This week, we’re talking about how to overcome some of the challenges of specifically writing in a foreign language.
Lesson 1
For Lesson 1, I discussed the concept of Strategic Competency, and how to build a Vocabulary Inventory to help you write about a given topic that is currently outside of your range of strategic competencies. This will contribute to your Paragraph Blog project for this week. (See below.)
Lesson 2
For this day, we’ll meet in small groups and talk about your ongoing readings and how it’s going with your attempt to build a little strategic competency. You’ll bring copies of the materials you’ve read and your ongoing Vocabulary Inventories, and we’ll talk about the process.
Non-Textbook Materials
The following video is optional. If you were in class for Lesson 1, you should skip it and go down to Textbook Materials, below.
After watching the video, spend a little time looking online at a topic you find interesting, until you find a word that you don’t know.
Try using the resources mentioned in the video to learn more about the word, and add it to a Vocabulary Inventory file of your own, on your Google Drive.
The resources I mentioned include the following:
- Searching on Google with the word + definition, or searching what does _______ mean? You can also use a popular English dictionary, such as those in the list below:
- The Words in a Sentence website (for seeing examples of the word used in real sentences)
- The Google Books NGram Viewer (for seeing the historical usage patterns of words)
Textbook-Related Materials
The videos below are optional; the textbook exercises are required. Watch the videos if you need or want to, or if you find the textbook work difficult.
After watching Video 25, please do the following in Great Writing 1:
- Read The Importance of Sentence Variety (p. 130)
- Complete Activity 1 (p. 130)
After watching Video 26, please do the following in Great Writing 1:
- Read Grammar: Adjective Clauses (including Who vs. That) (p. 131)
- Complete Activity 2 (p. 132)
- Read Grammar: Subject Adjective Clauses (p. 132)
- Complete Activity 3 (p. 133)
- Read Grammar: Object Adjective Clauses (p. 133)
- Complete Activities 4–8 (p. 134–138)
Paragraph Blog Post for Week 11
This week’s Paragraph Blog post is a two-parter. (That means it has two parts.)
Part 1
First, read at least 500 words/day about your chosen topic. Each time you read something, note down 2-4 vocabulary terms that you didn’t know, along with their meanings, in a list.
Part 2
At the end of the week, write a paragraph about the same topic, or a closely related topic, using some of the vocabulary from the list you developed. Post the paragraph to the Paragraph Blog.
Make sure that you use at least two Complex Sentences in the paragraph.
Also make sure you post your entire vocabulary list to the Paragraph Blog along with your paragraph.