Below is a slideshow of one of the presentations we gave at Baltimore TESOL, “Thinking Outside the Paragraph,” where we outline three key principles that inform our teaching of academic writing at lower levels and helped formulate the pedagogy behind our new writing series, Trio Writing, by Oxford University Press. Beginning […]
We had a wonderful time at Baltimore TESOL this year! Below is a copy of the presentation we gave about the Spiraling Lesson Plan, the pedagogy that forms the basis of our new writing series by Oxford University Press, Trio Writing.
We are looking forward to another wonderful conference in Baltimore next week, and quite excited it’s also celebrating TESOL’s 50th Anniversary. Alice and I will be giving a couple of presentations this year. Hope to see you @ the conference! #TESOL16 Thinking Outside the Paragraph Wednesday, April 6, […]
College writing is meant to be a meaningful experience, at least for the writer, and if it goes well, for the reader as well. At its best, a paper brings new knowledge into the world. But it often takes a bit of struggle to get beyond the obvious […]
Meeting the demands of writing with language learning is an uphill climb, so one nice thing we can do for second language writers is reduce their cognitive load. A sentence builder box does this by providing relevant vocabulary in a structure that is salient to a task. Students use […]
All good writers—no matter what they are writing about—share a secret, and that is the power of being specific. Anyone can circle around a topic with vague statements and abstract commentary, but where writing really gets interesting is when it tells the reader something she doesn’t already know. […]
Language tends to spiral like nature. As planets spiral around the sun, so the sun spirals around the galaxy. On earth, hurricanes spiral, picking up objects and pulling them into whirling winds. Vocabulary and grammar spiral as well, around the language learner. It is a dynamic system where chunks […]
On Thursday, October 1, we will be presenting an OUP webinar titled Spiraling Into Control: Meeting the needs of beginning writers. This practice-oriented webinar draws on some of our biggest influences, including Eli Hinkle, Ken Hyland, and Diane Larsen-Freeman, who provide possible answers for one of the biggest questions in second language […]
How can we help our students engage in pre-writing actively and collaboratively?
Teachers understand the value of active listening and active reading. In a writing class, there is also great value in active editing. For example, some teachers tell students to read their paper out loud to themselves in a quiet room. The idea is that sometimes it easier to […]