Writing Archives

In Favor of Thinking Against

December 29, 2014 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Those ancient Greeks bequeathed such bounty to modern civilization—grape leaves, flowing muumuus, and a little thing called democracy, to name a few—but their flair for rhetoric and argument remains one of their greatest contributions. And the cornerstone of cementing that legacy came not just by arguing in favor of their position, but also by preemptively meditating on how their opponents might argue against it.

Teaching academic writing at Columbia, I noticed that many of my bright and eager Ivy League first-year students could often take a decisive angle on an issue. Crafting with a coherent argument was rarely their challenge. Having come from rigorous high schools and testing well enough to get into Columbia, they knew how to deftly argue in favor of almost anything. Whether it was a straight ahead position paper, arguing against the death penalty, or a more counterintuitive approach, like suggesting that plagiarism not be considered an expellable offense, my students could skillfully hypothesize and deploy evidence.

The problems came when I urged them analyze a text or issue from a number of perspectives.

When even the highest performing students enter college, they are often shocked when their professors tell them (in red ink, typically on their first paper) that academic inquiry requires more than simple persuasive thesis writing. Rather, students must engage with texts and their own thoughts about them in complex ways. Hammering one’s opinion, no matter how persuasive, is simply not enough. A satisfying composition will interrogate one’s own initial thoughts, ask questions, and recursively evaluate the argument one seeks to advance.

So, to help students grapple with such a challenging task, I called upon the pros—the Greek rhetorical strategy of dissoi logoi, which translates to “contrasting arguments.” Once students have their argument down, I have them take the side of the opposition, and give voice to their detractors. We see in what ways—some obvious, some subtle— one who disagrees with them could poke holes in the argument.

The results often astound students. Using these opposing viewpoints, they learn to anticipate what the sneering know-it-all in the back row would say, and how to preemptively shut that argument down. This process illuminates students’ thought processes on the page, and enhances their credibility to the reader, showing that they have gone over and considered what the inevitable “Yeah, but…” voice would say, and why, in fact, that voice is mistaken. In the best cases, students take these counterarguments and infuse them into their principal argument, thus creating a more nuanced, specific, and personal position. Their essays move from the high school realm to the college level.

Former students have later told me that they’ve used this strategy throughout college and even into their personal lives. Results have included published op-eds, more rigorous and impressive essays, and even their choice of restaurant with friends. Thanks, Greeks! We knew you were worth more than the sum of your hummus.

By Elizabeth Greenwood, Private Tutor

A Look Into the Ivy-League Struggle with Writing

December 23, 2014 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

While I was a student at Cornell University , I tutored from my sophomore to senior year at the Knight Institute, a walk-in tutoring service center. While no two tutoring sessions were ever the same, when analyzing the essays that crossed my path I noticed that there were a few common problems that students shared in their writing.

These are the three biggest issues I noticed in Cornell students who struggled with in their writing:

Conclusions: From the middle school- to college-level, it seems that writing a paper’s conclusion is a universally daunting task. Many undergraduate students were falling into the same trap that I had learned long ago was an ultimate no: using the conclusion to summarize everything they had talked about in their paper. What was more interesting to me was the fact that most people I mentioned this to already knew it was a mistake. They, too, knew not to make an essay’s conclusion boring and redundant. The larger issue was that they didn’t know what write down instead.

I do think that it’s necessary to use the first part of your conclusion to go over what you discussed in your paper. It’s important to tie everything together, but this summarization should not extend beyond three or four sentences. Instead of being overwhelmed by the prospect of writing a conclusion, ask yourself one simple question to expose its potential: why? This question is directed at your thesis statement. For example, if your thesis is that “[Author] presents [X character] as a feminist alternative to [Y character] in the novel,” you would presumably spend your paper arguing that point. However, when you get to the conclusion, you could take a stab at answering why the author does this. Why is there a need for a feminist character at all? Why does the feminist character act as an alternative — and is that characteristic portrayed in a positive way? By asking why the author does what you have argued, you can use the conclusion as an opportunity to broaden the lens from your specific topic to the greater social, political, economic or cultural implications of that idea.

Quotations: Quotations are an essential part of every paper, whether it be an analysis of a novel or a research paper about the effects of a technological development. Formatting quotes is one task, but the bigger issue that I found Cornell students struggled with was how to use quotes in their papers.

