Blogg and fish

I like the essay and argument Mr. Fish is making. The question he posed was wonderful and very important. The major question he asked should writing be taught long before students get to high school or even earlier than when they are in middle school? Mr. Fish also pose another very important question which he asked should reading be the key to learning how to write?. Without leaving much for readers, he asked what methods schools should take to teach importance of writing and reading.

this is Mr.Fish and i gree his
points he posed wonderfull quetions.

 I agree with the Mr. Fish arguments and points he is making. He asked right questions and made good points. He said that schools particularly middle and high schools are not teaching writing skills in most effective ways. This is true.

Mr. Fish said that middle and high school teachers are giving big responsibility to college professors, they are leaving their responsibility to them. Because students from middle schools get to high schools when they are not able to read and write well. And whey are done high school and they go to college, their writing is not up to level that they were expected to reach. Then they get to college, and college professors has to teach them basic writing skills. College teachers becomes their middle andhigh school teacher for them. This is bad thing.

Mr. Fish said that its hard to understand and explain the relationship between the reading and writing skill have for the success of the students. But he argued that that relationship is very important and something many of middle and high school teachers are not getting it. Student from kindergartens they should be taught how to read and write. This is important because once student learn how toread, writing becomes easier.


high school and middle school is not
the some Mr,Fish was talking about
and i a garee with him.

In Kindergarten, once students learn how to read, and they will be able to write what they read from books. They get familiar with words and able to correct spell what they are writing because they do know how those words sounds- in middle and high school they will be very successful. And in college life will be easy for them. College writing becomes easy for them.

I like the article and I learn something from it. I always believe that reading is most important things and its key to education. Students should be taught how to read and writing becomes easy for them. Schools become fun for them. Mr. Fish made that believe stronger for me with strong argument.

Bloggin & Fishin

Teacher is trying to help the student understand the work

Reading Mr. Fish's thoughts about what college students should learn in class, and what they actually learn in class. Makes me completely agree with him and all that he says, When he talks about students aren't prepared for college writing. In high school the teachers don't really prepare the students.

When I was readying that in Stanley Fishes article, I completely agree with him.
I believe myself that in high school the teachers don't really prepare the students for college writing. I believe they help us but they don't really get us ready for the college writing, they just want us to have the writings done the way that they want it.

In the article that was written by Mr. Fish I noticed that he said with all the writings you do. And everything that is writing related, has to have good sentence structure, there needs to be meaning and understanding in it and there has to be purpose for the writing. Reading that I agree completely and so does the observations that I have observed. During one of my observations, I've noticed the tutor telling the student that they need to make sure that their paper flows together and that everything makes since. So just as Dr. Fish said having good sentence structure in a paper is very important. You need to understand what you are writing and that is what seems to be the most students are having a hard time doing. They haven't been taught the right way to write these things down so they don't really know.

During my sessions in the writers studio, I've noticed that I have came across some of the same things that was mentioned in Fish's Article. In my Essay that I wrote I talked about how having creditable work and a work cited page was important to have in a college paper and it's what makes a paper a college paper.

This is symbolizes the work cited page that I talked about in my essay, about the tutoring sessions I observed.

It shows the audience of your work that others have had the same ideas as you. And it shows that you have given whoever work you have borrowed, mentioned or used credit so people know you didn't steal. Things like that are things that I feel that Stanley Fish was talking about, when he talked in his article about students not being prepared or knowing what to do when they have to write a college paper or when a teacher asked them to do something.

Student not being able to understand what the teacher is asking of them

Also another thing that I have noticed during my readings of Mr. Fish's thoughts. I have noticed that he says that students basically have trouble understanding and being able to produce, what is being asked of them. I agree with this especially since as a college student now. I have seen students mess up on assignments because they weren't sure what the teacher was asking them. Or because they fail something because maybe the teacher isn't teaching them and explaining things to them in a manner that they can understand. I for one believe that all of this can changed and improved by the student and teachers, there just to be an effort that needs to be present for this problem to be fixed.

Reading everything that Mr. Fish has talked about has put a new understanding in my mind, I see where he is coming from and understand is logic completely. Also I agree how this whole situation is still an on going process. It's something that is not fixed yet and it may still take some time to fix this, there just has to be work put into this and time. Basically in the end, I agree with the things that Dr. Fish talked about in his article.

