NARRATIVES AND OTHER GRAMMAR RELATED WRITING

GRAMMAR RELATED WRITING: THE FUTURE TENSES

Write an essay discussing what sort of a country your home country will be in thirty years’ time.  Use all four future tenses and adverbial clauses of time while expressing your views.

A.      Write an introduction focusing on the recent past as it shaped the present. In the case of Turkey, for instance, that would be the rapid period of change the country has undergone since the founding of the republic and the current status of the country. Narrow down the topic and have a thesis statement indicating what specific areas of change you plan to focus on in your development.

B.      Your development may be one paragraph or more with each area of change being focused on individually and introduced with a topic sentence. This is a sentence which informs your reader of the content of the paragraph and how you plan to approach it. You could focus on a couple of the following areas: population, employment, literacy, standard of living, quality of life, the environment, welfare level, inflation and the like.

C.      In your conclusion suggest ways in which your prognosis can be avoided or how to achieve such an idyllic world.

Subject specific vocabulary you may need is as follows:

Overpopulation, a young population, a dependent population, an aging population, to be heavily / sparsely populated

Unemployment, to be unemployed, employee, blue collar/ white collar workers, skilled /unskilled workers, the boss, the management, to fire, to make redundant, to give early retirement, to raise the retirement age

Invest, to make investments, to invest in the future of a country

Pollution, polluted, pollutants, waste, rubbish, toxic waste, city dumps, sewage, contamination, to contaminate, contaminants

Low/ high/ hyper inflation

Unplanned urbanization, infrastructure, facilities, amenities

GRAMMAR RELATED WRITING TASK

Write a three paragraph essay detailing the reasons for the appalling grades you got for the grammar section.  In the introduction, discuss the necessity of tests as a vehicle to measure achievement and then include the following thesis statement: There are various reasons why I received the grade I did on the grammar section of the last test. In your development, discuss these reasons. Introduce each reason with the present perfect or the present perfect continuous (with the exception of 9 and 10) and then use a selection of past tenses to provide support. Select your reasons from the list below:

REASONS FOR THE LOWER THAN EXPECTED GRADE ON THE GRAMMAR SECTION

1.      Not do AZAR TEXTBOOK exercises or not do them when asked to

2.      Not do AZAR WORKBOOK or TEST BANK exercises when asked to

3.      Not attend class regularly

4.      Not do homework when asked to

5.      Not concentrate while in class

6.      Experience personal problems such as loneliness adaptation and the like

7.      Depend on the teacher too much

8.      Not do any extra reading or other exercises on a regular basis

9.      Need more time to absorb new stuff

10.  Feel nervous on the test

11.  Not understand explanations in class and feel too shy to ask

In your conclusion, state what you have learnt from this experience and what you propose to do about it in the future.

GRAMMAR RELATED WRITING TASK / WORLD AFFAIRS

Write a four paragraph essay on the various developments there have been in terms of political developments and the resolution of humanitarian crises in the last year. End your introduction with a thesis statement stating that there have been various developments in the above areas. Start your second paragraph with a topic sentence stating that various important changes have taken place on the political stage. Then select from the list below. Remember to provide at least one sentence of support for each point you make. Start paragraph three with a topic sentence stating that very little has changed in terms of the resolution of humanitarian crises in the last year. Then select from the list below. Again, do not forget to provide support. Remember to use the present perfect simple and continuous, the present tenses and the past tenses in the appropriate way. Finally, write a conclusion where you make predictions about the future, draw conclusions or make a restatement.

DEVELOPMENTS TO SELECT FROM FOR PARAGRAPH TWO (these points will need to be updated each year)

1.      Guantanamo Bay  close

2.      Deadline set for troop withdrawal from Iraq

3.      More troops deploy in Afghanistan

4.      Those accused of war crimes try at The Hague ( Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic)

5.      Nuclear standoff with Iran and North Korea

6.      Conflict between Israel and Palestinians continue

POINTS TO SELECT FROM FOR PARAGRAPH THREE

1.      The AIDS pandemic continue ; Reasons ignorance and poverty

2.       The malaria pandemic continue;  Reasons: corruption ( bed nets not reach poor people as they are sold), the black-market for drugs ( resulting drugs substandard so do not cure and make the bacteria drug resistant)

3.      The Darfur crisis continue

4.      Starvation due to drought continue in third world countries ( Ethiopia this year)

5.      Swine flu epidemic start

6.      Refugee crisis continue ( Pakistan, to escape the Taliban; African refugees in Europe to escape political conflict and poverty)

GUIDED NARRATIVE: WHY LUKE DIED WITH A KNIFE THROUGH HIS HEART

Use the notes below, the appropriate tenses, narrative structures and connectors to reconstruct the story of Luke Walmsley’s death. When you have completed the task, your teacher will show you the original report of the murder which appeared in the Guardian.  The titles of the texts are as follows: "Handsome, sporty and popular: Why Luke, 14, died with a knife through his heart" and "School stabbing murderer gets life" Begin as follows:

           Yet another teenager has fallen victim to the ever increasing teenage crime in our schools. The murder of Luke Walmsley has shocked and devastated his family and friends. Luke Walmsley….

