Elementary Composition, Daytime Class – Resources & Homework

• By mrgord
• Posted in Elementary Composition (Day) Spring 2006
• On March 5, 2008
• Comments Off on Elementary Composition, Daytime Class – Resources & Homework

Your homework will be added to this page as I assign each task to you. The Assigned date shows when I gave the homework, and the Due date shows when the homework is supposed to be ready for presentation.

RESOURCES:

Free Writing Worksheet. (March 14th, 2006)

Idea Bubble Network / Mind Map handout/worksheet. (March 16th, 2006)

Midterm exam preview. April 19th 2006.

Letter-Writing Example. 11 May 2006.

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HOMEWORK:1. First Goals.Assigned 7th March 2006. Due 14th March 2006.Students should:

• Buy a notebook and a nice pen, and a dictionary of some sort.
• Make sure that they have an English-language capable wordprocessor with spell-check function. (OpenOffice is a free option.)
• Read over the syllabus carefully.
• Decide on a personal goal for the course.

#2. Second Homework: Assigned March 14th. Due March 16th:

• Try one (or more) freewriting exercise(s) on your own, of about 10 minutes each
• Prepare a formal goal for your writing development. Write it in the front of your English Composition notebook, and also on a piece of paper to submit to me.
• if you cannot think of interesting things to write about, READ A NEWSPAPER!

#3. Third Homework: Assigned March 16th. Due March 23rd.

• Continue free-writing.
• Take your most interesting example of free-writing, and write a list of the interesting or important keywords and concepts from it.
• Create a Mind Map or Idea Bubble Network using these ideas, and then add more ideas or words to it. See the Idea Bubble Network / Mind Map handout/worksheet from March 16th for a good example of what I mean. Don’t be afraid to add more words and ideas, and of course question marks (?) for things you may need to research more. You will hand in this Mind Map on the morning of Thursday, March 23rd, but make sure you have a copy of it for yourself, so you can complete homework #4, below.

#4. Blog Homework for the week of March 21-28. Please see this post on the class blog for more information on this week’s homework.

#5. Conjunctions Work and Rewriting Your Paragraph: Assigned 28 March 2006. Due 30 March 2006.

You begn writing a paragraph using a pool of words I put on the board. You had to:

1. use all of the words on the board, and
2. use at least six compound sentences in your paragraph, using the following conjunctions: and, but, or

After you finish writing this paragraph, put it aside for a little while. Then come back to it, read it aloud, and rewrite it. You will be showing this paragraph to at least one or two classmates next time (during class on March 30th), so please be prepared!

#6. Using Good Topic Sentences: Assigned 4 April 2006. Due 11 April 2006.

We worked on making bad topic sentences, ie. topic sentences that were:

• too narrow
• too general
• too personal, or
• too uncontroversial

Your homework was to (a) write four good topic sentences (on the topic of “rice”) that include an opinion, but that don’t use the pronoun I, and (b) to use two of your good topic sentences as the topic sentences of paragraphs that you blog in the next week or so.

Remember: OPINION IS ESSENTIAL!

#7. Working With Lists: Assigned 13 April 2006. Due 20 April 2006.

There were three pieces of homework for this day:

1. Write a recipe for the dish that you and your partner chose. It should consist of two paragraphs: first, a list of ingredients (an items list), and second, a list of steps needed to make the food (a sequence list). Post it to the blog.
2. Print your recipe and hand it in at the next class (19 April 2006).
3. Write instructions on how to do something else — anything of your choice. You may use a list of items if you wish, but you should definitely include a list of steps (a sequence list). Post it to the blog.

#9: Who is She/He? (Blog homework)

This is based on the exercise we did in class. You looked at your partner, and were supposed to write a descriptive paragraph about your partner, and blog it. This is NOT a hand-in assignment.

#10: Do You Know Someone Who…? (Due 11 May 2006)

This is also based on an exercise we did in class. In this exercise, you interviewed classmates about stingy, nasty, or unusual friends or relatives of theirs. You should choose the most interesting example, write a paragraph using “For example” and “For instance”, and print it. Submit the description of the person to me.

#11: Write Me a Letter (Postmark Due 18 May 2006)
We discussed the form for writing a letter in class. Your assignment is to write me a letter using as many of the techniques as possible from what we’ve already studied. Type me a letter, put it in an envelope, address it to me in English, and then go to the post office and mail it to me. You will not be marked on the contents, but simply receive a checkmark if you have done it, or an X if you have not. You should specify that you are a student in my DAYTIME Elementary Composition course, because my Evening class students are doing this as well. Feel free to write about whatever you want, whether it’s about the class, your life, your English studies, or something completely different. I want you not to worry about writing perfectly, but express your ideas in an interesting way. Refer to this handout for some ideas.