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<Puts on Teacher Hat... I did 20 or so years [on and off!] in the classroom, teaching kids about English lit and how to write!>
If you speak the way you write, you are an excellent communicator.
The entry was a nice length: long enough to tell the story properly, short enough to read over a coffee break. You got in a little humour, and caught the interest of the reader. I went on to look at other parts of the site. Paragraphs are short, sentences well constructed and of varied length, which is excellent. And there are cute pictured of the buns in the article. As an example of how to blog, I'd be happy to use this as a teaching tool as a good example for this type of organization.
<Teacher hat off>
As for the 'try harder'... Words ALMOST fail me! That is very poor teaching. I went through school with a terrible spelling problem. Nobody could get to the bottom of it, as I learned to read at four, before I ever got to school. Then I went to do Teacher Training at one of our most prestigious teacher training establishments. They were at the front of digging into what are now called 'specific learning difficulties', and were doing a lot of the developmental work for testing for things like dyslexia. I took a LOT of those tests in my time there. And yes, I turn out to be a high-functioning dyslexic. I was too late to get any formal classification, and there was really no help in school or college for folk with such problems, but at least they knew, and steered me towards 'packet top' courses where they could, so I collected credits along the way rather than having to rely completely on end of course exams. I did a dissertation on the education of middle class girls between the 1868 and 1968 Education reports( and spent many a happy hour digging through the 1868 report, reading the evidence given by Miss Buss and Miss Beale) rather than doing the exam course for History of Ed, for example. I got additional lessons in editing that when my dad read it over and my mum typed it up (this was 1977, before the advent of the personal computer!).
As a teacher, I always taught kids how to write a plan and build a structure on which to hang the details, and how to cite sources when used. It looks so impressive in their folders and adds a point or two to their marks. I think it's criminally negligent NOT to teach this sort of thing. Teaching kids how to narrow their research and keep to the point is necessary too: the internet is huge and full if lovely things that are incredibly useful, but you need to know how to find the bits you need, and then what to do with them! Learning FACTS a la Mr Gradgrind is no longer pertinent to a good education, not once you have got beyond the basics of spelling and grammar.
I did eventually go on to do an MA in modern Lit, which was fun and fascinating. The comment I got back from my supervisor on my MA thesis (It's Entertainment, But Is It Literature, based on three novels by Diana Wynne Jones) was: "Its a bit long, Kate (just over 20,000 rather than the 18 max they were looking for!), but I can't see anything you could cut out!"
Keep writing. It gets better and easier the more you do!
no subject
If you speak the way you write, you are an excellent communicator.
The entry was a nice length: long enough to tell the story properly, short enough to read over a coffee break. You got in a little humour, and caught the interest of the reader. I went on to look at other parts of the site. Paragraphs are short, sentences well constructed and of varied length, which is excellent. And there are cute pictured of the buns in the article. As an example of how to blog, I'd be happy to use this as a teaching tool as a good example for this type of organization.
<Teacher hat off>
As for the 'try harder'... Words ALMOST fail me! That is very poor teaching. I went through school with a terrible spelling problem. Nobody could get to the bottom of it, as I learned to read at four, before I ever got to school. Then I went to do Teacher Training at one of our most prestigious teacher training establishments. They were at the front of digging into what are now called 'specific learning difficulties', and were doing a lot of the developmental work for testing for things like dyslexia. I took a LOT of those tests in my time there. And yes, I turn out to be a high-functioning dyslexic. I was too late to get any formal classification, and there was really no help in school or college for folk with such problems, but at least they knew, and steered me towards 'packet top' courses where they could, so I collected credits along the way rather than having to rely completely on end of course exams. I did a dissertation on the education of middle class girls between the 1868 and 1968 Education reports( and spent many a happy hour digging through the 1868 report, reading the evidence given by Miss Buss and Miss Beale) rather than doing the exam course for History of Ed, for example. I got additional lessons in editing that when my dad read it over and my mum typed it up (this was 1977, before the advent of the personal computer!).
As a teacher, I always taught kids how to write a plan and build a structure on which to hang the details, and how to cite sources when used. It looks so impressive in their folders and adds a point or two to their marks. I think it's criminally negligent NOT to teach this sort of thing. Teaching kids how to narrow their research and keep to the point is necessary too: the internet is huge and full if lovely things that are incredibly useful, but you need to know how to find the bits you need, and then what to do with them! Learning FACTS a la Mr Gradgrind is no longer pertinent to a good education, not once you have got beyond the basics of spelling and grammar.
I did eventually go on to do an MA in modern Lit, which was fun and fascinating. The comment I got back from my supervisor on my MA thesis (It's Entertainment, But Is It Literature, based on three novels by Diana Wynne Jones) was: "Its a bit long, Kate (just over 20,000 rather than the 18 max they were looking for!), but I can't see anything you could cut out!"
Keep writing. It gets better and easier the more you do!