What we read
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| Skillful RW3, page 66 Click it to see the image full size |
This class blog is our online discussion board.
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My response
One reason we use an online discussion board in our reading and writing class is that the research solidly shows that brainstorming or discussion activities for groups are more effective if participants start by working individually (O'Connell, 2010; Markman, 2017). In fact, experts at Harvard University's School of Management and elsewhere are sure that this can be very effectively done using online tools (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015). Blogging is one effective way to do this, which is the reason I've turned Bixby and Scanlon's discussion exercise into a quick blogging discussion. Over the coming weeks, we will do several of the discussion exercises as online discussions, which is also a common aspect in university classes today.
Another advantage of using a class blog is that it is an effective way for us to practice a couple of the strategies for successful learning that Dorothy Zemach suggests in her introduction to students on page 6 of Skillful Reading & Writing 3 (2013), specifically, asking questions and interacting, practicing new language, and being an independent learner.
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| Dorothy Zemach's introduction |
Another advantage of using a class blog is that it is an effective way for us to practice a couple of the strategies for successful learning that Dorothy Zemach suggests in her introduction to students on page 6 of Skillful Reading & Writing 3 (2013), specifically, asking questions and interacting, practicing new language, and being an independent learner.
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Bixby and Scanlon's questions (+ one of Peter's)
We have already done a quick class survey on whether we have previously used online discussion boards, and we have also thought about the scenario in which Bixby and Scanlon describe Fatima's first experience using an online discussion board.
Now, read the six tips that they give for participating in online discussion boards. Think about them for a couple of minutes, and then write a response in a comment to these questions:
Now, read the six tips that they give for participating in online discussion boards. Think about them for a couple of minutes, and then write a response in a comment to these questions:
- Why are academic writing skills important for an online discussion board?
- How do you think an online discussion board, such as this class blog, might improve your learning in a course?
- Which of Bixby and Scanlon's six tips do you think the most important or useful? Why?
- Do you disagree with or would you revise any of their tips? Why? (I do not entirely agree with all of them. How about you?)
Writing tips
I changed the numbers to bullets because it does not matter in what order you address the questions. Also, your writing should make sense as an independent piece of work. It might help to imagine that your reader has not seen the above questions you are responding to.
Although you want to use a formal style of writing, this is not an academic writing exercise. You want to express your ideas quickly in complete sentences and paragraphs, but you do not have time to spend five minutes planning of worrying about grammar and other language details. One of our purposes here is to practice writing for fluency: we will do accuracy exercises and formal, academic writing later.
Although you want to use a formal style of writing, this is not an academic writing exercise. You want to express your ideas quickly in complete sentences and paragraphs, but you do not have time to spend five minutes planning of worrying about grammar and other language details. One of our purposes here is to practice writing for fluency: we will do accuracy exercises and formal, academic writing later.
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References
- Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education
- Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015, April 2). Why brainstorming works better online. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-brainstorming-works-better-online
- Markman, A. (2017, May 18). Your team is brainstorming all wrong. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/05/your-team-is-brainstorming-all-wrong
- O'Connell, A. (2010, February 4). Sometimes, it’s better to brainstorm alone. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2010/02/when-its-better-to-brainstorm
- Zemach, D. E. (2013). To the student. In J. Bixby & J. Scanlon, Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 3 (p. 6). Oxford: Macmillan Education
Obviously, I think that an online discussion board will help to strengthen our academic writing. We would not have been writing here otherwise. First, blogging is a useful way to practice writing for fluency. Getting your ideas down quickly and smoothly in English sentences is a valuable skill, and blogging works on that. Although accuracy is also important, it's not always our primary objective, and even in an IELTS or TOEFL test, once you have a strong idea, you want to be able to easily turn it into sentences that communicate your idea to readers.
ReplyDeleteSecond, blogging is a good way to try out and learn new vocabulary and grammar in an environment that is more relaxed than our more formal academic writing.
Finally, the focus here is on thoughtful responses to the material to read and to each other's ideas. This supports the very important critical thinking element in our academic English class.
