2nd Blog period: WRIT1 Feedback.

Dear WRIT1 students: This grade is the main one for your class (the combined 3 blog grades), so having a second low score can ruin your semester. I expect the combined blog grade will count about 40 or 50% of your semester grade. Therefore, if you get very low grades for the first two periods, you will likely have trouble passing the class. I can't help you if you don't seek help, so give me feedback or ask for help. . .please! If you don't care about your grade, why should I care?
I still cannot find Annie's blog site; please tell me in class today, Annie!
For Peggy: Please see my comments.
For Christy: I cannot find any English entries in your blog for the 2nd grading period--nor, indeed, any English entries at all! Is this the wrong blog?
Rossi: Similarly, it appears that there are no entries at all since before this 2nd grading period.
Paula: Your blog requests that I "wait [for] me" and I have, but still there are no entries at all. You'll have to wait till next period for a grade. So please "wait for me." However, even if you get a 100% on your next blog period (highly difficult to achieve, like a word level of 50 at "FreeRice.com") your top combined score will only be 33.3%. It's such a shame!

I really cannot understand the problem for most of you. You are destroying your writing grade, and what for?? If you do not understand the requirements, you ought to ASK! Or, as an alternative, you could always READ the instructions. I'd love to help intelligent students who try to do a good job and ask for assistance, but I'm not gonna chase you down the halls asking you for your homework. You are adults and are solely responsible for yourselves and your grades and your future. Grab the steering wheel and start to drive yourself towards your destination!
See you in the afternoon.
Chris O'Brien

Cautions and a Feedback Request

I note that many bloggers have not resumed their writing after the 2 week break. Don't hurt your chances at a good grade for the second blogging period, please. I have posted all deadlines on my calendar, visible on my main page, as well as how many posts there should be in all for each time. However, please note that I only consider the blogs for the specific period each time. . . So actually for each group, by the due date of your group's 2nd blog period, I will need to see at least 12 entries for the period. This includes all time between ONE DAY AFTER the previous due date until the new due date. For group 1, then, that will include the time between October 15th and November 25th (I will not expect entries for those two weeks when we all took a blog break). If this is unclear, please ask!!

Please note, everyone, that I cannot read your minds. If you disagree with anything I'm doing you must TELL ME if you want the situation to improve, as I have no other way to know. Also, please note that complaining to some other person who is not related to our class is the wrong way to solve the problem, and pretty grossly impolite too. Comment here if you want to tell me without my knowing who you are. . .just include the class name, WRIT1 or WRINT, if you want me to be able to act on your suggestions. And please. . .have some respect. I'm doing my best, but I have no feedback from you guys, so I just have to guess what you need. It would be unfair for you to blame me for not fixing a mystery problem that is a secret to me. But I will do my best to help you out and make the class more suitable to you if you let me know your needs.
Sincerely yours
Chris O'Brien

Follow up comments WRINT Group 4 1st period

Hola all. I was especially pleased with this 4th group of blogs, which were generally well written and *GASP* interesting to read as well! Still some grammar things, especially

1. Tense suitability
2. Number agreement
3. Count/noncount nouns

So I urge you all to take care. Now I'm done with the first period of blogging entries for both WRINT and WRIT1. Now for the next batch, which were due yesterday. . . . AAUUUGH!~!!

Please check your homepage, WRIT1 class. I've a special request for you!

Chris O'Brien

Fixed WRIT1 Blogs

Carrol

Please get going and post three paragraphs or more every week for the rest of the semester.

WRINT Group 4 blog comments for first grading period

Hi. Glad to see that the first group member, Samantha, has refreshingly kept up with her entries. Thank you Samantha!!

• No need to use "although" and "but" together; pick only one of these terms.
• "as possible as I can" is a weird phrase that turns up more and more frequently in blogs and other writing. It should be "as much as possible," "as much as I can," or "as much as I possibly can."

More feedback tomorrow!

WRIT1 Group 4 comments

First, I had better thank Barry, who appears to have provided content for at least 3 or 4 other students' blogs, since he wrote their haiku for another class. Not sure why his group members found writing a haiku so challenging when it was Barry who did the writing...oh well.
I don't seem to have Adam's blog address yet. Please, Adam, send it this week before it's too late.
Most people in this class, from any group, seem to think that the blog is something you only need to do a few times a semester. No! Please write thrice a week or more to get a passing score. Do that with good writing to get a good score.
At least it's very easy to grade these nonexistent blogs, which score in the single digits.
Also there seems to be no blog for Linda. Please--what's going on with this class?? Send it or regret it.
If you have a problem finishing or posting your journals, just let me know. If you don't I'll count it as "unexcused." One student asked me for an extra day to finish, and that was fine, but that was weeks ago.
Get it together, folks. Somebody'd better pass next time!

• Paragraph form, spell and grammar check, and 3 times a week to pass; none of that = probable failure for the class!

