1st paragraph: Capture the moment better

Compare these two opening paragraphs:

1. Hi. How are you? I’m fine. I’m in class now, studying English and thinking of you.

2. Hi. How are you? I’m fine. I’m in writing class now, sitting by the window, writing a letter to you. It’s a gorgeous sunny day outside. I’m listening to my teacher talk in English, and I can’t understand what he is saying. I look outside and see birds flying above the trees and white puffy clouds floating in a bright blue sky. Next period is lunch time, so I can feel my stomach grumbling with hunger. I’m thinking about that delicious ham sandwich I’m going to eat in only 30 minutes! Yummy! In fact, I’m so hungry now I can’t concentrate on the lesson!

So, which is better, number 1 or number 2? Well, I hop you think number 2 is better! Why is it better? Here are a few reasons:

• It’s longer
• It describes the moment more clearly
• It uses the present continuous tense
• It uses many sensory adjectives

Paragraph 2: Telling a focused story

1. I had a very fun day yesterday. In the morning, I went shopping with my friend at Favore. We browsed around but didn’t buy very much. We ate lunch at Caprichoza, my favorite Italian restaurant. After that, we drove to Toyama City and went shopping around Nishi-cho. Then at night we went to a karaoke place to sing. We met some other friends and had a good time. 

2. I had a very interesting experience while shopping with Kozue at Favore yesterday. While we were walking by movie theater, a young woman was yelling at her two small children. She looked angry with them. They were making lots of noise by crying and arguing with each other. I felt kind of embarrassed for her, so I gave her a smile as I passed by. She looked back at me with an exasperated expression. Then suddenly she approached me and said she was planning on seeing a movie with her children, but since they were acting terribly, she didn’t want to go anymore. She asked us if we wanted to use her tickets. I looked at Kozue, and we decided right away to take them. We ended up watching Ponyo for free! It was real fun! 

Paragraph 3: Closing with questions

1. I have good friends here, but I miss you very much. Please come and visit me soon! I’m looking forward to going out together again. 

2. I have good friends here, but I miss you very much. I hope you are well! When will you come to visit me again? I want you to go out with my new friends. Where do you want to go when you come? Please let me know and I can arrange it. Take care, and write to me in English! Let’s practice.

To answer these and other questions, I’ve created a short online questionnaire. Please click on the following link and answer all of the questions. Please leave comments, as well. Use Japanese if you have to. I’m really interested in your honest answers and advice for how we can improve this course and make sure that all of you pass with flying colors!

Step 1: Follow this simple four-part structure:

1. Introduction: Define your interest in a few sentences. What is it you are interested in?
2. Short history: If possible, give a short history of your interest.
3. How you became interested: Tell a brief story of when and how you became interested in this thing.
4. Current activity: What are you doing these days regarding your interest?

Step 2: Read this model and follow it:

Snowboarding

Snowboarding is a very popular winter sport. People who snowboard, called “snowboarders”, attach both feet to a single board and ride down the slopes at a ski area. There are two main types of snowboarding: freestyle, which focuses on jumping and doing tricks in the air, and freeriding, which is focused on finding and crusing on soft, powder snow.

According to the Wikipedia, snowboarding developed in the United States in the 1960s and ’70s out of surfing and skateboarding. Surfers and skateboarders wanted to do a similar activity on the snow, so the sport was born. It became an official Olympic sport in 1998.

I became interested in snowboarding in the late 1990s. I was introduced to the sport by my wife, who wanted me to join her in this exciting new sport. My first few times out were very stressful! I fell down a lot, and it took me a while before I learned how to turn, stop, and control my speed. Later on I found out that my first board was no good because it was too small for someone my size. This made my learning experience more difficult than it had to be. The following season I got a new board, and suddenly everything was much easier. I began to snowboard like crazy, often going to Ushidake, Hida Nagareha (in Gifu Prefecture), and Myoko Suginohara (in Niigata). I was hooked on freeriding- I LOVED the feeling of flying and floating on soft new snow.

These days I continue to snowboard each winter. Now my son is learning to ride. Last year my wife and I taught him how to snowboard at Ushidake. Here is a short video clip of that experience. My son had a hard time at first, but soon he was zooming down the slopes. He was six years old when this video was made, so let this be my message- snowboarding is VERY fun and quick to learn! Once you can turn, control your speed, and stop, that’s it! I hope you will give snowboarding a try.

