CHUYÊN ĐỀ: HELPING GRADE 12 STUDENTS DO WELL THE PARAGRAPH WRITING TASK IN THE FINAL EXAMINATION

For grade 12 students who are working hard to prepare for the national examination to get the General Certificate of Secondary Education and enter university, English is one of the three compulsory subjects that every student has to take. In an English test, there are often some types of questions involving reading skill, grammatical tasks, phonetics and writing. Writing a paragraph is an additional new type of question which has just been supplemented since the last test.

SỞ GIÁO DỤC ĐÀO TẠO VĨNH PHÚC TRƯỜNG THPT YÊN LẠC 2

***

-BÁO CÁO CHUYÊN ĐỀ ÔN THI ĐẠI HỌC

MÔN: TIẾNG ANH

CHUYÊN ĐỀ:

HELPING GRADE 12 STUDENTS DO WELL THE PARAGRAPH

WRITING TASK IN THE FINAL EXAMINATION

TABLE OF CONTENT

Page

2 How to correct and respond to students’ writing 13

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

For grade 12 students who are working hard to prepare for the nationalexamination to get the General Certificate of Secondary Education and enteruniversity, English is one of the three compulsory subjects that every student has totake In an English test, there are often some types of questions involving readingskill, grammatical tasks, phonetics and writing Writing a paragraph is anadditional new type of question which has just been supplemented since the lasttest

This study aims at helping students have more knowledge and needed skills

to do well the paragraph wring task in the exam

The study focused on grade 12 students who have learned English for atleast 6 years and are taking an intensive English course to prepare for the NationalExamination The theme is conducted in 4 weeks with the attendance of 35students in class 12A2 in Yen Lac 2 High School The students attend one class perweek to study and practice writing

Hopefully, both students and teachers will find some useful reference fortheir learning and teaching

PART 2: CONTENT

I WHY STUDENTS NEED TO LEARN TO WRITE

A long time ago, literacy- that is being able to read and write- has been seen

as a desirable skill for whole populations Writing provides a vehicle forexpression and communication No matter the age or grade level of the students,diligent writing practice will boost both their skill and comfort level with revealingand relating their own thoughts and feelings

In the context of graduation, it is worth remembering that most exams,whether they are testing foreign language abilities or other skills, often rely on thestudents’ writing proficiency in order to measure their knowledge

Recently, our Education Ministry has supplemented paragraph writing task

in the National examination for Upper secondary school students Therefore, allstudents who desire to pass this exam to get General Certificate and to enteruniversity must know how to write a good paragraph

way to think about a paragraph is as a “mini-essay,” with its own mini-thesis (thetopic sentence), middle or body (the supporting details) and end or conclusion (theconcluding sentence)

2 Structure of a paragraph

A paragraph generally consists of 3 parts:

* Topic sentence

 Introduces the topic in the paragraph

 Is the most general sentence in the paragraph

 Contains controlling ideas that the following sentences in the paragraph willexplain/ define/ clarify/ illustrate

* A controlling idea is a word or phrase that the reader can ask questions about: How? Why? In what ways? What does that mean?

 Signals the end of the paragraph

 Summarizes the main points of the paragraph/ restates the topic sentence withoutcopying exactly

 Gives a final comment on the topic

3 Elements of a good paragraph

A paragraph should be unified, coherent, and well developed Paragraphs areunified around a main point and all sentences in the paragraph should clearly relate

to that point in some way The paragraph's main idea should be supported withspecific information that develops or discusses the main idea in greater detail

Unity

The entire paragraph should concern itself with a single focus If it beginswith one focus or major point of discussion, it should not end with another orwander within different ideas

Coherence

Coherence is the trait that makes the paragraph easily understandable to a

reader A coherent paragraph has sentences that all logically follow each other;

they are not isolated thoughts

Coherence can be achieved in several ways First, using transitions helpsconnect ideas from one sentence to the next Second, ordering thoughts innumerical sequence helps to direct the reader from one point to the next Third,structuring each paragraph according to one of the following patterns helps toorganize sentences: general to particular; particular to general; whole to parts;question to answer; or effect to cause

Adequate development

The topic should be discussed fully and adequately A paragraph shouldhave enough sentences so that the main idea of the topic sentence is completely

developed Generalizations should be supported with examples or illustrations.Also, details and descriptions help the reader to understand what you mean Thewriter should not assume that the reader can read your mind: be specific enough todevelop your ideas thoroughly, but avoid repetition.

