Applying effective readings at prewriting stage in teaching writing skill to second year english majors of dong nai teachers training college submitted to the department of enghlish linguistics lit

It then investigated the current teaching and learning writing skill, particular writing essays at DNTTC through a 2-set questionnaire survey Set 1 and Set 2 involving both 10 teachers o

Submitted to the Department of English Linguistics & Literature in partial

fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By NGUYEN NHAT THANH

Supervised by

DO MINH HUNG, Ph.D HO

CHI MINH CITY, 2014

i

The thesis entitled “Applying effective readings at prewriting stage in teaching writing skill to second-year English majors of Dong Nai Teachers Training College” is conducted under the supervision of Dr Do Minh Hung, Dong Thap University

I hereby declare that this thesis has not been submitted, either in the same or different form, to this or any other university for a degree

I certify that this thesis does not, to the best of my belief, incorporate without acknowledgement any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text

Ho Chi Minh City, 2013

Nguyen Nhat Thanh

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

At the beginning at the time when making the plan to show the grateful words in this part,

I always engrave on my heart about the two Vietnamese proverbs, “I dare you achieve successes without teachers” and “Recall the grower of the tree you take fruits from” Really,

I am deeply indebted to a number of people for helping to make this M.A thesis possible First and foremost, I engrave forever on my heart and send my deepest gratitude goes to Dr

Do Minh Hung, my supervisor, who supported and encouraged me generously throughout this research study Without his excellent academic guidance and support, my thesis would not have been possible

I would like to sincerely thank the training which I got from all of the whole-hearted teachers from Social Sciences and Humanities of HCM City University, and the anonymous participants who contributed data to this study Many thanks also go to the teachers who kindly allowed me to involve their students in the data collection process Without their outstanding cooperation, this thesis would not have been completed My appreciation is also extended to a number of staff members of Foreign Languages Faculty, Dong Nai College

I am greatly indebted to Study Promotion Society of Bau Tram Commune, Long Khanh District, Dong Nai Province for financial supporting my M.A study which enabled me to present the findings of my thesis and to receive constructive feedback from colleagues Their support is greatly appreciated

Special thanks are due to my honey, Ngoc Van Nguyen for her kind support and warm encouragement throughout my difficult times away from home Without her, I could not have overcome my ups and downs and concentrated on my study Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to my parents, Van Anh Nguyen and Thi Huong Nguyen and all of the members of

my great family who always support me as well as bring me inspiration and encouragement

in every step of my study

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Writing research has contributed a great deal to our understanding of L2 writing application but not enough to our understanding of using effective readings in L2 writing development, although different developments of writing are also its primary research goal and it is widely known as one of the sayings in teaching by Jacques

Barzun that “In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years” From this viewpoint, this thesis was done The main goals done for the thesis first examined the students’ competence of writing skill

It then investigated the current teaching and learning writing skill, particular writing essays at DNTTC through a 2-set questionnaire survey (Set 1 and Set 2) involving both

10 teachers of English and 80 students of two English classes at this college Data in question were also collected from the writing pre-test to both classes The experiment class received the treatment of applying effective readings with prewriting strategies during an accession of six weeks’ writing instruction, accompanied by the researcher’s

class observation The writing post-test with the same test form and content as the pre-

test was done near the end of the target program The final data were from a set-3 questionnaire and individual presentations of the experimental class

The findings have comprehensively revealed that (1) the student subjects at the college needed to be explicitly taught applying effective readings with prewriting strategies in writing skills, (2) their result of writing products was remarkably improved after the experimental teaching, and (3) the target program, i.e applying reading samples with prewriting strategies as means to teach writing skill, especially writing essays was greatly appreciated by the experiment class

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Page

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of abbreviation vii

List of tables viii

List of figures and charts viii

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION .1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 The rationale for teaching writing-assisted effective readings 2

1.3 Statement of purpose 3

1.4 Research questions 3

1.5 Research hypotheses 4

1.6 Significances of the study 4

1.7 Organization of the thesis 5

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Background writing theory 6

2.1.1 Relational aspects of writing 6

2.1.2 Writing development 7

2.1.3 Preliminary considerations in writing teaching and learning 16

2.2 Essays 19

2.2.1 Theory of essay 19

2.2.2 Theory of argumentative essay 23

2.3 Prewriting strategies and its benefits 28

2.3.1 Prewriting strategies 28

2.3.2 Prewriting benefits .37

2.3.3 A warning about using reading samples and plagiarism 39

2.4 The effectiveness and active impacts on students’ writing products 40

2.4.1 Getting the effectiveness at the prewriting stage 40

2.4.2 The possible impacts on students’ writing products 43

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Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY .47

3.1 Research design 47

3.2 Participants and sampling 48

3.3 Data collection instruments 49

3.3.1 Questionnaires 49

3.3.2 Tests 50

3.3.3 Individual presentation 51

3.3.4 Class observation 51

3.4 Procedures 52

3.4.1 Pilot study 52

3.4.2 Main study 54

3.4.3 Procedure of data analysis 57

3.5 Summary 58

Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 59

4.1 Results of questionnaires 59

4.1.1 Set-1 questionnaire results .59

4.1.2 Set 2-questionnaire results 63

4.1.3 Summary 66

4.2 Pre-test and post-test results 66

4.2.1 Pre-test results 66

4.2.2 Post-test results 67

4.2.3 Discussion of pre- and post-test results 68

4.3 Set-3 questionnaire results 69

4.4 Individual presentation results 71

4.4.1 Students’ attitudes towards writing subject 71

4.4.2 Students’ perception towards effective pre-stage readings 72

4.4.3 Students’ responses to the actual application of effective readings 73

4.4.4 Students’ attitudes towards the instruction of effective readings 74

4.5 Results from the class observation 74

4.6 Summary 76

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5.1 Answers to the research questions 77

5.2 Confirmations of research hypotheses .78

5.3 Recommendations 78

5.3.1 For teachers at DNTTC 79

5.3.2 For students at DNTTC 80

5.4 Limitations and contributions 80

REFERENCES 82

APPENDICES .84

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CC: Control Class

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

DNTTC: Dong Nai Teachers Training College

EC: Experiment Class

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

L1: The First Language

L2: The Second Language

S(s): Student(s)

SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Science

T: Teacher

TL: Target Language

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Page

Table 3.1: The procedures of data collection in the pilot 52

Table 3.2: Research procedure 54

Table 4.1: The importance of writing skill 59

Table 4.2: Students’ self-evaluation of their writing ability 60

Table 4.3: Sources of difficulty in writing essays 61

Table 4.4: Frequency of practicing essay writing 61

Table 4.5: Frequency of reading books on essay writing 62

Table 4.6: Descriptive statistics of the pre-test of two classes 67

Table 4.7: The results of independent sample test 67

Table 4.8: Descriptive statistics of the posttest of the two classes 68

Table 4.9: The results of independent sample t-test 68

LIST OF FIGURES AND CHARTS Figure 2.1: A modified version of the cycle of writing activities 16

