Apostrophes and thinking about reading

We started today with a quick quiz on apostrophes. Remember that there are different uses for the apostrophe. The purpose, though, was to draw your attention to the BBC Skillswise site which is a useful place to go to revise your writing and reading skills. It also has resources on numeracy.

We then started to look at the differences between tabloid and broadsheet newspapers. You came up with some good examples of both. You made the point that tabloids tend to focus on issues to do with celebrity and entertainment. They can often exaggerate and use emotive language. Broadsheets, on the other hand, are often more interested in world affairs and social issues. They are, you said, more informative, formal and more complex.

You started on a practice reading assessment - I'll give you feedback on that next week.

Thoughts on University Open Day in the Music Box

I'd be interested to know people's thoughts on the little trip that we had down to the University Open Day. Did anyone find out anything useful? Did it help make anything clear for anyone? Any thoughts at all on your next steps?

Reflecting on and preparing for discussion

Today we started off by looking back to the group work on Personal Statements that you were involved in last week.

I've made some comments on that in a previous post.

You will be doing more group discussion next week.

I asked everyone to choose a website that is useful for job or course hunting. Everyone will be talking about these sites next week. You need to talk about what's on the site and evaluate the site as a resource.

Everyone completed a worksheet on their chosen site in preparation for the discussion activity next week.

Student's choice of websites

Nicola: www.reed.co.uk

Sinead: www.jobs.stv.tv

Scott: www.scottishlegaljobs.com

Dale: www.monster.co.uk

Alex: www.s1jobs.com

Andrew: www.s1jobs.com

Kitlei: www.scotcareers.co.uk

Paul: www.s1jobs.co.uk

Stuart: www.monster.co.uk

Shahrzad: www.jobsearch.co.uk

Ameera: www.jevc.ac.uk

Gemma: www.west-lothian.ac.uk

Group work on personal statements

On the 30 October we looked at two personal statements for students applying to university. We looked at the strength and weaknesses of the two statements. One came out clearly on top - mainly because of its clear paragraphing and writing.

What I was also interested in was how people organised themselves in groups. I stood back a bit from the groups to observe how you organised yourself. Some groups worked very efficiently while other groups got a bit side-tracked from their objective.

On the whole, though, your interpersonal skills as a class are good. Sometimes it just takes a bit of confidence to be the one to get your group back on track.

Thanks for your evaluations - they were insightful and honest.

Continuing with written work

Today we continued with various pieces of writing. Some people were working on the job profiles and others were working on CVs. Not everyone is at the same place, but that's fine - you may need to catch up with pieces of work in your spare time.

A few people were looking at Personal Statements. They were looking at two examples of Personal Statements from students applying to university. We will continue with this after the October break. The purpose of analysing these statements is to give you ideas about your own Personal Statements.

We talked a little bit about the oral assessment component of the course and the various ways that that can be done. We will be starting to look at that soon.

Writing up job profiles

Today most people moved from the research stage to the writing stage. Next week will be our last week before the October holiday, so I am keen that everyone completes, at least, these profiles before we break up.

Just to remind everyone. the profile is based on the research you've done on the Careers Scotland website and any research you've done on the colleges in Edinburgh .

We looked at some of the sites for colleges in Edinburgh and at times finding information can be difficult. What we were doing there was analysing and evaluating the sites. We will come back to this idea of analysing and evaluating texts again.

Some people moved on from the profile task and started looking at their CVs and personal statements. Resources on CVs and Personal Statements can be found in the Useful Links section of this blog.

Researching jobs

Today we started work on some research into various occupations that interest you. I explained that the goal is for you to produce a series of documents which will help you in the development of your career and education (job profile; CV; personal statements).

We did some research using the Careers Scotland (see useful links section on right-hand-side) website and I asked everyone to take notes on what they were finding out. These notes will be used to help write a profile of that particular job (this will be part of the portfolio of work you produce for communication).

We will continue researching and writing these profiles next week.

I also asked people to being in a CV if they had one.

Getting started

Today, at last, we were able to get started with the unit. I gave a brief overview of the aims of the unit: what you will be doing in class is developing your writing, reading, listening, talking and critical thinking skills. Each of you will develop a portfolio of work which reflect your skills in these areas.

We got things started by looking at a presentaion/pitch from the Dragons' Den series. Although the hopeful entrepeneur impressed the dragons with her ideas, she turned them off completely by her presentation style – they would like to have invested but would not have liked to work with her. So, although the content of her pitch was impressive, the style let her down. We often think that content is the only thing that matters – but very often it is the way we present ourselves (in person and in writing) that matters just as much (if not more).


Between four groups we developed a summary and evaluation of this pitch:






















So as much as I am interested in the content of work that you produce, I am also interested in how you present your work.

A few things we learned today on top of all this:

1. The correct use of the apostrophe in Dragons’ Den

Dragons’ Den = The den of the dragons

Dragon’s Den = The den of the dragon

2. The difference between a summary and an evaluation.

3. The origin of the phrase "Bob's your uncle".