.
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
There will be no truth, only Trump.
Everything else will be purged.
And you’re not Trump.
.
Why I don’t assign “Group Writing” tasks:
Wake Up: How to Fix a Slogan
The National Science Teachers Association
“Working to Help Improve
Science Teaching Efforts since 2008”
- We want to improve teaching, not effort.
- We want to do the improving, not help.
- We want to show results, not work at it.
The National Science Teachers Association
“Better Science Teaching since 2008”
Even that doesn’t brag about the ultimate result, which would be more science LEARNING, wouldn’t it? No matter how well the Association improves teaching, if students don’t learn more science, it fails.
The National Science Teachers Association
“Our Students Learn More, and We Can Prove it.”
or
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Class Notes 11/6
How to fix a slogan- Went over the old NSTA slogan and how to make it better. Went over other examples of ineffective grammar, don’t use negative words when you don’t have to. “I don’t love you because you’re beautifal” sounds worse than something like “I love you for your beauty and your generous heart.” Theres always a way to simplify a slogan or a sentence to make it more effective.
Example- “Employees don’t get fired for going out and having a few beers after work because alcohol is legal, but in Colorado so is marijuana. “
Revision- In Colorado, employees can’t be fired for alchohol and marijuana use outside of work because both are legal.
Example- “Coats shouldn’t have been fired because he was trying to treat the pain he endured on a daily basis.”
Revision- Coats shouldn’t have been fired for trying to treat his excruciating daily pain.
Example- “It’s not fair to discriminate against him because he was able to ease the pain of his multiple spasms by using marijuana.”
nICE
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11/6/24
What Happened:
Group Writing Tasks
How to Fix a Slogan
Writing Skills
What I Got:
There is/There are – poison the vitality of sentences
Telling a reader something exists is pointless
What I still have Questions about:
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Class Notes- 11/6/2024
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Class Notes 11.6.24
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class notes-figure8clementine
11/6/24
(my class notes reset during the fire drill :c )
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Class Notes – phoenixxxx23
-Don’t use negative form like “I don’t love you because you are beautiful” *prepare for Valentine’s Day ahead of time!*
– Employees don’t get fired for going out and having a few beers after work because alcohol is legal, but in Colorado so is marijuana. –>In Colorado, employees can’t be fired for alcohol and marijuana use outside of work because both are legal
– Coats shouldn’t have been fired because he was trying to treat the pain he endured on a daily basis.–> Coats shouldn’t have been fired for trying to treat his excruciating daily pain
-Fire alarm :(( do not watch baseball upstairs if you make fire in the fireplace downstairs.
–There is/ there are/ it is KILL good prose and vitality of writing
–revise so strongest subject completes the most robust action.
-Eliminate !trash! language
-The weakest sentence is one that establishes that something “is.”
-Eliminate needless “types of,” “kinds of,” “sort of”
-Introduce a striking visual image & make every sentence a short argument
-holding jobs–>keeping jobs
-Be sharp & clear
-Make your language CLEAR like still water
🙂
-Fire alarm :(( do not watch baseball upstairs if you make fire in the fireplace downstairs.
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11/6 Notes
Why doesn’t the professor assign group work?
“Working to help improve Science Teaching Efforts since 2008”
How can we add more evidence to support this sentence??
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Class Notes: 11/06/24
-Group writing task are so stupid because one person always puts in all the work and the other gets a good grade from doing nothing. Good thing is that Hodges doesn’t like it either, so we all not have group writings. YAY
How to Fix a Slogan:
-The original one states they are trying to improve their teaching efforts, but they never did. They are spending years to try to “Help Improve Science Teaching Efforts” instead of just improving the science teaching efforts.
Two better slogans we came up with:
-Acing science test through better science teaching since 2008
-Teaching the future of science since 2008
-Demonstrably Better Learning since 2008- the better one
Not Because
-A sentence that follows a negative verb is bad because it ends up creating confusion when the audience reads it. Take out the negative and keep the positive words in our writing, by doing this the readers will be able to understand our writing more. Being bold and direct in general helps our writing to be specific, allowing the readers to see what exactly is going on and why they should agree.