Chart 4.1: Pre-test and post-test results 69

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This introductory chapter describes the background of the study, states the purposes, research questions and hypotheses of the study done for and reported in this M.A thesis It also identifies its significance and depicts the organization of the study

1.1 Background to the study

1.1.1 Teaching and learning writing at DNTTC

Writing is one of the most difficult and hottest English subjects for the second-year English majors‘ attention at the class of Academic Writing English course at Dong Nai Teachers Training College (DNTTC) In fact, writing assignments are often given without appropriate care for its second-year English majors‘ experience and interests Irrespective

of the application of brainstorming and group discussion, the two techniques commonly used at class meetings, the students unavoidably suffer from their lack of ideas as well as their failure to seek for adequate lexicon, proper sentence structure and appropriate writing style Apart from writing as a part of the course syllabus, the college also offers a writing class meeting for only 2 periods (120 minutes) to its students every week, but students‘ presentation in class and self-study are mainly, the amount of time used for writing essay is

less and just concentrated on the fifth week (see the syllabus enclosed as Appendix 2) At

the current study, DNTTC has used the book, "Writing Academic English, Second/Third edition, Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue" for its curriculum to second-year English majors Really, then every teacher at this institution is very interested in giving a hand to help the students in this context of the problem It is to be expected that second-year English majors who study at this institution will also experience considerable difficulty

1.1.2 Training plan to second-year English majors at DNTTC and the current study

For DNTTC plans to train its students to have a writing of as much competence as

possible, however, with a lack of attention to the current teaching and learning of writing

at this college then, it seems to be far away from reaching the planned goals For one thing, even though the students really care about their writing, in-class writing instruction is not often paid attention to a lot For another thing, seldom has writing subject been made to be new to teach in class so far Therefore, teaching applying effective readings with prewriting strategies in writing skill, particularly writing essay, is strongly of urgency at this college

1.2 The rationale for teaching applying effective readings with

prewriting strategies in writing skill

Investigating teaching applying effective readings with prewriting strategies in writing skill lies in its importance for DNTTC second-year English majors in their writing ability Specifically this application is observed to touch into students‘ academic writing settings at this institution, whereby learning writing is mainly a self-studying process, characterized

by plentiful in-class student-student discussion/presentation and self-study at home Therefore, the main goals of this study are: (1) Theoretically, by seeking to address various important issues in writing, particularly writing essay, the major theory is lent from Applied Linguistic Reference Books in TESOL (Nguyen Thanh Tung, 2007- 2008), from TESOL Methodology Background Materials (complied by Nguyen Thu Huong) and from some of other sources The present study seeks to add to applying of effective readings with prewriting strategies in teaching writing skill and provide useful knowledge about learning and teaching writing essay skill; (2) Methodologically, this study will provide a procedural data collection method, a combination of the methodologies via Genre Approaches and Reading Comprehensive Method with Prewriting Strategies to contribute to the long- debated issue regarding experimental teaching in writing skill research; (3) Practically, this study is expected to give teachers and students at DNTTC with the way out of solving the problems that students face in learning writing subject; (4) Additionally, the literature on second language teaching is full of accounts of the teaching methods such as Grammar Translation, Direct Method, the Audiolingual Method, the Audiovisual Structuro-Global

Method, and Genre Approaches (e.g Mackey, 1965; Titone, 1968; Kelly, 1969; Stern, 1983; Howatt, 1984) Therefore, the current study has been conducted in an attempt to meet the obvious need for more developmental methods of applying effective readings with prewriting strategies in teaching writing skill to second-year English majors and to expand the scope of writing quality This is one of the researcher‘s long nurtured themes

1.3 Statement of purpose

The study has been intended to fulfill the following purposes:

(i) To find out the problems facing the second-year English majors at DNTTC in

writing essays, especially the argumentative ones

(ii) To test the use of related readings with prewriting strategies at prewriting stage

and its impacts on students’ writing products

1.4 Research questions

The study first has been conducted in an attempt to meet the obvious need for more writing developmental research and expand the scope of writing essays It then explores the relationship between effective readings and writing quality This relation is studied from a developmental perspective, with a view to providing realization strategies for writing essays

It should be helpful to distinguish students‘ essay writings before applying effective readings from other types of the same writings after the application

To fulfill the above purposes, the study was designed to seek answers to the targeted questions below:

(1) What are the problems facing the second-year English-majors at DNTTC in

writing essays, especially the argumentative ones?

(2) What are the possible impacts on students’ writing products by using related

readings with prewriting strategies at prewriting stage, especially the argumentative essays?

It is noticed that applying effective readings at prewriting stage to teach writing skill is designed and combined with prewriting strategies by the researcher during the experimental teaching Therefore, the means of teaching writing skill, particularly writing

confirmed and employed in the current written study

Hypothesis 2: The students hold positive attitudes towards the experimental program and

their essay writing skills will improve to some extent

1.6 Significances of the study

First, knowing how to understand and apply effective readings with prewriting strategies in writing skill can help students to write essays more effectively Using effective readings can point out the logical frame or formation of an argumentative essay in students‘ writings

Second, the result of applying effective readings with prewriting strategies at prewriting stage in teaching writing skill can help students to orient their best way to write argumentative essays It also helps teachers and students cooperate to find out the solutions

of problems facing the second- year English majors at DNTTC in writing essays

Third, after applying effective readings with prewriting strategies at prewriting stage, second-year English majors can overcome the facing problems in writing essays In fact, it makes students have their positive impacts on their writing products by using related readings at this stage

Finally, this application can help English teachers to develop their teaching methods in teaching writing skill It also contributes to renovate teaching writing methods

1.7 Organization of the thesis

The present thesis is organized in five chapters described as follows

Chapter 1, Introduction, presents the rationale of the study, the aims and significance of the study It also provides the outline of the current thesis

Chapter 2, Literature Review, introduces the definitions of writing It consists of relational aspects of writing and writing development The detailed information of understanding essay and argumentative essay are also addressed in this chapter, including theory of essay and argumentative essay; the common problems in writing argumentative essay; prewriting strategies and its benefits The last part, the effectiveness in teaching writing at prewriting stage and the active impacts on students‘ writing products by using related reading samples with prewriting strategies is also discussed

Chapter 3, Research Methodology, presents the methodology of this study and the procedures for conducting the research

