
Why Email Is The Perfect Way To Teach Writing - JamesLowell
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/07/composition-101-how-a-tool-everyone-has-could-change-education/242468/#.TjAvhTidjxU.hackernews
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pak
This guy is a professor I would have loved to have for one of my English
classes. His positive attitude and willingness to adapt and work hard for his
students is just remarkable and rarely seen in a college classroom.

By the way, this is a great solution to the much-discussed
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2774254>) problem of effectively dealing
with plagiarism: imagine if it were expected, as part of your class, that you
engaged your professor via email while writing assignments. There would be no
way to plagiarize, because the professor would have direct insight into each
part of your writing process as he saw bits of your essay fall into place.
Imagine all the students that could be guided to _correctly_ cite and re-use
sources if their professor had just headed it off at the pass instead of
running it through TurnItIn and groaning at the fallout. I couldn't agree more
with the benefits of this dynamic, more interactive teaching method for
writing.

It also makes me wonder if he would be interested in having students share
their works-in-progress via Google Docs--he would be able to essentially peer
over their shoulder as they type and comment. Or would that be going too far?

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timwiseman
_There would be no way to plagiarize, because the professor would have direct
insight into each part of your writing process as he saw bits of your essay
fall into place._

I fear you give too much credit in that respect. This does not mean you could
not lift passages out to integrate with your work without a professor being
any wiser. It might make copying a complete text a little harder, but even
there it wouldn't be hard to integrate some deliberate errors, let him catch
and then revise. Finally, it would do nothing at all to stop you from hiring
someone else to write it for you as long as you could either pay that other
person to participate in the e-mail feedback or you were willing to do the
revisions yourself.

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keithpeter
If I have read the article correctly, we are looking at 15 to 20 solid working
days of e-mail annotation. That is a LOT. This gentleman is working hard.

Feedback on writing is not reducible to rules or use cases, so I don't think a
software solution is possible but I stand to be corrected.

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cdcarter
I wish it weren't so that younger professors have to focus more on publishing
than they do on actually teaching.

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jmilloy
> a kind of practice that includes an "active search for methods to improve
> performance," immediate informative feedback, structure, supervision from an
> expert...

Made me think of learning to code... in some ways, coding provides this - we
get tireless responses and immediate informative feedback each time we compile
or test our code. Of course not all elements of good coding are evaluated by
automatic metrics such as compiles, passes tests, or isn't too slow). but
still.

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ZoFreX
To me the whole argument about the ineffectiveness of current methods implies
you do no writing in the downtime. So yes, if your argument is that "students
who do no writing in their spare time, and instead stick to the bare minimum
necessary to meet the courses requirements, don't magically become good
writers" then I both agree and don't give a jot. I love my field, and the idea
of not writing code in my spare time as well as doing my academic work never
even occurred to me.

Edit: I just mean that particular bit of it, by the way. Overall I totally
agree, better feedback and faster turnaround are crucial for effective
learning, and there was a complete lack of both at my university. I got the
marks for my coursework in one unit a few days before the exam for it - over
three months since the lecturer, already late, posted to the forums that they
would be releasing the marks "next week". Yet if I had turned the coursework
itself in one second late, I would have gotten zero.

Aside: It would be incorrect to say that my university's methods did not cause
rapid and effective learning to occur - but I don't think I learnt the lesson
they intended.

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niels_olson
Remember getting letters as a kid? Rare missives in good or bad handwriting
from a relative, or a correspondent: one of my favorites, the clerk who mailed
a new wind-up key for my lego motor.

My 6 year old son just asked to check the email account we set up for him,
there are over a hundred messages from relatives.

Email FTW.

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wccrawford
I have to hand it to the professor... That's a lot of work.

I correct English on a language exchange site for fun. But it doesn't take
long before I start to look at it as a chore, and not much fun. He does it for
a living, all day, and comes back for more!

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msluyter
Also a good way to teach philosophy. I did a couple of "Pathways to
Philosphy"[1] courses, which mostly consist of reading assignments and lots of
back and forth e-mail exchanges with a tutor. The e-mail discussions were
fantastic. For philosophy, they have a certain advantage over verbal
conversation because you can save them for later reference (and have to put a
certain minimal effort into crafting your ideas.)

[1] <http://www.philosophypathways.com/>

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icebraining
Readability link: <http://rdd.me/ducjdxfp>

