Wrasselings

Openings in Composition 2

2011-09-05T11:40:00.002-04:00

The shiftings of enrollments at Veritas Press Scholars Academy have resulted in my having openings in three of my course sections, at 8:00 a.m., 12:30 p.m., and 2:00 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. We do not begin our first class until this Wednesday, so I'd love to see your enrollment if you'd like to join me! Chris Finnegan also has openings in her sections on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Visit

Last Day for 10% Discount!

2011-08-09T22:28:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, August 10th, is the last day for the 10% discount I am offering on all new orders for the school year. Please email me at cindymarsch@writingassessment.com if you'd like to ask any questions! www.writingassessment.com

Partial Discount Extension

2011-08-02T09:42:00.000-04:00

I've decided to offer a 10% discount on new orders through August 10, so you didn't miss yesterday's deadline altogether. :-) Please email me at CindyMarsch@writingassessment.com if you have any questions. www.writingassessment.com

Today's the Last Day!

2011-08-01T09:21:00.000-04:00

Today is August 1, the last day to get a 20% discount on orders for the new school year! Go here to learn more: Writing Assessment Services

Great Advertisement Language

2011-07-22T16:18:00.000-04:00

We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines. I saw this ad in a magazine and tore it out, but the online version is more accessible to my students and readers here. Here you go! Isn't this a good extended metaphor?

Ten Days Left for Discounts!

2011-07-22T11:51:00.000-04:00

Just a reminder that you have until August 1 to place an order with Writing Assessment Services for the new school year and receive a 20% discount. Remember, too, that outstanding word count balances on last year's accounts can be rolled over into the new school year with an additional order. Summer's not quite over yet, but Fall is coming soon!

A Little Testimony

2011-07-13T18:35:00.000-04:00

One of my almost eighty students at Veritas Press Scholars Academy online this past year wrote me a very sweet thank-you note at the end of the year, accompanied by a great handmade card. She gave me permission to share it here, the student's view of the value of Composition 2. (About four of the six sections for 2011-2012 are full, but a couple of them still have seats. My colleague Chris

Discounts for Summer!

2011-06-10T11:50:00.000-04:00

Register for a course or evaluation account at Writing Assessment Services by August 1 and enjoy a 20% discount! I am free to work with students over the summer, too--get a jump start on your school year! Ask yourself about your home school or even your own writing goals . . . Do we want to get started in the fundamentals of rhetoric to improve writing, practicing skills as basic as writing a

Christopher Hitchens and the KJV

2011-04-07T08:34:00.000-04:00

Vanity Fair has an article by famous atheist Christopher Hitchens celebrating the King James Bible. Thanks to almohler.com for pointing it out. An excerpt: Tyndale, incidentally, was generally good on the love question. Take that same Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, a few chapters later. For years, I would listen to it in chapel and wonder how an insipid, neuter word like “charity”

A Celebration of Words

2011-04-02T08:08:00.001-04:00

This year is the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, and I invite you to celebrate with me by reading this delicious essay, "In the Beginning Was the Sound," by Ann Wroe, from Intelligent Life, a division of The Economist online. Here's a taste: English, of course, was richer in those days, full of neesings and axletrees, habergeons and gazingstocks, if indeed a gazingstock has a plural.

Detail Mather's

2011-04-01T13:22:00.000-04:00

A fun punctuation lesson from catalogliving.net .

Irony and Romance

2011-03-17T08:32:00.002-04:00

A student in one section of Composition 2 at Veritas Press Scholars Academy (enrolling now, by the way!) today asked if the typical romantic comedy is ironic, and, if so, what kind of irony it represents—dramatic, verbal, or situational. (This question comes from our current assignment in irony, Chapter 13 in The Lively Art of Writing). I’d say it’s dramatic irony in that we the audience know

Article on Teaching/Learning the Progymnasmata

2011-02-17T08:03:00.000-05:00

Hot off the presses, the Spring 2011 issue of Classis, the journal of the Association of Classical and Christian Schools. It's a great issue all around, with the theme "Words and Writing," but I am honored to have my Progymnasmata instruction mentioned in the piece by Amy Kim, "Pro-gym-nas-what? . . ." A couple of years ago I helped develop the writing curriculum for Amy's school in Spokane,

Successful Student!