Chapter 4, Results and Discussion, exposes the results through analyzing data collected The results were then discussed and compared with those obtained in previous studies Chapter 5, Recommendation and Conclusion, summarizes the main findings and concludes the current study The later section of this chapter is filled with the implications, limitation and recommendations for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the theories and literature relevant to the topic under investigation in the present study This chapter also meets the students’ gap of writing essay that needs to

be focused on this thesis and filling the students’ gap up is the main goal of this research The first two sections address two important linguistic notions: Background writing theory (2.1) and writing essays, especially argumentative essays (2.2) This chapter deals with other important issues in writing acquisition Writing theory is one of the central issues in general research of language skills, especially in English writing skill Two main points in this field are first briefly reviewed in order to provide theoretical frameworks Prewriting strategies and its benefits (2.3) as well as the effectiveness in teaching writing at prewriting stage and the active impacts on students’ writing products (2.4) are gradually focused on Writing and writing essays, especially argumentative ones, which are the focus

on the previous, recent and present studies, are then discussed and researched into these three main studies

2.1 Background writing theory

2.1.1 Relational aspects of writing

Writing involves the encoding message of some kind, that is, we translate our thoughts into language (Byrne, 1991:1) Writing is always embedded in a rhetorical situation – a complex web of relationships amongst the elements of writing (Moffett, 1968; Kinneavy,

1971) The relationships between the writer and the reader, the text and the reality are

constantly changing, and it is quite possible for writers and readers to develop different perceptions of many particular rhetorical situations For these reasons, the writer‘s task is not as simple as constructing an accurate representation of reality; the writer also has to negotiate, though the construction of text, his or her own views by the readers (Matsuda, 1997)

The rhetorical situation refers to combination of various elements of writing that comprise the context of writing; it is a particular social and material arrangement in which

written expression and communication take place No two rhetorical situations are exactly the same, but similar situations are to tend to recur This gives rise to typified responses (that is, genre as typified rhetorical situation action) that are developed and shared by a network of writers who work in a particular discourse community (Miller, 1984, Bakhtin, 1986)

In the relationships above, writers and reality should be focused on in this study

Writers: In this study, the related writers are second-year English majors at DNTTC

and the readers are English teachers at the same college Therefore, the researcher would like to refer to some close relationships to his students here Writers who are learning to write in new rhetorical situations (for example, first year or second-year college students write a final national exam of ESL students‘ writing) may struggle because conventional self-representation in the particular situation may not be compatible with the writer‘s self- image The writer‘s task is complicated by the varying and ever-changing nature of the elements of writing The notion of the writer is more complex than it first appears because the writer is more than just the physical person who creates texts Writers are not only presenting their view of reality but also constructing their discursive identity (Goffman, 1959; Ivanic, 1998), which may affect the way the text is read and responded to A writer‘s self-construction may also be constrained by his or her past self-constructions, especially if the writer is writing in the same discourse community – a sudden change in self- representation can be highly marked and even distracting

Reality: It may seem stable, but it can be interpreted in many ways Although there is a

reality students can interact with physically, reality is also socially and discursively constructed to the extent that they understand, communicate and agree upon versions of reality and language Because students conceive of and relate to reality in various ways, and because student writers and readers have varying degrees of access to different aspects

of reality, the student writer has to use the text to construct a version of reality and negotiate it with teacher‘s requirements within the local and historical context of writing

2.1.2 Writing development

2.1.2.1 Relevant terms and concepts

Writing has always been part of applied linguistics (Harklau, 2000) Even before the

1960s, when writing was considered as a mere representation of speech, it provided a way

of monitoring student‘s language production and of providing linguistic material because the technology for sound recording was not widely available For researchers, it has always provided a source of tangible and relatively stable data for analysis as well as a way of recording speech However, in the early years of applied linguistics, writing was not considered to be one of the proper goals of language learning (Harklau, 2000; Leki, 2000) Writing was used only to the extent that it assisted the learning of speech It was assumed that anyone who had the knowledge of spelling and grammar would be able to write

In previous studies on student writer‘s use of writing essay, there are a number of important issues in second language writing that transcend the traditions described above and need to be touched upon in even the most cursory survey of this research area These include programmatic, contextual, disciplinary and political issues

include second language writing programs and program administration, needs analyses and placement A great deal has been written on specific workshops, the use of model text, and peer and teacher response, peer tutoring, the use of journals, writing about literature, sentence combining, reformulation, plagiarism, sequenced writing assignments and

content-based instruction (see Reid, 1993;Grabe and Kaplan, 1996; Ferris and

Hedgcock,1998)

However, the programmatic issue that has received by far the most recognition is the

assessment of second language writing (see Hamp-Lyons, 1991; Hamp-Lyons and Kroll,

1996) Second language writing assessment has been written about from a number of

written text is produced or examined) and ‗direct‘ tests (wherein the text is produced and examined), for example, holistic, analytic/multiple trait and primary trait tests Another basic issue is ‗test rating‘ or grading; here issues such as rater training, rater judging and

the difference between rating done by individuals with and without experience with second language writers Also central are questions of test validity and reliability In addition, a number of variables that could potentially affect ratings have been explored These include

‗linguistic variables‘ (primarily lexical and syntactic); ‗rhetorical variables‘ and the writer‘s subject matter knowledge, cultural expectations, nationality, reading comprehension and amount of reading done in both the first and second languages Elements such as writing prompts, topics and time constraints have also been explored A number of instructional contexts have been described in the literature These include, most generally, the academic discourse community (at both the graduate and undergraduate levels) and the number of specific program or course types therein: basic or ‗remedial‘ writing courses, bilingual education programs, immersion and submersion programs, sheltered ESL (English as a secondary language) courses, mainstream (native English speaker dominant) courses, cross-cultural composition courses, writing across the curriculum programs, intensive language programs and writing centers Also addressed are particular instructional contexts in academia (engineering, natural sciences, science and technology, and sociology courses) or in the private sector (corporate and medical

contexts) (see Belcher and Braine, 1995)

In the recent history of second language writing, a number of approaches or orientations (more or less specific to second language writing) have viewed for the attention of second language writing professionals One of the approaches in developing and teaching second language writing is the control composition class room It is one of the most important ways for writing teachers to apply in teaching writing skill In the controlled composition classroom, the primary focus is on formal accuracy The teacher employs a controlled program of systematic habit formation in an attempt to avoid errors (presumed to be related to first language interference) and to reinforce appropriate second language behavior Practice with previously learned discrete units of language is privileged over concerns about ideas, organization and style; imitation and manipulation of carefully constructed and graded model passages is the central activity Overall, in the controlled

composition tradition, writing functions as a service activity, reinforcing other language skills The goal of writing instruction is habit formation Students manipulate familiar language structures; the teacher is an editor, privileging linguistic features over ideas The text is seen as a collection of vocabulary and sentence patterns; there is negligible concern

for audience or purpose (For accounts of this pedagogical approach, see Dykstra and

