Twitter
RSSArticles tagged with: Essay
Activity/Game, Resources »
This is less of a proper activity and more just sharing a Process Essay Graphic Organizer that I made. These three were made for specific readings that students were to reverse outline, but they can easily be adapted to other readings. Or just used by students to write their own essays. They aren’t anything particularly fancy but they illustrate three different ways to put together a Process Essay.
Activity/Game »
My students have to do a process (or “How to do something”) essay. I was looking for a way to tie it into Halloween. While looking for costume ideas, I found these instructions on how to make a mask and thought they’d be perfect as an example of a how-to essay, once they were simplified a bit and made more universal. I don’t think everyone wants to go as SlipKnot!
So here’s my version of “How to make a mask”[DOCX]. I also presented it to them by cutting up each paragraph …Continue
Lesson Plan »
How to Write Detailed Body Paragraphs
(adapted from The Michigan Guide to English for Academic Success and Better TOEFL Test Scores)
Write a topic sentence here: _____________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
What do I mean by that? (or what exactly do I want to say?)
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
What’s an example of that? (What context am I thinking of? How can I clarify what I mean?)
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
So what? (What is the significance of my point of view?)
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
OK, so why is THAT important? (Can I explain why the above idea is important?)
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
What will be the result then? (What will come of my idea OR what bad things will …Continue
Lesson Plan »
A lot of students don’t appreciate the importance of pre-writing or brainstorming or warming up to write. Often they want to sit down and start putting pen to paper immediately. However taking a few minutes to think and plan and get your brain working is an important part of writing a good essay. If you know what you are going to say, you can concentrate more on grammar and style while you write. So here are a couple of good exercises to give students in order to help their brain warm up before they get to writing.
TOEFL »
I’ve put up a few sample TOEFL essays here, here and some tips for writing essays here.
Now I’m going to try something slightly different. I’m putting up a sample TOEFL writing test question and I encourage readers to try to answer. Email your answer to walton [at] englishadvantage [.] com (replacing @ for at, obviously) and I’ll email you back comments and notes. I will also post the best essay up here, with a link of the writer’s choice. I’ll link to you blog, website, facebook profile, whatever you want.
Question:Do …Continue
Featured, Lesson Plan »
This article was originally written for students. I just wanted to break down the steps for writing a basic five paragraph essay. I had the TOEFL independent or opinion essay in mind when I wrote this, but many high-school teachers still demand this form. While there are more complicated ways to write an essay, this is the basic model of the American academic essay, so it’s good to understand it well, if only to improvise off of it.
Lesson Plan »
This is a new idea I’ve had to help students prepare for the Written Section of the TOEFL by providing you with a sample essay. I hope to do this fairly regularly.
UPDATE: In fact, I followed up on that promise. Check out a descriptive essay about my favorite sport.
Overall I think one of the biggest problems with the TOEFL Essay is that there are too many problems. Students don’t know what to write about, how to organize it, what level of language to use, what the introduction and conclusion should …Continue
My name is Walton. I'm an English teacher in New Haven. This site is mainly where I share my lesson plans and activity ideas to try to help other teachers and also to hopefully get some feedback. Feel free to use anything here, but just don't put them up on your site or pass them off as your own, please.