A last piece of advice, and your grades are posted.

A recent blog post from lifehack.ogr on how to improve one's resume had the follow point:

3. Proofread past spell check.

Just about everyone runs a spell check on their resume. But I’ve seen so many typos that a computer can’t catch: misused words, misspelled business names — I’ve even seen a resume with the applicant’s name misspelled! You should always read over documents to double check them, and if you can get a friend to read over your resume, go for it.

After reading portfolios for the past week, the advice to read past the spell check hit home. Let me offer an example I encountered on a more or less regular basis. A student would claim they had learned to improve their proofreading technique or to start work on critical texts earlier, giving the writing process time to help them produce more polished documents. In the next paragraph, I would encounter a word like "sue," as in, "I have learned to start work well before it was sue." The student had obviously hit the "s" when they intended to hit the "d" in "due." It was equally obvious, the student never read a final copy of their work out loud; instead, they continued to trust spell check to mark each and every word which was miss used or miss spelled. By claiming to proofread more carefully but not including reading out loud on such a critical document, like the cover essay to the portfolio, the student's credibility nose-dived.

So, here is my last piece of advice for the semester, "In critical documents, 'Proofread past spell check.'"

Have a good break. Grades are now up and posted. I will be happy to answer questions after I am back from break on 5 January.

Steve

Free stuff for 2009...

Hard economic times means students have even less money than usual; so, ever cent saved counts. Enter open source and online applications.

Over the semester, you have learned to use google docs, an online web based word processor. You can use google gears to use docs when you are offline, or you can do with I do and downloadopenoffice.

Open office is a lot like MS Office, and if you can use one, you can use another. Like MS Office, openoffice suffers from feature bloat, but there are times when you need access to features for specialized formatting, etc.

We've talked about Zotero as an online research tool. Today another online research tool crossed my desk, Webnotes. Follow this link to see what the fuss is about:

WebNotes Offers a Virtual Highlighter for Web Research

Sites like Google Docs and Zoho offer a host of applications you might normally have to buy. For instance, I haven't used Outlook for over a year to organize my life, instead everything pours into google mail--another application you've learned to use and one you get for free from the community college. Gmail has recently added todo lists, contact management, and applets to google calendar and docs, all from the mail gmail page. Look under LABS in the setting tab.

If paper time management is more your style,google the hipster PDA--a free template for a paper based personal manager. Remember, next semester is always a new semester; so, between semesters you can set up new time management tools to help you get more done.

Steve

Extended Office Hours Finals Week

Good morning,

I want to let you know how to find me over the next week. After Friday you will be in finals week, so I am going to extend my office hours. Here's my schedule:

Thursday, 12/11
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 8:30-11:00 advising in Rm 206 Burnette; 11:00-12:00 teaching a 111 section; 12:00-2:15 in the Academic Support Center
Friday, 12/12
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 9:00-10:00 teaching; 10:00-12:00 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus
Monday, 12/15
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 9:00-12:00 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus; 12:00-2:15 in Academic Support
Tuesday 12/16
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 9:00-1:30 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus
Wednesday 12/17
7:30-8:15 at Atlee High School; 9:00-1:30 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus
Thursday 12/18
9:00-12:00 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus; 12:00-2:15 in Academic Support
Friday 12/19
9:00-1:30 in my office at 231 Massey, Parham Road Campus

Sometime over the weekend of 12/20, I will turn in grades and head out for Christmas Break. During Christmas Break, I have promised my wife I will not be teaching, accepting emails, etc., and she and the family will have all my attention. Any questions will have to wait until my return to campus on 8 January; so, if you have a question now, ask. As always, I will be happy to accept emails and telephone calls and make appointments outside the office hours I list above. However, emails will need to be fairly short and the questions specific. If you need lengthy explanations, call or stop by. My home number is 804-262-8585.

Please do get in touch over the next days and let me answer questions about the portfolio, read drafts, etc. If you stop by and I am not in the office, come on in and sit down. I will limit excursions to my mailbox, to check in with colleagues, etc.; and, I will try to limit time outside my office to 20 minutes or less, so if you stop by and don't find me in, come in, have a seat, and wait. I will soon return.

You will notice I will continue to work in the Academic Support Center, Monday and Thursday afternoons. Fill free to stop by and ask questions, my sessions there are usually handled as group sessions, and anyone is welcome to come in and join, ask questions about writing assignments, etc. The same holds true for the hours I am advising in 206 Burnette. Those coming in for advising have dibs over my working with my students, but it has been my experience few students do stop by for advising this week.