Overuse and underuse of quotes are not easy problems to avoid. You don’t want your paper to be so flooded with quotes that only a few sentences in every paragraph are your own, but you need to be careful not to make claims without using evidence. There’s a good rule you can use to make sure every one of your quotes is necessary: you have to explain the quote.

I always apply a three-step process to using quotes. 1) Insert the quote. 2) Paraphrase what it means. 3) Analyze the quote. The third step is the most essential; you need to explain the quote’s importance, its relevance, and demonstrate clearly how it supports your thesis. One of the key aspects to this formula is determining how much of a quote you actually need to include. Are you only analyzing the very end of a quote that takes up three lines? If so, acknowledge that. Take the rest out and include only what you need for the reader to understand its context. In terms of contemplating whether to include the quote at all, think about this: if you can’t explain a quote, assume that your reader thinks you don’t understand it. If your analysis of the quote has already been used a few in your paper, note that redundancy and remove it. Generally speaking, I would advise only include a quote if you can use these three steps to break it down and enrich your paper.

Commas: If you have been told that you incorrectly use commas, you’re not alone — far from it. I was surprised when I started working at the Knight Institute to see how many people overused commas. There is a comma epidemic going around!

I found that the most effective way to identify comma overuse is also the most simple: read it out loud. Take a break from your paper — I personally find that a few hours minimum is necessary for me to be able to look at my writing with fresh eyes — and read it out loud. When do you usually need a comma? When you take a breath. If you’re reading and find that commas are inserted where you wouldn’t naturally need a moment to pause, take it out. Otherwise it feels just as awkward, for whoever is reading your paper to have a break in the sentence at that point. See what I did there?

By Becky Plotkin, Private Tutor

What is Nonverbal Learning Disorder?

December 11, 2014 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Difficulty picking up concepts and patterns affects kids visually, socially, and academically

By Caroline Miller
Original Source: Child Mind Institute
Originally posted December 10, 2014

This is the first in a series of articles about non-verbal learning disorder developed in collaboration with Winston Preparatory School, a New York area school that has taken a leading role in working with students with the disorder.

When we think of learning disorders, we tend to think of dyslexia and other disorders involving language—that is, kids who have trouble decoding language and learning to read.

But there is another, less well-known type of learning disorder that’s not about verbal communication—hence it’s called nonverbal learning disorder. You’ll see it referred to as NVLD or NLD. It isn’t an official diagnosis like ADHD and autism—in fact many kids who have non-verbal learning challenges have those diagnoses. But experts say focusing on NLD explains what’s happening with kids—and how to help them learn—better than those diagnoses.

Recognizing patterns

Kids who have NLD do not have trouble decoding language, reading, or learning information in a rote way. As Scott Bezsylko, executive director of Winston Preparatory School, puts it, “Think of it as the opposite of dyslexia.” The problems these kids have involve, he says, all the other kinds of learning. “All the stuff that involves understanding information—relationships, concepts, ideas, patterns.”

These deficits—all things related to the right hemisphere of the brain—can affect a child’s ability to do a surprising variety of things. Physical coordination, social interaction, problem solving, organizing thoughts, planning—all these things can be challenging. They seem very different, but the unifying theme is that each requires the ability to recognize patterns or concepts and then apply them to new situations.

The five areas of NLD

There are five areas in which children with NLD show weakness. Not all children have weaknesses in all areas.

1. Visual and spatial awareness:

Many kids with NLD have trouble understanding visual imagery. For example when they are asked to copy a shape like a cube they produce “profound distortions,” says Bezsylko. “These kids can’t accurately perceive the cube, the forms that make up the cube, and the relationships between them. Hence they can’t copy it.”

They also have difficulty evaluating visual-spatial information. This means they have trouble grasping the relationships between things they see and having a clear sense of where they are. This can make them physically awkward.

2. Higher-Order Comprehension:

Higher-order comprehension is the ability to identify the main idea in something, the details that support the main idea, and the relationships among them. This affects kids’ ability to comprehend reading, and write or tell a story effectively.

It also affects taking notes. Bezsylko observed that some kids essentially take down everything the teacher says because they don’t know what’s important and what not to take down. Other kids don’t know what’s important so they take down nothing, and people think they aren’t paying attention. Or they take down all the wrong things.

