En/titled: The space where writing, editing and teaching intersect

Editing a literary magazine offers us a cultural space where our ideas and aesthetics can be expressed collectively and therefore be heard more effectively. This informs and frames our own writing by increasing our confidence in our own unusual voices. The sense of belonging Brand creates further breaks down the isolation of the writing life. The internationalism of Brand reinforces our own cultural identities as non-English writers. However, acting as a facilitator of others’ creativity can sometimes dissipate or even deplete creative energy. Editing and teaching can take over your writing to the point of annihilation. Further, in terms of external perceptions, you run the risk of disappearing as a writer. We shall look at how this can happen and explore ways that we can prevent it e.g. keeping the boundaries firm and clear.

Developing and Improving EFL Writing Skills

Learning a foreign language is a process that entails the development of four basic skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. According to the Common European Framework, such skills can be grouped into productive and receptive. Reading and Listening are categorized as receptive skills, while speaking and writing are productive skills. Students’ and teachers’ experience along with research findings suggest that most learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) find productive skills more difficult to develop than receptive skill, and writing skills the hardest to acquire and improve. Learning to write is a complex process that calls for a wide range of cognitive and linguistic strategies to be used, most of which EFL students are not fully aware of. The purpose of this talk is to help EFL college majors become aware of the factors that make EFL discourse sound stilted and foreign. Good writing results from rational thinking, logical organization, and appropriate use of language. Sample texts will be looked at identify the strengths and weaknesses in each case.

An ESL/EFL Computer Assisted Language Instruction (CALIS) Micro-Teaching Lesson on Coherence Through Sentences When Writing Compositions in the Foreign Language Classroom

[Sin resumen]

USEWRITE: Useful Writing Techniques to Improve High-School Students`Descriptive Writing

Se analizan y recomiendan algunas técnicas de redacción, para promover la escritura de párrafos descriptivos, entre estudiantes de secundaria o principiantes. El estudio parte de los resultados obtenidos en una investigación llevada a cabo en un colegio del distrito de Pérez Zeledón (Costa Rica). Se propone una secuencia de técnicas fundamentadas en el enfoque de escritura equilibrada, el enfoque de escritura guiada, la redacción como proceso, las estrategias del aprendizaje, los estilos de aprendizaje y la teoría de inteligencias múltiples. Composition techniques designed to promote the writing of descriptive paragraphs by high school students are analyzed and recommended. This study is based on the results gathered from research conducted in a high school located in the district of Pérez Zeledón (Costa Rica). A proposal of a sequence of techniques has been developed, applying the Balanced Approach, the Guided Writing Approach, Process Approach, Leaming Strategies, Leaming Styles, and Multiple Intelligences Theory.

WRITING A COMMUNITY GUIDEBOOK FOR EVALUATING LOW-GRADE GEOTHERMAL ENERGY FROM FLOODED UNDERGROUND MINES FOR HEATING AND COOLING BUILDINGS

When underground mines close they often fill with water from ground and surface sources; each mine can contain millions to billions of gallons of water. This water, heated by the Earth’s geothermal energy, reaches temperatures ideal for heat pumps. The sheer scale of these flooded underground mines presents a unique opportunity for large scale geothermal heat pump setups which would not be as economically, socially, and environmentally feasible anywhere else. A literature search revealed approximately 30 instances of flooded underground mines being used to heat and cool buildings worldwide. With thousands of closed/abandoned underground mines in the U.S. and a million estimated globally, why hasn’t this opportunity been more widely adopted? This project has found perception and lack of knowledge about the feasibility to be key barriers. To address these issues, this project drafted a guidebook for former mining communities titled A Community Guide to Mine Water Geothermal Heating and Cooling.

Academic Writing & Publication: My Journey of Learning Through the Development of Articles from my Masters Thesis

Abstract: In this essay, I discuss how I turned my masters thesis into three peer reviewed publications and the lessons I learned about academic writing and publication in the process.

