I wrote them by hand, in cursive. But not before I made a harvard outline.
But seriously if anyone out there is actually trying to write an essay, the harvard outline model is legit for organizing and setting up.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard this had a name.
Huh, I was taught the Cornell outline method. I didn’t know there was competition!
Cornell… How quaintly plebian… Lol
Outlines have always driven me insane. I prefer to write like a deranged animal and then restructure as necessary
Nice. Been a while since I’ve seen that. I used mind maps, then structured. This seems like the clean version but mine I could write on a chalk/whiteboard before I hand wrote it in the Harvard format. 2000+ word essays, several pages long, MLA style. Always an A.
Hell ya. It shows when you build it on a good frame
Never saw anything like that, but I more or less gravitated towards something like that. Just Intro - Point 1 - Point 2 - Point 3 - Conclusion
Yeah, this is some basic stuff, but I guess it’s good to have formalized to teach people. I don’t recall what method I was taught, but it was something similar to this. I don’t ever remember using it so formally though. Just basically outline what you’re going to go over, and then fill it all in. I think almost all formal structures like this should be abandoned once you understand how they function, and it should be adapted to what works best for you. The formal version is just a starting point.
I think being super formal like this method really pays off when you have to collaborate. Far easier, more efficient and accurate to say “Look a section IV.c and tell me what you think.” Rather than “that one part with the dude, ya know”
Most writing outlines are for yourself though, but yeah, when it’s in an organization you need something formalized, at minimum just so you can quickly find what you need to find. If every person has their own system of organizing things then it’s going to be a mess.
You want me to believe J.R.R Tolkien generated a whole new series and setting without AI?
Dude was a multidimensional being from an alternate future where magic was real and he copied history books. Occam’s razor man, sometimes the simplest answer is the right one. /s just in case.
I’m actually teaching some students who honest to God are in their early teens and LITERALLY cannot string two sentences together. I never want to hear anybody tell me about how writing assignments were a waste of time again, because I can PERSONALLY vouch that if you don’t practice it, you literally cannot do it at all.
The easiest method to string two sentences together is to simply forget to use a period, right?
I wrote a five page essay in the six hours before the 9am deadline, while high as balls. Kids these days gotta lock in. And do more drugs.
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Skim the book, read a couple reviews online, find a couple random quotes from the book, then write a 10 page comparative essay discussing how the book relates to American exceptionalism and do it again next week.
Spark Notes saved me tons of times.
True story: I once made up an entire book during recess because I forgot the assignment. The teacher probably was aware but gave good grades because I was the only one who kept on going instead of summarising the book in under a minute.
In other words no, we don’t need ai.
My daughter got nearly mobbed by her co-students for “not telling which AI she used for writing her papers”. Her papers were regularly applauded for her good writing. She hates AI with a vengeance and wrote all her papers on her own. She is just good at this kind of thing.
And now anyone who is even remotely good at creative writing or even just passably literate with a good vocabulary are forever going to have their works called into question.
On the other hand, there is no better praise than having some Gen Z kid with terminal brain rot accuse you of talking like an AI model. I accept that implied insult like a gamer accepting a hackusation - I’m winning so much that you can’t discern cheating from skill.
thiski’d
Come again?
Keyboard app acting up again, sorry.
Meme aside, it’s refreshing to see punctuation used in a meme, and it makes it so much easier to read
😆
On the bus on the way to school when it was due in the first period.
I did that once for some big assignment. I got a B and a “you can do better” from the teacher.
Great job!
I did one of those “month long large research” ones in like an hour the night before and got an A and the teacher ended up using it as a good example of writing.
Which is hilarious because I got a low B in that class because the rest of the writing was graded so subjectively on the content that I stopped caring lol.
Written by hand. Not just once, if you wanted a good grade. You needed at least one draft to correct mistakes. And, some teachers required the paper to be written in ink.
But, I read the book, too.
We taught my son to read, we knew we couldn’t trust the schools to do it well. He read above grade level all through school. Being able to read well means you’ll always be able to learn. Schools don’t want us to be knowledgeable, they want us to be useful to the billionaires.
Good on you as a parent. The majority of parents can’t be arsed to teach their children anything.
Teachers can only teach so much without mommy and daddy help. I spent 4 years teaching math at my very small local school. I taught kids from 4th grade to 7th grade. Class size was as small as 4 and as large as 16. I learned very quickly that I needed to be part Grandpa, part child psychologist, part special ed and a teacher. There is no way I could teach every student everyday in the best manor that each of them them needed.
