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Conquering Summer: Giving it the Old College Try

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Books and mortarboardJust back from an evening walk in the neighborhood. It’s a great night. Sunny. Slightly breezy. By Texas standards, reasonably cool. People are riding bikes, walking dogs, throwing Frisbees and playing soccer.

What a great summer!

Cicero’s Academy is having a great summer too. We are at the beginning of July, and about halfway through our summer workshop schedule. We are having fun, and if students aren’t careful, we will all learn something before we’re done.

We learned about the importance of asking “why” to add detail in the Developing the Intermediate Writer workshop. The story of Captain Why battling the evil Doctor Nottanuf (think about it) frames the central assignment of turning a paragraph’s worth of ideas into a five paragraph essay.

We learned the power of persuasion in the Essay Writing and Introduction to Persuasion workshop. We learned the essay structure and then put it to work crafting arguments about why Sherlock Holmes is a great detective and why O. Henry’s short stories parallel his life.

The summer schedule leads up to our college-bound workshops. On July 13, we begin Essay Writing for the College Bound, a workshop that focuses on the SAT/ACT and AP essay formats. The goal is to write a quality essay fast. We will drill students in writing essays in 25 minutes, or a set of essays in 2 hours in the case of the Advanced Placement exams. You might have heard that the testing services are no longer requiring these sections as part of the standard test, but don’t be fooled. The top colleges still require them.

We will follow that up on August 4 with a one-day workshop that covers the college application essay. It’s a slightly different beast and we will explain how to navigate its nuances. Students attending this workshop can submit for critique as many drafts of college application essays as they like until September 31.

College graduation ceremonies are still fresh in our recent memories and commencement speeches are still making the rounds on social media. Let’s see, what would we want to tell students heading out into life…

Don’t Write that Way

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Amphibious pitcher
Did you hear the one about the amphibious pitcher? No, it’s not a water vessel carried by a frog. It’s also not a baseball player with a long tongue that can snag flyballs.

Though you’re getting closer.

What good is the Internet if it can’t spread our worst mistakes around the world at the speed of light? In this case, a headline writer in Oregon misunderstood the word “ambidextrous” as it applied to a baseball pitcher who can throw with either arm. The headline proclaimed the first known “amphibious pitcher” was now playing in the majors. The Internet has reacted as only the Internet can:  heaps of derision, jokes and a variety of pseudo-scientific theories as to whether the pitcher’s tail will grow back if a line drive severs it.

At Cicero’s Academy, we sometimes use the sports pages as a source of questionable examples of writing. (Today’s edition: “Perhaps the refs are letting others get after him because he’s been pushing off with his off hand in the post, but either way, James is giving us a real treat against odds that don’t favor the Cavs to win the series.” Off-handedly, I’d say that gem is actually one run-on sentence that also constitutes its own paragraph.)

So, it was a coincidence that the pitcher grew legs and lungs crawling out of the primordial soup the same week that our summer workshop series began – OR WAS IT?  Perhaps things really do happen for a reason.

If you want to avoid your 15 minutes of Internet infamy, come to Cicero’s Academy: Write this way.

Sounds Like Learning

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The house is noisy today. It sounds like a bunch of things rattling around in bags and boxes.IMG_0003

If you want to entertain kids, noise helps. If you want kids to sit still for a writing workshop, noise helps. So, I’m making sure my bag of Lego® blocks shakes and jangles appropriately.
The blocks have words on them, though they didn’t come out of the factory in Denmark that way. In the Developing the Intermediate Writer Workshop we use the blocks as, well, building blocks to make sentences.

I’m also shaking some boxes. We use boxes to teach good paragraph structure. Each box has a collection of items with which students will write paragraphs.

So, the house really is noisy today with blocks and knick-knacks rattling around. Oh, there is also the din of people yelling for peace and quiet.

Register now for our summer workshops.

Readin’, Writin’, Resumes

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IMG_7369We just finished the NFL draft. The draft offers drama, excitement and the nail-biting tension of who gets picked and who doesn’t. Fortunes lay in the balance between players. The smallest differences in performance are magnified as the bosses and coaches make their decisions on who will get the coveted shot at being an NFL player.

Now imagine that a coach had a choice between two players. Both players are strong. Both players run fast and can catch the ball. The difference is that one player knows the rules of the game and the other doesn’t.

Which player will get the millions? Is there really any contest?

