Narrative Essay

Review

Depending on students’ proficiency, it may be helpful to review a few grammar principles, structures, etc. for the essay type. The following are recommended to be briefly presented and practiced before writing the first draft and then going into more detail for subsequent drafts:

• Simple past
• Past continuous/progressive, past perfect
• Check with the FC grammar teacher to see when these are being taught and practiced. If not being taught until later in the semester, you could skip these.
• Cohesive devices for time
• Cohesive devices will probably be new for students. A brief explanation and then a list of time cohesive device examples and how they are used would be helpful.

Descriptive Essays

Review

Depending on students’ proficiency, it may be helpful to review a few grammar principles, structures, etc. for the essay type. The following are recommended to be briefly presented and practiced before writing the first draft and then going into more detail for subsequent drafts:

• Simple present
• Present continuous/progressive
• Check with the FC grammar teacher to see when these are being taught and practiced. If not being taught until later in the semester, you could skip these.
• Word forms for adjectives and adverbs
• This could also include a review of comparative and superlative.
• Cohesive devices
• Descriptive essays use the basic, essay level cohesive devices (i.e., first, next, in conclusion). However, due to the purpose of the essay type, there will be few others. Instead, descriptive essays use more spatial cohesive devices, such as prepositions of location, to present the description.

Revising Note:

Evaluate thesis statement group work. This is a great activity to adapt to your students’ needs. You could choose thesis statements from their first drafts and discuss them as a class or focus on different aspects of their thesis statements in various activities.

Revising Note: 

This would be a great time to review the revising section again (Writing Process). Depending on whether or not you choose to use the codes provided, you could use this time to review how to revise according to the codes. It would also be beneficial to take some time in class to go over common errors that you found in their first drafts and practice producing writing that is error free (e.g., word forms, punctuation, etc.). You could also incorporate some peer review in class. This can be done anonymously or by pairing students that you feel could help one another improve.

Classification Essays

Review

Depending on students’ proficiency, it may be helpful to review a few grammar principles, structures, etc. for the essay type. The following are recommended to be briefly presented and practiced before writing the first draft and then going into more detail for subsequent drafts:

• Modals
• Check with the FC grammar teacher to see when these are being taught and practiced. If not being taught until later in the semester, you could skip these.
• Audience and Pronouns
• Since students are now more experienced, the idea of writing to a specific audience could be introduced (see the “Refining Writing” chapter). Teachers should also start encouraging students to move away from always writing in the first person and more toward the third person.
• A review of pronouns and their different forms depending on their usage in the sentence may be helpful, especially pointing out the difference between a pronoun (i.e. mine) and a possessive adjective (i.e. my + ADJ.).
• Cohesive devices for type
• Cohesive devices should now be familiar to students; however, a brief explanation and list of cohesive device examples and how they are used would be helpful, especially for transitioning from paragraph to paragraph. You could also point out that cohesive devices don’t always have to be one word at the beginning; they could also be phrases or the language used.

Revising Note: 

You could also gather thesis statements for all students and evaluate them as a class.

Yet again, this would be a great time to review the revising section from the Writing Process chapter. Depending on whether or not you choose to use the codes provided, you could use this time to review what the codes mean and how to revise accordingly. It would also be beneficial to take some time in class to go over common errors that you found in their first drafts and practice producing writing that is error free (e.g., word forms, punctuation, etc.).

Summaries

Make sure you give plenty of practice summarizing both reading and listening passages separately. Start with material a little below their level and then build toward more academic material. If the class is proficient enough, you could then build to writing integrated summaries of related reading and listening passages.