As you might already have inferred, I think that Bixby and Scanlon's tips 3. and 6. are the most important: we want to "respond, explain and quote," and to "respond thoughtfully." These are the tips that emphasize the ideas and responses to ideas. Whilst I also agree that staying on topic is also important, I don't think it matters if we range off topic a little here. If you are writing and get a great new idea, share it!
Finally, as you will often notice, I sometimes (often?) make typing mistakes when I've writing quickly here, and usually htese are not a big problem. As long as the ideas are communicated effectively in appropriate language and style, I think that's fine. In fact, even TOEFL examiners don't deduct points for minor or typing mistakes.
And if I notice a really serious mistake, like a missing "not," I can add a reply like this to correct it.
DeleteI think academic writing skills is important for an online discussion board because we have to use writing in the discussion board and need to write it correctly with appropiate writing
ReplyDeleteI think an online discussion board, such as this class blog, might improve your learning in a course because i can write on it and everybody in class can comment so,i can see what my problem is
I think the most important is read instructions and grading rubric carefully because it is the first one you need to participate
Although his chosen tips are not the ones I think most important, Summer is right that we should be clear about our goals for this discussion board. I'm a bit more relaxed than some instructors might be, as my own comments above suggest.
DeleteBut I very much like his point that we comment on each other's work, which helps strengthen both our ideas and perhaps also our language use.
Just like Summer’s comment , I think it is true that using academics writing need to write it correctly and properly which will help our comments and essay become easier and clearer to read and understand.
DeleteBy using six tips, it is important to write things following the grading rubric and need to be focus on to it, but I also think that respond thoughtfully is another tip that is useful and important tip because other comments will help us to be more creative and can improve our writing too.
I think Summer's sentence; "because I can write on it and everybody in class can comment so,I can see what my problem is." is crucial. The finding of our problems for academic writing is important. Because we will know what is the incorrect points, this will help us to revise it correctly. The regularly practicing can solve the errors of writing. So we only train and train the academic writing skills commonly, it is enough that we will use these skills very well. Therefore Summer's sentence is essential.
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ReplyDeleteYou are in control of your comments, so are free to delete one if you like. I usually don't, preferring instead to add a reply to my own comment if I think if something new after I've posted. In an online discussion, this is common practice.
DeleteI totally agree with Bixby and Scanlon's six tips in online discussion. Academic writing skill is important, because it helps us show our opinion in more logical way than normal style and it also helps us use some relevant words that are suitable for our topic. Online discussion board improves our skills not only in writing academically, but also in reading effectively. In my opinion, the tip that really important is to stay on topic not to be distracted by other points, so, after writing some essay, it's very crucial to check that my subtopic is related to my main topic in order not to mislead my reader.
ReplyDeletei think stay on topic is important too to make everyone being clear what you want to discussion about but from my poit of view you have to also review what you write to make sure that you didn't disrespect anyone and stay focus on the topic too.
DeleteAnd I like your writing skill so much. it's so formal.
I totally agree , like and support Boat's point of view that academic writing skill helps us show our opinion in more logical way and helps us use words that are suitable for the topic. It's clear and pertinent to the point.
DeleteMoreover, I agree that an online discussion will improve our writing skill and reading skill also.
Although I think it's OK to go off topic a bit in our response blogging, where our goal is to get different responses to what we have read or to a question, I agree that we need to be aware of the topic. In an essay, this is very important. For example, we expect Stephen Law to stay on topic in the body of his essay, where his job is to support the thesis that it's morally wrong to eat meat, a thesis that I suspect at least some of us to disagree with, including myself. In case you were wondering, I did not choose "Carving the Roast Beast" because I'm a vegetarian: after our class today, I came home and ate meat and didn't think that was wrong. But we'll look at the Law's idea a bit more after I give you his full essay on Wednesday.
DeleteWe made a great start on that this morning, which also gave us an opportunity to review the introduction to an essay. We might not get there in our class on Wednesday, but if you look ahead to page 63 of Unit 6, you will see that Bixby and Scanlon's writing skill focus for this unit is writing thesis statements.
It's a great response by Boat, as are the replies to his ideas by Tangmo and Wan.
I think academic writing skills are useful for an online discussion board. Because these skills will help us to be carefully to post something in the online discussion board. Our posts are clear, thoughtful, and interested. Besides, it will shape us to contemplate prudently before writing or posting.
ReplyDeleteSo this board will improve our writing skills to be well. Because the method of the practicing writing skills is always writing. Write write and write are very important to development these skills to be successful.
I totally agree with Bixby and Scanlon's six tips, because these tips are cover all, clear, and guideline to be good writing in the online discussion board.
I like Mhon's comment that writing on a discussion board such as here is a good way to practice to "shape us to contemplate prudently before writing or posting." And as Bixby and Scanlon suggest in their tip number 3, it's OK to quote a short phrase or clause from a source that we are responding to, in which case we should put it in "quotation marks" so that readers know we are quoting. An important skill in all academic work is learning to use the ideas in sources, and that includes learning when and how to effectively copy and paste the exact words from our source, although in most cases academic work paraphrases rather than quotes.
DeleteI also like Mhon's repitition "Write write and write." To improve any skill, whether reading or football, writing or cooking, it's important to do it! And for us, that means, as Mhon puts it, "Write write and write.
Don't worry. I will try to create plenty of opportunities for you to write during our term.
-academic writing skills is important for an online discussion board because it make you use the appropriate kind of written.
ReplyDelete-I think It improve my learning skills by discuss a topic with other people so I can learn from other people ideal.
-I agree with all of the tips they told, but the tips that I think it is the most useful tips is the tip number 4 cause when you stay on the topic you will never get lost.
I pretty agree about what she write because stay on topic to make your writing on point, so everyone can understand easier.
Deletei also like the way she making her writing easy to understand.
I reread my writing and notice some mistakes so I will correct them here.
Delete-Academic writing skills are important for an online discussion board because they help you produce an appropriate writing.
-I think it improves my learning skills because I have exchanged ideas with other people so I can learn from them.
-I agree with all of the tips they said, but the tip that I think the most useful is number 4 cause when you stay on the topic you will never get lost.
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DeleteIn addition to your opinion, academic writing skills are very crucial in several aspects; politeness, fluency, accuracy and reliability. To begin with, academic writing is formal which means writer should use appropriate and polite sentences. Consequently, academic writing has a formula that guide students to organize their paragraph so the way students write will better systemized and become fluent. Moreover, references must be mentioned in academic writing and that is to say the writing is proved as accurate and reliable. It follows that the given six tips are very useful for the writing. However, I peronally think that
Deleterespond thoughtfully is the most important one because the purpose of discussion is to express your own responses; in other words, it is the way to improve critical thinking skill along with writing skill. Finally, using academic writing skill in online discussion will certainly improve writing skills and the discussion itself engage students' ideas as you mentioned that each student can develop his own idea by learning from each other.
I agree with Now's comment that academic writing skills are crucial on an online discussion board and it is also important for improving critical thinking skills because these skills are prepared for the students to practice their language, to organize ideas and to express their ideas properly. In addition, i think that discussion activities can help us see the difference opinions and get the new ideas.
DeleteAcademic writing skills are important for an online discussion board because they will help students understand and easily improve themselves while answering the discussion questions given by the instructor.The skills pave a way for student to organize their ideas and explain them more effectively.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the given six tips, I think the most useful one for students is respond thoughtfully.The main purpose of discussion activity is to engage and improve students' skill in writing, so student should try to explain their own opinion which will make it easier for instructor to grade his students.
Overall, academic writing skills is very crucial for every part of student's university life and online discussion will make every things easier for students to express their thoughts freely and improve critical thinking skills.
I support Now's comment that Academics writing skills can help students improve themselves by answering questions because practicing discussion and answering them can help writing to be more accuracy and improve skills. Moreover, I also think that respond thoughtfully is very important tips that help student to improve themselves because different people have different opinions. Learning from other opinions can give more ideas and more understanding no matter how the opinions against or support yours.
