Why Email Is The Perfect Way To Teach Writing

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.<p>By the way, this is a great solution to the much-discussed (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2774254" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2774254</a>) 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 <i>correctly</i> 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.<p>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?

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.<p>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.

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

&#62; a kind of practice that includes an "active search for methods to improve performance," immediate informative feedback, structure, supervision from an expert...<p>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.

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.<p>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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.<p>Email FTW.

I have to hand it to the professor... That's a lot of work.<p>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!

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.)<p>[1] <a href="http://www.philosophypathways.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.philosophypathways.com/</a>

Readability link: <a href="http://rdd.me/ducjdxfp" rel="nofollow">http://rdd.me/ducjdxfp</a>