teaching writing

Learn English Writing – Progress and Movement

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waiting-moving

PURPOSE OF WRITING ACTIVITY

  • learn English writing sentences about change

This activity helps students learn English writing sentences about change, to control progress, movement or action in a paragraph or short story. It also helps students improve their ability to describe things with accuracy and style.

Students will write a story with four different people. Each person does something different, but these actions must evolve or progress. They become bigger, better, worse, happier, stronger, scarier, or deadlier. The student chooses the kind of change that happens.

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Learn English Writing, Basic Class: Week 9

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school-test

Last week the ESL students had a mid-term exam. Let’s review some of the questions and answers to help them learn English writing.

Part 1. Read the paragraph. The paragraph has 10 mistakes. Circle the mistakes then rewrite the paragraph.

my sisters home on Jefferson Street is terrably noisey every five minutes or so a monster jet takes off from the nearby

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Learn English Writing, Basic Class: Week 6

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Learn English Writing, Basic Class

 

Here’s the plan for this week.

  1. Improve your sentence and paragraph writing skills by completing the topic sentence exercise.
  2. Improve you writing and vocabulary skills by completing chapter 4 in the textbook (we will check the answers this Friday).
  3. Have a quiz (Friday) to check your understanding of the class material and vocabulary so far this semester.

Reading Activity #1

Let’s read and discuss this activity which helps us understand what a good paragraph looks like. That includes topic sentence and conclusion.

Writing Activity #1 Guided Writing

Here is a paragraph. It has a topic sentence, support points, and a conclusion. However, it is missing examples and specific details.  Add examples and details. Be creative. Here is the worksheet for this guided writing activity.

 

The most obvious reason to get a university education is to get a job, but some other benefits can be just as important. One reason to go to college is to learn about different fields and to find out what we like and don’t like.

___________________________________________________

Another reason to get a college education is to meet people who can offer emotional, educational, and career support.

___________________________________________________

A final reason to go to college is to become exposed to exciting new ideas, even those not directly related to getting a job.

___________________________________________________

For all these reasons, a college education can be so much more than a path to the job market.

 

Writing Activity #2

Thinking about the conclusion sentence. Read the topic sentence. Then, read the three conclusions. What do you think about the conclusion?  Is it too simple, creative or off topic? Here is the writing worksheet for this activity.

For example:

Topic sentence: Mrs. Black, my eleventh-grade geography teacher, was the worst teacher I’ve ever had.

Concluding sentences:

  1. To conclude, it is worth repeating that Mrs. Black was the worst teacher I have ever had. TOO SIMPLE
  2. I will forever remember Mrs. Black because she was a bad teacher who liked to embarrass her students. CREATIVE
  3. Black was the worst teacher I ever had, and Mr. Brown, who I currently have for statistics, is pretty bad too. OFF TOPIC

Writing Activity #3

  • Choose two things which might not normally be compared.
  • Find three ways to describe how they are similar.
  • Write a full paragraph with a topic sentence, proof and a conclusion.

Example Paragraph

Here is an example by a middle school student, about school and jail.

School and jail are similar in many ways. First of all, I have to wear a uniform in both places. I hate wearing the same clothes as other people. Also, both places make us wear what they want. Just as if we were a doll. Second of all, I have to spend a lot of time there. At school, students have to stay from 8am to 4pm for 3 years (just counting middle school). Similarly, in jail people have to stay as long as the judge said. Finally, there is only one way to be free from school and jail. To get free from school you should graduate. To get free from jail you should wait for the day the judge said you can be free. These are the similarities between school and jail. Still, the most important thing is that I hate both places.