Monday, November 5, 2007

Professional Journals on Writing 06

How long should a letter be?. Never write any letter that is longer than one page. Nobody in the world wants to read a letter from you that is longer than one page, not even your mother. D Greenburg. The Writer (June 04), 32.

How does one learn to spell? Primary grade child: “When I see a word in a book, my brain takes a picture of it and when I need to write it, I know how to spell it.” KL Dahl, et al. The Reading Teacher (Dec. 03/Jan. 04), 319.

How can students practice interviews? Students interview older relatives about their memories of historical events. M Faust. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (Apr. 04), 572.

How prepare students for reading their assignments?. Teacher distributes sentences from text they are about to read. From the single sentences, students in writing try to predict what will happen in the text. RH Yopp & HK Yopp. The Reading Teacher (Nov. 03), 284.

What are “nonstandard quotes”? The author refers to phrases like “personal potential” and “to be all that you can be” as “nonstandard quotes.” Students use them, put them in quotes because they have been used elsewhere, but do not attribute. She cites the “to be all that you can be” as part of a U.S. Army recruiting ad—but fails to note that the coach in the movie Hoosiers uses the same phrase, antedating the Army ad—and the Army ad didn’t attribute either. In addition, I have seen the same phrase in many, many educational journal articles . In the long run, a great many phrases we use tend to be “nonstandard quotes.” Maybe we need to show students how to “write around” nonstandard quotes. Suggested by B Schneider. College Composition and Communication (Dec. 02), 188-207.

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