuate the dialogue correctly!

Write another short essay; in it, describe three things you've learned in Writing 12 this term and how they apply to your current and future success in writing.

Submit all the above to me by May 31. I will comment, but will not proofread (correct mistakes!) and will remark on it if your errors are frequent. A professional presentation (clean text, neatly assembled in a folder of some kind) with minor and very few errors will gain higher marks.

For that indefinable quantity called style, it's subjective. I'll do my best. Remember that I will evaluate your whole year as well in my calculations. Good attendance, participation in all its forms, will get its just reward.

Thanks to all of you for making it happen this term.

New Articles Published

So far, Ritsuko's article on Dina , Yang's on going to hell , Larry's My Son Jerry , Catherine's A New Totem Pole and Hiromi's on the passport office.

Class Document for May 10 (Put Revisions and New Articles Here)

Here's the link: May 10 Document. Looking forward to your revisions and additions. I'll publish a number of articles this weekend and will let you know when done. Be alert to any glitches (like the Letcho) and let me know about them! I'll fix them asap.

New Articles Published (Updated MAY 7)

See Pbuzz Home Page for new articles from Joy, Olivia, Tatyana, Catherine, Ritsuko and Stacey.

And Helena, too! She cannot see our blog in China (censored, I think), but has sent on a lovely article titled, "The Backyard of China," on Yunnan Province in China. And it has a nice photo of a man with his dog.

Thanks Hiromi and Stacey for your edits. I made very minor changes to both. See if you can spot them!

Class Document and Happy Birthday to Me!

Thanks very much for the cheesecake, Rosaria. And for the tea! Ritsuko, your cookies are delicious! I had a nice quiet birthday dinner and now plan a sunset walk with my little dog. The chocolates are creamy and filling and . . .

Here's the link to the document we worked on in class Thursday.

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 . . .

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.

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)

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.

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.