Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Chapter 1 – Getting Ready to Write


All the best ideas come from this source.

Prewriting
2. Journal writing is personal & could be used to inspire the writer

Chartbook - A Reference Grammar

Chartbook-A Reference Grammar (2000)
Or download and review the whole book. (PDF, 4.9 MB)

Paperback: 104 pages
Publisher: Longman Publishing Group; 3 edition (2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0139587039
Price (as of 2005): RM63.69

This is a preview version only. Buy original.

Ready to Write More - Chapter Summaries


Part 1: The Elements of Good Writing
Part 2: Types of Essays
  • Chapter 5
  • Chapter 6
  • Chapter 7
  • Chapter 8
  • Chapter 9
Part 3: Writing for Specific Purposes
  • Chapter 10
  • Chapter 11
  • Chapter 12

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Progressive Lesson Plan


Are you protesting over a subject matter and thinking of using a cow's head in your parade?

Have you adopted Maling, Malingsial, Indon or Indonesial as terms of endearment?

You might want to think your options over.

Perhaps your parents did not bring you up well. Perhaps you are just an angry angry child post-puberty. Teachers could not play parents but we could assist.

Help the teachers who want to change this distorted picture a little bit.

This group is not playing hero. However we need lesson plan ideas big or small, on how to propagate tolerance and progressive thinking in classroom. Our agenda is to allow progressive, pluralistic views to penetrate into students' psyche.

Yes, you can debate on pluralism and blatant agenda-pushing in classroom as biased, partial or committal. Help us make it discreet and subtle, ok? Sometimes, we are not very smart also.

If teachers have failed to help, then we could target leaders. Just, they're very very busy, mind you. Consider that a warning.

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Join the Progressive Lesson Plan (PLP) Facebook group & blog, and start contributing!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

CHAPTER 5 – Analyse the Text


One of the many Sunflowers series painting by Vincent van Gogh

Significant points from Chapter 5 include:

1. Listing
  • Details listed to explain main idea
  • Series of reasons, examples, facts (refer: details in print-ads)
2. Sequence / time order (refer: Lee Yan's Best Friend tv-ad)

3. Cause and effect

4. Compare and contrast

Note:
  • Refer to list of signal words to familiarize yourself with all the skills mentioned

Related questions:



  1. What is the main idea of "Tan Hong Ming in Love"?
  2. What makes the choice of sequence (plot) in "Tan Hong Ming in Love" work?
  3. What is the main idea of "Lee Yan’s Best Friend"?
  4. What makes the choice of sequence (plot) in "Lee Yan’s Best Friend" work?
  5. What are the supporting ideas of Lee Yan’s Best Friend?

The Fish Bone (Essay skeletal diagram)

Basic diagram of an Essay

As far as I know, no reference book has labelled this diagram 'The Fish Bone' as we do in class. This has actually been derived from the diagram of an essay by Joy Reid.

Reference
Reid, J. (1988) The Process of Composition (2nd Ed.) Prentice Hall Regents: New Jersey, pp. 42-43

CHAPTER 4 – Understand *Supporting Details


Philips V900 Advertisement

Significant points from Chapter 4 include:

1. SD support the main idea by telling how, when, where, why, how much, how many.

2. SD provide examples, facts, descriptions, explanations, or reasons.

3. What additional information does the author provide to help me understand the main idea?

4. Look for signal words: first, second, next, also, in addition, moreover.

5. Scan
  • Have a question in mind, specific kind of info
  • Use headings, boldfaced words, italics, numbers, charts, quotation marks
  • Ignore unimportant info
  • Move eyes rapidly across the text
*Refer to the Fish Bone

Related questions:
  1. What do you see in these advertisements?
  2. What makes the “story” in these advertisements understandable?
  3. How do they make you feel when you “read” these advertisements?

Note:

CHAPTER 3 – Use Vocabulary Strategies



Significant points from Chapter 3 include:

Most of the time, we do not know the meaning of certain words. Without using thesaurus or dictionary, we can use the context to guess meaning. There are 5 strategies.

In the sentence, look for:
1. Definition of the word

2. Examples explaining the word

3. Word or phrase in another part of the sentence with similar meaning

4. Word or phrase in another part of the sentence with opposite meaning

5. Use general sense of the sentence to make conclusions

Other strategy includes breaking the word to its prefix, suffix, or circumfix to get the root word.

Note:

CHAPTER 2 – Identify Main Ideas



Significant points from Chapter 2 include:

1. Identifying Main Idea - most important reading strategies used by good readers

2. Speed up reading, help understanding & remember what you read
  • Who or what is the reading about? – The topic
  • What does the author want me to know about the topic? – The main idea

3. *Main idea in introductory paragraph is called “Thesis Statement”

4. *Main idea in body paragraph (content) is called “Topic Sentence”

*Refer to the Fish Bone

Note:

CHAPTER 1 – Think Before You Read



Significant points from Chapter 1 include:

1. Preview
  • Title, subtitle, section headings, introductions
  • words in bold print or italics
  • pictures, graphics

2. Activate your background knowledge
  • Information you already know
  • Background knowledge

3. Predict
  • Guess what you are going to read

4. Set a purpose
  • Gives reason for you to read
  • Ask yourself questions that you would like to have answered (Wh-Question tags)
  • KWL Chart

Note:
  • Overall, reading skills presented in this chapter are meant to strengthen understanding and content memorization of the reading materials.
  • I and the Village by Marc Chagall