Prewriting the Research Essay: Starting with "I Think"

Mixed Metaphors for Prewriting

One of the most common problems I find in students' college-level essays is a lack of original, synthesized thought, and an overabundance of summarized, paraphrased, and quoted material.

Students often bring with them into the classroom a misunderstanding of what it means to write an essay.  They often misinterpret our requests for them to write essays as requests to summarize facts, statistics, and expert opinions or reference texts to prove to us they've read the given textbook or required journal articles.

However, we college faculty do not ask students to write essays just to get back a paraphrased version of someone else's thoughts, whether or not that someone is an expert.  We faculty do ask students to write essays as evidence of an ability to comment on research and study they should be doing anyway. In fact, the former is a part of the latter.  That is, summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting research material is a part of  taking notes and organizing materials, which is a part of writing an essay, which is a part of learning about a topic.

In a research essay, before students even head to the library to find outside research, they should have already formed a thesis, a claim,  an opinion about the topic.  In other words, they should begin the writing process with "I think."  Like hypothesizing, they then find research by experts that might either confirm or deny what they think.  All of this happens in the first two stages of the writing process, prewriting and outlining.

Steps in the Writing Process

The basic writing process is generally taught as follows: prewriting, organizing, drafting, revising, and publishing.  My students report that they usually spend a half hour or less prewriting, a few hours outlining a paper, a few more hours drafting a paper, they skip revision entirely, and they spend maybe an hour or so formatting the paper per submission guidelines.  They either gather expert evidence that answers their research questions or assignment questions before they even begin to prewrite, or they research at the end of the process when they check to see if they've met the word count or research source requirements.

They're doing it wrong, and it's our job to fix that.

For research essays, that timeline students report to me has to shift.  Students should spend several hours prewriting research essays, and they should spend extra time outlining their essays, planning where researched evidence can be used to support original claims and topic sentences, not the paraphrased claims and topic sentences of experts.  If the evidence confirms their original claims, this is a straightforward process.  However, when the research denies their claims, they must reassess the claim, draft another thesis statement, and revisit the prewriting and outlining processes.

A Breakdown of Prewriting

Only when a student has successfully composed a thesis statement and topic sentences has he or she completed the prewriting stage and is ready to move on to outlining.  Before that can happen, however, there are several mini-steps that need to happen within the broader heading of "Prewriting."

When writing about ideas new to them, students may need to review basic information about a topic before generating ideas.  For example, they will definitely have to read a short story before they can write a literary analysis of that story.  They may also need to read about the author or time period. Depending on the assignment, they may also need to read other critical analysis articles and essays in order to respond to a given assignment requirement.

When given the freedom to write about any topic, students will usually need to conduct less research before beginning the following steps.

The key is to teach students when they will and when they will not have to conduct research before beginning their prewriting.  

That can be as informal as stating, "Be sure to read X, Y, and Z before generating your thesis for this paper," or "Read so-and-so's theory of such-and-such.  Without consulting any other outside sources, tell me why you agree or disagree with so-and-so's theory about such-and-such."  If you later want students to read outside sources, you can ask for a second draft that includes sources.

Mini-step #1: Divergent Thinking (Doodling Paperclips)

Breakpoint and Beyond, a book published in 1998 by George Land and Beth Jarman, includes a discussion of a longitudinal study conducted to measure divergent thinking. Fifteen hundred people were asked, "How many uses can you think of for a paperclip?" The majority of people came up with ten or fifteen uses, but people really good at divergent thinking came up with over a hundred.  The fun part?  The youngest participants were the really good divergent thinkers: They ran circles around grown-ups.

What's that mean?  It means our adult college students need more time and more help or encouragement coming up with original ideas about topics.  They need to know that any claim they make can be amended later after research confirms or denies their claims.  They need to know that any original idea is acceptable as long as they are willing to amend it later.

Mini-step #2: Critical Thinking (Pulling Taffy)

After students generate a multitude of ideas in the divergent thinking stage of prewriting, they then have to go back and carefully pick through their ideas to choose the best of the bunch.  They can then group ideas by category, by reason, or in a hierarchy to help them divide the best claims into provable pieces, or topic sentences.  This process involves thinking about what they think and why they think it, which is what critical thinking is all about.

The best of the best ideas become thesis statements, complete thoughts that clearly express a claim or position about a given topic.  That one position or claim must be divisible and supportable, and the students break their defensive plan into pieces, topic sentences.

As I like to tell students, a claim is like taffy.  You have to pull it into smaller pieces in order to eat it; otherwise, you'll choke.

