作文6/6th writing assignment

Hello!

How are you? Today we'll do our 6th writing assignment all in one class - writing a story about a strange, unique, and/or interesting experience.

Now - you remember our pictures from last week. You had to choose at the beginning two (2) of the pictures, and then write a few sentences about them in your notebooks.

Then you had to select four (4) more of the pictures, and add more to your story in 2-3 paragraphs in your notebooks. Here are the pictures again:

Task
Now - all you have to do for our 6th writing assignment is to finish up the writing you did last week. Try to go for 3-4 paragraphs if you can, now typed up on a Word document.

I will look for these things in your stories:

• imagination (想像、考え)
• creativity (創造力)
• cause-and-effect (原因結果) words to connect your ideas like as a result, consequently, or therefore
• correct formatting on your Word document

This will be a little like a writing test, so use your time well! But please also remember that you have done a lot of the work for this story already - all you have to do is make it better and a little longer, and finish it up.

These stories will go into a collection called White Rooms and Secret Stories - so write to the best you can!

So good luck again! Please have fun with these stories!

Images: Top - screenshot of Frank Zappa Hot Rats album cover/Door - "Empty Wall With Closed Door" (courtesy of master isolated images)/Train yard - "Silhouette Of Wires And Cables" (courtesy of papaija2008)/Sunset - "Beautiful Sunset" (courtesy of Photokanok)/Curtains - "Curtain Black With Texture" (courtesy of antpkr)/Wedding - "The Exit" (courtesy of Elwood W. McKay III)/Hand silhouettes - "Silhouette Of Man Asking For Help" (courtesy of foto76)/Plane - "Take Off At Sunset" (courtesy of Time Beach)/Woman - "Asian Model Woman" (courtesy of posterize)/Tiger - "White Bengal Tiger Face" (courtesy of anankkml)/all photos from FreeDigitalPhotos.net except for Frank Zappa album cover screenshot - all rights reserved to The Zappa Family Trust. No copyright infringement intended. Screenshot of album cover uploaded for illustrative and educational purposes only. 

面白い経験を書いて/writing about interesting experiences

Hello!

How are you? Today let's look at how to write about interesting, strange or unique experiences (面白い、不思議、ユニークな経験)! 

Activity
Look at these pictures. Can you make the beginning of an interesting, strange or unique story with these pictures? You can choose 1-2 of the pictures. 

Good luck! Have fun!

Photo credits: Top photo - "Sunset Holiday" (courtesy of imagerymajestic)/Roofs - "Hiyama Tatsuno Hyogo Prefecture" (courtesy of 663highland)/ 

Images: Top - "Empty Wall With Closed Door" (courtesy of master isolated images)/train yard - "Silhouette Of Wires And Cables" (courtesy of papaija2008)/sunset - "Beautiful Sunset" (courtesy of Photokanok)/curtains - "Curtain Black With Texture" (courtesy of antpkr)/wedding - "The Exit" (courtesy of Elwood W. McKay III)/hand silhouettes - "Silhouette Of Man Asking For Help" (courtesy of foto76)/plane - "Take Off At Sunset" (courtesy of Time Beach)/woman - "Asian Model Woman" (courtesy of posterize)/tiger - "White Bengal Tiger Face" (courtesy of anankkml)/all photos from FreeDigitalPhotos.net. 

作文5/5th writing assignment

Hello!

How are you? Here is a short post reminding all of you about our 5th writing assignment (作文5) - writing about your piece of music. 

You have already written what you have about each piece of music I played for you in class, and that you heard again from my blogpost. 

Task 

Edit and if you need to, add some more to your writing about the piece of music you chose. Please remember that it must be 2-4 paragraphs long - the longer the better - with characters and a scenario. 3-4 paragraphs is even better!

Then, on a separate document, write a short comparison (比較) between the piece of music you chose and another of the pieces of music you heard. Here, you can write about the music itself - what you thought of the sounds, the tempo, even a little about the artists themselves. 

Which was the most interesting? Which was the strangest? Which gave you the most unique impression (感想)?  

Please remember: For your story, build on it and make it as imaginative as you can. Listen to the music you selected again if you have to or want to.

If you want to listen to the pieces of music I played for you, go to this link with the video files here.