Identificación y análisis de los problemas en writing (composición) de los estudiantes de inglés del departamento especializado de idiomas de la Universidad Técnica de Ambato

Los idiomas extranjeros han estado presentes en la mente de los estudiantes alrededor del mundo. Sin embargo, no muchos de ellos han podido utilizarlos de manera correcta y con fluidez a nivel personal o profesional. Dependiendo de las políticas propias de los países y de las instituciones educativas, se establecía que idioma extranjero se debía impartir, además de asignar las horas, el material didáctico y el tiempo que se debía emplear para su estudio. En Ecuador se vivía una situación similar antes de 1999. Esto originaba varios inconvenientes dentro del proceso de enseñanza del idioma, pues no existía un consenso de los contenidos a enseñar y de los niveles que se debían superar para que los estudiantes puedan llegar a obtener el dominio del idioma. Esto ocasionaba el que los estudiantes que por algún motivo cambiaban de institución educativa tuvieran problemas en esta asignatura pese al tiempo y esfuerzo empleado. Las falencias se evidenciaban en las destrezas orales y escritas. Se concuerda con Watcharapunyawong y Yusaha (2012) en cuanto a que la destreza escrita es difícil de ser asimilada por parte de quién estudia un idioma extranjero. Sin embargo, también es la que mayor evidencia proporciona puesto que la información obtenida queda registrada en el papel. Esta es una realidad que en calidad de docente del idioma inglés a nivel secundario y universitario, específicamente en la Universidad Técnica de Ambato se ha podido palpar lo expuesto por García (1998, p.27) cuando menciona que “los estudiantes llegan a la universidad sin experiencia en redactar en una Lengua Extranjera (FL). Esta situación se daba en los diferentes niveles en los cuales se ha dictado clases. Un considerable número de estudiantes asistían a clases, cumplían con las tareas y evaluaciones asignadas para cada fase del proceso de aprendizaje del idioma extranjero, más no demostraban un manejo fluido del mismo en situaciones familiares o profesionales fuera del salón de clases...

Disruptive Threads and Renegade Yarns: Domestic Textile Making in Selected Women's Writing 1811-1925

Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2016-08-03 13:57:45.102

The role of information literacy competence and higher order thinking skills to develop academic writing in science and engineering students

This article discusses a study organized to develop academic writing skills in undergraduate students pursuing engineering courses. The target group consisted of 30 students pursuing a Bachelor of Technology in their third year. The classroom observations regarding teaching writing revealed that writing proficiency for most of the students was at a very low level. Followed by this, an intervention program was organized in one college, where the researcher taught academic writing to the students. Units comprising tasks that focused on raising awareness of the academic texts and involving the students in the cognitive processes of writing were designed. The study focused on raising student awareness regarding the nature and characteristics of academic texts in order to develop academic writing skills. The study also emphasized that involving the students in the cognitive processes of writing (e.g., defining the rhetorical problem, identifying the rhetorical situation, determining the audience, setting goals for writing, planning for the text by generating, and organizing ideas) is necessary. The study further suggests that discussions between students and teachers regarding the construction of a text and the way language works in various text types facilitates better writing.

Knowledge and writing in school mathematics : a communicational approach

This thesis is about young students’ writing in school mathematics and the ways in which this writing is designed, interpreted and understood. Students’ communication can act as a source from which teachers can make inferences regarding students’ mathematical knowledge and understanding. In mathematics education previous research indicates that teachers assume that the process of interpreting and judging students’ writing is unproblematic. The relationship between what students’ write, and what they know or understand, is theoretical as well as empirical. In an era of increased focus on assessment and measurement in education it is necessary for teachers to know more about the relationship between communication and achievement. To add to this knowledge, the thesis has adopted a broad approach, and the thesis consists of four studies. The aim of these studies is to reach a deep understanding of writing in school mathematics. Such an understanding is dependent on examining different aspects of writing. The four studies together examine how the concept of communication is described in authoritative texts, how students’ writing is viewed by teachers and how students make use of different communicational resources in their writing. The results of the four studies indicate that students’ writing is more complex than is acknowledged by teachers and authoritative texts in mathematics education. Results point to a sophistication in students’ approach to the merging of the two functions of writing, writing for oneself and writing for others. Results also suggest that students attend, to various extents, to questions regarding how, what and for whom they are writing in school mathematics. The relationship between writing and achievement is dependent on students’ ability to have their writing reflect their knowledge and on teachers’ thorough knowledge of the different features of writing and their awareness of its complexity. From a communicational perspective the ability to communicate [in writing] in mathematics can and should be distinguished from other mathematical abilities. By acknowledging that mathematical communication integrates mathematical language and natural language, teachers have an opportunity to turn writing in mathematics into an object of learning. This offers teachers the potential to add to their assessment literacy and offers students the potential to develop their communicational ability in order to write in a way that better reflects their mathematical knowledge.