WRITING COMPONENT GOALS AND
OBJECTIVES
Main Goal:
By
the end of the Prep year, students will be able to write academic essays (and
research papers) at Freshman level clearly and
accurately at an acceptable speed. They will
also have a critical awareness of their writing in terms of content, coherence
and linguistic accuracy.
Objectives
A)
Mechanics
1.
Punctuation
(use full stop, apostrophe, question mark, quotation marks)
2.
Capitalization
B)
Process
Writing Skills
1.
Using invention
techniques (freewriting, listing, clustering etc.)
2.
Writing the
first draft
3.
Editing
(self-correction, peer correction)
4.
Outlining
5.
Writing the
final draft
C)
Organization
1.
Have a clear
understanding of essay organization, including introduction, body paragraph(s)
and a conclusion
2.
Write with
appropriate rhetorical organization
D)
Content
1.
Develop an
argument
2.
Relate general
statements to examples
3.
Express
opinions
4.
Express
attitudes
5.
Make comments
6.
Convey
Information
7.
Express
Reasons
8.
Present arguments
for or against a position
9.
Provide
justification for an action or decision
10.
Describe
people, places
11.
Make
comparisons between two events, objects etc.
12.
Evaluate
ideas, evidence, or an argument
13.
Make
appropriate use of graphical representations
14.
Transfer data
from graphic to written form
E)
Writing in Different Rhetorical Patterns
1.
Description
2. Narration
3. The
Process Essay
4. The Definition Essay
5. The Classification Essay
6. Compare
and Contrast Essays
7. Cause and
Effect Essays
8.
Argumentative
Essays
9. Reports
10. Reaction Essays
F) Lexis and Structure
1.
Write phrases
2. Write clauses
3. Write simple sentences
4. Write compound sentences
5. Write complex sentences
6. Make appropriate use of
discourse markers
7. Link sentences grammatically,
lexically, and semantically
8.
Write a paragraph
9.
Write an essay
10. Write accurate and
comprehensive topic sentences
11. Write accurate and
comprehensive thesis statements
G)
Research Paper (ADV Level)
1. Summarizing
2. Paraphrasing
3. Taking notes from a reading
text
4.
Outlining
5. Integrate data from library and
web material into the research paper
6. Writing an abstract
Personal Writing Folder and Academic
Writing Folder:
At the Prep School, we ask Intermediate and Advanced
Level Students to keep both an Academic and a Personal Writing Folder. Students are to keep both the first and the
second (revised) drafts of their classroom assignments in their Academic
Writing Folders. The purpose of the
Personal Writing Folder is to increase fluency writing. PW Folders are not
graded or checked for grammar or mechanics.
The instructors just collect them and check if students have written at
least two entries each week. From time
to time, instructors are also expected to make some personal comments about the
topic to motivate students.
PW
is different from a diary or journal in that the materials in the PW folder are
to function as a “bank account” that could be used as a basis for formal
writing assignments in the future. In
other words, along with some personal observations about life or other people;
reacting to a controversial reading or listening text, which has been discussed
in class, also belong to the PW folder.
The
instructors may grade the Academic Writing Folder throughout the semester and
count it as part of the Student Performance Grade (SPG) at the end of each
semester.
Due to the notable decline in the quality of the
students’ essays, Process Writing Skills have been added to the Objectives of
the Writing Component. We believe that
making students aware and responsible of their own work is as crucial as
teaching them the mechanics or different rhetorical patterns. Students are expected to write a first draft,
revise it after teacher or peer editing and hand in the second draft to the
teacher again. They keep both the first
drafts and revised versions of their assignments in their Academic Writing
Folder.
“To become
better writers, students need to become better readers.” (Spack,
1988)
The second semester of the Intermediate and
Advanced Writing Program is made up of writing activities which are organized
around a weekly theme and integrated with one or more reading text(s). The aim of this approach is to expose
students to different point of views on a particular subject and familiarize
them with relevant vocabulary in order to improve the content of their essays.
Monthly
Projects
Each month the Curriculum Office prepares Mini Monthly
Project assignments, such as Interviews, Reports, Observations, Oral History Projects etc.
As these assignments are carried out outside the class and involve some
research and interaction with other people, students are encouraged to prepare
at least two assignments each semester.
These assignments are optional but teachers may grade these projects and
include this grade in the SPG.
Graph
Interpretation
Although writing from data is not part of the
Proficiency Exam any more, the Curriculum Office emphasizes Graph
Interpretation in its Writing Program.
Along with relevant vocabulary and mechanics about how to transfer
information from a table or a graph, several writing assignments are also
supplied to the instructors.
The second semester of
the Advanced Level Writing Program is virtually devoted to teaching students
how to write an Academic Research Paper.
Starting from the first semester, Intermediate and Advanced level
students practice how to summarize and paraphrase information in a reading
text, which are very important skills in writing a research paper. Advanced Level students are taken on library
tours and provided with relevant handouts about how to write a Research Paper. (This activity is optional for Intermediate
students).
Written by Curriculum Committee, September 2004