-Taking out because will improve it^ even better
-Using the word “for” will help a lot to eliminate because
Robust Subjects and verbs
-Sentences that start with “There is” or “there are” or “it is” is toxic. “Is” is the weakest verb, so don’t say what is going on instead add a robust action. This will allow our writing to come alive and not sound dull.
-Finding a robust subjects and adding more active verbs will elevate our writing.
Taco!
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11/6
Fix the Slogan
Not Because
Robust Subjects and Verbs
Because is a gorgeous and indispensable word. Its meaning following a verb using NOT is ambiguous, however. Not its fault.
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11/6/24 Class notes
I think you mean: Don’t waste a sentence telling readers ONLY what something IS.
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Mongoose Notes – 11/6/2024
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Class Notes – 11/06
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Class Notes 11/06/2024
Writing Skills
– (Use of Negative Verbs)
Bad: I don’t love you because you’re beautiful.
Good: I love you, but not because you’re beautiful
Best: I love you for your beauty and your generous heart.
Using NOT BECAUSE instead
Huh?
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Class notes 11/6/24
There is/ there are/ it is – are toxic I definitely use this in my writing so I will have to improve and fix.
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11/6
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Class notes:
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Class Notes 11/6/24
Use positive and direct language. Don’t remove yourself from the result. The slogan given tells us that the association was three times removed from the results by using words and phrases like “working to,” “helping,” and “efforts.” These remove blame but they also remove credit. They remove your effect on the issue entirely.
The use of negatives is a dangerous game. They often confuse the issue and don’t get to the true point. Adding more is even worse. No double negatives.
Eliminate as many phrases like “there are” or “there is” or “it is” as possible. They are neutral. Your essay is not. Make your claim and frame the information however you want.
Love the brevity and clarity of these Notes.
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Class notes 11/6:
Why I don’t assign “Group Writing” tasks- hate the process, instead had the students assign their own grades
Wake Up: How to Fix a Slogan- slogan should be concise, make sense, attention grabbing, statistics, Increased learning about science since 2008
Writing Skills:
Not Because- don’t follow negative verb with because this leads to confusion,
1. Coats was fired for violating workplace policy against using marijuana, not for the legitimate use of a prescription.
2. No employer should be able to fire an employee who is taking the correct medication to deal with anxiety.
3. In Colorado marijuana is legal like alcohol, but employees don’t get fired for going out and having a few beers after work, so why would they for marijuana?
7. The swift actions of Secret Service agents prevented Omar Gonzalez from penetrating deep into the White House.
8. The Secret Service is being compelled to explain its actions due to how the breach of the White House occurred, not how it responded.
9. Secret Service chief Julia Pierson’s incompetence revealed during her testimony before Congress might cost her job.
Robust Subjects and Verbs- avoid repetitiveness, be direct
Assignments:
Robust Verbs 11/10
Nice
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Class Notes 11/6
-Group assignments often are unfair to grade given the work isn’t split well
-To fix the slogan it is better to improve science learning not teaching efforts or simply teaching.
-Always start with “I love you” as people will not listen after hearing “I don’t love you” first. Sometimes the first words that are stated in a sentence can overpower the rest and an audience will not hear past the first thing they heard therefore your point won’t come across.
-Coats was fired for violating workplace policy against using a company-banned substance, not for the legitimate use of prescribed marijuana.
-If a person is on the correct medication for anxiety then an employer is not able to fire them.
*No employer should be able to fire an employee who is taking the correct medication to deal with anxiety.
-In Colorado marijuana is legal, but so is alcohol and employees don’t get fired for going out and having a few beers.
*In Colorado, employers can fire employees for off-hours use of marijuana, but not for drinking alcohol, both legal.
*The swift actions of the Secret Service agents prevented Omar Gonzalez from penetration deep into the White House.
*The Secret Service is being compelled to explain how the breach of the White House occurred, not two it responded.
-Secret Service chief Julia Pierson testimony before Congress won’t cost her her job, but her incompetence might.
*Secret Service chief Julia Pierson incompetence might cost her her job, not her testimony before Congress.
