Breakthrough Writer

Compelling News Story: Teenage Girl Runs for Her Life

Heart-breaking NPR story with a happing ending . . . I hope.

Starting in Fall of 2012 the First 2 Quizzes Will be Closed-Book In-Class

To encourage more careful reading and comprehension and to get a base-line of the students' prose style and linguistic acquistion, I am going to make the first 2 quizzes in-class and closed-book.

Students cannot make-up the quizzes unless they have medical documentation and then they will have to make-up a quiz from a reading later in the sememster, either taking the make-up quiz in my office during Week 11 or Week 15.

Jury Duty Is Over: McMahon Back on Tuesday

I'm back, everyone. 

McMahon Has to Serve Jury Duty on Monday, April 2: Email Your Essays

I have to go to jury duty Monday, so don't show up with your essays. Instead, email me your papers. Remember to send a Word attachment.

Hope to be back Tuesday. 

Don't Text in Class

 

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy

Are we evil or do our brains meltdown for various reasons? Check out the article "How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy."

McMahon Classrooms for Spring 2012 Semester

McMahon's 1A classes meet in H209; his English 1C classes meet in H301. 

McMahon Not Coming Back to Class Until Thursday

A brutal chest cold rendering me unable to speak with sufficient force in the classroom compelled me to call in sick. Thursday is my target for return. 

Reminder to English 1A Students: Monday, December 5, your quiz is due in my office. On December 7, you have a consultation in my office with your choice of personal chimera and thesis. 

Need a Book Change in English 1A for Spring of 2011

Probably time to hang up one of the most liked books in 1A, Jeff Henderson's Cooked. I suspect the student essays are getting recycled from previous semesters, handed down to new students.

Perhaps I'll replace Cooked with Jim Gorant's The Lost Dogs. The assignment will be this:

Analyze the causes of our lowest and highest humanity as they are evident in the book.

Or maybe I'll use Tokyo Vice and have students analyze the narrator's character growth. 

New Grading Template in McMahon's Composition Classes Will Start Spring Semester 2012

Out of 40 students, only about 10% come to my 1A and 1C classes prepared: having read the assigned readings. 

These 90% Non-Readers have forced me to create a new grading template, which will start in Spring of 2011.

Here it is:

3 surprise quizzes, 40 points each for 120 total. (No possibility for make-up)

4 take-home quizzes, 25 points each for 100 total.

4 5-page research papers, 195 points each for 780 total.

Grand total: 1,000 points.