Tag Archives: writing

Teaching writing goes beyond writing and essay exercises

Teaching writing goes beyond writing and essay exercises

“The times are bad, children have stopped obeying their parents and everyone is writing books,” lamented Cicero in one of his most epic harangues. And many today would be tempted to adopt this phrase from the famous Roman orator as their own. It is a phenomenon that repeats itself throughout history: each generation tends to neglect or […] … learn more→

Express yourself in writing, a skill that is acquired with practice

Express yourself in writing, a skill that is acquired with practice

The recent results of the PISA report have revealed the deficiencies of Spanish and European students, in general, in reading competence. The recent report of the Royal Spanish Academy on the teaching of language and literature in Spain is expressed in a similar sense . Part of the blame is attributed to new technologies that encourage reading texts and short […] … learn more→

Why write?

Why write?

I’ve been clearing out my book shelves. Getting rid of anything that I think I won’t actually look at again. It’s a pretty dusty dirty task as some of the books are quite old. They haven’t been opened for a long time. In order to work out what I want to keep I’ve found myself […] … learn more→

Building a second brain for writing – with Obsidian

Building a second brain for writing – with Obsidian

Writing a thesis or book is an enormous task that takes years and involves reading hundreds, sometimes thousands, of books, papers and articles. At the same time, you must produce your own words and make sure you don’t accidentally plagiarise other people. People end up with all kinds of home-brew solutions to solve this epic […] … learn more→

The importance of knowing starting skills for teaching writing

The importance of knowing starting skills for teaching writing

What do we think when someone asks us how we write? Probably, if our handwriting is legible or if we follow the spelling rules… but writing goes much further. Writing is representing thought through graphic symbols in a coherent, orderly and meaningful way, following a common thread and using language appropriate to the reader. Thus, the difficult […] … learn more→

Why should writing be learned in the classroom?

Why should writing be learned in the classroom?

Students’ education has been disrupted around the world by the Covid-19 crisis. In France, distance education imposed by confinement situations has thus increased educational inequalities linked to the social origins of children and adolescents. Beyond the digital divide relating to the material conditions of equipment, the differences in the uses of language, orally and even more so in writing, have undermined […] … learn more→

Writing for our (digital) lives: war, social media and the urgent need to update how we teach English

Writing for our (digital) lives: war, social media and the urgent need to update how we teach English

The war in Ukraine is being described as the first social media war, even as “the TikTok war”. Memes, tweets, videos and blog posts communicate both vital information and propaganda, potentially changing the course of history. This highlights the importance of agile and critical social media use. English in schools, in contrast, still focuses on […] … learn more→

Dislodging stuck writing

Dislodging stuck writing

Do you have a bit of writing that is stuck? I don’t mean you can’t get any words down on the page. I mean you have some writing where you just can’t work out what to do next. You think. You put the writing away for a bit. You go for a walk. You do […] … learn more→

On being lazy

On being lazy

I’ve been meaning to write this post all week. But I’ve not done so. And here I am on Sunday morning with the prospect of not having anything to publish, for the first time ever. I’ve sat at my desk on several occasions fully intending to write. But other things called to me – the […] … learn more→