English 1A test
2. Anecdote
A brief Story
iii. Definition
A definition provides a detailed explanation of an abstract idea or clarifies a word or concept that may have a variety of meanings.
1. What is a paragraph
A paragraph is a passage developed by a writer for a particular rhetorical question. The content and organization should be formatted or governed so that it best accomplishes the author's purpose with the needs of audience the writer is addressing.
ix. Argumentation and Persuasion
Argumentation supports a claim through reasoned discourse about a controversial issue in order to gain agreement by the audience; persuasion is an attempt to cause the reader to take action.
B. Active Reading
Engaging in text both mentally and physically in order to construct meaning.
4. Paragraph Length
How long should a paragraph be? It depends on the desired effect on the reader the writer wants to achieve. It also depends on what is needed to communicate the main idea to the reader.
ii. Audience
Is the draft appropriate for the intended audience? Is the info clearly explained for the audience? Are any specialized words defined that might be unfamiliar to the audience? What do you need to revise in order to better communicate your thoughts?
1. Topic + Controlling idea
Knowing what the topic is about
i. The Opening (hook)
Many essays begin with an attempt to grab the reader's attention, often called a hook or grabber, in order to motivate him or her to read the essay. It might be a question, an anecdote, a startling fact it statistic, a definition, a quotation, or a description
1. Peer response groups
Peer response techniques are designed to encourage meaningful, higher-level comments and feedback on broader issues of content and style, rather than on mechanical correctness.
2. Formulaic Approaches to paragraphs
Students are sometimes taught a formulaic approach to a paragraph, such as a topic sentence, followed by 3 supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence.
c. Showing vs Telling
Telling does not create a picture in a reader's mind. For example, if an author tells you that there are a lot of distractions in her form, you may believe her but not get a true sense of how it is distracting.
d. Body Paragraphs
The body paragraphs of the essay develop the thesis, clarify it, explain it, and make meaning of it for the audience.
C. Revision (Re-Vision)
The word revision comes from Re-Vision, to see again, which is what writers do-see the writing again with a new perspective.
4. Definition
What something means
1. Title
subject of a text
3. Vocabulary
try to guess what the word means
ii. Description
A descriptive paragraph creates a word picture with concrete, specific sensory details and figurative language in order to develop a main idea.
ii. Metaphor
A metaphor is a word or phrase ordinarily designated as one thing that is used to designate another in order to make an implicit comparison
a. What is narration?
A narration is a story, an account of events or experiences, whether true or fiction. It might be a story from a friend or a famous novel
i. Narration
A narration uses a story in order to develop a point or idea.
v. Process
A process paragraph provides an explanation of how to do something or how something is made or works.
i. simile
A simile compares 2 unlike things using the word like or as.
3. Startling Fact or Statistic
A theory that's true Many high school graduates move on to college with high hopes and good intentions, but a surprising number of them never continue past their freshman year.
g. Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives, words that modify nouns or pronouns, can help make a description more specific. Adverbs, words that modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs, can also be used to write more specific description.
I. Dominant Impression
Although description is important for a writer to create visual images for readers, the writer should not describe everything. There would be too much unnecessary detail, and it would detract from the focus of the writing.
iv. Exemplification
An exemplification, also called illustration, provides examples for support, such as facts, examples, statistics, authorities', opinions, or form personal experience.
vi. Outlining
An outline is a numbered list of main points and sub-points of a piece of writing.
viii. Collaborative Learning
Another aspect of the writing process may include collaborative learning activities, in which students respond to other students' writing. The purpose is for students to help their fellow students communicate what they want to say in a matter in which it will be heard by their audience.
e. Action Verbs
Another way to show reader's is to use action Verbs rather than linking verbs (such as is, am, was, were) which do not show action.
f. Active Voice vs Passive Voice
Another way writers use verbs to describe more clearly is to use active voice rather than passive voice. In the active voice, the subject does the action; in the passive voice, the subject receives the action. In general, active voice is preferable because it emphasizes the subject.
vi. Coherence
Are there appropriate transitional relationships between paragraphs? Is there a logical flow or connection from one idea to another between paragraphs and within paragraphs? Are there repeated key terms, synonyms, or pronouns that show the connection between paragraphs or sentences within paragraphs? Are appropriate transitions used to show the relationship between different ideas?
c. Introduction
As the name suggests, the intro introduces the reader to the essay. Although there are no rules as to what should be included in intros, they often begin by attempting to grab the reader's attention, establish common ground, define the problem, and state the writer's position or focus on the problem-the thesis
iii Critical Reading
As you read, you should read more slowly, interacting with the text, relating the text material to your background knowledge and experience, confirming the expectations you had about the writer's intentions
ii. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a type of invention strategy for generating ideas, which involves quickly writing down any thoughts or ideas that come to mind on a topic.
