Essay+Writing

Hi Lingfeng, Edwin, Gideon, Gordon, Wah Jiang, Kwang Ming, Kenji, Yong Xiang, Han Quan, Milton, Derrick, and Yi Xiang, you will spend this week polishing your writing skills. This is not to say that you are not good writers, but you do need a little more focused practice to help you write better.

This series of lessons offer you a choice in the specific skills which you could work on. Each of you has different areas of need so it's best if you do a self-diagnosis and choose the task best suited for you.

You'll need to create your own pages on this wikispace for the following exercises. Name it after yourself for ease of navigation and to prevent confusing me. Refer to the "Sample" link for an idea of how to organise your page.

Refer to your past essays and pick TWO areas which you need to work on. Some suggestions include: Remember, choose only **TWO** areas to work on. Do not take the unthinking approach by reporting that you have no strengths, only weaknesses. Choose the two areas which you think you can improve on in a week and which will yield tangible positive results. Next, do an Internet search on the specific skill that you want to work on. There are a gazillion sites out there offering free and sometimes useful advice to write better. Do a careful search and choose two sites which you find most useful. Give a brief evaluation of the resources in that site. As a hint, university sites are usually more reliable than personal blogs.
 * LESSON 1: Self-diagnosis**
 * Introduction
 * Conclusion
 * Crafting thesis statements and topic sentences
 * Using Evidence
 * Expressing in your own words (how to avoid plagiarism)
 * Clear argumentation (setting out premises and conclusions in a logical flow)
 * Language Use - sentence construction, using parallelism, punctuation, vocabulary etc.

By the end of the lesson, you should have a) posted your self-diagnosis on your page. b) included links to one or two excellent sites that teach you how to tackle the specific area of need

In this lesson, you will attempt to put into practice the skills you've learnt in the previous lesson. The writing topic for this week is: **GM (Genetically Modified) Food - boon or bane?** This topic is related to the theme of Science and Technology which we will be exploring this term.
 * LESSON 2: Applying the Skills**

Before you begin writing the paragraph, you will need to do a bit of research into the topic.Use your wiki page to record the research and planning process.

Next, tell me how you intend to write the paragraph. For instance, if you are working on "Introduction", you would be saying something like: "I want to use a catchy opening in the introduction because it will capture the attention of the reader. There are usually many myths surrounding GM food and I will find the two scariest/ unlikely/ commonest myths as the opening. I will use quotation marks to show that these are spoken by "people", not part of the authorial voice..."

Lastly, write your paragraph.

Remember, your comments about your writing are as important as the actual paragraph itself.

By the end of the lesson, you should have a) done and recorded the planning and research b) written the comments about your paragraph c) written the actual paragraph

In this lesson, you will review two friends' work.
 * LESSON 3: Peer Review**

This is the grouping: (i) Lingfeng, Edwin, Gideon (ii) Wah Jiang, Kwang Ming, Kenji (iii) Milton, Derrick, Yi Xiang (iv) Yong Xiang, Han Quan, Gordon

Go to your group mates' pages and read their paragraph. Post your comments directly under the paragraph and remember to identify yourself. Give useful comments and everyone should make an attempt to suggest one way of improving the paragraph.

By the end of the lesson, you should have a) commented on your group mates' paragraphs b) reviewed the comments for your paragraph

In this final lesson, you will revise your paragraph based on the feedback given. Once again, you will write about how you intend to improve your original paragraph as well as the new revised paragraph itself.
 * LESSON 4: Revision**

At the end of week, write your reflections on what you have learnt in the whole process. Feel free to visit your friends' pages to view their recommended links.

By the end of the lesson, you should have a) written about how you intend to revise the original paragraph b) written the revised paragraph c) written the reflections