Your Attention Please
Note: You can view almost all of this site without setting up your 100% free account. However, to view the series of posts under the “Writing Lessons” tab/menu (a series of sequential lessons that comprise my original, accessible, and powerful “Activated Writing System”), you will need to set up your free account.
As you can see above (on a phone, click the three bars) there are several other tabs/menus, with different themes and sub themes that drop down, all of which you can view without logging in.
But for the set of lessons (organized in three “stages,” as you will see) you do need to set-up a log-in.Please take heart that absolutely nothing on this site costs a penny — not yet, anyway, so jump on while the jumping’s good.
Likewise, prospective Reader-student, will you find zero pop-up ads, cookie warnings, or any other spying crap. With no money involved, I’m not counting any clicks; I just want to teach you, who find me here, to rock your writing like you’ve never dreamed possible.
But first, a “pretest” — let’s see how you do!
As you will find out, starting right now, about my teaching style, I tend to create “exercises” that involve lots of little twists and tricks — and maybe bring a mile or two. Why not enjopy what we’re doing.” Plus, I know that overly simplistic examples (which I see on many sites) don’t teach anyone anything. I like to mix it up a little, to help you see where you really are and to speed up your progress to the next level.
So, for a quick baseline, take this little five-item quiz. You will see your answers right after you submit your quiz. The app (aka plug-in) I’m using for making the quizzes you’ll find on Up-Wordz.com lacks any ability to store (let alone track) what you do on these quizzes. You can share your quiz, though, if you want. And you can keep tabs on your scoring, but you’ll have to do it yourself! Hello scratch pad?
And any time you may want to try the quiz again, I’ve set things so that you can retake quizzes whenever you want or need. Just reload the page, and the quiz will come up again, fresh. Let’s see how you do.
Results
Great job. You show talent right off the bat.
Let’s take that right up to the next level. I think you’ll be surprised at how quickly your voice starts to gain confidence and style.
Don’t worry. Through my three-stage system, you will learn all about subjects, predicates, and how they work together as the “essence of a sentence.”
Get ready for some major learning. You will love how your “voice” emerges, as you gain mastery of your sentences and other aspects of writing.
#1. What word(s) make the the “simple predicate” in this sentence? (type in ans.): “Get out of that shaking house before the the furnace blows!”
#2. Which word(s) make the “complete subject” in this sentence? (type in ans.): “The day you left was when my TV disappeared.”
#3. Which of these sentences is 100% correct?
#4. What makes this sentence weak? “They were ready to really, really rock out, for they finally had enough time.”
Competition? What competition?
No other grammar sites claim to “teach you to write,” because they can’t do it. I’ve done it my whole career, and I can do it for you, too. Even without logging in, you can learn a lot on this site, things that you can’t find elsewhere, because it doesn’t exist elsewhere — and that’s just the way I want to teach you to write. My motto for this site? Say what only you could say, as only you could say it. I will teach you how.
You can learn a lot and possibly find yourself mildly entertained, just by clicking around. But do prepare for a marked shortage of political correctness. As I suggest below, to do all this without a profit motive allows me to speak freely. and I will.
But to read and study my programmed and sequential set set of writing lessons, you will have to set up a log-in. When the log-in box pops up, after you click on Writing Lessons, enter a user name and e-mail address. Then check your e-mail for the log-in link and click on that.
If you go to set up your log-in and run into any problem, please send me a message (see “Contact Mike“). This site is brand new, (Feb, 2026), and I am new to the Web part of all this. I do have a helper, my code-savvy son, Burke. Things will get smoothed out as my learning curve starts to flatten. Right now, it’s running just about straight up! But the writing theory and system — those are already way up there, waiting only for your learning mind.
Grammarly (and other for-profit sites), eat your heart out. You’re the experts at getting money out of people via the internet; I’m the expert on teaching people to clearly and authentically express themselves in words. I would not trade places. I spent my whole career inventing and developing my system of “activated” writing, and I have searched the web extensively, for years, to see if anyone has caught up with me yet — nope. There just isn’t anything like it, and it’s here for you, for free.
If that doesn’t win me the Nobel Prize (pick your category — I’ll take whatever’s left over), well, no telling what I’ll do. Just to be safe, set up your account and start studying your lessons about how your own language works (assuming you speak English), so you’ll be ready if I need a character reference.
And I’ll expect a nice recommendation, too. It has to sing! No lie, I’ve written a lot of them, myself. Got a bunch of kids into grad school on full rides, too. I’m not aiming this site at college students, but, if you know any, their grades start heading north right here. Are you going to promise that, Grammarly? I will, because I’ve done it a million times — well, a few thousand, anyway.