DeleteI agree with Now's opinion that academic writing skills will help students organize their ideas and explain them in effective and appropriate way. However, in my opinion I think stay on topics is the most useful tip but respond thoughtfully is an important one when instructors grade their students writing.
DeleteI like and totally agree with Now's sentence; "Overall, academic writing skills is very crucial for every part of student's university life and online discussion will make every things easier for students to express their thoughts freely and improve critical thinking skills." is very significant for Thai university and high school society. Because today, many Thai students in high school and university lack of critical mind. This lack result of students' creativity decreasingly. The understanding of academic writing skills will help them to know the methods of these skills that how to write formally academic essays. Basically, academic writings must have critical thinking for writing. Because these essay have to consist the reasons and exemples for supporting main idea. The searching for these need to have the critical thinking skill fundamentally.
DeleteI like the way Mhon applies the ideas about writing for on online discussion board to writing more academic work, such as an essay. As I was reading his comment, I also thought that the points he mentioned are things to look for as you read Stephen Law's essay supporting his thesis. Although I have a prediction about our group response to Law's main idea, whatever it is, we will expect Law to show strong critical thinking in his support, and when we read it, we will also checking his ideas as we go. Does he have strong reasons? Are his reasons right? Are they strong enough? What examples does he use? Are they well-chosen examples to persuade us, his readers?
DeleteI think oline dicussion board makes academic writhing more easy because we will get a lot of ideas from your classmate to make your ideas more creative and more useful.
ReplyDeleteI think online dicussion board will improve the way i learn something be cause it's force me to read to answer this question precisely, so i think i've learn something from this kind of online learing.
i think the number "5.Review before you post" because when we write in the first time, we will write our first thought without our cosider, so read for the second time to rethink about what we think maybe it's to disrespect or informal to write. And you can check your spelling and grammar.
i agree with all of them but they should add the topic about when we write we have to give a reference to make it's not a plagiarism.
THank you Tangmo. I hadn't commented on it directly because I ran out of time, but I agree with you that it's a good idea to "Review before you post." Sometimes I click the blue "Publish" button before I review properly, which means that I sometimes spot an embarrassing mistake when it's too late. If it isn't serious, I don't worry about it.
DeleteIn an essay or other more formal piece of work, I do always review and proofread, and again, these are things that we will be practising soon.
In my perspective, I sincerely agree with Tangmo because reviewing essay helps us find our errors, which positively occur in academic writing, and correct it before posting. Looking over our essay also makes us learn new grammar tips, which help us improve our narration, and prevent us from writing an awkward or inappropriate paragraph. Last but not least, referencing books or knowledge from genuine source can prevent us from plagiarism other works, so we need to remember to use reference in our works in order not to plagiarize others. Moreover, referencing books or knowledge has specific forms in writing, so it's crucial to learn how to write them appropriately.
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DeleteI agree with Tangmo's answers that online discussion board helps us get a lot of new ideas from other people so we can improve our work in many ways. Also, I personally use tip number 5 a lots so I definitely agree with you on this one.
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ReplyDeleteI am totally agree with academic writing in an online discussion board. As same as every discussion, the things we say or write have to answer the topic. In online discussion it is open for everyone to comment anything. there might be some true or wrong information. By using academic writhing help to clear out our thoughts by using pattern and references. So, we can know if it is reliable or not.
ReplyDeleteAcademic writing also include each other point of views in their comments which might be different from mine. So, I can learn new ideas from others. Another helpful of online discussion board is it put the topics separately. So,you can easily find out what you are looking for.
Krong's idea that "can learn new ideas from others" is one of the main reasons I like to turn some of the discussion exercises in the book into online discussions here. If you have a look at them, the three sources I cited in my blog post above, all by academics writing for Harvard University's magazine Harvard Business Review, suggest brainstorming independently before any group sharing because it helps to generate a greater variety of ideas for us to think about, and as Krong suggests, that's a good thing. The more ideas we get to work with the better.
DeleteAnd when I looked at your first comments here, I think they support this idea: there is a great range of different opinions and perspectives in your comments here. They all give us a lot to agree with, to disagree with, and to expand on, which you are doing very well in your comments.
