Japan News Online

In Essay Writing class, I like to chat about the latest news stories from time to time. Are you keeping up with the news about the nuclear reactor and other hot topics (no pun intended)? Here are some sites you might consider looking at.

http://www.japantoday.com/
http://www.newsonjapan.com/
http://english.kyodonews.jp
http://www.japanprobe.com/
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news.html

In class, we will take a moment to check out the English news sites, and if there's time at the end of class, we will post a blog comment related to current news. Most of you, however, will be editing your first essay.

Good Sentences, Good Format & Great Style!

This is week 2 of Essay Writing Class 2011. Welcome back!

In this class, we will work on 3 things during the year. We will ...

1) Work on making Good Sentences! That means we will pick up some grammar points each class and try to make our sentences easy to understand.
2) Try to turn in essays with a Good Format! That means the essay will have a title, paragraphs, spaces between lines, indent where necessary, and of course, always be typed.
3) The key to excellent writing is to have your Great Style! One thing we will try to do today is to use descriptive writing. Descriptive writing means using words and expressions that make the reader really feel the writer's intention. One way to be descriptive is to use the 5 Senses - sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. If you describe a place, for example, what can you see, hear, taste, touch and smell there? Try to make the reader experience exactly what you did!

Now check out this link from my posts last year:
The Lazona Food Court

New school year 2011!

Welcome to Essay Writing class 2011! I hope you had some time to relax during the spring break, but as we all know, it's been an unusual time in Japan, to say the least. I hope your family members are all safe. We will keep a close watch on the news of the nuclear reactor in this class, but hopefully that situation will be resolved soon, too.

Let's take a moment to write a comment about our thoughts on the disaster in the comment box below. If you like, you can talk about what you were doing when the disaster struck. You may also reflect on the condition of the victims and perhaps recommend some measures we can take to help them.

Essay Writing Schedule - 2011

Essay Writing Schedule
Rm. 403 木 1st Period - School Year 2011
Kevin Miller ▪ Office 121, Bld. 6
26 classes

1. April 7 - Introduction; policies; grading; Essay #1 assigned - My Special Thing
2. April 14 - Essay #1 draft due ✉
3. April 21 - Essay #1 draft returned for corrections ✎
4. April 28 - Essay #1 final due ✉; Essay #2 assigned – Comparison
✪ Holiday – May 5
5. May 12 - Essay #2 draft due ✉
✪ No morning class – May 19
6. May 26 - Essay #2 draft returned for corrections ✎
7. June 2 - Essay #2 final due ✉; Essay #3 assigned – How to …
8. June 9 - Essay #3 draft due ✉
9. June 16 - Essay #3 draft returned for corrections ✎
10. June 23 - Essay #3 final due ✉; Essay #4 assigned – Opinion
11. June 30 - Essay #4 draft due ✉
12. July 7 - Essay #4 draft returned for corrections ✎
13. July 14 - Essay #4 final due ✉
✪ Summer Break!
14. Sept. 22 - Essay #5 assigned – A Change in Me Essay
15. Sept. 29 - Essay #5 draft due ✉
16. Oct. 6 - Essay #5 draft returned for corrections ✎
17. Oct. 13 - Essay #5 final due ✉; Essay #6 assigned – Issue w/ Data
18. Oct. 20 - Essay #6 draft due ✉
19. Oct. 27 - Essay #6 draft returned for corrections ✎
✪ Holiday – Nov. 3
20. Nov. 10 - Essay #6 final due ✉; Essay #7 assigned – Res. Review
21. Nov. 17 - Essay #7 draft due ✉
22. Nov. 24 - Essay #7 draft returned for corrections ✎
23. Dec. 1 - Essay #7 final due ✉; Essay #8 assigned – Narration
✪ No class – Dec. 8
24. Dec. 15 - Essay #8 draft due ✉
25. Dec. 22 - Essay #8 draft returned for corrections ✎
✪ Winter Break – Dec. 29, Jan. 5
26. Jan. 12 - Essay #8 final due ✉

✉ = you give me or send me an essay; ✎ = I return an essay to you for corrections
9 absences = FAIL; all essays must be completed to pass this course

Essay Writing Class 2010

This is the blog site for Essay Writing, a class at Tsurumi University. The blog posts here are mainly from 2010, as the course started in April 2010 and finished up on Jan. 11, 2011. You will find teacher instructions, student essays and unedited student blog comments on this site. Students were 2nd and 3rd year English majors at Tsurumi University. In the Essay Writing course, each student wrote 8 essays plus revisions during the school year. They also made many blog posts and did various writing and grammar exercises in class.

