More competitions!

1. Youth Writers Awards Asia 2010
a. Organized by NLB and Reader’s Digest to commemorate the Youth Olympics
b. Open to youths 14-18 yrs old
c. Short story (500-800 words) describing the nature of individual love and passion for sports, including values such as friendship, honesty, fair play etc
d. 30 winning short stories to be published in a book which will be used to promote the Youth Olympics
e. Prizes: Top 5 winners who are non-Singapore residents get a trip to SG; Top 5 winners who are Singaporeans get a trip to a destination in Asia!
f. Deadline: 30 September

2. NZPS Open Junior and Haiku Junior Competitions
a. Open to students 17 years or younger
b. Details can be found at www.poetrysociety.org.nz
c. Internal deadline to school: 25 May

3. Express your Best Self Contest
a. Organized by Julia Gabriel Centre
b. Open to all
c. Entries must answer the question: How do you express your best self?
d. Can fulfil any of these categories: Performance Arts (in a video or sound recording of not more than 3 minutes), Visual Arts or Literary Arts
e. Can submit via email at contest@juliagabriel.com (remember to CC to teacher)
f. Deadline: 30 June

Incentive for winning essay competitions

International Competitions / Prizes:

-Full marks to be given to 1 assignment (of a similar nature to the competition piece) for any kind of accolade received on an international platform. For example, if a student wins a poetry competition, one of his creative writing assignments or portfolio pieces may be given full marks. If he wins a speech competition, one of his oral presentation assignments may be given full marks. Special Mention / Commendations (e.g. Commonwealth Essay Competition) should also be given similar credit.

-No bonus marks should be awarded for participation.

Local Competitions/ Prizes:

-Students winning any of the top 3 prizes in a local competition will receive full marks.

-Commendations or merit prizes will be rewarded with a GP of 4.0 (80%) for 1 assignment of a similar nature.

-Certificates of participation will not be awarded any bonus marks.

UNSW English / Writing Competition

-If a student wins a medal for either the English MCQ or the Writing competition, he will be awarded full marks for 1 assignment of a similar nature.

-Students receiving a High Distinction for either the English MCQ or Writing will be awarded a GP of 4.0 for 1 assignment of a similar nature.

Note: Teachers of each level should decide and agree on which pieces of assignment to reward with full marks or 4.0.

Oral Presentation

Topics
Marcus's group - Reciprocity + society
Kenneth's group - Reciprocity + religion
Kunfeng's group - Reciprocity + Feel good
Ka Chih's group - Hamilton's rule + karma
Zi Xiang's Group - Hamilton's rule + Benefits

I've rethought it and would like to give you the weekend to work with. We will be doing an oral presentation next Monday - it is not graded, but will be the only proper practice you'll get prior to your graded one in Term 3, so take the chance to receive some feedback on it!



I am asking you to form 5 groups of 6 - this should consist of the local students' social advocacy groups, plus 1-2 of the scholars (depending on the initial group size).

You will then be asked to orally present two points (just 5 minutes - no need long essays!) The overall thesis statement should tackle the question, "should we do good?"
1) Give your opinion on either Hamilton's Rule, or the idea of Reciprocity, as suggested in the article.
2) Alternative opinion - One other reason to do good. Alternatively, one reason we should not bother doing good. This could come from any of the reasons discussed today, or any other ideas you might have regarding the matter.

The structure of an oral presentation can be done pretty similarly to what we have covered earlier with commentaries - Start and end with a bang, if possible. There will be some time given to discuss this oral presentation on Friday.

So, just email me your discussion groupings as well as your preferred topics (for parts 1 & 2) before class this Friday. I prefer that the topics be spread evenly, so they will be allocated on a first come, first served (link for mini-grammar-lesson) basis. I will update the confirmed groupings on this post as I receive your emails.

Unveiling your timed commentary

Alright guys, the time has come to post up your assessed commentary for all to see! Simply post whatever you'd emailed to me earlier onto your blog. Now.