Since academic writing is formal and has certain steps for students to follow, it is obvious that academic writing skills make it easier for the readers to understand writers' responses accurately and they also increase reliability of the given ideas too. Eventually, all given six tips in the books are very useful for every discussion as they remind the students to consider everything from instruction to final revision. Afterwards, I really agree that online discussion is helpful in term of sharing everyone ideas. Seeing other classmates' idea will broaden student's mind and help them think out of the box which leads to an improvement in critical thinking skill.
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ReplyDeleteAn online discussion is a public way to share our response and it is not a chat room , we have to use appropriate writing style with means that academic writing skills is very important while doing an online discussion.
I agree that an online discussion board might improve my learning course seeing that I have to think critically every time I suppose to share my response and then write in appropriate style . If I frequently do discussion board,I may improve my learning course.
From my point of view ,I think 'Respond thoughtfully ' is the most important or useful tip because the propose of discussion is to give a space for sharing responses of people .Consequently , People have to respond thoughtfully.
I would like to revise some tips of them ,response thoughtfully. It might be better if it was 'response thoughtfully and orderly' in order to better understanding.
If you've read my comment above, you already know that "Respond thoughtfully" is one of my favourite tips from Bixby and Scanlon. I like the way that Wan expands this in her comment that we "have to think critically every time [we] suppose to share [our] response." People often say that everyone is free to have any opinion they want to, but in an academic context, you are expected to support your opinions, and teachers also have to support their opinions, so if you disagree with me, or the ideas in our readings, feel free to state your opposing opinion — just be sure to give some support for your critical response.
DeleteA note on academic style: [brackets]
DeleteIn academic writing, we use brackets [ ] to show readers that we have made a change to the exact words of a quotation. This is usually done to make the quoted words fit the grammar of our own sentence or to clarify meaning. The brackets must never change the author's meaning. I wanted to change Wan's singular pronouns to plural, so used brackets to let you, the readers, know that I made those grammatical changes to Wan's exact words that I copied and pasted in the "quotation marks."
I totally agree with the point that there is space for sharing responses of people on an online discussion so before giving opinions that related that topic, we should respond thoughtfully. This point can help the writer or other readers generate new ideas and understand correctly.
DeleteThe academic writing skills are important for an online dicussion board, I agree with this and I think if we use inappropriate langauge, this can be misunderstanding for the others and i think it's impolite to use informal langauge to response the other opinions.
ReplyDeleteAn online discussion board can improve my skills because it makes us use brainstroming and this is our opportunity to see the other people thought,to see the other side and get new knowledge.
I rather agree with their tips especially to reading instructions because i will know what the instructors expect and i can do what they need.
I sincerely agree with Yo, because it's more polite to use academic writing than use nonstandard language in commenting other posts, and instructor also wants us to use appropriate language to show our points. Nowadays, manners is important because it shows our educational levels and our interest, so this reason suggests that we use academic language when we comment. Secondly, brainstorming helps us make friends, share our ideas, and listen to other ideas; from this reason, brainstorming makes us more active in learning and finding knowledge, so it's important that we share our ideas instead of having just your own ideas.
DeleteI think Yo's sentence; "if we use inappropriate langauge, this can be misunderstanding for the others." is very important and I agree with this sentence very much. Because each languages in the world reflect each social structures and cultures of languages. Languages shape some behaviors of speakers by cultures, such as; manner, tradition etc. If we can know formal language and writing, we can understand and communicate with owner's languages very well and correctly. For informal languages, I think all informal languages are impolite. Because sometimes some informal languages is easy to write or quick to communicate that depend on context or envioronment of conversation and writing
DeleteI agree with Yo's opinion that an online discussion makes us use brainstroming .It's actually true because we respond our opinion to each other and think about other's thoughts too , we may get another point or view that we've never thought about. Nevertheless, I think using informal language is not that impolite but It's just informal and I think readers might understand that ; however, It's definitely better if we use academic writing with appropriate writing style.
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