When you do come in for a meeting, bring a copy of your portfolio to discuss, and try to bring two copies of your cover essay.

Steve

You need to return your second history paper.

Good morning,

Yesterday, Tom and I had a miscommunication. Tom had not recorded your grades on your second history paper, and I returned them. To get your grade recorded, you have several options:

1) Bring your paper to class on Friday, so Tom can record the grade;
2) Bring your paper to Tom's final, so Tom can record your grade; or,
3) Include a copy of your paper--one showing your grade--in the final portfolio for my class.

If Tom doesn't get your paper back, then he has agreed to count your grade on my portfolio as your second paper grade.

As always, write with questions, or you can bring them up in Tom's class on Friday.

Steve

Framing your claims with examples and analysis.

One group sent a claim and the evidence they plan to use to back up the claim. As you develop paragraphs to support the various claims you will make in your cover essay, I thought you might profit from the exchange, so find it below:

Claims

1.) I learned a great deal of information from my group members.

Example of supporting my claim: X corrected my articles providing me with a starting point on what I needed to work on this semester. After receiving some much needed advice, I looked at what my worst grammatical mistake was and researched ways that provided me with a solution to the problem.

Here, you should go on to include an example of an article Cate corrected in the portfolio evidence section. In the section of your cover essay where you discuss the article, point to the article you've included and make sure to note the specific advice you found useful and the specific aspects of the article you changed based on this advice. [Other advice: I might pull out the section on fixing your worst grammatical mistake and develop it into a separate section or paragraph. Paragraphs should focus on one central idea, develop in, and then you move on to another paragraph.] Back to the claim and the paragraph you are developing to support it.

Notice you are building up what you can think of as a basic body paragraph in academic writing, one where you do the following:

1. You make a claim.
2. You explain exactly what you mean by the claim in another sentence or so.
3. You point to a specific example/quote/summary/paraphrase/fact, etc. which illustrates your claim.
4. You explain/analyze your example, etc., pointing out the specific aspects of it which are significant to the reader fully understanding your claim.
5. You transition into your next paragraph using a sentence, phrase, or keyword.

To provide a full example, you might go on to develop your paragraph as follows:

Claim: I learned a great deal of information from my group members.
Explanation: For example, X corrected my articles providing me with a starting point on what I needed to work this semester.
Example: In the evidence section of this portfolio, I have included a rhetorical analysis with which X helped me. You can see it on page Y of the evidence section.
Analysis/Discussion: X pointed out what I later decided was my worst grammar problem--the need to make sure my subjects and verbs agree in number. For instance, you might look at this sentence, "In this situation, the noise was found in both the assumptions Tom made about the audience and the background of the audience." Originally, it read, "the noise founds" X told me to read the sentence out loud. When I did, I realized "noise founds" did not sound right, so I changed it to "the noise was found."
Transition: All semester, I received this kind of valuable advice from my group.

Notice how linking your claim to specific a specific article you include in the evidence section allows you to point to specific aspects of the article and fully discuss and develop your claim. Many students never make this leap. They link to an example to back up their claim, but they don't go on to discuss and explain the significance of the evidence to understanding their claim. Not taking this step in the difference between a "B" or "C" paper and an "A" paper. Discussion and analysis of a claim takes more time and work, but by the time you are done, your reader knows exactly what you mean, and they are *sure* you have given your claim a lot of thought. This last gains you ethos and makes your claims more likely to be believed.

More on setting goals and gaining them...

Achieve Your Goals by Focusing on Critical Activities

The Value of Writing Well

Lifehack.org has posted a good article on the value to be gained in learning to write well. Here's the link:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/the-value-of-writing-well.html

Here's my favorite quote from the article:

"...businesses repeatedly cite “communication skills” as the single most desirable trait in new employees."

Why is all the work in a 111 or 112 English course worth your time and effort?

"Good writing pays better than does bad."

For this semester, the end is in sight. Your portfolio will soon be finished and turned in. While patting yourself on the back, remember a lesson my father told me my wedding day, "This is just the start of all you'll need to know and do to make the marriage work." The same holds true for writing. Like putting work into a good marriage, learning to write well pays all back nine fold in terms of the life you can live.

Steve