Mini-step #3: Research (Getting Ducks in a Row)

Once students choose one claim to defend, and they pull it into topic sentences, they can begin organizing their ideas on an outline.  After the thesis claim and topic sentences are in place on the outline, they can begin generating original examples, narratives, or personal observations in support of their ideas. However, they should also begin their research.  This research they gather and carefully examine will either confirm or deny their claims.  If any part of the argument cannot be defended with evidence, the argument should change: One or more topic sentences may have to change, evidence may have to change, or the entire thesis may have to change.

The students need to see, on the outline, that evidence lines up hierarchically beneath a topic sentence, in support of that one topic sentence.  They need to get their ducks in a row so as not to sound like quacks in their final drafts.

Summary

The key to helping students write successful research essays is to help them learn when to research their own ideas and to help them plan their assignment and research time accordingly. Silly though my metaphors may be, paperclips, taffy, and ducks help students remember to appreciate and find value in their own, original ideas, to confirm or adapt those ideas based on evidence, and to support those ideas within unified paragraphs.

Want to read more about writing pedagogy?  Try

A Playful Lesson for the Composition Classroom
Using Anti-Plagiarism Software as an Assignment Requirement
Critical Thinking and Argument: Grading the Argumentative Essay

References

Land, G. and Jarmon, B. (1998). Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today. Carlsbad, CA: Leadership 2000, Inc.






Copyright Amy Lynn Hess.  Please contact the author for permission to republish.

Verbals: How to Identify Gerunds

Gerunds Behave Like Nouns and Verbs

Verbals are words that look like verbs, but they have functions and abilities beyond mere "verbishness."  

Instead of behaving like plain 'ol verbs, they behave like nouns, adjectives, or adverbs within the context of a sentence while still maintaining the ability to pass along the actions of their "verbish" natures.

Gerunds are only one type of verbal. The others kinds of verbals are participles and infinitives.

So how can you tell gerunds apart from participles and infinitives?

Which is Which? Three Kinds of Verbals

Infinitives, Participles, Gerunds

Infinitives are verbs that are preceded by the word "to," as in "to bake," "to swim," or "to run." However, these verbals are not used to show action or a state of being in a sentence like a verb is used. Instead, they are used as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.  Infinitives can take on verbal complements, which are nouns that follow the verbal and receive the action of the verbal, as in "to bake a cake,"  or "to run a marathon."  It is easy to tell infinitives from gerunds because gerunds are not preceded by the word "to."

Participles look like "ed" or "ing" verbs, but they are used in sentences as adjectives.  Although participles and gerunds may both end in "ing," you can tell a gerund from a participle because gerunds are not used as either adjectives or adverbs.  "Running is a healthy habit" uses "Running" as a subject, a gerund, while "Turn off the running water" uses "running" to describe water, a participle.

Gerunds, like present participles, end in "ing."  In sentences, gerunds are used as nouns.  A gerund can be used in a sentence in any way a noun can be used: as a complement, object, or subject.  Like a verb, gerunds can take on verbal complements.

Identifying Gerunds

Gerunds as Subjects

It is important to be able to identify gerunds within sentences.  This can help writers avoid one of the most common grammatical errors, subject-verb agreement errors.  For example, take a look at the following two sentences.  Can you tell which sentence is grammatically correct and which sentence is not grammatically correct?

• Riding her horses is her favorite pastime.
• Growing gigantic sunflowers are her business.

If you said the first sentence is correct and second sentence is incorrect, well done!

In the example sentences above, the first sentence is written correctly.  The second sentence, however, contains a subject-verb agreement error.

The subject of the second sentence is the gerund, "Growing," which does not agree with the verb, "are."  Although "sunflowers" is the noun that appears just before the verb, "sunflowers" is not the subject of the sentence (it's actually the verbal complement).  "Sunflowers" are not her business; "growing sunflowers" is her business.

Gerunds as Subject Complements

Gerunds can also be used as subject complements in sentences.  For example, instead of saying "Riding her horses is her favorite pastime," we could swap the subject and complement and say, "Her favorite pastime is riding her horses."  Although our understanding of her feelings about riding her horses remains the same, the gerund as subject becomes the gerund as subject complement.  Why would you ever want to swap a subject for a complement?  Writers should always place the most important words in the sentence as the subject of the sentence for greater emphasis and more clarity.

Please note that using an "ing" gerund as a subject complement is very different from using an "ing" verb as an action or state of being.  In the sentence "She is riding her horses," "is riding" is the progressive tense of the verb  "ride," and it shows action.  It is not a gerund.