Paulston, 1967; Paulston and Dykstra, 1973)

In Viet Nam, the previous and related studies on the writing language aspect of student writers generally support the claim that target language (TL) writing strategy is incomplete for many L2 learners, the skill can assist the teaching and learning of L2 writing skills (Le Hoang Dung, 2004) Low proficiency student writers, for example, tend

to employ a rather narrow range of linguistic realization devices as well as writing strategies in writing, of effects of reading on L2 writing proficiency (Vo Thi Nu Anh, 2004) and exhibit problems in forming their strategies to teach and access writing skills as

a workshop of teaching language skills (To Minh Thanh, 2004) There is also evidence that even advanced learners do not acquire the full academic writing essay competence in terms

of their perception as well as production of writing Their L2 writing results are usually characterized by over response to the absence of TL background writing knowledge This evidence seems to suggest that L2 learners‘ writing competence tend to lag behind their grammatical competence

As is often noted, lack of writing strategies and writing goals may have more serious consequences than grammatical ones This is because native and skilled student writers tend to treat writing strategy, goal errors as offensive rather than as simply demonstrating lack of knowledge as they do student writers‘ grammatical errors L2 student learners‘ writing method may deprive them of the opportunity to integrate writing skills and competence Without this opportunity, the students may receive less input and produce less output, which affects their L2 learning To account for Vietnamese student writers‘ writing essay strategies, general writing knowledge is universally available and that students have full access to the different range of strategies to realize particular writing strategies as do

native skilled writers They are also aware of various writing methods on a particular strategy choice This includes their restricted L2 linguistic competence, their lack of writing strategies

One of the important parts in this study is to make students understand what an essay

is and how to write essays well by applying effective readings at prewriting stage Although there have been some improvements in teaching/learning writing essay in Viet Nam or in the world so far, the researcher still realizes that teachers/students at DNTTC or other colleges in Viet Nam continue applying traditional methods in teaching/learning writing skill Normally, teachers assign topics and give students references for studying without any helpful studying techniques This really makes students face a lot of problems

in orienting/writing an essay at prewriting stage It is the reason why this study suggests applying effective readings at this stage to help students overcome facing problems in writing skill, fill up their gap of writing essays, and develop their writing essay techniques

2.1.2.2 The process approach

The advent of the process approach prompted research on composing that focused on the person (that is, the writer) and the process (that is, strategies) involved writing Many variables affecting second language writers have been identified and addressed in the literature The second language writer has been looked at primarily in terms of the extent

of transfer of first language proficiency or writing ability to second language writing and the relationship between general second language proficiency and second language writing ability Also of interests are the possible connections between second language writing ability and first language writing experience and expertise, writing apprehension, gender, learning style, language and instructional background, the second language writer‘s perceptions with regard to writing and writing instruction, and the amount of reading ( in both first and second languages) a second language writer engages in Research in this area has gone from seeing writer variables as simple and relatively discrete to very complex and greatly intertwined

In the classroom, the process tradition calls for providing and maintaining a positive,

encouraging and collaborative workshop environment, and for providing ample time and minimal interference so as to allow students to work through their composing processes The objective is to help students develop viable strategies for getting started, drafting, revising and editing From a process perspective, then, writing is a complex, recursive and creative process that are very similar in its general outlines for first and second language writers; learning to write requires the development of an efficient and effective composing process The writer is engaged in the discovery and expression of meaning; the reader, on interpreting that intended meaning The product (that is, the written text) is a secondary concern, whose form is a function of its content and purpose In the process tradition it is

up to the writer to identify a task and an audience and to make the response to the former meet the needs of the latter

2.1.2.3 The paragraph pattern approach

This approach owes much to Kaplan‘s (1966) notion of contrastive ‗rhetorical‘ – the notion that writers‘ different cultural and linguistic backgrounds will be reflected in their

‗rhetoric‘, with rhetoric typically seen as primarily a matter of textual structure Thus, first language interference was believed to extend beyond the sentence to paragraphs and longer stretches of text

In short, this tradition sees writing as basically a matter of arranging sentences and paragraphs into particular patterns; learning to write requires developing skills in identifying, internalizing and producing these patterns The writer uses provided or self- generated data to fill out a pattern; thus, the reader is not confused by an unfamiliar pattern

of expression The text is made up of increasingly complex discourse structures (that is, sentences, paragraphs, sections and so on), each embedded in the next largest form, and all

of this takes place within academic context, wherein the instructor‘s evaluation is assumed

to reflect a community of educated native speakers Therefore, it is very important for us to refer to the genre approach in teaching writing This is one of the main impacts that make

us find out the best way to help our students write their essays well

2.1.2.4 Genre approach teaching methodologies

In general, approaches which focus on the readers emphasizes the constraints of form and content that have to be recognized when a writer attempts to match a text to a social purpose,

and have come to be associated with the notion of genre The first task will be to come to a

clearer understanding of how this term is used in teaching writing methodology with some of the following statements of genre

(1) In Communicative Events and Communicative Purposes: A genre comprises a class of

communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes (Swales 1990: 58), Swales‘ definition of genre is a synthesis of contemporary interpretations of the term (see especially Halliday 1989; Kress 1989; Martin 1989) It provides us with a way of looking at language in use which differs in many respects from that inherent in process approaches, but which can complement them However, interesting as the notion of genre may

be, the question remains how such an apparently complex concept can help teachers in the difficult practice of writing instruction

(2) In the Way Genres Change: A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the

members of which share some set of communicative purposes These purposes are recognized

by expert members of the parent discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre (Swales 1990: 58) (Swales‘ use the terms ‗expert‘ and ‗parent discourse

community‘ raises the issue of accepted conventions and extent to which they can be challenged This can be a problem for teachers who want to focus very strongly on the individual writer as originator of text and, indeed, raises the whole question of the authority on which conventions are established.)