Fishing for all the Focus

Stanley Fish

Everyone says Fish is one of the biggest people on college writing. Fish mostly talks about sentence structure, meaning and understanding and purpose. Fish says that in elementary schools and middle schools they are not teaching writing skills in an effective way. Who is Fish? Fish is a professor of humanities and law at Florida International University. In 2012 he became Floersheimer Distinguished. Fish is the author of 15 books. A lot of teachers and students know more and more about Fish and follow and agree on what he says about college writing to either help them or other students become better writers.

A pencil for writing so much
in the Writers' studio

Doing college writing this whole semester has taught me so much and showed me what I need to focus on in my writing. My college writing paper was about focusing. It’s ironic that I ended up picking focusing because focusing is something I have always had a little bit of trouble when it comes to writing. After weeks passed and going to the writers studio I came up with three main points of focusing that can also help out other students that have trouble with focusing.

The three focus points I talked about in my paper were focusing on the brainstorming before the paper to narrow down to what’s most important that you should be focused on. I talked about focusing on a result of writing meaning focus on your main argument in the paper. The last focus point I wrote about was focusing on your progress step meaning narrow down what your paper is supposed to be about and focusing on how to narrow it down to that spot.

When focusing on all three main points when putting it into a paper make sure your whole paper follows your thesis. Sometimes writers have an awesome thesis, but none on the rest of the paper follows what it should be about. Learning about focusing on main points tutors and anyone else that has worked with me came up with a theory that sometimes it is better to leave your thesis to do at the end of finishing your paper so when you put your thesis in it matches the whole paper.

An inverted  pyramid to help guide you while
writing your paper! 

College writing is very important. Most students do not realize how important it is until they have to write a college paper and do research on it. I have learned so much from all the research I have done and all the time I have learned on what college writing really is. I feel like I have become such a better writer over the past weeks by going through will my whole paper and soaking in much information as I can. After all the research and finally doing a college level writing paper I finally feel like I can do it. I say focusing is a huge thing in college writing because in order for me to get through my papers I have had to put a lot of focusing into it. Fish says sentence structure is a big college writing thing which I honestly never paid much attention to. Fish says meaning and understanding is very important and last but not least purpose. I have to agree on purpose 100% because I truly do believe every college writing paper needs to have a purpose for people to want to read it. I am glad I got introduced to everything Fish had to say about college writing because after I thought I could not learn anymore I did.

Not Your Average Fish Fry

WINNER WINNER CHI...... FISH DINNER?

After reading Fish’s essay of “What should be taught in the college writing classroom,” I realized that I do agree the teaching of building sentences is important in the English classroom. But, if you’re only focused on the creation of sentences, you miss out on the most important factor of writing. In which I believe through my observation tutorials at the Writer’s studio, along with my research; that analytical research should be taught in English composition. During an eight week period I had the privilege to sit in on a one weekly 48 minute tutoring tutorial session at the Writer’s Studio. For all but one of my sessions I observed a student named Dalton, and workshop tutor Rachel. In the absence of Dalton in the fourth session. I had to observe Jonathan the workshop tutor, and Chris the student.

Analytical research is important in the classroom in order so that the students do not misinterpret the text. If material in the text is misinterpreted students could write papers that would be inaccurate, stating faulty

"I just don't get it?!"

information. It is also very difficult to tell if you misinterpreted a reading selection, because the only way of knowing that the interpretation is correct is if the thought is somewhat relevant as another person’s thought. One of my observations Rachel noticed Dalton was having difficulty with a certain section. He told Rachel, “I can’t determine if this section deals with Thoreau in confusion, or simplicity as an overall meaning.” Rachel tells him,” If you are not sure what the author wants you to get out of the text you have to use the context clues to help form a hypothesis.”

I hate repetition! I hate repetition! 

In the classroom analytical research should be used in order for the students to notice that the author is using repetition, or pattern in order to emphasize his points or an overall idea. If a student did not take note of the repetition he, or she would have a totally different idea of what the text was about. In one of my sessions, Dalton analyzed a source from Thoreau. And Rachel said to Dalton, “Is there anything that sticks out in this section.” Dalton hesitated for a couple of seconds and replied, “The only thing I notice is that everything at the end of the sentence ends in ‘-in’” Rachel interrupted by asking, “What does this pattern tell you?”    

