Post 16: Semester Task

Dear All,

to complete this semester you need to be ready with the following tasks:

1. A summary of an article with an explanation of why you have chosen it and a set of 3 questions to go with it:
a) What would you like to learn from it?
b) What information from it you knew?
c) What information is /was not clear

Please, choose an article that discusses some urgent/vital/very important/urgent/up-to-dateissue

Word limit: 300 words

2. A for-and-against essay: 400-450 words long

Choose different topics for tasks 1 & 2

3. A reflection note about the activities you have been offered this semester
- a comment about the activities you did this semester which should include the following details:
a) smth that you found useful
b) smth that was not that useful
c) smth that you would like to do the next semester
d) suggest a couple of topics for discussion

Word limit: 220-250 words

Don't forget to use the Citation Machine (http://thecitationmachine.net, the Plagiarism Checker (https://edubirdie.com/plagiarism-checker) and the URL shortener (bit.ly).

You need to publish your works in your blogs by December 23. I'll let you know what your grades are on the 25th of December.

Your essays will  be graded as follows:

10 points          Essay content
10 points          Essay organization
10 points          Language
10 points          Mechanics: Grammar, spelling, punctuation, clarity of expression.
10 points          Bonus points for a particularly well-developed essay following all the requirements

Reflective note grading rubric: https://bit.ly/2GeCWMo

Summary grading rubric: https://bit.ly/2LcQsz0

(since  we agreed you are not writing the summary because of too much work you have to do I am sharing this information with you for the future).

Post 15: Tips and advice: (1) Features of academic writing

Dear All,

I've set up this page in your blog to share some tips and advice with you about different aspects of writing:

The first resource that might be useful for you to get acquainted with is 8 features of academic writing:

https://hubpages.com/literature/8-Characteristics-of-Academic-Writing

Post 14: For-and-against essay draft

Dear all,

Thanks for getting in touch. I'm sorry I was away for the most part of the day, so am sharing the essay topics with you only now. You need to choose one of the For-and - against topics from the list below and prepare your essay draft that should meet the following requirements:

a) Animals should be treated with the same respect as people. 

b) One language spoken worldwide would lead to better international relations. 

c) What are the advantages and disadvantages of ever-increasing use of technology. 

d) The motion picture industry is threatening to destroy culture & tradition. 

1. It should contain the discussion of 3 points on each side of the issue. 

2. Your supporting evidence should come from your own experience and /or that of your peers, relatives or people you know. 

3. At least one of your examples should come from an online resource, such as a newspaper or magazine. This example should be properly referenced and the reference should be correctly formatted in the MLA format using the Citation Machine (http://thecitationmachine.net). 

4. The length of your essay should be 400-450 words.

5. Publish your draft in your blog a day before the lesson. 

6. Read 1 draft written by one of your peers and comment on the following: 

A. Content (interesting? persuasive enough?) 

B. Organization (logical?) 

C. Mechanics, Language, Style: anything that needs revision 

Get in touch with me if you need help with anything 

Good luck! 

Natalya Yu Eydelman

Post 13: Features of electronic writing: Tips

I've just read an interresting article in The Guardian the Author's Name The article title (https://bit.ly/2Qv5BAR) (accessed 4.12.2018)

ADD ITS SUMMARY

ADD YOUR COMMENT:
a) Why you found the article interesting
b) What questions you have after reading it: what would you like to learn more about
c)

Use the Citation Machine (http://www.citationmachine.net/)

John, Smith. “Competing in the Digital Age : Policy Implications for the Russian Federation.” Https://Openknowledge.worldbank.org, Apr. 2018, openknowledge.worldbank.org.

URL shorteners:

https://zapier.com/blog/best-url-shorteners/

My favourite URL shortener is Bitly: https://bitly.com/

A quick exercise:

a) Go to the Guardian
b) Choose an article
c) Share the information about it in the thread:

use the Citation Machine & the URL shortener

Post-12: Parallel structure in English

Dear All,

One of your common problems in writing is incorrect use of parallel structures, so it'd be a good idea for us to revise this grammar point and do some exercises to remember how to use them correctly.

Here is a resource you should use:

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/mechanics/parallel_structure.html

Read it first and then complete the following exercises:

1. https://www.thoughtco.com/editing-exercise-faulty-parallelism-1690963

You should complete it on your own first and then check it with the key that is provided. Please share your results with us in your blog. What you need to explain is what your did not do correctly (if there are such cases) and provide a correct version.

2.http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quizzes/parallelism2_quiz.htm
In this case you are asked to enter your version of a sentence in the box and then compare it with the model answer. Again, make a screenshot of your answers and share it with us in your blog.

