The San Francisco Chronicle has published my essay on helping students write college essays, The Write Stuff.
6 Responses to “Write stuff”
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Joanne Jacobs
Free-linking and thinking on education by Joanne Jacobs
Fantastic - some day you may even earn enough to afford to live in Palo Alto. Your book may be among the last printed books, with my prediction of the $100 laptop coming soon. Did you retain the electronic publishing rights or was that in the lucrative package you signed?
Joanne,
How did they get over the grammar issues? All of the students (admittedly only three) had really awful grammar, and a friend of mine ran into the same thing.
I KNOW I should proof read. I meant to say that all of the students I tutored had really bad grammar.
That’s fantastic news! Congratulations! I’m envious of that kid that’s been admitted to Mt. Holyoke. I’ve been trying to persuade our daughter to attend a women’s college, but so far, no luck.
How much help is too much help? When does the essay stop being Selena’s and start being the volunteer’s?
It sounds like these kids are getting help with ideas to write about, with grammar, with spelling and probably with organization and punctuation. That’s a lot of help.
I’m not trying to be snarky here. I have a teenager. I help him with his writing: with ideas, with organization, with grammar, with spelling and with punctuation. But at some point, he, and the Downtown Prep kids, are going to have to write on their own.
It’s hard to avoid giving too much help. I try to help students think through their writing problems, but I’m impatient and bossy and sometimes just tell them what to do. I think many paid writing “coaches” just write the whole essay themselves. But perhaps I’m cynical.