(3) In Reader Expectation and Schematic Structure: A genre comprises a class of

communicative events, the members of which share some sets of communicative purposes These purposes are recognized by the expert members of parent discourse community and

thereby constitute the rationale for the genre This rationale shapes the schematic structures of

the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style (Swales 1990: 58)

(4) In Defining Typical and Less Typical Examples: A genre comprises a class of

communicative events, the members of which share some sets of communicative purposes

These purposes are recognized by the expert members of parent discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre This rationale shapes the schematic structures of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style Communicative purpose is both a privileged criterion and one that operates to keep the score of a genre as here conceived narrowly focused on comparable rhetorical action In addition to purpose, exemplars

of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms of structure, style, content and intended audience (Swales 1990: 58)

(5) In the method of process-oriented approaches to writing: A genre comprises a class of

communicative events, the members of which share some sets of communicative purposes These purposes are recognized by the expert members of parent discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre This rationale shapes the schematic structures of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style Communicative purpose is both a privileged criterion and one that operates to keep the score of a genre as here conceived narrowly focused on comparable rhetorical action In addition to purpose, exemplars

of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms of structure, style, content and

intended audience If all high probability expectations are realized, exemplar will be viewed as

prototypical by the parent discourse community and imported by others constitute valuable ethnographic communication, but typically need further validation (Swales 1990: 58)

In generally, the five mentioned genre approaches above were employed in the

experimental teaching

(6) In Audio-Lingual Method, pronunciation is very important and taught explicitly from

the start (Larsen-Freeman, 1986: 44; Celce-Murcia et al., 1996: 3) The teacher or recording models a sound, a word, or an utterance and the students imitate or repeat However, the teacher typically uses the information from phonetics such as vowel transcription system or charts that demonstrate the articulation of sounds What is more, the teacher often uses the minimal pair drills — drills that use words which differ by a single sound in the same situation Because of this, characteristic of audio-lingual method,

it cannot be employed in the experimental teaching where the content of treatment and practice activities were designed by the researcher

(7) In Grammar-Translation Method, the principal purpose of learning a foreign language

is to be able to read literature written in the target language To do this, students need to learn about the grammar rules and vocabulary of the target language As a result,

―vocabulary and grammar are emphasized Reading and writing are basic skills students have to work on There is much less attention given to speaking and listening Pronunciation receives little, if any, attention‖ (Larsen-Freeman, 1986: 12) Therefore, it was employed in the experimental teaching

(8) In reading comprehensive - reading principal method: The principal purpose of

learning a foreign language is to be able to read an essay/topic written in the target language To do this, teaching writing-assisted reading comprehension receives attention and takes place during the teaching period and students need to (i) be encouraged to read

as often and as much as possible, (ii) be engaged with what they are reading, (iii) be encouraged to response to the content of a text (and explore their feelings about it), not just concentrate on its construction, (iv) have prediction, a major factor in reading, (v) match the writing task to the topic when using intensive reading texts; And (vi) good teachers exploit reading texts to the full (TESOL Methodology Materials, complied by Nguyen Thu Huong) Based on the principles of teaching in the method, it was employed in the experimental teaching

If we accept that it is important for student writers to be familiar with certain genres, and others, then it is clear that we need to extend the model of writing outlined earlier so as

to show how content, context, process, and language knowledge interrelate with each other and can be realized in practical classroom procedures We can see how this relationship works in writing process with the figure below This shows a modified version of the cycle

of writing activities:

Figure 2.1: A modified version of the cycle of writing activities

Throughout the statements of language teaching methodologies, the teaching of writing can be summarized that (1) writing receives attention at the very beginning of the course to different extent, in most of these methods (except for audio-lingual one), (2) writing is taught through applying the above statements (by Swales 1990: 58), and (3) the writing essay receives more attention than other kinds of writing do In experimental teaching, Writing essay-Assisted Reading Comprehensive Method and Communicative Genre Approaches were mainly employed in the way that many of writing assignments and free practice were done

2.1.3 Preliminary considerations in writing teaching and learning

(1) The teacher’s role

- Encourage students to learn and review necessary grammatical competence: Part of the

role of the teacher is to ask students acquire their necessary grammatical competence Because students cannot write if their grammar competence is bad, teachers need to check that what degree of their students‘ grammar ability is and encourage them to review and improve their grammar before writing an essay

- Helping students understand and build paragraph: Paragraph plays an important role in

writing an essay However, sometimes students cannot build their paragraph required by

the teacher Therefore the teacher needs to give them some guidance which helps them to set up paragraph

- Establishing priorities: Students may be aware of some features of their writing that are

different, or may imitate something about their writing ways is not like the way the good writers do with Therefore, they need the help of the teacher in setting up a writing plan, in deciding what, how, where, when, why to write about

- Devising activities: The teacher must consider what types of assignments and activities

will be helpful, which activities will provide the most opportunities for practice, experimentation, and exploration

- Providing feedback: The teacher has to tell students how they are doing Often they

themselves cannot write if they get a difficult assignment and ask their teacher‘s explanation, but without answers Therefore, the teacher must provide them with information about their performance or progress, which is a crucial factor in maintaining motivation

(2) The student’s role

All the students need to do is to respond and cooperate in pair, in group or work in individual The ultimate success in teaching depends much on students‘ effort and their willingness to take responsibilities for their own learning writing

(3) The factors that affect writing learning

In this study, before writing an argumentative essay effectively, teachers should know some related factors that affect writing learning

- The age factor: There have been contradicting results yielded by the studies of an age

limit on the mastery of writing in a second or foreign language We do not yet have evidence for a simple and straightforward link between age and the ability to write a new language Let us look at some of other factors that may be involved

- Amount of exposure: Another factor is the amount of exposure to English the student

receives It is clearly a contributory factor; however, it is not merely exposure that matters, but how the student writes to the opportunities to experience to and use English

- Motivation and concern for good points in writing

Some learners seem to be more concerned about their writing than others When we talk in terms of strength of concern for writing, we are really pinpointing a type of motivation The desire to do well is a kind of achievement motivation By contrast, if we do not care about a writing task or do not see its value, we will not be motivated to do well Students may be unconcerned because they simply are not aware that the way they write is facing many problems which they cannot overcome

- Building paragraph ability: According to Oshima and Hogue (1991:16), a paragraph is

‗a basic unit of organization in writing in which a group of related sentences develops one main idea‘ Therefore, students need to master to build paragraph well A paragraph should include a clearly stated topic sentence, which embodies a topic and a controlling idea A paragraph should be unified, coherent and have unity, coherence so that the readers can follow its points of discussion fairly easily It discusses only one topic and it may have

a concluding sentence in which the topic, the controlling idea and/ or the main points of discussion within the paragraph are restated

- The lack of unity in paragraphs

To avoid a lack-of-unity paragraph, student writers make sure that each sentence of paragraph relates to its topic and develops is controlling idea ‗If a sentence does not relate

to or develop that idea, it is irrelevant and should be omitted.‘(Smalley and Ruetten, 1986:17)