Even though I'll still be marking the email copy, this forms part of your portfolio and isn't particularly difficult to do, so please get it done soon!

Groupings for Social Advocacy unit

Current groupings
Non-scholars
Ka Chih, Shaw Shiuan, Richard, Bryan, Tangsheng
Muhaimin, Kenneth, Joel, Danial
Fabian, Marcus, Dong Heng, Danish
Zi Xiang, Pao Jung, Lih Khuang, Amos Lim
TianYi, KunFeng, Jie Hui, ZeXi

Scholars
Qiushi, Shuxin, Chen Chi
Yong Xien, Haohang, Yidong
Kaiwen, Weiyi, Duanhao

Personal Response Task

Write a personal response on your blog (minimum 100 words) to the article The Evolution of Goodness (Handout 4). The suggested response question is given below, but you are free to respond in other ways as long as the topic is relevant to the article.

Drawing from this article and your personal experience, say why you believe human beings are willing to do good to others.

USP-Piper Introductory Creative Writing Workshop

This workshop counts as 12h towards your DMP requirements.

Calling all writers!

The USP-Piper Introductory Creative Writing Workshop is here! This is a 3-day workshop that will be held during the holidays, from 8-12th June, 9am -1pm.

We have been sending our writers there for the past 2 years and everyone has enjoyed it tremendously. There will be chances to meet other writers and to learn from each other.

If you are interested, please do these 2 things:
1. prepare a portfolio and apply via the portal (details linked below)
2. send an email to me to let me know that you are applying (include your class and full name please)

Deadline for application:
Tuesday 28 April

Click here for more details
(scroll down for application/payment procedure)

TH National Creative Writing Competition

I understand that each of you is meant to take part in at least one writing competition this year. I will post details of such competitions here and you may want to consider participating in them.

For competitions that only allow a certain number of entrants per school, or those that require an entrance fee, you should submit your entry to the teacher. For those that can be submitted directly (such as this one), you may send it in by yourself - just remember to email/CC a copy to your teacher as well (for record purposes).

Temasek Hall (NUS) is organising a creative writing competition and is seeking short stories (max 1500 words) featuring main characters grappling with current socio-educational issues in the Singapore school setting. Cash prizes include S$500 for distinction works and S$250 for merit works. More details here.

More on streaking

A*STAR scholar, Swede charged with appearing nude in public

Since so many of you seemed to enjoy commenting on streaking, here's another recent case of a public act of indecency. It's not just the mainstream press that's obsessed with this, though - as you can imagine, with any incident involving nakedness, the local blogosphere's rather interested in the whole affair.

Who is Eng Kai Er?

You might want to take a look at the comments posted there, and re-evaluate for yourself whether Singapore is ready to legalise streaking. I'm not making any judgements here - please do form your own opinions.

I would also just like to caution you that if you are ever on a Singaporean scholarship in the future (as I'm sure a number of you will be), you might like to be careful of what you do...

So, what do you think about the whole affair? Feel free to leave comments if you like.

Assessment tips

For the next lesson, you will be sitting through a timed assessment where you will be asked to write a commentary based on one of the three articles Mr Kelvin Yap had posted onto Ask n Learn, or one of your own (your choice). You are therefore advised to read them all before bringing them into the class, and be prepared to attempt a commentary on at least one of them.

A commentary should convey your opinion, so don't be afraid to use the personal voice - "I feel that...", "I think that..." are all valid statements to use.

Note the rubric used for the assessment (I will be passing this to your class soon) - predicting a counter-argument (for your opinion) and rebutting it is expected. For a good score, the following structure is suggested for your essay.

Introductory Paragraph
-Motivator
-Thesis Statement
-Blueprint

Body Paragraph #1 (Argument)
-Topic Sentence
-Specific Support
      -Evidence
      -Explanation of Evidence

Body Paragraph #2 (Rebuttal)
-State possible counter-argument to your thesis statement)
-Explain this counter-argument
-Topic Sentence (refute the counter-argument)
-Specific Support
      -Evidence
      -Explanation of Evidence

Concluding Paragraph
-Reworded Thesis Statement
-Clincher

Commentaries #5 (Lesson Recap)

In this lesson you have been briefed on how to spice up your introductions and conclusions with two specific methods - the brief story, and the interesting statement.

