Restaurant Review Site Lookin' Good!

Our Essay Writing class restaurant review site, Tsurumi Eats!, is looking good. Just a few more reviews to be added ... If you haven't submitted your review to Kevin yet, please do so as soon as possible. The semester is almost over! Remember, I need the review as a Word document and a separate photo (jpg file). Send the review and photos to my email address.

For those readers who are looking for a restaurant recommendation, be sure to check out the site! - Tsurumi Eats!

In this week's class, we are working on our final unit, Narration. Here's another example of writing done by a former student of mine, Mai Funasaka. Notice that there is some dialog in the story, which is a requirement of the last assignment.

The Reason I Cook Every Day

One summer day, I talked to my mother. That day at home, I was stressed out. There were many minor reasons. So I said some mean words to my mother.

“Mom, listen to me. Today is my worst day. There were so many bad things.”

At first she listened silently. But I continued, “I missed the train, so I had to wait an hour.”

My town is far from the city, so there are not many lines. It is a usual thing that there is one train an hour. It is inconvenient, but I was used to it. However, today I got angry. Everything made me angry.

“And today is too hot!” I was even angry about the weather.

“Mai, you are annoyed. Why? Are you hungry?” Mother asked.

“No, I just had a bad day,” I said.

Mother said, “OK, I see, I see. But don't complain to me.”

It made me more angry. I continued complaining.

“Mom, this lunch was not good. I don't like such things. You always make the same things. I'm tired of it.”

“Oh, well, if you think so, you should cook every morning,” mother said. “It's a lot of trouble. Maybe you can cook better than me.”

Then my anger peaked. “Kusobaba!” I cried.

She hated being called such a name, so she got angry, too. The next morning, there was no lunch. The next day after that, too. My mother never cooked for me again. So I cooked for myself every time. But I’m not good at cooking. And I use frozen food, so my skill is not growing.

- Essay by Mai Funasaka (former Trident College Student)

Instructions for Essay Writing class:
Your final essay is due in this week's class, so hopefully, you have have submitted it to Kevin.

There are two more things we have to accomplish in Essay Writing class today:

1) Class evaluation
2) Two short blog comments about ...
a) essay writing class
b) writing restaurant reviews for the blog site, Tsurumi Eats!
One or more of these comments will appear in the next issue of the Tsurumi University English Dept. Newsletter.
3) If you have time, you can try an online Christmas word search game at: TheKidzPage.com

New Restaurant Review Site - Tsurumi Eats!

In Essay Writing class, we are winding down our unit on Restaurant Reviews. Those who have sent me their final restaurant reviews along with digital photos can now see their reviews online at:

tsurumieats.blogspot.com

Some people have sent me photos without an essay, and some have sent me an essay without a photo. I need both to post them online! Please send me your reviews so I can get them on the Internet for the world to see!

From today, we will start our final essay writing unit on Narration. This writing will involve telling an interesting story. Some people may think they don't have any interesting stories to tell, but actually, we all have interesting stories. The important thing is how we tell the story. In class, I will give you some examples.

One of the conditions I have for the final essay is that it must contain some dialog. Dialog means direct quotations by people in the story as they speak to each other. To write good dialog, please remember to use quotation marks. Below is an example of dialog showing 3 ways quotation marks can be used.

“If the weather's fine,” she said, “we should go to the beach.”
John answered, “I'd rather go to the mountains.”
“We went to the mountains last time!” she replied angrily.

When using dialog in an essay, each new speaker's words should be indented.

Any questions? Ask me in class or send me email!

Fun With Wordle

This past weekend I attended a teacher conference in Nagoya (JALT Conference 2010). One of the presentations I attended mentioned the online program Wordle. I had learned about this site before, but hadn't used it. Hearing about it again gave me the idea to try and use it in my Essay Writing class.

The idea behind Wordle is that you can take any text and turn it into art. For this exercise, I took the blog comments my Essay Writing students wrote about restaurants and restaurant reviews and created little artistic masterpieces out of each one.

