“You know the meaning of ‘dull as dishwater’?” I asked a writing student the other day. I was using “dull as dishwater” to characterize many of the argumentative essay topics English teachers […]
Scoring high on the argumentative essay
Teach writing by dancing up a storm
Among the things I revisit to maintain my sense of wonder is this one-minute video clip dating back to the1970s showing the choreographer Balanchine teaching the great dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov the role […]
Polishing Secretary of Justice Teresa Cheng’s English
The letter was meant for the English-speaking world but it never saw the light of day there. Last month, after the Wall Street Journal published an editorial holding the Hong Kong courts […]
College application essay makeover
I came across this personal statement on the website of a mainland college prep agency that specializes in writing such documents on behalf of university applicants. Since the company displayed the piece […]
A beauty who aged like fine wine
It was the mother of a primary school classmate – a woman of uncommon good looks – who gave me my first inkling of the kind of power female beauty can command: […]
「理想的年代，美麗的人」
「你真像剛從片場走出來啊！」大街上有陌生人跟我說。
Setting the scene
The scene is to be filmed in a diner in Los Angeles, but the story is set in Manhattan. Solution? Place neon signs outside the eatery and drizzle down artificial rain, so […]
Writing conclusions that work
“A rope is made up of a huge number of fibres, but not a single fibre goes through its entire length. It’s the way the fibres overlap that creates the rope’s strength,” […]
