Erica Jacobs is the Education columnist for the DC Examiner, and has taught high school and college for 33 years. She has been around the education block! Email her at ejacob1@gmu.edu.

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Showing entries for Category: column

The Writing Process

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May 18, 7:52 PM

by Erica Jacobs, Education Examiner

The phenomenon of "The National Examiners" is only five weeks old, but already I have discovered something about the writing process as it has been affected by my (almost) daily posts. Twice my Monday column for the DC Examiner has grown out of an off-handed post as an Examiner. In the case of tomorrow's column, my post on "The Lasts of High School" allowed me to write two very short paragraphs comparing my students' "lasts" and my own; by the end of the post I realized that my simplistic formulation (that they look forward and I look backward) was totally wrong. That was confirmed by Joshua's comment on his own "lasts" as a student.

So when I came to write the longer column this weekend, I incorporated the wisdom I had gained in rejecting my initial oversimplification. This sort of reassessment happens again and again as writers put their thoughts into words and realize they are---STOO-PID. Or worse. This time, I was able to save a lot of time while writing my column by realizing, through the first writing, that students are not as unidimensional as I had characterized them to be.

All of us are wistful as we experience our last classes and last interactions with peers. Students may pretend they are only jubilant upon graduation, but it's more complicated than that.

So writing as a way-to-think-things-through wins again. I've always known the process has multiple steps, but I never thought this Examiner site would facilitate my column writing. Now I know better.

Topics: blog , students , column , writing process

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Monday Is My Education Column Day

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May 5, 8:31 AM

Every Monday is a big day for me: it's when my Education column appears in the DC Examiner. Today's column is titled "Short-Order Food for Thought," and is about the massive quantities of food I prepared for five after school sessions in preparation... Read More
Topics: blog , column , education