One kid had parents that didn’t care. One came from a dirt poor home and I mean dirt poor. Another was ADHD, another autistic, another was very smart and had to either help the other kids or be bored. Others had broken homes and couldn’t even live with either parent. Aunts and Grandmothers were raising them.
Tell me, how am I supposed to teach all the math that is needed to all of those kids every day and at a level that meets your exceptions? You should try standing in front of a classroom sometime.
The best thing you can do for your children is to take and active hand in their education at all levels. Whether is reading, math, science, or history. Be involved!
we knew we couldn’t trust the schools to do it well
I am old enough to be taught to read at school (as in actually read and understand). But damn did I not expect school was going to fail next generation even here
The year was 2010. I was taking a required English class for my degree. The final was a surprise hand written essay. That final might as well have been raising a barn for most of the class.
I might have been in trouble if it was cursive. Fucking capital G
fuckinG?
I had an art history class that had hand-written essays for every question on every exam. You brought your composition notebook to class and sat there writing two or three paragraphs for every question. There weren’t very many questions (6-8 IIRC), but still it was pretty grueling.
Or asshole teachers that have a long form essay exam but only give A if it is not only correct but beautiful and excellently written, not even for an English or writing course.
That is close to how all exams were in high school in my country (except for stuff like languages and math). No notes, just blank answer papers and the questions you needed to answer. Then you would just write from what you remembered, from the lessons and the course book. Some questions required longer answers, some you could write just a short paragraph for, depending how many points you could get from them (usually 2-6, the full points for the exams were up to 60). This would continue in some university courses, there just would be only two or three questions, that required long essay answers.
In the lower grades the answers required would get longer as you moved grades up, and you would have all sorts of easier things too (some direct short questions etc.). Multiple choice questions were parts of some language exams. In math classes you would solve some equations, and the important part was showing how you got the result. So even if you were wrong, you could still get almost full points, if you fumbled some single thing.
I am always shocked to hear, when people tell their exams were multiple choice questions. That does not even teach you anything?
Lol here we have final exams where you have to write long answers. The art of writing slop is still alive and kicking.
5 pages? I wish it were that easy…
Buddy we actually wrote them with pen and paper
You kids with your fountain pens wouldn’t even know what to do with an ink well.
Dipdipdip, “And today Sally went to the market” dipdipdip “and ran into” dipdipdip
LMAO I hated the Great Gatsby and guessed the ending, even some subtext. It was so bad that everyone that read the book, couldn’t for the life of them answer that question right on the test. I have bullshitted tests, papers, and a variety of things by having forming an opinion on the subtext, actual text, and unearned confidence. If I had time, I would read opinions and papers of others to form opinions that could hold more water than a teaspoon (in my opinion). These clankers that lean on LLMs are doing themselves a MASSIVE disservice.
pfff. the Great Gatsby was nothing. now let me give you a book that we hated. Cry the Beloved Country. We had to bullshit discussion groups about it. And we were good at it.
Never heard of that one, sounds like US nationalist propaganda or some kind of propaganda. As a high school boy The Great Gatsby was a snoozer. Wasn’t particularly challenging, decent example of how they spoke in that era.
It was about running out of water in Africa, and the teacher who had us read it was wildly liberal and probably leftist, but he was not explicit about his politics the way the right wing teachers were. (he was the dude with the sign in his class that said Resist! on the wall, and he had us journal one act of creative resistance every week as our writing assignment. The more creative the better. He and I got along well)
It makes me wonder what the underlying themes are within this book now and why you actually hated it now (will probably give it a read). Honestly, teachers like that who can get students that engaged with school and create interesting weekly assignments like journaling an act of creative resistance is pretty badass! Acts of resistance instead of just laying down and letting oppressive numb nuts walk over you is pretty powerful.
Man, it’s so rare to have teachers that passionate about teaching. Glad you had that experience.
I was just done with high school at that point. Also I had better things to do with my time than education. Which sucks because I really liked that class, I was just, well, dead. Some things take priority.
Fair, I was done at 11th grade, coasting along as much as possible, getting every requirement out of the way in order to be out of school sooner. I graduated precisely at the age of 18 in my senior year. It was so exhausting…Not that adult life wouldn’t be just as…For reasons!
So I do empathize in certain respects, as there are at times things which are far more important than school.
