25 Sep 08 - More on writing

We covered quite a lot of ground today.

We looked at plagiarism and referencing and discussed these at some length (see links in the last post entitled "some useful online resources").

I asked everyone to write one sentence that outlined the purpose of their education essay (due in next week). It is crucial to have a sense of purpose in any form of communication that you produce. Without a sound sense of purpose your essay, report or presentation will appear to be confused and poorly prepared. It'll be interesting to compare these "purpose sentences" to the final essays.

I asked students to come up with some useful tips from the essay booklet. Students referred to the importance of planning and the use of cards in planning. David brought up a very good point: it is helpful to devise our own questions that we hope to answer when we start our research. This will help us read and research with a sense of purpose (again note importance of purpose).

We looked in an almost forensic way at the features of essays: topic sentences; transition words and phrases; introductions; and endings. Students were set the task of re-assembling an essay that was cut up into pieces. It helped us focus on structure. The introduction to that essay gave significant clues as to how the essay should be re-assembled.

Finally, I plan to book tickets for the film "Die Welle" (The Wave). I'm hoping to get tickets for next Thursday at 9.10 for the Cameo Cinema (see link: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema_home_date.aspx?venueId=edbg) About 11 students say that they'd be interested. Keep an eye on the Blog for confirmation of that.

Remember essays on education for next week. 800 -1000 words. Preferably typed (Times New Roman/Arial 12 point)