By now (early July 2008) all of you have your blogs set up and many of you have written a post or two. How is it going? Perhaps you are in need of some tips and advice for writing good blog posts. Well, you have come to the write place! Here are some tips for good blogging that I found during a Google search. The following list comes from the ProBlogger blog. We’ll go through it in class and I’ll help explain what each point means using easy English. 

Here are ten tips that help me with my blog writing.

1. Make your opinion known
2. Link like crazy
3. Write less
4. 250 Words is enough
5. Make Headlines snappy
6. Write with passion
7. Include Bullet point lists
8. Edit your post
9. Make your posts easy to scan
10. Be consistent with your style
11. Litter the post with keywords

1. Make your opinion known
People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what people think, crazy as it sounds they want to know what you think. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.

2. Link like crazy.
Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post.

3. Write Less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. Blast your knowledge into the reader at the speed of sound.

4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite.

5. Make Headlines snappy
Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.

6. Write with passion
If you write about things you are really interested in, your writing will be more interesting to your readers.  

7. Include bullet point lists
We all love lists, it structures the info in an easily digestible format.

8. Make your posts easy to scan
Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.

9. Be consistent with your style
People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it.

10. Litter the post with Keywords.
Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place.

11. Edit your post
Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and cut out the stuff that you don’t need.

I hope this list of tips helps you a bit. For some information in Japanese, just do a Google search. If you find some good Japanese blogging tips, please let me know!

1. Change your blog’s title and tag line

In your Dashboard, click Settings. Change your title, tag line, and then click Save Changes. A good title reflects your blog’s theme or focus. 

2. Decide on a cool design

Go to Design and pick a theme that you like. Remember that not all themes are the same- some you can change more than others. For example, if you want to put your own picture at the top (image header), look for the words “customizable header”. Themes with customizable header images have the Custom Image Header menu option. 

To change the header image, click Custom Header Image menu link > Choose File, find an image on your computer (in your class folder, for example), and then click Upload.

After your photo is uploaded, crop your image: 

Back in your Dashboard, click Visit Site and make sure your new header image looks good. If not, go back and repeat these steps until you are happy. Tip: Collect several images from the Internet in your class folder and change your blog’s look from time to time. 

Hey, the new image looks good, don’t you think? Can you guess where this photo was taken?

3. Arrange your layout widgets

Widgets are small sections of your blog. You can do many things with them. To add a widget to your blog, just go to Design > Widgets, then click Add for any widget you want. For now, set up the following sections in this order:

• Text
• Recent Posts
• Categories
• Archives
• Blogroll
• Meta

If you grab one of the blue widgets with your mouse, you can move them up or down. 

4. Edit the Text widget 

In the Text widget on the right, click the Edit link.

In the box, type a sentence or two about what your blog is about. For example: “Welcome to my cooking blog, a place I can share about my love for making Japanese food.” Take a look at how I wrote about this blog:

After you type in your text, click Change. Now you are done! People visiting your site will know easily what it is all about.

Thanks for reading this far! If you follow these simple steps, your blog will be all set for you to begin writing in it. Don’t forget, you can always come back and change something later. Your blog will change and grow as you gain confidence in yourself. 

Have fun, and don’t forget to help each other!

The first thing to do

The first thing you need to do is decide on a theme for your blog. What will you write about when you sit down at the computer? Having a basic topic and a clear purpose will make it easier for you. Your theme should be something you are interested in or passionate about. That way, when you blog, you are doing two things at once: spending time with your interest AND learning English. So, what are you into? Here are some of your classmates’ interests: 

• Music
• Biking
• Sports
• Fashion
• Movies
• Cooking
• Comedy
• Culture
• World Affairs

The 2nd thing to do

Once you get a general topic in mind, narrow it down. For example, if you like sports, what sport? If you like cooking, what kind of food? If you like movies, what kind of movies? If you love soccer, which team or player would you like to focus on? The narrower your focus, the easier it will be to write something.

The 3rd thing to do

Collect ideas on types of blog posts you would like to write. For example, if your topic is cooking, then you could:

• Publish your favorite recipes
• Write about a favorite dish
• Introduce good cooking websites
• Review a new restaurant

The 4th thing to do

Once you have an idea of what you want to write about and how, get your blog’s design into shape. Choose a theme you like, then arrange the layout. Of course, don’t forget to change the title and tag line! 

Last by not least

Finally, start blogging! Like the Nike ad says, “Just do it”. Try to post something, anything and just get started. Check with me or your classmates if you need ideas or inspiration. I will be happy to check your English before you post, or give you other suggestions. On this blog I will be posting tips and advice, so please stop by often. 

Good luck and happy blogging!