Assign the question to the students. Have them write 500 words about what quality is in thought and statement. For many students the assignment has a shocking effect that makes them more responsive to the word later on in the course. Instructors should try the assignment themselves first to know what the shock is like.
=============== Good idea, Bob, I'll give it a try. Problem though, when the instructor has already stuffed the student's head with ideas about that very question, it's hard to imagine any hope that the student is going to be able to say too much of surprising interest in such gone-over ground, thus little hope of any "shock", but here goes. 500 words translates to a bit more than thirty lines, in the window I've got open now. That means three paragraphs of ten lines each and I'm already more than half done with the first. No problem, professor. Quality in thought and statement. That's a tough one, it really is. There's lots of surface stuff - accuracy in grammer, logical construction, rhythmically dextrous vocabulary , pulse of words - poeisi of ideas which beguile and persuade, but when I say any work is really good I mean more than all that. Quality in expression, in my experience, signifies a match with my needs. Something I'm looking for without even knowing it. Hopeful signs that there are answers to my questions; signifying a prodding to my progress. Connecting me, with words, with some other person on the other side of all words and signs, whose words make sense - and that same sense is in me. Evidently its also in them. A shared sense then. A connection beyond mere grammer's purview or control. Quality in thought and statement, is a shared sense. There's this guy on this forum I belong to, goes by "Xacto" who said it most succinctly (but then he wasn't addressing the challenge of producing 500 words on the topic at the time, merely the Fear of Death) I think the best explanations are those that help us redefine our reasons each time. -Ron And I'd only add, "for the better". We redefine our reasons, for better reasons. That's Quality in thought and statement and I can't describe it any better than that. Even to fulfill the conditions of the assignment. I'd rather sacrifice an 'A" than screw up good rhetoric with padding. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