When a college teacher makes his lessons one of his or her focuses should be on organized analytical notes. As we all know that we do not remember everything we read, so having something you can record An example in one of my sessions Rachel is concerned that Dalton has so many great ideas that he won’t remember them when it comes down to writing the research paper. As Dalton is in the middle of one of his ideas Rachel interrupts him, “keep a piece of paper by you to write down the ideas that you get, and try to categorize them as your list gets larger.”The information and thoughts that  are recorded can be very helpful when the students have to write their paper.

 I believe analytical research process is the most important factor in college writing due to my research and observations at the Writer’s Studio. On the other hand, Fish believes that the creation and building of sentences is what the composition English classroom should solely be focused on. If Fish were teaching a class he would miss out on analytical process along with many essential that students need to be a successful writer. Would you want to be taught to only build sentences?... Or, have a general understanding of an English Composition class? I'll let you decide...

Just Fishing Around His Statements

Stanley Fish is a professor at Florida International University, in Miami. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Duke University and the University of Illinois, Chicago. Stanley Fish has written fifteen books one of his most recent being How to Write a Sentence. He also wrote an article in The New York Times titled "What Should College Teach, Part 3?". This article states that students these days are going into college not knowing how to write. I agree with some of the statements that he has to say, but I feel that he missed a point. That point being that it is not the high schools fault, but the lack of guidance the students have at the beginning of college. Guidance needs to make its way into what Fish has to say about what college should teach.

Which one or ones do you need?

There are many different kinds of guidance that can take place and students can take on different levels to different degrees. Students require guidance to a certain level, whether it is physical guidance or a will power of some sort. It can be a very minimal, as in just telling them what to think about like a topic. Or it could be to the extent of needing the paper to be drafted up, needing specific information, and amount of quotes needed for the writing piece. Guidance could be given in various ways, but it seems as if we are not pushed some way to write something, it will not be written without a purpose to do so. That purpose moment could even be a guide, because it leads the writer to start something and to write about it. This was observed when I conducted observations at Ohio State University Newark Writing Studio.

One form of guidance is the non-physical type, and as guidance is defined as leadership, instruction or direction, direction can be looked at as views. Guidance is the will, the push towards something, it will be the main reason to write. Many people that go to college are surprised with the change of pace from what lower schooling was. With the use of guidance through time management, it can be maximized. Time management bases off of guidance. If time management can be guided and kept to a clear optimal, then the writing can be a college ready piece.

Another type of guidance is a physical guidance. All through high school, teachers have taught the students how to write. Whether it is teachers showing students formatting, how many paragraphs, or even what font to use, students that go into college have gotten used to some type of teacher as a guidance. Teachers are a physical type of guidance to writers. So for "guidance" to be an overall big picture to college writing, it would not be surprising. Going into college with the guidance that was received in high school, you expect it to be no different. At college, they have teaching guidance and also student guidance. Nick is a representation of student guidance as a peer tutor. Nick physically guided Rebecca through looking for sources, drafting up her paper, and proof reading.

So as a first year student in college, I can say that I was taught the basic sentence structure in high school and it was up to me to either accept what was taught to me or to ignore it. With the right guidance I received physically and mentally, I was able to contain the information from high school and utilize my knowledge for college writing. So not that I am saying what Fish is saying is wrong, but that he needs to have other considerations and not generalize all high schools in not teaching their students right. Students have to be able to accept the guidance given to them and that it is all on the students themselves and not the actual teaching.

Students accepting what is taught to them

Students Ignoring what is taught to them

A Fishy Twist to Writing

MY POINT, analyzing is my point

Analyzing is like making a pie. You have many directions to make it what it is. Analyzing should be taught into three simple steps reading comprehension, synthesizing, and revising. Stanley Fish although disagrees as he wrote in his article for New York Times, which is indeed an excellent point, but I would rather look at the main idea rather than just structure sentences. I have had the opportunity of spending time observing the Writer’s Studio at The Ohio State University in Newark. If you ask me I believe an English composition classroom should focus on teaching structure to analyzing. When analyzing you study something, look for patterns, and break down the main idea. Why analyzing rather than sentence structure? Well simple because, when you analyze you are doing sentence structure and many more things as well. When analyzing, you are observing every little structure, detail, etc. to your paper. Sentence structure would be under revising, for when you revise you are looking at you a certain piece and trying to fix the errors.

