Write with Michelle

My apologies for the radio silence. It's tax season in Canada. Mindful of what happened to 鄭丹瑞, who nearly went bankrupt when the Canada Revenue Agency pursued him for back taxes some time after he immigrated his family here. I finally hired a CPA this spring, eighteen months into running my incorporated teaching business. So, on top of my teaching responsibilities, I’ve had to do my part in helping my accountant help me. It’s been an educational and exhausting process. Here

Whenever I guide students through the unseen poetry section of GCSE English Literature, I’m often reminded of the Chinese phrase “讀書心細絲抽蠶,” - it seems like students are expected to tease meaning from a text with the meticulousness of someone drawing silk from a cocoon. To get an idea of the kind of clinical precision needed to score highly, compare the two responses below (the first written by a student, the second by me). The student interprets the poem by taking note of onl

“What’s the point of studying hard? Why not work on marrying myself off to a rich guy instead? Then I would never need to work!” a 15 year-old female student recently asked me. I totally get where she’s coming from. After all, Hong Kong is a place where marrying rich is widely held as a benchmark of success for women. Think of how 徐子淇 was immediately nicknamed “the 100 billion daughter-in-law” after she wedded the son of a real estate tycoon, as if her father-in-law’s assets

Regarding Arnold Goodman, a top London lawyer well-liked for his kindness, though his sagging jowls gave him the look of a toad, the writer and silent film actress Lady Diana Cooper made a characteristically witty observation: ““He looks as if he is just about to turn into a fairy prince.” A few months ago, I was brainstorming how to write a thoughtful thank you letter to my dentist for giving me dental implants when Cooper’s remark suddenly came to mind (I had stumbled upon

A Master of Science and PhD at Carnegie Mellon. A postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford. Being named one of "10 Women to Watch in Tech" by Inc. Magazine, and being chosen as one of BBC's "100 Women" in 2017. These accomplishments and accolades, achieved by neuroscientist Vivienne Ming, would make any Asian parent proud. Yet Ming’s early years and young adulthood (she is 54 now) would have made her the black sheep of any Asian family. She struggled with her grades, dropped out

In a GCSE English Language exam, when you're asked to analyse how a writer uses language, there are techniques that almost every student can spot. The lowest low-hanging fruits of all are similes. Just look for "like" or "as." The mere act of being able to identify a simile is therefore far from enough to distinguish your response from the hundreds of others an examiner will read in a week. To score high, you must demonstrate that, compared to the average student, you have bo

Let me begin this week’s column with an aside. I just finished guiding this year's Oxbridge applicants through their UCAS personal statements, and the experience left me with a clearer sense of what students can do long before application time to boost their chances of getting into their dream universities. Consider entering one of the many writing competitions out there. Most are free and easy to enter (just write and press “send”). Students who already have an idea of their

For many students applying to university next fall, December is the last month to work on their personal statements . For this week's column, I've curated some of my best pieces on this form of writing. They address many of the most common problems I’ve seen in student-written drafts in all my years of tutoring. The principles that make a personal statement distinctive are the same ones that make a cover letter stand out, so my tips should inspire fresh thinking in job seeker