This story popped into my head recently as the draft ended. I was talking to a fellow professor who will remain nameless. He had attempted to arrange internship opportunities for some students. The students dutifully sent their resumes to the human resources department.

The HR department contacted the professor and, after some uncomfortable moments, said that they could not forward the resumes to the managers hiring for the internships. The resumes had typos and grammar problems and the department’s policy is not to consider such resumes.

Please tell your students that if they expect to play the game, they have to demonstrate they know the rules. That’s true of their resumes, their college entrance essays and the attention to detail they give to any task.

That Time Again

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IMG_1518To catch you up on things around Cicero’s Academy:

The bluebonnets are in blossom and so are summer plans. We have posted the summer workshop schedule. We begin the summer with the younger students and “Developing the Intermediate Writer,” a workshop designed to help students who have mastered core skills in sentences and paragraphs and help them transition to writing essays and working with bigger ideas of their own choosing. We then move to “Essay Writing and Introduction to Persuasion,” a workshop aimed at the advanced middle school and high school student that needs to sharpen the skills of making an argument. The schedule closes in late July with “Essay Writing for the College Bound,” a workshop aimed at timed writings in the style of the SAT test and Advanced Placement tests. While there is a bit of change afoot in whether the writing portions of the SAT will be required in the future, a quick Google shows that the top schools are still requiring those portions of the standard tests.

Assuming we survive all that, summer will lead to fall and we have some plans for fall as well. Learning to write requires writing consistently and internalizing all the basic parts of the writing process that we teach. We have had several students over the past few years come back for tutoring as a refresher course on the taxonomy and habits we teach. We will be offering some online lesson plans on a subscription basis, geared toward reinforcing the themes of the summer workshops. We have long wanted to move at least a portion of what we do online and this is the year to make that a reality. We will learn as we go and add more options and classes online over time.

Lastly, students have long referred to John as “Mr. T.” He warns them that he will not show up to class wearing a bad mohawk and 40 pounds of necklaces (he also worries that one day that pop culture reference will no longer work and he will be officially, hopelessly and irretrievably old). Students can now call him “Dr. T” as he finished his Ph.D. at the University of Texas in the fall. Did it feel like we went a bit silent in 2014? Writing a 200 page book on globalization and its impact on language habits will do that to you.

Revising History

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Lincoln CroppedThe president’s long lanky body swayed back and forth as the coach hit every pebble, stick and gopher hole on the road to Gettysburg. His massive hands held the quill and envelope tightly as he anxiously worked on the opening of the speech he was expected to give at the memorial ceremony in just over an hour.

“80 or so years ago…”

Nope.

“About 90 years ago, give or take…”

Uh uh.

The coach lurched and the presidential head slammed into the roof. After recovering his senses, Lincoln put quill to paper with an inspiration, words that would echo through generations and outlast empires.

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

OK.  It probably did not happen quite that way. In fact, it was nothing like that. At the summer public speaking workshop, we will study some great American speeches, including the Gettysburg Address.

Spoiler Alert! Lincoln did not write the speech hastily on the road to the memorial. That’s a legend that somehow fits our historical impressions of Lincoln as a folksy, wise, and humbly brilliant person. No doubt he was all of those things, but he also left few things to chance.

Lincoln apparently told a reporter several days before the speech that he had completed a draft but was still working on it (according to the late William Safire’s excellent doorstop of a tome, “Lend Me Your Ears”). Historians have documented revisions made between drafts.

The truth should not diminish Lincoln’s greatness. He knew he needed a plan. He knew the first draft needed revision. He knew that every word carried the burden of history.

It’s the same process of thoughtful discernment, planning and revising that we teach in our public speaking and essay workshops. Each student is a potential Lincoln.

“It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”
-Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

Getting to Know Me

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Business Handshake Before GlobeHello.  My name is <Brief and to the Point>. My friends call me <90 Characters>. Pleased to meet you.

Introductions are on my mind. I’ve been writing several recently. Each one had its own rules (which I’ll come to in a moment). The commonality, though, is that good introductions require us to communicate a great deal of information in just a few words.

In my day job, I write speeches for corporate executives. A certain speech was to be delivered as a conference keynote address in Taiwan. It is an international conference drawing executives from around the globe. To minimize language issues, the organizers asked that the executive supply the introduction. This particular executive is not one to dwell on past accomplishments so a lengthy reading of a resume was out of the question. I had about two short paragraphs to communicate the essence of the executive’s accomplishments, the connection to the conference theme and foreshadow the nature of the speech. Each word had to do a lot of work.