-By sentences should not be in second draft unless perfectly constructed.
Do you know what “by sentences” are weeks later?
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Notes:
We are on the cusp of no truth? Truth-iness? Truth-ish? Zoinks, Jinkies, and Rut-Roh Scooby! That is like democracy’s greatest weakness! The people can only make good choices with good information. You poison the information; you poison the decision.
Fun fact Socrates was not a fan of democracy. His criticisms were aimed at the general public and claimed that they lacked the intelligence and decision-making skills for a well-functioning democracy. Socrates furthermore claimed that democracy hallmarks a latter phase of a declining state, which eventually becomes so unbearable that people will welcome a tyrant to save them. Bold claims. Happy election day everyone?
——
Group assignments. Ah yes, the classic “Let’s put random people into a room and tell them to work together, because it sounds good on paper.” Who here has played Overwatch? League of Legends? Who here knows the pain of team members fighting amongst each other more than the enemy? Do those classic renditions of “I am carrying the team, and you are doing nothing!” or “You are not doing your job!” or “You are throwing away the game by choosing [insert hero]” give you the same level of PTSD they gave me? Rarely do you get a random group of strangers in a room that all click together (You better friend those people and treasure them!). Just like in video games, “teams” and “teamwork” is a difficult thing. Companies spend entire weeks dedicated to helping build teams, trust, teamwork, and comradery! Gray hair school administrators justify such assignments as “prepping students for the real world.” But does it? In my experience school group projects just turn into a group of lone wolves.
—-
National Association of people trying to help other people to try. Sounds legit.
This is how most workshops or seminars have felt to me. Just a bunch of people yapping on stage about doing something but no actual actions or results. Some obvious generic stuff like bullying [insert minority] is bad with the solution being “Don’t do it.”, then an applause like we cured cancer or something. Could you imagine if someone came on stage and said the solution to poverty was “Don’t do it.”?! I once time attended a workshop for wills and passing on assets (for free college credits). every segment of the lecture ended with “it’s complicated so get a lawyer.”, then they had the nerve to pass out a pamphlet about their law-firm! I sat and got credits for listening to an infomercial for an hour and a half! We accomplished nothing. I learned nothing. Is doing nothing a job I can get paid for? I have no problem getting paid for narcissistically hearing myself speak for an hour while achieving nothing.
Oh yea, we also tried to modify the NSTA motto to sound better. It was hard. Like going into a job interview without any credentials hard. Having stuff under your belt helps with those mottos. Or you can just hire an advertising firm for some two- or three-word motto that fits into people’s curtailed attention span. “Live happy.” “We got it” “You’re home”.
—-
Last part of class we worked on fire drills, *ahem* I mean worked on sentence composition. Really, really, weird sentence composition. Look, I spitball these notes to produce an informal style of writing for my own amusement, because why wouldn’t I want my own notes to be fun?! When it comes paper time however, I can switch to a formal style of writing. These sentences we were looking at in class were previously constructed by former students and wow were they informal. Like a stream of consciousness on paper. As any phycologist will tell you when people are putting their thoughts together or trying to recount something they do not do so linearly. They may go forwards, then backward, then forwards again, then sideways. in their recounting. These streams of consciousness on paper we were presented are readable enough (Thanks Twitter/X users for lowering the bar.), but in a formal paper come off odd at best, or ambiguous of subject at worst.
The pattern I saw was a reliance on frequently used phrases. There are socially acceptable ways of speaking where such phrases can be stringed together to get a meaning across. However, when each word is not looked at as a group of phrases or manner of speaking, but induvial words instead, the sentences’ grammar or syntax looks off. This lesson reminded me a lot of the “Commas save lives!” lesson every student gets taught in English class, where a single comma can change the meaning of a sentence.
The other pattern I saw was fixing sentences by replacing “because” with “for”. I haven’t really sat down and thought about why this works, but it does, and the professor likes this. He also likes simplifying the sentence and removing ambiguity for readability and clarity.
“Let’s eat, Grandma!”
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wasn’t fired because he was using a legal drug, marijuana, for a legitimate purpose for which he had a prescription. He was fired for violating workplace policy.Nice
Nurgle. 🙂
The good thing about “don’t knowingly discriminate” is that it makes two big claims in three words.