Gerunds as Objects

Last, but not least, gerunds can be used as objects within sentences.  Instead of writing, "Riding her horses is her favorite pastime," we can write "She loves riding her horses."  Replacing the linking verb "is," with the action verb "loves," changes (like magic!) "riding" from a subject complement to a direct object.  But why do you need to know how to do that? Because this "magical" transformation helps writers create more effective, more strongly worded and specific, sentences.

Another way a gerund can be used as an object is as the object of a preposition.  If you've ever gone horseback riding, you know that at times it can be very exhausting.  We could say, "She was very tired after riding her horses."  In this example, "after" is the preposition and "riding" is the object of the preposition.  "Horses" is the verbal complement.

Summary

When using gerunds in sentences, it is necessary to be able to identify the gerund's use or function within the sentence.  This ability to identify gerunds can help a writer maintain subject-verb agreement and can help writers generate more effective, more strongly worded, and more specific sentences.



Copyright Amy Lynn Hess.  Please contact the author for permission to republish.

Writing for an Intended Audience

What does your audience know, and what do they need to know?

When you write an essay or speech, you must consider your audience, that group of people who will be reading your essay or listening to your speech.  

You must consider, as you are planning your essay or speech, what your audience may already know or believe about your topic so that you can appropriately inform, convince, or offer insight to that specific group of people.  You need to consider what about your topic will capture and keep the interest of those specific people.

In composition or writing classes, you may refer to that specific group of people as your intended audience. 

For example, say you are given the task of writing an essay about microscopes.

How would you want to narrow your topic if these children were your audience?

This essay would have to take into account the minimal experience your audience has with microscopes.  You can inform and interest this audience with basic information delivered in clear, everyday language. You could deliver information about how to use the classroom microscopes,  who invented the microscope, how microscopes are used in the sciences, or how to properly handle a microscope.  

You would probably not try to convince schoolchildren to buy their own microscopes or deliver a speech to them called "Reliable and Global Measurement of Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer Using Fluorescence Microscopes."  If you tried, you might lose their interest, as the type of information and the level of information in such a speech might make them "tune out."

But what if this was your audience?

Do you see how radically your essay would have to change?   This second essay, on the other hand, should be much more focused.  You should research new or developing information about microscopes in order to offer them information that may not already have.  You could use scientific jargon and more specialized examples to keep their interest.

Last, but not least, what if the local school board was your audience and you were given the task of delivering a speech to convince them to purchase new microscopes?  

With this audience, you face a much different challenge.  Delivering a speech about how to use a microscope, or offering them information about the newest use of a florescent proton microscope at M.I.T. isn't going to interest them much.  Your job is to find ways to convince the board that microscopes are worth the cost of meeting the objectives of the school district's science courses.

However, when writers do not write specifically for an intended audience, those mixed messages often appear in essays and speeches: School board members wonder why they're being told how to use a microscope, and school children wonder what in the world "M.I.T." might be, and scientists wonder why you're trying to convince them to purchase something they probably already have.  

In short, when you mix the messages in your writing, it pulls the reader or listener away from your essay or speech and you lose their attention.  In order to avoid that issue, always imagine your intended audience, and focus your writing for that specific group of people.

Focus your opening lines to capture the attention of your intended audience, formulate a relevant thesis, and offer evidence and supporting details within the body of your paper or speech that will help that particular audience receive your message.

Want to read more about writing essays? Try

Learn and Earn: Why Students Should Learn to Write
Sample Expository Essays
What's a Thesis

Copyright Amy Lynn Hess.  Please contact the author for permission to republish.

Learn and Earn: Why Students Should Learn to Write

Have you ever wondered why you have to take writing classes to get your college degree? Have you heard others bemoaning having to take composition, essay-writing, or basic grammar courses? Have your children or students ever asked you, "Why do I have to learn this stuff?" 

Grammarly, a company devoted to the development of writing skills through online automated grammar checking, recently conducted research to help answer those questions.

  
Specifically, they set out to determine if there were any correlations between writing skills and career success.

The good news? Better writing, they found, correlated with success!

Method

The company started their research by looking carefully at the profiles of freelancers listed on the Elance online staffing platform who had gotten high ratings, 4-star or 5-star ratings, from employers. What were the Grammarly folks looking for as they reviewed those high-rated employees? Grammatical and mechanical errors, of course!  It's what they do best!

