Materials: Guidelines

This is a combination of two work-sheets covering writing techniques for short compositions giving the good and bad points of an issue - in this case, the separating of household waste into different categories for recycling purposes.

Give out the first sheet "Good Points and Bad Points" and instruct students to work individually and mark the items at the top of the page to indicate whether they approve or disapprove. If this collection doesn't seem very contentious to you, you might want to add a few more of your own to the list. When they have finished, divide the class into groups of two or three and ask students to compare their answers debating any that they don't agree about.

When this has gone on for a few minutes, stop them and draw their attention to the list of writing tips further down the page. Tell them that later in the class, they are going to write a short composition giving the good and bad points for an issue and that some of the tips given will be helpful and that some will not. Ask them to work in their groups and try to decide which tips are good and which are bad. A possible set of answers follows, but if you don't agree, stick with what you think.

1. Good
2. This may be good in some circumstances, but if used by students in an exam it will give the examiner the impression that they don't know many other words.
3. Not a good idea. Makes it easier for the reader to get lost or bored.
4. Good
5. Used by tabloid jouranlists but not recommended for this type of composition.
6. Good but don't use it too often.
7. Good advice for weaker students maybe but students should try to stretch themselves a bit.
8. Good. Tells the reader what the passage is about and what to expect.
9. A matter of opinion. I like this but I know some people don't.
10. A matter of opinion. I don't like this but I know some people do.

When they are ready, give the students the second sheet "Separating Garbage" and ask them to identify which composition is reasonably well written and which is "garbage". It should be fairly obvious that the first composition has no organization, no paragraphs, is repetitive, uses the same words again and again and is very confusing to read. If your class unanimously prefer the first one, you've got a problem on your hands.

When they are ready, instruct the class to make notes about the good and bad points of one of the ideas at the top of the first work-sheet, using the grid at the bottom of that page. This will make it easier for them to organize their ideas into two paragraphs and is a technique you might want to recommend they adopt.

Whether they write their compositions in class or at home is for you to decide. In this case, I would personally devote a bit of lesson time to writing - possibly working in pairs and then monitor and "tweak" the wrting process as it occurs in real time.

In the table below, the first row is for the discussion sheet "Good Points and Bad Points" and the second row is for the "Separating Garbage" writing examples sheet.

You have a choice of two different methods of getting this handout to your printer. It all depends on whether your computer has "Adobe Acrobat Reader" installed. If it has, then this would be the recommended method for printing out the worksheet. Try selecting the "PDF (Adobe Acrobat)" link below. If all goes well, a new application window should appear including a print button, which when selected will print out one copy.

If, on the other hand you do not have "Adobe Acrobat" select the "HTML (web page)" link below. (Also, this method is recommended for users of Netscape Navigator, which seems to have trouble interacting with the Acrobat program like this.) If all goes well, a new browser window will open, from which you can either click the "print button" on the toolbar or open the "File" menu, select "Print" and then adjust the "Print Dialog Box" to your own preferences.

The final link below is to enable you to print this "instruction page" if you want to. Click on the link, and when the page appears on a new screen you will be able to print it using the browser's "print button" or "file menu". After printing, close the window again so that you can continue to navigate around the site.

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