Post 11: Further Thesis Statement practice + 5-paragraph-essay-structure+your-choice-of-article

Dear All,

In class I have shared with you a graph of a 5 paragraph essay, which should give you a chance to revise its structure and elements. What you need to do as part of your hometask is choose an article from the Guardian that should be devoted to the discussion of some urgent problem or issue, connected with the lives of young people and their concerns. Here is a link to the section of the Guardian from which I'm asking you to choose an article for yourself:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/youngpeople    

And here is a list of tasks for you to do with the article of your choice:

1. In the thread share the following information about the article:

1. What issue or issues it is devoted to

2. Why you are concerned about this issue

3. What 3 things the article made you think about

4. What questions you have as a result of reading this article

5. Is there a similar problem the Russian young people have? In what ways it is similar and/or different?

Task 2: You will certainly come across some useful expressions and collocations. 

a) Share your list of them in your own blog together with your own example of them.

b) Look through the examples 2 of your peers have written and see if you understand them or have some question about them. Comment on how clear they are in the provided context.

Task 3: Parallel structure exercises
I have created a new post with the explanation of this part of your task. Follow the link to access it

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2090661140339972084#allposts/postNum=0

Please be ready with these tasks a day before the next class (publish them December 1, 2018)

Good luck!

Let me know if you have some questions about the tasks, so that I would help you if necessary.

Have a great week!

Post 10: About the vocabulary learning project with apps

Dear All,

thanks for sharing your choices with us. Now what you shold do is like this. Whenever you work on your vocabulary learning new words or trying to revise and remember the "old" ones, make a note about it which will contain the following information: 

1. A list of words you have worked with 
2. What exercises (activities) you have done 
3. How many times you have done them 
4. What results have you received 
5. How useful have you found the app you have used? 

Use the scale below to evaluate your opinion about the app:

• Very useful
• Useful
• Moderately useful
• Slightly useful
• Not useful

It'd be great if you also added a short comment about your overall impression about using the app and whether you would recommend it to your peers.

Looking forward to finishing the project with you!

Post 9: Thesis St-s Practice

1. Dear All,
2. Today we'll first revise the structure of a 5-paragraph essay by reading and discussing an essay about Market Forces in Business and then we'll completea set of exercises to help you improve your skills in writing thesis statements. Hope you will find these activities useful.                                                                                                                                    
   Can you comment on the content & structure of this essay: Interesting? (Why or Why not?) Logical? Well-supported? Your comment
3. Add your versions of the thesis statements in the thread below.
4. 
   This is an example from the textbook:
   It's focuses on smth the audience can relate to
   
   1.China is a wonderful tourist destination because of its interesting historical monuments, beautiful tourist resorts and outstanding natural beauty.
5. 2. Think about why so many people want to go there.

   
   
6. 3. Do not ask the question; answer it. If you do not know about Thailand, use another destination you are familiar with.
7. 4. Eliminate the announcement and say what the effects are. Will you discuss positive effects, negative effects or both?
8. 5. Say what the disadvantages are.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    6. Pay attention to parallel structure.
9.               7. Add two more main points.
10.               8. PAY ATTENTION TO THE NUMBER OF SENTENCES .
11. 
    
12. Natalia EydelmanNovember 15, 2018 at 10:43 PM

    As a part of your hometask, think of a topic that interests you and write 3 thesis statements related to it. Read the thesis statements writtern by 2 of your peers and comment on how well they are written. Use the criteria we've discussed.
    
    You can use advice on writing thesis statements available at
    
    http://www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/tips/thesis/

Post 8: Writing a 5-paragraph essay

Dear All,

Can you share with your peers and me your experience in writing a 5-paragraph essay?

What I'd like to learn from you is what you found not difficult today and what you found not very easy or difficult to do

Here is the list of points to consider:

1. Writing the introductory paragraph
2. Writing the body paragraphs
a) formulating the thesis statement
b) formulating the topic sentences
c) organising the paragraphs logically
d) finding convincing supporting evidence
e) finding appropriate supporting evidence
3. List techniques you use to support your arguments
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
4. Essay opening techniques
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
5. Essasy closing techniques
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
6. How confident you are in doing the following:

a) quoting
b) summarising smth. to include in your essay
c) paraphrasing
7. Any theory you feel necessary to discuss?
a)
b)
c) 
d)
e)

Here is the scale to use:
Need to revise/learn
-Strongly disagree
-Disagree
-Neither agree nor disagree
-Agree
-Strongly agree

Post 7: Week 9 (November 5-11): Vocabulary Improvement Techniques

I'd like to discuss with you some useful techniques for learning new vocabulary and since your brain is not a blank slate, here is my plan for our today's class.