No cost, no ads, no cookies, no tracking — just some brain-stretching concepts, lots of specific instructions, a smile here and there, and a hell of a lot of quickly noticeable learning!
This site could prove invlauable for any college student with apapers to write, but my “target audience includes all lovers of reading, who want to become much stronger writers. We don’t have a classroom — not even a Zoom class (as I taught, during the pandemic, soon before my retirement — so you are going to have to learn by reading — along with some “quiz style” exercises here and there, to help you see your progress, right in front of your eyes! It’s so much fun.
Who am I, to promise all this and tell Grammarly, “You wish you knew what I know, about how to produce star writers“? Well, you can read as much as you want (and more, I’m sure) about all that right below and over in About Mike.
But along with “all that,” I’m the one who is granting you 100%-free access to this set of well-proven lessons, which I have developed across 30+ years and almost 400 university classes taught — honestly, a “lifetime-achievement“ record, at all universities, for all majors (disciplines), all across my home state of Colorado! No kidding. If you’re counting number of groups taught, I’ve outdone the whole state! Now, aren’t you glad you found me? (Lie if you have to).
That’s a lot of teaching, testing, and refining. Those students paid a lot of money, and they wrote a lot of papers (and/or delivered a lot of speeches!), every blessed one of which, I personally graded, with detailed feedback and a lot of TLC. For you, the lessons are free. Your job? Enjoy, learn, and grow!
– – – Why this website? – – –
My credentials in one sentence? I write to you as an exquisitely trained, abundantly honored, and vastly experienced academic (PhD, University of Colorado, Communication), now retired from 32 years of university teaching and educational leadership.
With some time on my hands these days, I look back fondly at innumerable star students who fill my warm memory. The brightest — or at least, most dedicated — of these include university writing-award winners, sudents who never thought they’d be going on to grad school, published authors, a few notable attorneys I see quoted in the Denver Post, and many other shining stars, such as a former public speaking student I now see on TV almost every night, anchoring the sports desk of Colorado’s CBS affiliate. It does make a prof proud.
And, now considering ways to make the most of my retirement, I think about the writing system I developed, as a theorist of language who teaches communication (especially speech, rhetoric, and writing). My system, which I have now given the name, “The Zizzi Method of Activated Writing,” presents fresh, understandable, and powerful resources to the writer-to-be (better, at least). This system transformed a great many college students from weak at writing (or hating it) to loving their work and suddenly getting lots of As, in lots of classess.
You can check out my reviews!
I guess that helps explain the abundant and generously positive reviews that are publicly available on the national “professor review site” called ratemyprofessors.com. You’d think my reviews were fake. They’re not. Most profs detest or just ignore that site. Of the few reviews they get there, the majority range from mediocre to downright nasty.
I consider the gratifying reviews on that public site among my highest career achievements — maybe the highest. That’s just what I was trying for. I don’t mean to brag; I just want you to know whose hands you’re in, if you hang out on this website/blog. If you do want to check me out, go to that site and search for Michael Zizzi at the University of Colorado, department: communication.
Yes, now in my retirement, I can look back in amazement at the sheer volume of my teaching record. Regis University put me into about two-thirds of those classrooms, for which I give hearty and life-long thanks. That’s where I first taught writing (with a master’s in speech communication!) back in 1990. And the fun began.
No textbook for this class
Anyway, as I explained many times during our first class meeting, “Here’s why you found no textbook in the bookstore for this class: what I am about to teach you isn’t available in any textbook — and it won’t be, until I write it! You just saved about $150!” Somehow, they never complained, especially by the end of the term, after rocking the course beyond all their (or anyone’s) expectations — except mine.
My CU-Boulder students, especially, liked knowing that their prof had both begun and finished his own academic career (eventually totaling four years of undergraduate study and nine fully funded years of graduate study) right there at CU.
Starting at CU as a freshman and finishing there, with a high-profile doctorate (with three other schools and a lot of publicity in between!), I sweated out many a class in the same buildings (and, often, the same lack of air conditioning!) wherein, 40-some years later, I now found myself a popular “prof.”
Pretty cool, if I do say. If my CU “kids” weren’t too young to remember the ’70s TV show, Welcome back, Kotter, I’m sure I’d have drawn some humorous comparisons.
And, especially at CU, we used no textbook — just my own system, handed out in worksheets, week by week. Every semester, I tinkered with my teaching approach, based on the results (i.e., their papers) that came back. Every semester inched me further along my career-long path of discovery.
That is what I am presenting to you – out of gratitude and love. Get on board now, and learn all you can. In the words of soul singers Ashford and Simpson, “Don’t Cost You Nothing” (at least not yet!).
Anyway, almost five years post-retirement now, I’m rested up, can kick some butt in pickleball, have worked on rehabilitating my cars, house, and yard, and am generally luvin’ life, but . . . something in me wants to give it another go — as long as I don’t have to go anywhere, ha ha.