2011-02-10T20:25:00.000-05:00

Boy, it's dusty in here, mostly because I've been working on other things, like teaching eighty students online six hours two days a week. Yeah, and homeschooling a seventh grader. One day I want to write more, like a former student who took my Progymnasmata course just to get some writing practice and consider whether she might want to teach high school writing. But then Lisa Ohlen Harris

Here's a Writing Exercise For You!

2010-10-28T17:00:00.000-04:00

Enjoy! Explaining the Internet to Oliver Twist

Whence This Quote?

2010-09-15T19:19:00.000-04:00

I'm reading a book right now with this fun line: "Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole." Can you identify it? I'll reveal the source later. Hint: the copyright is 1937.

Discouragement Remedied

2010-09-11T08:22:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Andrew Kern of the CiRCE Institute, an educational enterprise, for the article "Freshman Comp, Then and Now." R.V. Young describes freshman composition as a course begun after WWII when college professors realized students had simply not been taught to write, nor to think, in high school. He started teaching freshman comp as a young professor in the early 70's, and he describes a

Grammar Funnies

2010-07-16T07:20:00.001-04:00

Here are some grammar funnies I want to save: The Writer's Den: "Grammar," quoting a piece in Physics Review Letters, of all things, in 1979! Ancient history! (And the year I went to college.) My favorites: 12. Don't use commas, which are not necessary. 18. As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong. 20. In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely not

Writing Like Mary Shelley

2010-07-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I discovered that I write like Daniel DeFoe and a couple of other folks, at least . . . Today my recent high school graduate daughter Betsy tried the test for herself, using an assignment she wrote for me this year for our local home school study center. The class used the Veritas Press Omnibus III: Reformation to the Present assignment based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or The

I Write Like . . .

2010-07-14T16:25:00.000-04:00

Who do you write like? I write like Daniel DefoeI Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing! Here's the passage upon which that judgment is based: "Ghosts" Why do we persist, so many through the generations, in straining our souls’ eyes and our flesh to discern a touch from those beyond death? Why a séance, a gasp at a breeze? Why do we imagine that a

New Offerings at Writing Assessment Services

2010-07-14T10:36:00.003-04:00

I've just been working on my website for Writing Assessment Services and have some new things to announce:Online course areas at CRTeacher.com combine previous courses to give you more flexibility.Great Books Writing Workshop has over thirty assignments to choose from, from antiquity to modernity.Progymnasmata Tutorials include all levels for more choices, plus all three of my

Humor and History

2010-07-14T07:50:00.002-04:00

I was going to post this to Facebook, but then I realized I'd have people responding who just don't "get it." So I'm going to post this here, where I can warn you in an instructive sort of way that this is a humorous blog entry that makes great use of the irony of reality. If you scroll through the comments (skipping the one with the bad words) to the one by a German who doesn't "get it,"

Father's Day Cartoon Card

2010-07-06T11:38:00.004-04:00

A fun Father's Day card from my artist-daughter Betsy to her physicist-father Glenn. I just had to share it somewhere! (Click on the image to see it decently.)

Writing Rules from C.S. Lewis

2010-06-29T20:43:00.004-04:00

Thanks to Tammy and back to Jennifer for this link: 8 Writing Tips from C.S. Lewis My favorite? Write only about things that interest you. If you have no interests, you won't ever be a writer. As the teacher of students who may not be interested in what they're assigned, I would add that we can MAKE interesting most of the things we need to write about. I think that's part of the idea behind

Gorgeous Website of Art in Willa Cather's Works

2010-06-28T13:09:00.005-04:00

If you've ever read Death Comes for the Archbishop, you can just see how the opening scene comes from the painting above. Very cool. Now I'm excited about this website that collects a number of works related to Cather's books! Thanks so much to my friend Lyn in NC for posting this.