Developing Writing Skills Ling-hsia Chen National Taiwan University

Elements of Communication AUTHOR AUDIENCE LANGUAGE SUBJECT

Goals of Writing  Expressive writing situations personal feelings, thoughts (the writer)  Referential (expository) writing situations facts, information (outside subject)  Persuasive writing situations argument (the reader’s support, action)

The Writing Process PlanningDrafting The Essay Revising

The Writing Process Planning  thinking about your purpose and audience  deciding what to write about  developing ideas  gathering details

The Writing Process (cont’d) Drafting  connecting ideas  deciding the order of details  incorporating new ideas Revising  deciding what works and what doesn’t  changing the draft to improve it

Four Principles  Start with a clearly stated point.  Organize and connect your supporting material  Provide logical, detailed support for your point.  Revise and edit to have error-free and effective sentences

Basic Shape of Writing Paragraph Structure  topic sentence  supporting sentences sensory details, facts, statistics, examples, anecdotes  concluding sentence

Paragraph  A paragraph is a group of sentences, organized to state or support one main idea. Together, the sentences make the main idea clear. It usually consists an opening point called a topic sentence followed by a series of sentences supporting that point.

Pre-Writing Activities  Keeping a writer’s journal  Free writing  Brainstorming  Clustering  Asking questions

Brainstorming Topic: Summer job at a convenience store 1. 8 hours a day, 7 days a week 2. Went to work at 6 a.m. got back at 5 p.m. 3. Only had 30 minutes for lunch break 4. A chance to meet different people 5. Convenience stores are booming these days.

Brainstorming 6. Most customers were there to kill time. 7. Lifted heavy cartons of merchandise for at least half a day 8. A risky job 9. There are 4 convenience stores in my neighborhood. 10. No pay for lunch break 11. Didn’t know how to operate a cash register at the beginning

Brainstorming 12. Could not remember the locations of different goods 13.Bosses yelled at me sometimes 14.Pay was only NT$79 per hour, $100 for overtime 15. Have to stand all the time 16. Co-workers were unfriendly

A Scratch Outline  My experience of working at a convenient store was bad. 1. Hard work 2. Poor Pay 3. Poor interpersonal relationships

Topic Sentence = Your Viewpoint How to come up with a topic sentence  Purpose statement My purpose is to describe to my classmates the experience of working at a convenience store. I will focus on hard work, poor pay, and poor personal relationships.

Clustering Summer Jobs summer jobs manager restaurant a 2-year-old babysitting waiter car washing Convenience store factory computer chips kitchen 7-eleven 8 hours per day

Clustering Job at convenience store bad working environment lift heavy merchandise hard work stand all the time poor pay unfriendly co-workers NT$79 an hour NT$100 for overtime mean boss long work hours

Asking Questions  When did it happen?  Where did it happen?  Who was involved?  What is my opinion of it?  How did I react?  Why did I react in this way?  What can I suggest about it?

Four Bases of Writing Unity Every word, phrase, or sentence directly supports the topic sentence. Support Support the point with specific evidence Coherence Organize and connect the specific evidence

Four Bases of Writing (cont’d)  Transitions  Using Pronouns  Repetition, Restatement, and Variation Effective Sentences Write clear, error-free sentences  Use parallelism.  Use a consistent point of view.  Use concise words.  Vary your sentences.

Strategies of Development  Description  Illustration  Classification  Process Analysis  Comparison and Contrast  Narration  Cause-and-effect  Definition  Persuasive Argument

Evaluating Written Work  Worthwhile content Does the writing worth reading?  Sensible organization Is the writer’s line of thinking easy to follow?  Readable style Is the style economical and convincing?

CEEC Grading Standard Rank Score  Outstanding  Excellent  Good  Poor 5-9  Bad 1-4

大考中心作文評分標準  級距 分數  特優  優  可  差 5-9  劣 1-4

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