Results

Grammarly found that freelancers in all eight Elance categories who had the highest ratings also had fewer grammatical and mechanical mistakes than other freelance employees who had earned lower ratings.

 
In other words, better writing equaled more satisfied employers.

Furthermore, to reiterate findings provided by Grammarly, the better writers earned more!

• Freelancers in Engineering & Manufacturing with 10 or fewer errors in their profiles on average made $520.64 per job; while those with 30 or more errors made on average $237.42 per job. 
• Freelancers in Sales & Marketing with 10 or fewer errors made about $498.26 per job; while those with 30 or more errors made on average $182.07 per job.

The better writers in both categories earned more than double their counterparts!

Discussion

Although cause and effect cannot be determined based on this survey of freelance professionals and their employment ratings, the results show a definite correlation between writing skills and high-rated employees.  For example, those who were already skilled writers working in disciplines devoted to writing, "Freelance Writers & Translators,  made the fewest amount of mistakes, averaging 10.1 errors per every 100 words."  On the other hand, "Freelancers in the IT & Programming fields fared the poorest, with 19.3 errors per every 100 words." 

Read more about Grammarly's findings in the attached infographic, and keep practicing your writing! As this study shows, learning to write well is well worth the effort.

Are you ready to learn to write better for the opportunity to earn more? 

Try my complete online writing course on Udemy, Writing for English Composition: College Essays!

Sample Expository Essays

Break ideas into smaller paragraphs in order to support claims.

There are several essay examples on the Gypsy Daughter Essays blog, but none are more prevalent than the expository essays, written to explain an idea or inform a reader about a topic.

Let's examine three different sample expository essays, each of which informs or explains in a slightly different way.

Sample Expository Essay in Chronological Order

First, let's look at the sample essay, "Ancient Greek Theatre: Origins of the Term 'Deus ex Machina.'"

Although this is not a typical five-paragraph essay, it is indeed expository.  Its overall purpose is to inform and explain. The essay's claim, or thesis statement, is "In order to fully understand the term "deus ex machina" as it's used today, it's important for a reader to understand the ancient Greek origin of the term."

The essay then develops as the thesis suggests; that is, the essay first offers an overview of the term's origins, offers an historical example of its use, then explains and gives an example of how the term is used today.  Evidence includes facts, examples, and reasons.  Where applicable, an expert source has been cited.  The essay ends after the most contemporary use of the term is explained to the reader.  The essay ends with its listed references.

Sample Expository Essay Written in Five-Paragraph Framework

Another expository essay example is "Stages in the Development of Critical Thinking."  The claim in this essay is stated: "Recognizing the stages of student development can help teachers better plan lessons and assessment activities to help their specific students become better thinkers."  This essay is written using the basic five-paragraph essay framework. The introduction states a thesis and offers an essay map based on Perry's theory of development, and each categorical paragraph covers one of the listed stages.

However, a simple discussion of the stages would not be sufficient to support the given claim, so another section appears at the end of the essay that details what teachers can do to help students through each stage.  Evidence includes facts, examples, and expert testimony.  Again, all source content has been carefully cited.  The essay ends with a brief conclusion and a list of references.

Sample Expository Essay with Process Analysis & Step-by-Step Strategy

Last, but not least, "Making Crochet Sushi Toys" is an expository essay written with a "how-to" strategy.  The thesis statement for this essay reads, "Making an amigurumi (Japanese for "cute crochet") set of sushi ingredients is a great way to create a child's gift in only a few hours and for only a few dollars."  This thesis emphasizes why a reader should want to continue reading the essay. This type of thesis emphasizes what's in it for the reader.  The rest of the essay is a process analysis essay (explaining how something is done) with sequential steps.  Evidence includes factual information and detailed descriptions. Specifically, in order to support the claim, the ease and low cost are emphasized within the paragraphs.

Please note that each section of the essay, though written as step-by-step instructions, still includes a topic sentence that acts as a "gate," keeping all ideas about that section within its own "fence."  The essay ends with a very brief conclusion.


Whether you want to read about crocheting sushi toys, ancient Greek theatre, or the development of critical thinking skills, there are sample essays on this blog that offer examples of efficient, unified, coherent, and clear expository writing.  Each essay includes a thesis statement, carefully ordered topic sentences, sufficient evidence to support each point, and a brief conclusion.



Copyright Amy Lynn Hess.  Please contact the author for permission to republish.

What's an Object Complement?

The object complement is a noun or adjective that follows the direct object.