Here are 6 images. Which image represents your blog comment? Match each image to the blog author. The blog comments are on the Restaurant Review Blogging page. (Hint: click on the image to see a larger version.)

Restaurant Review Blogging

For the past couple of weeks, we've been talking about restaurant reviews. Hopefully by now, all of you have been to a restaurant and written about it for your restaurant review assignment.

These days, restaurant reviews are popular on the Internet. A quick search can help you find the kind of place you want to go to. What are your thoughts about restaurant reviews? Do you read them? Do you rely on them? Or do you prefer magazine restaurant guides, like Yokohama Walker?

Let's take a moment to blog on the topic of restaurant reviews. This should not be like your restaurant review that you wrote for your assignment. It should be on what you think about restaurant reviews. Here are some questions that may help guide your blogging:

Can anyone be a restaurant reviewer or only professionals?
The trend of smart phones & restaurant reviews
Writing restaurant reviews as a career
The advantages/disadvantages of magazine vs Internet reviews

If you have no comments to make about restaurant reviewing, then please blog about your experience with a restaurant. However, it should be different than what you wrote for your restaurant review assignment. For example ...

My experience working in a restaurant
My experience with my family in a restaurant
My experience as a customer in a restaurant
A story I heard from a friend about a restaurant

Restaurant Review Treasure Hunt

We are starting a unit on Restaurant Reviews, and our first draft of a restaurant review will be due Nov. 17. To become familiar with restaurant reviews, let's do a treasure hunt activity using restaurant reviews from the Japan Times. The link to the reviews is written below. You will see 5 reviews on the page (in the section called "Tokyo Food File"). Use the worksheet that Kevin gives you and answer the questions. Only the 5 restaurants/bars on the top page of the Japan Times web page (Tokyo Food File) will be used. If you don't understand a question, please ask Kevin.

Please click on the following link:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/food.html

Reading Graphs Can Be Tricky

Graphs are great because they make understanding data simpler. You can look at a graph and tell at a glance which portion is greater or which trend shows an increase or decrease. However, reading graphs can be tricky. We have to look carefully at the units and make sure that they make sense. When comparing two similar graphs, we have to be sure that the units match, or we may arrive at erroneous conclusions. Look at the following graphs on this page about drink sales in Japan.

http://www.j-sda.or.jp/about-jsda/sd-statistics/stati02.html

What do you notice about the figures? For example, look at the 2008 graph for sales of carbonated drinks and compare it to the 2008 graph of juice drinks. The graphs seem to show the same amount of sales, because the bar is at the same height for each. But look at the figures to the left of each graph. Carbonated drink sales were 3 million kl in 2008, while juice drink sales were half of that! The bars in the graphs are the same height, but the units are completely different!

Can you find some more differences in the units? Please be careful when using data from graphs, and be sure the units match up when you compare them. Also, always be sure to include your source so I can look at the original data when I read your essays.

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The graph at right illustrates the bonito catch for the Data Essay in the comments below. The comments box doesn't allow images, so I have posted the graph here. This image is a scan from a Word document, so the quality is not so clear.

Blog Topics & Upcoming Restaurant Review

Today we will continue talking about graphs and data in our writing. I will talk to each student personally about some things from your essay.

Next week (Nov. 3) is a holiday, so we have no Essay Writing class. Since you'll have some extra time, I want to introduce the next essay, which will be a Restaurant Review. I'll give you details in class, but meanwhile, please think of a restaurant, bar or coffee shop you can visit, preferably with some friends, so you can write about it. You'll also need to take some pictures, so be thinking about that, too.

Today, if you have time to blog, here are some suggestions:

Why are there fewer Japanese baseball players in the Major Leagues now?
http://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi-shukan-post/view/and-then-there-was-ichiro-mlb-teams-in-process-of-shedding-japanese-players

Japan is in a recession, but the pet industry is booming. Why is that?
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/no-signs-of-recession-in-pet-industry

Why is Saitama known for Cosplay?
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/saitama-town-becomes-cosplay-mecca-on-anime-popularity

If you don't like those ideas, here are some links to news sites:

http://www.japantoday.com/

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/