viii. Cause and Effect
Cause and Effect explains the causes of an event of the effects of an event or both.
vii. Classification and Division
Classification and division classifies and divides items into categories according to a particular principle.
iii. Clustering
Clustering taps into the right side of the brain, the more creative side, which is sensitive to images, and offers a visual arrangement of possible ideas for you to write about.
g. Coherence
Coherence refers to the connection between ideas in a text.
vi. Comparison and Contrast
Comparison and Contrast develops an idea by showing the similarities and differences between 2 or more subjects.
j. Organizing Descriptive Writing
Descriptive writing is organized spatially, showing where things are located in relation to other things described.
A. The Reading-Writing Connection
Developing effective reading strategies is essential for students to achieve the critical reading and thinking skills necessary to gain the knowledge and info from reading in order to be able to respond intelligently to it in conversation or in writing.
i. Purpose
Does the draft do what it is intended to do? Is it meant to inform, persuade, entertain? Is it supposed to be a summary, an evaluation, a narrative, or an argument? Does the thesis or topic sentence reflect the purpose?
b. Drafting
Drafting is your first attempt to take the material you generated from prewriting and begin to arrange it in a particular form or genre based on the writing situation.
h. Figurative language
Figurative language refers to figures of speech, words used as comparisons in order to help the reader understand something unfamiliar by comparing it to something familiar. Figures of speech include simile, metaphor, and personification.
v. Unity
In an essay, does each topic sentence support the thesis? Does each sentence in the paragraph support the paragraph's topic sentence?
b. The Academic Essay
In many of your college classes, you will be given opportunities to write for different situations and purposes. Except for narratives (stories), most academic essays will follow a similar rhetorical form with 3 units-an intro, a body, and a conclusion. The number of paragraphs, the length, and the tone of each paper will vary, depending on its purpose and audience.
d. Writing a Narration
In order to write a narration, we need to understand some of the elements of stories.
vii. Style
In the writing style appropriate for the rhetorical situation, the writer's purpose and audience? Is the writing style formal or informal, serious or humorous? Is there effective sentence variety? Are the most effective words used to convey meaning? Are the sentences constructed in the most effective ways to achieve their purpose with the audience?
iv. Organization
Is the paper organized appropriately for it's audience and purpose? Is it organized chronologically, spatially, logically? Is it organized from least to most important or from most to least important? Does it follow the organization of a particular pattern of development?
iii. Content
Is the piece fully intended for it's intended purpose? Is the thesis statement or topic sentence supported with sufficient evidence, examples, and illustrations?
iv. Freewriting
It's a method of exploring a topic by writing about it continuously for a period of time, perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. Rather than writing words or phrases, as in brainstorming, however, you write sentences continuously on anything that comes to mind.
i. Journal Writing
Journal writing is good starting place for generating ideas. One use is writing a log, a place to record your ideas for writing assignments as well as your thoughts about them. Another is record responses to your reading assignments. Another is keep track of your research process as we LL as your responses to the research.
2. Author
Knowing about the author can help you speculate on the point of view.
6. Unity and Coherence
Most readers expect a paragraph to be unified, to stay on one main idea. They also expect paragraphs to be coherent or cohere-to follow a logical sequence linking to one another, such that one sentence follows the ideas in the preceding sentence and lead to the following sentence in sequence in order to create a unified and coherent paragraph-whole text.
2. Avoid announcement
Most thesis statement will offer a controlling idea about the topic rather than simply announcing the topic that will be discussed
d. Concrete vs Abstract Words
One of the ways to show us to use concrete words rater than abstract words. Concrete words describe things experienced through the senses-you can see them and feel them-as opposed to words that represent abstract ideas that are not perceived through the senses, such as liberty, live, patriotism. These words can be defined and clarified with examples, but by themselves cannot be used effectively to describe.
iii. Personification
Personification refers to giving human qualities or characteristics to an inanimate object.
a. Prewriting (Invention)
Prewriting involves generating and discovering ideas before beginning to write a draft.
d. Proofreading and Editing
Proofreading and Editing is fixing the errors so that the reader understands the story the way you understand it.
ii First Reading
Quickly reading it from beginning to end, surveying the text in order to get an overview of the main ideas.
3. Reader-Oriented Approaches
Rather than constructing a particular paragraph pattern, writers need to know how to arrange their text to fit with the reader's perception or expectations of paragraphs.
