ESL Writing
This is fourth week of the semester for the students in the graduate English writing class.
Work Plan – Week 4
- rewrite #1 – second or third draft of Room 8
- rewrite #2 – second draft of creative story (from a picture prompt and first sentence exercise)
- rewrite #3 – short story with lots of new information
- start #4 – writing exercise to improve paragraph structure
Other stuff
- review last week
- extra resources
- homework
- feedback
ESL Writing Activities
Hour 1
Attendance, review, extra stuff, homework (10)
Review
- importance of first sentence to create reader interest (e.g. humour, drama, contrast, superlatives)
- use questioning strategy to add more details and fill in information gaps
- feedback on writing
Something to read?
- Stir the imagination with this novel, The Stranger by Albert Camus.
- An existential theme that shows simple sentences can create a wonderful story, and suspense.
ESL Class Homework for Next Week
- Read this short story by Charlie Fish called Death by Scrabble
- Analyze the text according to the 6+1 writing traits.
- Discuss comments about the story next week.
Can’t remember all of the traits?
- Here is a quick summary: 6+1 writing traits.
- Need more details about the traits, review the slides below.
Writing work and feedback (25)
Hours 1 and 2
Opportunities for Improvement (40)
- Last week – #1 first sentence
- Last week – #2 more details
- This week – #3 better paragraphs
Problem: Students don’t create proper paragraphs.
- Good paragraph structure is an essential part of good writing. Paragraphs make the story easier to read by organizing ideas into small groups.
- Here is an exercise which forces students to create many separate paragraphs.
Click here to read the ESL writing activity about better paragraph structure.