Learn English Writing
Welcome back. It’s week 2 and you are learning English writing skills.
Review
What did we do last week?
- looked at the ESL writing syllabus
- looked at 6+1 writing traits
- completed the Before and After writing assignment (piano video)
- #1 writing: creative writing story with an interesting first sentence
- some people finished the first editing exercise
This Week
- learn a new writing skill (and fix a problem)
- start a new writing exercise
Hour 1
Intro (5)
- attendance
- review
Student Writing (10)
Writing assignment #1 asked you to write a creative story. One of the key tasks of this assignment was to write an interesting first sentence. Many people did a great job, especially for the first draft.
Here are a few examples:
- Green Mountain is whispering that I’m too short.
- “Leave me alone” she thought.
- “I’m such a good actress, right?” a woman in a wedding dress whispered to a man in a tuxedo.
- The past whispered to her with sadness and loneliness.
Wordy Sentences (30)
In a first draft, it is normal to have bad sentences. That’s okay. But how do you fix them?
One problem is wordy sentences. There are too many words. You need to learn how to see this problem and find a way to fix it.
Basically, there are two problems:
- unnecessary words (also called redundant words)
- empty phrases (words that don’t day anything, also called expletives)
Click here to read more about wordy sentences.
Click here for wordy sentence practice questions.
Hour 2
What is writer’s voice? (10)
- Voice activity
Introduce #2 writing activity (40)
- We learned about the concept of adding voice to make a story more interesting.
- Here is a chance to put that knowledge into practice.
- Check out the writing exercise about a rafting trip.
Feedback
- comments on previous writing
- rewrite and hand back
Hour 3
- finish writing #2 rafting story
- finish rewrite of #1 creative story
- continue feedback
- Click here to get a worksheet to practice fixing expletives.
Extra
Run On Sentences
Some students write sentences that are too long. These sentences are hard to read and difficult to understand.
This is a writing mistake called a run on sentence. Click here to read about run on sentences.
In this hour we will do some editing practice with sentences.