An object complement is a word in a sentence that either renames or modifies a direct object.  That means the object complement is always going to be a noun or adjective that follows the direct object.

Can you identify the object complement in the following sentence diagrams?

Remember, the object complement

• Renames or modifies the direct object

• Is a noun or adjective

• Follows the direct object

Example One
Jorge painted his kitchen green.

The first step is to identify the main parts of the sentence.  Jorge is the subject, painted is the verb, and to find the direct object we ask "painted what?"  The answer is kitchen.  The object complement, then, will be a noun or an adjective that follows the direct object and tells us more about the kitchen.   In this sentence, the object complement is green. 

Jorge is the subject, painted is the verb, and kitchen is the direct object.

Example Two
Jack considers Thomas a worthy ping pong partner.

In this second example, Jack is the subject, considers is the verb, and Thomas is the direct object. However, unlike the first example sentence, this sentence has five words that follow the direct object. We must determine which of those five words tells us more about Thomas.  When we analyze the adjectives more carefully, we see that they each describe partner, not Thomas.  Therefore, partner is the object complement.  Partner is a noun that follows and renames Thomas.

To diagram an object complement, place it on the base line and use
the backslash to separate it from the direct object.

Example Three
The fire chief declared the apartment safe to enter.

In this third example, chief is the subject, declared is the verb, and apartment is the direct object.  In this sentence, the direct object is followed by an adjective and an infinitive used as a modifier.  Since the infinitive, to enter, is describing the way in which the apartment is safe, we are left with safe as the object complement.

The object complement will always follow the direct object.

To summarize, finding the object complement in a sentence requires us to remember only three rules. First, the object complement must be a noun or an adjective.  Second, it must rename or modify the direct object.  Last, but not least, it must follow the direct object.  Once all of the parts of a sentence are placed in diagram form, it is easy to see how the object complement interacts with the rest of the sentence to offer us more information about the direct object.

Want to learn more about grammar or diagramming sentences? 

Try my complete online course on Udemy or purchase my sentence diagramming textbook from Amazon.

To enroll in my video series, sign up for a free Udemy account and register for my class, Diagramming Sentences: From Beginner to Expert in 12 Lessons.

A Playful Lesson for the Composition Classroom

Incorporating this playful lesson in the college composition classroom can spark insightful, passionate, and engaged student writing.

A sense of play and creativity encourages engagement in any activity, and college writing is no exception. Play helps “gratify desires that can’t be immediately fulfilled in order to relive tension,” states The Typist in an engaging blog post called "Creative Writing and Composition: Do They Go Together Like Peanut Butter and Thumbtacks?" The Typist's post, written by an English instructor from Springfield, Missouri, goes on to praise the introducing of playful and creative classroom activities and assignments in the composition classroom. To summarize, when students feel unfettered or free from the confines of the five-paragraph essay, their writing becomes more lively, passionate, and engaging.

The task, then, is for writing faculty to find ways for play and creativity to be incorporated into the composition classroom and its given learning outcomes.

It Starts With Something Students Love

My students love music. Not only do they love to listen to music, but they consistently choose, when the choice is available, to write about topics pertaining to music. In order to tap into this love, and in order to bring a sense of play and "emergence" into my composition classes, I have created a lesson that uses the folk music murder ballad to teach the concepts of unity, coherence and transitions in both narrative and expository writing. The same idea can be used with narrative lyrics from any genre of music.

Using Language for Play and Creativity

• First, I introduce the murder ballad to the class, pass out the lyrics, and play the song or songs for the students. Their task is merely to listen.
• Next, I ask the students to engage with the lyrics, and without using the term “active reading,” I guide them through the process. They circle, underline or star certain grammatical elements, they take notes, and I ask them to work together to make assumptions about the narrative.
• I ask them to role-play, or to think like reporters or detectives and infer answers about the murder by writing down answers to the five “Ws.”
• After they finish making some inferences, I collect the lyrics, cut them into pieces by verse, and return a few verses to each of the students.
• I ask them to reconstruct the story in any order they choose by grouping up with one another. Trying to reconstruct the story as originally arranged is strictly forbidden.
• Once the students pair up and group up, reconstruct the narrative, and add transitional devices that I’ve written on the board, their task is to prepare a piece of writing that details the order of events based on their inferences and reconstructed narrative.
• They present their work to the class.

