How many words are in a one million word essay
What follows is an examination of what the Million Words activity is, why I think it works so well, and the specific letter I'm using to introduce the assignment to parents this school year.
So you're teaching from a distance and you'd like a non-invasive (dare I say pleasant?) method for gaining insight into your students, their homes, and their families. The best, most sensitive, most inviting method I know for this kind of thing is Deborah Bova's Million Words activity. While this assignment's utility is not limited to distance teaching scenarios — as I'll share, Million Words has a long history on the teacher interwebs — I do find it uniquely helpful during these times.
The story goes that back in 2003, teacher Deborah Bova introduced something she called the Million Word essay to colleagues on a now-inactive listserv at MiddleWeb. Though the listserv doesn't exist anymore, .
Million words or less parent letter | TPT
Questions: 1
Time: limited by life
Required: No less than ONE MILLION WORDS as your answerINSTRUCTIONS:Note: Do not answer until you get to the test question.Instead of thinking of things being cool, or proper, or "the right way," think of how you want them to be.
The other day I was talking to my partner, Todd, as we commuted on the MBTA (red line represent!) He asked how many books I’d written. I began the sophisticated process of counting on my hands. Nine. I’ve written (not had published, mind you) nine books. Each book takes at least 100,000 words because I tend to overwrite, and then edit with a machete in later drafts. I did the math. 9 books x 100,000 = 900,000 words. Add in all my short stories, the teenage poems, the essays, the screenplay, and the started-but-never-finished novels. Damn. I have written a million words. Well over a million words.
A few teachers offered cautions or suggestions you might consider before doing this activity. They suggested that you should be aware that some parents might see the activity as a burden or "none of your business." If you approach the activity with the knowledge that you might have a parent or two who will resist, however, and if parents are invited, not directed, to participate, the Million Words activity can be an extremely valuable tool.
I'm writing this letter in response to the assignment you gave the parents of your new ninth-grade English students. "Would you please, in a million words or less, tell me about your child . . . "
Million Word Essay Prompt: Parent/Guardian Version ..
"The Million Words assignment helped students recognize that I cared about more than their grades," said Kate Geisen. "From discussions I had later with parents and students, I learned that some of the letters I received were team efforts -- that parents wrote and students reminded them to 'Tell her this... tell her...'"
[PDF] One Million English Words
Writing can be a huge gift to our descendants. I remember tearing up and feeling closer to my grandfather than ever when my grandma showed me some of the letters he wrote to her when they were young. When he passed away, he left us troves of his writing — from the mundane to the meaningful — and I feel connected to him whenever I read his words. Writing makes this possible, and it is writing that keeps his memory alive. I think there’s something transcendent about creating a durable record for the future — it fulfills a similar longing to the desire to have children.
[PDF] In a million words or less, please tell me about your child!
Teacher Kate Geisen found the Million Word essay idea to be an extremely valuable one. "It was a good initial contact with parents," added Kate Geisen. "It demonstrated to them that I cared about knowing who their children were. It gave me a heads up on student interests and family situations. And it gave parents a chance to share anything else they thought was important about their child and to brag on them a little. What parent doesn't like to shout to the world how wonderful their child is?"
How Many Pages Is 1,000,000 Words
A large quantity of words might be even tougher to surround in one’s mind. Let’s get beside those abstract ideas and let’s try to answer the following question : What does 1 million words really look like?
How Many Pages Is a 1,000,000 Word Essay or Paper
Last summer, teacher Deborah Bova introduced the Million Word essay to teachers on the . It was an idea she had used for the first time more than ten years ago. "At the onset of the year," Bova wrote in Middling Matters, a publication of the ["A Million Words" Tool to Connect With Parents, "I prepare a simple handout, on which I ask parents to 'in a million words or fewer, tell me about your child.' Parents do the rest."