I am Maggie Sokolik, UC Berkeley Professor of Writing and Literature. Ask Me Anything!

[u/maggieso]

Hi r/books, I'm Maggie Sokolik. I'm an author, speaker, and UC Berkeley lecturer. I've taught writing and technical communication since 1992, and have written and spoken about ESL, cross-cultural education, educational technology, grammar, writing, and instructor education around the world. I also teach the BerkeleyX Book Club series on edX. This month we're reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Twain – the course is free to enroll and kicks off today!

You can follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Here's Proof.

I'll be online at 12PM ET to answer questions about books, writing and grammar, ESL, and whatever else you'd like to know. Ask Me Anything!

[u/boobs675309]

Hello Professor Sokolik, I've taken a several classes at edX, including two of yours. I was wondering what level of support Berkeley gives the instructors who offer classes online. It seems like a wonderful opportunity to help the less-fortunate receive education that otherwise might not be available to them (us). My hope is that the school views the online classes as a way to provide a public service and not as a money-maker.

If the school's support is underwhelming, please tell me who to yell at on your behalf.

Thanks for your time, both here and at the edX site.

[u/maggieso → u/boobs675309]

Good to see one of the MOOC students here.

First, Berkeley has been very slow in moving into the online education arena, and that's a good thing. I don't think the University sees MOOCs as money makers at this point. Not many of us are offering MOOCs, and we do not receive pay for doing them. We do have other means of support for the courses, though (production, etc.). I really love the online courses--a great opportunity to understand education in a global context, and "meet" lots of people whose circumstances are very different from our f2f situation at Berkeley.

[u/box-art]

Are there any common/simple mistakes writers make that drive the plot of a story towards a dead end, forcing a rewrite?

[u/maggieso → u/box-art]

Not putting enough at stake. In the midst of working on my novel, my brilliant editor, Mark Wisniewski, told me to ratchet up the story by putting my characters in greater peril (not physically necessarily--just raising the stakes). He was absolutely right.

[u/TheOfficeJocky]

Hello! As an engineering student I often see fellow classmates having a laugh at the expense of liberal arts students (or anything involving writing/art as a major). As a professor, do you ever get ridiculed by fellow professors for the same thing?

I have always wondered.

[u/maggieso → u/TheOfficeJocky]

I could write a tome about this question. The short answer is no--fortunately, I work with smart people in all disciplines that realize that that there is value in what everyone's doing at the university. Not everyone can be an engineer, and the world doesn't need only engineers. And, it's complicated for students. I see miserable engineering students who are doing the major only because their parents insist. (One of my students a few years back was even cut off financially from her parents because she switched majors from engineering into the humanities.) Talk to any working engineer and she/he will tell you how important communication skills are, and how much farther you get on the job if you can write. That said--I also encourage my humanities students to get some technical skills under their belts. Learn to code, or take extra math classes, etc. Developing a wide skill set can only improve your chances of a good job, but more than that, make you a smarter, more well rounded person.

[u/maggieso]

Thanks, everyone! I'll check in later for follow-ups. I hope you'll join us in a MOOC sometime.

[u/syndi]

What's the hob-nobbing between faculty in Berkeley like? I'd love to imagine that yourself and Judith Butler are friends.

[u/maggieso → u/syndi]

Oh, how I wish. I do admire her work.

That said, it's a place filled with a lot of amazingly brilliant and talented people. My hobnobbing is pretty limited, though. I'm a would-be bluegrass musician (fiddle), so I mostly hobnob with the Northern California bluegrass crowd--you know, surgeons, architects, attorneys, and engineers who play banjos.

[u/MarchOfTheZapotec]

Hey! Great to hear about the edX course, will be joining today.

First of all: what made you intereted in linguistics? Second, as an ESL student (native Spanish speaker here), what do you think are the biggest challenges to ESL speakers?