“The Mashey M. Bernstein ‘Future Writer’ Award.”

The UCSB Writing Program and Starting Lines are pleased to announce a new annual award titled “The Mashey M. Bernstein 'Future Writer' Award." It will be presented for the best essay published in Starting Lines from students in Writing 1 and Linguistics 12.  Dr. Bernstein taught in the Writing Program from 1991 to 2015 and had a special affection for Writing 1 and Starting Lines.  He wanted to honor and inspire students who had begun their journey at the university and who showed considerable promise as writers.  The selection will be made by a panel of judges and comes with a $500 dollar award.  The first award will be made at the Starting Lines Publication Party on Friday, October 11 (10:00-12:00 in the McCune Room 6th floor, South Hall.) Please join us to celebrate this welcome addition to our Program offerings....
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Ingrid Bowman: Five Devices Jigsaw Lesson

Background for this lesson: This lesson is designed as a follow-up after each student has hand-written a summary in class. (Our summaries were about a variety of presentations, but they could be about readings, video clips or more). Objective: By the end of this lesson, successful students will be able to identify three or more devices used in several Starting Lines essays. Then, they will edit their own summary (from the last class) by imitating at least three of these five devices reviewed. Reference: Starting Lines 2016 & 2017 editions, p. 52/ p. 48 (2017); p. 56-58 (2016). Many essays lend themselves to this task. Materials: Provide copies of each of the three Starting Lines essays to all students or use the current edition. Also provide the task handout listing the five devices. Procedure: a. Thought question: What aspects of essays are helpful to compare? Elicit answer: the overall essay structure, paragraph elements and academic devices used. b. Devices: Instructor briefly introduces the list of devices...
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Gender Stereotypes In Advertising

Advertisements are everywhere in our lives, but do you know that a lot of the products are being advertised and promoted by the marketers in certain ways that will appeal to specific groups of people? The impact it causes on society is what we often see nowadays: gender stereotypes. Our society has been putting "tags" of gender differences on both men and women. The majority of us have started to unconsciously accept and follow the "ideal images" created by those who have intended to impose these tags. Both women and men are being told by advertisements to have specific characteristicsand to behave in certain waysin order to become a “perfect” person of their own gender. Those who don't fit in with the "ideal images" will be seen as less of a man or woman. Let’s see how advertisements portray ideal gender images and how they define “attractiveness” for both men and women. In advertisements for makeup products, skin products, fashions, etc., their target group  is women. They are trying to convince female...
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