Month: October 2021

Scrolling through all of the Invention Strategies I found a couple of them very interesting to try out in my writing. One of my all-time favorites is  Freewrite for 5 minutes. First of all, using this strategy you do not have to worry about grammar or spelling, thus you are fully focused on your ideas. Your writing flows freely and you don’t have to stop every time when you made mistake. Also, I really liked the fact that you only get 5 minutes to brainstorm and write. Then, you know that you have a time frame and you start working productively.

My second favorite strategy was Mapping. Honestly, I use this technique every time I have to write something. It allows you to start with broader and abstract ideas and then fill them with more detailed information. Also, This way your writing will be more structured and well organized later on.

I’m starting my Research Essay with a tentative question: “Why is it so much more complicated and harder for international students to get into American universities?”

This week I chose the chapter “Grading Has Always Made Writing Better” to read. The name of the chapter caught my attention because I find this topic very ambiguous.

This chapter mainly talks about the necessity of a grading system in education, the key point is that without grading there is no space for growing and improving your work. However, I decided to focus on a different issue of grading. For me, the problem at the heart of the chapter is that grading is not always very reliable. Your grade will most likely depend on who is grading your work, what is your relationship with this person, not to mention what kind of work this is, or what topic you chose to talk about.

After some research on Google, I found that the group that is most interested in this issue is parents. They find the grading system in schools to be very unfair, and let’s say…unpredictable. Their children come home being very disappointed and upset just because there is no explanation behind the grade they receive. They are worried that it seems almost impossible to figure out what are some of the criteria of a certain grade.

I, myself, had faced this issue many times in my life. Sometimes, I attributed the bad grade to the teacher’s incompetence instead of thinking about improving my own work…

I wonder if there is a system of grading which would provide an independent grade, meaning that it would not be aware of the relationship between student and the teacher; or a topic that was chosen, or an opinion expressed.

-Society and History: Scholars in writing studies (just as in any academic field) argue to and against one another in scholarly journals, books, and conference talks, those forms of knowledge-making don’t consistently find their way into the public’s understanding of writing.

-Audience: Readers of Bad Ideas About Writing.

-Speaker: Scholars, intellectuals, and artists; writing scholar-teachers; authors in the Bad Ideas collection (Edge.org).

-Message: Public deserves clearly articulated and well-researched arguments about what is not working, what must die, and what is blocking progress in current understandings of writing.

-Purpose: To spark arguments about provocative ideas to be published online and collected into print volumes intended for a general public audience; major myths about writing instruction—written by experts for the educated public—that could collectively spark debate and have us rethink our pieties and myths; to translate specialized knowledge and experiences about writing.

-Context: The beginning of 1998; West Virginia University Library; after 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communication.

When it comes to my daily life communication I often use rhetoric to emphasise an idea or statement.

For example, I noticed, when you start your talk with a rhetorical question your audience pays more attention to whatever you say. In my opinion, that happens because people need some time to analyse your question since it has been veiled!

On the other hand, it might not be such a good idea to use rhetorical statements when you are trying to convey an important information. It might be misunderstood by your audience.

Also, it is essential for me to be aware of my audience and the communication channels I am using. Writing an email to my professor and writing an essay are two different things. In the first case, I want to be straight forward and clear, whereas in the second case there is some space for imagination and rhetoric.