First, I'd like to ask you to discuss in your groups of 2 or 3 your favourite technique for memorizing, recollecting and brushing up your vocabulary. Share your answers in the thread.

Next, I'm inviting you to read the artile about some strategies for learning vocabulary which are associated with what is known as spaced repetition learning strategies:

https://www.lingualift.com/blog/language-spaced-repetition-learning-srs/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitner_system

Have you used a similar strategy? If yes, can you share your experience with us by first discussing it with each other and then sharing it in the thread.

After that I'd like to ask you to share the list of dictionaries you use on a regular basis and explain your reasons for your preferences.

Still after that, I'm inviting you to complete the exercises Onestopenglish website aimed at giving you some practice in brushing up your dictionary skills:

http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/vocabulary/macmillan-dictionary-resources/dictionary-skills/pdf-content/dictionary-skills-part-one-level-three/155816.article 

Hope these activities will be useful and give you some idea about how to improve your knowledge of vocabulary further.

If you find some more useful techniques and strategies to master your vocabulary, please share

Post 6: Week 8 (23 - 30 October)

Dear All,

I've commented on all your posts about stereotypes and would like to ask you to comment back if there is smth else to add. I really like the way you've been working and hope you will keep your enthusiam and positive attitude to writing throughout the whole year.

For the next week I'm suggesting discussing one more issue from the book Taboos and Issues that was on the list of your preferred topics for discussion. Let it be "Anxiety & Depression", which is not a joyful topic to discuss, but I think it is necessary to know more about the causes and consequences of depression to be able to withstand it.

I'll share the materials with you later tonight.

Have a great week!

PS: I would like to share with you the information about the Combinatory Dictionary of English one more time as a reminder, though I've checked I shared it with you before in the post What to consider when writing: https://acwr17827.blogspot.com/2018/10/things-to-consider-when-writing.html
It'd be great if you saved it in your bookmarks and started using it.

Students' Blogs List

Dear All,

below you can see a list of all the blogs of your peers. What we are going to do throughout the course among many other things is read and discuss what your peers have written about. To do this you'll need to have access to the blogs of your peers, so below is their list:
                                         Attendance  4.09 18 25.09 2.10 9 16 23 30.10 6.11 13 27 4.12 11  18 25.12 
1. Volokhovich Yulia: 1mylittlepony1.blogspot.com
+ (6.11) abs (20.11)
2. Oshchepkova Yana:  yanaoshchepkova.blogspot.com
abs  (6.11)abs (20.11)
3. Zhamkotsyan Tereza: tereza05.blogspot.com
+ (6.11) 20.11 +
4. Vakarina Anastasya: a-vakarina.blogspot.com
 abs (6.11) 20.11 abs
5. Lobanova Anastasya: anastasialobanova.blogspot.com
+ (6.11) 20.11 +
6. Ignatova Alyona: 65alyona65.blogspot.com
abs (6.11) 20.11 abs
7. Fedorova Darya: daryafedorovansu.blogspot.com
+ (6.11) abs 20.11
8. Petukhova Nastya: nstpetukhova.blogspot.com
abs (6.11) 20.11 +
9. Banaev Roman: roman-shaedee-banaev.blogspot.com
abs (6.11) 20.11+
10. Bazikova Rimma: rimmabazikova.blogspot.com
abs (6.11)20.11+
11. Zavarin Maksim: bringmethememes.blogspot.com
abs (6.11) no posts abs (20.11)
12. Sophia Chernigovets: sophiachernigovets.blogspot.com
abs (6.11) no posts 20.11 abs
13. Ushkova Alexandra: alexushkova.blogspot.com
+ (6.11) no posts
14. Ufintseva Yulia: https://unicornspoops.blogspot.com/
+ (6.11) 20.11+
15. Vins Anastasia: http://anastasiavins.blogspot.com
+ (6.11) 20.11+
16. Polina Shvachko: https://polinashvachko.blogspot.com/
+ (6.11) 20.11+
17. Mamatova Azia: https://amamatova.blogspot.com/
+  (6.11) + 20.11

Post 5: Taboos and Issues

Dear All,

I'm sorry I did not share a new task with you earlier because I had an urgent situation to tackle. I really want this course to be useful and interesting for you and will try to make my best to organise it the way that you will be able to benefit from it the most.

