Writing for Beginners: Lesson #1, Say It First

Everything your writing teacher didn't teach you about writing that you should know.

Lesson #1 

Say It First.

First, we need to conceptualize writing in way that most people can understand.  Writing is like music.  Music has many genres: country, rap, hip-hop, rock, punk.  And within those genres, each artist has his or her own style.  Will Smith's hip-hop is different from that of Andre "Ice Cold" 3000s.  Johnny Cash and Willy Nelson are both country artists but their individual styles are different.  So, it is with writers.  Some writers like short choppy sentences and short choppy words.  And other writers, use alliteration to create prose that are like poetry.  Well, let's look at some examples.  The first is one of my favorites.  It's from Ham on Rye from Charles Bukowski.  

The crowd rose as the President’s car entered the arena. There had never been anything like it before. It was the President. It was him. He waved. We cheered. A band played. Seagulls circled overhead as if they too knew it was the President.

Notice the way the short sentences, matching a similar pattern speed up the pace of the reading?  Here is another example that is one of my favorites.  It's a letter from Frank Sinatra to Mike Royko, a columnist from Chicago who criticized Frank for something that Frank had nothing to do with.  Here is just a blurb.

And thirdly, who the hell gives you the right to decide how disliked I am if you know nothing about me?  The only honest thing I read in your piece is the fact that you admitted that you are disliked, and by the way you write I can understand it.  Quite frankly, I don't understand why people don't spit in your eye three or four times a day.  

http://www.examiner.com/article/frank-sinatra-s-angry-letter-to-mike-royko-of-the-chicago-daily-news

You can easily see that Frank Sinatra writes exactly the way he talks.  His sentences aren't fancy.  His words are not flowery.  He is direct and to the point.  Is it ever unclear how Frank feels?  No.  Frank's style of writing is called informal.  There are formal and informal styles of writing.  In school, students are expected to write formally.  However, your day to day writing is largely informal and it is how you should write everything at first.  

Here is another example of very informal writing from Jay McInerney's Story of My Life.  

When you read it, you will notice how it is written to sound just like someone is talking.  All writing should start like this.  Before writing anything down, you should be able to say it as though talking to someone.  So remember to say it first before writing it down.  Don't worry about grammar or punctuation at first.  Simply put a period after every complete thought.   

What's Wrong with Educational Sciences?

One of my favorite websites to visit is called Eurekalert at http://eurekalert.org.  It is an aggregate of press releases from universities, colleges, and research facilities.  And, of course, as an educator, I find myself scanning through the education section looking for interesting articles to tell my students about and post to this blog.  The problem is that the educational sciences are not that rigorous.  Studies rarely meet the standards set by the medical community, which require the randomized double-blind method.  

The randomized double-blind study is the gold standard because it minimizes confounding variables.  However, this standard is rarely met in the field of education.  For example, students are often selected randomly, but rarely from the general population.  Now, that is not to say that these studies aren't worthwhile, for they can be used for meta-analytical studies later.  Taken on their own, however, they should not be extrapolated out to the general public.  Or, as in the case of charter schools, are not randomly selected from the general population but from a self-selected group of students who are biased towards charter schools.

The other problem with methodology is the placebo effect.  Students know they are going to a different school or can figure out when something dramatic has changed in the curriculum.  This creates the idea of a treatment to the student.  We know from research that the placebo effect counts for up to 30% of observable improvement even if the person knows they are receiving a placebo. 

In conclusion, the science problem eventually leads us to the present policy problem: wanting evaluations for teachers that aren't scientific.  Any evaluation of a teacher that isn't scientifically based is a fraud and a waste of tax payer dollars.  The question is this.  Do we really want to solve the problem? Or are we simply dumping blame at a group of people because we can and it is easy?

Charter School Performance in New Jersey Proves Nothing

There are two reasons why the study is flawed.

1. The study does not meet the scientific criteria of a randomized double-blind.  Children want to and know they are going to a Charter School.  
1. Placebo effect constitutes 30% of observed improvement.  The study recorded a 3 month improvement, which falls within the range of a placebo.
2. The What Work Clearinghouse from the Institute of Educational Science admits that it doesn't prove much of anything and that Charter schools perform no better than regular public schools while serving a more diverse population of students. 
1. Although students at some charter schools showed significantly higher or significantly lower achievement gains compared to students in non-charter schools, most charter schools had student gains that were not different from the gains of students in non-charter schools.
1. http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/quickreview.aspx?sid=220

Union Shops are More Productive

As we know, there is an unprecedented attack on unions, especially teacher's unions.  So, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the article from the 1998 Scientific American entitled "Look for the union label."  The article reveals that union shops with competent, non-hostile managers are the most productive.  While union shops with incompetent and hostile management are the least productive.  Managers run companies, not unions.  Blaming unions is just a modern example of ignorant bigotry.


Look for the union label.

Authors: Wallich, Paul
Source: Scientific American; Aug98, Vol. 279 Issue 2, p36, 2p, 1 Color Photograph, 1 Graph
Abstract: Presents analysis of economic data by Lisa M. Lynch and Sandra E. Black showing that unionization could help maximize labor productivity. Data from the United States Census's Educational Quality of the Workforce National Employer Survey; Productivity statistics; Relationship to formal quality programs such as Total Quality Management; Profit sharing; Lower turnover; Increased worker involvement.

Students’ Social Networks Can Predict Course Grades

e Grades

http://www.aabgu.org/media-center/news-releases/students-social-networks.html

I found this piece while filtering through the Eurekalert.org website.  It's from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and they analyzed networks between students.  I found the second to last paragraph the most interesting.  

“One explanation for what we discovered is that your friends influence your grade in the course, so, if you pick your friends well, then you will get a higher grade,” Fire says.  “Alternatively, social networks in courses offer conditions whereby good students will pair with other good students, and similarly weaker ones will pair with weaker students.”