III HOW TO WRITE A PRAGRAPH

1 Prewriting Paragraphs

Think carefully and organize your ideas for your paragraph before you beginwriting

Prewriting Steps:

* Read the question and think carefully about what you are going to write

+ What question are you going to answer in this paragraph?

+ What facts or examples can you use to support your idea?

+ How can you make this paragraph interesting?

2 While writing Paragraphs

* Write a topic sentence

A topic sentence should introduce the topic of the paragraph and containcontrolling ideas that the following sentences in the paragraph will explain, define,clarify or illustrate

Students should:

+ underline the key words in the question

+ make use of the key words to write the topic sentence.

For example:

Question 1: Write a paragraph about the benefits of reading books (From national

examination in 2014-2015)

The keywords are: benefits of reading books

Suggested answer:

Reading books helps us relax, widen knowledge and improve our language

Topic: reading books

Controlling ideas: helps us relax, widen knowledge and improve ourlanguage

Question 2: Describe the person you admire most.

The keywords are: Describe, the person you admire

Suggested answer:

My mother, who is caring, intelligent and hardworking, is the one I admire most.Topic: My mother

Controlling ideas: caring, intelligent and hardworking

* Write supporting sentence

All supporting sentences should focus on the main idea expressed in thetopic sentence There should be examples and further information about the topicbeing discussed

+ Students can make use of WH- Questions such as who, which, why, where, when and how Answering these questions helps students have more ideas about

what to write next

+ Students can use transitions to combine sentences as well as change the ideas being

Adding to what

you have said

Also, Furthermore, In addition, Additionally, Moreover, Besides, As well as, Similarly, not only…but also…, even beside this/ that

Contrasting In contrast to this, On the contrary, In contrast, Conversely,

On the other hand, While, Whereas, However, Despite/ In spite of, Although, Even though, Otherwise, Nonetheless Expressing

similarity

Similarly; Likewise, In the same way

Showing results As a result, As a consequence, Consequently, Hence, Thus,

Therefore, So Giving examples For example, For instance, In particular, Particularly, That

is to say, Namely, Such as Restating In other words, That is to say, To put it simply

Inferring In other words, In that case, or else, Otherwise

Summarizing In summary, To sum up, To conclude, To recapitulate, In

conclusion, In short, In brief, In a nutshell, Lastly, Finally

For example:

Question: Write a paragraph about the benefits of reading books (From national

examination in 2014-2015)

Topic sentence: Reading books helps us relax, widen knowledge and improve ourlanguage.

Supporting ideas:

* Step1: Students can get the ideas by answering the following questions:

1 Why reading books helps us relax?

2 How reading books helps us relax?

3 Why and how reading books helps us widen our knowledge?

4 Why and how reading books helps us improve our language?

5 When do people often read book?

6 What kinds of book do people read?

Suggested answers:

1and 4 Reading books helps us relax after a hard-working day It is also an interestfor everybody who does not like to visit crowded places at the weekend They likequiet atmosphere and do not want to disturb anybody so they consider books astheir close friends They meet their stories, their lives in books and they feelextremely sympathetic with the characters’ situations Reading books makes themhappy and relieve stress

2 and 5 Reading books helps us widen our knowledge Thanks to the wide range

of books such as science, literature, astronomy, archeology, biology and physics,

we can get information focus on our own fields as well as the others The morebooks we read, the more knowledge we have obtained

3 Reading books helps us improve our expression ability like writing andspeaking The writing style of some our favorite writers will affect ours.Especially, when we read foreign literature, we will not only know more about that

country but also have a chance to improve our reading skill, learn new wordswhich can be used to better our writings and speech.

* Step 2: Add transitions to make the paragraph more coherent.