The main reason I believe analyzing is what teachers should be teaching is because it shows students the ability to look at something and understand its true meaning. In one of my observations in the Writer’s Studio we came across reading comprehension. If you do not know what the quote is trying to say, how could you use it in your paper with it making sense? It's like nodding your head and saying okay, but still thinking I don't get it. Understanding the authors meaning you have to interpret the quote. Interpreting a quote can be quite difficult and confusing. You have to visually pretend to be the author, and try and study the smaller things in the quote to comprehend the big meaning of the quote.

Punctuations help revise yo paypaa

Revising is also a part of analyzing that should be taught. Revising is done multiple times throughout just one essay and can be one of the longest processes. Each rough draft you create should be revised to get rid of dramatic errors we do not need. If you don’t revise your paper it will look unstructured. Like Fish says "A sentence is an organization of items in the world." Although when you're revising theirs much more to be done. Like proofreading which is one of the main ways we revise our essays. Proofreading can be fairly difficult considering the fact that you have to reread your unfinished work numerous times along with your final essay. At the Writer’s Studio, I observed many times when the tutor and student proofread drafts, and every time there was always something to correct, whether it was small or big. Teachers should make revising a habit by the time you get to college, but like we all know it’s one of the things we all skip over from time to time. I know I have and it probably what drops my grade from an A to a F.

Analyzing is also synthesizing which is one of the most essential pieces of writing any well written piece. Synthesizing should always be a main focus for teaching. When you synthesize you join to pieces of work which would be yours and another author’s quote. If you do not synthesize you cannot have an author’s piece in you essay. I mean you could but it would be like talking about a leprechaun and randomly saying pot of gold. What about a leprechaun and the pot of gold will connect the two? Synthesizing is what I like to call the rainbow, it helps connect the two pieces of information and emerge them together. Although it sounds easy it’s not, blend the two can be challenging. This is why it should be taught earlier than your freshman your of college.

Although Fish had one thing right he did not hit the hammer on the nail. Sentence structures are very important I will give him that, without sentence structures you can’t have a well meshes essay. But, analyzing is a big fish we need to fry in English composition classes. Analyzing is all about looking at things in smaller detail and connecting those smaller things with the bigger picture. An excellent essay should always be revised, when you revise a paper to your best abilities it will make to whole essay come together. Analyzing a quote to understand it should also always be done because if you do not understand a quote how can you put it in your essay and explain it to your readers? Lastly you should synthesize, synthesizing will help put your words and someone else’s words into an "estuaries stage". If we focus on analyzing and these three important steps of analyzing, students will become better writers.

There is nothing fishy about college

Professor Stanley Fish, who is a retiree of the University of Illinois in Chicago, writes a blog for the New York Times. On September 7th, 2009 he wrote a blog titled “What Should Colleges Teach? Part 3.” In this work he states that the most important thing to know for college level writing is sentence structure. I somewhat agree with him and what it is that believes. However I believe that you cannot write a successful paper without collaboration. If you do not know how to teach collaboration you can read an article written by Robert J. Garmston.

The reason why I believe that is that I watched eight videos of tutoring sessions at The Ohio State University at Newark campus. There were also videos from Columbus State Community College.  While I watched these video’s at the Writer’s Studio, the tutor who was working with me is Brewster. The majority of these videos mentioned something about another point of view, or reading out loud, or even having a friend read your writing to get feedback. But the most common thing they were doing was brainstorming. Now when you brainstorm you are thinking about something from the past that you have already learned. So you are using another source. You don’t just magically come up with ideas without having something else start the process.

In Fish’s article he sates “By all the evidence, high schools and middle schools are not teaching writing skills in an effective way, if they are teaching them at all.” I truly agree with him here. When I look back I don’t remember having to write papers or anything like that really. It was mainly grammar and punctuation. In college those things are important but there not that important when you first start. I believe that the most important thing in college level writing is not doing solo work.

Large group of tutees studying with a tutor. 

One of the sessions I watched was of the tutor Brittany and the tutee Shawn.  Brittany said “no one writes in a vacuum, it is important to share your writing ideas with others.” This is completely correct. By collaborating with a classmate it can help you get ideas. And those ideas can help build your confidence and with that you might build a friendship. With the friendship you might have a better chance in getting a higher grade. It can also help you have someone to go over the assignments and review each other’s work. The benefits can be great.

