Using Pre-Instruction Questionnaires to Improve the Small Group Writing Class

Before I started teaching my two small group writing classes at Goodwill Industries of the Miami Valley, Inc., I wanted to be sure that my students would have a say in the structure of the class. I\u27d taught the class before, but I found that each time the needs of the students were so diverse that creating a classroom situation where they were active participants most of the time was very difficult. The first two times I taught the classes the reading levels of the students ranged from the 4th to the 10th grade, so I felt limited by what reading selections I could use with them. I also found that some of the students seemed to feel out of place because it was very obvious that their reading was not as strong as others. Further, some students were clearly reluctant to share ideas in writing because they didn\u27t feel comfortable with this type of communication

Metal and Gothic Literature: Examining the Darker Side of Life (and Death)

This article examines the connections between Gothic literature and the lyrics in Death metal music, specifically the lyrics of Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, and Deicide. The study examined the lyrics for each band’s first 3 albums and their most recent three albums, looking for Gothic characteristics. Further, the study aims to see if bands are changing their focus in terms of lyrics over the span of their careers — especially in terms of the Gothic tenets they incorporate into their songs and how they connect to traditional Gothic texts. This study continues the research begun in the article appearing in Heavy Metal Music in Britain

Annotated Bibliography of Writing Resources

This bibliography contains books, articles, and Internet addresses that would be helpful for teachers looking for new strategies or theories about the teaching of writing. Along with each bibliographic entry is a very brief summary or explanation of the work. Many of these works were not geared specifically for adult education teachers of writing; however, most of the points in them are easily transferred to the adult education classroom. Bibliographic entries with an asterisk next to the author\u27s name are available for loan from the OLRC library. Those works not having an asterisk should be easily available at most libraries. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but rather, a good beginning

Hermann Hesse’s \u27Siddhartha\u27 as Divine Comedy

Comedy has always been more difficult to define and pin down than tragedy. Part of the difficulty may be that comedy is, by its very nature, more protean than tragedy: comedy often takes delight in breaking the rules. Moreover, tragedy has been so memorably described in The Poetics that Aristotle may have unintentionally molded the shape of tragedy through the ages. There are different kinds of tragedy, to be sure, but they are usually variations of a similar theme and form. Perhaps because Aristotle\u27s treatise on comedy has been lost, comedy was left free to develop in numerous ways. In any event, comedy can range from the slapstick to the sublime, from the misadventures of Don Quixote to the mysticism of Dante

Elements of the Gothic in Heavy Metal: A Match Made in Hell

Since the first heavy metal album, Black Sabbath (1970) by Black Sabbath, elements of the Gothic have pervaded the genre, whether in the lyrics, the dress of both the bands and the fans, the album covers, the sound or the culture itself. Bands during the period 1970- 83 (roughly), including Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon and Motӧrhead, to name a few, incorporated various aspects of the Gothic into their lyrics, dress, stage shows and albums, and in doing so helped to give heavy metal a stronger, more powerful image with fans and media alike. More important than the image is the power and feeling that the music generates with the audience, be they in a packed concert hall or headbanging with an iPod in their room. As a crucial source of this power, the Gothic influence permeates all aspects of heavy metal culture, and this influence has helped keep the genre a vibrant form of express ion in the music world. This article is broken into five sections, each examining a particular aspect of heavy metal or its background necessary for a better understanding of heavy metal. The analyses of the lyrics, album covers, music and style of metal are preceded by a brief look at the group of people who, without knowing it, have had an influence on various types of literature, film and, most especially for this chapter, music

Training Graduate Assistants

This article was featured in the journal\u27s \u274Sites Post-secondary\u27 section. Overall, the goals for summer training are threefold: TAs need to become familiar with each other. TAs need to be knowledgeable about the material. TAs should be somewhat at ease in a classroom environment

Using Pre-instruction Questionnaires to Improve the Small Group Writing Class

A pre-instruction questionnaire was used with two small group writing classes at Goodwill Industries of the Miami Valley, Inc. (Ohio). The questionnaire was designed to provide as much information as possible about the students\u27 knowledge and background in writing. The survey had four purposes: determine what kinds of writing students currently did or had done in the past, identify what types of writing interested the students, get each student\u27s view of his/her writing, and determine whether students had thought about what personal goals they wanted to achieve by completing the course. Five categories of questions were included. The first set of questions were types questions that gave a sense of the students\u27 experience with writing and types of writing. The second group were likes/dislikes questions in which students identified what they liked and did not like about writing. The third group included comfort level questions that determined how comfortable students felt writing. The fourth category contained self-analysis questions in which students thought about themselves as learners, writers, and goal setters. The final two questions were general questions--one that asked if the student had ever kept a diary or journal and another that asked if students received a newspaper at home. Results of the questionnaire helped the instructor plan and teach the class

Working with Learning Disabled Writers: Some Perspectives

During my career as an adult educator, I have spent a great deal of my time in the classroom trying to help my students improve their writing skills. The vast majority of my students had some type of learning disability, and trying to work with my students and approach their writing instruction in a way that would best help them became a very complex and often frustrating task both for me and for my students. It was obvious that most of them had a strong desire to enhance their writing skills, but an inordinate number of stumbling blocks seemed to get in the way of their success. Now, having left my job as an instructor to begin working on a doctoral degree in Curriculum and Instruction, I find I have both the resources and the time to look for better ways to work with the learning disabled (LD) writer. I believed I needed to learn more about some methods of instructing the LD writer before I could successfully re-enter the classroom. This article will focus on several things. First, I will look at some characteristics of LD students in general and LD writers more specifically. I will then discuss and examine several teaching methodologies and strategies that seem to be successful for LD writers

Responding to Students’ Writing: A Research Review and Suggestions for ABE and GED Teachers

Awkward Nice Word choice Weak Vague As adult educators and teachers of writing, most of us have been guilty of writing some, if not all, of these comments on our students\u27 papers. It is important that we understand the effect that our written comments can have on our students\u27 work, and the role that we play in their writing development as the reader of their texts. We need to acknowledge that not all comments we write, regardless of the intent, help our students. By knowing this we can respond to our students\u27 written work in ways that will enable them to develop more as critical thinkers, self-editors, and evaluators of their own writing. The focus of this paper is twofold. First, I review research that will be helpful for adult educators as they learn more about the most effective ways to respond to their students\u27 writing. It is important to note that I have not been able to find any research conducted on how to best respond to adult education students\u27 writing, so this research review focuses on studies conducted in secondary and college classrooms. The second focus of this paper is to give adult educators some suggestions about how they can best respond to their students\u27 writing so that the students can learn the most from the comments they receive

Teacher Research: Getting Started

What is teacher research? Depending on who is asked, the responses could yield screams of horror or excited shouts of joy. Teacher research is a broad and important aspect of development not only for the teacher-researchers themselves but also for the colleagues with whom they share results in writing or at conferences or meetings. Teachers are doing research at all levels of education, from examining kindergartners\u27 ability to synthesize materials to exploring adult GED students\u27 writing improvement using journals. The positive effects of conducting research in the classroom are tremendous, and without research we are losing a valuable resource in our own as well as our colleagues\u27 development as teachers and learners. Further, by not conducting research we also hurt the primary focus of our careers--our students. This article provides answers to the aforementioned question by giving some suggestions for starting effective teacher research. This article is the first in a series that will examine teacher research from a variety of perspectives