The Hypothesis Project is an effort to implement an old idea: A conversation layer over the entire web that works everywhere. Imagine having your students interact with each other in an online conversation that takes place in a content layer over an existing website, image, infographic, news article, poem, etc. You don’t need permission from […]
Posts Tagged: writing
Whose Language is it Anyway?
INTRODUCTION EAP stands for English for Academic Purposes, but what is academic English and why is it important? *College: Students need specialized vocabulary in college classes. Academic subjects vary in – their vocabulary and expressions, – the types of text used (for instance essays, reports, research articles or summaries), – their texts’ structure and organization. […]
How to Kick Ass with Words
Without a doubt, fight scenes are a necessity of fiction. Even the most celebrated “literary” fiction writers include aggressive confrontations. Authors like Flannery O’Connor and Tobias Wolfe recognized the importance of violence in writing about humanity. It would be a bald-faced lie to claim that in our Friday night entertainment we don’t yearn for it. […]
My Stroke of Insight
Introduction: Brain is an organ with more than 85 billion neurons and 10-50 trillion neuroglial cells to support these neurons. This organ with numerous numbers of cells only weights about 3 lb in adults. Each one of its neurons forms approximately 1000 synapses with other neurons. Brain is such a complicated, organized, amazing organ that […]
On The Beginning of Writing
This post talks about getting students to write. Many of the postings are associated with science.
The power of passion – Richard St. John | TED-Ed
This video would be a great way to engage students in conversations about the broader topics of passion, success, love, and wealth, and the importance of each in their lives. These conversations could then be used as a springboard for a writing activity in which students reflect on what passion means to them- how its […]
It’s a Rap: English Lesson Music Videos Your Students Won’t Forget
Many of us grew up on “School House Rock”. How many of you can still remember the words to “Conjunction Junction”? Supplement your English class lesson plans with these fun music videos. To get to the whole collection just put in the search word “Flocabulary”. You will find many great videos on a variety of […]
What Aristotle and Joshua Bell can teach us about persuasion – Conor Neill | TED-Ed
What Aristotle and Joshua Bell can teach us about persuasion – Conor Neill | TED-Ed. In this Ted Ed lesson, the author uses elements of an experiment conducted by a famous violinist to examine Aristotle’s rhetorical means of Persuasion (Ethos, Logos, Pathos) and to illustrate the importance of all three reveals why all three are essential to audience […]
100 Ways to Say “Said”
With special thanks to English professor Ashley Miller comes this infographic that illustrates multiple dialogue tags that students can use in place of “said” to indicate who is speaking. The list could serve as a quick and useful tip sheet to refer to when writing essays.
Yes Comma, No Comma
The serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma, always sparks a discussion among the teachers, and its rules are not well represented in the textbooks. That creates more confusion in the classroom. This poster makes some clarification when the Oxford comma can be omitted and why.
Please Don’t Tell: Lessons from “The Hangover”
I found a really great post from the Scribe Meets World blog, and I wanted to share it with anybody interested in some real-world, easily accessible examples of the creative writing rules of Showing (with a capital S) as opposed to telling (with a diminutive, lowercase t). Click here for the blog posts’ link. PS: […]
How Does Writing Affect Your Brain?
Special thanks to Heidi Ramírez for sharing the following infographic with Circles. Heidi teaches English as a Second Language on Valencia’s East Campus. This infographic describes how writing affects the brain. Writing acts as a way to destress, relax, and meditate. In addition, the act of writing triggers the brain to pay close attention to the information […]
Infographic: How to Write an Essay
Special thanks to Shawn Pollgreen, one of Valencia’s English as a Second Language Professors, who shared the following two graphics with us. To start off, shawn shared this funny graphic (Left) demonstrating the importance of using correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation! She also shared an infographic displaying a lot of helpful information about essay writing, such as […]