Writing in a Foreign Language Essay

In this chapter, Lunsford details the planning and drafting process for a writer to organize their ideas with either a formal outline or a rough plan. Lunsford reminds writers to be flexible during the drafting process and not to think twice about changing elements of the essay at this point in the process. Lunsford goes on to explain the qualities academic paragraphs must have these include unity, development and coherence. To obtain unity within a paragraph all sentences should relate to the topic sentence of the paragraph. When developing a paragraph it is important to switch between general and specific ideas in the paragraph, while supporting those ideas with details, evidence and examples as required. Ensuring a paragraph is coherent is crucial when developing an academic paragraph. Because readers need to be able to follow a writers ideas easily, Lunsford gives her readers a method to follow to achieve this goal. This method includes using the general to specific ideas, repetition, parallel structures, and using transition words. The author notes that this method should also be used to link paragraphs

When beginning to write an essay everyone has their own method of doing so. Some may like to brainstorm while others may prefer to go straight into writing about their topic. I personally beginning every essay by collecting ideas about my topic before coordinating them into a type of diagram, next I proceed to do my rough draft before revising over the paper and finally composing my final draft. The point of the writing process is to help break everything down so ideas can be organized and everything can make perfect sense for not just the writer but also the reader.

On a more serious level, coherence is undermined while being one of the writer's and reader's most basic need. "The problem is not that the Five-Paragraph formula produces incoherence but rather that it limits students to a superficial, predictable level or coherence," (232) states Foley. This allows for students to throw any three liberally related ideas together for the body of the essays. Once students fabricate a thesis statement that elucidates for their three ideas, the students feel they have mastered structure. Foley states, "To be asked merely to enumerate three aspects of any topic relieves the student of the need to probe relationships... it robs them of any motivation to do so," (232). Juxtaposition is not

Nunnally states its purpose to “provide[s] for effective inculcation of concepts such as unity, coherence, and development (Nunnally).” The model is structured to unite each paragraph to each other by using a thesis statement paragraph, three supporting paragraphs for said idea and finally, to summarize your essay. The use of transitional words allows the author to smoothly connect each paragraph and idea. Finally, the model develops chronologically. The author will introduce, prove and conclude. The five-paragraph model fulfills its purpose for the inexperienced writers

ELL continue to rise year after year. In EDUC 628, the class delved into the rise of ELL in America and how the best teaching methods to approach each learner with. Every ELL student is unique and has different learning process. Although the semester covered a wide variety of topics ranging from dialects to teaching methods, every module served its purpose in providing a framework for future ELL teachers. Learning about how to teach ELL was significant to me because when I first entered the school system in America, I was placed into ESL and I have gone through the process of many of these teaching methods. EDUC 628 main focus was preparing students whose goal in the future was to educate ELL. The articles and readings assigned in the class provided a funds of knowledge going into each new lesson. Coupled with the readings, hands on activities such as the mini lessons and designing lesson plans provided each student with experience that will reflect on their teaching abilities in the classroom. In my paper, I will be provided a step by step synthesis of what was learned and accomplished every week along with a brief summary of the readings. I will probe deeper into the modules and lessons that piqued my interest the most and that also challenge my mindset.

Another strategy used often to help a piece seem organized and well written is logos. In Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” she structures her writing into logical sections. This essay is written about the implications and limitations of growing up and living with “Broken English” as your or your parents language. The essay proceeds logically and starts out with an introduction to the topic and to her life.

The first step is something I like to call, The Royal Rumble of Ideas. The path in which my paper will follow as well as my thoughts and ideas are formed from the first process. The way in which it does this, is by requiring the writer to apply an abundant amount of focus on one particular area; whereas, the typical strategy, asks for the writer to just write (cue eye roll). If I am to construct a story, I must utilize this step. En passant, I might add, the crux of the former element is very much similar to the latter, as well as in the way in which it works. The commonality to which I am referring, is rumination. The simplicity of it is bemusing, especially considering it’s efficiency, but I will describe that later. The way this is utilized, is by requiring the writer to mull over what they will write next. For example: When I am writing, regardless of the type of paper, I will deeply contemplate what my next sentence will be and how it will be phrased. Incidentally, in English class, I will often be seen staring into the ether, as if I am on a psychotropic drug. There is, however, a reason behind this seemingly sinister image. As I described, rumination is crucial in my writing process: In order to produce a sentence, or a paragraph for that matter, I must distill information from that contemplation. (See, it even