Schools need to have higher standards

Fishes statement “By all the evidence, high schools and middle schools are not teaching writing skills in an effective way, if they are teaching them at all.” This is true with what he believes and what I believe. In high school and middle school they focus too much on your grammar and not enough on teaching you how to be a successful writer. They do not prepare you enough for undergraduate school. I think the reason why they do that is because they have too strict of standards that that have to teach, that are not that oriented towards college. If the standards were better oriented towards college the students would be better more prepared for college.

How I feel right now!

My personal experience I went to Norwayne Local schools and I also attended Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (also known as E.C.O.T.) In both cases the standards were not towards college at all. They were just trying to teach the basics and that’s all. I believe that I personally would have been better suited for college if they cared more. So based on my experience middle schools and high schools need to step up their standards. So I agree but disagree with Stanley Fish’s view. 

Fishing Out The Right Words: Thesis Statement

English Professor Stanley Fish, a former professor at Florida International University, said sentence structure is the most important part of writing a college paper. In a blog written by Professor Fish, he says, “Basically, there is only one thing to be learned, that a sentence is a structure of logical relationships; everything else follows.” I do not agree with Professor Fish though. I feel a paper needs more than just the right sentence structure to be a successful paper. It has to have a basic argument or statement, which is stated in the thesis, and it needs to be obvious to the reader what that point is.

I spent eight weeks in The Writers Studio at The Ohio State University in Newark observing sessions between a student and a tutor to try to get a better understanding of what college writing is and what it consists of. While observing I realized one thing students should know about college writing and that is how to write a thesis statement and realizing it is a process.

Thesis statements can put your head up in the clouds!

A thesis statement is more than just a sentence. There are certain steps in order to create a thesis. One of the first stages of creating a thesis is organizing thoughts and ideas about the paper. While preparing to write a paper it is important to take notes and plan out everything before starting the actual writing. It is important to figure out what your main point or argument is. It helps to make an outline or do some kind of brainstorming activity before starting the writing portion. It is important for teachers to show students that writing a thesis would help organize the rest of the paper along with good prewriting techniques. It is a very important part of writing and a very important skill to be taught.

Since the thesis is always changing it’s important to be taught in the classroom because it is a complicated subject. Students may not understand how to work with one unless a teacher shows them the process and shows them how to work with it. It might be helpful to have a working thesis (placeholder thesis), which is kind of like a rough draft for your thesis statement. You can always go back and add things to it or take things out. The thesis can even be the very last thing you do in your paper if you are not quite sure of how to word it until you get your paper finished. Kory, the tutor I observed, had said, “A placeholder is something that you put in place of something else temporarily. It could be a word or a sentence, anything really. It's simply there to have something on the page, but you can always come back to it and change it. Thus, in a sense, a working thesis is a placeholder thesis; while it is a thesis, it can still be revised in terms of word choice, structure, length, etc. In other words, there's still some work to be done with it”

A thesis takes work!

Once you get your working thesis the way you want it, then you begin to revise it and make sure it states exactly what your argument is and is clear to the reader so they do not question what the point of your paper is. But, there is no “right way” to make a thesis or a “right place” to put it. There is also never really a final thesis. The thesis can always be improved and it can always be moved to a different area if that is where it fits best. Planning a thesis in the beginning is just a first step to the rest of your paper. The thesis probably will not be fully developed until the end. This may be overwhelming and unsettling for students because their writing is always changing. So, it needs to be in the classroom so students learn ways to change the thesis the way it needs to be changed as the paper develops.

So, back to Professor Fish’s point, a paper is a whole lot more than just sentence structure. The thesis statement is one of the most important parts, because it pretty much makes the paper. The whole paper is based on one main argument or point and that is what the thesis statement is. Even though the thesis probably isn’t developed until the end, the whole paper is centered on that one point. In high school and middle school, English classes should really focus on how to learn the steps into forming a thesis statement and that will help with learning the basic ideas of how to write a nicely formed paper.

Fish on the Hook

Cameron Collins

Collins.1240

Boczkowsi

12/5/13

English 1109

Fish on the Hook

Stanley Fish is the Floerscheimer Distinguished Professor of law at Cardozo Law School in New York City. Fish has also taught at many other Universities including Duke University. Fish has created a post in the New York Times called “What should College teach?” .In this post Fish talks about the importance of sentence structure. While I will agree sentence structure is important it is not the only thing that matters. I have been attending the Writers Studio at the Ohio State University Newark campus and it has made me come to a conclusion that students need a little more push then sentence structure. Confidence it builds people up, makes them believe what they are doing is right. If you don’t believe in yourself what is there to believe in.

