Valentine's Day

             Most people around the world celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14th each year. In the United States, the day is about celebrating love and friendship. For some people, it is about romantic love, a time for a boyfriend to buy red roses and a box of chocolates for his girlfriend. Or a husband takes his wife to dinner and a movie.  For children, the day is about friendship. In elementary school, children give Valentine cards and little candy hearts to the other children in their class and to their teachers.

What do people do on Valentine's Day in your country?

Cell phone slaves?

          I saw the image below on the Internet the other day and starting thinking about cell phones. When I look around and observe how most people use their cell phones, it makes we wonder if we are becoming addicted to our phones, or maybe we are becoming slaves to our cell phones and technology in general. On the college campus where I teach, I see that most of the students are constantly checking their cell phones for text messages, email, surfing the net, whatever. I don't see them talking to each other that much. Each of them is checking his or her cell phone and ignoring the people nearby. Most people have Smartphones. I have a Dumbphone for phone calls and text messages. I know a professor at Ivy Tech who doesn't own a cell phone. He borrows his wife's cell phone if he needs to make a call. Of course, technology makes our lives easier, but can we also become slaves to that same technology?  Is there a dark side of technology? Twenty years ago, no one had a cell phone. Now everyone has one. Is this a good thing?  What do you think?

Describing a car

                                    My First Car

          I will never forget my first car and my first girl friend, which were both beautiful in their own ways. I was only 15 years old when I got my driver's license and I couldn't wait to have my own car. It was a 1956 Chevy. This was a car that any cool guy my age would want to have. I was very lucky, because my uncle was a car salesman at a Chevrolet dealership, and one of his best customers, an old lady, traded in the car to buy a new one. She had kept the car in her garage most of the time, and seldom drove it, so it only has 20,000 miles on it. It was beautiful, maroon and white. My uncle told me he would sell it to me for only $500 dollars, a great deal. I had saved $250 from working on the weekends and my mother gave me the other $250. I paid her back later. The body was perfect, not even a scratch, and the interior was almost like new, with black and white upholstery and nice black carpet on the floor.  It was a four-door car, with an automatic transmission, and bench seats in the front and back. These were the only things that weren't perfect about the car. A "perfect" 1956 Chevrolet for a teenager in those days would have only two doors, bucket seats in the front, and a standard transmission on the floor. But it was close enough to perfect for me. Let me tell you, it was easy to get a pretty girlfriend with a car like that. I felt like the coolest guy in high school when I was driving around with my girlfriend, Mary Ann. And I went on a date every weekend with her in my car.  The car was in such excellent condition that I drove it through four years of high school, put it in my mother's garage for four years while I was in the Navy, and drove it through college. Then it finally died when I finished college,  I felt like I had lost an old friend. Unfortunately, I don't have a single picture of that car, but I will put a link below so you can see a similar car. My next car was a 1970 orange Volkswagen bug. It was nice, but nothing would ever replace that beautiful 1956 Chevy. In conclusion, I will never forget my first car as long as I live, and sometimes I still dream about it, and Mary Ann. They were both beautiful. Do you remember your first car?

Click here to see a maroon and white 1956 Chevy. 56 Chevy

Process paragraphs

                             How to Write a Process Paragraph 

          Writing a process paragraph, which is also called a How To,  Directions, or Instructions paragraph, is easy to do if you follow certain steps.  First, the most important thing to think about as you write the paragraph is that you are describing steps in a process, explaining to the reader how to make or do something. For example, you might write a paragraph about how to ride a bicycle or how to make a decoration for a party. Second, every process involves following steps in order to correctly do or make it, so you need to use signal words to help the reader follow the process. For example, you will write about the steps using signal words like first, then, after that, next, and so on, to show the reader the order of the steps. Finally, the body of your paragraph begins with the first step of the process, which is to gather any materials and tools that you will need. For example, if you are writing about "How to Change the Oil in a Car" your first step will be to describe the things that you need to have before you change the oil, such as tools, several quarts of new oil, a new oil filter, a pan to drain the old oil into, and so on. In conclusion, writing a good process or "How To" paragraph isn't hard if you describe the steps one by one, use the correct signal words, and begin with the first step of gathering the tools and materials you will need for the process.

Paragraphs and pyramids

          Strong paragraphs, like strong pyramids, are based on the number three, and have certain similarities. First, paragraphs have three parts--beginning, middle, and end--and pyramids have three sides because the sides are triangles, not squares or rectangles. Writers know that strong paragraphs need to have three parts, and engineers know that pyramids are strong structures because they are based on triangles with three or four sides. For instance, writers know that if they leave out any of the three parts of a paragraph, it will not be strong.  And engineers know that a pyramid will support more weight than a typical four-sided structure. Second, you might say that both paragraphs and pyramids have a body. The body of the paragraph is the biggest part, between the beginning and the end. You could say that the inside of a pyramid is the "body" of the pyramid, and the biggest part, too. Finally, paragraphs and pyramids are both pleasing to read/look at because they seem complete. If you read a paragraph with no conclusion, you feel it is missing something. In the same way, if you look at a pyramid without triangular sides, you would say, "That's not a pyramid at all."  In conclusion, the structures of paragraphs and pyramids are similar because they are both based on the number three, and that basic characteristic makes them strong and well formed.

The power of three

          The number three and signal words are important in writing, and we can see this in how we write a good paragraph. First of all, a good paragraph has three parts; a topic sentence (beginning), a body (middle), and a concluding sentence (end). If the paragraph is missing any one of these essential parts in its organization, it won't be as easy for the reader to read and understand. Second, we need to use signal words to help the reader find the three parts. For example, in the body of the paragraph, we can make three points. We make it easier for the reader to find the three points by beginning each of the points in the body with signal words like first, second, and finally.  That makes it easier for the reader to find the three points and know exactly what they are.  You can think of these signal words as "flags" or "signs" that guide the reader through the paragraph, like a map. You should use signal words like for example and for instance to show the reader that you are giving an example or detail to support one of your three main points. Finally, at the end of the paragraph, you need to begin the concluding sentence with a word like in conclusion, in summary, or to conclude  and then summarize the main ideas in the paragraph. For example, you can restate the topic sentence in different words. In conclusion, a good rule for writing good paragraphs is to follow "the rule of three" and use signal words to make it easy for the reader to find the three parts.

Paragraph Organization

          A paragraph is a group of sentences about a topic that has a beginning, a middle and an end. A paragraph begins with a topic sentence that tells the reader what the topic is and what you are going to write about that topic.  The next part of the paragraph is the middle, or the body. In the body of the paragraph you write several sentences, usually at least three to five, that support your topic sentence and give examples and details about each point that you make. Finally, the end of the paragraph is called the concluding sentence. In this sentence you summarize what you wrote about in the paragraph. In conclusion, a good paragraph should have three parts; a topic sentence, a body with supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence.