In the Write!
A Blog for Writers and Writing Students
Helping students with their college Common App essay is one of my favorite jobs as a writing teacher. It’s a great way to learn more about my students-even those I have been working with for years, and for most students, it is a valuable place to explore and communicate (in 650 words!) some essential aspect of what makes them “them,” distinct from the facts and stats conveyed in transcripts, test scores and activity lists. And…
When I give my students a writing exercise, I often write along with them, sharing my draft as they share theirs with me. It surprises me that, after all this time, I still get nervous. Why? Because I don’t want people to see my rough drafts, I want them only to see the final, polished form. But I push through this nervousness because we ask writing students to put themselves out there all the time.…
When I first met R he was depleted. It was the first week of his sophomore year of high school, and he came to our first writing tutoring session directly from a meeting with his parents, advisor and teachers where the central topic was how to improve his lackluster academic performance, especially in his writing classes. Suffering from an abundance of comma splices and a dearth of detail, his papers had consistently gotten “C”s or…