Session Summary
Sunday, April 29, 2018
9pm to 10pm EDT
Topics covered:
Session Summary:
Another truly outstanding session with Nicholas tonight. We started the session with a discussion of some guiding principles of academic writing. Nicholas asked me to share with him what I felt was some of his particular weaknesses in his writing, and I told him he had the same weakness many students at his age have, namely reliance on the passive voice, which has enjoyed the myth that its use makes academic writing more academic. The passive voice does nothing of the kind; rather, the passive voice, 95% of the time, is passive, weak, and results in clunky academic writing, which flies right in the face of the twin goals of academic writing, precision and clarity. Nicholas and I then had a short discussion about what I felt were Nicholas's strengths—namely his intelligence, his scholarship (which I feel is well in advance of his status as a high school sophomore), his charm, his wit, and his "eye on the prize" (I appreciated how Nicholas termed, that he is not a "one-trick pony" but rather he brings to Cranbrook the trifecta of an excellent student, an accomplished and experienced coxswain, and an excellent (and, now, award-winning) singer)—and an answer to my question, "Do you feel, Nicholas, Cranbrook's view of you as less than as optimally successful as you can be has impacted your confidence?"—namely, "Self-esteem has never been my problem."—that I found reassuring. We then handled Nicholas's corrections of No 11 in Exercise 2.6, which I'm glad we took the time to do together, because it was clear Nicholas was struggling with the important and common grammatical construction of the passive periphrastic. By the end of the session I was more than convinced Nicholas understood this construction well. We ended the session with a quick discussion of any obstacles to our meeting on Tuesday (there are none). Thanks so much, Nicholas, for your good, hard work tonight.
9pm to 10pm EDT
Topics covered:
- Academic Writing
- Passive Periphrastic
Session Summary:
Another truly outstanding session with Nicholas tonight. We started the session with a discussion of some guiding principles of academic writing. Nicholas asked me to share with him what I felt was some of his particular weaknesses in his writing, and I told him he had the same weakness many students at his age have, namely reliance on the passive voice, which has enjoyed the myth that its use makes academic writing more academic. The passive voice does nothing of the kind; rather, the passive voice, 95% of the time, is passive, weak, and results in clunky academic writing, which flies right in the face of the twin goals of academic writing, precision and clarity. Nicholas and I then had a short discussion about what I felt were Nicholas's strengths—namely his intelligence, his scholarship (which I feel is well in advance of his status as a high school sophomore), his charm, his wit, and his "eye on the prize" (I appreciated how Nicholas termed, that he is not a "one-trick pony" but rather he brings to Cranbrook the trifecta of an excellent student, an accomplished and experienced coxswain, and an excellent (and, now, award-winning) singer)—and an answer to my question, "Do you feel, Nicholas, Cranbrook's view of you as less than as optimally successful as you can be has impacted your confidence?"—namely, "Self-esteem has never been my problem."—that I found reassuring. We then handled Nicholas's corrections of No 11 in Exercise 2.6, which I'm glad we took the time to do together, because it was clear Nicholas was struggling with the important and common grammatical construction of the passive periphrastic. By the end of the session I was more than convinced Nicholas understood this construction well. We ended the session with a quick discussion of any obstacles to our meeting on Tuesday (there are none). Thanks so much, Nicholas, for your good, hard work tonight.