            Days in and Days out I have seen students coming and feeling that they have done everything wrong and kind of being hard on themselves about their writing. Now I am not saying that Confidence is the only key to writing but I believe it one that needs to be practiced over and over. Now you say how do you teach confidence? It becomes quite simple you can’t become confident in something until you feel good at it. And to become good at anything you have to practice. Unless you are one of those people like Lebron James and just have a god given talent! There’s one of those sayings that practice makes perfect, and with perfection you can gain confidence. Once you gain that confidence it is one of those things that can never be taking away from you. When you practice things you set up your own rhythm, the way you like to do things, it just get you comfortable. When comfortable you thrive you do the best you can and you do this because you have the confidence not only what you are writing but whatever you are writing.

            When students came in for help at the writer’s studio I got to see how many students didn't have a full understanding of what it was they actually wanted to do. To create a full understanding you need to read the text thoroughly. If it is not read thorough and you misinterpret what it is the Professor is looking for or even what the text is trying to say. If you don’t have that full understanding then you will have no clue or idea how to start your paper. You need to create outlines and take side note of what it is you are reading so you have a good starting spot. Fish is right about sentence structure, but how can you structure a sentence if you do not know what it is you are writing about. Another way to look at it is people need to prepare themselves. Take the time out to understand what it is you are doing and how you need to do it.

Fish proposed a rather bright idea on what colleges should teach. Sentence structure is important it is what makes the paper flow it allows the reader to read with joy. Not having to pause and try to fill in the blanks where students had made mistakes. Where I give credit to Fish’s I also believe that students need to have the confidence in their writing. Not only does the confidence help them personally but it shows in their writing to where you can tell that person knows what they are talking about. Exactly why I feel like you need to understand the text, and understand what things are being looked for.

Gulaid Hassan

Professor boczkowski

English 1109

4/17/2013

Fish Chronicles

           

        

    I think good essay needs more than a good sentence structure. After reading fishes opinion on a good essay, I really have to say that I don’t agree with everything that he said https://carmen.osu.edu/d2l/lms/content/viewer/view.d2l?tId=5447898&ou=10797129 , and after spending a lot of time a the writing studio, I had the opportunity to obtain a lot of information which made me revaluate how I assemble my essays from this point forward.  A good essay does not only need more than a good sentence structure, but it also needs to have a lot of points and those points need more than one way of emphasizing them. Some of the points include a good introduction, which needs to get the readers attention and become a good outline for the essay. The introduction needs to start with a good thesis that’s also going to lead you to the conclusion of the essay after reading it.

            The main reason why I believe a good essay needs more than a good sentence structure, is because an essay would not be considered a good sufficient essay without highlighting all the main points that you want to get across in the introduction of the essay. When I was at the writing studio I came across a student who is majoring in literature and she literarily changed my idea and prospective on a good essay, and her idea was, in the introduction of your essay. http://classweb.gmu.edu/WAC/philosophy/professors/sample_papers_introductions.htmlYou have to get your point across without really detailing and highlighting your story in only one paragraph, and on the course of your story you have to led your story connect and lead itself.

            When I was in the writing studio while I was doing my observation analysis, I learned a lot of beneficial ideas on how to write a good college essay http://newark.osu.edu/academics/degreesatnewark/english/thewritersstudio/Pages/index.aspx. A good college essay needs more than just a good sentence structure and most peoples idea of having good essay has to contain at least 5 paragraphs, first one being your introduction, then you needs at least 3 body paragraphs that highlight all of your points that were mentioned in the introduction. The 3 body paragraphs have to contain your ideas and quotations, and that has to lead to your conclusion and in the conclusion you have to let the reader know what lead you to finish the story in the conclusion.

            Everybody that I shadowed all had one thing in common which was an essay is complete with not only a good sentence structure but with also an idea driven from ones mind and quotes. A good essay cannot only contain ones opinion, it has to also have references that have a good lead. You cannot have a story based on only one person’s opinion; you have to make your readers know that you have other people that agree with you, and you have to show it in a format that lets the readers know the difference between your words and other people quotes in a format that does not confuse the reader.