- The lack of coherence in a paragraph

There are four ways to achieve coherence The first two ways involve repeating key nouns and using pronouns which refer back to key nouns The third way is to use transitional signals to show how one idea is related to the next The fourth way to achieve coherence is to arrange your sentences in logical order Three of the common logical

orders are chronological order, logical division and order of importance (Oshima and Hogue, 1991:39)

- Essay outline ability

When student writers think of outlines, they usually think of an organizational plan to help them draft a paper, but they can outline at any one of the several stages of the writing process At each stage, the outline serves a different function and helps them answer different writing questions

An essay outline is probably the most important friend that student writers will have while writing their essay It is the scaffolding of student writers‘ paper and the skeleton of their ideas It is the framework by which they will write a killer essay And frankly, it is difficult to write one without an outline

Many good student writers use an outline to help them think through the various stages

of the writing process effectively An outline is a kind of graphic scheme of the organization of student writers‘ paper It indicates the main arguments for their topic as well as the subtopics under each main point Outlines range from an informal use of indenting and graphics (such as —, *, +) to a formal use of Roman numerals and letters Regardless of the degree of formality, however, the function of an outline is to help student writers consider the most effective way to say what they want to say During pre-writing stage, student writers can make a working outline an outline that guides them in their drafting It helps student writers answer the question: How are they going to present their information, their assignment, and how are they given their topic? As we know, ―Learning

to outline will improve student‘s writing for three reasons: It will help students to organize their ideas, write more quickly and improve their grammar Improved organization, speed and grammar make learning to outline well worth the effort.‖ (Oshima and Hogue, 1991:34)

2.2 Essays

2.2.1 Theory of essay

In order to reach a good argumentative essay, students need to answer and understand the

following theoretical questions around essay at pre-writing stage, and then study and apply some effective practices in writing essay Understanding the notion of an essay is the main point for student writers to write essay An essay is ―a longer piece of writing, particularly one that is written by a student as part of a course of study or by a writer writing for publication which expresses the writer‘s viewpoint on a topic Essays are often organized according to a number of recognizable rhetorical forms.‖ (Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992:128-129)

Houghton (1984) characterized the formal academic essay as ‗a kind of game in which the writer, according to the extent to which he or she is familiar with the rules and is able

to use them, seeks to satisfy the demands of the readers /marker.‘(As quoted Hamp-Lyons, 1988:35)

When student writers write an essay, it is sure that they should know how many main parts in an essay and what they are An essay usually contains the following sections

(Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992: 129):

(i) An introduction: this presents the topic and contains the thesis statement

(ii) A body: this is a series of paragraphs each with a topic sentence The paragraphs in the

body of the essay develop and support the thesis statement

(iii) A conclusion: this summarizes what has been said and often presents a solution or

As we know, an introductory paragraph is the first paragraph in an essay It introduces the topic and the central ideas being discussed in the essay It consists of two parts:

a A few general statements: the purpose of which is to attract the reader‘s attention and to

give background information on the topic

b A thesis statement that names the topic and the central ideas of the essay and may also state the specific subtopics and/or the method of organization of the entire paper, that is, it indicates generally how the topic is going to be developed

To sum up, an introductory paragraph is like a funnel: very wide at the top, increasingly narrow in the middle and very small at the neck or bottom (Oshima and Hogue, 1991: 79)

Student writers should know where to place the thesis statement in the introductory paragraph of an essay Of course, they need to know the reason why they place it In

writing essay, it is generally a good idea to place the thesis statement at or near the end of the introductory paragraph to make it interesting and/or inviting enough for the reader to continue reading (Smalley and Ruetten, 1992: 142) Writers should, first of all, introduce the topic of the essay in a few general statements at the beginning of the introductory paragraph and then state their opinion about the topic later (of course in the thesis statement) Following such a way, writers may entice the reader to continue after reading the first sentences Stating an opinion about something in the first sentence is not usually very exciting; in fact, if the reader disagrees with the opinion, it may very well discourage him or her from reading their essay

It is important for student writers to know what a developmental paragraph is and develop it logically in an essay A developmental paragraph is one of the paragraphs in the

body of an essay Its function is to explain, illustrate and discuss or prove one aspect of the topic of the essay (that is one subtopic) It should include a clearly stated topic sentence The topic sentence embodies a subtopic and a controlling idea The subtopic of a developmental paragraph is part of the topic of the entire essay The controlling idea of a developmental paragraph echoes or relates to the central idea of the entire essay

A developmental paragraph should have unity It discusses only one subtopic To make

a developmental paragraph coherent, you should arrange its sentences logically and let one

sentence flow to another smoothly through the use of transitions, those that provide the

links between ideas Repeating key nouns and using appropriate pronouns, which refer

back to key nouns, are two other ways to maintain the coherence of a developmental

paragraph A developmental paragraph may have a concluding sentence in which the

subtopic, the controlling idea and even the main points of discussion within the

developmental paragraph are restated

After developing a developmental paragraph, student writers go on finding out the way to write a concluding paragraph According to Oshima and Hogue (1991:82), a

concluding paragraph consists of: A summary of the main points, or a restatement of your thesis in different words and your final comment on the subject, based on the information you have provided

Transitions between paragraphs (called paragraph transitions) are also necessary for student writers to master in writing essay and in what way paragraph transitions differ from transitions within a paragraph.In writing essay, ‗transitional signals are important

not only within paragraphs but also between paragraphs If you write two or more

paragraphs, you need to show the relationship between your first or second paragraph, between your second and third paragraph, and so on‘ (Oshima and Hogue, 1991: 86)

We do not forget to remind what diction is in writing essay It is one of the key terms to help student writers make paragraphs coherent and logical During the teaching process of

applying effective readings at prewriting stage, teachers also need identify student‘s lack

of choosing words in their writing They may help students understand how to choose proper words, fields of words in writing essay Diction is ―the choice of words employed

by the writer, particularly the extent to which the words the writer uses are thought suitable and effective for different kinds of writing (Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992: 108) Basically, diction refers to student‘s choice of words Students are sensitive to the subtle shades of meanings of the words, to the possible double meanings of the words, and to the denotative and connotative meanings of words

The denotation is the object or idea - the referent - that a word represents The

denotation of a word is its core meaning, its dictionary meaning The connotation is the

subjective, emotional association that a word has for one person or a group of people

Students often choose words that contribute to the writer‘s meaning on both denotation and connotation level Students should be alert to such choices and examine the words in an essay for all their possible shades and levels of meaning Then students should ask how these meanings combine to create an overall effect

These are useful practices for students in choosing words in writing essay Students can practice gaining diction by using the following techniques:

-Circle all the words in your outline you do not know Look them up in the dictionary -Underline words that seem especially meaningful or well-chosen For each word, explain denotations and connotations