Engaging Results

In the end, some students present newsworthy journalistic articles, while others write film noir or witness-style monologues, and still others write first-person accounts or process analysis essays. The various genres and styles of writing generally surprise the entire class, and "the" question is ultimately directed to me, "Are we allowed to write like that?" And I get to tell them, “Yes!” because even though left without a structure or formula, the writing is unified, coherent, and engaging. So, at that point I can redirect and explain the concepts of unity and coherence by using their own writing as examples.  Furthermore, continuously returning to these pieces of writing as examples throughout the term makes it easier to reinforce principles of writing in a way that resonates with the students.


In order to bring play and creativity into the composition classroom, faculty can tap into something students love while incorporating bridging exercises that lead to engaging results. These creative classroom projects can be used to introduce new writing concepts while helping students see "old" lessons in new ways. The freedom to write in a way that meets the objectives of the assignment while allowing for unique voices and styles helps maintain the momentum of the class and inspire more effective writing.

References

Creative Writing and Composition: Do They Go Together like Peanut Butter and Thumbtacks? (February 29, 2008). The Typist. Retrieved from http://thetypistsblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/creative-writing-and-composition-do.html

Want to read more about pedagogy and writing?  Try

Strategies to Revise Student Writing: Revision Day
Using Anti-Plagiarism Software as an Assignment Requirement
Myths about Writing Essays
The Benefit of Play in the Composition Classroom

Copyright Amy Lynn Hess. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.  Originally published Aug 25, 2011.

Defeating Writer's Block

What can you do to overcome writer's block?

On the final exam for my composition classes, I like to stick in a few tension-cutting questions that make students smile and help them relax into the rest of the test.

The question I ask about writer's block never initially was intended to generate one of those smiles, let alone the giggles it sometimes receives.  That question goes something like this:

When you find yourself with nothing to say about a particular topic and staring at a blank sheet of paper the day before an essay is due, what can you do to overcome your writer's block?

A. Stay up all night staring at a blank sheet of paper until inspiration hits.

B. Plagiarize or buy a paper online and hope like heck you don't get caught.

C. Go to bed and take the zero because there is nothing you can do to overcome writer's block.

D. Take a shower, dance around, drink some coffee, and write about something else for a while.

Do you know the best answer?  Let's examine the options.

ANSWER A: Stay up all night staring at a blank sheet of paper until inspiration hits.

Plagiarism is never the answer!

First, I will say that for some lucky souls, staying up all night staring at a blank sheet of paper until inspiration hits might work. More likely than not, however, this will lead only to sleeping in front of the computer or the completion of a particularly terrible paper. It would be better to do something active, as action begets more action.  "Staring" and "waiting" are not effective actions.

ANSWER B: Plagiarize or buy a paper online and hope like heck you don't get caught.

Definitely not.  An act of academic dishonesty will very rarely get by a professor undetected. Not only will plagiarism earn a student a zero on the assignment, but that student will then have to face the displeasure of a professor who has wasted a lot of extra time having to fill out paperwork that basically says that the student cheated. It only takes twenty to thirty minutes to grade a paper, but it takes over an hour and a half to turn in a student for cheating.

ANSWER C: Go to bed and take the zero because there is nothing you can do to overcome writer's block.

When all else fails, some students will choose to take a zero rather than fight the ugly writer's block monster. What I tell my students is that anything is better than a "goose egg," and I demonstrate my point by displaying a line chart with the course grade on the "Y" axis and the number of missed assignments in the "X" axis. When students accept zeros, or "goose eggs," grades plummet, as my line chart shows.

ANSWER D: Take a shower, dance around, drink some coffee, and write about something else for a while.

Give your brain a break!

Believe it or not, this is the correct answer. When faced with writer's block, it's always a fine idea to get up and move around, get refreshed, and write about something else for a little while - it all depends on a person's time management skills. If a student has procrastinated, he or she may not have a lot of time for some off-topic writing, but it's still important. Students may find they can sometimes find inspiration in that "something else" they choose to write about, or they may come up with a brilliant thesis statement in the moment when they're relaxing their minds a bit.


The secret to defeating writer's block is quite simple.  In order to overcome writer's block, a person has to write through it. The answer is in the semantics. If a person is writing, it really can't be called "writer's block" anymore, can it?

Want to read more about writing essays?  Try

Myths about Writing Essays
Outlining an Essay
Writing an Argumentative Essay





Copyright Amy Lynn Hess. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

Draw a Fox

How to Draw a Fox: Triangles, Ovals, Hearts, and Moons

Pinterest and Etsy are pretty foxy this year. Whether you're into pottery, fabrics, figurines, or prints, you can find your favorite covered in foxes.