            In conclusion, I do not believe a good essay needs a good sentence structure, but I also believe in all the points mentioned in the above introduction and the body paragraphs, fishes story makes logical points but I personally believe you cannot get your point across in an essay with only a good sentence structure. You need to have a topic for your story and a good thesis that can lead the reader to the conclusion.  

Fishy Business

After reading a blog post in the New York Times: “What Should Colleges Teach”, which was written by Dr. Stanley Fish, his main argument in the article is that Colleges should teach the basics of a sentences structure. Fish says that to be able to write in college students must be able to know what the correct way of writing a sentence.

With that statement that he makes I must say that I disagree with what he says. Ok, yes knowing how to write sentences is important for writing in general but it is not the be-all, end all when it comes to writing in college. That brings me to my central argument that in my opinion, I believe that the thesis should be at the forefront of the college English classes because without the thesis there essentially would be no paper.


Dr. Stanley Fish giving a lecture at a colleg class

Some people may wonder what good-old Stanley Fish did before he wrote his blog (“What Colleges Should Teach”); I was one of those people. Dr. Fish is a distinguished professor who taught at many different colleges and Universities across the country. He is currently a professor at Florida International University.

In Stanley Fish’s Piece about “What should Colleges Teach”, the way I read it, or what I think he wants us to believe is that a colleges primary focus when it comes to English, is that teachers should not just keep their attention on a SENTENCES STRUCTURE.

Now I get that it’s important to know the structure of a sentence but it doesn’t need to be the FOCUS of a student’s entire semester while in college. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed reading his blog and seeing what he thought what important for students to know what the structure of a sentences is and I agree that a lot of students don’t fully understand the structure, but I don’t think it needs to be the focus of the class.

In my English 1109 class at the Ohio State Universities branch campus at Newark my teacher focused on one question of “What Is College Level Writing” and the classes final Paper was based on that question while only discussing one important aspect of College writing, I chose to talk about the thesis statement.

 I admire Dr. Fish for his work and what he has accomplished in his life, but he talks about sentences structure like that’s all a student needs to know and ok, if all he wants to stress to his students the importunateness of sentence structure that’s alright to do in his course and its his opinion I just don’t think spending a whole semester on one topic is the smartest move.

That paper I was talking about, yes I focused on one aspect of college writing for what I believed was to be important for a college paper. My professor got us (his students) prepared for that paper. He focused on multiple parts involved in the writing process. In the

Tutoring session at the OSU Newark Writers studeo

course of the semester we got ready for the paper and for the last 8 weeks my professor had his students go to the OSU Newark Writers studio to observe other student writers so that we could implement the experiences of those observations and find some link between the observations and the topic of our paper.
After the 8 weeks of observing where done we need to interview the student writer and his/her tutor and ask them question based on our time we spent observing.

I talked about the aspects of a theses and what it does for not only the statement but for the entire paper. In one of the questions for the interview I asked the student writer why she thought the thesis was important to a paper. She stated that “A thesis is like offering a claim for your paper and what you’re going to talk about in your paper”. After the interview I wondered how I would see how I would use her opinion in my paper.

This student gave her opinion on what she thought a thesis statement was just as I have given my opinion on Dr. Stanley Fish’s blog on “What Colleges Should Teach”. When it comes to writing and learning about writing in college all the students and teachers will have their own opinions on what is important in the long run. Stanley Fish was not right or wrong in what he said in his blog because opinions are open to everybody. So I think the question still rages on, WHAT SHOULD COLLEGES TEACH?               

Back to the Future: What Colleges Should Teach Today

Doctor Fish is experienced professor at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. After having distinctive experiences on numerous of different school such as University of Illinois, Chicago, also at Duke University, North Carolina. He makes a blog, at the New York Times What Should Colleges Teach? Part 3 answering questions about the educational system. Especially about what the most significant aspect of writing is.

Each person has its own idea to what
is college level writing 

Making his statements over the important aspects of the education, he comes to claim the core of writing an English paper lies, on analyzing sentences, breaking them down to its simplest form, seeing how well you write a sentence, and how it works together to convey desired meaning as one of his students states after doing many years of experimentation. Without any concrete research and only anecdotal reports Doctor Fish contends “I can only cite local successes in my classes and the anecdotal reports of former students who have employed it in their own classes”. It might be anecdotal reports, but and it might even be bias as he is reporting only students he had in the past, it still valid as one of his students, Lynn Sams, after many years of experimentations, she has concluded “the ability to analyze sentence, to understand how the parts work together to convey desired meaning, emphasis, and effect is . . . central to the writing process.” From her you can clearly agree to Doctor Fish’s statement.

