While reading Anne Lamott's advice, I couldn't help but think that she and I have similar writing problems -- our first drafts were horrible. As I continued to read her story, her quote, "We are just going to take this bird by bird" (Lamott 7) is really the motto everyone follows, but instead of bird, we use step.
Another piece of advice that I thought I could both do and learn from is to have others read my writing. In high school, we had a writing workshop where we were able to have our drafts read by a credited English teacher. That workshop was not only to work on grammar, but it also helped in having your paper read for clarity. "Sometimes I can't get words to come out of my mouth because I am so disappointed" (13). Having another pair of eyes look over your final drafts is good because sometimes what you think makes sense, doesn't to someone else.
2. Why group work fails.
Group work, in my own personal experience, fails. Whenever a project is announced as a group project, many people are happy, and they are happy because they believe this means "less work". I tend to consider myself a hard worker, and the people around me know that, and sometimes take advantage of that. Roskelly gave the reason, "Somebody always ends up doing the most work" (Roskelly 18) and I believe that, as I tend to feel that is me. I have also been in groups were I could not rely on the rest of my group, and feel as if my grade becomes lower because of them.
However, as much as I don't like group work, I also do. I like that because it puts less pressure on yourself as it does allow you to rely on others. Although, I don't think you get as much out of group projects as you do individual projects.
"They learn by engaging in the world" (20), which is another positive thing about group work. A student is able to learn from other students, opposed to only learning from the teacher. Hearing other students thoughts and opinions can possibly open other students mind and learn and grow their own opinions by that.
1 comment:
I completely agree with the group work opinion you have. I can never rely on the other students in my group, and I feel that if I do give them something to work on they do not do very well and my grade suffers. I am also completely jealous of your high school. I wish my high school had a program where people or teachers could read my papers. I always had such horrible grades on my papers because I did not know where the comma went...I still don't know wehre it belongs.
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