Chris O'Brien

Issue with the WRINT class's Change in Teachers for 2 1/2 weeks

Hi, I just got a comment in my guestbook--Gmail had put it into the spam folder, but it was from Nov. 11th. Here it is:

I don't like the exchange teacher thing. Why weren't we informed before it happened? Students do have the right to have a comment about the teaching plan, don't we?

So I have replied in this way, and posted it here so you all will have a chance to read it.

Hello, well, I can give you a couple of answers. First, you WERE informed about the change--nearly a week before it happened. I posted the information very shortly after class on Halloween, 10/31--because that was when Guan Shr first told me about the idea. I didn't know anything about it until about 3 PM on that day; I told you as soon as I knew about it.
If you people had done your homework--namely, checking my homepages regularly, as you should--you all would have known about this sooner. Instead, it seemed that 100% of the students were surprised about the news. Why was that?
Second, yes, you do have the right to have a comment about teaching plans--and you have just made one. Thanks for the comment.
If you want to explain more about why you don't like the change, please do. I don't know what the teacher is doing, but I know it's some sort of teaching experiment that she is required to do. Anyway, it won't affect your grade in my class, and you won't get a grade for her class either, so what does it matter in the end? You need not participate unless you want to!

• I hope you'll willingly participate in her experiment, but if you choose not to, it is your right to refuse; I am not requiring your participation, and I am not calling the roll these weeks. Do what you wish, but do please show respect for Guan Shr and her project, no matter how you feel about it; people with no manners do not earn any respect for themselves.
• Finally, why am I getting these questions, anyway? I already answered them in class on Nov. 7th.
  

Thank you anyway, mysterious student, for sharing your objections with me. I appreciate that; so many people are silent. Please share more info if you want to do so. Is something shocking happening to you? What, in fact, is the matter?? If you want me to make up 2 1/2 classes for you myself, I am willing to schedule make-up classes for you, as long as it fits into your schedules and mine. Let me know.

Chris O'Brien

WRINT group 3 Comments part 2

Hi. I'm now done with group 3 and so far nobody has even come close to earning a passing grade in the blogs! Few have followed the instructions and that's really too bad. Please consider following the directions in the future, unless you prefer not to pass the class. As adults, it's really your decision, but I fear that you would regret making that type of decision, so I'm here to warn you about it. Please check your blog comments for more information. Best to you. See you next time.
Chris O'Brien

WRIT1 Group 3 Comments

Hi there WRIT1sters.

• I have no blog address for Kitty as far as I can find. If you have one, Kitty, send me an email please, or reply to this post if you wish to have a blog grade. (you should want one!)
  
• Ellen and Renee's blogs have only one post each. That's as far as I got so far; if you have more entries then you must give them to me or send me the link right away. Otherwise your grades won't change.
• More later. . .

Chris O'Brien

Comments WRINT Group 3

I'm keeping notes for this group as I go. . .I may add to this later. . .

• Tiffany, I cannot find any way to make comments on your blog. Also, you have not made your articles visible, AND furthermore you're still using Yam.com, never advisable for an English class. Please could you try to fix these problems? You have enough entries, but it is very clear you have neither used a spellchecker nor a grammar checker at all, at least in some entries. Next time please do both and follow the other directions to improve your grade. Please let me know next class when the comments are turned on and the articles are visible. I don't have time to click for new pages for every article.
  
• I see how Mitzi's blog is on Yam, but is set up so it displays all articles fully and is all in English. If you are on Yam but have it set up wrong perhaps you can ask Mitzi for advice on how to do it right. Thanks, Mitzi!
• In general I'm still seeing lots of elementary school type mistakes with number, subjects, tense, punctuation, and so on. Nobody seems to be spell checking or grammar checking, two of my requirements this semester. Do try to follow the instructions I've given you in this blog. Thank you and see you in class. I have not really started grading your mid terms.

Chris O'Brien

Gimme a Break!

Hi, dear WRIT1 and WRINT students. I have to take a couple of weeks off from grading blogs, so I can catch up! I've been overwhelmed with many projects this semester and I've fallen behind, so during the next week (and theoretically over the past week too) I ask everyone to take a bit of a break from blogs. . .at any rate, I don't plan to grade any blog entries that are written during this period. . .between Nov. 5 and Nov. 18. However, if you're lacking in entries for your current period and you have some entries from that period, I suppose you can use those as substitutes so that you won't lose points for not having written elsewhen. I'll be with you in your comments section as long as you give me permission to do so. If not, no grade for you.
Thanks to those of you who are doing such lovely work on the Free Rice bonus. . .though I'm concerned about the possibility of Photoshopping or otherwise cheating, as several students have a vocabulary level of 50--the very highest level, which I cannot achieve myself, and which the homepage states is rarely achieved. It's strange, unless you have either a wonderful vocabulary or else a very good dictionary (or dictionary website) to aid you. At any rate, thanks for 'buying' that rice for the poor.
Chris O'Brien