With research and observations I have done at The Ohio State University at Newark’s Writer’s Studio, 

I have come to find that analyzing sentence is a big part of the writing process. As students have to read and do research to find credited information to base their paper on, and understand what they are writing, and make it also understandable to the reader. But that’s not all I have observed, the bigger portion of my research which was mentioned on my essay was emphasized on thesis. I agree with what Doctor Fish had to say, but across the years teachers have evolved and have been stressing and complicating more the idea of thesis.

Maybe they took in considerations to what Patrick Sullivan had to say about professors that grade placement exams for upcoming new freshmen’s on his article called "Whats College-Level Writing". They mention how students getting out of high school don’t have the required English skills needed to pass the minimum requirements on the English placement exam, making the grading professors disappointed, having to lower the standards. That leads to different professors not knowing exactly where the bar on “what college-level writing” really sits.

There is really no argument to make for what is exactly
college-level writing

I can safely say that asking exactly what is the most important aspect of writing a college-level English paper is like saying “flying planes is dangerous”. There is many different ways one can go about about it, and many different possible meaning, asking a professor that grades paper for a living it’s very ambiguous to the subject. Doctor Fish MIGHT had been right back in 2003, but as professors have got new expectations towards students, they have gotten new ideas to what is college-level writing. Now teachers are focusing more on the thesis and other structures of the paper, writing well written sentences and structuring them is now something that should come with you from high school well taught and well developed, as some teachers come to , there are been required to teach more material with shorter time.

As I refine my skills with the knowledge I gathered with this course I can come to understand the core reason to why English is so ambiguous. As many different people have different thought about life in general, including writing. They create different opinion to where the “college-level” sits, with them having different implications to the problem generates a cloud of equivocations to the educational theory of the concept. Leading to many problems to come. Amen!

Fish Out of Water:What Kind of Skills Should a Writer Have?



how to make high school
students write better.

I agree with Dr Fish's article Colleges Teach, Part 3, because middle school and high school should have writing skills, because it will get the kids ready for college and  it will help kids improving writing. I think that any kind of studnet should have to learn writing skills because it makes them smarter and it will get them writing papers.

I think that school from first through senior year should have some kind of writing skills and sentences figured out because you want to know what you are in doing college and know how to write a sentence and make it sound good, You want to make sure you are doing the right thing and you want to look up things.

Because Dr. Fish, is saying that some of the schools are shut down because srome of the teachers don’t want to teach the kids how to write or have them learn anything about writing that way you want to talk to the teachers and see why they aren’t teaching you guys any writing.

He want to make sure that teachers are using sentences and making them sound good because you have to have sentences and make them in your own words because you don’t want to use anyone else’s word and say that you are done with your paper because you took someone else words right of their mouth.


it is talking about fish.

You can use thesis statements too and you can use any other words in your paper, you just need to look over what Dr. Fish said in his paper. Just t like using sentence, because you don’t want to mess up on things and you want to see what else he is talking about. You have to keep a good eye out because you don’t know if he put anything else on his blog. That would be mean if he did because you wouldn’t know what he was talking about and it wouldn’t make sense because he added more words to his paper.

But I do agree with some of his stuff because he wants the college kids to learn how use sentence and how to use them right. you don’t want to mess up sentences so that why you look over them. You want to make sure that you are looking over your paper and make sure you did everything right because you are supposed to look over what Dr. Fish said. You want agree with him sometimes and other times you just want to think why he is saying this because he want to have kids to be smart.

His name is Dr. Stanley Fish, he went to college under the age of 25 but didn’t finish. He dropped out of school and then went back a year later and he didn’t know what his major was so he just stayed in college and just kept up with it. He didn’t want to drop out again so he became a teacher of college students and taught them how to make sentences and how to put a topic into the sentence. You have to have a good one because you can’t have a sentence without a topic so they just made one.

How are you going to start a paper if you don’t have a topic and how are you going to make it sound good? But when I worked with Jonathan and Josh at the Writer's Studio at OSU Newark they just talked about thesis statement and how to put it into a paragraph.