For our today's class I am suggesting you to choose from a list of several topics from the book "Taboos and Issues" by R. MacAndrew and R. Martines. Some of the topics discused in it include the following:

1. Sex for Sale
2. Children who kill
3. Abortion

to name just a few 

and below you can see the full list of topics for discussion from the book's back cover. So I'm suggesting you to do the following in class today:

1. Choose 3 topics from the list and first explain why you are interested in discussing them: publish your comment in the thread of the blog below.
2. Then read 2 comments published to have an idea about their choice.
3. Next we're going to choose 1 that will have been selected by the most number of students and this will be the issue we are going to discuss in more detail in class today too and do some exercises and activities from the corresponding unit.
4. After that I'll invite you to choose another article discussing one of the aspects of the problem we'll be discussing together and summarise it using the template I've shared with you. This last activity will be your home task for the next week.

One of the purposes of going through these steps is to help you articulate your interests and preferences better and be able to explore and then write about the issues of your choice relying on the resources devoted to the discussion of such issues.

Hope you'll find doing it this way beneficial for the development of a number of different skills.

Good luck!

Post 4 (25.09): Article summary template

Dear All,

I'd like to share a summary template with you which will help you to structure your summaries better. The main point about using this template is to help you with structuring your summaries better.

The article “___________” written by ___________ is devoted to the discussion of the problem of ___________. First, the author draws our/the readers'  attention to ___________. Then s/he analyzes the ___________. S/he gives an example of ___________. S/he also  emphasizes that ___________. The author suggests that ___________ and pays attention to ___________. Then s/he he argues that ___________. In addition, ___________. Finally, ___________/The author concludes that ___________/ In the end it is stated ___________.

Post 3 (18.09): Things to consider when writing

1. Content:
a) Is it interesting to read?
b) Are examples persuasive?
c) Are there enough example?
Sources of your examples:
-newspaper artices
-own examples
-from movies/television progs
-own experience
-smb else's
This is your primary set of questions to consider for now (9.10--...)
2. Organisation:
a) Is it logical: pattern of organisation
 -from general to specific
-from specific to general
-order of importance

3. Mechanics: grammar, punctuation, spelling
4. Language:
-choice of words
-how they combine

5. Style

I'd like to share this dictionary with you:

The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English: I'm inviting you to use it to ensure you combine words correctly:)

 http://bbidict.narod.ru/ 

 

Post 2 (11.09): Something to share and discuss: reading articles from the Guardian

Dear All,

Are you fond of reading? Probably you are. Do you read something besides your textbooks in English regularly? I'd like to introduce you to the newspaper The Guardian, a souce of news from around Great Britain and the world.

Today I am inviting you to get acquinted with its Culture section. It contains a lot of interesting articles about different aspects of British culture as well as that from around the world. What you need to do is as follows:

1. Look through a couple of articles in the Culture section and choose one that you found interesting.
2. Read it and then share the following information about it with your peers and me:
a) The title
b) The author
c) The link to the article
d) Why you have chosen it
e) A brief explanation of somethng you learned from the article
f) A couple of things you would like to learn about after reading it
3. Publish this information in your blog.
4. Read 2 posts your peers have written
5. Think of 3 questions you have after reading your peers' posts and share them in your peers' threads. Ask WH-questions and if necessary a question to clarify smth your peer has written about.

Good luck!

Looking forward to reading your posts!

PS If you can't find something interesting in the Culture section, you can share something you will have discovered in some other sectiion. Just follow the same plan you can see above. Don't forget to read and react to your peers' posts.

PSS A friendly reminder: you should publish your posts 2 days before the lesson to give your peers enough time to give you some feedback and also give yours to them. You do not need to comment everybody's posts but those written by 2 of your peers. Can I ask you to make sure everybody gets some feedback?

Thanks for your cooperation!

Looking forward to reading your posts and comments!

Post 1 (4.09): Course introduction

Dear All,

I’d like to wish you good luck with it and hope you will find this course useful.
welcome to the course of Academic Writing and your new learning environment!


One of the primary purposes of this course is to help you to improve your writing skills through a variety of activities that will be offered to you during this academic year. You will learn more about different aspects of the writing process from brainstorming to drafting, to revising, editing and publishing. You will gain a better understanding of a number of stylistic differences associated with formal and informal styles of writing. You will be able to improve your own writing and help your peers improve theirs too.

I hope that this journey will bring you some interesting discoveries and help you to achieve a better mastery of your writing skills.

During our next week's class we’ll first finalise all the course setup arrangements, then I’ll comment on a number of important things to remember when communicating with your peers  and with me in this blog, on social media  and sometimes via email.

We'll discuss various features of this course next week in class and learn more about how to use this blog to your own benefit and that of your peers.

Hope you find the activities and tasks I’ll offer you useful and informative.

See you in class!