Hello My Seniors!
I am not sure how many of you will be checking this, but be aware that the homework due tomorrow is listed below. This posting however is dedicated to venting or expressing my thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses in my students' writing. I thought it would be helpful to some of you to be aware of what Ms. Ramirez expects from her students' writing (as if you haven't heard me enough, right?) Well, here goes anyway.
First and foremost, I expect you to reread your work before submitting as I insist that some of your errors can be identified even by you upon a second reading. Some of these errors include the lack of "holding your reader's hand". Many of you jump into a subject without introduction or transition. Please understand that as "cool" as I am, I am not a mind reader and cannot know where you are coming from if you jump into a subject. I am relatively good at inferring and guessing what you are trying to say, but I do not believe that it is fair to me, as your reader, to be put in that predicament. You all know that one of my biggest and most imperative goals is to help you become a better communicator. Thankfully, many of you are already great at doing this orally, but seeing as we do not live in the Anglo-Saxon days, it is also crucial that you be able to communicate efficiently on paper. Therefore, please make sure that you ALWAYS put yourself in your reader's shoes and if you cannot understand what you are trying to say, CHANGE IT. DO NOT SETTLE AND ASSUME THAT THEY WILL FIGURE IT OUT. :-/
Secondly, I would like to remind you that while your opinions and commentary are absolutely necessary in an essay, it is not sufficient to make a good essay. A good essay includes the right balance of concrete details and commentary. Direct quotes are always impressive and with the right commentary (aka. your opinion/analysis) they make a relatively good essay. Please try to do both. I know I make it sound as if this is very easy and I'm aware that it takes practice, but I thought it would be good to remind you. Most of the essays I read have too much of one or the other. Try to balance it out.
Lastly, to ensure that my first and second point work for you, make sure that you include transitions. PLEASE BECOME INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED WITH TRANSITIONS. LOVE THEM, TREASURE THEM, USE THEM. Without those suckers, your reader is lost and/or bored. Remember that TRANSITIONS ARE YOUR FRIENDS!!!
This is all the wisdom and grievances that I currently have for you, hopefully I will not have much need to vent in the future. :-) Adios.
Ms. Ramirez
1 comment:
Tony B
Period 4
1/28/09
I think that this is reasonable to ask of us. For the simple fact that us as 12th graders. Should be on the level of checking our work and have other people proof read it before turning it in. and it should definitely be an automatic for us to do these things, because I know as a student I get tired of doing the sentence corrections. When kids should just do it on word first then copy and paste it on to the blog and then post it would save you and us the students the heart ache and disappear of reading simple mistakes. That could have been easily corrected had they took the time. To look at what they were writing. And for you to have to do that plus read the essays or there sentences is a lot more work then is needed. On that, level sense I feel you on that. So yes I understand your heart ache and pain. Laugh out loud.
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