3. Re-Reading
Reading a text more than once helps foster understanding of the material and helps develop better appreciation for the author's message.
2. The Reading-Writing Connection
Reading and writing are interactive processes that are linked to one another, parallel processes you can use to gain meaning from a text. Making meaning of a text often calls for writing about it.
b. Sensory Details
Sensory details refer to those things we experience through our five senses: see, hear, touch, smell, taste. Also allow the reader to experience what the writer is describing.
4. Headings and Subheadings
Some articles and books are organized with headings and subheadings, which may be in bold print or in a different color, in order to stand out to indicate the subtopics within the section.
5. Visual Images
Some articles and books include visuals, such as graphs, charts, cartoons, photographs, tables, diagrams, or other images in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the topic.
iii. Concluding Sentence
Some paragraphs end with a concluding sentence, which might offer a final thought on the focus of the paragraph or a transition to the following paragraph.
5. Methods (Patterns) of Development or Patterns of Arrangement
Some writing situations may call for the central idea to be developed according to a particular rhetorical pattern of arrangement or development.
6. Description
Something that shows what something was like.
6. Questions and Exercises
Textbooks often include questions and exercises at the beginning and at the end of chapters and readings for students to check their comprehension of the material and practice applying the material for information.
e. Conclusion Paragraph
The conclusion brings the essay to a satisfying close. It may take one paragraph or a few paragraphs to give the reader a sense of closure.
ii. Define the Problem or Purpose
The intro often establishes common ground and identifies or defines the problem. It may provide some background on the topic for the reader, perhaps suggesting the purpose for discussing the subject in the essay.
iv. Paragraph Arrangement
The pattern in which the paragraph is arranged or developed should emerge from the writer's purpose and what the particular writing situation calls for.
ii. Supporting sentences
The supporting sentences elaborate on the central idea in order to clarify and enhance its meaning.
iii. Thesis Statement
The thesis statement asserts the writer's position or focus on the problem, usually including the topic, and the writer's controlling idea about the topic in a sentence or two.
ii. Title: Subtitle
The title grabs the reader's attention, and the subtitle clarifies the topic.
h. The Title
The title of an essay Shou attract the reader and give him or her an idea about the topic or controlling idea.
a. History of the essay
The tradition of the modern personal essay begin in the 16th century with Michel de Montaigne, a well-educated French nobleman, who retired at age 38 to spend the rest of his life writing about his observations of his life and to discover certain kinds of truth about human existence. He called these pieces of writing essaies, meaning "trials" or "tests" or "attempts," because they were tests or trials of his perceptions and judgement.
iii. Grabs the Reader's Attention
These titles grab the reader's attention by presenting a phrase that does not make sense until the reader reads the essay.
i. Straightforward Title
This type of title clearly states what the essay is about.
1. Annotating
To engage or interact with the text, marking passages you find important in order to return later.
i. Topic Sentence
Topic sentence states the main focus or central idea of a paragraph, often a sentence that implies a question to be answered by the rest of the paragraph or sequence of paragraphs.
f. Unity
Unity in a piece of writing refers to a state of oneness, the parts of a whole United and focused on one main idea.
b. Why read stories?
We read stories to be entertained, learn about people or places, like looking at the writer's writing style, and learn life lessons.
1. Question
What do you do when you know what you want to write but the words don't come? When you're agonizing over every sentence instead of moving on with the story? What about when you run out of enthusiasm and just don't want to work on a particular project?
a. What is description
Writers use description, or descriptive writing, when they want to show their reader something, to create a word picture or visual image, which will enable the reader to experience the scene in his or her mind.
2. Reading Journal
Writing in a Reading Journal as you read can help you to actively engage in the thought process and become aware of what you're reading rather than reading the text on automatic pilot from start to finish.
c. Why write Stories?
Writing is an act of discovery. Many writers say they don't know what they're going to write until they start. They may have a vague idea, but the mere act of putting the ideas onto the page in words leads to the insight rather than the other way around-having the insight first and writing it down.
iv. After You Read
You can continue to construct meaning by confirming predictions and guesses, by collaborating with others who have read the same text, and by writing about what you have read.
1. Collaborative Learning
You might broaden your understanding of a text by participating in a small reading group, in which you discuss the diverse meanings of a text with a partner or two and see what they discovered from the text.
5. Quotation
a passage or expression that is quoted or cited
i. Spatial Transitions
in, from, next to, in front of, over, to the right, on, across, to, behind, under, above, to the left
v. Reporter's Questions
who, what, when, where, why, how