I will look for the paragraphs to be typewritten in 12-point size, with correct formatting. Please look at my handout on correct formatting and style!

Good luck - and enjoy finishing up your stories and comparing which pieces of music you liked or thought were the most interesting! Have fun with them! 

See you next time!

Image: "Gondolier's Sonata" (courtesy of sattva)/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

音楽について/about music

Hello!

How are you? Today I will show you again the four pieces of music I played for you in class last time before the festival break. Listen to these as many times as you want or need.

We are going to think about what we wrote to this music - and select one piece of music you particularly liked and add more to your writing about it!

Here is the first one - Erik Satie's "Ragtime Parade":

Here's the second one - "Dog Trot," by Moondog:

Here is the third one: Frank Zappa's "Little Umbrellas":

Now here is the last one - "Green Onions," by Booker T. & the MGs:

What did you think of these pieces of music? 

Activity/homework

Now look at your writing about this music from the first time you heard each one last week. Choose one (1) piece of music you felt was the most interesting to you and add another paragraph about it. Write more about the characters and scenario you had about it, and make it into a little story. 

Have fun with this! I'll look forward to seeing what you wrote about the music you chose to write more about.

See you next time!

Image: personal photograph. All rights reserved.
Videos uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the videos or the musical compositions. Uploaded for educational purposes only. No copyright infringement intended. All rights reserved to the copyright owner(s). 

作文4/4th writing assignment

Hello!

How are you? Today, I will show you our 4th writing assignment (作文4): how to make excuses (詫び) and apologies (申し訳). Our scenario will be about problems in a hotel.

First, this is a sample letter of apology with a difference - some excuses in it. Some of these excuses are unbelievable! You can see this on the handout I have given you - but I will post it here as well:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am the general manager of our hotel. It has come to my attention that you have had a terrible experience at our hotel. Please accept my apologies for your experience.

I have no excuses for our poor performance, but I would like to explain our situation. First, because our front desk manager’s mother has been very sick recently, it has affected his work. In addition, we have had other problems recently with some of our old staff members and we have had to hire and train some new staff. They are still new to their jobs, so they are not as good as we hoped they would be.

In our restaurant, our head chef's cat recently died. He is not married and has no children, so this has been a difficult time for him because his cat was 17 years old. He loved his cat very much, so it has been very hard for him. To make things worse, two of our best waitresses have difficulties in standing for a long time because they have leg and foot problems. One of our vans drove over their feet when they were getting some things out of the back of the van to bring into the restaurant. So, they are getting treatment at the hospital for their problems, but it will be difficult for them for some time.

I cannot show how deeply sorry I am for the bad time you had at our hotel. So please allow me to offer you a free stay at our hotel in the future, when you would like, because we feel terrible for your bad experience. We are working hard to correct our problems and will make a much better experience for you.

Sincerely,

David T. Bunka

General Manager

Takasaka Hotel and Resort

Scenario
What I would like you to do is to write a letter of apology, with excuses, about a person's terrible stay at a hotel. Imagine that you are the general manager of the hotel and that you have heard about a person's bad experience at your hotel. 

Make some of your excuses a little unreal - for example, a staff member's dog just died, or the taxi service has changed, or there is a new chef in the hotel restaurant who is strange, or something like that. 

Write 2-3 paragraphs with an opening ("Dear Sir/Madam") and a closing ("Sincerely," and your name). 

Have fun with this! 

See you next time!

Image: personal photograph. All rights reserved.

問題を書き表している/describing problems

Hello!

How are you? Today let's learn about how to describe a problem (問題を書き表している). 

Do you remember from last week our pictures of the different hotels? Here they are again:

1. 

2.

3. 

4. 

Activity

Last week, you chose which of these hotels you would like to stay in. Then, I asked you to think of some problems that could happen in the hotel room (such as broken windows, no hot water in the shower, and things like that). Your goal now is to write 1-2 paragraphs about problems that happen in the hotel room you selected. 

You are writing to a friend about the hotel you stayed in on a summer vacation. Start with a strong topic sentence, like this:

例えば 1：

Let me tell you about my last vacation. It was great, but the hotel I stayed at was terrible.

From there, write about all the problems you can think of that happened in the hotel room you stayed at.