3. Social Communication

Most kids with NLD have trouble reading emotion in facial cues and body language, so they often don’t know what’s going on in social interactions. They miss the social patterns that other kids pick up automatically, so they don’t know what’s appropriate behavior in a given situation.

Difficulties with social communication is one reason why kids with NLD often focus—sometimes obsessively—on technology. “In chat rooms or in a video game they don’t have to deal with all the nonverbal stuff,” Bezsylko notes.

4. Math Concepts

Many kids with NLD are very good at rote learning, and they are able to do well in math just by memorizing data. But as they get older they struggle to solve more advanced mathematical problems that are based on recognizing concepts and patterns. Even with a problem they’ve seen before, if it’s approached differently or modified slightly, they have trouble recognizing it.

5. Executive Functions

Executive functions are a set of skills we use to organize our thinking, plan and carry out actions, and figure out how to solve problems. Most kids with NLD have weaknesses in these organizing and planning functions. For instance they struggle with breaking down a project into smaller pieces, or conceiving steps that need to be taken to get something done.

“These kids have trouble figuring things out—in fact they don’t really know what figuring something out means,” Bezsylko says. “We have to help them learn to do that—the step-by-step process you go through.”

How do these deficits manifest in kids with NLD?

In addition to the different combinations of symptoms, kids with NLD also vary along a spectrum of severity.

One the one hand there are kids who are extremely high-functioning but socially awkward, a little clumsy, disorganized—what Bezsylko calls “the absentminded professor type.” Other kids are more pervasively affected, and they function with more difficulty in many areas. “These kids often struggle to learn everything that isn’t rote or literal.”

At Winston Prep, a study of more than 100 students with NLD showed that there were 6 combinations of the 5 deficits. The largest group had all five of the deficits, but the second largest group had just two: social communication and executive functions.

When do these deficits become noticeable?

Many kids with NLD can do well enough in elementary school because they are very good at memorization and rote learning. It’s common for them to run into trouble around middle school, when their difficulty with the higher order reasoning—figuring out the main idea, the details, and the relationships—causes them to fall behind. “There’s a saying that in fifth grade you stop learning to read, and now you read to learn,” notes Bezsylko, “and that’s when these kids fall apart.” Historically, Winston Prep took kids in sixth through tenth grade; they’ve started to take some kids as young as fourth grade.

“Almost all of these kids look inattentive and disorganized,” Bezsylko adds, “especially as they get older. The more that schoolwork, math concepts, and socialization become complex rather than rote, the more those difficulties start to show up.”

A more comprehensive diagnosis

NLD is not one of the official diagnoses mental health professionals and schools use to categorize kids with psychiatric or learning problems. Kids who have it usually have other diagnoses—often autism or ADHD. But while those diagnoses list their symptoms or behaviors, they don’t fully explain them, argues Bezsylko.

For instance, if a child is disorganized and inattentive, he is likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. But he may well be disorganized and inattentivebecause he doesn’t understand what’s being discussed, what he reads, or the problem he’s been asked to solve. That’s where NLD comes in. “You can’t pay attention if you can’t understand,” notes Bezsylko.

Similarly, a child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder will be described as having social and communication deficits. Those behaviors, too, can reflect NLD—not being able recognize patterns in facial expression, body language, and other forms of nonverbal communication can make kids unresponsive socially.

Take the kids in the Winston Prep study who had all five of the deficits. Most of them had a diagnosis of either ADHD or autism spectrum disorder. “But those diagnoses don’t identify three important areas where they are struggling,” notes Bezsylko: “higher-order comprehension, math concepts, and visual and spatial relations. Unless their NLD is recognized, they’re not likely to get help that strengthens or compensates for weaknesses in those core areas.”

Curing Essay Writing Ills Instantly

November 13, 2014 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

It’s 7:00 PM, you just got home from work, you’re trying to juggle serving dinner, and your child asks you to help him write a paper on rocks. Rocks? Who knows anything about rocks? As the parent, your mind is spinning from all the things that need to be taken care of in the house and you do not know where to begin on how to help your child write an essay on rocks. Help!