Time had been spent working on your introductions, with you exchanging opinions with your peers regarding your introductions. Finally, you were given time to edit the introduction once again, with your peers' comments in mind.

You were shown how you can refer back to the motivator, in your conclusion, in order to conclude with a clincher.

Note: I will not have time to go through each and every one of your commentaries, but I will entertain special requests to do so (just email me using the link on the right, or leave a comment), or general queries regarding commentaries.

Did you enjoy Commentaries #5?

Commentary comments

Somehow the title of this post amuses me greatly. Yes, even teachers have their puerile moments.

Anyway, I haven't left feedback on your specific blog posts (except to bug some of you to do the commentary, or to edit your blog title), because you'll soon have a chance to do it for yourself this Wednesday. I'm not looking out for grammar at this point, but more of commentary-specific pointers. So, below are some general comments for your commentary task.

1) Most of you have grasped the basics of utilising the McEssay formula. Well done!

2) Watch out for fallacious arguments. Coming from yourself. After planning your arguments, it might be worthwhile to read through the Fallacies handout (especially the logical fallacies) and check that you haven't committed any of those.

3) Some of you are listing evidence but not sufficiently linking it to your topic sentences (i.e. explaining how the evidence supports your argument).

4) Sometimes you'll need to explain your evidence. Similar to the need to explain the background behind your topic, you've got to assume that the reader (aka me, or perhaps your peers) is an doofus who doesn't know about what you're saying. For example, specific events such as the 'June Undie Run' will need to be elaborated on.

5) This is not compulsory, but since a commentary is meant to convey your opinion, a personal voice (use of "I feel..." etc.) might be appropriate. Take care not to become too informal either - although this is a blog, it is still ultimately an academic piece of writing (sigh...)

Assessment documents

I have suggested to Mr Kelvin Yap to change the Ask n Learn documents to .doc format, but in the meantime here's a link you can use to download them in pre-2007 format.

Download (zipped) documents.

Writing a commentary (Task)

Choose a topic from one of the three sets of readings provided (Orchard Road facelift, Streaking, Stem Cell Research). After reading the first article (at least), make an opinion regarding the topic. Write a (simplified) commentary on the topic supporting your stand, which is the thesis statement of your essay.

Introductory Paragraph
-Thesis Statement
-Blueprint
Body Paragraphs (x2)
-Topic Sentence
-Specific Support
    -Evidence
    -Explanation of Evidence
Concluding Paragraph
-Reworded Thesis Statement

Your commentary should be about 300-500 words in length. This commentary will be used in the next lesson, so be sure you have it ready in class by Wed (Apr 8). I will be going through your blogs to comment on Mon (Apr 6) so you might want to have it ready by then.

Commentaries #3/4 (Lesson Recap)

Anonymous comments have been allowed, so you can now comment without letting anyone know who you are.

Due to time constraints, the two lessons were covered together, with emphasis on lesson #3.

In this lesson, you would have been exposed to the Hamburger Essay structure. You would also have had some practice picking out the structural elements from an essay about mountain climbing. You would also have attempted to skim an article in a short timeframe in an attempt to extract its gist, utilising the knowledge of the general structure of an article.



The next part is to be done as a take-home assignment. Here, the Hamburger Essay structure was briefly reviewed, with some elaboration on how you might attempt writing a commentary. After which, you were assigned to a practice task where you were asked to write your very own commentary.

Did you enjoy Commentaries #3/4?

Ask n Learn update

Please take note of Mr Kelvin Yap's latest announcement on RI Ask n Learn - it describes the timed assessment for the Commentaries unit and what you need to do to prepare for it.

Your assessment will be conducted on Week 4 Monday (Apr 13).

p.s. Because you are mostly disobedient students who have yet to subscribe to this blog, please pass this message to your classmates as well!