From Reading to Writing-A Basic Rhetorical Pattern

1. From Reading to Writing-A Basic Rhetorical Pattern 東吳大學語言教學中心余綺芳

2. What about other universities? • TungHai University(1) • TungHai University (2) • FuJen University • Taiwan University

3. What I’ll do today • Introduce a basic rhetorical pattern. • Work on an activity • Analyze structure/organization of a lesson from ASR 3. • Show how to write a model paragraph using this pattern. Introduce an interactive model to approach reading

4. Analyze Students’ writings(1) • What do you think are the physical effects of astronauts’ living in space for a long time? • I think that living in a gravity-free environment is not easy. Astronauts suffer from physiological and psychological problems. When it comes to the physical effects of living in space, I have read a report about the disorders of astronauts in the outer space. Living in space is different from living on earth. Astronauts don’t eat ordinary foods and can’t exercise in space. After they return to the earth, terrible things happen to them. For example, they can’t stand still and eat normally and they often feel sick. Astronauts sacrifice their lives in order to let humans live a happy life and I really appreciate what they have done for us.

5. Analyze Students’ writings(2) • What do you think are the physical effects of astronauts’ living in space for a long time? • Weakening of muscle strength, having a puffy face and losing bone density are the three major physical effects of astronauts’ living in space for a long time. Due to the non-gravity environment, astronauts do not have to use muscle in doing most things, so their muscle strength weakens. Moreover, their body fluids flow to the upper parts of their body, such as the head and the face. As a result, they have a puffy face. Another phenomenon is that astronauts might lose bone density due to the loss of calcium. To sum up, if astronauts want to live in the space for a long time, these effects must be dealt with carefully.

6. Share my own writing • Did I use the basic rhetoric pattern while I was writing essays? • Cultural difference

7. Outline of an ExpositoryParagraph (not a narrative paragraph) • A paragraph is defined as a group of sentences that develops one main idea (topic). This main idea is expressed through three sections of a paragraph: • (1) Beginning (the topic sentence): Introduce your idea. • (2) Middle (body/paragraph development): Explain your idea. • a. Supporting detail (1) • b. Supporting detail (2) • c. Supporting detail (3) • (3) End (the concluding sentence): Make your point again (summary, advice, hope for change), transition to next paragraph.

8. The Topic Sentence • State your idea, point, opinion, or attitude about the topic • An easy way to make sure your reader understands the topic of the paragraph is to put your topic sentence near the beginning of the paragraph. (A topic sentence is a sentence that indicates in a general way what idea the paragraph is going to deal with. Please note that not all paragraphs have clear-cut topic sentences. )

9. Supporting sentences • Provide explanations and support for the topic sentence (main idea) of your paragraph • Supporting sentences that include facts, statistics and logical reasoning are much more convincing than simple statements of opinion.

10. Concluding sentence • Restate the main idea (found in your topic sentence) in different words and reinforces the point or opinion.

11. Transitional sentence • Prepares the reader for the following paragraph. • Should help readers logically understand the connection between your current main idea, point or opinion and the main idea of your next paragraph.

12. Adequate Development • The topic (which is introduced by the topic sentence) should be discussed fully and adequately. Again, this varies from paragraph to paragraph, depending on the author's purpose • To make your writing interesting and convincing, you need to develop your ideas logically and thoroughly. You want to avoid writing superficial paragraphs—that is, paragraphs in which the ideas are not carefully developed or fully explained. Superficial writing leaves the reader with many questions. Well-developed writing tries to answer as many of the reader’s questions as possible.

13. An activity • Work in groups trying to analyze the structure of the paragraphs • Exercise 1

14. What to do in class • Use Active Skill Reading 3, Unit 9-2, Changing roles: Stay-at-Home Dads, as an example

15. Some pre-reading activities • Word Association—provide them with words from the text (to replace the words they already know) • Activate their schemata (sociolcultural content, connecting to their real life), not just linguistic content • Predicting how the author will present his/her point of view, what’s the author’s main idea, what’ll happen in the story, etc.

16. Students will • Do silent reading • Find the topic sentence • Find the main idea • Find supporting sentences • Find the concluding sentence • Write them on the board

17. Other Activities • Write an outline • Write a summary • Answer short answer questions • Others??

18. Bottom-up model • Some teachers teach reading by introducing new vocabulary and structures first and then going over the text sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph with the students. This is then followed by questions and answers to check comprehension. Also a lot of time is spent on having students read aloud the text. • This way of teaching reflects the belief that reading comprehension is based on the mastery of the new words and new structures as well as a lot of reading aloud practice. • It basically follows a linear process from the recognition of letters to words, to phrases, to sentences, to paragraphs, and then to the meaning of the whole text.

19. Top-down model • A different view believes that one’s background knowledge plays a more important role than new words and new structures in reading comprehension. For example, we all have experiences of reading something that does not contain any new words or new structures, but we still fail to understand its overall meaning. • In other cases, we may read an article which contains quite a number of new words as well as difficult structures with reasonable understanding. This is because we have made use of our knowledge about the topic to assist our comprehension. • Therefore, it is believed that in teaching reading, the teacher should teach the background knowledge first so that students equipped with such knowledge will be able to guess meaning from the printed page.

20. Interactive model  • The current theory views reading as an interactive process. • The brain receives visual information and at the same time, interprets or reconstructs the meaning the writer had in mind when he wrote the text. • This process does not only involve the printed page but also the reader’s knowledge of the language in general, and of the world. • During the process of reading, all these factors interact with each other and compensate for each other.

21. Interactive model  • During the reading process, our mind by interacting with the printed page – its words, phrases, sentences, as well as the context it provides can be stimulated and a proper schema will be activated to allow us to relate the incoming information to already known information. • If we do not have the type of necessary schema for a particular reading text, let’s say cultural specific knowledge, we may have to resort heavily to other knowledge which is available, such as our linguistic knowledge to aid our comprehension. • Similarly, when we do not have the necessary linguistic knowledge, we will have to resort to our world knowledge to help ease the difficulties in comprehension. • Obviously, a good knowledge base of all the above is essential for good reading comprehension and we believe a good linguistic basis is the fundamental as far as foreign language reading is concerned.

22. References • 余老師英文寫作教室 http://myweb.scu.edu.tw/~cynthiay • 東吳大學英文寫作學習網 http://write.scu.edu.tw • 中國茶英文教室 http://www.mychinesetea.net/enghome_b2.htm • 中國茶英文教室 http://www.mychinesetea.net/enghome_b3.htm • http://esl.about.com/od/writingintermediate/a/paragraphs.htm • http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/print/general/gl_pgrph2.html • Langan, John. 2001. English Skills (7th ed.).New York: McGraw-Hill. • Smalley Regina L. et al. 2001. Refining Composition Skills: Rhetoric and Grammar (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle& Heinle • Lougheed, Lin. 2004. How to Prepare for the TOFEL Essay (2nd ed.).Hauppauge, New York: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.