Yet, that seemed easy compared to a couple of social media situations in the last few days. I recently joined groups that encouraged introductions. The introduction would sit next to my picture on a website and communicate to potential business contacts who I am and why someone might want to know me. This is the way a lot of business starts today. The introduction’s goal is to position yourself in your field and explain why people should want to talk to you. You get about 90 characters to do that. Every letter has a lot of work to do.

Introducing yourself is a skill. For every person we meet, we get one chance to do it right. The amount of time and space we get to do it is shrinking. It is no exaggeration to suggest that those who introduce themselves well will have an advantage in life. That is why students in our Public Speaking workshop start by introducing themselves several times in slightly different situations. They start by shaking hands and introducing themselves casually and work their way up to making an introductory speech about a defining aspect of their lives.

As the ghost of Christmas present said to Scrooge, “Come and know me better, Man.”

Summertime News

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P1010829Summer is approaching and Cicero’s Academy™ is heating up.

You asked for it and now we are announcing our summer schedule of workshops. Check here to find overviews and timing for a series of workshops: Developing the Intermediate Writer, Introduction to Public Speaking, Essay Writing/Introduction to Persuasion, Essay Writing for the College-Bound Student, and a set of one-day workshops on specific aspects of writing. We’re excited about the schedule and hope to see you. If the timing of the workshops does not quite fit, we can refashion them as a tutoring schedule to fit your life.

Cicero’s Academy™ helps students develop rhetorical skills—writing an essay, persuading an audience, developing an idea—once they have mastered the mechanics of writing such as punctuation, grammar, subject-verb-object construction and other core skills. As students develop, their need to communicate ideas requires more than just understanding certain rules. They need to understand how to use information and stimulate an audience. They learn that through experience, feedback and the fun of working with ideas.

Building on Success

This is the second summer we have offered the Essay Writing for the College Bound workshop. We appreciate the students that kept us informed of their achievements in the SAT, ACT and AP exams as well as the college application essay. Lots of hard work paid off for several students.

Yet, it starts younger than that.

We think of communication as a life skill. Students spend a lot of time responding to assignments when they write or speak. We encourage them to go beyond just regurgitating information. When the boss asks for an opinion about something, the boss wants more than just a list of facts. Students are encouraged to do something with the information they have, craft a view of the world that is their own.

The Developing the Intermediate Writer workshop takes students from roughly 5th grade through middle school and introduces them to the 5-paragraph essay format. Our Essay Writing and Introduction to Persuasion workshop teaches the high school student how to use information, perform a literary analysis and persuade an audience their view of the world is valid. The Introduction to Public Speaking workshop applies the same skills to making speeches.

We will focus on the building blocks of a great essay in the 1-day workshops. Students might be a little bleary-eyed after a few hours of writing just introductions to essays, but they will understand what makes a great essay at the end of the day.

See you this summer.

When They don’t Know it’s Education

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words2 copy“Your kids use words even I don’t know.”

We’ve heard that comment from numerous people over the years, starting when our kids were still in single digit ages. Versions of the statement come from aunts, uncles, neighbors and even English teachers.

It’s not magic or even education, really. It’s fun. Encourage your kids to have fun with words and they will. Only later will they suspect that it was really a clever ruse to expand their vocabularies.

It’s more than just fun, of course. The number and variety of words your kids hear growing up is correlated with academic achievement.

So start young. Read aloud to your kids and use a variety of good books. Include classics from Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein where the rhythm and inventiveness of the words matter. That will prime them for stories that you make up on the spot and let them finish.

“Then he opened the door, and do you know what he saw there?”

“A giraffe.”

“Exactly. A giraffe. A big giraffe with a funny name. Do you know what it was?”

“Englebert.”

“Uh, yes. Englebert. Englebert the giraffe. From Dusseldorf. He was on his way to the train station…”

From there, you can graduate to rhyming games around the dinner table.

“I put the broccoli on your plate.”

“Are you sure it’s not a skate?”

“No but if I move it here I think it is checkmate.”

“Enough of this. Time for dessert. I can’t wait.”

Dribble in words they do not understand and they will ask about them. Why wouldn’t they, it’s a game after all? Creating curiosity about words and then satisfying it – or the old trick of letting them look it up themselves – gets them engaged with words. It’s like giving them a new ball. They will want to metaphorically throw it again and again.