To anyone who has just stumbled onto this blog site, the organization may seem a little confusing. That's because this site was not designed for the general public. It's mainly a support site for the Essay Writing class. The class meets in a computer room at Tsurumi University, and I can tell the students, "OK, please log onto the site and look at the latest post." We then look at the blog posts together and I give additional explanation. Consequently, this is not really a "blog" in the typical sense, but rather a classroom aid.

One of the advantages to this procedure is that I don't waste paper on handouts. More importantly though, students can access the information from anywhere, even from their smart phones. That way the information is never lost. I can also post links in the post, which is something that can't be done with a paper handout. Finally, students are able to see reminders and essay due dates from any computer or smart phone, so there is never an excuse for forgetting an assignment!

Now that the school year is finished, I am posting some of the best essays of the year on this site. Rather than post them on one blog page, however, I am posting them in the "Comments" boxes of older posts around the time the essay was submitted. Hopefully, this will provide some context for the essays. To make these student essays easy to find, I am posting the titles here below with links to the pages they are on.

The final essays you see posted were either submitted to me as hard copies in class or by email. I then made written corrections on the printed copies and passed them back to the students. Students then had to resubmit their revised essays. Sometimes a third edit was necessary.

The final essays should be almost error free due to our editing process. If you look at the comments accompanying each blog post, however, you will see many "live" posts submitted by students in class which are not edited. These unedited student comments will give the reader an idea of the actual writing level of our students when they write spontaneously. Obviously, editing is important for a good essay, so we make a distinction between English blogging and English essay writing.

Thank you for taking the time to check out this Essay Writing blog site. You may also wish to view our restaurant review site, Tsurumi Eats!, a site which we hope has the appearance of a "real" blog.

Now, here are links to some of the final essays. Thank you for taking a look!

My Grandmother's Story by Potchama (Narration Essay)

How I Changed My Way of Thinking about Our Neighbor, Korea by Swwie (Change Essay)

How to be a Great Guitarist by Yuta (How to ... Essay)

TV is Good for Children by Junna (Opinion Essay)

Traditional Japanese Bonito Fisheries by CCC (Data Essay)

My Friend's Escape by K (Narration Essay)

A Spiritual Experience by Ken (Narration Essay)

Final Essay Writing Class of 2010 School Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

In Essay Writing Class this school year (2010) we completed 8 essays. Otsukaresama!

Many of you will have final tests soon (though we will not have a final test in Essay Writing class), and then you'll start your Spring Break. I hope you have a nice time! However, you need to keep up your English over the break, so please think about how you can do that. Have you borrowed a book from the library to read over the break? Please try some graded readers if you haven't done that already.

In this class, we talked a lot about current news in Japan and around the world. Do you read English newspapers sometimes? You know the Daily Yomiuri is available at many kiosks at train stations and also in some convenience stores. It's only 120 yen, so why not buy it now and then and boost your English vocabulary? Of course, you can also read English news online. Google News is great for that, and the Japan Times has an English site that may be of interest to you as well.

To keep up your writing, why not start your own English blog? Since you already have Google accounts, you can easily start a blogspot web page if you want to. Ask Kevin if you need advice on how to start. Another thing you can do is write some more restaurant reviews. Send your writing to Kevin with a photo (as a separate jpg file), and Kevin will post your review. That way the Tsurumi Eats! restaurant review site will stay current. You can always access it from your home PC or from your cell phone. Awesome!

Over the break, Kevin will post some of your 2010 essays on this website - English Everyday! Please tell your friends and family about the site so they can view your writing. Most of the old web pages will be deleted, however, as new content will be added starting in Essay Writing Class 2011.

Thank you for all your hard work in 2010! I hope you come talk to me sometime next school year. Come during English Cafe if you can, or go to Kevin's office (Building 6, room 121) for a chat anytime!

Bye for now!
Kevin

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