例えば 2：

Let me tell you about my last vacation. It was great, but the hotel I stayed at was terrible. I was very excited to stay there, but when I went to the room, I was shocked. The bed was not made and the sheets were dirty, there were wine stains on the carpet, and cockroaches were everywhere. (…)

From there, write more problems you found in the room.  You can also then write about other problems, like bad hotel staff, or bad food. 

At the end, make a warning (注意) to your friend about the hotel using "so."

例えば 3：

Let me tell you about my last vacation. It was great, but the hotel I stayed at was terrible. I was very excited to stay there, but when I went to the room, I was shocked. The bed was not made and the sheets were dirty, there were wine stains on the carpet, and cockroaches were everywhere. (…)

(…) So let me tell you to please never stay in this hotel. It is an awful place with dirty rooms, terrible staff, and bad food. 

Have fun writing this! See you next time!

Images: Top - "Spilled Glass Of Wine On A Carpet" (courtesy of Mister GC)/1. "Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore" (courtesy of posterize)/2. "Typical English Village House" (courtesy of Stuart Miles)/3. "Motel on the Beach" (courtesy of Aleksandr Kutsayev)/4. "Tropical Resort in Thailand" (courtesy of nuchylee)/all images from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

翻訳ソフトウェア、ウエブサイトについて/about translation software and websites

Hello!

How are you? The piece of writing above is a reminder to you about the problems of translation software (翻訳ソフトウェア) of Japanese to English, or English to Japanese. This might look like English, but it is full of grammar mistakes and unnatural phrases, because it is from a translation website.

Here's what it looked like in the original English: 

This is why translation software is no good for paragraph-level writing. It might be okay for single words, or even a group of two to three words or an easy phrase, but for compositional writing it can't show the differences in sentence structures, and it can't translate your feeling in what you want to say. 

Here's how the original writing in pink translated into Japanese below through a translation website:

Does this Japanese seem strange to you in any way? It's because it's translating mostly word-for-word into Japanese. So when I copied the Japanese and translated it back into English on the translation website, this is what it looked like (I will repost the writing in green from the top):

Look at the difference between the original English in pink, the Japanese translation in blue, and the English translation from the Japanese translation in green. It's really different, isn't it? 

This is my way of saying - don't use translation software or translations websites in your writing!

I am okay with any mistakes you make in English. But I want it to be your English, not software English!

Take care - and see you next week!

Images: Personal screen shots. All rights reserved.

ホテルについて/about hotels

Hello!

How are you? Let's think about, and write some notes, on hotels! 

Warmup/activity
What kind of hotel would you like to stay in? Let's look at some pictures of different hotels.

This is the first one - the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore:

1. 

What do you think of this hotel? 

Now this one is very different - an English village house made into a country hotel: 

2.

What do you think of it? 

How about this one - a motel on the beach:

3. 

What do you think of this place? 

What about this one? It's a tropical resort in Thailand:

4. 

Would you like to stay here? 

Now - think about all these different hotels and places. Which one would you like to stay in? Write two (2) sentences about the hotel you like. Give some reasons using because. 

例えば：
I want to stay in hotel #2 because it is very quiet, and looks comfortable and peaceful. I think I can get some good rest in this hotel. 

Have fun!

Images: Top - personal photograph/1. "Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore" (courtesy of posterize)/2. "Typical English Village House" (courtesy of Stuart Miles)/3. "Motel on the Beach" (courtesy of Aleksandr Kutsayev)/4. Image "Tropical Resort in Thailand" (courtesy of nuchylee)/all images except top photo from FreeDigitalPhotos.net/all rights reserved on personal photograph.

おかえりなさい！夏休みについて/Welcome back! Writing about our summers

Hello and welcome back!

How are you? Welcome back to our class for the second semester. 

Let's write about our summers! It would be a nice way to help us remember what we did this summer. 

I had a great summer. I went to Vietnam with a group of teachers and presented at a conference (研究会) and workshop at a university there. The picture above is one of many I took when I was there. Here are a couple more pictures of my trip there:

　

This was me with my facilitator - a student who just graduated from the university who was very kind to show me around the city where we were. We were in Hue (フエ), the old capital (首都) of Vietnam, and this place is famous in Hue - the Citadel, which was the fort of the old imperial palace (王宮の砦). The picture at the top is one part of it. It's a big place! Here's another picture:

It's an incredible place - I still didn't get to see all of it because it's so big! 

