Writing Across Berkeley

Grammar Rules That Never Existed*

January 1, 2000
Steve Tollefson

You can’t start a sentence with “and” or “but.” Of course you can. You always could. “And” and “but” are coordinating conjunctions, and since they both coordinate and conjoin, they can begin a sentence. The trick, of course, is that it’s got to be a sentence that flows from the previous one.

Sentence fragments are never acceptable. Not true. They’re just pieces of sentences. Poorly used or thoughtless fragments are evil. Most good writers make use of fragments for rhetorical effect—and not just in fiction. Example: “Which public university ranks...

Teaching Writing to Multilingual Students

September 7, 2017
Michelle Baptiste

Several years ago College Writing Programs began offering writing consultations to faculty and GSIs teaching Reading & Composition (R&C) courses. Over the last few years, College Writing Programs has rotated the Multilingual Student Writing Consultant position among the applied linguists on our faculty. Each of us has had the opportunity to work with faculty and GSI’s from across campus—from English and Comparative Literature to Classics and Geography, as well as to field questions from faculty on other campuses.

Each of us has enjoyed the challenge of sharing our knowledge...

On Being a Son of a Times Journalist

January 11, 2017
Justin R. Murphy

The journey that I embarked on to become a tutor for the College Writing Programs is a long one. As I am a history major, I would like to put my story into greater perspective, starting before my academic career at Cal and Montclair High School. I would like to begin the narrative with my father, Dean Murphy.

My father is a newspaperman through and through. He started off as a child delivering papers for the Bethlehem Globe-Times, and as a teenager he wrote for them. After his teen years, he worked as a foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times in one of the...

Campus Voices: Best and Worst Writing Assignments #1

August 1, 2000
WAB Editors
What are the best and worst writing assignments you've ever given your students? Deborah Nolan (Statistics)

In a course I teach on sampling surveys, my students work in small groups to prepare a ten- to fifteen-page report describing a complex survey, such as the Current Population Survey or the National Crime Victimization Survey. The first time I assigned this project the results were disappointing. Too many papers read like abridged government documents. However, with closer supervision, this assignment is now quite successful.

To start them on the right track, I crafted a...

The 7 Stages of bCourses

February 24, 2014
Michael Larkin

Chagrin: “Ugh, I have to learn another LMS?”

Procrastination: “Develop my class first, worry about this later. Wow, my bathroom sink really needs to be cleaned.”

Overwhelmedness: “OMG! bCourses is ridiculously detailed and difficult to navigate! And all that great material I’ve carefully built into bSpace over the years…LOST!”

[kick computer]

Anger: “bCourses is trying to dictate the way I teach and how I structure my course! My glorious pedagogy! Out out, damned Modules!”

Resignation: “All right, all right. Let me learn how to work this damn thing.”...

The Fourth R: Reflection

January 1, 2001
Maggie Sokolik

“I did learn a lot: not just about the technology, or my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, but also about the power of the video medium, and the effect it can have on an audience. The class dogma definitely applies to this project, as it has for all of the others: the STORY is the most important thing.” —upper division student

“I prepare myself for class to try to gain accurate information from the reading assignments. Many times, I have read the writing assignments a couple times, hoping to have the best understanding of the assignments before I come to class....

Campus Voices: Best and Worst Writing Assignments #2

August 1, 2000
WAB Editors
What are the best and worst writing assignments you've ever been given by a teacher? John Fuentes (Political Science / Business)

I have never been a true fan of William Shakespeare, so my worst writing assignment had to have been in English 1B where we had to write about King Lear. This assignment wasn’t very long or difficult, but I simply could not enjoy Shakespeare because I had a hard time understanding the language and style. In fact, the core of the assignment was merely to summarize the events and to explain their larger implications in the play.

My best writing assignment...

A Dialogue between Readers and Writers

January 1, 2001
Melinda Erickson

What We Can Learn from Second Language Writers

What comes to mind when you consider the phrase “responding to writing”? I think about responding as a dialogue between readers and writers. When I respond to writing, I hope to offer comments that enable writers to achieve their goals—communicate their ideas—as though my response will help with a revision or with the next piece the writer works on. My background in applied linguistics makes me particularly aware of the linguistic challenges involved in a dialogue between people whose native languages are different....

Gone in Sixty Seconds: The One-Minute Paper as a Tool for Evaluation--of Both Instructor and Student

August 1, 2001
Steve Tollefson

The one-minute paper can be done at any time in a class period. You can start the class with a question: “What question do you have from the reading for today?” Or you can interrupt a class in the middle: “OK, we’ve just talked about the scientific flaws in Jurassic Park III. Write for one minute on which of those you consider to be the most serious.”

Writing one-minute papers serves as a way to seal ideas in students’ minds, provides you with an idea of where they are, develops their critical thinking skills, and, not least, tells you something about your own teaching.

...

Campus Voices: The Most Important Component of Argument

January 1, 2002
WAB Editors
What is the most important component of a successful argument in your field? Carol Tateishi (California Bay Area Writing Project)

In the field of education, a new genre of writing that is gaining a foothold in the world of educational research is that of writing by teacher researchers. I refer here to the systematic and intentional research conducted by classroom teachers on questions of significance to their own practice. Writing by teacher researchers tends to break from traditional presentations of research and builds an argument through a variety of means. No single component of an...