Writing a paper is no simple task. In fact, writing requires the highest level of cognitive and intellectual achievement. Writing a paper is especially daunting for students with weak organizational skills because it is difficult to distinguish essential information from nonessential information when reading an article or a book. In addition, a child with weak comprehension skills may find it difficult to write a paper because summarizing and paraphrasing texts are key components to include factual information.

Very often it is the case that your child will bring home an essay assignment without having been taught proper writing strategies. You as the parent have to be prepared for these instances, so that you can help him or her even write a paper on rocks, an esoteric topic. The solution to this problem is the Quick Outline. This will help your child to get his or her ideas onto the paper in an organized fashion without having to worry about grammar, punctuation, and syntax right away.

How do you create a Quick Outline? The first thing to discuss with your child is the purpose for writing the essay and who the audience will be. When this is established, your child is ready to brainstorm supporting details for the topic. Obviously if your child is writing a paper on an article, such as rocks, he or she would extract these details from the article (and not just make them up). Remember when brainstorming, it is important to select the most important details to support the paper.

After brainstorming, your child should jot down these details and put them into about three or four different categories. For instance when brainstorming rocks, some categories could be names, appearance, origin, etc. These categories represent the paragraphs in the paper. The reason I use the word “jot” is to indicate not to write complete sentences. Remember you don’t want your child to be overwhelmed by writing the paper right now because you just want him or her to get the ideas onto the paper.

Now your child is ready to write topic sentences for each category of details. It may help to brainstorm a few possible topic sentences for each category before selecting one good one. One tip you can give your child when writing a topic sentence is using an appositive. Appositives are nouns and pronouns placed next to a comma to explain or identify it, which can often make a topic sentence better. The topic sentence should be a complete sentence on the outline. Your child may also find it helpful to first select the topic sentences and then generate the supporting details. Last but not least, ask your child to generate a concluding sentence for the paper based on the topic sentence and supporting details.

Now that your child has the skeleton, or the Quick Outline, for his or her paper, you can send them off to do the assignment independently while you get dinner on the table!

(Information comes from the Teaching Basic Writing Skills Program (by Judith C. Hochman)

By Brittany Cogan, Learning Specialist

Math Needs Reading and Writing

November 12, 2014 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

$Math Needs Reading and Wriitng$ I clearly remember those high school days as a student in a classroom with at least thirty-five classmates. As an introverted person, I also remember thinking to myself: “If I do not understand something, I will wait to go home and read the textbook; that should be enough.”

To my surprise, reading the textbook was far from enough to clarify most of the questions derived from a math class; perhaps the textbook was too complicated or I did not have the proficiency required as a reader to decipher the math text myself. To make things more complicated, completing a project was usually a difficult task since I was used to short meaningless answers such as “True,” “False,” “A,” or “x=10.” The lack of structure in reading and writing and how it was negatively affecting my performance in mathematics was evident. Why was I not able to understand the book and communicate my findings to my teacher?

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics states: “The development of a student’s power to use mathematics involves learning the signs, symbols and terms of mathematics. This is best accomplished in problem situations in which students have an opportunity to read, write, and discuss ideas in which the use of the language of mathematics becomes natural. As students communicate their ideas, they learn to clarify, refine, and consolidate their thinking” (NCTM, 1989). It is reasonable to infer that whether or not students are proficient in reading, they need to be trained in reading mathematical content in order to build independence in the future and understand the unique reading skills of the discipline when teachers are not around to assist them. Moreover, if we think of a topic, such as algebra, as a unique language that allows one to translate verbal expressions into algebraic expressions and equations to solve real life problems, the reading of mathematical contents should become more natural and meaningful, allowing students to become more comfortable and confident while studying math.

On the other hand, writing offers students and teachers valuable information about the processing and understanding of math concepts and provides an opportunity to organize ideas and improve the communication of findings. Furthermore, the teaching of math as an isolated subject is a thing of the past; nowadays we have the chance to incorporate interdisciplinary lessons in our teaching that can help students in the process of integrating not only reading and writing in mathematics, but also other disciplines, allowing students to make connections between math and other subjects. Generally speaking, it is extremely important for teachers to guide their students, regardless of the discipline being taught, in the process of becoming effective communicators in a very demanding global society where communicating and learning on one’s own are becoming required skills to improve one’s chances of success.

By Jose Parra, Private Tutor