The abundance of foxes on these, my favorite Web sites, inspired me to paint a few of my own  foxes on an old canvas I'd been dying to use.

Drawing and Designing Foxes

Before I could start painting, however, I had to design my own characters.  Folk figures are relatively simple to design when you think carefully about how basic shapes combine to create the "essence of" the animal. For example, as you can see in the blue illustration above, my fox's basic shapes are the triangle, heart, oval, and moon. Follow along with my How to Draw Foxes on Slideshare to get a more in-depth lesson on the way I broke it down, or experiment with basic shapes in your sketchbook.

Practice Designs in a Sketchbook

After practicing the combination of basic shapes a few times, I started adding color detail in my sketchbook with Prismacolor pencils.   I used photographs of foxes help me choose the right color combinations and markings.

Painting Foxes - Supplies

In order to keep my painting folksy and simple, I chose to use the same three colors and a high gloss medium.

• Mars Black
• Titanium White
• Red Ochre
• High Gloss Medium

Painting Foxes - Step by Step

I started the painting by brushing alternate horizontal and vertical strokes, similar to a basket weave, using Mars Black mixed with the medium.

Red Ochre is the Perfect Fox Fur Color

Once the background black was dry, I outlined the basic shapes with a very fine line of red ochre. In order for the foxes to really "pop" on the canvas, I left the paint flat, unmixed with a medium, so the background would reflect light, but the foxes would not.  I then filled in all but the white spaces with the red ochre, following the general lay of the fur.  The key was to use a light, dry brush technique so as to allow some of the background black to show through the red ochre.

Before the paint was completely dry, I went back with a clean brush to fill in the white areas, letting the white and red mix slightly at the edges for a soft blend.

After the white paint was dry, I added a bit more red ochre where I would be painting the legs and black accents for shadows.  Lastly, I added the black nose, eyes, legs, ears, and shadows.  I mixed the black with the newly added red for an even softer look, wanting to avoid the look of a graphic design.

Happy with the results, I am glad to report the new painting now sits on my hearth next to the fireplace.  However, these little foxes were so much fun to draw and paint, I have a feeling I am not done with them yet.

Want to read more about painting?  Try

Painting Supplies for Beginning Acrylic Painters
Escoda MARFIL Series Brushes for Acrylic Painters
Golden Heavy Body Artist's Acrylic Paint




Copyright Amy Lynn Hess.  Please contact the author for permission to republish.

Grief and the Holiday Season

There is a club to which many of us belong.  We didn't ask for membership. We didn't want membership, and we never want to see our friends join the club.  

Until a person becomes a member, he or she has no quantifiable way to understand how it feels to be such a member. The club is reserved for those who have dealt with loss on such a scale that "grief and grieving" aren't strong enough words to describe a member's raw emotions.

When people are lucky enough to have not yet been initiated, they may say things to members like, "Cheer up!  You'll feel better, soon!" or "It's been years.  Shouldn't you feel better by now?" Every so often, these lucky folks will even say, "My dog died when I was in high school, and I still miss her sometimes," or "When are you going to snap out of it?"

Although these sorts of comments are meant to help cheer the grieving, they more often than not do not. So what can the uninitiated say to the initiated to help ease them through what might be a difficult holiday season?

Here is a rundown of the two most common bits of advice offered by a variety of Web sites.

Assisting the Grieving

If the person just lost someone, identify a need the grieving person may have, like a need for a ride to the store or church, a tissue, a meal, or a batch of freshly laundered towels, and humbly help the person with that need. Offer that particular service, or depending on your relationship, you may feel comfortable jumping in to help.  If the person is experiencing grief or sadness because of the loss of a loved one in the past, you may want to ask what he or she might need or might want to do to honor that loved one during the holiday season.

Listening to the Grieving

Also, be sure to refrain from trivializing the loss by uttering platitudes such as "It was for the best," or "We all need to move on," even if the death took place several years prior.  Perhaps support the grieving person by letting that person speak while you listen.  On the other hand, the person may simply want to remain silent while you are there, in the person's presence. Recognize that everyone's grief and grieving process is different.  Avoid comparing your loss with that person's loss or telling the person how he or she should feel "because it's Christmas" or "because it's Hanukkah."

Most importantly, watch for warning signs of depression, and kindly encourage the person to seek help if necessary.

Although the holiday season is a time for joy and celebration, those people who have been initiated into the "grief and grieving" club may need a little more help from their friends than others, may need a little more time for quiet reflection than others, or may just need a hug or two extra. With sensitivity and compassion from friends and family, everyone can have a happier Hanukkah or a merrier Christmas.

