ESL Writing Freshmen 2018 Week 11

It’s week 11 of the semester. Time to get on to your short story analysis.

Week 11 (May 15-18) Read short story and start analysis
Week 12 (May 25) Study quiz #2 (10%), hand in short story analysis (10%), NO CLASS ON TUESDAY – BUDDHA’S BIRTHDAY
Week 13 (May 29) Quiz #2

how to quickly understand and charts

describe change with a few verbs (increase, decrease, go up and go down)

focus an analysis on 3 things: describe the change, describe possible root causes, suggest possible consequences

use hedge words to talk about causes and consequences

think critically: describe the change and the possible reasons and consequences

Writing Activities

#1 analyze two population charts – what is the expected change plus 1-2 causes and 1-2 consequences

#2 think critical about arguments for an electric car – evaluate the main arguments by making connections with facts

Here is a restaurant crime scene.
Early this evening, the police heard a gunshot inside Ernie’s restaurant.
The police found the dead body of body of a famous gangster.
Ernie, the owner and only employee, said: “The murderer leaned against the wall while firing his gun. There is a hand print on the wall.
The last number on the cash register was $8.75.

Who killed the guy?

Ask a question
Collect small pieces of data
Make a rule (Why is this important? Does this fact have an important consequence?)
Probable Conclusion/Argument

Look at this murder mystery picture. This is what she told the police

Yesterday, Queenie and her husband Arthur an argument.
She left the house and met friends in a bar. Arthur went to a different bar.
She said she left the bar about 1am and asked her friends to come to her house for a drink.
She said she arrived home at 1:30 am. Her friends got to her house about 10 minutes later, about 1:40 am.
When the friends arrived, she opened the door and was shocked. She said something bad happened.
Her husband fell down the stairs. He was coming down for another drink.
She called the police.
The police report said he died from a head injury and he was drunk when he died.

Do you believe here?

Here are some hints and sample sentences to get you started and help you think about this exercise.

What did we do in the last class?

We looked at two murder stories.

We practiced a way of thinking that helps us make connections. It helps us see why a fact might have some special meaning. There were 4 steps:

Notes and Ideas