Editing my writing work -INDEX (9 worksheets)

Teachers’ notes on Editing my writings worksheets


WR1. Long-life learning. Writing about my learning
WR 1.1. An activity report on October class activities 3-4-5 level 20 min.
GOAL. To enhance your writing skills practising with learner’s own assessment on what are really doing during class life.

WR1.2 Writing a monthly self-assessment report 3-4-5 level 25 min.
GOAL. To study a written account (200 words) on learner’s own assessment. It offers a good model to practising your writing skills.

WR1.3 A narrative report on learning 3-4-5 level 20 min.
GOAL. To find guidelines to write your own report on Being a learner today.

Classroom life allows students to reflect on their own learning. Our first two worksheets cover the issue and show how self-assessment is always a good topic to write about from time to time, and teacher’s know the content of the text!
Our last worksheet illustrates how a 3rd year student writes a 300-word report on a third course at the EOI and the edition of her composition may trigger learners’ initiative to do something alike.

WR 2. Editing a complaint: Catalogue shopping 4-5 levels 40-60min

WR 2.1. Assessment on a complaint: Catalogue shopping 4-5 levels 15-20min
GOAL: To learn how the process of assessment works.
WR 2.2. Process of editing a complaint: Catalogue shopping 4-5 levels 30-40min
GOAL: Follow the guided comments on the assesment of a complaint.

Sometimes learners’ texts are corrected with a few comments. In this worksheet we observe the process of assessing a formal text: a complaint. Different criteria can be used and the idea is to make the marking categories more visible for the students.
With our second worksheet the paragraphs are compared between the first and the edited versions. The annexes include the teacher’s marking scales and both texts in full with clear corrections. Afterwards students are expected to write their own complaint.



WR 3. The art of summarising
WR 3.1. Decoding Columbus 3-4-5 level 30-40 m.
WR 3.2 The men behind Wikipedia 3-4 level 40-50 min.

GOAL. To write summaries on a couple of topics: A controversial character to see the bias of a text and on a means of mass communication like Wikipedia.
Cognitive. Gather information from several sources, available on internet, local libraries and general media, where we will offer the possibilites of our local Catalonia Today publication.
Study the configuration of Wikipedia, an ever-evolving means of communication. They will have to ponder on this question: How reliable can an open encyclopaedia be?

WRITING TASKS
The learners will develope a couple of tasks. In this case they will follow the diversos stages of the writing process.
1. Short summary (80 words): Colombus’ uncertain origen
Long summary (250-300 words composition): Wikipedia: people, process and product
summarising a couple of articles from The Boston Globe
MATERIALS:
CATALONIA TODAY 18/05/06: Columbus the Catalan?
4 PDF pages at http://www.histocat.com/htm/va_pre.htm www.wikipedia.org
The Boston Globe –online edition (archives)
1-Many contributors, common cause 2- Wikipedia volunteers: The idealists, and the world they share
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/02/13/many_contributors_common_cause/
By David Mehegan, Globe Staff | February 13, 2006



WR4. Revising written mistakes
WR4.1. 4 Let the Music be with us 3-4 level 30 minutes
WR4.2. Revising musical mistakes 3-4 level 30 minutes

Goal. These worksheets offer the challenge of learning how to edit one's own mistakes by dealing with those of others first.
This is an excellent way of gaining the necessary distance and to see one's own work from outside, which for some students is quite hard.

LANGUAGE PRACTICE. The learners are offered some guided exercises to catalogue writing mistakes. 1. Spelling is a very visible category. Sometimes mistakes are difficult to explain at
your level. Most of them are related to visual or sound similarities.
2. Look at the underlined words.
There are music in the radio, in the TV, in the batroom ... is an universal language. I like too ear his music with CD than a friend give me. Although to listening classic records is useful I never listen.

Classyfying list correcting them: vocabulary /syntax / ......................
grammar>–tense: preposition: comparative ........................
Vocabulary: <2> to hum a song (inaudible words, just the melody), <3> sound, <4> lasts (v) <5> history, <7> live concert (adj + v), <8> lyrics, <9> teach, show
syntax <1> to listen more than to sing, <6> would really like

FOLLOW UP. Write about your own musical life answering: why I’m a music lover, which type of music I like more and how I enjoy it.

FOOTNOTE. The origin of the exercise was a list of mistakes taken from a students exam at the third level where they had 30 minutes to develop the task.
Here you have some of the speciemens collected. My task consisted in weaving a cohesive whole using them


I haven't favorites altough
the unique groups I listen are modern groups and jazz even.
I prefere the Rolling Estons because they remember me a lot of meravellous partys.
I like too ear music with CD than a friend give me.
I sing horrible when I go a bit drunk in the car when i go to home after a hard day selling appartments in my work.
We have fortune because festival is during only a week , noisy.
I listen sometimes the radio clasical songs of the eigthyes
In other way, I hate Rocio jurado and similars... they are bored than shout very loudly.
go to a concert of her if my fathers led me go, of cours.

Seven years ago when I was teenage I did a little concert with friends. They love sing and this actuation was more important for a lot of persons.
I can remember a song of Elvis excepte "Love my tender". I remember it and -i though in my firts love any i hear it.
I gaste my time in the pubs is more funy and there music is present in all something

I like going to concerts with nwe music tendencies.
Last week I enjoy go to a concerts of folk music. Aftr, I'd go to the pub for drink a bear. Do you like? I invite.