-Underline any wordplay, such as double meanings and puns Explain what the wordplay adds to the sense of the essay

-Underline any uses of unusual words- slang, profanity, archaisms, foreign language words, made-up words Explain what qualities and meanings these words add to the essay Discuss how the essay would be different without them

-Identify the level of diction in the essay (formal, informal, colloquial, slangy, dialect) Explain what the essay gains from the use of this level and explain what it would lose by changing to a different level

-Explain how the choice of words contributes to the teacher‘s comment

2.2.2 Theory of argumentative essay

2.2.2.1 Understanding and reaching an argumentative essay

The notion of an argumentative essay: An argumentative essay ―states an opinion and

supports it convincingly It considers the nature of the audience and marshals evidence accordingly It is neither completely objective nor wholly emotional Instead, it uses the controlled feelings of the writing to persuade the audience.‖ (Ghaith, 2001)

The organization of an argumentative essay: Davis & Liss (2006: 93) suggest the

organization of an argumentative essay We can see the formation of an argumentative essay below

1 Introduction consists of:

a The hook introduces the issue

b Background information gives a broader picture of the issue and why it is important It can give details about the history of the people involved, what they want, and how it affects them

c The thesis statement clearly states the writer‘s point of view about the issue

2 Body paragraphs consist of:

a The topic sentence in each body paragraph presents one distinct reason for the writer‘s point of view stated in the thesis

b All supporting details in each paragraph must support the topic sentence These details can be facts, examples, statistics, definitions, causes and effects, quotations, anecdotes, or questions

c The writer often presents an opposing opinion (a counter-argument); however, the writer may then express some agreement with the opposing view (a concession), but will show evidence that the argument is stronger (a refutation) The counter-argument is often in body paragraph one or three

3 Conclusion consists of:

a The conclusion restates the argument that appeared in the thesis

b It can end with a prediction, a warning, or other type of comment that reinforces the writer‘s viewpoint

c It may state the general issue in a broader context

After student writers understand the construction of an argumentative essay, they should know what makes a good argumentative essay Argumentative essay is useful in the

critical thinking parse that is relevant in the sociology class Argumentative essay helps are supposed to bring out the rationale of thinking in every human being so that one is able to make wise decisions concerning the disputes with facts and not fictions The points brought forward in an argumentative essay must be supported with heavy evidence so that one is able to get convinced that the stand taken by the student writer is sufficient and should be supported A good argumentative essay shows that this is written to make

arguments on the topic which student writers write about and try to convince the teacher /reader that all the information they are talking about is right, students exchange their ideas morals and values and want them to have same understanding about that as students do So

it depends on how well the student writer has defined his/her point of view and what strong reasons he/she has to support his/her idea and convince the teacher/reader For better essay, the student writer must be very much sure about what he/she is talking about to make good impression

Here are the things that make the essay argument good: Students should gather all the facts about which they are going to write and they should be confident about their study and facts because confusion and fear can make their essay bad If students have good and clear idea, they can deliver it well and their argument will be powerful for sure Then students should make their essay sequential so they can argue on their topic step by step

For their more ease, I go on explaining some tactics to make a completely argumentative

and persuasive essay:

At first, students should ask themselves a question about the topic or questions that help to stay on topic The best way to ask question is thinking from the teacher‘s perspective and see what questions the teacher will ask After that students gather all facts and check if there is any thing missing And then students start writing and make it in paragraphs introduction, and point of view, then involve their teacher‘s requirements in it after that they summarize their topic Most topics that are widely discussed are immigration argument essays in which students write on the essay arguments about the problems and others which are faced by the students while stating their immigration

2.2.2.2 The common problems in writing argumentative essays

What are the most difficult parts of writing an academic paper for student writers? Why? Firstly, the hardest part, as always, is the start, the first step It is very important to

come up with a good thesis statement that is the reason why it is so hard However, after students have done this, the writing of the essay itself is not difficult Based on thesis

statement, students have already structured their essay and just needed to explain their arguments

Secondly, it is also difficult for students to make the relationship between the

introduction and the body of the essay logically As we know, a developmental paragraph

is one of the paragraphs in the body of an essay Its function is to explain, illustrate and discuss or prove one aspect of the topic of the essay (that is one subtopic) So students must know how to develop a clearly stated topic sentence and make the topic sentence embody a subtopic and a controlling idea And then they make the controlling idea of a developmental paragraph echo and relate to the central idea of the entire essay

Thirdly, the conclusion part is also important Students must know how to make the

logical conclusion to the related introduction and the body of the essay So students need to spend time on it to make the final sentences sound convincing

Fourthly, other details like how to use punctuations, how to find exact keywords, how

students to gain in essays, because students get small mistakes, they lose points while writing their paper Anyway, teachers also help students learn, practice and do their best

In fact, students like writing and compositing, but here they need to write academic writing So they must look up for academic articles or readings from study resources;

sometimes they tend to have problem with keywords Then if students find keywords, they

need to read all of them They face new words or terms that they‘ve never seen or heard before and need to work on them, and then they can use and write the details above in their own academic writing

In addition, another important step for students is to find effective articles/readings

citations‘ in their writing essays That‘s because students need to look through so many effective articles/readings, decide what words to use and how to put everything together In this side, this thesis, applying effective sample readings at pre-writing stage, is very helpful for students Students find it difficult to dig deeply the effective readings/articles

Sometimes the articles are too long and there are different poly-semantic levels which confuse the student Therefore, teachers need remind students to look into and master effective sample readings appropriately and then form the best impacts on their writing quality

Last but not least, it is somehow difficult to master how to write essay (how to build a

logic outline, how to organize the paper, where to put ‗in-text citations‘, how to reach a

good essay) Also, students had been confused when dealing with discursive essay before they finished their essays in some certain cases All in all, the difficulties are with

organizing the paper The most important for students is to know what they are writing

about and to clarify all pros and cons to make their essay clear and easy to understand Students can use some practicing ways to organize and form their writing: At first, students read and choose related readings or articles to widen their knowledge It takes a lot of time to find a proper article with information they need, they are looking for In this case, teachers can help them practice and study proper ones during practicing writing process And then, students go on reading and combining the information They have to work a lot to understand those articles, practice making an outline, combining the information and writing draft They have to use their thoughts and change the author‘s words by using synonyms, creating their own ways of writing There is no doubt that if student writer had enough time to study and he/she knew how to organize writing essay, it would not be too difficult to write essay Besides, one more difficult part for students is

that they have too many assignments for such a short time Doing this type of assignments

really takes a lot of time That is the reason why teachers need prepare them appropriately effective sample readings at this stage very significantly