A well written essay must consist of many different writing elements in order bring together a strong, and well organized structure, to the essay. Each paper must be well thought out, that consists of an introduction, has body paragraphs that supports each claim, and ends with a conclusion. Even though all of these parts of the essay are critical to the essays writing process, yet the most significant part of the essay is the thesis statement because it sets up the initial structure of the paper; therefore, the thesis creates the main claim of the essay which is followed by two reasons of why that claim is true, by setting up the thesis this way the writer then has the material to construct well organized body paragraphs and conclusion.

Within English 219, we have already learned a vital set of writing skills, that will allow for the improvement of essays, and summaries that must be written for future assessments. Some of these skills that would be relevant for achieving general writing improvement could be ideas such as thesis development, structuring and planning, or more specific examples when actually fleshing out the essay such as elements of grammar and style. Thesis development which is crucial so that ideas can be fully explained and related back to a point which can be interpreted as an overarching theme for the entire paper, and allows the reader to interpret the topic of not only the essay but of each paragraph. Taking a step back we looked in class at the subject

Joseph Williams and Lawrence McEnerney, in the third chapter of Writing in College, offer strategies for revising a paper, including suggestions regarding the point (or thesis), the organizational structure of the a paper, the evidence, and the attitude of the argument as a whole. The first step of the revision process “is intended to ensure that the beginning and end of your paper cohere with each other” (14). To accomplish this first step, Williams and McEnerney recommend isolating the point in the introduction and conclusion, and ensuring these sections communicate the same argument. Williams and McEnerney also suggest two different methods to communicate a point: point-first, in which the introduction contains a full statement of the argument

The second part of the book “Writing Today” discussed the importance of writing summaries, as well as how to go about writing them. Johnson-Sheehan, Paine, Shaw, and Stouck, begin by explaining that a summary’s main purpose is to emphasize an ideas main topic by first carefully analysing it. It is important to know the approximate length a summary should be before commencing the writing process in order to know how much detail the summary requires. A summary, although condensed, must accurately explain the original text. If not, it might cause misunderstandings as well as “distortions” of the material. Summaries must also be original and should primarily be written in writer’s own words, which would also their own ideas and thoughts to be present

This step is extremely important because this helps the writer to organize his thoughts and to put them in a logical order. The guideline can be a simple or as long as necessary. Typically, an outline consists of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The body usually consists of a minimum of three points with supporting evidence listed under each point. The more the outline is broken down, the easier the writing process becomes. Then, create a topic sentence which precisely describes what is being discussed in the body of the essay. It is important that the topic sentence is precise and sets the tone of the

Third but not least, the conclusion provides an almost mirror image of the introduction, wrapping up the arguments with a restatement of the thesis of your essay. I call this the bottom burger bun or in other words the conclusion. Holding it all together is the bottom bun of the hamburger or the conclusion to sum up all the key points of interest. The conclusion sentence should be interesting by giving it a call to action. As you can see a hamburger is easy to make like writing is not as hard as you think. Writing is very simple to do as preparing a hamburger.

I believe that it has not suffered few alterations during the last six years when I took this subject, and it is extremely significant since in that time this subject was seen and treated as separately fields. According to Louise M. Rosenblatt the relationship between reading and writing is demonstrated in all linguistic activities we can think. To illustrate the previous thought, teaching grammar, phonology, composition, literature and other fields involves an enormous relationship which goes in both ways reading-writing and writing-reading

ESL students are students that speak English as a second language. Presently, there is many different system to characterize this type of students (qtd in Shi, Steen 63). For example, they can be seen as “English Language Learners (ELL), English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), English Language Development (ELD), English Language Service (ELS), and