Published at Pilgrims magazine at http://www.hltmag.co.uk/may03/sart6.htm





WR5. Enhancing my composition: Sip a coffee (4-5 level 40- 50 min)
GOAL. To write a composition about coffee (tea) in our lives

The topic dealt with can be phrased in this way: How do we interact with coffee? The social and personal implications are shared by the community.
We share these experiences in class.
TASKS. Use computer searches to get real stories for input (reading) and raw text for output.
The learners will produce a text of their own with some help:
1) From the product (The god shot, an introductory text to develop interest) to the user (Darwich’s memories)
2) Two real passages form learners texts to act as prompts
3) TIP. How can we use ‘authentic texts’ to phrase them as a way to express myself without falling into the plagiarism fault:
Resource: Googleing these: “sip a coffe “ + twilight > The screen produces some entries.


I chose this one by chance:

the sun sets and twilight calms.Its getting dark earlier now.
Summer's almost over. I sip a coffe and ponder the what ifs.
What if things had happened differently?What if things had been the same but i reacted differently?What if we had all been stronger, better ,wiser?
They're pathetic; the what ifs.Sobbed apologies
Edited version for a personalised text:
“… My favourite cup of coffee takes place at weekends when I take half an hour for myself. No papers, no company.
The sun sets slowly, its getting dark the day light is almost over and the twilight calms. I sip a coffee and ponder the what ifs. It’s a dialogue with myself. What if I had acted differently? What if I hadn’t reacted that way? What if we had all been more curious? I have another sip.

MATERIALS. This working sheet consists of three pages.
We offer an additional edited text Two Hours of Joint Solitude by Chris Pluger (page three) as a model (length, mood, inspiration) for their final text.
found at http://www.coffeegeek.com/opinions/cafestage/10-19-2005

Additional resources: http://www.coffeegeek.com/
The Cafe Stage is your chance to get something off your chest. Think of it as a speakers' corner, but in a virtual cafe. As long as the subject even closely relates to coffee, espresso, cafes and coffee culture, it's a potential article we want to put up on the CoffeeGeek site. Visiting authors can also write on subjects near and dear to them.


WR 6. The metaphors we live by: learning is a flight 4-5 levels


WR 6.1. The write stuff. 4-5 levels 15-20min
GOAL. To learn ways of finding an angle to your composition.

WR 6.2. The rite of writing right: Fear of flying? 4-5 levels 35-40min
GOAL. To be aware of the uses of the metaphor of flying in a learner’s report (Have a nice flight!).
In the first worksheet you will meet Josh Freed, a succesful writer based in Montreal. Using his text, The write stuff, as guidelines you will face the problem of how to make your text interesting. There are three activities to help you.
In the second one, you see an ambitious writer, who prepared a report on the course with some metaphoric language of flying. Assess how successful she was and be ready to write your own course report.
Follow-up. See Collocations in use (CUP) -units 12, 43, 44 & 45- to help you at this point.

WR 7. A community effort –Dine out in Paris

WR 7.1 Who’s who in the community 3-4-5 level 15 min.
GOAL. To practise your writing skills working on a creative text based on real life characters. In this working sheet we will prepare a 60-word biography of our artists.

WR7.2 Writing a descriptive text: dine out in Paris 4-5 level 45 min.
GOAL. To enhance your writing skills practising with a creative text based on real life characters. In this working sheet we will see a model 300-word written assignment.

Students can practise their writing skills working on a creative text based on real life characters, how they met, with real documents from that time. In this first worksheet you will prepare a 60-word biography of our artists.
In the second worksheet, after studying a learner’s text, you will follow the process of edition. The proposal is you are eager to break your hand writing into your own version of that particular evening.
At the end the annexed pages give you real samples with two other learners.



Writing 8. Our Quest for English

WR 8.1 Quest – a history level 4-5 15-20 minutes
GOAL. To find style resources to add to my composition.
WR 8.2. My personal Quest for English 4 -5 levels 50 minutes
GOAL. To do some introspecting work to know how English is also part of your life.

In this sheet we wiil see how the process of writing evolves in shaping an interesting text. You will consider whatever stylistic devices you included in your previous texts.
You will study the creative process of a learner as he elaborated on the idea of ‘My personal Quest for English’. The compositions from both worksheets showed an unusual effort to be a risky writer and how the stages of writing shaped rich texts. As follow-up, there is an example from another learner about how Rock ‘n Roll affected his learning of English. Enjoy both, and be an adventurous composer with this interesting topic.


WR 9. WEB resouces to improve your writing
GOAL. To surf the web to discern what kind of writing centres you could rely on.
WR 9.1. Four webpages to get started
WR 9.2. University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center: five items
WR 9.3. The 25 Absolute Best Web Resources for Writers From Jamie Littlefield,
WR 9.4. Infamous mistakes: English Pet Peeves
Our first worksheet invites you to spend 20 minutes to evaluate four famous websites and see if any of them might be useful to your needs.
Our second worksheet pays a visit to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center. There you are offered a writing handbook that guides writers through all steps of the writing process. Here you can see a couple of pages presenting these five items:
1. Reduce unnecessary prepositional phrases 2. Avoid using vague nouns
3. Beware of nominalizations 4. Avoid noun strings
5. Carelessness with misplaced modifiers (with a one-page task)
Our next worksheet comes from Jamie Littlefield ‘s 25 Absolute Best Web Resources for Writers.
Before you start that essay assignment, check out these indispensable sites. The internet can guide you to discover how to write, what to write, where to find information, and how to format your paper.

Our last worksheet deals with a recurrent headache for many readers: language pet peeves, those infamous mistakes readers find unbearable. After doing a couple of tasks, learn how to avoid them. A pet peeve (or pet hate) is a minor annoyance that can instill great frustration in an individual, especially those English teachers who cannot stand them in your writing assignment. As follow-up, there is a link to a useful site to refer to for grammatical pet peeves: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/