Finally, from the research sites in this thesis, students can find adequate types of

information with suitable time and helpful volume in their writing essay In fact, sometimes, students want exact information for their topic, they feel confused because

most of the readings/articles that they read go in the wrong way For example, students

start looking at articles for ―early human development‖ but the research site gives them so

many articles that at the end they choose one of them But this article will be about

development‖? In this aspect, it is important for writing teachers to orient and teach students how to define and apply related sample readings in their writing

The researcher thinks that it would be much better if writing teachers give students an opportunity to choose topics themselves, he knows that is almost impossible, but still it will involve students, because students will choose what they are interested in Or maybe it

is possible to give students a list of topics and students have enough time to research their topics Finally, teacher can choose one of them for student‘s writing

As we have seen, writing is a complex phenomenon because students have to negotiate all the above elements of writer, reader, text and reality, and construct written discourse accordingly How do students master the best strategies to write essay? When referring to

strategic aspect of writing, teachers help student writers draw on various strategies to

assess the rhetorical situation and respond to it by developing written text Those strategies are often internalized, some students may have acquired them so naturally through practice that they may not even be aware of some of the strategies they use For most students – especially less experienced ones – it is often helpful to have an explicit understanding of some of the strategies that can be internalized through practice Understanding the strategic aspect of writing is important for writing teachers because it enables them to teach

‗writing‘ rather than teach about ‗writing‘

2.3 Prewriting strategies and its benefits

2.3.1 Prewriting strategies

When teaching university or college students, writing teachers will be likely to give their students a broad subject upon which students write an essay Before students can get started, they will have to figure out exactly what will go in the essay Before they can even outline the paper or search for sources, they will have to figure out what ideas or topics teachers want them to explore In order to do this, teachers can teach them methods of prewriting

(1) The definition of prewriting and what prewriting is in writing process

Prewriting is the first stage of committing an idea to paper Prewriting is an unadulterated, imaginative stage in which students conjure up ideas, write them down on paper and determine which ideas will work best for the outline and the final essay Prewriting is usually not an organized stage, unlike the outline, but it allows students to jot down ideas

on paper and contemplate them

Prewriting is the process of generating and recording ideas (Alice L Trupe, 2001) of the writing process as it lays a foundation for the writing that is to come During this stage, student writers establish the purpose of the work and the teacher for whom it will be written as well as their argument and an outline for the piece It is also a period during which preliminary research on the topic is conducted Optimal pre-writing strategies eliminate confusion and minimize student writer‘s block while actually writing Therefore,

a mastery of pre-writing strategies is an invaluable investment that is a must for any serious, academic student writer However, what do students actually do before they write their piece? Before they actually start writing, they need to get a few things together Think about it like building a house: They are going to need a plan, building materials, some tools, and a few people to help them out

(2) Mastering six prewriting steps which is very useful at prewriting stage

a Students should think carefully about what they are going to write: First of all, students ask themselves: What questions are they going to answer in this paragraph or essay? How can they best answer these questions? What is the most important part of their answers? How can they make an introductory sentence (or thesis statement) from the most important part of their answers? What facts or ideas can they use to support their introductory sentence? How can they make this paragraph or essay interesting? Do they need more facts

on this topic? Where can they find more facts on this topic?

b Students open their notebooks for taking notes: Students write out their answers to the above questions They do not need to spend a lot of time doing this; just write enough to help them remember why and how they are going to write their paragraph or essay

c Students collect facts related to their paragraph or essay topic: Students have to look for and write down facts that will help them to answer their questions Timesaving hint, they make sure the facts they are writing are related to the exact questions they are going to answer in their paragraph or essay

d Students write down their own ideas: Students ask themselves: What else do they want

to say about this topic? Why should people be interested in this topic? Why is this topic important?

e Students find the main idea of their paragraph or essay: Students need choose the most important point they are going to present If they cannot decide which point is the most important, just choose one point and stick to it throughout their paragraph or essay

f Students go on organizing their facts and ideas in a way that develops their main ideas: Once students have chosen the most important point of their paragraph or essay, they must find the best way to tell their reader about it Students also look at the facts they have written, look at their own ideas on the topic and decide which facts and ideas will best support the main idea of their essay Once they have chosen the facts and ideas they plan to use, they should ask themselves which order to put their facts in the essay And then they write down their own note set that they can use to guide themselves as they write their essay

(3) English Prewriting Strategies

the skilled writer in real life considers two important questions: What is the purpose of this piece of writing? And who am I writing this for?‘ (Hedge 1988:21-2) These two questions relate closely to what we emphasized the importance of an understanding of prewriting strategies and the content of an essay Hedge also says that some pieces of writing require

a great deal of preparation and that others can be written more or less spontaneously

Student writers may do a lot of writing before they begin to write the actual text they are working on Prewriting strategies are a series of different methods that student writers use to generate ideas for their text They may be familiar with some of the strategies, but

some of them may be new to them They can apply the different strategies as they generate ideas for their writing When they find some strategies that help them generate a lot of good, in-depth ideas, they can use those strategies to their advantage

Listing: Writers jot down ideas as they occur in mind, rejecting nothing They should

write quickly, using words or phrases The aim here is to write down as much as possible Writers revisit their list, looking for similarities or opposites or ideas that seem attractive to them Then they either list again on their chosen topic, listing details this time, or writing a scratch outline from the list

Conversing: Writers imagine themselves talking to a friend about the work they want

to write about Or, perhaps better, they find a real person to talk to and talk out loud and keep their partner clearly in mind Writers really want to explain this work to their partner

so they should say anything they want about the work – what they like and dislike about it, what interests them or does not interest them But probably the most helpful thing to do is

to summarize the work Writers start at the beginning and move through the work carefully and thoroughly until they reach the end Then they check the work for facts if they have to, but work from memory as much as possible

Sketching: This is another way of trying to visualize abstract ideas A sketch can be an

actual drawing or a chart, a diagram, a floor plan, a street plan, etc Writers use a sketch to think on paper and to generate ideas and details Writers‘ drawing does not have to be professional; crude is okay

Collaborating: Writers should talk with someone else about their topic When they sit

down with friends to discuss writing ideas, the give and take of conversation stimulates their mind Writers may at first only have vague ideas but talking about these ideas with others can help them focus and sharpen their thinking It becomes a way of verbalizing ideas they didn‘t know they had There are a few rules for collaborating: First, writers shouldn‘t criticize anyone else‘s ideas as dumb That will only stifle the conversation Instead, writers ask for elaboration or why their partner thinks that way If their discussion partner says their ideas are dumb, writers should find new partners or go over this rule with