Want to read more about the holidays?  Try

Using the Nice Dishes
It's Time to Count My Blessings (Instead of Sheep)
Crochet Christmas Tree Ornaments

Copyright Amy Lynn Hess.  Please contact the author for permission to republish.

Critical Thinking and Argument: Grading the Argumentative Essay

The Breakdown and Assessment
of Argumentative Essays

Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau define a formal argument as “a discussion that takes account of possible counterarguments, that relies chiefly on logic and little if at all on emotional appeal, and that draws a conclusion that seems irrefutable” (pg. 106). An argumentative essay is that formal argument shaped and crafted into a written document.   

Skills related to argumentation and the writing of argumentative essays span the breadth of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.  In order to construct an argument, students must collect and evaluate sources, examine the available evidence, come to a conclusion, compose an original thesis statement, organize and draft a paper, and within that paper carefully and thoroughly explain their reasoning. 

Argumentation is a Process

Students who do not complete any one of the many tasks related to writing the argumentative essay are missing a key component of the overall activity.  Argumentation, after all, is a discussion, an ongoing process, not a product.  Therefore, faculty who have not already done so should shift the assessment or grading of the argumentative essay from an evaluation of the product to an evaluation of the process.

A Model for Assessing the Argumentative Essay

One such model for assessing argumentation and the argumentative essay includes an assignment for each of the major elements of argumentation: a prewriting activity to help students find and narrow a topic, an annotated bibliography to help students learn to evaluate sources, an outline to show organization skills, and a paper taken through several drafts to demonstrate an ability to formulate complete thoughts and explain their reasoning to others.  Faculty evaluation of each of these four assignments can help assess students’ strengths and weaknesses before a final paper is submitted.

Subdividing Measurable Skills and Tasks

If and when necessary, generally depending on students’ levels of knowledge about the writing process, each of those four assignments can be further subdivided.  Students in a 100-level research writing course will, in other words, generally need more assistance than those in a 300 or 400-level research writing course.  For example, a prewriting assignment can be divided into several subsections: discussion of a topic, preliminary research, brainstorming, clustering, or the drafting of research questions.  The annotated bibliography can be introduced and created over the course of several lessons about research and information literacy, citations and style guides, or types of sources and evidence.  Because the outline can only be created after a student comes to a conclusion about the argumentative topic, a natural subsection is the composition of the thesis statement and topic sentences, which can even be introduced before or after an informal in-class debate.  This type of teamwork can also serve students who work together to revise one another’s papers.

An additional way to think of these assignments, or subdivided assignments, is to think of them as learning objectives for the overall course broken into lesson or assignment outcomes for individual units within the course.  Whereas an overall learning objective of the course might be for students to “evaluate source content,” the annotated bibliography unit may break that objective into much smaller pieces.  Before evaluating source content, students must first be able to “find authoritative source content,” “summarize the main ideas within a source,” and “research opposing views or authors.”   

Whereas the course objective may be difficult to assess or grade without taking into account multiple tasks, the lesson outcomes can be assessed and remediated in the immediate.  When students have difficulty “evaluating,” there could be a number of factors contributing to the confusion: The confusion could stem from an inability to find appropriate sources, to skim or comprehend the sources, or to learn more about the credentials of the source author or authors.

A Proficiency Rubric

A rubric associated with the main course objective, therefore, must also include a breakdown of the aggregate skills.  Is isn't enough to grade a student’s work based on whether or not the student evaluated a source, a simple “yes” or “no.”  To truly assess a student’s ability, we should also perhaps ask, “At what level of proficiency was the student able to accurately summarize or paraphrase the claims and evidence within the original source?”  “At what level of proficiency was the student able to explain or compare and contrast opposing views?”  Furthermore, we must make judgments about the level of proficiency we expect students to demonstrate by the end of a course.  Grades should align, mathematically, with the level of proficiency we expect students to have in each of the skills and subskills.

Argumentation is a process, not a product.  There are several skillful tasks that must be mastered in order for a student to argue successfully.  In the assessment of argumentative essay writing, each of these tasks related to writing and argumentation must be taken into account.  This can be accomplished with the breakdown of the written essay assignment into several smaller skills and tasks, rubric graded to reflect proficiency in each skill or task.

References

Barnet, S. & Bedau, H. (2014). Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing: A Brief Guide to Argument. (8th ed. ). Boston, MA: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Copyright Amy Lynn Hess.  Please contact the author for permission to republish.