So, though I lack any/all skill in the “web-side” of things (but I am learning — with immense help from my son, Burke), I have decided to develop this website/blog to help – yes, for free! — anyone who loves to read and truly wants to improve in writing clearly, correctly, stylishly, and, most of all authentically.
I am putting up this site for language-loving readers: readers who want to become better writers (and communicators, generally). Have you read an actual book in the last year? If so, this site’s for you!
Maybe you do read a lot
If you’re a reader who wants to improve in all phases of communication, you’ve come to the right place. I will give you plenty to read and consider, all tied to how you write — or could write.
What will you read? You will read provocative ideas to challenge your understanding (and comfort level, beware) on a number of topics related to writing, language, and communication. You can see my discussion categories (and some sub-categories), on the menu toward the top of this front page. I am trained to write original theory. That’s one reason I can promise to present to you ideas and practices you can’t find elsewhere. I develped them, myself, well aware of “the field.”
The freedom of not doing it for the money
Because I hold no profit motive, I can write exactly what I think will help you the most, not what will “attract clicks”! I’m not counting clicks or views or anything else! I don’t care if I gain a million views or three dozen. It doesn’t affect my paycheck, because (IRS, take note) there isn’t one coming! I’m fine with that.
I want quality, not quantity. If you do like to read — at least thoughtful writing with lots of fresh ideas and originality — and you read mindfully, with a learner’s mind and a do-er’s heart — then that’s what I call quality. I will happily teach you.
My 31-year-old son, Burke, knowledgeable in website coding and creation, helped me get this site started and built (else there would be no site). He thinks his “old-school” dad should at least add a “donate” button, but that’s just because he’s relatively young (ha ha — get it — oops, Dad joke!).
But, with his help and my low-tech style and needs, this hasn’t cost much money (so far) — just lots of time (!), which I am hereby donating to you. That way, I can write freely and honestly — not strategically. I can focus on authenticity, myself, not on pandering to the almighty clicks and views (and $).
So what is this “Zizzi Method of Activated Writing”
Across the decades and hundreds of classes — each class, to me, a laboratory — I have developed a unique, powerful, proprietary, and hereby copyrighted system of re-imagining sentence structure, including grammar, punctuation, structure, and style. I loved to clarify to students and others in and around the university that I don’t “teach English.” Rather, I theorize language and teach communication — toward the latter years, mostly writing and rhetoric.
For many reasons, I have named the whole of my sequential program of theory-rich, uniquely conceived, and classroom-proven, writing lessons the Zizzi Method of Activated Writing.
I can’t wait to teach it to you. Of course, you’ll have to do all the work, if you really want to improve such that people notice and compliment you and, more importantly, you notice the difference, and I mean right away — starting today, with Lesson #1, which you can read right away, no log-in needed.
To read Lesson #1 — which will help you to immediately improve your writing (online, especially) in both clarity and effectiveness — check out the main menu tab “Big-Picture Concepts” and hover/click your way to the sub-menu, “Foundational Issues.” Then scroll down past some other posts to find “Lesson #1.
You’ll find some pretty amazing stuff in that groupiong of posts, if I do say, including Lesson #1. If I could somehow force you to do what it says there, then, unless you already write that way, which I rarely encounter, I could truly promise that your writing would immediately improve. Well, I can’t force you, but I surely can encourage you — do it or else!
I don’t make claims lightly, and I never promise more than I know I can deliver. I highly recommend both practices — details coming. But I can and do promise this: nothing you read here appears elsewhere on the Web. In fact a lot of what you will read here contradicts a lot of what you might commonly find, if looking online for writing help .
You can ask Siri or Alexa, or any other “digital whoever” (new AI “helpers” worm their way onto our devices every day) any question you want. In most cases, you’ll get a prompt answer that will get you nowhere. That’s why you need me!
Details on the harms of letting AI speak for you (or even trusting its “summaries” of this or that) will come later; for now, I’ll just assert that people don’t noticeably improve their writing by searching AI or grammar sites for information (which comes in, semi-clear or downright confusing. The Zizzi Method of Activated Writing does not deal in confusing muck nor piecemeal factoids and rules. Through my system, students learn to write.
Help! I Need Somebody
In the words of Ringo Starr, “It don’t come easy,” especially – in these divisive, copycat times – when it comes to authenticity. But if you read, study, and practice my writing system, you will discover the secret to avoiding sounding like everyone else trying to sound like everyone else – or just abdicating their voice whatsoever and just saying, “AI, say it for me.”
You can do it! If you read all this, you’re half-way there. As for the other “half” of the learning, I put this site here expressly to help.