Suggested answer:

First of all, reading books helps us relax after a hard-working day It is also an

interest for everybody who does not like to visit crowded places at the weekend.They like quiet atmosphere and do not want to disturb anybody so they considerbooks as their close friends They meet their stories, their lives in books and theyfeel extremely sympathetic with the characters’ situations Reading books makes

them happy and relieve stress Secondly, reading books helps us widen our

knowledge Thanks to the wide range of books such as science, literature,astronomy, archeology, biology and physics, we can get information focus on ourown fields as well as the others The more books we read, the more knowledge we

have obtained Last but not least, reading books helps us improve our expression

ability like writing and speaking The writing style of some our favorite writerswill affect ours Especially, when we read foreign literature, we will not only knowmore about that country but also have a chance to improve our reading skill, learnnew words which can be used to better our writings and speech

* Write concluding sentence

A conclusion is the last part of a paragraph

There are some ways of making a conclusion for a paragraph

+ Summarizes the main points of the paragraph and/or gives a final comment onthe topic

+ Students can signal their concluding part by using one of the following phrases:

 In conclusion,…

 In summary,…

 To conclude/ To sum up/ To summarize,…

 In short,…

 In the last analysis,…

On balance, I would say that…

Example:

Question: Write a paragraph about the benefits of reading books (From national

examination in 2014-2015)

Suggested answer:

In conclusion, reading books is so important and has many benefits It not

only helps us become cleverer and better at language but also brings us happiness.Therefore, everyone should be encouraged to read books as much as possible

3 Editing Paragraphs

What is the editing stage?

The editing stage is when you check your paragraph for mistakes and correct them.After finish writing, read your paragraph again and check the followings:

* Grammar and Spelling

1 Check your spelling

2 Check your grammar

3 Make sure each sentence has a subject

4 See if your subjects and verbs agree with each other

5 Check the verb tenses of each sentence

6 Make sure that each sentence makes sense

* Style and Organization

1 Make sure your paragraph has a topic sentence

2 Make sure your supporting sentences focus on the main idea

3 Make sure you have a closing sentence

4 Check that all your sentences focus on the main idea

5 See if your paragraph is interesting

IV METHODS OF TEACHING

1 Tasks of the teacher

When helping students to become a better writer, teachers have a number oftasks to perform Among the tasks which teachers have to perform before, duringand after students’ writing are the followings:

it can be It helps, for example, if teacher go into class with prepared suggestions

so that when students get stuck, they can immediately get help rather than havingthemselves to think of the ideas on the spot Sometimes teachers can give them thewords they need to start a writing task as a way of getting them going

Supporting

Teachers are not only a motivator and provoker but also a supporter.Students need a lot of help and reassurance once they get going, both with ideasand with the means to carry them out Teachers need to be extremely supportivewhen students are writing in class, always available and prepared to help studentsovercome difficulties

Responding

When responding, teachers react to the content and construction of a piece ofwritten work supportively and often make suggestions for its improvement.

Evaluating

When teachers have to evaluate students’ writings, teachers should tell them howwell they have done Teachers can indicate where students wrote well and wherethey made mistakes When giving back the writings, teachers can ask students tolook at the errors highlighted and try to put them right

2 How to correct and respond to students’ writings

2.1 How to correct students’ writings

Teachers should not use red ink all over a students’ work Instead, teacherscan correct only grammatical points and spelling and give other comments at theback of the writing in “need to improve” area

Teachers should give positive feedback to students’ writings by saying what

is good and interesting in their writings first before saying other comments

In order to avoid overabundance of red ink, teachers can use correctionsymbols These also have advantage of encourage students to think about what themistake is, so that they can correct it themselves Teachers and students should talkabout these symbols in advance

The following symbols are frequently used:

WO A mistake in word order I like very much it.

P A punctuation mistake Have you known it

Reformulation

Reformulation is a way of showing students how they could write somethingmore correctly Instead of asking them to find the mistake and correct it, theteacher shows how he or she would write the incorrect sentence The students thenlearn by comparing correct and incorrect versions

Remedial teaching

When teachers read students’ written work and they come across mistakeswhich many people in the same class are making, remedial teaching will benecessary In such case, teacher should show the whole class the mistakesproduced by the students and ask them to put them right Therefore, all students inthe class will be aware of the mistakes

2.2 How to respond to students’ writings

After reading students’ writings, teacher can choose either to talk to themdirectly or give them a written comment It is always a good idea to tell students