Writing 1 Task 9 - 15 April 2016

Dear students,

We will welcome Narrative as a focus on this second half term. On the addition of Unit 10 of your textbook, you are strongly recommended to visit the following links:

• What Makes a Good Story
• Writing: Narration

 Having read those articles, please proceed to the following assignment of drafting characters of your upcoming narrative, its theme, setting and plot.

Print out your draft to be submitted and discuss with your respective lecturer on the following time:

• Monday, 18 April 2016, 11 A.M. - 1 P.M.
• Tuesday, 19 April 2016, 8 A.M. - 10 A.M. or 1.30 P.M. - 3 P.M.

Good Luck!

Writing 1 Task 8 - 8 April 2016

Dear students,

Do you recall the time when you attended "International Culture Festival and Celebration"?
Every one of you certainly has different impression and experience toward the event.
For the following post, please write a 250-word composition telling what you have experienced in the respective event. Using past tenses mode, share the story about the event, the audiences, and your feelings.

Publish your composition before April 13th, 2016, 11 P.M.

After that, read 2-3 of your friends' stories and give constructive feedback for each before April 15th, 2016, 7 A.M.

For giving feedback, you can check useful links provided on your lecturers' blogs.

Good Luck!

How to Give Peer Feedback

Structured Commenting Protocol

When you comment on your peers’ drafts this semester, please follow these steps:

1. Read the essay through once, without marking it. It can be helpful to take a few notes while you read.

2. After you’ve done this, identify the two or three most important “higher order” things you think your peer needs could improve.

[Note: “higher order” concerns may include aspects of course content, conceptual understanding, argument, complexity, analysis, use of evidence, development of ideas, organization, understanding of audience, and sometimes diction and tone.]

3. Construct a head comment—a comment that you will paste at the beginning of your peer’s paper—that does the following: 1) offers a brief but specific description of general strengths, and 2) explains the two or three things to work on in a way that frames your remarks in terms of techniques and strategies to improve for subsequent drafts and assignments (e.g., “you’ve done an excellent job of…, but two central things to continue to work on are…”). This comment will probably be fairly detailed in presenting and discussing these two or three focus areas. It may be helpful to think of this head comment as a kind of “roadmap” to the marginal comments you will insert.

4. Finally, go back through the paper and, writing in full sentences, insert selective marginal comments and/or praise to reinforce and exemplify your head comment (e.g., “This point is unclear because…” or “You do a nice job here of…”). Give explanation and/or examples when you note both areas to improve and areas of strength.

It’s fine if the marginal comments reiterate points made in the head comment; indeed, they might specifically reference a moment in the head comment as a way of reinforcing it (“As I noted in my opening comment, here is a place where…”). Since your head comment will be fairly detailed, you will probably need relatively fewer marginal comments to highlight the relevant examples.

5. If you wish, additionally, to comment on “lower order” concerns (e.g., style, grammar, and/or punctuation), please focus on just one or two patterns encountered throughout the essay, explain these in a separate paragraph of your head comment, and mark up only a single representative paragraph in the essay to model corrections.

Taken from: Peer Review to Improve Student Writing

Writing 1 Task 7 - 1 April 2016

Dear students,
Welcome back! I hope you are satisfied with your midterm scores. Now, are you ready to write again?

For today's assignment please write a 200-word composition about New Zodiac that you have created. First, you need to think about the characteristics and the sign of your "New Zodiac". Then, using those characteristics, you can begin to write the description.

Below are some useful links that you might need:

• Zodiac Signs and Meanings
• 12 Zodiac Signs 

 After you have finished, please publish your composition on your blog before April 8th, 2016, 7 A.M.


Good Luck!

Writing 1 Task 6 - 11 March 2016

Dear students,

After you got feedback from your lecturer and your friends, please revise your draft of Autobiography about Important Events in Your Life (Task 5). Then, you can publish it in your blog.

For the last assignment, please read some of your friends’ Autobiography (at least 5) and give comments to their writing. Your comment should be at least 50 words and contain your feedback about their style of writing (grammar, choice of words/vocabulary, organization, flow of writing, etc.).

Good luck!

Journal 2 Task

Dear students, 

After finishing your Autobiography Task, it's time for you  to reflect on what you have done and learned during Writing 1 class and what you will do next. You are to write your second journal entries which covers these questions:

1. In this writing class, what have you learned? 
2. What do you believe you still need to work on more?  
3. How/can you use what you have learned in other contexts?
4. What will you do in preparing your Writing midterm test?

It also should contain your reflections and impressions about the weekly writing classes. Express yourself freely about the progress you get if there is any and why, or if you feel you don't get any progress then write about it along with the reasons and suggestions to overcome the root-causes, if there is any.

Your journal entries should be freely written without worrying about making mistakes in grammar, spelling, and punctuation marks. 

Write your journal in about at least 150 words and publish it.

From your previous journal, there are some of you who wrote an outstanding and reflective journal. It's good for you to peek on their journals to get inspired. :)

They are: Yosephine (Class D), Gisel (Class D), and Jeremy (Class C)

Good luck!

 

Writing 1 Task 5 - 4 March 2016

Dear students,
After you got feedback from your lecturer and your friends, please revise your draft of Autobiography about People around You (Task 4). Then, you can publish it in your blog.

Now, for the next writing for your Auto Biography, write a 200-word story about important events (the day you were born, the day you started your school, your engagement, etc) in your life. Make sure that you write the story in a chronological order.

E-mail your work to your lecturer's e-mail before Wednesday, 9 March 2016.

For your references, you can open your Writing book Units 2, 3, 9 and 12.

Good luck!