While many of you had to work part-time jobs and were busy with them, and some of you weren't able to go anywhere, many of you had some good times this summer with friends and family. So what did you do this summer? 

Let's hear about your summers! Write 1-2 paragraphs abut what you did this summer!

Images: Personal photographs. All rights reserved.

前学期の期末作文/1st semester final writing assignment

Hello!

How are you? Today, I'll tell you about our final writing assignment (期末作文) for the 1st semester (前学期).

Project
You have two (2) choices about your final writing project. Choose one (1) of them:

1. Write about a unique, interesting, or special person. 

In this topic, write about a unique, interesting, or special person you know, like a teacher, best friend, coach, or even a family member like a mother, father, brother or sister - or a famous person you think is unique, interesting, or special, like a singer, musician, actor, athlete, or a writer or artist.

I am gathering writing on this topic into a book called The Small Book of Big People. I started this last year with my students then, and I put examples of their work onto this blog. You can check them out at this link, and also at this link too.

2. Write about a unique, interesting, or special place. 

In this topic, write about a unique, interesting, or special place. It can be a place you have been to and that has had a big impact on you - or it can be a place you have never been to, but want to go to. 

I am gathering writing on this topic into a book called Places and Traces. This is a new book I have never done before. For this project, you can:

Use the pictures from this blog that I posted about places, or find your own picture and write about it.

You can use the place that you wrote about when writing about places, and make your writing about it bigger and longer.

How much to write
How much do you write? I would like you to write as much as you can, because your work may be published (出版した) on both this blog and in The Small Book of Big People and Places and Traces books I talked about in class. 

I would like to see maybe one long paragraph with 9-12 sentences in it, or two (2) paragraphs with 6 to 9 sentences in them. 

Deadline (締め切り)
You do not have much time! Our final day is July 20th (7/20), so I want you to bring in a first draft (下書き) on that day in your notebooks in pencil. You will then peer review each other's work, change things about the draft as you need to, then write to the finish and turn in your work. 

Important note!
I want your work correctly peer-checked!

Good luck with this! I hope you can have fun with this, and enjoy writing about a person or a place.

Images: Top - "Blank Document Area Shows Copyspace White Background For Note" (courtesy of Stuart Miles)/Old man: "Old African Man" (courtesy of africa)/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

作文3/3rd writing assignment

Hello! 

How are you? Today I will show you our third writing assignment - expressing an opinion on something you feel about to your classmates.  This will be due next week (7/13).

Guidelines

We will do this assignment in a unique way - we will have different groups in our class, like this: 

例えば：

Each group will think of some topic ideas for another group to write about. Each group will be writers - and readers - of other groups' ideas.  

例えば：Group 1 thinks of some topics - Group 2 has to write about those topics to Group 1.

例えば：Group 2 thinks of some topics - Group 3 has to write about those topics to Group 2.

例えば：Group 3 thinks of some topics - Group 4 has to write about those topics to Group 3.

例えば：Group 4 thinks of some topics - Group 5 has to write about those topics to Group 4.

例えば：Group 5 thinks of some topics - Group 6 has to write about those topics to Group 5.

例えば：Group 6 thinks of some topics - Group 7 has to write about those topics to Group 6.

例えば：Group 7 thinks of some topics - Group 8 has to write about those topics to Group 7.

例えば：Group 8 thinks of some topics - Group 9 has to write about those topics to Group 8.

So then we come to a full circle:

So then we come to a full circle:

例えば：Group 9 thinks of some topics - Group 1 has to write about those topics to Group 9.

Important note: All groups will also peer review their partner groups' writing!  

Topics 

What topics can you choose from? What can you write about? Anything is okay! Here are some ideas - but you can think of other ideas of your own: 

Things that can be improved about Daito Bunka (classes, buildings, lunches, programs, etc.)

The latest fashions and what you think are good - or bad

The latest music and what you think is good - or bad

News or political topics (Britain's vote to leave the EU, the refugee situation in the Middle East or Europe, the future of Japan, etc.)

Social issues (ethnic minorities in Japan, LGBTQ people, hikikomori, etc.) 

Important note: I will collect the best of this writing into a blog collection to be published - so write to the best you can! 

So good luck! See you next time!

Image: unattributed image from the Internet. All rights reserved.