 NOTES

Luke Walmsley: 14, student, Birbeck secondary school

                              parents separated

                              live with mother, stepfather, sister Lauren.

                              often stay with father    

                              cheerful, happy enjoy life

                              a sportsman( judo, climbing, sailing, football)

                              popular with girls

                              staff say: Luke positive role model

Some students: jealous  

                              a classroom feud start

                              teenagers not talk 

                              but Luke’s parents worried

                              possibility of bullying

Two days before the end of term: Luke fight

                                                              later make up   

                                                              head teacher give a talk to school on anger management

One day before stabbing: mother phone school

                                              Luke have rugby practice

                                               scared to come home after dark

                                               gang might jump him

The day of the stabbing: Luke talking to friends

                                      Allen Pennell; 16

                                      stab Luke outside classroom in front of friends

                                      use flick knife(7cm)

                                      stab in chest, thrust knife to hilt

                                      Luke stagger down corridor

                                      bleeding dying

                                      best friends think: Luke kidding

                                      Luke die

Allen Pennell: not talented

                         no charm

                         mother die when young

                         father lorry driver

                         difficulty expressing himself

                          so violent to everyone

                        warning from police previous year

                          attack policeman two months ago

                        Allen say just showing knife

                        Luke walk into knife

The trial: Allen get life

                  will serve twelve years

                  out on parole

Psychologist: ask Allen

                          three wishes ?

                          Allan say : bring back mother

                          turn back the clock

                           no third wish

NARRATIVES: SUGGESTED TOPICS

1.      The most stressful period of your life

2.      The happiest period of your life

3.      An embarrassing incident

4.      A childhood memory

5.      A dream or a nightmare

6.      A narrow escape and its consequences

7.      A celebration ( a birthday, a family gathering, a festival and the like)

8.      A story of success

9.      A story of regrets

TEXTS TO BASE REACTION ESSAYS ON 

“Overdose Kills Right to Die Man an” and “Vincent Humbert’s Letter to Jacques Chirac” bbc.co.uk/news (Simple)

“The Ethics of Climbing Everest” bbc.co.uk/news (Relatively simple)

“Chad Child Kidnapping Angers Sarkozy” bbc.co.uk/news (Relatively simple)

“Scary or Sensational? A Machine that Can Look into the Mind” guardian.co.uk (Intermediate)

“Put Your Children on DNA List, Urge Police” guardian.co.uk (Intermediate)

“Instead of Two States Side by Side, Why Not One Superimposed Upon the Other? guardian.co.uk (Advanced)

“The Turks Haven’t Learned The British Way of Denying Past Atrocities” guardian.co.uk (Advanced)

“Anti-Drugs Campaigner Barbara Harris Brings Crusade to Sterilize Addicts to The UK” observer.co.uk (Intermediate)

“Girl Starved to Death While Parents Raised Virtual Kid Online” guardian.co.uk (Relatively simple)

“Get a Life” guardian.co.uk; all about online fantasy games (Advanced)

“They’d Rather Die: The Brief Lives of Afghan Slave Wives” guardian.co.uk (Advanced)

“Julian Assange Should Be Awarded Nobel Peace Prize, Suggests Russia” guardian.co.uk (Intermediate)

“Invisibility Cloak: Now You See Me, But For How Much Longer?”  guardian.co.uk (Intermediate)

“Global Net Censorship Growing” and “China Defends Internet Censorship” bbcnews.co.uk/news (Intermediate; found and brought to class by a student: Yasin Almalıoğlu)

“The War on Drugs is not the War on Terror: Save The Afghan Poppy Fields” guardian.co.uk (Upper intermediate)

“It’s All about Me” guardian.co.uk (Advanced)

“The Truth about Torture” bbc.co.uk/ news (Intermediate)

“Is Working With Your Hands Better Than Just With Your Head?” bbc.co.uk/news (Intermediate)

“Do Grades As Incentives Work?” psychologytoday.com (Intermediate)

TEXTS THAT CAN BE USED FOR SUMMARY PRACTICE (USING THE CORNELL METHOD)

The texts whose names are provided below are listed in order of difficulty for summary practice using The Cornell Method. For information concerning this method and how texts should be selected, refer to the relevant paper on this blog. Alternatives will be added to each stage as appropriate texts are found. The list below is, however, tried and tested.

1. “Do Elephants Kill Their Young?” bbc.co.uk/news
2. “Dolphin May Get A Prosthetic Tail” bbc.co.uk/news
3. “Forced to Take Part in Experiments” bbc.co.uk/news; “The Dying Art of Conversation” bbc.co.uk/news
4. “Boys Used for Human Sacrifice” bbc.co.uk/news; “The Wave That Destroyed Atlantis” bbc.co.uk/news
5. “A career as School Bully” bbc.co.uk/news and “Bullying Shifts To Mental Cruelty” bbc.co.uk/news ( Multiple text summary practice; the last stage in any summary program worth its salt)