Do they discriminate? You bet they do.
Do they do it on purpose? No.
Next: Should we give them a pass for discriminating mindlessly? or should we educate them to recognize their prejudice? and should we penalize them if they persist?
THREE WORDS!
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Based on the NSTA slogan “Working to Improve Science Teaching Efforts since 2008” can translate different take aways. It’s the question of what needs to be improving, than what’s helping to improve which that slogan could mean that the company wants to help at the bare minimum. Showing results than what is being worked on can help readers to understand their claims, and what they do.
Starting with a negative verb can prevents readers to read the reason a further because it can lead to confusion and miscommunication. You can reword or reorganized the sentence to prevent the use of the word because in the sentence. From putting the cause with a negative word that is followed up with because for the effect can be confusing. However, most cases with the word because can be replaced with the word for to show the cause and the effect more smoothly. We did examples of fixing sentences that has the words of not and because.
The phrase there is, there are, and it is are toxic elements when forming beginning sentences. The word “is” is the weakest verb which could make the sentence less impactful.
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NSTA
I believe that an easy way to show is rewards.
Teaching future of Science
Negative Because
I love you not just for your beauty
Best: I love you for your beauty and generous heart.
It is the best because it is straight forward the point and makes a claim
Fire Alarm
Purging Toxic Elements
There is/ There are/ It is
Weakest verb of them all making weak sentences. Finding a better action.
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Fix the slogan
Not Because
Robust Subject and Verbs
Good advice
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11/6
We’re kind of living in the age of “truth-ish”, aren’t we? Where facts seem more like guidelines than hard lines, and what we call truth might just be “truthiness” at best. It’s like democracy’s kryptonite! Think about it: how can we make good decisions if the information we base those decisions on is warped? It’s like trying to make a cake with bad ingredients you’re not going to end up with a cake, you’re going to end up with a disaster. It’s not like this concept is new, either. Socrates, the ancient philosopher, wasn’t exactly a fan of democracy. He thought most people didn’t have the smarts to make the right choices for the greater good. In fact, he saw democracy as the final stage of a society in decline until, eventually, the people would be so fed up they’d welcome a tyrant to “fix” things. Pretty wild, right? But maybe that’s worth thinking about, especially come election season.
Ah, group assignments everyone’s favorite form of academic torture. You’ve been there, right? A random group of people thrown together, expected to collaborate like some sort of dream team. Anyone who’s ever played League of Legends or Overwatch knows the pain of teammates who spend more time arguing than actually doing anything. You know the drill: “I’m carrying the team!” or “You’re ruining the game!” It’s the same in class projects. You rarely get a group that just clicks. But when it happens, it’s like a rare, precious gem you’ll hold onto forever. Most of the time, though, it’s a bunch of lone wolves trying to make it work. Schools like to say these projects teach us how to work in the real world, but let’s be real—most of the time, it’s just a lesson in frustration. It’s hard to build trust and teamwork when half the group is MIA or just doing their own thing.
And then there are those workshops. You know, the ones that promise to “change your life” but end up just being an hour-long commercial for whatever company is running them. I once sat through a free college-credit workshop about wills and estate planning. Each segment ended with the same advice: “It’s complicated, so you should definitely hire a lawyer.” Like, wow, thanks for the groundbreaking insight! By the end, I hadn’t learned anything useful, except that I was sitting through an infomercial disguised as a seminar. Oh, and they handed out pamphlets for their law firm too. As if that was the solution to all my problems. It’s like those feel-good mottos everyone loves to create “Live happy” or “You’re home” . Short, sweet, and meaningless if you don’t have anything to back it up. So, yeah, workshops like that make me wonder: is doing nothing a job I could actually get paid for?
WTF?
Did you really just completely copy and paste a classmate’s Notes?
Unbelievably dumb for someone whose work has earlier been called into question.
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11/6
Good to know you were laughing “inside,” lil.sapph.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you come close to laughing “outside.”
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Class Notes 11/6
Creating More Accomplished Scientists
Nice
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