SUMMARY In the article, “Understanding Writing Assignments: Tips and Techniques,” author Dan Melzer shares with his audience seven useful suggestions to keep in mind when starting any writing assignment. Melzer’s first tips are for readers to examine their rubrics for any key verbs that will tell writers what approach and genre their paper should have. Knowing what kind of writing your teacher wants will not only help a writer get started, it will also inform a writer what they can research to view examples. Next, he tells his readers to write for their specific audience, to make sure they know their teacher’s expectations, and to take into account what they have learned in class. In these sections, Melzer stresses the importance of asking a teacher …show more content…
Melzer provided a ton of writing tips to consider before starting a writing essay. In my opinion, his most important tip is to ask a teacher questions about the assignment. Not only does this tip have its own section, it is also mentioned in most of his other tips. My favorite technique Melzer mentioned was to look for key verbs in a writing assignment. These key verbs can tell a writer what kind of approach their essay should take and what kind of writing the teacher expects. I also really liked how Melzer wrote to his audience of students. He specifically worded his article to relate to his main audience. The tip that I most relate to was Tip #7: Picking a topic that interests you. When I had to create a science powerpoint, which was worth more points than all the homework our class had done for the year, I was nervous that I would flunk because I have never done well on an oral presentation. The only plus was that we could pick any topic as long as it was related to earth science. I chose the topic of the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear
Plato once said: “Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.” People are taught from a very young age never to lie or keep secrets. It would be easy for anyone to stand behind the argument: “Honesty is the best policy,” but in times of personal anguish, that decree is quickly disdained. What this argument fails to consider is that keeping a secret or lying is the justifiable in times of crisis.
Strategies and techniques that a person uses are those that allow you to write great papers. There are no rules on how an essay should be written; the only expectations are to get your main point across to your audience. Whether you are writing a persuasive essay, an informal essay, literary essay, argumentative essay, or a compare and contrast essay you name it there is always a purpose. One individual can follow a linear process and can edit it and precede all over with the following steps. Your fellow class mate might have a different way to write or even have similarities within. Writing takes time, patience, and overall practice. Just like how Hairston relates writing to the best athletes. Athletes are not born the best but through practice, time, criticism, and reinforcement it can lead them to become the
Whether you are given a selection of prompts to choose from or just one, knowing something about the various sorts of writing prompts can help you understand what your teacher expects and how you should approach the project.
Your purpose in reading source materials and then in drawing upon them to write your own material is often reflected in the wording of an assignment.
There are various ways writers can evaluate their techniques applied in writing. The genre of writing about writing can be approached in various ways – from a process paper to sharing personal experience. The elements that go into this specific genre include answers to the five most important questions who, what, where, and why they write. Anne Lamott, Junot Diaz, Kent Haruf, and Susan Sontag discuss these ideas in their individual investigations. These authors create different experiences for the reader, but these same themes emerge: fears of failing, personal feelings toward writing, and most importantly personal insight on the importance of writing and what works and does not work in their writing procedures.
Whether it’s the students, professors, staff members, etc. in a university setting everybody uses writing. Writing, especially in college, is assigned to teach you the skills necessary to appropriately communicate in the workplace and in classrooms by using critical thinking. In order to obtain these skills you must practice, being asked to write different assignments about different situations is good practice. Sometimes you will have teachers who will be unclear with what their expectations from you are. Some will tell you what they want you to read, what to think about while reading, how they want your paper to be organized, etc. There will be some teachers that will simply just ask you a general question, ask you to write about it, and just see where you go with it, giving you your own rubric to go off of. Sometimes your teacher will define assignments and topics for you and at other times ask you to do the defining. It is important that you are able to think critically in situations like these. If you have a teacher that ...
With our first paper, a Literary Analysis, I wrote about the struggles of changing writing styles in college. I reflected on the types of writing we did in high school and how it shaped everyone to write in a passive tone to get more information across to the reader. With this paper, Dr. Schlueter let us write in our own style. This was a big change from what I was used to in high school. I was able to understand different types of writing though the research I performed to find out what kind of writer I was and how I should be writing in college. Without being given specific guidelines, besides “write about a memorable experience involving reading or writing”, I was forced to use my own creativity to write a paper that met the limited requirements (I use the word limited very loosely). This first paper really helped me figure out my style and made and impact on my other papers that I wrote for this class.
