Azur's Musings & Missives

By Azur - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in On Writing

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Missive: Our writing futures are in peril

The scourges of writing are blandness and an obsession with rules. We get upset when an upstart turns up claiming that they can rewrite the rules or abandon them altogether but it is a rare person who can do this without first knowing the rules. The key to writing is to learn the rules and get to... Sign in to see full entry.

I must be crazy

I don't know why I do this but when I read a narrow-minded view I have an overwhelming need to put people right. Why do I waste my energy trying to explain the alternatives and trying to describe that the world is not black and white? Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, March 11, 2005

An awkward situation

A friend gave me a copy of her book this week. It tells of an amazing incident where she was in mortal danger but was led to safety by God. She had not believed in God until that point. I don't doubt that what she describes in the book is what she experienced. The trouble for me is that I have not... Sign in to see full entry.

"How do you spell .... ?"

One of my students asked for the spelling of a word yesterday and I said to him that I won't tell a journalism student how to spell any word. I told him he must look it up in the dictionary. I have no time for spoon-feeding. I gave them a basic exercise and they must think for themseves.... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

My writing students are keen. Some never shut up

This week I got my students thinking and next week I will get them writing. I gave them a set of information and then I asked them to imagine if they were writing a report for two publications with different owners. The information was about the annual earnings of Rupert Murdoch and his top... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, March 7, 2005

75 students. Will I get through to any of them?

The key to teaching I am told is preparation. I have three classes to conduct for three groups, each of 25 students. Some want to be journalists or writers. If my preparation is good, I will be able to get them to do exercizes where they work out their own ideas and answers. The golden rule is that... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, March 5, 2005

Can teaching be learned?

I received the best compliment the other day at a 2-day course which I attended to learn some basic techniques for teaching and assessment. It wasn't basic to me because I was a beginner surrounded by people who had taught for years. I was asked to prepare a lesson plan to run through. One of the... Sign in to see full entry.

I write to share what is real for me

I hate the page view thing. It confirms my suspicion that writing here is to enter a void. I always thought that this was the case for the majority of people. There are exceptions. I understand the dynamics of marketing and commmenting and all of that. And besides I just spent the last hour or two... Sign in to see full entry.

A teacher learns her lesson

My first class and 12 out of 20 students showed up. I asked each of them to introduce themselves and to tell us why they had chosen the course, what they hoped to learn from it, what they read. There were a couple of aspiring sci-fi writers, a budding music journalist, a fledgling political... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, February 25, 2005

Can you live up to who you say you are?

We can be what we want to be. Jeff Gannon was. But it seems he could not pull it off. Can you say who you are and then become that person? It is something we all must do at some stage. Imagine you are getting a promotion or doing a new job. At the beginning most people act up or in that role until... Sign in to see full entry.

Headlines (What is this?)