Another game we play – and those who have been students with Cicero’s Academy™ will recognize this one – is word association. You start with one word and see how many words you can come with that are like it. Usually, it starts with just synonyms, essentially replacing the word with others of similar meaning. But, you will eventually start broadening from the original word or find a bridge term that takes the stream of words in a new direction. Throw in some words of your own to expand their vocabulary further.

As your kids get older, the games can get more sophisticated. Another game we play in workshops is holding a conversation entirely via questions.

“How are you today?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Why are you so grumpy?”

“Have you ever gotten up on the wrong side of the bed?”

“Don’t you hate it when that happens?”

Try this. It is not easy to do on the fly. You have to actually think about what you’re saying and transform declarative sentences in your head into their equivalents in questions – all within the time span of a normal conversation. It teaches dexterity and agility with words, syntax and sentence structure.

In other words…make it fun and you give them more than just a vocabulary. You give them a lifetime of learning.

Developing Ideas Against the Clock

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ClockYou probably know that pseudo-science/pseudo-philosophy question about the tree falling in the forest. You know, the one that wonders if it made a sound if no one was there to hear it? We wrestled with a version of that question in our recent “Essay Writing for High School and Beyond” workshop.

If an idea does not affect the world, does it have any impact at all?

In the workshop, students prepped for the SAT essay exam, the Advancement Placement essay exam (“Good news, students. In this one, you get to write three essays against the clock. Won’t that be fun?”) and the college admissions essay. It was a great bunch of students. They worked hard each day and a few times they left needing a nap. Over the course of two weeks, students received feedback on at least eight essays. One of those essays was scored directly using the SAT rubrics and process so they could get a sense of where they would rate on that college admission scale.

This workshop enjoyed high demand, so much so that we had to cap attendance and then we let one sneak in after an impassioned plea from a mom. We will schedule this workshop again in October, see the Fall Schedule for further details.

But, back to falling trees and the impact of ideas…

In the workshop, we spent a lot of time focused on ways to develop ideas, both across the essay as a whole and particularly within paragraphs. These essay exams are geared toward testing critical thinking, an ability to work with concepts, tracing them from the abstract level into the details of real-world experiences or phenomena and back again. Students are expected to see patterns and argue the meaning underlying those patterns, demonstrating that the patterns exist with examples taken from a text or simply from their own experiences or observations. Two issues are key: 1) explaining the idea, and 2) showing it at work in an example.

With 11 students each writing one to two essays a day, we were able to identify three core problems in idea development:

Floating upwards – Ideas remain abstractions, never touching ground in the real world with concrete examples. A thought might receive some critical treatment, but only in the abstract, one concept contrasted with another on face value.  Examples – or their shadows – might be mentioned along the way, but it is a “touch and go” approach, not a safe landing at a destination.

Floating down – Ideas are asserted without definition and the writer moves quickly from the abstract to a list of examples that are not developed. The writer presumes that the relevant point of each example is obvious and the reader is left to sort them out minus any details. Having exhausted his or her examples in the list, the writer has nowhere to go for the rest of the essay.

Floating sideways – Ideas come fast and furious in a stream of consciousness that does not stop to develop any one idea. The writer is no doubt intelligent and comfortable in the world of ideas. But, the reader is left to swim with the current in hopes of finding a concrete handhold somewhere downstream.

We addressed these deficits in idea development in a variety of ways. We gave them a model to follow as a template. Students were given back their essays with a paragraph identified for re-writing with that model. We also discussed strategies for developing examples and using them strategically.

We not only critiqued their writing, we focused on strategies for getting the building blocks of an essay onto the paper and then developing ideas. We find that students do not put enough effort into the pre-write phase of writing, that time when you are just brainstorming and looking for patterns in thoughts and examples. Mastering the pre-write phase is an integral part of success in timed writings, perhaps ironically so since you do not have much time to organize your thoughts. The faster you can get your ideas out of your head and organize them, the sooner you can assemble them into an essay. To just sit down and start writing against the clock is a recipe for a wandering diatribe that never develops an idea to its fullest. However, you have to embrace the pre-write as part of the writing discipline before you can do it quickly.

This hard-working group of students left bleary-eyed some days.  However, they also got comfortable enough to help each other build ideas or flesh out personal experiences for a college admissions essay.

We hope to see them all again.