Thinking about a topic to write about is not always easy, and sometimes the process of writing can end up being difficult. Jennifer Jacobson discusses strategies to overcome the struggles that young writers can encounter while writing. I was interested in her book No More “I’m Done!” Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades because I feel like as a future teacher this could be a frequent problem among students. From reading this book, I hoped that I would learn useful strategies that I could use to help students overcome their problems with writing. After reading this book, I do believe that Jacobson has provided me with plenty of methods to use. I was surprised at the depth that she goes into in her text. There is a vast amount
I have always known that writing was not my strong point. Entering writing 101 in September I was very much afraid. I knew that the expectations would be very high for this course; thus it would be more difficult than any other writing class I had previously taken. At first writing was a nightmare for me, but thanks to the assistance from professor Smart and my tutors, I have improved drastically in my writing skills and, as a result I am now a better writer. During the course of four months, I have learned so much. There were a few bumps in the way throughout the semester, but I managed to overcome them. It is hard to believe that my journey in writing 101 is coming to an end. Through my hard work and dedication, this class has helped me to build confidence in my writing that will help me throughout my college life.
Students in Eleventh Grade College Preparatory English classes will be able to read a writing prompt and understand what it is asking them to do. They will demonstrate this by being able to restate the prompt into a topic sentence and articulate their response with an appropriate thesis statement. In addition they will be able to organize their paper and support their ideas with evidence from the text provided.
Every assignment is sprinkled with bits of everything. From comedy to romance, everyone sees each prompt in a different light. Usually, each individual correlates with what they have done before. One girl in particular writes almost strictly to make people laugh. Another person writes papers so chilling, you can feel your skin crawl. Another girl writes about what she believes love will one day feel like, and another writes with such demise, it’s hard not to believe she’s hollow. The themes of these assignments, the feelings the writer wants to provide to their reader, portray on a different level the true substance of the
Wikipedia: A Head Start for Academic Research Writing Right when you enter your first day of English class, your instructor already assigns you and your classmates a writing project to start on. This project requires research and you are stuck on where and how to begin.
Whenever students go into an English class, their teachers almost always bring up writing styles. Unfortunately, not many instructors explain what a writing style is. They just ask the students, “What is your writing style?”. At that point, most students do not respond and just look down at their notebook. Lunsford defines style as, “...how a message is presented, whether that message is in writing, in speech, in images, or in another form” (511). Style gives a story an overall picture. It allows the readers to visualize the narrative and comprehend it easily. Style is important to writers because they want their audience to connect with their piece. If there is no connection, then the story will not be as successful as it could be.
I have learned many things throughout the course of the term, including such things as: how to write an essay and how to improve on essays that I have already written, how to locate and composite better research through the use of numerous resources found at the campus library, the internet, and the “Common Sense” textbook, how to cite research, examples, and quotations properly within the contents of my research paper as well as document it accurately according to MLA standards. Through the exploration of the “Subjects and Strategies” textbook, I have learned nine different methods used when writing an effective essay and how the different writing styles affect the overall theme and tone of the essay when used properly. This past semester, I have encountered many difficulties when trying to write these essays, but through the use of the textbooks, the aide of the instructor, and once I was able to classify the different types of essays and styles, I found them possible to overcome.
I argued that in order to help students we must develop their skills in writing through a process genre approach. “Given that writing is a process and that what we write is heavily influenced by the constraints of genres” Harmer (2004:86). It’s imperative that these elements are included in writing activities. I argued that without the ‘drafting and redrafting’ students are unlikely to improve. Moreover, “Teaching and learning are joint enterprises involving both teacher and student in a partnership” White&Arndt (1991:2). Both must fulfill their roles in this partnership, and though essay writing will continue to be challenging, I believe both teacher and student can become more motivated and see writing as communicative, rewarding and